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Since we are talking about Republicans here, and how inflexible they are:
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If weâve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. Weâre no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. Itâs simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that weâve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1996)
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Once again, I think liberals seriously donât comprehend just how stupid a lot of these people are.
I honestly think a significant portion of them literally thought they would just show up and boom, congress stops the vote and Trump wins the election. I mean, theyâre absolutely willing to use force, but thatâs how it works in their world- whoever is more intimidated backs down and the bigger monkey wins.
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We understand. We also understand that theyâre dangerous, in large part because theyâre stupid.
Once again, I think chin-stroking centrists who wag their fingers at liberals seriously donât comprehend just how dangerous a lot of these people are.
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I mean- yes - criminals act like criminals.
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Convince the rest of the 75% to vote for you. The left doesnât have a votes problem â progressive policies are generally popular. The problem is that the US historically has very low voter turnout and the right loves this because that 25% is a reliable voting bloc for their people.
But that 25% is unreachable. How do you convince someone who has been brainwashed to believe that they are aggrieved and itâs the fault of the brown/gay/trans/Muslim/lefty/other boogeyman? They donât listen to facts or reason, they only listen to those things that confirm their biases. The right is very good at tapping into this anger and pointing it toward the vulnerable rather than the people who are truly responsible. âYour life sucks? Itâs because you pay too much taxes, not because the the most wealthy donât pay enoughâ. âWe donât have a gun problem, we have a crime problemâ. âTwo tiered justice systemâ to complain about Trumpâs indictments versus minorities being disproportionately incarcerated. It goes on and on. The right is masterful at easy to digest sound bites while the left likes to be intellectual because thatâs how we are. Thereâs a lefty meme that I love:
I remember a Trump supporter who was upset during the Trump government shutdown complaining that âhe wasnât hurting the people he needs to beâ. That quote really stuck with me, and that pretty much says it all. They are about hurting others and not helping others. Itâs a zero sum game at worst, and a kind of twisted MLM at best.
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I think what we also understand (and regret) is how the right wing populists keep people upset and angry. It doesnât matter so much what they are mad about, as long as they are mad, as anger will shut down any critical thought. Anger is a short-term fuel that exists because it gives to power through an immediate crisis, but at the cost of mental agility. The angrier we get, the less room we have for skepticism, for detecting bullshit.
We are fighting an epidemic of anger, fueled by political hucksters, by talk radio and by ânewsâ networks telling us we arenât outraged enough, and in recent years by âsocialâ media because anger is addictive, it has to be answered. Like XKCD noted:
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I tried to show a criminal how illogical his pursuit of criminal acts was, and how it would simply wind up with him wrecking his life. It was a completely futile gesture.
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With the Know-Nothings, the response to rational and respectful explanations of how a accepting a progressive policy or rejecting bigotry might substantively improve their individual lives or the fortunes of their business often is met with a reaction of âoh, so you think youâre better than me, you librul urban educated coastal elite!â Those on the left shouldnât feel obliged to face this abuse from fools.
This ties into the stoking of anger amongst them that @fnordius mentions above. Theyâve been conditioned to be defensive in this way by the right-wing Mighty Wurlitzer over decades, to the point where itâs passed down from generation to generation.
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I donât think Iâve been called a centrist before. I literally advocated returning half the countryâs wealth to Native and African American people.
I donât particularly give a shit about that 25%- Theyâve never been worth appealing to. The ones Iâm concerned with are the independent 40% of the voting public. These people overwhelmingly support stuff like M4A, higher taxes on the wealthy, queer rights, reducing the military budget, abortion access, et al- They will gladly vote for progressive candidates if they have the choice, but the Democrats keep trying to appeal to moderate Republicans instead. There is a reason most people have zero remaining confidence in our institutions.
I mean, fucking hell- Half of Maine looks like rural Alabama politically, and weâve elected a Green Party candidate to both the senate and the Governorâs seat, and would have had another if it werenât for the Democratic spoiler against minitrump. Progressive policies win votes, you just have to show that youâre actually fighting for them.
Fair enough. There are also too many people on the populist left who also like to berate progressives and liberals for not looking at Know-Nothings as being too stupid to worry about. Writing them off in terms of getting their political support is not equivalent to ignoring the very real danger they pose (especially because theyâre guided and used by politicians who are smart).
I agree wholeheartedly that the key to winning is offering progressive policies that appeal to 70% of the electorate, but we also have serious fight on our hands against the Know-Nothing 27% and those who deploy them. Shrugging them off as being merely stupid instead of willfully malicious is not helpful in that regard. Neither is your bogus claim that:
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