rolling explaining conservatism

is he you

Sir he is not

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/07/20/most-republicans-still-say-they-support-trump-whos-most-likely-to-break-ranks-and-speak-out-against-him/

To answer this question, it helps to look into the social psychology of group loyalty. Consider politics today as populated by two tribes: Democrats and Republicans. A growing literature suggests that partisanship has become a social identity akin to tribal affiliations, inspiring strong loyalty.

...

This might sound counterintuitive, since the people with the strongest partisan loyalties are also most likely to adopt party leaders’ positions on issues. But here’s what makes the difference: People who felt connected to the party were willing to express opposition only if they felt that their party’s position threatened the future of the Republican Party and its ability to win elections.

In other words, strongly connected Republicans were willing to speak out when they worried that their tribe’s future was in jeopardy.

This was refreshingly blunt, I thought

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/07/revolt-of-the-masses

Especially over the past decade or so, these people have increasingly been told that their deeply-held views are not only wrong, but make them bad people. And, being humans, their reaction isn’t to rethink their lifelong worldview and change their attitude, but rather to dig in and say “fuck you.” They know they are “supposed to say” that they are ok with gay marriage, and black lives matter, and all that, because if they don’t they are going to be called stupid, redneck racists by people on TV and in print media. So they have changed what they’ll say out loud, or at least to whom they will say it, but haven’t changed their beliefs. And Hillary and the democrats are exactly the kind of people that would judge them harshly for their views, and Donald Trump and the republicans are the kind of people who don’t. So they are voting republican, no matter how big of a clown Trump is, because at least those people don’t piss all over my fundamental sense of self.

or you know perhaps they actually are bad people

(is that "refreshingly blunt" enough?)

yeah if your "deeply-held view" is that black lives don't matter, I think "bad person" is a pretty apt descriptor

all lives matter

especially fetuses

I don't think they'd describe their disagreements with the movement Black Lives Matter in those terms but sure. Being against gay marriage and wilfully blind to all sorts of systematic injustice is morally wrong. There are fundamental moral disagreements between liberals and conservatives.

There's another piece to this, though, which is that the blue states have seen more economic growth in the past few decades and blue state culture is largely equivalent with mainstream media culture. When the most visible advocates of liberal ideas seem like cultural elites, the hoi polloi are going to instinctively rebel, a dynamic that Fox Newd and similar outlets have played into. Trump's rise was basically a tantrum thrown by people who felt culturally marginalized, even if in all kinds of ways -- like race and income -- they were actually coming from a position of privileged.

A more economically just society where people didn't feel like they had to be at each other's throats all the time wouldn't have this kind of toxic bullshit. Trump voters may be bad people but they got that way due to larger social and economic forces. They are culpable -- don't get me wrong -- but still, we don't just have 80 million bad people in this country for no reason.

Like Republicans in 2017 are grotesque and idiotic but we still need to be able to give a coherent account of why they're like that.

sorry, that was a bit tetchy of me. full disclosure: i didn't read the article. i was put off by your pull quote, which looked to me like more of that "y r libruls so MEEN?" liberal breast-beating i've seen everywhere (particularly) since november.

from everything i've seen, it sure looks like we're past the event horizon here. this "can't we all just get along" shit isn't going to play. neither will any "solution" predicated on salvation via the stringent application of liberal principle. the high road has collapsed due to lack of maintenance. fortunately nobody was on it at the time.

because the blind tribalism we see in trump supporters is not a unique feature of the right. i see no evidence that democrats wouldn't, to nearly the same extent, support someone just as awful with a (d) next to his name. this is the way it's been probably my entire life, and we may be surprised at the extent and depth of this blind loyalty, but it's difficult for me to be surprised at its _existence_.

six months in i'm of the opinion that the great threat posed by the trump administration is not its malevolence. i am, again, unconvinced at the notion that trump is any more evil than republicans have been through my entire life. over time this certainly takes its tolls, but evil, i continue to believe, can be overcome.

the looming and inevitable disaster will not be the death camps that haunt people's nightmares. it is the spectre of chaos, brought about by the trump administration and republican congress's fundamental inability to perform the necessary duties of government. the people in charge right now (along with, certainly, the entirety of their partisans) don't even understand there _are_ necessary duties of government, and will be blindsided when their failure to sign some essential piece of paperwork leads to america's ruin.

I can't do better than Corey Robin's description a few years ago. Positing Richard Nixon as the architect of this resentment, he noted the president's talent for making whites "into white ethnics burdened with their own history son oppression an requiring their own liberation movements."

treesh, i don't think we need to give a coherent account of republicans because they can't give a coherent account of themselves! i was reading some petition against the female doctor who, which was not explicitly trumpist but evinced all the hallmarks of trumpist thought - non sequitur republicanism. "whataboutism" is not arguing in bad faith so much as the only argument they are able to present. every statement they offer is an axiom, every movement a knee-jerk. to try and ascribe some master plan or grand ideology to such people is overshooting the mark by quite a bit.

democrats wouldn't, to nearly the same extent, support someone just as awful with a (d) next to his name

for real. all those clinton/kaine supporters with "fuck your feelings" t-shirts on i saw on fox

I like the mention in that post of 'unmarked category', the idea that white and Christian are seen as default, and everything else is defined by it's marked difference from that. But it could go a bit further. A lot of people seem to continue that exact mistake when they discuss this. White Christians are sometimes given a pass voting for Trump because, as the quote says "at least those people don’t piss all over my fundamental sense of self." But they themselves of course piss all over other people's sense of self. And this not to point out cheap hypocrisy, but to say, that of course lgbt, women, and minorities then piss right back at these asshole bigots, it's what people do. But because one category is marked, and one unmarked, only the white christians are immediately looked at in ways that says: 'being humans, their reaction is...'

In the end both sides are humans, and both sides have dark feelings, and it's really just a question of power. If you want blunt, I'm not sure there's anything else to do but say what Gordon Cole said: 'They need to fix their hearts or die.' Nobody can understand everybody, and I'd wager all the effort into understanding these people would be much better used trying to understand ones own allies who differ from one self, since they are the ones who's support is needed. So lay down fucking Hillbilly Elegy and pick up Between the World and Me, if you haven't already.

Tribalism is much worse on the right at this point, though, because the right is one big tribe (white people, mostly) while the left is a coalition of smaller tribes. It's not a moral highground, it's a practical.

"the right" never matured past junior high or high school (private or public) and "the left" is everyone else

From Tombot's LGM link:

It draws a picture of Trump’s base as made up in large part of people who harbor a deep sense of alienation and marginalization, and who see themselves as revolting against The Establishment, especially the media establishment

You had me at "revolting."

Nobody can understand everybody, and I'd wager all the effort into understanding these people would be much better used trying to understand ones own allies who differ from one self, since they are the ones who's support is needed.

This is a terrible prescription. Politics cannot be a zero sum power game in a multicultural democracy. This sort of rejection of universality is basically an alt right position, just the other way. (I'm not saying it's morally equivalent, but it's the same kind of perspective, and it leads to a narrow kind of political vision.)

"Because fuck you" may be slightly different from "because lib tears," but only slightly, and in any case the effect is the same.

This is the first part of the paragraph I'm objecting to

In the end both sides are humans, and both sides have dark feelings, and it's really just a question of power. If you want blunt, I'm not sure there's anything else to do but say what Gordon Cole said: 'They need to fix their hearts or die.'

You're confusing a rejection of an 'unmarked' category with a rejection of universality, Treeship.

If the ppl saying "because fuck conservatives" could demonstrate where the fuck you line is and it didn't quickly become fuck even potential allies or anyone who disagrees with any part of my platform then maybe it could work but as is it is just self-marginalizing. You can't write off everyone who disagrees with you if you have any interest in political power.

I'm not advocating any kind of alt-right-ism, I'm suggesting you extend the same constant calls for 'understanding' that you give to Trump voters constantly to, for example, the student activists you seem so eager to condemn all the time.

Part of the idea of "understanding" Trump voters is finding a way to change them, or tell them why they're misguided. You're in favor of people doing that with student activists?

I haven't seen anyone here going at student activists with the attitude of "Fuck you, change or stop voting and have a stroke" that we're talking about here.

I've been reading about the development of culture in Neolithic communities, and there's some suggestion that the advent of the wall (and with it the concepts of privacy and property and division and othering) may have been the turning point away from collectivism in pre-agrarian societies. Conservatives are the builders of walls.

ignore trump voters. they're like 15% of the entire population. all too often (i'll agree with this stereotype) they're deplorable neolithic loudmouths with zero fellow feeling. fuck you; they've got theirs (or will, when their ship comes in after we drown the federal government). they're not changing the station from fox even if melting glaciers flood the coasts. concentrate on the people who normally don't vote at all. hillary blew it by not speaking more on the campaign trail; two-scoops is right about that

I'm not advocating any kind of alt-right-ism, I'm suggesting you extend the same constant calls for 'understanding' that you give to Trump voters constantly to, for example, the student activists you seem so eager to condemn all the time.

― Frederik B, Friday, July 21, 2017 10:49 AM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is extraordinarily disingenuous. I never demonized student protesters -- critiqued, sure -- and I never called for sympathy with Trump supporters. I said that our analysis of them should extend beyond condemnation and dismissal

Has ilx explained conservatism yet

It's the opposite of proservatism, iirc.

it's in the dna

Part of the idea of "understanding" Trump voters is finding a way to change them, or tell them why they're misguided. You're in favor of people doing that with student activists?

― President Keyes, 21. juli 2017 16:53 (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, would be a lot more constructive than what normally happens in the free speech threads. And it seems a better way to spend resources than to try and turn bigots in states like Colorado, which is already blue. Though actually I suspect that if people actually began listening and reading to the students, instead of just to the professors, their views would be more complex.

If the ppl saying "because fuck conservatives" could demonstrate where the fuck you line is and it didn't quickly become fuck even potential allies or anyone who disagrees with any part of my platform then maybe it could work but as is it is just self-marginalizing. You can't write off everyone who disagrees with you if you have any interest in political power.

― Mordy, 21. juli 2017 16:49 (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mostly agree with this, but this is also just a power analysis. And the pragmatic flipside of this is that there is a point where people just has to be let go. The line will change along with circumstances, but no political project can continue if everyone has a veto.

I'm not advocating any kind of alt-right-ism, I'm suggesting you extend the same constant calls for 'understanding' that you give to Trump voters constantly to, for example, the student activists you seem so eager to condemn all the time.
― Frederik B, Friday, July 21, 2017 10:49 AM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is extraordinarily disingenuous. I never demonized student protesters -- critiqued, sure -- and I never called for sympathy with Trump supporters. I said that our analysis of them should extend beyond condemnation and dismissal

― Treeship, 21. juli 2017 17:05 (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lol, neither the word 'demonize' or the word 'sympathy' is in my advice. Talk about disingenuous.

You used the word "condemn" though

Yeah, and the word 'eager' as well, but I fail to see the point.

There's like five long-reads every week concerned with figuring out the complex thoughts of the Trump-voter, but one poll that shows black voters like Bernie Sanders fine, and it's SEE!! And the quest for understanding stops.

Well, would be a lot more constructive than what normally happens in the free speech threads

This is very much bullshit. Everyone on those threads who is critical of student tactics or dogma, or who weighs certain values differently is coming at it from a place of sympathy with the underlying ideas the students present.

That's not what I'm saying, Keyes.

"the right" never matured past junior high or high school (private or public) and "the left" is everyone else

this is crap btw, the left never stops caring about which cafeteria table you sit at either

In fact, I'm arguing exactly the opposite. Take a look at the people that share underlying ideas with you, but whose tactics or dogmas you disagree with, and try really to understand where they're coming from, where you diverge, and why they disagree with you. I'd say that's a much better use of time and effort than another look at Trump voters.

There's like five long-reads every week concerned with figuring out the complex thoughts of the Trump-voter, but one poll that shows black voters like Bernie Sanders fine, and it's SEE!! And the quest for understanding stops.

― Frederik B, Friday, July 21, 2017 11:29 AM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So the reason for this is that these people's voting habits created an international crisis.

Colorado stayed blue. So no. I'd wager the 'unmarked' thingy has a lot to do with it.

In fact, Colorado has become progressively more blue over the years. So why not investigate that instead?

Instead of investigating why a dangerous reactioary party controls all three branches of the federal government and also dominates state governments?

Yes

Quite simply. Understand your allies in this fight, instead of your enemies.

Why not...both?

lots of americans prefer giving each other shit to cooperating in any meaningful sense, fred

'shrewd' frontier skepticism

Upthread, I infodumped neurological studies on physiological differences between conservative and liberal brains. Evolutionary psychologists have been at it too, particularly with respect to the "behavioral immune system" of the disgust response. One can expose people to images and smells unrelated to politics, and the intensity of their response predicts their politics.

Tybur et al, 2010. Extending the behavioral immune system to political psychology: Are political conservatism and disgust sensitivity really related?. Evolutionary Psychology, 8(4), p.147470491000800406.
Inbar et al 2012. Disgust sensitivity, political conservatism, and voting. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3(5), pp.537-544.
Terrizzi et al, 2013. The behavioral immune system and social conservatism: A meta-analysis. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34(2), pp.99-108.
Pizarro et al 2014, Politics, pathogens, and disgust.
Feinberg et al, 2014. Gut check: Reappraisal of disgust helps explain liberal–conservative differences on issues of purity. Emotion, 14(3), p.513.
Clark & Fessler, 2015. The role of disgust in norms, and of norms in disgust research: Why liberals shouldn’t be morally disgusted by moral disgust. Topoi, 34(2), pp.483-498.
Brenner & Inbar, Y., 2015. Disgust sensitivity predicts political ideology and policy attitudes in the Netherlands. European Journal of Social Psychology, 45(1), pp.27-38.

As with innate racism, we're fighting some deep-seated instincts here. It will be uphill all the way.