It’s Not a Bug, Part IV

And to conclude. I know people who voted for Trump. Several people. Very anecdotal evidence but I can only speak to what I know. And what I know is that they are good people. One of them is in economic distress. The rest are not. Two families are very well-to-do.

They explained their position to me and I find it hard to condemn them. Not a single one disliked Hillary for being a woman. Not a single one brought up race, especially since several are immigrants and not white. They said different things but there was one common thread: “They despise me because I’m religious and because of the kind of life I live – marriage, children, church – so how can I join them?”

What if we try to meet people – not racists or the KKK maniacs – but regular people a little bit closer to where they are? Maybe assume that they are not all deranged but that maybe there might be a logic and a reason to their position.

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70 responses to “It’s Not a Bug, Part IV”

David Gendron

November 9, 2016

Being pro choice and pro gay marriage is not despising religious people.

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Clarissa

November 9, 2016

Exactly. You can be both things and hold off on the contempt.

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Stringer Bell

November 9, 2016

“They despise me because I’m religious and because of the kind of life I live – marriage, children, church – so how can I join them?”

Point well taken about the need to explore outside of your own bubble, which by the way, is only getting harder with facebook, etc.

But how much of that is Rush Limbaugh telling them they’re despised because they’re married and have kids? This seems too convenient an explanation. And I’d say married women with kids despise childless and/or single women more than the other way around.

Petty judgmentalism happens on both sides, but religious people do their judging quite well against single, childless, gays, etc.

The VP-elect believes in conversion therapy for gay teens. How’s that for despising a group of people? The idea that they were created wrongly and need corrective measures to be fully human.

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Clarissa

November 9, 2016

Difference is, they lost. And we won. Would it hurt not to ram the win down their throats so actively? Especially since we only won because it’s what big business wants.

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xykademiqz

November 9, 2016

Not a single one disliked Hillary for being a woman.

I don’t believe this. Nobody will say they dislike Clinton for being a woman. But the bias against women with ambition is deep, visceral. And often (conservative) women are the worst in policing other women.

hey despise me because I’m religious and because of the kind of life I live – marriage, children, church – so how can I join them?

Who despises heterosexual married people with kids, seriously?

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Stringer Bell

November 9, 2016

A counter point would be Elizabeth Warren, who is wildly popular and beloved in the way the Clinton never was.

“Who despises heterosexual married people with kids, seriously?”

Yeah, that part didn’t sit well with me, too. Seems like a case of projection and self-hate more than anything. Single women and women married with children I know just don’t care about religious women with kids. They just want to be left the fuck alone and not be subject to unsolicited advice about how their life is incomplete without children.

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1. Stringer Bell
  
  November 9, 2016
  
  I meant ‘Single women and women married without children …’
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    November 9, 2016
    
    I’m talking about people who see the collapse of RFRA in Indiana, the aggressive promotion of transgender toilets in North Carolina, the jailing of the anti gay clerk, etc – all at the hands of big business, by the way- as a slap in the face. Yes, they are wrong, they are wrong. But who won Indiana and North Carolina?
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      November 9, 2016
      
      And what was the need to ram gay and transgender rights down the throats of people at religious colleges? Why not just fucking let them be? Yes, they are wrong, they are completely wrong. Why not let them live in peace with their wrongness? Like there really is no other florist or pizzeria on the planet that some dumb mom and pop store has to be hounded out of existence for saying something dumb about gay weddings?
      
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2. xykademiqz
  
  November 9, 2016
  
  A counter point would be Elizabeth Warren, who is wildly popular and beloved in the way the Clinton never was.
  
  I think we would have to see Warren run to see how quickly she becomes unlikable. There’s research that shows that we (men and women) really dislike it when women put themselves up for professional advancement, because it’s acting “agentic” and not “communal” and women are generally penalized (“unlikable/shrew”) for not acting communal. We tolerate women advocating for others, but not for themselves. Once women are elected and do the work, their approval can be very high. We just don’t like them reaching. Trust me, if Warren ran, she’d quickly be pegged as “not a charismatic speaker” or “too liberal and not electable at a national level” or “too thin” or “needs jackets with longer sleeves” or whatever.
  
  Single women and women married with children I know just don’t care about religious women with kids. They just want to be left the fuck alone
  
  Tru dat.
  
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3. Clarissa
  
  November 9, 2016
  
  Wildly popular and beloved among whom?? People who voted for the Republican Congress and Senate?
  
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Clarissa

November 9, 2016

I’m only talking about these specific people. I know them. With them, it’s not about sexism at all. Hey, if they disliked ambitious women, would they love me? 🙂

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1. Shakti
  
  November 9, 2016
  
  “They despise me because I’m religious and because of the kind of life I live – marriage, children, church – so how can I join them?”
  Who is this “they” your correspondents were referring to, specifically?
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    November 9, 2016
    
    Democrats.
    
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2. xykademiqz
  
  November 9, 2016
  
  I believe they love you because they know you. But it’s totally possible to love you, because they think you are “the good kind” of ambitious working woman (i.e., married, and look how well you take care of your kid, such a good mother, spends a lot of time with her kid) and at the same time be very dismissive of other ambitious women who are not “the good kind” (unmarried and in her 30’s! lesbian! or worse — married but doesn’t want kids!) I don’t know the people you are talking about, but I know enough variously bigoted people (including how I was when I first came to the US, or how my parents still are in Europe) who are very creative when it comes to separating the world into “those we care about” and the rest of the world, of which we care little.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    November 9, 2016
    
    “unmarried and in her 30’s! lesbian! or worse — married but doesn’t want kids”
    
    That’s my parents. 😄 Who almost had heart attacks when Hillary lost. But yes, point well taken
    
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Stringer Bell

November 9, 2016

Lost in this autopsy is the fact that twice since 2000, the candidate who won the most votes did not win the presidency. She got more votes! Seriously, fuck the electoral college.

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Clarissa

November 9, 2016

Let’s be honest: had Hillary eked out a win, what use would that be with a Republican Senate and Congress? Yes, it’s better than a Trump presidency but the practical use of it would be very limited.

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1. cliff arroyo
  
  November 9, 2016
  
  Actually I think Republican Congress (both houses) could work against Trump, especially since so much of the party establishment was against him.
  
  Clinton only became a good president after 1994 when the Democrats lost both houses and more often than not the system tends to work best with at least one house being a different party from the president.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    November 9, 2016
    
    They will only drag him in an even worse direction. Several hundred of Roy Blunts are not likely to do anything good.
    
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matt

November 9, 2016

This will be an interesting angle. There are some merits to the electoral college, but it is a little disconcerting of the disconnect emerging. Being the data geek I am, crunched some numbers, and hillary won california, new york, illinois, and massachusettes (some of most liberal and big states, probably the 4 biggest liberalstates) by 5-6 million. If turnout in these four states had been what it was in 2008 (which is relevant because swing state turnout was close to 2008, while solidly liberal states turnout down 15-20%), she would have won them by 7-8 milion and the popular vote by 3 million or so.

This is important because if turnout is high, a generic democrat president needs to win the popular vote by 2-4% points to likely win the electoral college. The national democrat problem is the same with the state problem with house democrats of “bunching” of liberal constituencies. Basically cities are 80-20 liberal and suburbs are 55-45 conservative, so even if state popullation is equally split the house can go say 14=4 for republicans in ohio etc. I hate the two party system, but while it exists hard to see me ever voting democratic. That said, it won’t be good if the republicans lose the popullar vote say 4 of next 6 elections but still win the electoral college maybe 4 or 5 out of 6. Not sure the answer. electoral college is not gettting over turned in our lifetime (would take constitutional amendment.. the other efforts won’t work).

Short answer: democrats have to win non-college whites or risk only being in 10-12 coastal states for 30 years in political power. Clarissa has many good points in her article.

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1. Clarissa
  
  November 9, 2016
  
  I’m not good with numbers, they put me to sleep but I’m good with ideas. 😊
  
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November 9, 2016

\ one common thread: “They despise me because I’m religious and because of the kind of life I live – marriage, children, church – so how can I join them?”

Do they not work? Are the women among them all housewives? If not, how is their life different from the one led by Democratic (wo)men, except for the church part?

Could it partly be a generational thing? Those are older people with families and children, while the (imagined) Democrats are probably younger, unmarried and childless.

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Clarissa

November 9, 2016

But the church part is the absolute foundation of their lives. It’s everything. When your marriage is a sacrament, the idea of gay marriage is almost physically hurtful. I’m against that but at least I took the trouble to understand what they feel and why. I still disagree, passionately so, but I know why it hurts them. I’m not saying let’s walk back gay marriage. Absolutely not! NEVER! But let’s not clobber people with it over their heads. Let’s concede that they have reasons to feel as they do, that’s all.

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cliff arroyo

November 9, 2016

“how is their life different from the one led by Democratic (wo)men, except for the church part?”

Steve Sailer has written a lot about the “marriage gap” which receives very little attention in the media but which is actually bigger than the gender gap.

In short: People in stable marriages (both men and women) tend to vote Republican more than single, divorced or separated people do. IIRC in 2012 a small majority of married women voted for Romney while a yuuuuge majority of unmarried women voted for Obama.

This ties into concepts like the dirt gap and affordable family formation. In coast areas where land is at a premium it’s more expensive to start and maintain a family while in middle America were land is cheaper and it’s cheaper to buy a house and start a family* and people who live there tend to vote more Republican.

*traditionally Americans, esp white Americans, don’t want to have kids while living in apartments or rented housing. They want to have a mortgage on a house before having kids. For much of Europe (and maybe Israel) that might sound like science fiction but that’s the traditional model.

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1. el
  
  November 9, 2016
  
  \ For much of Europe (and maybe Israel) that might sound like science fiction but that’s the traditional model.
  
  In Israel, buying a normal apartment is becoming harder and harder for everybody, including young families.
  
  Compared to 10-14 years ago, apartment prices rose by ~ 100% percent, now the same apartment costs twice as much.
  
  Ideally, Israelis want to have a mortgage on an apartment before having kids.
  
  😦
  
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anonSlo

November 9, 2016

Commiserations from across the Atlantic. Have you seen that Michael Moore predicted exactly this result back in June (in fact, on Brexit day):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/5-reasons-why-trump-will-_b_11156794.html

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Shakti

November 9, 2016

They said different things but there was one common thread: “They despise me because I’m religious and because of the kind of life I live – marriage, children, church – so how can I join them?”

Ok, ok, they want to use “religion” to justify their vote.

Please. Almost any other Republican that ran for President this season had more going on the family values religious department than Trump. Pence, for the last time, was not on top of the ticket so I don’t know what hopeful delusions they have.

Trump is not a good man, a religious man or a religious good man by any version of the facts that isn’t massaged by drugs or delusion. He doesn’t go to church, doesn’t read the Bible, doesn’t tithe, doesn’t perform works of charity and clearly doesn’t live his life according to religious precepts. He doesn’t have a kind word for anyone that’s genuine. He could not find one solitary business partner to praise him to counter all of the contractors, partners and customers who are suing him and sued him for failure to pay and for fraud. What religious good man has a reputation as a constant cheat? And a liar? Spare me their fantasies of his persecution complex. He’s got a literal minyan of women who say he’s groped them. He doesn’t do” marriage until death do you part, it’s marriage until I get bored with my current wife and tired of having a side piece which I promote to being my current wife”. What kind of family man decides to stop medical treatment for his baby nephew because he’s angry at their parents over some other money matter? What kind of family man behaves in such a manner that I would hesitate to let children watch the news surely as I would some R rated movie? I’m not even touching on half the stuff I’ve seen. If it were Clinton or her husband they’d all be shrieking in indignation!

When your marriage is a sacrament, the idea of gay marriage is almost physically hurtful
But some slutty asshole who can’t honor his marriage vows to any of the women he married isn’t.

And what I know is that they are good people.

What kind of “good” people vote for (as opposed to writing someone else in, or going 3rd party) for such a wicked, wicked man?

But Democrats! I wonder who would actually be too disgusting for them to vote for?

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Clarissa

November 9, 2016

All true about Trump. But this vote is not about his personality or anybody else’s personality. It’s about who’s more likely champion another debacle like the one in Indiana or North Carolina or wherever that clerk was from. There is a difference between a slutty asshole forcing you to recite a pledge of allegiance to non-segregated toilets and one who doesn’t.

In short, it’s not about voting for a man. It’s about voting to be left in peace. Question: would it hurt us to leave them in peace and go find another darn bakery?

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1. Shakti
  
  November 9, 2016
  
  There is a difference between a slutty asshole forcing you to recite a pledge of allegiance to non-segregated toilets and one who doesn’t.
  
  Really?
  
  Deleted scene from The Bathroom Drama
  
  “I pledge allegiance to this bank of gender neutral handicap accessible toilets, for the urinal in which it stands, one restroom, potty parity under NOTA with bidets & hand dryers for all. Amen. Time for the orgy beauty pageant.”
  
  v.
  
  “Everyone! Out of the toilets, I’m going to conduct an orgy beauty pageant in here. sniff These toilets are so classy and fabulous. But first, grunt”
  
  I’m sorry, I had to.
  
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Alexander

November 10, 2016

“But how much of that is Rush Limbaugh telling them they’re despised because they’re married and have kids?”

None of it, thanks. We’re not little children that need Daddy Rush to tell us how we “feel”.

I live in the Deep South. I’ve seen the derp derp what a bunch of idiot memes. Maps that have California and New England labelled as “America” and the South and Midwest as “Dumbfuckstan”.

You people scream about ‘money out of politics’ and then cheered when Disney, NFL, etc. etc. threatened to move businesses out of states because they didn’t want to suddenly change bathroom laws to suit the moral whims of New York City.

The New York Times isn’t so stupid, but smaller newspapers and the Jezebel/Gawker/Atlantic/Salon/Huffington tier gleefully cheer when they can report that white rural America is going to be a minority.

There’s “racist” where you lynch innocent people, and there’s “racist” where you object to people thousands of miles away gloating that your people are being demographically replaced. Just one brush, it’s all the same evil racism.

I voted for Trump. And I would bet the farm (literally) that I’ve worked, lived, and associated with more ‘people of color’ than 90%+ of Hillary supporters.

Clarissa has it mostly right in her analysis. But then, she lives in the mid-west. She actually meets Trump supporters, not just reads about them in the New Yorker.

I’ll make a prediction now: Trump wins 2020, carries IN, MI, OH, PA, WI. Picks up Minnesota too. Because the DC-Boston beltway and California are not going to listen to a professor who lives in flyover country. And instead will spend 4 years responding to any action Trump takes by shouting at Great Lakes people as racist. That’ll go down great.

And if he delivers nothing but giving the sort of people who celebrate the extinction of me and mine an existential crisis, I’ll consider it a net plus.

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David Gendron

November 10, 2016

Are you in favor of conversion therapies for gay teens?

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1. Alexander
  
  November 10, 2016
  
  No. I was actually for gay marriage back in 05 and opposed DOMA. Boy, do I feel stupid given how you lot handled it.
  Was that an attempt to actually respond to what I was saying, or just a passive-agressive tee hee I bet you’re a dumb homophobic bigot? Proves my point.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    November 10, 2016
    
    That’s what I meant when I said that we won the culture wars and let’s not hit people over the heads with this win.
    
    Again, many liberals have no idea how badly the Indiana debacle impacted some people. I can’t tell them Trump’s a bully without hearing “We need a bully to defend us from the kind of bullies we have seen in NC and IN and Baltimore.”
    
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2. David Gendron
  
  November 10, 2016
  
  Just to see if you’re an idiot or if you voted for Trump for other reasons?
  
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  1. Alexander
    
    November 10, 2016
    
    You don’t get it, you really don’t.
    
    That you assume you have some sort of authority to see if my vote for Trump is legitimate or not. You get to “check”. I don’t go around and give quizzes to Clinton voters before I determine if they had a valid reason to exercise their right to vote. Oh well.
    
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    1. David Gendron
      
      November 10, 2016
      
      Okay, so you vote for him because of his Law and Order rhetoric. That makes some sense.
      
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3. David Gendron
  
  November 10, 2016
  
  Also, I asked this question because Mike Pence supports those therapies.
  
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Alexander

November 10, 2016

Consider this: In Indiana, liberals had a field day driving two states over to buy a pizza from a mom-and-pop so they could say HAHA look who’s providing pizza to a gay wedding?!?! National news, tee hee wasn’t that great.

That’s malicious. It’s also cowardly because we all know at this point that nobody is going to make a Muslim baker do any such thing. It’s deliberately taking the piss out of someone because they were a conservative Christian, and you knew you could get away with it.

But by all means, there’s not really a liberal maliciousness, Christians who complain are bitching about nothing, white privilege, and deserve it anyway, the bigots. And even that’s just a phantom that they were told by Rush Limbaugh…

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1. Stringer Bell
  
  November 10, 2016
  
  Dude, you sound miserable. You should be happier that your side won.
  
  If you read my comments you’d note that I was mostly agreeing with clarissa. I objected to that one thing about married women with kids feeling all that hate from unmarried women without kids.
  
  That is just not true. That is projection and nothing else.
  
  “None of it, thanks. We’re not little children that need Daddy Rush to tell us how we “feel”.”
  
  None of it? lol, that’s stretching it quite a bit. There’s a reason why Rush is worth $500M you know. You elected a guy who mandated funerals for aborted fetuses and and rerouted Fed health $$ towards gay conversion therapy.
  
  But yeah, you really showed up Lena Dunham. Rolled coal on that bitch’s face. Congrats! That’s the important thing here.
  
  Shut the fuck up with this ‘salt of the earth’ nonsense.
  
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Clarissa

November 10, 2016

OK, who is you, people? I’m disgusted by how big business meddled in Indiana and NC.

But yes, I hope that the point I’m trying to bring across will reach some people at least because I’m tired of the “this is all about racism and sexism” narrative. It’s facile and fails to explain much of what is happening.

There is this fellow I know who is absolutely not a racist. I know what he does and how he lives and he’s not a racist, I guarantee that. We should all do half of what he does for disadvantaged black kids in East STL. But he voted for Trump and all he wants to talk about is the redefinition of gender as something divorced from biological reality. He doesn’t want the definition of “at will gender” to be imposed on him. Neither does he want to impose anything on anybody else. This is his #1 issue. I don’t get it but I don’t believe I have the right to tell him he shouldn’t care.

Many liberals have no idea how badly the toilet wars impacted some people.

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1. David Gendron
  
  November 10, 2016
  
  I support the conservatives on the toilet wars issue.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    November 10, 2016
    
    You and I have had many arguments about toilets but this time even I agree that the issue was perverted and taken way too far by overeager folks.
    
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2. Alexander
  
  November 10, 2016
  
  “you people” is a figure of speech down here. It wasn’t meant to target you. But the general subset of liberals who were cheering that sort of nonsense.
  
  Clarissa, you have an advantage in that you actually know real life Trump supporters. You know that they’re daily actions don’t jive with the media portrayal that seeks to say ALL are X. I would suspect this is not the case in a lot of blue cities and states.
  
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  1. David Gendron
    
    November 10, 2016
    
    I will say this “Republicans are bigots and idiots. Some of them are good people, but..”
    
    I’m sure that you would not like it, if I were serious. But Trump does that all the time.
    
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  2. Clarissa
    
    November 10, 2016
    
    Yes, once you know people, it’s impossible to issue a blanket dismissal of them as bigots.
    
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xykademiqz

November 10, 2016

I live in the Deep South. I’ve seen the derp derp what a bunch of idiot memes. Maps that have California and New England labelled as “America” and the South and Midwest as “Dumbfuckstan”.

I am in the Midwest and yes, I hear you. I do not appreciate my home state being portrayed as some sort of backwater cesspool, and the term flyover state that is so liberally (pun intended) applied by coastal folks gets on my nerves big time.
I am also very liberal and am disappointed at my anemic liberal brethren who haven’t bothered to show up and vote because Hillary was insufficiently exciting or insufficiently perfect.

People up the street from me had Trump/Pence signs. They are well-off white retirees — they don’t have a care in the world, what exactly are they protesting by voting for Trump? Is it the goddamn toilets? Or are they protesting that we also have (educated, high-earning) Indians and East Asians in the neighborhood?

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cliff arroyo

November 10, 2016

“They are well-off white retirees — they don’t have a care in the world, what exactly are they protesting by voting for Trump?”

Old people can’t think about the future? As I grow older the future occupies a large part of my thoughts.

“are they protesting that we also have (educated, high-earning) Indians and East Asians in the neighborhood?”

People aren’t potatoes. Culture and familiarity matter. How would the people in your birth country react to increasingly large numbers of newcomers with little to no cultural connection to the traditional culture of that country (and/or with little obvious respect for same) react?

People are people and no group of humans is immune to the baser facts (if you want to think of them that way) of human nature. It’s not advisable to bombard people with alien culture or novel thoughts with no relief forever. There will be pushback at some point.

Think of it like this.

On the left there was Los Indignados and Occupy Wall Street (and Bernie Sanders).

In the center (no, really) there is Brexit and Donald Trump.

On the right there is Golden Dawn, Jobbik, Alternativ für Deutschland.

Solve for the least common denominator.

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Clarissa

November 10, 2016

What, they think Trump would deport the Indians?? But even he never promised any such atrocity.

As for respect, Indians and East Asians are the best possible neighbors who integrate very well.

Our university is desperate to attract grad students from Asia because without them, such programs as mathematics, for instance, would die. If there are no grad students, there is nobody to teach lower level math courses. And my department is in dire straights already because we don’t have a graduate program and literally can’t find anybody to teach Spanish 101. We’ve been trying to recruit but there are no people who speak Spanish and haven’t been snapped up by desperately short handed schools.

Everything is interconnected. If the university goes to hell, the town follows because we create all the jobs in the area. Making life intolerable for international scholars and grad students will devastate the area economically. And for what? To ease the discomfort somebody feels when they hear my accent? Smart.

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1. Stringer Bell
  
  November 10, 2016
  
  “As for respect, Indians and East Asians are the best possible neighbors who integrate very well.”
  
  But they’re not white, you see, and that has always been cliff’s problem.
  
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2. Clarissa
  
  November 10, 2016
  
  My maternity doctor was from South Africa. He’s one of the best 20 doctors in the region 10 years running. The new doctor who was the only one who agreed to take Klara on is an immigrant and Muslim. Chase them away, and they will all find employment, accents notwithstanding. But who in the region will gain from that? What is the huge discomfort that the presence of these law-abiding, quiet people who, I’m guessing, pay huge taxes is causing?
  
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  1. cliff arroyo
    
    November 10, 2016
    
    “What is the huge discomfort that the presence of these law-abiding, quiet people who, I’m guessing, pay huge taxes is causing?”
    
    Cultural continuity. Will these law-abiding quiet people become Americans (linguistically and culturally) or will they strive to stay out of the mainstream (like the Middle Eastern immigrants that so disturbed you in Quebec)?
    
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3. cliff arroyo
  
  November 10, 2016
  
  ” they think Trump would deport the Indians?? But even he never promised any such atrocity.”
  
  Your’e thinking concrete issues, which is not how elections are won or lost. Lock up your autistic side and let your emotions control your brain (as probably often happens when you interact with Klara).
  
  “As for respect, Indians and East Asians are the best possible neighbors who integrate very well.”
  
  In the long term, yes. In the short term things seem very different and unsettling to people to find themselves surrounded by people that are different from them. One of the reasons that Indians and East Asians are good neighbors is that they don’t try to hobble their children by remaining mired in the Old Country. They let the schools turn their children into cultural Americans.
  
  Latinos have a more mixed record in that regard (partly understandable because of history and proximity) and Muslims in Europe have a truly terrible record in that regard as the immigrating generation does everything they can to prevent their children from assimilating.
  
  Another part of the problem is that people attracted to this blog are those who have little to no problem with difference and who like and enjoy interacting with people from different cultural and language backgrounds.
  
  We’re the minority but a lot of people have convinced themselves that we’re the norm when we’re not.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    November 10, 2016
    
    I can’t respect people who emote all over politics and don’t even attempt to understand what they are feeling and why. I’m tired of the Liberal hysterics who have filled my blog roll with ridiculous descriptions of how they’ve been crying and shaking for days because of how “unsafe” they suddenly feel. “The country has demonstrated that it hates me.” Oh, for Pete’s sake. The country is not aware of your existence.
    
    Yes, the result of the election is disappointing, very much so. But I went to a great Degas exhibition and then worked on my book instead of writing long screeds about the country hating me.
    
    Let’s not crawl into a coffin just yet.
    
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    1. cliff arroyo
      
      November 10, 2016
      
      “I can’t respect people who emote all over politics and don’t even attempt to understand what they are feeling and why”
      
      Then you’ll never understand how elections are determined. My comment was meant to be descriptive not prescriptive. It’s a tool for understanding other people not a tool for living your own life.
      
      Most neuro-typical people, most of the time, do not think or act “rationally” but according to a…. schema of human nature that is not entirely rational (but largely predictable once you understand certain things).
      
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xykademiqz

November 10, 2016

I understand Cliff’s point. And yes, people in my ancestral country are racist and bigoted as all hell (you should hear my mom when she comes to visit). I was like that too when I arrived, some 17+ years ago. I had not seen a black person or a Latino or any Asians until I moved to the US. I certainly did not support gay rights.

17 years later and I am very liberal. It comes from education and exposure to different people and reading and thinking and examining my experiences and my various discomforts. Experiences and critical thinking do tend to move people towards being more accepting of different people; it is rare that the motion happens in the other direction.

I understand why people feel what they feel. People like to be surrounded by what they know, and all sorts of unknown people and ideas cause them discomfort. And yes, people vote for cultural continuity, for same-color neighborhoods, for economic prosperity for their own families first and foremost. People can also viscerally hate blacks, Latinos, any other shade and shape of immigrant because they are genuinely convinced that these other people are subhuman, or evil, or greedy, or lazy, or whatever. People can also viscerally hate atheists as immoral deviants and be 100% convinced that they are right because that’s what they have been taught all their lives.

But just because you genuinely, to the bottom of your soul, believe in something, that doesn’t necessarily make it true or morally right. There is such a thing as facts, there are consequences to people’s actions, often far reaching, and there is real pain people’s actions cause to others (as in, someone beats you up or cuts you because you are black while they are KKK who truly genuinely believes that you are subhuman).

My point is that just because I can understand intellectually or even emotionally what compelled someone to vote the way they did, their vote (or the decision not to vote) will have devastating consequences on many people, on the environment, on the quality of water and air and food, on physical violence against dark-skinned people, and on the world balance of powers and thus on a number of other countries. I can therefore say that the person’s voting action was wrong and has helped bring about a lot of future misery, even if they themselves hadn’t planned on all that misery and had nothing but genuine and pure thoughts within their own framework.

I really wish people voted based on actually policies and politics and not following their (understandable) primitive tribal instincts. Maybe I should ask Santa Claus for that wish.

I agree with Matt, I think we will have 8 years of Trump. Sadly, the pendulum swinging conservative has not swung all the way yet.

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Dreidel

November 10, 2016

“They are well-off white retirees — they don’t have a care in the world, what exactly are they protesting by voting for Trump?”

“I really wish people voted based on actually policies and politics and not following their (understandable) primitive tribal instincts.”

NEWSFLASH for confused liberals: Everybody who voted for Donald Trump wasn’t an ignorant hillbilly who was “protesting” something or was “angry” at some imagined phantom.

Believe it or not, there were a number of intelligent, well-educated, tolerant people who had genuine expertise in some areas (the military, economics, immigration, climate change, foreign policy.etc.), and who sincerely believed that Trump’s policies on those issues would be better for the country than Hillary Clinton’s polices . Also, they disagreed with the hysterical predictions that his policies would have “devastating consequences” for the world. That’s why they voted for him — not because they were some mindless primitives that all superior “very liberal, very educated, exposed” people should look down their noses at.

I think that those voters were misguided in believing that a man like Trump is the right person to make the necessary changes in America’s political direction — but the fact that their political opinion differs from mine or yours doesn’t make me, or you, morally or intellectually superior to them.

“But just because you genuinely, to the bottom of your soul, believe in something, that doesn’t necessarily make it true or morally right.”

Guess what? This rule applies to “progressives” and liberals, too.

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Clarissa

November 10, 2016

We have already agreed here that this is not about political opinions but about blind, irrational emotions. Let’s not relitigate the whole argument from the start.

The idea that Trump has “policies” will make even Trump himself laugh.

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xykademiqz

November 10, 2016

My comments you excerpted were in response to Cliff’s comments above and Alexander’s further up. Cliff was talking about people who vote for specific reasons, rooted in discomfort.

I don’t think anyone here thinks the Trump voters are a monolithic block or all vote for the same reasons. For instance, my neighbors up the street are neither poor nor uneducated. I don’t know why they voted why they did.

However, seriously:

1) How can you tell that Trump’s policies are better than Hillary’s when he gave no details as to how exactly he would do all the things he said he would? Nothing was fleshed out. The devil is in the details, as they say.

2) How can one simultaneously consider themselves tolerant and support someone who explicitly preaches intolerance to a number of groups? This at the very least requires internally redefining the concept of “tolerant,” or admitting to yourself that you are OK with certain other groups of people getting seriously screwed along the way because specific other issues are very important to you.

3) “But just because you genuinely, to the bottom of your soul, believe in something, that doesn’t necessarily make it true or morally right”
Guess what? This rule applies to “progressives” and liberals, too.

Sure. Some things are a matter of opinion. Perhaps many.

But, as we all know, not everything is a matter of opinion. There are facts, and there is math/science. For instance, there is enough solid evidence that global warming is real, that someone claiming it is not real is not a valid opinion; it is just wrong. Just like you, as a medical doctor with a strong background in biology, would argue that someone thinking that evolution is not real is not a valid opinion; it is simply wrong. There is also enough evidence that trickle-down economy doesn’t work the way it’s been promised over and over, at least not without additional legislation: the wealth simply doesn’t trickle down as the rich hold on to it, because there is no legislation compelling them to invest back into jobs.

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1. Dreidel
  
  November 10, 2016
  
  “For instance, there is enough solid evidence that global warming is real, that someone claiming it is not real is not a valid opinion…”
  
  On the specific issue of global warming, let me state once — for the record, so people will stop misrepresenting my views as denial:
  
  Man-made alteration of the earth’s climate is real, an inevitable trade-off of the advance of civilization across the globe, like the extinction of the passenger pigeon and the destruction of irreplaceable rain forests. At this point, its consequences are irreversible, even if all the countries on this plant agreed to leave all fossil fuels in the ground and go back to an eighteenth-century lifestyle — which will never happen, despite all the international agreements to start discussing the issue. China and India think that the U.S. is being hypocritical asking them to stop their rush to industrialization, now that America has completed the process, and I don’t blame them.
  
  But the apocalyptic cries of doomsday by the year 2100 are exaggerated, science-fiction nonsense. The climate change can be managed and brought under control — to the extent that the human race can control the physical world — by reasonable measures, like those being undertaken by California. There’s no serious politician in the U.S. — including Hillary — who believes that anything more draconian is achievable.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    November 10, 2016
    
    Wow. That’s exactly what I believe on the issue. Wow.
    
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Stringer Bell

November 10, 2016

“…(the military, economics, immigration, climate change, foreign policy.etc.), and who sincerely believed that Trump’s policies on those issues would be better for the country than Hillary Clinton’s polices .”

Climate change is a hoax started by the Chinese to win trade wars.

–Expert opinion.

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Clarissa

November 10, 2016

And Trump’s military, economic and foreign policy is whatever his KGB handler dictates to him. Very intellectual.

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Stringer Bell

November 10, 2016

President elect of the united states.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/796900183955095552

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Clarissa

November 10, 2016

“Professional protesters” is a favorite expression of Putin. He believes that people only come out to protest if somebody paid them to.

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1. Shakti
  
  November 10, 2016
  
  Does he imagine Association of Argument Clinicians & the Professional Protesters Union have quite the rows at their annual meetings, Monty Python style? What would that even look like?
  
  What an incredible aggrieved infant. “It’s unfair there are protests! Waah!”
  
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Stringer Bell

November 10, 2016

Lying granny-starver Paul Ryan all set to privatize medicare.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/paul-ryan-says-medicare-privatization-is-on.html

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Clarissa

November 10, 2016

Well, this is what the older people who voted for Trump in droves wanted. Let us see how they like giving up their Medicare for the sake of . . .I’m not entirely sure what.

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1. Clarissa
  
  November 10, 2016
  
  https://twitter.com/i/moments/796417517157830656
  
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2. Shakti
  
  November 11, 2016
  
  Every iteration of “Medicare reform” is about screwing people under 50 ( GenXers & Millennials & further down) when politicians talk about it on the stump. Go look. The senior citizens who turn out in droves and would set the House on their asses so fast if they tried that with people in their 60s. It’s classic IGMFY. They absolutely need the younger generations to pay in to fund their their government checks. Besides I’ve been told since high school they’re going to privatize it, and I shouldn’t count on it, and I’m sure many of my peers voted that way too.
  
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