This is the whole appeal of Trump, of course. A whole lot of people like being bigots. People have liked being so since, like, the dawn of humanity. For a massive portion of that time, it was socially acceptable to be openly bigoted. There was that brief period of time in America from the late 90s through the early 2000s where there was social push back on being bigoted, and, naturally, the bigoted assholes hated that shit. Now Trump is making being a bigoted asshole great again. Put up the sign. Fly the flag. The more bigoted the better. Thatâs how you show allegiance. Isnât that the core issue in American politics right now? Itâs, Do you think white Christian men deserve the place at the top of society while all others should fuck the hell off, or do you believe in some sort of equality bullshit?
Basically, conservatives value tradition and continuity with some point in the past that they view as ideal. They differ on what point on the past, what aspects of that point, and how much evidence they need to update their priors and break with tradition.
They start with a null hypothesis that the way things have been is the way things ought to be until proven clearly wrong. Generally, they value order and predictability, which is why facets of the postmodern condition can cause moderates to abandon the center-left coalition.
This is what they claim, but I think conservatives think more along the lines of change is bad by default. So youâll now get âhands off my medicareâ conservatives. We like MLK conservatives, etc. Really itâs kind of a shell game and what conservatives want is personal power not too closely linked to any particular policy agenda. Like abortion wasnât a real issue until they saw they could ride it to some power in a way that worked better than âsegregation forever.â
For fox news type conservatives I think you just need to tell them that they are constantly threatened by shadowy forces and they need to vote for X to fight back.
The point when things were better is usually when they still had hair.
I find the most common thread among bigots and racists is fear. They are frightened by that which they are unfamiliar with, be it culture, religion, or sexual orientation. A male who doesnât understand an attraction to another man becomes intolerant of such behavior (I guarantee they are more tolerant about two attractive women engaging sexually)
Iâd be lying if I didnât admit my own uneasiness upon first spotting two men kissing. Itâs something I donât get and appears unnatural to me. But I also realize thatâs my problem, not theirs. The more tolerant and accepting we are as a society, the more open they can be to their true selves, and the more used to it people like me will get
This is long but I think I have a point somewhere in here:
Over the years Iâve done a ton of online surveys as kind of a side hustle. Thereâs this boilerplate set of questions that pops up from time to time that apparently measures oneâs idea of morality, asking you whether item X is relevant to your idea of right or wrong, with a 7-point scale of agreement. I found a summary of the terms they ask about, which is quoted below (The headings and the categories in caps donât show up on an actual survey, just the phrases themselves in random order):
So Iâve filled out this set of questions about a hundred times over the years so I rarely give much thought to it, but itâs always the same for me: The âFairnessâ stuff is always âextremely relevantâ, the âHarmâ is a notch or two down, and almost everything else is toward the bottom of the scale, some mix of ânot at allâ or ânot veryâ relevant.
These always felt like very âstandardâ answers to me, and I never gave a ton of thought to how a more conservative person would answer themâlike sure, maybe the Authority and Ingroup stuff would be a bit higher, maybe the God answer would take on much more importance for religious folks (although that doesnât bother me, because any god I might happen to believe in would sure as hell be big on the Fairness and Harm stuff anyway).
But reading lagtight on here talking about fucking âwickednessâ and âperversionâ makes me realize that Iâm probably just way off, and makes me feel hopeless trying to find any kind of common ground with a person like that. The more I think about it, the more I feel like the average Trump voter probably gives top ranks to the Respect and Traditions questions, all the Purity ones, and something close to the top for Ingroup.
Even the one thing that I would think is a given to sit at the top, the Fairness stuff, I could see easily floating down to the middle for these people, because, well, people being treated differently than others is probably considered a good thing as long as you come out on top, and being denied oneâs rights is seen as something some people deserve.
It really makes me feel even more hopeless when it comes to talking about political shit with lagtight types because itâs like weâre speaking two different languages. The stuff we think about when determining good or bad isnât even on some peopleâs radar, and vice versa.
No. The most common thread is stupidity an/or ignorance. Most of the fears they have can be allayed by thinking about things critically for a few minutes. Or by learning some easy to discover facts. Fear is quite common also, but Iâm putting general idiocy at the top of the âmost commonâ list.
It has become really apparent to me that I have absolutely no idea whatâs going on in other peoplesâ heads, and there is really no relationship between that and whatâs going on in my own head. Sure, there are occasional points of intersection, but my experience is only my own. And if I donât want to be judged for me having my own experience, I had better not judge other people for theirs. It is a work in progress and I fail literally every day, but thatâs where I want to be.
Iâve been strongly influenced by postmodernism, so the idea of a world where we all speak the same moral âlanguageâ seems ludicrous to me.
This is a relevant article
While there is certainly something to the idea that conservatives and liberals have different moralities, I think framing accounts for a lot of it as well. For example, when I look at the pictures of the Trump boys going hunting in Africa and holding up bits of an elephant for the camera, disgust is the word. Itâs not really that theyâre hurting the elephant, I handwave away mistreatment of animals on farms on a daily basis. The problem is that these guys are fucking perverts, going down there and slaughtering majestic animals for their own gratification. But if I tried to show photos of the Alaskan wilderness to the âdrill baby drillâ crowd and explain that this is something sacred, they would be like âno no, see sacredness actually has to do with where you are allowed to stick your weeweeâ. And then Iâd be like âyou guys are fucking toddlersâ. So itâs not that I donât understand the emotions of sacredness and the violation of same, itâs that I have very different ideas from conservatives about what ought to inspire these emotions.
And again, while there is something to the idea that leftists struggle with establishing effective authority (as anyone who has witnessed collective governance attempts and internecine squabbling in leftist organizations will know) it also has to do with ideas of what authority ought to look like. The COVID pandemic has been an ongoing attempt by left-liberals to insist that scientists and governments ought to have the authority to tell us what to do and passionate resistance to this idea from conservatives. Conservatives simply have a very limited idea of what authority ought to look like, namely that it ought to be masculine and underpinned ultimately by violence, âthe supreme authority from which all other authorities are derivedâ as Starship Troopers put it.
Does Biden actually have the ability to just close the border for Asylum seekers?
I like how bible believers point to 2 or 3 verses in a book of 20,000+ to justify their hate/discrimination. Yet they conveniently ignore others that they deem to be outdated or opposes their worldview.
23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, âTruly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.â
https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/nnzhu6/twenty_dumb_things_the_bible_says/
Soyouresayingtheresachance.
23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, âTruly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.â
Haha I mentioned this passage to heritage not hate during a discussion months ago and he said Jesus didnât say that 
Ackshually that verse totaaaaaally refers to a gate called the âeye of the needleâ and camels had to kneel to fit or something because even the most obvious fucking lessons to take away are really parables.
You CAN talk to these people.
I swear if I had a dollar for every person on the blue side Iâve told to read this book, Iâd be rich, and theyâd still feel hopeless because they didnât actually read itâŚbut seriously, go read âDonât Think of an Elephantâ by George Lakoff. Those questions you posted point to the EXACT premise of the book, and also point to the solution.
Yes, conservatives would score the âauthorityâ and âpurityâ and âingroupâ sections very high because it is their entire philosophy, their worldview, possibly even their biology.
However, if we know this and correctly frame our ideas in ways that trigger positive responses in their brains, we actually can begin to overcome it. Unfortunately, not enough Democrats/Liberals/Progressives have ever bothered to read this kind of theory, so we absolutely suck at it. Not to mention, framing things this way automatically makes the ideas seem less progressive than they are (because progressives are positively triggered by VERY different framing) so people who do so get excoriated by âthe leftâ for not being progressive enough.
Let me give an example:
Progressives say: single-payer health care is the most fair and equitable way to ensure every American has the healthcare they need, itâs a fundamental human right, and itâs the compassionate thing to do!
Thing is, Conservatives who believe in the authority of god, strict parents, USA#1, etc, just do NOT see it that way. To them, compassion is giving people the means to do things themselves, such as pay for their own health care.
So, how do we flip the script? We say: If health care is no longer tied to employment, that means more people will be FREE to start their own businesses, or theyâll be FREE to have a parent quit a bad job to take care of their family, or theyâll be FREE to find a better job that helps them reach the âAmerican Dream.â America, fuck yeah! Land of the FREE and home of the brave.
The real challenge is keeping this type message in the forefront.
I 100% believe you can talk to moderate republicans. You cannot talk to Trumpers.