Do you think a single person who votes in support of this guy knows any of this?
Not saying anything bad about you at all, but I think this is a perfect example of a really common logical fallacy that we on the lefter side of things tend to make. Lots of us (more often than not, myself included) that anybody on the conservative side of things is simply conservative due to lack of information. Unfortunately, I don't think that's the case. As a transplant to the South, I think the reality is that not only do plenty of supporters know that, even more very literally don't care. Say for instance that you think abortion is murder. Nevermind all the reasons you're wrong or all the constitutional reasons you can't possibly make laws based off that without grossly violating women's civil rights. Just say you believe abortion under any circumstances is murder. Why would you care if you're in the minority? In that case, you don't want majority rule. You don't want popular opinion to "win." You will actively support people who want to tear down democracy and separation of powers, because you believe murder is always wrong, and all abortions are always murder. In your mind, your beliefs are on the same level as being an abolitionist back when the majority opinion was pro-slavery. Then, you extrapolate that up to the dozens or hundreds of different talking points that people will attack with the same kind of zeal, the talking points and political opinions that people use to literally define what "culture" they identify with and you have a significant portion of the country who not only aren't phased by elected officials saying things like this, but actively want to tear down the concept of majority rule, and actively seek the destruction of democracy and representation. The truth, unfortunately, I think is far scarier and more disturbing than a lot of us would prefer it to be--we can't simply educate people out of not supporting monsters, because the monsters under the bed are genuinely the ones they want in charge.
It's not necessarily a fallacy in many cases, though. Conservatism and especially authoritarianism appeal to people who don't have the capacity to deal with any sort of complexity. It's been proven time and time again that right-wing authoritarians seem to have lower general intelligence. - Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes: Lower Cognitive Ability Predicts Greater Prejudice Through Right-Wing Ideology and Low Intergroup Contact - Cognitive ability, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation: a five-year longitudinal study amongst adolescents - Conservatism and cognitive ability - Does Lower Cognitive Ability Predict Greater Prejudice? Indeed, the empirical literature reveals negative relations between cognitive abilities and right-wing social-cultural attitudes, including right-wing authoritarian (e.g., Keiller, 2010; McCourt et al., 1999), socially conservative (e.g., Stankov, 2009; Van Hiel et al., 2010), and religious attitudes (e.g., Zuckerman, Silberman, & Hall, 2013). - Cognitive ability and authoritarianism: Understanding support for Trump and Clinton - Low-Effort Thought Promotes Political ConservatismNot saying anything bad about you at all, but I think this is a perfect example of a really common logical fallacy that we on the lefter side of things tend to make. Lots of us (more often than not, myself included) that anybody on the conservative side of things is simply conservative due to lack of information.
Despite their important implications for interpersonal behaviors and relations, cognitive abilities have been largely ignored as explanations of prejudice. We proposed and tested mediation models in which lower cognitive ability predicts greater prejudice, an effect mediated through the endorsement of right-wing ideologies (social conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism) and low levels of contact with out-groups. In an analysis of two large-scale, nationally representative United Kingdom data sets (N = 15,874), we found that lower general intelligence (g) in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood, and this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology. A secondary analysis of a U.S. data set confirmed a predictive effect of poor abstract-reasoning skills on antihomosexual prejudice, a relation partially mediated by both authoritarianism and low levels of intergroup contact. All analyses controlled for education and socioeconomic status. Our results suggest that cognitive abilities play a critical, albeit underappreciated, role in prejudice. Consequently, we recommend a heightened focus on cognitive ability in research on prejudice and a better integration of cognitive ability into prejudice models.
We report longitudinal data in which we assessed the relationships between intelligence and support for two constructs that shape ideological frameworks, namely, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO). Participants (N = 375) were assessed in Grade 7 and again in Grade 12. Verbal and numerical ability were assessed when students entered high school in Grade 7. RWA and SDO were assessed before school graduation in Grade 12. After controlling for the possible confounding effects of personality and religious values in Grade 12, RWA was predicted by low g (β = -.16) and low verbal intelligence (β = -.18). SDO was predicted by low verbal intelligence only (β = -.13). These results are discussed with reference to the role of verbal intelligence in predicting support for such ideological frameworks and some comments are offered regarding the cognitive distinctions between RWA and SDO.
Conservatism and cognitive ability are negatively correlated. The evidence is based on 1254 community college students and 1600 foreign students seeking entry to United States' universities. At the individual level of analysis, conservatism scores correlate negatively with SAT, Vocabulary, and Analogy test scores. At the national level of analysis, conservatism scores correlate negatively with measures of education (e.g., gross enrollment at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels) and performance on mathematics and reading assessments from the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) project. They also correlate with components of the Failed States Index and several other measures of economic and political development of nations. Conservatism scores have higher correlations with economic and political measures than estimated IQ scores.
Right-wing ideologies offer well-structured and ordered views about society that preserve traditional societal conventions and norms (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). Such ideological belief systems are particularly attractive to individuals who are strongly motivated to avoid uncertainty and ambiguity in preference for simplicity and predictability (Jost et al., 2003; Roets & Van Hiel, 2011). Theoretically, individuals with lower mental abilities should be attracted by right-wing social-cultural ideologies because they minimize complexity and increase perceived control (Heaven, Ciarrochi, & Leeson, 2011; Stankov, 2009). Conversely, individuals with greater cognitive skills are better positioned to understand changing and dynamic societal contexts, which should facilitate open-minded, relatively left-leaning attitudes (Deary et al., 2008a; Heaven et al., 2011; McCourt, Bouchard, Lykken, Tellegen, & Keyes, 1999). Lower cognitive abilities therefore draw people to strategies and ideologies that emphasize what is presently known and considered acceptable to make sense and impose order over their environment. Resistance to social change and the preservation of the status quo regarding societal traditions—key principles underpinning right-wing social-cultural ideologies—should be particularly appealing to those wishing to avoid uncertainty and threat.
With Donald Trump the Republican nominee and Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee for the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, speculations of why Trump resonates with many Americans are widespread-as are suppositionsof whether, independent of party identification, people might vote for Hillary Clinton. The present study, using a sample of American adults (n=406), investigated whether two ideological beliefs, namely, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) uniquely predicted Trump supportand voting intentions for Clinton. Cognitive ability as a predictor of RWA and SDO was also tested. Path analyses, controlling for political party identification,revealed that higher RWA and SDO uniquely predicted more favorable attitudes of Trump, greater intentions to vote for Trump, and lower intentions to vote for Clinton. Lower cognitive ability predicted greater RWA and SDO and indirectly predicted more favorable Trump attitudes, greater intentions to vote for Trump and lower intentionsto vote for Clinton.
In Study 1, alcohol intoxication was measured among bar patrons; as blood alcohol level increased, so did political conservatism (controlling for sex, education, and political identification). In Study 2, participants under cognitive load reported more conservative attitudes than their no-load counterparts. In Study 3, time pressure increased participants’ endorsement of conservative terms. In Study 4, participants considering political terms in a cursory manner endorsed conservative terms more than those asked to cogitate; an indicator of effortful thought (recognition memory) partially mediated the relationship between processing effort and conservatism. Together these data suggest that political conservatism may be a process consequence of low-effort thought; when effortful, deliberate thought is disengaged, endorsement of conservative ideology increases.
The religious are useful idiots for true Conservatives, who know they are an easy source of cash, if you just say a few choice words. Pull the lever, and out comes the treat. My Mom worked on policy. Taxes. Lobbying Senators, Legislators, and Governors on behalf of truly terrible policies that we see the fallout from (literally, Flint, Michigan) today. Zero of those lobbyists and legislators had an ounce of true Christianity in them. It was a hat they wore to get into the party. The work actually happened in the rooms where my Mom was.
Your opening statement: Goobster came back with my Republican credentials-of-suffering tower over yours. You came back with Therefore, "no true republican" doesn't "believe personally that they have divine right to impose the law of the Bible on their fellow man." Goobster's argument is that your perception of "Republican" is "fundies like I grew up with" based on your n of 1 whereas his perception of "Republican" is based on policy, lobbying and fundraising. Your counterargument is, effectively, if you are not a fundamentalist you are not a Republican. Which is nonsense.I know republicans better than anyone on this site.
When in your life have you believed personally that you had divine right to impose the law of the Bible on your fellow man?
That's not true. You're trying to say that you have a better understanding of Republicans than "anyone else on this site" and as evidence you're using your juvenile experience in a single religious sect. I one-true-Scotsman'd you because your argument has shifted from I am the supreme Republican expert because of my fundie parents to one cannot know Republicans without a deep, personal and disavowed belief in fundamentalism. "I am an expert in X because of Y" does not work when someone else says "I have more experience in Y". Unfortunately, you cannot then say "I am still more of an expert in X because of Y-triple prime" because Y-triple prime was not a part of your statement. And we both know - c'mon, you know - that if you had said "I have more experience with the Republican party than anyone on this site because my fundamentalist family raised me with Christian values" a number of people would have pointed out that Christian values are a subset of the Republican party, not the other way around, especially considering the 2020 platform is "whatever Trump says" and that dude can barely hold a bible right-side-up. So what you're trying to say is I wanna fight and you're always wrong and if you have defeated my argument it is because I was saving my new improved argument for last and you need to understand down to your very bones that the only reason I put up with this shit? While nobody else does? Is a deep and abiding personal empathy with your plight and your viewpoint but I'm here to tell ya, dawg, you look foolish.
You don't, actually. What you know better than anyone else on this site is the sect you grew up in, which taught you to hate the outsider, which you responded to by rejecting the sect but not the hate, so now you use the exact same hatred and dismissiveness you learned at your parents' knee to lash out at that tribe you're still oh so very angry at without noticing that it impresses no one, gets you no bonus points, and accomplishes exactly what your tribe wants, namely giving them more reasons to be hateful insular bigots. Every time you assume that your prior experiences give you credibility to run roughshod over arguments, you presume that no one has had your experiences, no one has been in your shoes, no one has gone through your shit or else they would have arrived at the exact same conclusions, obviously. No. I lived among your people since I was fuckin' born. Difference is, they hated me from the get-go. But you know what? I'm 15 years older so I'm over it. Lets me see more clearly. When I say "I know X better than anyone on this site" I give it a lot of forethought, rather than presuming my depth of emotion equates to depth of knowledge.I know republicans better than anyone on this site.
Can I give you a tip, OB? I just had an insight. I'm not sure where you learned to debate like this. I suspect it's a performative pantomime of your parents because it presumes (A) neither side will convince the other (B) neither side will stop talking (C) the winner is whoever gets the biggest rise out of their opponent. Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It's one of the three ancient arts of discourse and forms the basis for all debate. The goal of rhetoric is to alter someone's viewpoint. Taunting, on the other hand, is belittlement for social status. In a taunt, it is presumed that neither party will be won over by the other and the only stakes are which side will lose more face. See, Ben, you don't debate. At all. You taunt. And maybe you don't do it on purpose? But every comment you make in these discussions doesn't serve to compel your counterpart or the audience. They serve to belittle your counterpart in order to increase your social status. There's a place for taunts. But trying to convince someone through taunting is the equivalent of shouting "BLACK LIVES MATTER" at Richard Spencer.
Oh totally agreed, me too. Honestly it's one of the things I love most about being in the South. There's a genuine-ness and a heartfelt appreciation for your fellow man down here that's beautiful, and something I haven't seen anywhere else in the States. I swear I didn't mean anything I said as an attack on those folks or on you, just an observation about a fascinatingly anti-majority-rule segment of our population who tend to turn out in droves to vote. Edit much later in the day: for the sake of posterity, since this is on the internet and lives forever, I took OftenBen's words to mean "I know republicans who are better people than the people who use hubski". Reading other folks' responses, I can see that generally, people took it to mean "I am an expert in republicans." For context, that's not what I read. Yay written language!
The reason the rest of us hate the South is the transparent conditionality of the term "fellow man" appalls any thinking human.There's a genuine-ness and a heartfelt appreciation for your fellow man down here that's beautiful, and something I haven't seen anywhere else in the States.
It's a bizarre contradiction, isn't it? I never expected to like living here--I grew up overseas, and spent most of my life on military bases in other countries--and I always thought that the South was somewhere that I would feel like a Martian walking around Times Square. It turns out it's not, at least not by certain measures, but it is a remarkable exercise in doublethink. I've had conversations with people who will in one breath literally say that people who believe in the things I believe in should be shot, and then in another breath welcome me and my family into their arms and homes for a meal. I know people who are actual no-shit greencard-holding immigrants who are also anti-immigration. I know people who are married to minorities who are against "race-mixing." I know intelligent, highly-paid people who have been personally hurt by institutional racism who argue there's no such thing. The most fascinating part to me as an outsider-turned-Southerner isn't that those feelings of "Southern Hospitality" are truly conditional, but that people can hold two diametrically-opposed viewpoints simultaneously and unconditionally. A coworker of mine just the other day posted two times, back-to-back on Facebook. In one post, he was congratulating a friend of his who just graduated and extolling his virtues, and then in the next post, he was complaining about how "the blacks" (his words, not mine) should be arrested for supporting BLM. Thing is, the friend he was congratulating is African American. I'm no anthropologist, but there's some serious studies to be done down here on people's ability to hold vehemently contradictory views dear to their hearts without it shredding their psyche into coleslaw (unless it turns out it does, which is a very real possibility). That said, there are some shitbags down here--shitbags live anywhere you look for them--but on the whole, Southerners are good people who simply have a preternatural ability to doublethink on a daily basis.
I feel you, dawg. I've had maybe five subscriptions to Garden & Gun over the past seven years. It breaks my heart that Woodford Reserve and Mitch McConnell are from the same economy. Reza Aslan wrote a great book called How to Win a Cosmic War. His point, fundamentally, is that when Iranians chant "Death to America" they don't mean America the country, or America the people or even America the culture. They mean America the cartoon villain that deposed Mossadegh and propped up SAVAK that actual America shares many characteristics of? And displays many of the same tendencies as? But isn't the America they mean which is why Iranians tend to be largely friendly and fawning towards Americans in the concrete while also being vehemently antagonistic in the abstract: The difference, according to Aslan, is that Islam has the "near enemy" (paging Armenia/Azerbaijan), the "far enemy" (America or Israel as general proxies for agents that oppose islam) and the "cosmic enemy" (things that are fundamentally condemned by the faith - America's "war on drugs" would be a "cosmic war" as there is no corporeal opponent). And while Americans fully understand near enemies and far enemies, they don't understand cosmic enemies and they don't understand that the Islamic hatred of a far enemy is different than the Islamic hatred of a cosmic enemy. He further argues that Americans need to accept that the average resident of Saudi Arabia gives no fucks about America except in the abstract and further, that generally the Jihadis Americans need to worry about are the ones that go to school in Europe and rub up against enough Western Capitalist Dogs to turn the cosmic enemy into the near one. Sho'nuff, Sayyid Qutb ended up radicalized from his time in... Greeley, Colorado. Thing is, though? I've had plenty of Southerners tell me "I didn't expect to like you" because I AM their cosmic enemy. I'm their papier mache uncle sam to burn in the square. And we can all get along just fine so long as we don't talk politics, which reminds them that I am literally satan. THAT, more than anything is what makes the South work: the fact that they can have a near enemy (and my experience is that Southerners need some sort of vendetta against someone over something pointless to feel alive) whose beef is purely operational. They can have a far enemy that is the proximate cause of their woe. But fuckin' hell they need a cosmic enemy in order to define themselves and when you're in the South? You aren't it. But when you're not in the south? You know you're the bad guy. They tell ya. And they tell ya not to take it personally.Iranian president Mohamed Khatami and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei condemned and denounced the attacks and the terrorists who carried them out. Iranians who gathered for a soccer match in Tehran two days after the 9/11 attacks observed a moment of silence. There was also a candlelight vigil. Huge crowds attended candlelit vigils in Iran, and 60,000 spectators observed a minute's silence at Tehran's soccer stadium.
As someone born and raised in the south with two perplexingly republican parents (despite the fact that one keeps their old green card locked away in a safe), I frequently feel this way. I managed to leave for a time, and after returning a few years ago, I am still constantly frustrated by how often the loudest southerners live up to the stereotypes... ...but the entire south is not that. There are plenty of blue pockets in this part of the US that don't deserve that level of contempt - they need support. Gerrymandering is a real problem here - If districts were drawn fairly, you would find the south is more blue than the current political leadership would like you to think. Saying "fuck the south" altogether is also saying "fuck all the people who are constantly stifled and made invisible by the dirty, racist, plague-ridden, parasite-infested, cousin-raping idiots in power"...because that invisible half of the south is pretty big. And the answer shouldn't always be "just go live somewhere else."
... who haven't cared enough to change things... like people did in Oregon, or Colorado, or Texas, or anywhere else where people have risen up against The Stupid and made it known that they reject and do not support The Assholes, and have changed things for the better of everyone. For example, I, as a Seattleite, can only give so much to the campaign to unseat Mitch McConnell. But people who live there can actually VOTE him out. You, the "blue South", have ALWAYS had this ability, and chosen not to use it. In this election, the median age of an American is 37. For possibly the first time in living memory, there are more people under 40 than there are over. If even 1/4 of them showed up on November 7th, everything would change. But they don't. And they won't. So yes... gerrymandering is one hurdle amongst many. But, honestly, "fuck the blue south" for not getting off their asses and doing something about it, and passively accepting the status quo and allowing themselves to be utterly dominated by the conservative minority, when they have ALWAYS had the power to change everything, just by showing up on one day (Nov 4th) out of 1460 days in a 4-year term. "Saying "fuck the south" altogether is also saying "fuck all the people who are constantly stifled and made invisible by the dirty, racist, plague-ridden, parasite-infested, cousin-raping idiots in power"...
I can appreciate your feelings on the matter, but it's genuinely not that simple. What you're saying is the classic Liberal (in the polisci sense, not the way our news networks use it) argument of "everything comes down to personal responsibility." You need to look at things as a series of systems, not just as a bunch of individuals you can blame. Sometimes, no amount of personal responsibility can fix the system in one fell swoop. The problems that exist, and are baked into politics all over the US, aren't as simple as a single vote, or even a decade of votes, they're problems that have to be solved generationally by fundamentally altering systems.
I absolutely agree with you. AND, there is a "be the change you want to see in the world" part to tall of those systems, the way they are built, run, and managed, that allows the "little man" to have an impact on the system as a whole. One bigoted fuckwit decided she wasn't going to do her sworn duty, and refused to issue a marriage license to a gay couple. That blew up and went viral. She was fired. Big high-powered right-wing lawyers took up her case "for God's sake" and took it all the way to the Supreme Court. (Who refused to hear the case, but that's not germane to my point: She stood her ground, stood for what she saw as "right", and took it all the way. Liberals don't do that. They are too "nice" and try to play nice.) And yes, I agree, those systems need to be fundamentally altered. But that literally cannot happen without making little changes over time. It's tens of thousands of City Council meetings, and small district legislative campaigns, and regulation (or deregulation) that are pushed through, that change the perception of what is possible and "normal", that shift these ossified systems into a new way of operating. Lasting change can only happen over time, with concerted effort. Liberals suck at that. They run off and chase shiny things too often, while shitty religious conservatives quietly beaver away in the background eroding the policies and principles that make our society civil.
I think we’re all, who are in this discussion, fundamentally on the same page. But that’s why you shouldn’t shit all over the “blue South” as you put it. You’d be genuinely surprised by how hard those of us down here work to keep the pendulum from swinging too far right. If there weren’t tens of thousands of people trying to keep the worst of the worst in check, our politicians would be lynching people on street corners by next Tuesday. The South continues to be a battleground, and it’s one where the forces of evil and bigotry have a huge leg up in legacy, institutional systems, and money. But the whole reason that the South doesn’t have town square hangin’s is exactly the kind of small action you’re talking about.
And that, right there, is why I give money to local campaigns in the South. I KNOW there are good people there who are trying to do the right thing and beat back the assholes... but it's tiring work. And not enough people do it. There are plenty of people to turn the tides... they just gotta show up.
True words--Tennessee is a great example. Demographically, Tennessee is a blue state. But no one left of "we should still be allowed to own slaves" gets the slightest form of representation here. The damage done to the South through the engines of political machination is extraordinary.
Hah! Man, those almost sound like lyrics to a good punk song, or maybe some death metal. I can see a band with a name written in a font you can't read having a song titled that.
Here is an actual, almost verbatim (as close as I can remember) conversation I had with a Trump-loving friend of mine. This friend served as an Army Ranger, and is currently enrolled as a medical student at a reputable institution. Friend: I hate the government. Me: Didn't you work for the government, and don't they pay for your med school? Friend: I joined the army to protect the Constitution, not the government. Me: Oh. I should add that this friend is, in my opinion, a great person, a great father, and well-educated. In a way his Trumpism is understandable, because I know he is continually annoyed by having to attend seminars about pronouns, sensitivity, etc., as part of his medical training. I think his perspective is that the majority of people don't know what sacrifice is and wouldn't be so concerned with political correctness had they ever been exposed to the real underbelly of the world (in a way that a Ranger with war experience has been). So I'm not trying to ridicule him. Just pointing out that frustration with the state of affairs in the country can lead to massive blind spots that obscure one's ability to see clearly. To an extent, I think we're all guilty of that, insofar as we all have very divergent experiences that will color our version of the truth. That's the long answer. The short answer is, "no."
This is, and has always been, the most bullshit excuse I've ever experienced. Seminar presenter: "Maybe just don't treat people like shit?" your bud: "Fuck that, these trans people who get disproportionately murdered and have often been completely disowned by the people who are supposed to care about them through thick and thin, are overrepresented in the military, and are disproportionately likely to experience homelessness, abuse, sex work, etc have never seen the real underbelly of the world like I have! They've never made any sacrifices ever! They can't possibly know what real life is like! They just need to toughen up!" The inability for people like your friend to see past their own nose is astounding. My brother is a veteran with some pretty ugly PtSD, and he had been one of my biggest supporters, because he gets it. He doesn't want other people to feel the shitty things he's felt. He'd rather no one had to. It costs your friend literally nothing to treat a trans person as a person, and treat them with respect. Instead he and his ego choose to create further suffering in a shitty world because he doesn't believe they've suffered enough to demand his pity. In a way his Trumpism is understandable, because I know he is continually annoyed by having to attend seminars about pronouns, sensitivity, etc., as part of his medical training. I think his perspective is that the majority of people don't know what sacrifice is and wouldn't be so concerned with political correctness had they ever been exposed to the real underbelly of the world (in a way that a Ranger with war experience has been).
Family signed up to pick weeds out of a local park. needed two weeks notice, an individual sign-up form, a medical release each and a parental release for the kid (despite the fact that we would be standing right next to her). First 5 minutes of "tearing ivy out of a greenbelt" was about safe spaces and inclusive language and pronouns. I was initially annoyed, then realized 'you know what? I want my kid to appreciate that her minor inconvenience is a small price to pay for the comfort of others.' And she won't even see it as a minor inconvenience. She'll simply recognize it as prevailing social ritual.