It’s simple. The poor in red states have been made proud of struggling. They’ve been manipulated in to taking pride in being poor and uneducated. It’s such a sinister thing that has been done to them with no way of breaking that belief. They’re both victim and villain with no self awareness to save them.
Add in an (un)healthy dose of “rugged individualism” and American Exceptionalism, and everyone is just a “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” looking to get theirs and pull the ladder up behind them.
I have never liked that language tbh. If you talk directly with someone who dropped out of school at an early age, you will see that they are quite aware that they will never ever in their entire lifetime become anywhere close to being rich. Many know that they are likely to die within the decade, lacking access to medical care, which in turn affects whether they can keep even a minimum wage job, much less afford a house. The spiralling downwards of court appearances and jail time, which further affects their ability to even be considered for a job, are all too clear to them.
It turns out though, they simply do not care. They vote conservative bc they (have been told to) actually believe that the rich deserve more than they do. i.e., that phrase gives them too much credit to be voting towards their own best interests, even for the far-distant future, when instead they are aware that they will never become one. Except even my previous sentence still gives too much credit to the enlightened self interest - by way of kinship selection - of some, who do not even think about it as deeply as that, and instead they simply vote as they are told and as everyone else votes around them (especially when those around them who do not vote that way are too afraid to speak openly about their local “defiance” to the entrenched authority structures).
That said, some of them are very much aware that they are being lied to. Though again, they simply do not care, even though the outcome of their vote still affects literally the entire nation (e.g. Mitch McConnell could not be a national leader if he did not keep being reelected locally).
Good heavens sir/ma’am/they! We do not speak of understanding conservatives around here! Are you mad!? They’re all simple morons who have no logical reasons for believing as they do.
To retain your social media score, repeat this mindless chant:
“The cruelty is the point.”
The assholes I see here, and formerly on reddit, have never been around conservatives, have never spoken to them, have never travelled the blasted countryside. And no, arguing with dad over Fox news doesn’t count as “experience”.
There’s much to unpack. Not worth the effort? Repeat the quote above and wonder why they call us “ivory tower liberals”.
Thank you for some sane input. You can’t see me, but I’m standing on my chair applauding you.
And for anyone who wishes to try and understand, give this a pass. Still the finest thing I’ve read on the subject:
And I am applauding you back - though to be clear, only figuratively b/c you cannot see me anyway so need to do it literally:-).
People forget SO MUCH - e.g. how more (oops, the new official term is “moar”, as in not simply more but moar and More and still MOAR excess!, I gotta remember that) people voted AGAINST Hilary Clinton than FOR Trump.
And therefore we have a nonzero, heck a QUITE LIKELY possibility that we will DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN, in the next election, if more moar people dislike Biden+Harris than DT.
We forget how Obama’s economic stimulus recovery $$$ went almost exclusively to the cities (or so I heard? you can’t trust news anymore these days but… what else am I supposed to do, spit thunderbolts from my arse like Bruce Wallace!?:-P no I can only report what I currently know; oh… also I hadn’t read that far down into the article yet, sorry, but I’m going to leave this here anyway in case it’s useful b/c it was my thoughts that came in response to what that article). I cannot speak to if that was the proper thing to do or not, but it smacks enormously of this little theory that I have heard of called “trickle down”, where ultimately the effects of those $$$ies would make it out into the countries, if they just wait long enough for those in the cities to purchase goods from the farms (apparently by this logic the rural people never purchase anything made in the cities, one presumes). And it truly is LEGIT complicated - like if you give money to people then they can buy things like TVs, both the sets and subscriptions, but also Hollywood would have to continue to exist in order to make the shows to watch on them. But in any case, rural people got PISSING MAD at that - and not all or even most of their anger vs. that black man was warranted I strongly believe (and especially the form that it took - I mean, good grief, commenting on how he himself, his wife, and his two daughters all looked like monkeys? that’s not even dog whistle language like up in the high frequencies where human ears cannot hear it, EVERYONE can hear THAT!), but SOME portion of that anger… may have been? I am saying that at the very least, he had an opportunity to reach across the aisle and consider the optics of the whole situation, and do more to make rural people feel included (or maybe he did even, and again the news media just didn’t explain it to me well… though I kinda doubt it, as he was definitely a city folk himself).
The attitude of the ancient Greek stoics impresses da fuq out of me. DO what you can, don’t sweat the rest!? Hell f-ing yeah, as in literally what else could possibly be done, ever!? (I will tell you, in fact: you can stress out endlessly about stuff that you cannot control, and waste enormous amounts of time not doing what is in your control, so when I say what else, I mean to imply, except now I outright am stating it, that nothing else is viable)
So instead of saying “why are conservatives such dumbfuqs, unlike me who iz smurtz”, we might try to… I dunno, take ownership of the stuff that we can control? e.g., if Hillary had campaigned a little harder instead of just assuming that it was in the bag; though to be fair it was legit surprising, and DT’s wife even cried upon hearing the news, as in not happy tears, nor did DT himself expect to actually win that seems fairly clear.
This is the point where (most of the time) I remember that Putin controls both sides of our for-profit media (if not fully then he loves to at least inject memes into the internet for our…“consideration”), and a favorite trick is to pit the “two sides” against one another in an effort to distract us while he gets away with whatever he wants. At the very least, if he were not doing that, then he should, b/c it would be an extremely smart play (e.g. the CIA does this all the time on behalf of the USA). Especially since we (i.e. especially the USA and UK) are mostly too dumb to realize that it is even happening.:-( Including, in fact especially, me.
But also we are greedy AF (that stands for “as fuck” btw, now you know:-P) and even knowing that, each “side” has to play to “win”, even at the expense of our entire nation. Which… here is as far as I’ve gotten, might even be okay, or at least was more so in the past, b/c DT is not only a symptom of our nation, but he is also a cause that spreads more stuff (violence/hate/fear/suffering/etc.) in his wake, but is it really, truly okay to “win”, if it is America itself that ends up losing? e.g. again, when Hillary ran, what “choices” were offered to the American people, specifically the liberal or at least non-conservatives among us, when there was almost nobody brave enough to run against her, not even just to get their name out there to help for a future election? And then the release of her emails… no not that time, no not that other time either, but here I mean the time when they showed collusion with the DNC, that proved illegal tampering with the election process - e.g. Bernie Sanders was not given the questions in advance, but she was, in secret. SHE may have been the one that lost that election, but didn’t we all lose out as a result of that revelation, really? And not just Americans, but people world-wide that had to put up with DT for 4 years. It is hard to argue against her corruption when the Supreme Court asked her to turn over all of her emails and she said “no”, in order to spend DAYS removing the ones that she did not want them to see. So yes, conservatives may be dumb AF, but liberals are also dumb AF too - again, I know I am, and I don’t really see a way out.
But actually listening to one another might be… a start, maybe? Thank you for sharing btw.
It’s simple. The poor in red states have been made proud of struggling. They’ve been manipulated in to taking pride in being poor and uneducated. It’s such a sinister thing that has been done to them with no way of breaking that belief. They’re both victim and villain with no self awareness to save them.
Add in an (un)healthy dose of “rugged individualism” and American Exceptionalism, and everyone is just a “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” looking to get theirs and pull the ladder up behind them.
I have never liked that language tbh. If you talk directly with someone who dropped out of school at an early age, you will see that they are quite aware that they will never ever in their entire lifetime become anywhere close to being rich. Many know that they are likely to die within the decade, lacking access to medical care, which in turn affects whether they can keep even a minimum wage job, much less afford a house. The spiralling downwards of court appearances and jail time, which further affects their ability to even be considered for a job, are all too clear to them.
It turns out though, they simply do not care. They vote conservative bc they (have been told to) actually believe that the rich deserve more than they do. i.e., that phrase gives them too much credit to be voting towards their own best interests, even for the far-distant future, when instead they are aware that they will never become one. Except even my previous sentence still gives too much credit to the enlightened self interest - by way of kinship selection - of some, who do not even think about it as deeply as that, and instead they simply vote as they are told and as everyone else votes around them (especially when those around them who do not vote that way are too afraid to speak openly about their local “defiance” to the entrenched authority structures).
That said, some of them are very much aware that they are being lied to. Though again, they simply do not care, even though the outcome of their vote still affects literally the entire nation (e.g. Mitch McConnell could not be a national leader if he did not keep being reelected locally).
Good heavens sir/ma’am/they! We do not speak of understanding conservatives around here! Are you mad!? They’re all simple morons who have no logical reasons for believing as they do.
To retain your social media score, repeat this mindless chant:
“The cruelty is the point.”
The assholes I see here, and formerly on reddit, have never been around conservatives, have never spoken to them, have never travelled the blasted countryside. And no, arguing with dad over Fox news doesn’t count as “experience”.
There’s much to unpack. Not worth the effort? Repeat the quote above and wonder why they call us “ivory tower liberals”.
Thank you for some sane input. You can’t see me, but I’m standing on my chair applauding you.
And for anyone who wishes to try and understand, give this a pass. Still the finest thing I’ve read on the subject:
https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about
And I am applauding you back - though to be clear, only figuratively b/c you cannot see me anyway so need to do it literally:-).
People forget SO MUCH - e.g. how
more(oops, the new official term is “moar”, as in not simply more but moar and More and still MOAR excess!, I gotta remember that) people voted AGAINST Hilary Clinton than FOR Trump.And therefore we have a nonzero, heck a QUITE LIKELY possibility that we will DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN, in the next election, if
moremoar people dislike Biden+Harris than DT.We forget how Obama’s economic stimulus recovery $$$ went almost exclusively to the cities (or so I heard? you can’t trust news anymore these days but… what else am I supposed to do, spit thunderbolts from my arse like Bruce Wallace!?:-P no I can only report what I currently know; oh… also I hadn’t read that far down into the article yet, sorry, but I’m going to leave this here anyway in case it’s useful b/c it was my thoughts that came in response to what that article). I cannot speak to if that was the proper thing to do or not, but it smacks enormously of this little theory that I have heard of called “trickle down”, where ultimately the effects of those $$$ies would make it out into the countries, if they just wait long enough for those in the cities to purchase goods from the farms (apparently by this logic the rural people never purchase anything made in the cities, one presumes). And it truly is LEGIT complicated - like if you give money to people then they can buy things like TVs, both the sets and subscriptions, but also Hollywood would have to continue to exist in order to make the shows to watch on them. But in any case, rural people got PISSING MAD at that - and not all or even most of their anger vs. that black man was warranted I strongly believe (and especially the form that it took - I mean, good grief, commenting on how he himself, his wife, and his two daughters all looked like monkeys? that’s not even dog whistle language like up in the high frequencies where human ears cannot hear it, EVERYONE can hear THAT!), but SOME portion of that anger… may have been? I am saying that at the very least, he had an opportunity to reach across the aisle and consider the optics of the whole situation, and do more to make rural people feel included (or maybe he did even, and again the news media just didn’t explain it to me well… though I kinda doubt it, as he was definitely a city folk himself).
The attitude of the ancient Greek stoics impresses da fuq out of me. DO what you can, don’t sweat the rest!? Hell f-ing yeah, as in literally what else could possibly be done, ever!? (I will tell you, in fact: you can stress out endlessly about stuff that you cannot control, and waste enormous amounts of time not doing what is in your control, so when I say what else, I mean to imply, except now I outright am stating it, that nothing else is viable)
So instead of saying “why are conservatives such dumbfuqs, unlike me who iz smurtz”, we might try to… I dunno, take ownership of the stuff that we can control? e.g., if Hillary had campaigned a little harder instead of just assuming that it was in the bag; though to be fair it was legit surprising, and DT’s wife even cried upon hearing the news, as in not happy tears, nor did DT himself expect to actually win that seems fairly clear.
This is the point where (most of the time) I remember that Putin controls both sides of our for-profit media (if not fully then he loves to at least inject memes into the internet for our…“consideration”), and a favorite trick is to pit the “two sides” against one another in an effort to distract us while he gets away with whatever he wants. At the very least, if he were not doing that, then he should, b/c it would be an extremely smart play (e.g. the CIA does this all the time on behalf of the USA). Especially since we (i.e. especially the USA and UK) are mostly too dumb to realize that it is even happening.:-( Including, in fact especially, me.
But also we are greedy AF (that stands for “as fuck” btw, now you know:-P) and even knowing that, each “side” has to play to “win”, even at the expense of our entire nation. Which… here is as far as I’ve gotten, might even be okay, or at least was more so in the past, b/c DT is not only a symptom of our nation, but he is also a cause that spreads more stuff (violence/hate/fear/suffering/etc.) in his wake, but is it really, truly okay to “win”, if it is America itself that ends up losing? e.g. again, when Hillary ran, what “choices” were offered to the American people, specifically the liberal or at least non-conservatives among us, when there was almost nobody brave enough to run against her, not even just to get their name out there to help for a future election? And then the release of her emails… no not that time, no not that other time either, but here I mean the time when they showed collusion with the DNC, that proved illegal tampering with the election process - e.g. Bernie Sanders was not given the questions in advance, but she was, in secret. SHE may have been the one that lost that election, but didn’t we all lose out as a result of that revelation, really? And not just Americans, but people world-wide that had to put up with DT for 4 years. It is hard to argue against her corruption when the Supreme Court asked her to turn over all of her emails and she said “no”, in order to spend DAYS removing the ones that she did not want them to see. So yes, conservatives may be dumb AF, but liberals are also dumb AF too - again, I know I am, and I don’t really see a way out.
But actually listening to one another might be… a start, maybe? Thank you for sharing btw.