Classic American political dialogue is premised on the idea that we share fundamental values but disagree on how best to promote them.
I haven’t believed this for a while. Other than “I prefer to be alive and not dead” and “I like pudding,” I do not share values with these people.
Yep. One of the biggest blind spots people have is assuming that underneath, others share the same basic values as them. They have trouble imagining an ideology that is completely misaligned with theirs.
Pudding is over-rated and I've got clinical depression, so there are definitely times I did not prefer to be alive.
Oh, that's fucking dark.
I stopped believing they wanted what was best for the country after Obama was elected and I saw the...problematic responses following it.
I used to believe this, but have been reading about George Wallace, TX politics, the influence of oil and Evangelicalism and I gotta say that around 40% of the country is just nuts.
The "crazification" percent of the population is around 28%. Basically the ppl whose voting patterns could just as well be explained by massive head trauma.
That was the percent that voted for Alan Keyes a couple decades ago in Illinois and that number keeps repeating over and again.
I think the number might be higher now. Wallace pulled in 30+% in '68 and his voters are still out there (see the anti-Kamala bullshit). Trump had 46.8% in 2020--accounting for people (looking at you, Philly!) who didn't vote and I think you get to around 40%.
Speaking of a shit number, Philly's vote in 2020 was 66% of registered voters--best showing since 1984. Still, way too low in a city with a 6-1 D to R ratio.
O/T
Saw your profile and I used to love going Irish dancing in Savannah when I was in 24th/3rd ID. Bunch of soldiers would caravan from Ft Stewart to Savannah with assorted girlfriends etc for dance and Guinness back around 1995. God that was a blast. We actually got pretty good.
Thats what happens when we stop letting church be what you do in your own time behind closed doors and instead let every maladjusted freak who narrowly kept it prodromal have a seat at the table if they can get enough credulous assholes to send them a check because they like the tone of their hate.
On that note, I'd say here in Kansas we share the same values (love of family, country, etc) but not the same reality.
Trump-leaning & general GOP folks around here claim to want the same things we want.
They also think Trump is a Christian, so they are delusional.
Back to: different realities.
No offense, but bad example. How about not masking, not vaxxing, not observing safe distancing for a bizarre concept called "FreeDumb." No, I'm NOT going to be careful becuz I'll defy to my death what the libs tell me do. Eff You Libs. Buh-bye dumb ass. Alas, this is what my conservative uncle did.
John Rogers' colleague Tyrone pegged it a little lower than that, but things may have changed in almost twenty years.
kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/10/lunc...
I don't doubt you're right, John. I just guesstimated their numbers, but there's no way in the world they're the majority they pretend to be. They're just very noisy and squeaky-wheely.
Just like in Lincoln's Cooper Union speech, "what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right." Some values are irreconcilable.
This is the real truth that the right's embrace of Trump reveled to me. I may have known before but watching the grotesque valueless shit show made the reality impossible to ignore.
Problem is, I'm not even sure if those people prefer to be alive anymore; considering how eager they are to do stuff that increases their chances of dying.
Yes. This is the distinction between "opponents" and "enemies". Opponents may believe different things than you, but you can work with them. Enemies? No, enemies are enemies. Politics involve strange bedfellows, but in the end an enemy is an enemy.
Every time CA catches on fire, when people are dying, right wingers (MANY) have to comment how thrilled they are, that they have no sympathy, it's what we deserve, etc. Absolutely depraved! White men are truly out of control. I have no solutions
California is not a land of unending blue bleeding heart liberals. CA elected Ahnold Schwartznegger twice as governor. He's not Marjorie Three Toes, but no one would confuse the Terminator with Nancy Pelosi.
Oh, my point is that Repubs dancing on the graves of Californians, are dancing on some of their fellow travelers. But I guess they're rejoicing over their ignorant beliefs, not reality. Hope that clears it up.
I don't believe they consider any of us "fellow travelers"
No matter where they are from they are universally hateful and dehumanizing.
Basically the GOP platform!