Miami Herald: I’m done trying to understand Trump supporters. Why don’t they try to understand me?

[Bozo the kKklown]

 

Quote

And I’m sorry, but I don’t think “understanding” Trump followers will ameliorate — or even address — any of that. Besides which, is there really so much left to “understand?”

Not from where I sit. Long before Trump even existed as a political force, many of us noted with alarm the rise of a backlash among right wingers deeply angry and profoundly terrified by the writing on the demographic wall. Said writing foretold — and for that matter, still foretells — the declining preeminence of white, Christian America. As several studies now show, a sense of alarmed displacement among white, Christian America is the soil from which the weed of Trumpism grew.

The idea that we must “understand” those folks carries with it an implicit suggestion that in so doing, we might find some ground for compromise. It would be a great idea in normal times. But again, these times are not normal.

No compromise is possible here for a simple reason Trump followers seem to understand better than the rest of us: You can’t compromise with demography, can’t order numbers to stop being what they are and saying what they say about the coming tide of change. But what you can do is seize the levers of power and change the rules of the game in hopes of blunting the force of that tide. That — again, look at the studies — is what Trump supporters elected him to do.

So while, it is admirable to think “understanding” can fix this country, it is also naive. Progressives should ask themselves: When’s the last time you heard any Trump supporters talking about the need to understand you? You haven’t — and that ought to tell you something.

 

more in the twitter link 

Edited May 5, 2018 by BenningRoadSkin

[twa]

Maybe they do understand him, which lead them to elect Trump.

 

Demographics will not be the magic carpet ride to power some seem to believe. 

[Hersh]

What's there not to understand? Almost everything is about hating democrats without actual reason. Sure there is plenty of racism, plenty of false outrage over completely made up issues (see government coming for your guns, can't say Christmas, regulations hurting people, sharia law, all things Hillary, that coal is the answer moving forward, illegals voting) and the elected national figures are spineless when it comes to Trump and without ideas. Any thought that morals and family values mattered is completely gone. As I said, everything is about how they hate Democrats. 

 

 

 

 

[Springfield]

Try and understand THIS:

 

[tshile]

@Hersh there are plenty of people that want to go after guns. We’ve got some here. There’s a rep in California that just wrote an op-ed about taking away assault weapons and going after the owners. It’s not made up. 

 

I otherwise agree with you. Well, minus the Hillary is an innocent victim of everything crap. 

[Hersh]

5 minutes ago, tshile said:

@Hersh there are plenty of people that want to go after guns. We’ve got some here. There’s a rep in California that just wrote an op-ed about taking away assault weapons and going after the owners. It’s not made up. 

 

I otherwise agree with you. Well, minus the Hillary is an innocent victim of everything crap. 

 

Who said Hillary is an innocent victim? Also, a tiny few talking about going after owners of assault weapons doesn’t equate to the paranoia of the government coming to get any or all of ones guns. 

The unequal reaction to something perceived or believed is part of the problem.

Edited May 5, 2018 by Hersh

[tshile]

Just now, Hersh said:

 

Who said Hillary is an innocent victim? Also, a tiny few talking about going after owners of assault weapons doesn’t equate to the paranoia of the government coming to get any or all of ones guns. 

 

Pretty much everyone on the left who thought she was a great option to be president. 

 

It’s not a tiny few, and assault weapons are not the only guns people are talking about. 

[Zguy28]

16 minutes ago, Springfield said:

Try and understand THIS:

 

[Kanye pic]

Apparently there is some kind of "race summit" coming that Colin Kaepernick and Kanye West are gonna be in.

 

http://www.newsweek.com/colin-kaepernick-president-donald-trump-race-kanye-west-summit-911973

 

[LadySkinsFan]

Hillary still better than Trump.

 

And at least she respects the Republic and wouldn't try to make herself President for Life as Trump has gotten it into his brain.

 

You prepared for that, the demise of our Republic?

[Hersh]

4 minutes ago, tshile said:

 

Pretty much everyone on the left who thought she was a great option to be president. 

 

It’s not a tiny few, and assault weapons are not the only guns people are talking about. 

 

Neither of these statements are true

[nonniey]

Pretty much sure he was done trying to understand Trump supporters two seconds after Trump got his first vote in the Iowa caucus. But I also believe he is right about Trump supporters trying to understand progressives. 

 

Bottom-line in this ultra polarized society each side believes they are 100% right about everything and the other side is 100% wrong about everything.

Edited May 5, 2018 by nonniey

[SkinsHokieFan]

The fact Trump supporters haven’t tried to understand why someone like myself, who up until 2016 always voted Republican, is why they are getting their asses kicked for the next few decades. 

 

Their children will be working for my children

[Zguy28]

1 minute ago, LadySkinsFan said:

Hillary still better than Trump.

 

And at least she respects the Republic and wouldn't try to make herself President for Life as Trump has gotten it into his brain.

 

You prepared for that, the demise of our Republic?

I know people who said that when Obama was president. Wasn't correct then either. Or maybe I should say immediate. No nation lasts forever. Its just a matter of when.

[nonniey]

6 minutes ago, SkinsHokieFan said:

The fact Trump supporters haven’t tried to understand why someone like myself, who up until 2016 always voted Republican, is why they are getting their asses kicked for the next few decades. 

 

Their children will be working for my children

I still vote for Republicans and occasionally an independent  but I'll never vote for a Democrat for the same reason I'll never vote for Trump or a Trumpster. How one falls on identity politics determines whether they are an option or not (This of course eliminates all Democrats and lately more and more Republicans).

Edited May 5, 2018 by nonniey

[No Excuses]

You are never going to have a meaningful conversation with people who live in the Info Wars/Breitbart ecosystem.

 

You are never going to have a meaningful conversation with people who believed as an overwhelming majority that Barrack Obama was a Kenyan Muslim.

 

You are never going to have a meaningful conversation with people who as a majority believe that 3-5 million people voted illegally in the past election.

 

You are never going to have a meaningful conversation with people who are simply absorbing bull**** at a rate we have never seen before in this country.

 

Fight to protect the value of your cities. Don't given up an inch. 

 

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/05/jane-jacobs-100th-birthday-cities-predictions-dark-age/481077/

 

 

Quote

 

And yet, for Jacobs, the one optimistic force remained the city itself, which harnesses human diversity and propels our economy, culture, and politics forward in a more progressive, human-centric direction. Our cities, she argued, were our main line of defense between the over-powering forces of darkness and an impending dark age. Just one week after publishing Dark Age, Jacobs wrote an article for The New York Times magazine in which she argued that “perhaps it will be the city that reawakens our understanding and appreciation of nature, in all its teeming, unpredictable complexity.” These words take on an even greater importance today, a century after she was born.

 

 

 

[SkinsHokieFan]

10 minutes ago, nonniey said:

I still vote for Republicans and occasionally an independent  but I'll never vote for a Democrat for the same reason I'll never vote for Trump or a Trumpster. How one falls on identity politics determines whether they are an option or not (This of course eliminates all Democrats and lately more and more Republicans).

 

It is very clear to me the Republican Party is the party of identity politics. From the President down to local town council. 

 

Their children will will be working for mine. The election of Trump was an eye opener for someone like myself who realized about half the country hates me. So i’ll Just work to beat them. 

Edited May 5, 2018 by SkinsHokieFan

[LadySkinsFan]

18 minutes ago, Zguy28 said:

I know people who said that when Obama was president. Wasn't correct then either. Or maybe I should say immediate. No nation lasts forever. Its just a matter of when.

 

How cynical. 

 

Then you know all that Social Security and Medicare you've been paying into for years? You won't see a penny. And no more safety net for the poor and oldsters. 

 

You should read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood to see a foreshadowing of the Dominionist state.  Of course the rich will survive pretty well. 

 

Are you sure you are rich enough?

[nonniey]

6 minutes ago, SkinsHokieFan said:

 

It is very clear to me the Republican Party is the party of identity politics. From the President down to local town council. 

 

Their children will will be working for mine. The election of Trump was an eye opener for someone like myself who realized about half the country hates me. So i’ll Just work to beat them. 

Actually the Democrats are the party of identity politics and always have been (since their foundation and that hasn't changed). Certainly the President and the populist Republicans that now are ascendant in the Party also champion it.  But there still many Republicans that don't although yeah they do seem to be losing sway in the party. 

[Hersh]

All politics is identity politics. Some is just worst than others.

[Zguy28]

9 minutes ago, LadySkinsFan said:

 

How cynical. 

 

Then you know all that Social Security and Medicare you've been paying into for years? You won't see a penny. And no more safety net for the poor and oldsters. 

 

You should read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood to see a foreshadowing of the Dominionist state.  Of course the rich will survive pretty well. 

 

Are you sure you are rich enough?

You calling me cynical? That's rich in itself. You're the one casting doom and gloom all the darn time. I'm pretty sure you exist on this forum to do nothing but that. I don't think the USA is collapsing as a republic any time soon. You on the other hand sound like Republicans in the Obama years.

[No Excuses]

22 minutes ago, SkinsHokieFan said:

Their children will will be working for mine.

 

They know that and they are deathly afraid of it.

 

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/04/18/1718155115

 

 

Quote

 

Support for Donald J. Trump in the 2016 election was widely attributed to citizens who were “left behind” economically. These claims were based on the strong cross-sectional relationship between Trump support and lacking a college education. Using a representative panel from 2012 to 2016, I find that change in financial wellbeing had little impact on candidate preference. Instead, changing preferences were related to changes in the party’s positions on issues related to American global dominance and the rise of a majority–minority America: issues that threaten white Americans’ sense of dominant group status. Results highlight the importance of looking beyond theories emphasizing changes in issue salience to better understand the meaning of election outcomes when public preferences and candidates’ positions are changing.

 

 

 

 

The economic anxiety narrative needs to be shut down. In reality, white conservatives in this country are deathly afraid of losing their position of privilege that has allowed them to abuse anyone who doesn't think like them or look like them. 

 

There is no compromise to be made when fighting for a free and open society versus those would drag us back into the pre-civil rights era if given the choice.

Edited May 5, 2018 by No Excuses

[Cooked Crack]

10 minutes ago, nonniey said:

Actually the Democrats are the party of identity politics and always have been (since their foundation and that hasn't changed). Certainly the President and the populist Republicans that now are ascendant in the Party also champion it.  But there still many Republicans that don't although yeah they do seem to be losing sway in the party. 

Do you consider appealing to white folks as identity politics?

[Bozo the kKklown]

2 minutes ago, Cooked Crack said:

Do you consider appealing to white folks as identity politics?

Of course he doesn’t. They are “the norm.”

[No Excuses]

16 minutes ago, nonniey said:

Actually the Democrats are the party of identity politics and always have been (since their foundation and that hasn't changed). Certainly the President and the populist Republicans that now are ascendant in the Party also champion it.  But there still many Republicans that don't although yeah they do seem to be losing sway in the party. 

 

You really have to be a hack or blind as a bat to think Republicans haven’t engaged in identity politics until Trump. 

 

The entire southern strategy and Republican take over of the south was based on white identity politics. 

 

All Trump did was say openly what conservative politicians have been saying using dog whistles for decades.

 

The history of American politics is one giant saga of identity politics. 

Edited May 5, 2018 by No Excuses

[LadySkinsFan]

9 minutes ago, Zguy28 said:

You calling me cynical? That's rich in itself. You're the one casting doom and gloom all the darn time. I'm pretty sure you exist on this forum to do nothing but that. I don't think the USA is collapsing as a republic any time soon. You on the other hand sound like Republicans in the Obama years.

 

So tell me, which party just gave away over $1 trillion to the rich?