They’re sick of all the navel gazing bullshit.
You can’t frame it as anti-intellectualism, as intellect brings clarity. Instead all there is, is condescending waffle.
Unless you want to send Trump around for a second term, a drastic change in political approach is needed.
I think the party elite will register that, but it’s questionable if their media and rusted on supporters will.
I agree, but what I meant was more along the lines of they need to lose and have no power- since who they support is against their own self-interest. Arrogant sounding , but also true.
Fair enough, and you are right, my bubble has moved on.
Though the numbers offer a slight correction. Voter apathy was the dominant trend and that apathy allowed the tiny minority in support of soft-fascism to gain enough of a foothold.
I support free trade because one of the biggest beneficiaries of the lower prices is folks who shop at Walmart and that’s not me, how does that make me a RINO?
You’re losing the plot bro. Most of the US hasn’t had a raise in real terms in their lifetimes. That’s all on trade liberalization.
Rationality used to be the hallmark of an ivy league education. You tell me, in which public choice framework does it make sense for someone with a high school education to support the emergence of the Chinese middle class at the expense of his job?
I don’t like the way you tend to present things, but you’re right on this point. I’ve always seen this in my political evolution. Once I was a conservative, then libertarian and now mostly a liberal, but this aspect of globalization has always stuck with me. I’ve lived it. I’ve known plenty of people who have as well. It’s a real thing that neither party gave a flying fuck about. The Democrats used to, but after Reagan came in and shit all over the unions, they abandoned them and shifted to the right economically, leaving these people behind. They’re fed up, they’re pissed and they can vote.
And what sense does it make for that same person to support economic policies that want to lower or remove minimum wage laws, job protections, and workers rights laws? Things that keep their wages from going lower.
Interesting thread here:
I guess it’s interesting from a stick-your-head-in-the-sand way. His brand of coastal liberalism got us to Trump as President-Elect. Saying rural voters need to expand their horizons and get exposed to more diversity is nice, but unless he has some magic plan for that to happen, it’s the supposedly more enlightened and educated people that need to reach out to the other side.
It also ignores that more rural people can’t fucking travel. They don’t have that disposable income to just jet off to fucking New York City or whatever. They never really have. It’s like telling your waitress to go to Paris to experience real food. It isn’t in her budget; saying it makes you come off like an asshole and makes her hate you.
Send that man a copy of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
There is a degree to which he has a point. If rural whites had more exposure to minorities, things like a muslim ban, or BLM would feel more real to them, and might elevate the priority of those topics to become vote-determining factors. Even if they felt equally economically left behind, feeling that members of their community (as opposed to other communities) were under attack would cause them to act differently.
But they don’t. And there’s no real way to force them to. So, from a strategy perspective, its a meaningless revelation. It’s just another way of saying “if only everybody was like me, we’d all agree on everything”.
Here’s another thread of a similar vein to the one @Quaro put up:
Now as to whether the thoughts of that Patrick Thornton thread are possible, well, yeah. That doesn’t mean he’s wrong either. In general people get too wrapped up in their isolated bubbles, and there are some deep seated issues. It is that distinct lack of empathy for minorities, for people of different religions, that are present in large swathes of rural communities that allowed Trumps explicit dog whistles to work.
All of us here agree that exposure to diversity and education is great and it sure would be nice if these voters opened themselves up to all of that. That’s an easy call.
Lamenting that isn’t productive. I guarantee that if people just continue to shake their heads and bemoan the uneducated masses voting against their interests, nothing will change.
Sure, I agree on that. Like I said, it isn’t necessarily possible or productive to pursue that. Just that it isn’t wrong either.
Related, yesterday I saw someone post the Simpsons .gif of Principal Skinner:
“Am I so out of touch? No, it’s the children who are wrong.”
What intrinsic value does diversity have? Saying that people must be exposed to diversity to make them more tolerant of diversity is circular if you don’t demonstrate who benefits from a such a social makeup.
Oh sure. If you hate the idea of learning new things, being exposed to opinions and experiences other than the ones in your immediate area, and generally seeing things from other perspectives, then diversity is totally not worth it.
Exposure to new ideas is part of education, which you mentioned separately.
I know this is anecdotel, but I know many many successful people, people who built and run businesses, who never went to college or went long enough to get college degrees. A college degree doesn’t turn you into a genius. It merely means you went to school long enough to get it.
I’m about to embark on a lengthy project and stop shitposting here for 10 seconds, so apologies for not pulling up more, but there’s research to suggest that diversity–particularly in terms of your surroundings/environment–leads directly to increased levels of tolerance and understanding. I seem to recall a study a few years back indicating for beneficial correlations for workplace performance tied to diversity, but can’t Google it immediately; apologies.