Mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh today.

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Well, the way out is to admit that they’re wrong. And the entire Conservative media-sphere is designed basically to insulate people from admitting they’re wrong. And everything i’ve seen from Conservatives today is built upon so many layers of … misinformation, or bad information, that getting even that is all but impossible.

The best that seems to happen, from experience, is a kind of “both sides” thing. Ok, they say, Trump is bad, but Obama was the most divisive President in history!" they respond. Or, they say things like, “Ok, I’ll admit Trump is bad if you prosecute Hillary for Bengazi and her emails!”

In other words, conservatives to get retain the bulk or majority of their beliefs, and even validate them by some kind of compromise. But that’s not how the world should work. We don’t get Hitler to step down in 1938 by also admitting the Jews caused WW1. LIberals shouldn’t have to compromise with unreality just to get a slice of reality every now and then.

Trump is just the cherry on the cake of decades of misinformation and biased information. Conservatives aren’t going to find an easy, comfortable compromise solution that leaves their biased worldview intact with a pass every now and then to liberals. It’s the whole cake that’s gone off.

Even if liberals have all sort of blind spots and problems in the past, there is neither symmetry or equivalence. Manage your own home, ect.

So what this rage and anger should be signaling to “the other side” is “Holy moly, where did we go wrong?” Instead it’s the opposite reaction.

That’s why i point to things like Slavery and Civil Rights - there were plenty of screaming and gnashing of teeth over those issues - to the death, in the former case. And they were wrong. Not a little, not meet in the middle, they were flatly wrong. And they fought to the death for their right to be wrong in the hundreds of thousands.

That’s basically what i tell conservatives now. Are you so sure you’re not on the same side as the South was? Are you sure you’re not the bad guys here? And there isn’t a pause and reflection, just the gnashing of teeth, the screaming of Bengazhi!!, the roll of the eyes to the back of the head, the animal like growl of anger at “Liberals!!”. Most of this is just fed to them by Fox et al. But what can be done?

Well, in my mind it would be both sides letting go of their narratives and existing preconceptions and working toward building a common baseline, and common methods of obtaining non narrative driven facts, and work toward joint solutions and joint compromise to the betterment of the nation.

At least internationally from my reading, getting someone to admit they are wrong, is a non starter fantasy, success comes from finding common ground and building rapport by jointly working together to build successes for each side.

You’re still on this both sides thing. Until you let this go, there is nothing to talk about. There is no common baseline when the other side wants you dead or enslaved.

For a good year coastal liberals donned pith helmets and rambled the wilds of West Virginia (wtf is it about West Virginia that liberals love so much, btw?) and Louisiana to figure out where they went wrong.

When reasonable conservatives like George Will discovered they were wrong from the Republican end… they left the party. Because the party had left reasonableness behind.

I agree with this.

There are a lot of reasons people vote Republican. For a small subset, that reason would generally be considered evil – the racists, the anti-semites, the people longing for an authoritarian. I do not know what percentage of the GOP they represent, but I do not believe that half of that party wants to kill the jews, ship the blacks back to africa and start tossing muslims in camps. Thus, ‘small subset.’

The majority vote republican for a larger mix of issues, most of which are wrapped up in identity and religion. Some are focused on specific issues such as gun rights, taxes, abortion, etc. They’re not voting for Trump because they like Nazis.

Does that make them complicit? Am I saying, “It’s OK to vote for Hitler, as long as you base that on how timely the trains are.” I don’t think this is a yes/ no question. The combined effects of cognitive bias, conservative media and simple ignorance make it complicated. Most people I know, even very smart people, devote almost none of their time to following the news. They’re busy.

Calling all Republicans evil, Nazis, etc, is inaccurate and supremely unhelpful. Nobody reacts to those accusations by re-thinking their positions. That’s not how brains work. So, if you just want to vent, have at it. But if you want to influence people, you have to begin with empathy, not accusations. That’s the only approach that works.

This is a failed policy. This is what we did prior to Trump. All it did was embolden them. The empathy, the caring, the listening to people make horrific statements and not confronting them on it… that’s what happened prior to Trump. I don’t know how you can claim this works when it literally did not work.

Yeah, both sides went out the door with regards to the GOP/Conservatives a long time ago - it’s currently a completely false equivalency.

Maybe. Counterfactuals are hard to know. It might be this strategy was why Obama was elected at all.

Ok, I guess I’m surprised to have to point this out, but no discussion happens that the constitution doesn’t already cover, including the abandonment of rationality. Anyone suggesting the murder or control of another group if OFF the table! That’s not, and never will be a discussion, because its a self refuting idea.

Kidnapping children and putting them in cages? Totally on the table!

Site really needs a like button.

Nesrie, this ‘policy’ led to steady, if uneven, progress on most social issues. Maybe it was two steps forward, one step back, and 2016 was one of those steps back. That doesn’t mean that empathy, discussion and debate will never work again. They do. The history of this country over my 52-year lifespan has demonstrated that.

Yes, this time has been punctuated by awful moments. Assassinations, hate crimes, Trump. We’re in the middle of one of those moments now. If we give in to the emotions of this moment and decide that all Republicans are the enemy… where does that lead?

I’ll say again, I don’t think calling someone evil/ racist/ nazi has ever, ever changed their mind. That doesn’t mean that minds can’t change, but confrontation is about increasing the social cohesion of your group, not changing the attitudes of your ‘enemy.’

We either fix this by coming together, or this devolves into widespread violence followed by tyranny. I don’t think we’re at the point where the only decision left is which side gets the gallows, and which one the white house.

Again lots of people democrats and republicans stood against this and spoke against this., This is unequivocally wrong. This doesn’t mean everyone abandons their ideology and switches their belief system to the other side, they stood up to a bad policy. Which happened, and policy changed. Should the same people do it more broadly, absolutely. My point is you are making a narrative point, that doesn’t reflect people reactions. It does reflect the white house, which we all agree is a chaotic mess of self interests and corruption.

Do you believe all Republicans support this policy? (I know you recognize a rhetorical question when you see one!)

So, what do we do with the Trump voters who don’t believe Mexicans should be treated as vermin? Call them Nazis, too, and see if they then decide to vote Democratic?

Forced sterilization was legal in the early 20th century and backed by the Supreme Court (see Buck v. Bell). After Reconstruction, blacks in the South were ‘controlled’ in all sorts of ways with the blessing of government at multiple levels at least until the 60s.

There’s lots of ways nastiness can find its way in, and the constitution isn’t some kind of impenetrable bulwark. Anyway it’s only ever as good as the people who interpret it and stand up for it.

I believe that the difference between a Republican who directly supports kidnapping children and locking them in cages and a Republican who doesn’t care about locking children in cages because they want tax cuts is effectively zero. At least in my mind.

Awful moments? What do you mean moments? Minority groups often spend their entire lives under assault, sometimes literal physical assaults, and you call those moments? This progress you’re talking about. Does that including voting? The voting that the GOP is working 24/7 to take away from… minority groups wherever and whenever they can?

You think the the real solution to this lunatic blowing people away in their synagogue was one of them didn’t approach this guy soon enough to offer hugs and sympathy? At what point will you actually blame the assailants? Calling someone racist does not make them racist. They’re being called racist because they’re racist, and this murderer is evil. And we can’t say that often enough. This man and anyone like him, you cannot negotiate with nor are you going to go to prison and try and find common ground with him. This man killed people based on little else but hate and encouragement that now was the time to do it.

I didn’t know that, on man… I’m going to read it and get all depressed. :(

Yep – you don’t have to go very far back to find this stuff. That shows two things: 1) This strain of evil still exists, and 2) Its influence has been steadily, if unevenly eroded.