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Allow me to inject a cynical slant to your hopeful suggestion that people 'today more than ever' can chose their peers. People with a certain education supporte

Allow me to inject a cynical slant to your hopeful suggestion that people 'today more than ever' can chose their peers. People with a certain education supported by an infrastructure (personal and technological) that allows for choice have this flexibility, but those without see only the threat of 'the other,' not an opportunity to rethink fundamental principles. Worse, political leaders continue to exploit ignorance, but with sophisticated mass communication tools and technologies Twain could never have imagined. Prominent examples: 1. Lower-middle class Southern whites in the U.S. (with whom Twain was intimately familiar) embrace right-wing rhetoric (devout opposition to a godless, liberal govt that rewards a free-loading underclass) while the Republican Party caves to the self-interest of the mega-corp oligarchy. These folks who would benefit from social reforms reject all such liberal notions because, well, they still believe anyone who's not white and Christian is out to take away what little they have. But regressive conservative tax policy is actually doing them harm. (tl;dr: see the success of Fox News, with its overwhelmingly white/old audience. http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/04/02/ratings-growth-and-cable-news-dominance-will-boost-fox-news-subscription-revenues/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/04/02/rat...) 2. Given the above in the U.S., is it any wonder radical Islam succeeds in less affluent, less educated areas of the world--where there's very little exposure to outside ideas. And there's certainly very little opportunity for social/intellectual/economic mobility.

rdancer 11y ago
Protestant conservatives support Republican corporatist policy for the same reason urban hipsters support Democrat corporatist policy: because the vote tallying rules strongly favour a two-party system, and the parties they respectively support at least pretend to care about them, while the majority of the Nation sees them as a laughing stock. It speaks to their moral fibre that they are willing to put up with economic disadvantages to prop up policies that they care about. Suggesting people are somehow foolish because they put ideas before take-home is a weak argument. I'm sure you have a point, but maybe you could come up with better examples.
- marktangotango 11y ago
  This characterization is often put forth to explain how the poor can support the Republicans: >> These folks who would benefit from social reforms reject all such liberal notions because, well, they still believe anyone who's not white and Christian is out to take away what little they have. In my experience, coming from fly over country, the real thought process could not be further removed. Where I came from, self reliance and self determination were prized. We might be poor as hell, heating our home with wood we cut, and eating food we grew and shot, but so was everyone else in our area, and there was nothing wrong with that. We weren't taking hand outs and getting along just fine (embellishing and paraphrasing try to make the point here). The idea being, everyone could do this, but were too lazy. We were poor, but not impoverished. The gp's characterization is actually quite offensive to these people.

rdancer 11y ago

Protestant conservatives support Republican corporatist policy for the same reason urban hipsters support Democrat corporatist policy: because the vote tallying rules strongly favour a two-party system, and the parties they respectively support at least pretend to care about them, while the majority of the Nation sees them as a laughing stock. It speaks to their moral fibre that they are willing to put up with economic disadvantages to prop up policies that they care about. Suggesting people are somehow foolish because they put ideas before take-home is a weak argument. I'm sure you have a point, but maybe you could come up with better examples.

marktangotango 11y ago
This characterization is often put forth to explain how the poor can support the Republicans: >> These folks who would benefit from social reforms reject all such liberal notions because, well, they still believe anyone who's not white and Christian is out to take away what little they have. In my experience, coming from fly over country, the real thought process could not be further removed. Where I came from, self reliance and self determination were prized. We might be poor as hell, heating our home with wood we cut, and eating food we grew and shot, but so was everyone else in our area, and there was nothing wrong with that. We weren't taking hand outs and getting along just fine (embellishing and paraphrasing try to make the point here). The idea being, everyone could do this, but were too lazy. We were poor, but not impoverished. The gp's characterization is actually quite offensive to these people.