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While it's true that you can reach out and have a meal, share a laugh, with a Trump supporter, I don't think that will do anything lasting or good. Trump suppor

While it's true that you can reach out and have a meal, share a laugh, with a Trump supporter, I don't think that will do anything lasting or good. Trump supporters are, in my personal experience, willfully ignorant. They make general statements (particularly about the poor state of the US and Obama's failure) and cannot back them up with supporting facts. They get indignant and threatened when asked for facts. They ignore evidence of his lack of personal values. Yet the doom that faces America is very real, and this is really the cause of their emotions. Intuitively they know we can't consume so much without producing it. If we offshore production, we must eventually offshore consumption. Chinese workers earning $5 a day, Chinese factories paying no attention to the environment or workers rights, this is really the ONLY problem we need to address. And the liberal elites don't care, because they don't make money making things, and never did. Are you a liberal elite wanting to heal the divide? Build a factory in the USA. A real, physical factory that builds real, physical things. And if you do the math and realize you can't do that and compete with China, then fight like hell to punish Chinese producers for playing the game by unfair rules (e.g. impose tariffs to at least bring the price up to what it would be if they paid their people a living wage, benefits, and protected the environment).

ManFromUranus 10y ago
There is the matter that, even if these Trump supporters provided facts you wouldn't believe those facts anyway. You would attribute the facts they provided to different causes and interpret them in your own way to suit your world view. It's really a waste of time talking to each other. I've spent plenty of time arguing with people on the left. Facts and figures and citations stored on my phone (TO SHOW PEOPLE IRL) and all for nothing. Complete waste of time. The only thing that made a difference was arguing with a liberal friend about diversity. I was able to point out that he lives in the whitest building in the whitest part of the city. So harping on about diversity is hypocritical because when he had time to put his money where his mouth is he did the opposite (he is white). That was the only thing that even made him pause to think for a second. In my experience, no amount of facts, no amount of well meaning discussion has any point. Nobody on the left will agree with you, they won't see your point, they willfully choose to misunderstand your points, they misrepresent your arguments when they repeat them back to you. It is a futile waste of time to talk to each other. The issue will eventually be decided the way all such fundamental irreconcilable disagreements are decided, might will make right in the end.
ConfuciusSay02 10y ago
Is this post satire? Your prescription for solving the problem is more or less identical to what Trump has stated he plans to do with respect to trade with China.

ManFromUranus 10y ago

There is the matter that, even if these Trump supporters provided facts you wouldn't believe those facts anyway. You would attribute the facts they provided to different causes and interpret them in your own way to suit your world view. It's really a waste of time talking to each other. I've spent plenty of time arguing with people on the left. Facts and figures and citations stored on my phone (TO SHOW PEOPLE IRL) and all for nothing. Complete waste of time. The only thing that made a difference was arguing with a liberal friend about diversity. I was able to point out that he lives in the whitest building in the whitest part of the city. So harping on about diversity is hypocritical because when he had time to put his money where his mouth is he did the opposite (he is white). That was the only thing that even made him pause to think for a second. In my experience, no amount of facts, no amount of well meaning discussion has any point. Nobody on the left will agree with you, they won't see your point, they willfully choose to misunderstand your points, they misrepresent your arguments when they repeat them back to you. It is a futile waste of time to talk to each other. The issue will eventually be decided the way all such fundamental irreconcilable disagreements are decided, might will make right in the end.

ConfuciusSay02 10y ago

Is this post satire? Your prescription for solving the problem is more or less identical to what Trump has stated he plans to do with respect to trade with China.