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> I suspect social conservatives have so much power in the US because they attend church and that forms a nexus of political organization. I think it's more th

by dx87 6y ago

> I suspect social conservatives have so much power in the US because they attend church and that forms a nexus of political organization. I think it's more that it's easier to agree on things as a conservative. "I don't want rapid social changes" is pretty much the defining trait of someone being conservative, and since it's based on the past or present, there isn't much room for interpretation or different viewpoints. For progressive voters, they want things to change, but there are a ton of different ideas for how they want things to change, so you see a lot of "snake eating it's own tail" as groups don't agree on how things should change. Conservative politicians can just sit back and go "look at the crazy libs tearing themselves apart" and get people to vote for them.

121789 6y ago
If you’re lumping in economic change with social change, I think that’s broadly true. What’s also easier is the fact that progressives generally have to 1. Pick things to change and 2. Give some indication of how they’ll change it. Often it’s pretty easy for conservatives to point out flaws in prioritization for #1 or flaws in unrealistic plans for #2.
- medium_burrito 6y ago
  I disagree that the progressives need to do that- as a conservative myself. I think both sides need to take a step back. Here's the process I would follow: 1) Agree on a set of problems are valid problems faced by everybody- say high cost of housing, expensive healthcare, crumbling infrastructure, police violence, children being raised in single-parent households, a completely worthless education system, non-compete agreements, war on drugs, prison reform, etc. Maybe someone thinks one problem is more important than others, but it doesn't matter- pretty much everybody can agree that these are problems. You don't need to trivialize things that other people think are important. 2) Discuss the causes of the problems. Again, there might be disagreement, but you can get some facts. If you approach it as a problem to be solved, people can agree. 3) Discuss possible solutions to the problems. Doesn't need to be 100%, and think about how hard these solutions are to implement. For example, with police serving warrants- maybe you limit it to waking hours, except for hostage situations or some immediate emergency. That's low hanging fruit. If you can fix a bunch of small things, it can still make a big difference. Whenever I discuss politics with people, that's how I approach it. You can't take an all or nothing approach, it's just not feasible. But if we break down big problems into small problems that people can understand, we can slowly make progress.

by dx87 6y ago

121789 6y ago

If you’re lumping in economic change with social change, I think that’s broadly true. What’s also easier is the fact that progressives generally have to 1. Pick things to change and 2. Give some indication of how they’ll change it. Often it’s pretty easy for conservatives to point out flaws in prioritization for #1 or flaws in unrealistic plans for #2.

medium_burrito 6y ago
I disagree that the progressives need to do that- as a conservative myself. I think both sides need to take a step back. Here's the process I would follow: 1) Agree on a set of problems are valid problems faced by everybody- say high cost of housing, expensive healthcare, crumbling infrastructure, police violence, children being raised in single-parent households, a completely worthless education system, non-compete agreements, war on drugs, prison reform, etc. Maybe someone thinks one problem is more important than others, but it doesn't matter- pretty much everybody can agree that these are problems. You don't need to trivialize things that other people think are important. 2) Discuss the causes of the problems. Again, there might be disagreement, but you can get some facts. If you approach it as a problem to be solved, people can agree. 3) Discuss possible solutions to the problems. Doesn't need to be 100%, and think about how hard these solutions are to implement. For example, with police serving warrants- maybe you limit it to waking hours, except for hostage situations or some immediate emergency. That's low hanging fruit. If you can fix a bunch of small things, it can still make a big difference. Whenever I discuss politics with people, that's how I approach it. You can't take an all or nothing approach, it's just not feasible. But if we break down big problems into small problems that people can understand, we can slowly make progress.