5 ms·

Are you interested in talking to people to understand, or do you prefer to just pontificate as to why people would engage in "nonsensical" behavior?

kulahan 2y ago
This is the part that blows my mind consistently. The number of people screaming “WHY would ANYONE vote for him?!” and then not even considering trying to find out is a true bummer.
- jquery 2y ago
  They’re literally trying to find out when they exclaim that question. To me this seems a pretty clear case of inflation=“punish the incumbent” and also Biden spread out the pain of covid recovery instead of making red states bear the burden. Kamala promised more of the same, including lots of investment into rural and red areas that aren’t gonna vote for her anyway. Result? 10-15 million blue voters stayed home this cycle. Trump turned out his entire base. Just pontificating…
  - giancarlostoro 2y ago
    > They’re literally trying to find out when they exclaim that question. I've seen these conversations happen thousands of times in political communities online, before you know it, the person trying to understand starts getting angry at some point, and both people are calling each other names. Very few people truly want to understand the other side. If you want to understand the other side, the first step is to listen, and not say anything (don't try to defend your viewpoint, this isn't part of your goal, and it will derail it), ask questions, and agree to disagree politely.
    - immibis 2y ago
      Because those discussions go like this: (to a C programmer) "Why are you using C?" "Because it's memory-safe." "But it's not memory-safe." "Yes it is. Your program will just segfault rather than getting hacked." "No it won't... see these examples of C programs getting hacked without segfaulting." "You're using it wrong. See look, if you write with spaces instead of tabs, your program is memory-safe." Do you remember "MongoDB is web scale"? Would you not get angry when trying to find good reasons to use MongoDB? That's what it's like talking to the average Trump supporter, except it's about the removal of human rights instead of just which database you should use.
      - giancarlostoro 2y ago
        I see this behavior coming from either side. We are insanely polarized.
- tdhz77 2y ago
  We know why. They are ignorant, don't care, or duped. There is no reason to vote for a person morally bankrupt and doesn't have any reasonable solutions to problems. A person with felonies can't even be on a Jury in this country, and people elected him President after his attempt to overthrow the government? I would struggle to hire him to mow my grass let alone run the country. This whole "You need to talk to us" is ridiculous as the positions.
  - sfblah 2y ago
    I'll give it a shot, just maybe to help one person understand. They voted for him because 15+ years of government + federal reserve policy has led to massive bubbles in all US capital assets while impoverishing a wide swath of the population. The people who voted for Trump are those who've "lost" in the giant crypto+stock Ponzi scheme. The reason people on the winning side of this have such a hard time seeing it is that, en masse, they've turned away from any semblance of traditional valuation measures for capital assets. I assume they've done this because it's too emotionally uncomfortable to consider the notion that their entire wealth isn't because they're geniuses but because of deranged government policy.
    - zaptrem 2y ago
      Isn't Trump the pro-"crypto Ponzi scheme" (as you called it) candidate? Asset prices of both crypto and stocks seem to think so.
      - sfblah 2y ago
        Yep. It's ironic and shitty, but people just did a protest vote. They aren't looking at the specific proposals. They don't care anymore. You're absolutely right, but honestly both parties are completely in on the Ponzi scheme. So it probably doesn't matter.
      - tim333 2y ago
        Not only pro but going to put your tax dollars in: >US Senator Lummis reaffirms Bitcoin will be become a national reserve asset following Trump's victory
- immibis 2y ago
  Many of us have, and that's how we know their stated reasons are just nonsense. There's a video of the creator interviewing a Trumper about how tariffs work....
  - aydyn 2y ago
    You think you're going to get a solid answer interviewing some random person on the street? That's what an intelligent person would call a strawman. Do you want me to point you to the video of well-educated coastal elites calling the assassination attempt a Hoax? There are of course more than one reason why people voted for him, but there's literally tons of comments in this very thread explaining why with no nonsense and under no uncertain terms. Ironically, a lot of those comments get flagged and are no longer visible.
    - kulahan 2y ago
      No, I think there needs to be a culture of talking to and respecting people with different opinions. And before you jump to the extreme of “but they don’t want me to EXIST!”, that’s not the point. The point is that we temper each other, partially by negotiating, and partially by simply making the “other side” more used to our ideas. That just happens with repeated exposure. If something is scary, but generally not bad, people can get used to it, but only if they’re exposed to it regularly. You get used to public speaking after the ten thousandth time instead, because you’ve likely already confronted every fear you had in real life by now. Ironically, this is extremely easy to fix. Politicians can simply get along in public. We’ve got studies showing that political extremism can die almost overnight when the opposing politicians simply explain that they do respect their opponent. As for the people here explaining themselves clearly - that’s because dang has done a good job of fostering a community of high quality commenters. You won’t find this kind of discourse anywhere else, and it’s the main reason I treasure this site.
      - aydyn 2y ago
        > No, I think there needs to be a culture of talking to and respecting people with different opinions. Absolutely. > As for the people here explaining themselves clearly - that’s because dang has done a good job of fostering a community of high quality commenters. Hard disagree. The level of political discussion on HN is barely a step above r/politics. This is a forum for 110 IQ codecels who think minor domain expertise means they are smarter than everyone else in all aspects. The contempt for ordinary people in this very thread is nauseating.
- anon291 2y ago
  Yup all my comments offering to explain and explaining have been flagged. Even ones with no sarcasm. Just because waiting for someone to doxx me again and dang to do nothing.
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    HN just flags all comments that seem to support Trump in any way, even with good arguments. So no idea why comments are even open anymore when some points of view are obviously not allowed here yet 52% of the country seem to supported them to a degree. Obviously HN users just want their own groupthink eco chamber without wanting to hear other opinions. So in that regard I'm enjoying watching lib woketards having a mental breakdown for the second time since 2016. Stay ignorant, stay foolish. Hell, I'm not even from America and I saw it comming from a mile away. Calling half of their country "nazis" and "fascist" was the worst campaign move I have ever seen in my life.
    - brainphreeze 2y ago
      The user base here seems to be just as close-minded and condescending as it is on Reddit. Very disappointing to be honest.
      - anon291 2y ago
        Ideally the new economic policies will break the stranglehold of Silicon Valley. Already with the arrival of Musk, oracle, etc in Texas, there's a balance beginning to shift.
    - anon291 2y ago
      Yeah, I've been threatened and doxxed on this forum... no action. So brave. Stunning.
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        Why?
- vundercind 2y ago
  Not trying? It was all the media did for like 2017 through 2018. “Venture safari-style among the rural or flyover-state-suburban white“ was practically its own genre, and it was everywhere. You couldn’t turn on NPR without hearing a devout rural white Christian relate how they prayed on it then held their nose and voted for the unrepentant sinner because of abortion. It’s why Vance’s weird, insulting book was embraced by the Left(!) as “real talk” from an actual member of the group they were trying to understand.
  - gjsman-1000 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - vundercind 2y ago
      This is the kind of thing the people they interviewed were saying. [edit] I mean it was my shorthand for “I know he’s a serial adulterer, and his business dealings are shady, and he says some really awful things… but I prayed on it and…” which is closer to a direct quote of things I heard multiple times. Other demographics had other reasons but that was a common one from the pro-life set.
    - tomrod 2y ago
      To be fair, most Christian denominations establish inflexibility at the outset by claiming to be a worldview that is "true", "unerring", or similar attribute, despite lacking any epistemological introspection -- meaning of the 5,000 or so different denominations in the world, at least 4,999 are sorely disappointed that not only do they not reconcile to each other, they also don't reconcile to reality. Whereas a person can review an idea, try it on like a coat, see how it fits, and then keep or discard if it's found amenable and improving to their views of the world. Vice President Harris' opponent also professes and acts on a worldview wildly deviant from most, if not all, Christian denominations.
      - gjsman-1000 2y ago
        Well, objectively, only one religion can be true if any religion is true, just as the existence of gravity is irreconcilable with the existence of no gravity; but go on. We haven't grown up as a nation and collectively decided which one it is yet, but I have preferences. Not that preferences even matter - if I'm falling off a building, my preference for there to be no gravity won't make a difference.
- kbrisso 2y ago
  Why do people vote for him? America is a closet racist country and the education system obviously doesn't produce critical thinkers. The south is poor and Trump will make them money again some how - they believe that. Trump will make grocery prices' go down and create many magnificent jobs. Trump will make interest rates go down and loans cheaper. He will deport all the Mexicans so the black or white people can fill the jobs.Trump is a populist con man who conned his base. No public company or start up will ever hire a CEO like him. I call this political entropy. This is the decline in America in my view. It's a sad day and I will just stick my head in the sand and hope we make it through.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  I think it points to a real lack of humility. Why would you try to find out how your thinking might be flawed if you start with the assumption that everyone who disagrees with you is an idiot? And I say this as someone who did this exact thing in 2016.
- redleggedfrog 2y ago
  I did, partly out of curiosity, partly because I'm in a progressive town literally surrounded for a hundred miles by a sea of red. They like Trump because he appears anti-establishment and they fear/dislike the establishment. They don't feel the establishment in place is good for them. They truly, truly struggle with finances. Many are in the military and on food stamps. Some are farmers who can't make farming work anymore. They fear immigrants because they might take jobs or bring crime (and drugs). They fear they cannot protect themselves so the want access to guns. One common thread was the stimulus checks. They really liked the stimulus checks. Another thing is pining for the good ol' days. Lot of that, too. No issues like pronouns muddying things up. Generally, not racist, not sexist, but some are, just like any rando person. Seemed to me just like regular folk who are scared and can't make ends meet like they used to, well, a long time ago. The grocery store prices that are annoying to me are truly a decision point for them. Then when you take three steps back, and look at it objectively, it's often of their own doing. A lot, I mean a lot, of disparagement of education, even of K-12, so the means to get better employment is more of a struggle. A whole lot of drug and alcohol abuse on top of it. They are the only people I know who smoke. Lot of broken relationships and marriages. Family chaos. The image of solid salt of the earth isn't what my Trumper acquaintances (friends?) are experiencing. They are pretty desperate and really wish there was some way to get back on top of things. So, in desperation they vote for a person that promises to make it better. And really they don't care about much else. If you want to win elections, do the chicken in every pot line. This is all anecdotal of course, but I went to the effort, this was seven people, all of whom I'm on good terms with and converse with on a regular basis. And they were respectful of my position - that you need both conservatives (to keep what's good of the old ways) and progressives (to find new ways that are better) in the political arena to make it work. That's not a popular position, though.
  - kulahan 2y ago
    This feels close enough to my experience that I believe you actually do speak genuinely with these people. I think a huge part of it is also that they feel seen by someone, finally. Trump did a great job of making these people feel like the spotlight was finally on them, and honestly it’s true.
burnte 2y ago
The reason it doesn't make sense to people like him (and me) is that we look at all the times he promised to release the health care plan, the January 6 incident, the calls to states to "find" votes, the constant complaining about rigged elections, the constant complaining about basically EVERYTHING he doesn't like, and more, and we don't see how anyone can overlook that. He never answers policy questions clearly. He doesn't understand tarriffs will raise our prices. He thinks RFK should be in charge of HHS. He wants to shut down TV networks that criticize him. When I ask folks why those things don't matter, I either get "what about So-and-so," or "I don't believe that," or they just blow off the question without an answer. I even went to the Ask a Conservative sub on Reddit and asked why people think millions of noncitizens are voting in elections, and I got yelled at, called naive, and told that some local municipalities allow non-citizen votes in local elections so therefore they can vote federally too. That said, I'd LOVE to know why none of the things Trump says or does dissuades his voters. Truly, because I really do not understand. I don't want to argue, or to try to convince you you're wrong, I would love to know why those things don't matter and you think Trump is a force for good.
- guywithahat 2y ago
  > we look at all the times he promised to release the health care plan, the January 6 incident, the calls to states to "find" votes, the constant complaining about rigged elections, the constant complaining about basically EVERYTHING he doesn't like, and more Have you considered the possibility his supporters know something you don't? A lot of what you mentioned is either debunked or is fraught with misinformation
  - drabbiticus 2y ago
    > A lot of what you mentioned is either debunked or is fraught with misinformation Why do you believe this?
  - sleepybrett 2y ago
    explain how him saying for over two years that he would have a healthcare plan in some number of weeks (changed several times) is debunked or misinformation. Because we all watched it.
avereveard 2y ago
Disclaimer: left wing European voter. It's clear from the message what the grandparent post opinion is, there's no need for understanding the right, the conclusion is there already and it's that the right wing voters are: > uneducated and poor This narrative about the right voters has been there since at least the nineties, only for the left to wonder why dialogue dried up. Then the left drops the ball on big ticket issues, and people move more and more to the right, while fringe right positions become normalized. Oh well, if it weren't for those pesky uneducated voters!
donmcronald 2y ago
I'll bite on this because I really don't understand it. I can understand why people relate to a lot of the messaging. For example, if you say that government institutions are broken because they're filled with waste and corruption, I think there's some truth to that and I can see the appeal of agreeing with that sentiment. There are many things that all politicians say are broken and they right. Where it breaks down for me is when you move into the plan for fixing those problems. You can't just reduce the funding of government institutions and assume there's some motive to re-optimize for efficiency. That might work to some degree in the business world where there's a profit motive, but on the public side of things the people that are abusing the system for personal gain aren't going to optimize to provide services more efficiently. They're more likely to optimize for more personal gain as the expectation of failing institutions becomes normalized. Eventually, I think you end up with government services and institutions that are even less efficient per dollar spent because the solution for trying to improve them doesn't seem to have any plans for accountability. So I think people are voting to effectively de-fund government services and institutions with the misguided promise of reduced tax burden and increased efficiency, but what they're going to get is equal spending, less services, and more people benefiting personally from the shift in policy, especially if services start using more private sector vendors. For example, some of our education funding in Canada has been cut massively due to the perception of waste, which is true to a point when you look at administrative bloat, but the cuts always impact the front-line people providing services and miss the administrative layer where the waste is occurring. That makes the ratio of waste even higher and people are left wondering why nothing works. I might be wrong, but I think all you're going to do with a broad mandate to "gut everything" is to create an opportunity for self-interested parties to usurp government funding for personal gain when the goal should be to increase accountability and efficiency. Loosely related, a massive problem we have in Canada is that front-line workers have been completely eliminated from the decision making process. Everyone I know can look at things done in their workplace and identify mistakes and inefficiencies that are the result of administration that lacks real world experience. For example, they built a prison in the city where I live where they put (sewer) drains inside the cells. Every single prison guard that you'd ask would tell you that's a mistake because the prisoners can plug them and flood the cells. That's the result of arrogant administration thinking they know everything. My last point is also part of the reason I think people voted for Trump. I wouldn't because I don't think his solutions are going to improve anything, but a lot of people believe the system is broken because they personally see mismanagement on a daily basis and it's done by the people getting paid the most. So I get why the messaging is appealing, but I don't understand why people think some of the proposed solutions are going to work. Maybe someone can explain to me how having Musk "do what he did at Twitter" to public institutions is going to provide better services to the public.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
interested, but I looked all through social media for that. Reddit, Tiktok, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, Bluesky. Pretty much everything but Facebook. I really couldn't find much reason. So many Trump supports were just interested in "salt mining" from Harris supporters. The few issues I could find were - he'll fix inflation/the economy (he absolutely won't) - he'll mass deport immigrants (not a sympathetic reasoning for me. Also mass deportations are expensive; see the above point) - Racist remarks about Harris (that's not even worth talking about) - "This is a response to identity politics" (to put it in the least racist/Sexist/transphobic way). - Oddly enough, nothing on Gun control. Maybe I didn't look hard enough. So there's maybe 2 legitimate reaosns (no matter how misguided I feel about them) and a lot of hate. And then dismissals of any worries from opponents. It was honestly tiring how many "but Trump doesn't support Project 2025" I've heard. The most legitmate dismissals of Harris came from "she wasn't voted in". Which yes, I actually do agree with and did not support at all. But we're well past the point where general elections are "pick the least bad candidate". Some issues about Israel, but I'm not going to pretend that wasn't always a bipartisan issue up top and that both sides in government are walking on eggshells about that issue. ----- So yeah, my experience trying to find some truth below the ocean of feelings came down to "There's nothing inspiring about trump except that he didn't fuck up like Harris". There's no platform, just chaos and hate. Maybe there are some smart conservatives offline that have actual legitimate points, but I don't have access to that and I suspect many of their arguments are simply economical (they want tax cuts for them and will vote that way. Selfish, but a very honest and reasonable point in an individualistic society). I'd love to hear otherwise, but I'm not convinced HN will be much different from the dozen other platforms I checked. It seems to be all "vibes". vibes in weird ways and very dangerous ways.

kulahan 2y ago

This is the part that blows my mind consistently. The number of people screaming “WHY would ANYONE vote for him?!” and then not even considering trying to find out is a true bummer.

jquery 2y ago
They’re literally trying to find out when they exclaim that question. To me this seems a pretty clear case of inflation=“punish the incumbent” and also Biden spread out the pain of covid recovery instead of making red states bear the burden. Kamala promised more of the same, including lots of investment into rural and red areas that aren’t gonna vote for her anyway. Result? 10-15 million blue voters stayed home this cycle. Trump turned out his entire base. Just pontificating…
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  > They’re literally trying to find out when they exclaim that question. I've seen these conversations happen thousands of times in political communities online, before you know it, the person trying to understand starts getting angry at some point, and both people are calling each other names. Very few people truly want to understand the other side. If you want to understand the other side, the first step is to listen, and not say anything (don't try to defend your viewpoint, this isn't part of your goal, and it will derail it), ask questions, and agree to disagree politely.
  - immibis 2y ago
    Because those discussions go like this: (to a C programmer) "Why are you using C?" "Because it's memory-safe." "But it's not memory-safe." "Yes it is. Your program will just segfault rather than getting hacked." "No it won't... see these examples of C programs getting hacked without segfaulting." "You're using it wrong. See look, if you write with spaces instead of tabs, your program is memory-safe." Do you remember "MongoDB is web scale"? Would you not get angry when trying to find good reasons to use MongoDB? That's what it's like talking to the average Trump supporter, except it's about the removal of human rights instead of just which database you should use.
    - giancarlostoro 2y ago
      I see this behavior coming from either side. We are insanely polarized.
tdhz77 2y ago
We know why. They are ignorant, don't care, or duped. There is no reason to vote for a person morally bankrupt and doesn't have any reasonable solutions to problems. A person with felonies can't even be on a Jury in this country, and people elected him President after his attempt to overthrow the government? I would struggle to hire him to mow my grass let alone run the country. This whole "You need to talk to us" is ridiculous as the positions.
- sfblah 2y ago
  I'll give it a shot, just maybe to help one person understand. They voted for him because 15+ years of government + federal reserve policy has led to massive bubbles in all US capital assets while impoverishing a wide swath of the population. The people who voted for Trump are those who've "lost" in the giant crypto+stock Ponzi scheme. The reason people on the winning side of this have such a hard time seeing it is that, en masse, they've turned away from any semblance of traditional valuation measures for capital assets. I assume they've done this because it's too emotionally uncomfortable to consider the notion that their entire wealth isn't because they're geniuses but because of deranged government policy.
  - zaptrem 2y ago
    Isn't Trump the pro-"crypto Ponzi scheme" (as you called it) candidate? Asset prices of both crypto and stocks seem to think so.
    - sfblah 2y ago
      Yep. It's ironic and shitty, but people just did a protest vote. They aren't looking at the specific proposals. They don't care anymore. You're absolutely right, but honestly both parties are completely in on the Ponzi scheme. So it probably doesn't matter.
    - tim333 2y ago
      Not only pro but going to put your tax dollars in: >US Senator Lummis reaffirms Bitcoin will be become a national reserve asset following Trump's victory
immibis 2y ago
Many of us have, and that's how we know their stated reasons are just nonsense. There's a video of the creator interviewing a Trumper about how tariffs work....
- aydyn 2y ago
  You think you're going to get a solid answer interviewing some random person on the street? That's what an intelligent person would call a strawman. Do you want me to point you to the video of well-educated coastal elites calling the assassination attempt a Hoax? There are of course more than one reason why people voted for him, but there's literally tons of comments in this very thread explaining why with no nonsense and under no uncertain terms. Ironically, a lot of those comments get flagged and are no longer visible.
  - kulahan 2y ago
    No, I think there needs to be a culture of talking to and respecting people with different opinions. And before you jump to the extreme of “but they don’t want me to EXIST!”, that’s not the point. The point is that we temper each other, partially by negotiating, and partially by simply making the “other side” more used to our ideas. That just happens with repeated exposure. If something is scary, but generally not bad, people can get used to it, but only if they’re exposed to it regularly. You get used to public speaking after the ten thousandth time instead, because you’ve likely already confronted every fear you had in real life by now. Ironically, this is extremely easy to fix. Politicians can simply get along in public. We’ve got studies showing that political extremism can die almost overnight when the opposing politicians simply explain that they do respect their opponent. As for the people here explaining themselves clearly - that’s because dang has done a good job of fostering a community of high quality commenters. You won’t find this kind of discourse anywhere else, and it’s the main reason I treasure this site.
    - aydyn 2y ago
      > No, I think there needs to be a culture of talking to and respecting people with different opinions. Absolutely. > As for the people here explaining themselves clearly - that’s because dang has done a good job of fostering a community of high quality commenters. Hard disagree. The level of political discussion on HN is barely a step above r/politics. This is a forum for 110 IQ codecels who think minor domain expertise means they are smarter than everyone else in all aspects. The contempt for ordinary people in this very thread is nauseating.
anon291 2y ago
Yup all my comments offering to explain and explaining have been flagged. Even ones with no sarcasm. Just because waiting for someone to doxx me again and dang to do nothing.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  HN just flags all comments that seem to support Trump in any way, even with good arguments. So no idea why comments are even open anymore when some points of view are obviously not allowed here yet 52% of the country seem to supported them to a degree. Obviously HN users just want their own groupthink eco chamber without wanting to hear other opinions. So in that regard I'm enjoying watching lib woketards having a mental breakdown for the second time since 2016. Stay ignorant, stay foolish. Hell, I'm not even from America and I saw it comming from a mile away. Calling half of their country "nazis" and "fascist" was the worst campaign move I have ever seen in my life.
  - brainphreeze 2y ago
    The user base here seems to be just as close-minded and condescending as it is on Reddit. Very disappointing to be honest.
    - anon291 2y ago
      Ideally the new economic policies will break the stranglehold of Silicon Valley. Already with the arrival of Musk, oracle, etc in Texas, there's a balance beginning to shift.
  - anon291 2y ago
    Yeah, I've been threatened and doxxed on this forum... no action. So brave. Stunning.
    - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
      Why?
vundercind 2y ago
Not trying? It was all the media did for like 2017 through 2018. “Venture safari-style among the rural or flyover-state-suburban white“ was practically its own genre, and it was everywhere. You couldn’t turn on NPR without hearing a devout rural white Christian relate how they prayed on it then held their nose and voted for the unrepentant sinner because of abortion. It’s why Vance’s weird, insulting book was embraced by the Left(!) as “real talk” from an actual member of the group they were trying to understand.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - vundercind 2y ago
    This is the kind of thing the people they interviewed were saying. [edit] I mean it was my shorthand for “I know he’s a serial adulterer, and his business dealings are shady, and he says some really awful things… but I prayed on it and…” which is closer to a direct quote of things I heard multiple times. Other demographics had other reasons but that was a common one from the pro-life set.
  - tomrod 2y ago
    To be fair, most Christian denominations establish inflexibility at the outset by claiming to be a worldview that is "true", "unerring", or similar attribute, despite lacking any epistemological introspection -- meaning of the 5,000 or so different denominations in the world, at least 4,999 are sorely disappointed that not only do they not reconcile to each other, they also don't reconcile to reality. Whereas a person can review an idea, try it on like a coat, see how it fits, and then keep or discard if it's found amenable and improving to their views of the world. Vice President Harris' opponent also professes and acts on a worldview wildly deviant from most, if not all, Christian denominations.
    - gjsman-1000 2y ago
      Well, objectively, only one religion can be true if any religion is true, just as the existence of gravity is irreconcilable with the existence of no gravity; but go on. We haven't grown up as a nation and collectively decided which one it is yet, but I have preferences. Not that preferences even matter - if I'm falling off a building, my preference for there to be no gravity won't make a difference.
kbrisso 2y ago
Why do people vote for him? America is a closet racist country and the education system obviously doesn't produce critical thinkers. The south is poor and Trump will make them money again some how - they believe that. Trump will make grocery prices' go down and create many magnificent jobs. Trump will make interest rates go down and loans cheaper. He will deport all the Mexicans so the black or white people can fill the jobs.Trump is a populist con man who conned his base. No public company or start up will ever hire a CEO like him. I call this political entropy. This is the decline in America in my view. It's a sad day and I will just stick my head in the sand and hope we make it through.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
AlexandrB 2y ago
I think it points to a real lack of humility. Why would you try to find out how your thinking might be flawed if you start with the assumption that everyone who disagrees with you is an idiot? And I say this as someone who did this exact thing in 2016.
redleggedfrog 2y ago
I did, partly out of curiosity, partly because I'm in a progressive town literally surrounded for a hundred miles by a sea of red. They like Trump because he appears anti-establishment and they fear/dislike the establishment. They don't feel the establishment in place is good for them. They truly, truly struggle with finances. Many are in the military and on food stamps. Some are farmers who can't make farming work anymore. They fear immigrants because they might take jobs or bring crime (and drugs). They fear they cannot protect themselves so the want access to guns. One common thread was the stimulus checks. They really liked the stimulus checks. Another thing is pining for the good ol' days. Lot of that, too. No issues like pronouns muddying things up. Generally, not racist, not sexist, but some are, just like any rando person. Seemed to me just like regular folk who are scared and can't make ends meet like they used to, well, a long time ago. The grocery store prices that are annoying to me are truly a decision point for them. Then when you take three steps back, and look at it objectively, it's often of their own doing. A lot, I mean a lot, of disparagement of education, even of K-12, so the means to get better employment is more of a struggle. A whole lot of drug and alcohol abuse on top of it. They are the only people I know who smoke. Lot of broken relationships and marriages. Family chaos. The image of solid salt of the earth isn't what my Trumper acquaintances (friends?) are experiencing. They are pretty desperate and really wish there was some way to get back on top of things. So, in desperation they vote for a person that promises to make it better. And really they don't care about much else. If you want to win elections, do the chicken in every pot line. This is all anecdotal of course, but I went to the effort, this was seven people, all of whom I'm on good terms with and converse with on a regular basis. And they were respectful of my position - that you need both conservatives (to keep what's good of the old ways) and progressives (to find new ways that are better) in the political arena to make it work. That's not a popular position, though.
- kulahan 2y ago
  This feels close enough to my experience that I believe you actually do speak genuinely with these people. I think a huge part of it is also that they feel seen by someone, finally. Trump did a great job of making these people feel like the spotlight was finally on them, and honestly it’s true.

burnte 2y ago

The reason it doesn't make sense to people like him (and me) is that we look at all the times he promised to release the health care plan, the January 6 incident, the calls to states to "find" votes, the constant complaining about rigged elections, the constant complaining about basically EVERYTHING he doesn't like, and more, and we don't see how anyone can overlook that. He never answers policy questions clearly. He doesn't understand tarriffs will raise our prices. He thinks RFK should be in charge of HHS. He wants to shut down TV networks that criticize him. When I ask folks why those things don't matter, I either get "what about So-and-so," or "I don't believe that," or they just blow off the question without an answer. I even went to the Ask a Conservative sub on Reddit and asked why people think millions of noncitizens are voting in elections, and I got yelled at, called naive, and told that some local municipalities allow non-citizen votes in local elections so therefore they can vote federally too. That said, I'd LOVE to know why none of the things Trump says or does dissuades his voters. Truly, because I really do not understand. I don't want to argue, or to try to convince you you're wrong, I would love to know why those things don't matter and you think Trump is a force for good.

guywithahat 2y ago
> we look at all the times he promised to release the health care plan, the January 6 incident, the calls to states to "find" votes, the constant complaining about rigged elections, the constant complaining about basically EVERYTHING he doesn't like, and more Have you considered the possibility his supporters know something you don't? A lot of what you mentioned is either debunked or is fraught with misinformation
- drabbiticus 2y ago
  > A lot of what you mentioned is either debunked or is fraught with misinformation Why do you believe this?
- sleepybrett 2y ago
  explain how him saying for over two years that he would have a healthcare plan in some number of weeks (changed several times) is debunked or misinformation. Because we all watched it.

avereveard 2y ago

Disclaimer: left wing European voter. It's clear from the message what the grandparent post opinion is, there's no need for understanding the right, the conclusion is there already and it's that the right wing voters are: > uneducated and poor This narrative about the right voters has been there since at least the nineties, only for the left to wonder why dialogue dried up. Then the left drops the ball on big ticket issues, and people move more and more to the right, while fringe right positions become normalized. Oh well, if it weren't for those pesky uneducated voters!

donmcronald 2y ago

I'll bite on this because I really don't understand it. I can understand why people relate to a lot of the messaging. For example, if you say that government institutions are broken because they're filled with waste and corruption, I think there's some truth to that and I can see the appeal of agreeing with that sentiment. There are many things that all politicians say are broken and they right. Where it breaks down for me is when you move into the plan for fixing those problems. You can't just reduce the funding of government institutions and assume there's some motive to re-optimize for efficiency. That might work to some degree in the business world where there's a profit motive, but on the public side of things the people that are abusing the system for personal gain aren't going to optimize to provide services more efficiently. They're more likely to optimize for more personal gain as the expectation of failing institutions becomes normalized. Eventually, I think you end up with government services and institutions that are even less efficient per dollar spent because the solution for trying to improve them doesn't seem to have any plans for accountability. So I think people are voting to effectively de-fund government services and institutions with the misguided promise of reduced tax burden and increased efficiency, but what they're going to get is equal spending, less services, and more people benefiting personally from the shift in policy, especially if services start using more private sector vendors. For example, some of our education funding in Canada has been cut massively due to the perception of waste, which is true to a point when you look at administrative bloat, but the cuts always impact the front-line people providing services and miss the administrative layer where the waste is occurring. That makes the ratio of waste even higher and people are left wondering why nothing works. I might be wrong, but I think all you're going to do with a broad mandate to "gut everything" is to create an opportunity for self-interested parties to usurp government funding for personal gain when the goal should be to increase accountability and efficiency. Loosely related, a massive problem we have in Canada is that front-line workers have been completely eliminated from the decision making process. Everyone I know can look at things done in their workplace and identify mistakes and inefficiencies that are the result of administration that lacks real world experience. For example, they built a prison in the city where I live where they put (sewer) drains inside the cells. Every single prison guard that you'd ask would tell you that's a mistake because the prisoners can plug them and flood the cells. That's the result of arrogant administration thinking they know everything. My last point is also part of the reason I think people voted for Trump. I wouldn't because I don't think his solutions are going to improve anything, but a lot of people believe the system is broken because they personally see mismanagement on a daily basis and it's done by the people getting paid the most. So I get why the messaging is appealing, but I don't understand why people think some of the proposed solutions are going to work. Maybe someone can explain to me how having Musk "do what he did at Twitter" to public institutions is going to provide better services to the public.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

interested, but I looked all through social media for that. Reddit, Tiktok, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, Bluesky. Pretty much everything but Facebook. I really couldn't find much reason. So many Trump supports were just interested in "salt mining" from Harris supporters. The few issues I could find were - he'll fix inflation/the economy (he absolutely won't) - he'll mass deport immigrants (not a sympathetic reasoning for me. Also mass deportations are expensive; see the above point) - Racist remarks about Harris (that's not even worth talking about) - "This is a response to identity politics" (to put it in the least racist/Sexist/transphobic way). - Oddly enough, nothing on Gun control. Maybe I didn't look hard enough. So there's maybe 2 legitimate reaosns (no matter how misguided I feel about them) and a lot of hate. And then dismissals of any worries from opponents. It was honestly tiring how many "but Trump doesn't support Project 2025" I've heard. The most legitmate dismissals of Harris came from "she wasn't voted in". Which yes, I actually do agree with and did not support at all. But we're well past the point where general elections are "pick the least bad candidate". Some issues about Israel, but I'm not going to pretend that wasn't always a bipartisan issue up top and that both sides in government are walking on eggshells about that issue. ----- So yeah, my experience trying to find some truth below the ocean of feelings came down to "There's nothing inspiring about trump except that he didn't fuck up like Harris". There's no platform, just chaos and hate. Maybe there are some smart conservatives offline that have actual legitimate points, but I don't have access to that and I suspect many of their arguments are simply economical (they want tax cuts for them and will vote that way. Selfish, but a very honest and reasonable point in an individualistic society). I'd love to hear otherwise, but I'm not convinced HN will be much different from the dozen other platforms I checked. It seems to be all "vibes". vibes in weird ways and very dangerous ways.