3 ms·

I’ve been in the get-out-the-vote space for 25 years, now. I’ve been politically active against gerrymandering nearly as long. My wife was tooth-and-nails in th

I’ve been in the get-out-the-vote space for 25 years, now. I’ve been politically active against gerrymandering nearly as long. My wife was tooth-and-nails in the redistricting fight (in Texas; Texas!) for ~10 years. Here’s my hands-on experience: at least half the people you meet are defective, to a scary extent, functionally in terms of empathy. Probably two thirds have serious executive functioning deficits. That means they can neither understand the plight of their fellows; and, even if they could, they could not generalize their own situation into a policy to help everyone in the same situation. EDIT: most people don’t vote. A disproportionate number that do are both empathetic, and high have high levels of executive functioning skills. The flip side of the coin are activated people who are missing one-or-the-other skills, but are voting out of some other errant ideology. I want to be clear that the distribution of voters is “both sides”: there are disgusting and enlightened voters on both sides of the spectrum. We’re all trapped in the box, together.

jml78 1y ago
My FIL has been a conservative his whole life and has never voted. He immediately recognized the nazi talking points from Trump. Said Trump was going full Nazi. But it wasn’t enough to get him to register to vote and vote against a nazi
camgunz 1y ago
I grew up working class in Indiana, and can confirm. My in-laws were reeling after the 2016 election and they just couldn't understand how people could vote for Trump, basically. My answer was "you're polite, highly educated, upper middle class people, most people everywhere are not like you. That doesn't make them bad or less than, but they make bad decisions basically constantly. This is just one in a long stream of them."
- Waterluvian 1y ago
  I dunno. I think we need to can it with the PCness of “it doesn’t make them bad.” It does. Constantly making bad decisions makes them bad. What it doesn’t do is make them any less entitled to all of their rights. Something their badness has paved way for robbing others of.

jml78 1y ago

My FIL has been a conservative his whole life and has never voted. He immediately recognized the nazi talking points from Trump. Said Trump was going full Nazi. But it wasn’t enough to get him to register to vote and vote against a nazi

camgunz 1y ago

I grew up working class in Indiana, and can confirm. My in-laws were reeling after the 2016 election and they just couldn't understand how people could vote for Trump, basically. My answer was "you're polite, highly educated, upper middle class people, most people everywhere are not like you. That doesn't make them bad or less than, but they make bad decisions basically constantly. This is just one in a long stream of them."

Waterluvian 1y ago
I dunno. I think we need to can it with the PCness of “it doesn’t make them bad.” It does. Constantly making bad decisions makes them bad. What it doesn’t do is make them any less entitled to all of their rights. Something their badness has paved way for robbing others of.