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> Question from a European who doesn’t deeply understand your partisan politics: what specifically should they have done differently? For what it's worth, I th

> Question from a European who doesn’t deeply understand your partisan politics: what specifically should they have done differently? For what it's worth, I think a lot of us Americans have realized that we don't understand the partisan dynamics either. Many of us are very confused about the ongoing support for Trump. There's clearly a huge chasm in mindsets, and personally I've made little headway in forming a plausible mental model that explains it all.

cagenut 7mo ago
really? or is it just that you don't like the answer so you keep trying to find another one. what historical examples of this very common pattern did you read up on?
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
gmac 7mo ago
Right wingers have a whole different set of moral values that strike me (as someone more on the left) as _immoral_ values. Look up moral foundations theory by Jonathan Haidt and others. I’ve found this in one sense useful (so _that’s_ why Republicans react to ${ISSUE} the way that do!) and in another depressing (how do you _deal_ with people who think that doing what they’re told to do by an authority figure is intrinsically a moral virtue?).
starkshift 7mo ago
There’s no one single thing of course, but there are themes A couple generally unifying themes: 1. People that for the most part want to be left alone and not messed with 2. People that don’t want to be talked down to
- user____name 7mo ago
  Those points could apply to all and every political situations everywhere.
  - notahacker 7mo ago
    tbf, people who actually believed that Trump was the candidate of leaving stuff alone are unusually deserving of being talked down to...
mindslight 7mo ago
Go tune into reactionary talk radio for a taste. Really listen to what they're saying and just let it wash over you. I'll do this occasionally on long drives by myself when I'm out of range of familiar radio stations. The problem isn't so much differing values in terms of specific policies, but rather a deep chasm of anti-intellectualism that makes them mistrust anyone but their ingroup partisan preachers. Even if you are coming from a place of mostly agreement about some issue, and appealing to values they purportedly have, the minute you start deviating from anything the preachers have said you've immediately put yourself into the "other" camp where their only conclusion is that you "don't understand" or are even trying to trick them. Those partisan preachers had at least been owned by US business interests, preaching policies that hurt individuals while helping entrenched corporate interests (eg the decades of shipping industry to China). But at this point it seems they've been bought by foreign interests hence the new trend of supporting the wholly destructive policies of trumpism.
- groundzeros2015 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - mindslight 7mo ago
    The "psychologism" isn't directly from listening to reactionary media, but rather trying to talk to reactionaries about, well, anything. One time I was talking to extended family who were complaining about GPS satellites tracking the location of their phone. This is something I myself also care deeply about, and that I know a thing or two about how it works as well. So I tried to make some points to them that there are some understandable mechanics whereby you can start taking concrete steps to at least reduce the tracking. They showed zero recognition or interest in the idea of being able to do something about it, and actually became more argumentative as if my knowing technical details meant I supported it! My conclusion is that they only use the vague paranoia and blaming "the government" as a group identity bonding mechanism, and that by deviating from their victimhood narrative I was marking myself as an outsider. Even on a politically adjacent topic where it should have been easier to find common ground. But please do tell me another way that I can possibly interpret that interaction.

cagenut 7mo ago

really? or is it just that you don't like the answer so you keep trying to find another one. what historical examples of this very common pattern did you read up on?

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

gmac 7mo ago

Right wingers have a whole different set of moral values that strike me (as someone more on the left) as _immoral_ values. Look up moral foundations theory by Jonathan Haidt and others. I’ve found this in one sense useful (so _that’s_ why Republicans react to ${ISSUE} the way that do!) and in another depressing (how do you _deal_ with people who think that doing what they’re told to do by an authority figure is intrinsically a moral virtue?).

starkshift 7mo ago

There’s no one single thing of course, but there are themes A couple generally unifying themes: 1. People that for the most part want to be left alone and not messed with 2. People that don’t want to be talked down to

user____name 7mo ago
Those points could apply to all and every political situations everywhere.
- notahacker 7mo ago
  tbf, people who actually believed that Trump was the candidate of leaving stuff alone are unusually deserving of being talked down to...

mindslight 7mo ago

Go tune into reactionary talk radio for a taste. Really listen to what they're saying and just let it wash over you. I'll do this occasionally on long drives by myself when I'm out of range of familiar radio stations. The problem isn't so much differing values in terms of specific policies, but rather a deep chasm of anti-intellectualism that makes them mistrust anyone but their ingroup partisan preachers. Even if you are coming from a place of mostly agreement about some issue, and appealing to values they purportedly have, the minute you start deviating from anything the preachers have said you've immediately put yourself into the "other" camp where their only conclusion is that you "don't understand" or are even trying to trick them. Those partisan preachers had at least been owned by US business interests, preaching policies that hurt individuals while helping entrenched corporate interests (eg the decades of shipping industry to China). But at this point it seems they've been bought by foreign interests hence the new trend of supporting the wholly destructive policies of trumpism.

groundzeros2015 7mo ago
[flagged]
- mindslight 7mo ago
  The "psychologism" isn't directly from listening to reactionary media, but rather trying to talk to reactionaries about, well, anything. One time I was talking to extended family who were complaining about GPS satellites tracking the location of their phone. This is something I myself also care deeply about, and that I know a thing or two about how it works as well. So I tried to make some points to them that there are some understandable mechanics whereby you can start taking concrete steps to at least reduce the tracking. They showed zero recognition or interest in the idea of being able to do something about it, and actually became more argumentative as if my knowing technical details meant I supported it! My conclusion is that they only use the vague paranoia and blaming "the government" as a group identity bonding mechanism, and that by deviating from their victimhood narrative I was marking myself as an outsider. Even on a politically adjacent topic where it should have been easier to find common ground. But please do tell me another way that I can possibly interpret that interaction.