> “Stop calling us racists. Stop calling us idiots. We aren’t. Listen to us when we try to tell you why we aren’t. Oh, and stop making fun of us.”
Then. Stop. Supporting. A. Racist.
What I Heard from Trump Supporters
361–370 of 906 posts
Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if you lack compassion for people who come from less fortunate countries What I'm hearing people saying is that they want a candidate who will talk about compassion for the economic futures of Americans. If you are barely making ends meet, you don't want a candidate talking about compassion for people from less fortunate countries, when out in the countryside of America you see a lot of people who could hardly be l…
By less fortunate I mean people fleeing war. Refugees. If you think being in a war is same as being poor in the US, you're mistaken.
Have you been poor in the US? Have you lived your entire life in the constant stress of not being able to pay for food, housing, or medical care? Have you had your house repeatedly robbed? Have you been assaulted and mugged walking home? Rejected from every good job because you're uneducated? Spent countless hours cold to the bone because your power got shut off? Had half your friends become drug addicts? Lived without a car or transportation? Have you been totally without hope of a better future?
Have you had to fall on the "safety net" of a homeless shelter?
Upper class liberals seem to only express interest in groups of people that it makes them feel virtuous to talk about. If you truly care about suffering, you should also open your eyes to the tens of millions of your fellow citizens that need help.
Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
When all politicians rely on speech writers, what is the point you are making? The result is the same: someone was commissioned to draft statements that the speaker endorses.
When a ghostwriter is present, I've found that a book's subtle exposition often arises from them more than the OP. With someone as raw, blustery, and self-promotional as Trump, any suggestion of nuance will inevitably invite circumspection.
So what do you think?
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-g...
It had never been his ambition to be a ghostwriter, and he had been glad to move on. But, as he watched a replay of the new candidate holding forth for forty-five minutes, he noticed something strange: over the decades, Trump appeared to have convinced himself that he had written the book. Schwartz recalls thinking, “If he could lie about that on Day One—when it was so easily refuted—he is likely to lie about anything.”
Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters
#364> "You need to give us an opportunity to admit we may have been wrong without saying we’re bad people. I am already thinking I made a mistake, but I feel ostracized from my community." Folks seem to stay stuck in bad positions because to change their mind would require them to come to terms with, and take responsibility for, having done something morally reprehensible. Ultimately though, it's immature and manipulativ…
To be fair to them, it is hard to acknowledge you've fucked up and learn from your mistake if people mock you relentlessly about it. The easiest human reaction is to deny or retreat, not admit failure, ask for forgiveness and move on. That's why extending an olive branch and offering a safe space to discuss the issues they might be facing is the right approach (yeah, I know, it's ironic that we are even having this conversation about people who are quick to malign anyone who asks for a safe-space... but whatever.)
Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters
#365This one gave me the most pause: > “Silicon Valley is incredibly unwelcoming to alternative points of view. Your curiosity, if it is sincere, is the very rare exception to the rule.” Substitute "Silicon Valley" for any major liberal enclaves, like universities and cities, and I think you see the same thing. I am skeptical by nature and try to take a scientific view of new ideas. However I feel like I get shouted down…
I'm more-or-less on the other side of the fence, complete with getting thrown link after link of... well, not sure I want to call them "facts".
I find two tricks to be useful:
Avoid statements, ask questions. Asking for summaries is good.
Play a little game: How little time can you spend getting the other person to spend the most time on their response? You win if you spend a minute and they spend an hour.
Note: Doesn't work in person, but in person, it's easier for everyone to stay calm.
Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters
#366This one gave me the most pause: > “Silicon Valley is incredibly unwelcoming to alternative points of view. Your curiosity, if it is sincere, is the very rare exception to the rule.” Substitute "Silicon Valley" for any major liberal enclaves, like universities and cities, and I think you see the same thing. I am skeptical by nature and try to take a scientific view of new ideas. However I feel like I get shouted down…
> People start throwing link after link of facts and don't want to even reason about ideas. It's hopeless and I end up keeping my mouth shut. So, you take a contrarian view. People respond with facts. So, where's the problem? You don't like the facts? Don't want to hear them or what exactly?
It is trivial to cherry-pick facts that support a controversial, higher-level framing / viewpoint.
Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's because "alternative point of view" immediately makes me think of someone saying that global warming is fake, and yeah,I'm not willing to debate that, it's just not worth my time. I'm curious what sort of ideas you have in mind though.
"I'm willing to listen ${them}, as long as they don't question ${sacred_cow}" is a key aspect of the unwelcoming behavior described by the interviewee. To use your example, I'd wager that most global warming skeptics (especially the ones that you'll meet in SV) have a more developed and nuanced perspective than "global warming is fake". Sure, we don't have infinite time or patience to fully understand and empathize w…
Pretty much everyone uses heuristic filters to decide what's worth consideration and what isn't. If a lay person's opinion of a scientific theory is outside the scientific mainstream, it's probably bunk. What is the goal in trying to understand their perspective on this issue? I don't get offended when people refuse to listen to my alternative views on the late Roman Empire.
Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters
#368I think that when people "KNOW" that they are "RIGHT", it sometimes brings moral superiority into people. That, in addition to norms of socially acceptable behaviour, pushes people into a corner. For example - If someone goes to Bill Maher's show, anyone clapping on a conservative view point is seen as a criminal, while people with liberal point of view clap "together" as a group, with the smug arrogance of knowing t…
I did not vote for Trump, but I couldn't help but feel a bit of schadenfreude at the reaction of my mostly very liberal friend group to his win. For months and months, they'd been unfairly denigrating Trump supporters while simultaneously insisting that he was a joke, there was no way he would beat Clinton, etc. and somehow convincing themselves that their political ideology was synonymous with science, truth, and re…
Oh man, I don't like Trump at all but it's so hard to resist enjoying the schadenfreude. I think my favorite part is the "nothing to hide" people who are now afraid of the surveillance state but couldn't have cared less about it before.
I think the "science, truth, and reason" thing really resonates because it's been used to as a shortcut to presuming the "correctness" of anything vaguely left-wing in areas where things are anything but black and white.
It's true, for sure, that there are some places things are fairly black and white, like climate change. Or vaccination.
But in other areas... there's anything but a clear cut situation. Take immigration. The second Trump started to try and start arresting and deporting people my social media filled with memes asking things like "who's going to dig up potatoes for $0.45 per giant bucket filled now?" So... start deporting undocumented people and the "Left" will suddenly embrace the propriety of paying people unliveable wages citizens would never accept? Why would anybody think that we won't in the not distant future be collecting potatoes with robots?
Likewise, there seems to suddenly be this notion that pretty much anybody who shows up whenever for whatever reason should just be allowed in to stay and work in America... There's a very real conversation about how isolationist we can/should be, whether/how/what-degree we should be trying to export our human rights norms, what kinds of employment visas we should have, what their conditions should be, whether we should accept refugees, etc. I find the current refugee situation embarrassing, but at the same time I think there's been real refusal to take a holistic look at making a comprehensive and consistent policy, let alone a "scientific" or "reasoned" one. It's like one group of people started jumping off the right side of a building (nobody enters) so everyone else rushed to jump off the left (everybody enters).
I think lots of issues are like this.
Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that your post is the top comment, with other posters shouting at you, seems to be good proof of the people who are keeping their mouths shut while silently agreeing with you.
"Shouting" ... I don't know, people disagree, ask questions. Seems all quite civil to me. If that's shouting I fail to see what a discussion looks like.
Take at look at the tone of the comments that are disagreeing. They are dismissive and accusatory in their choice of expression.
It's not a choice you'd make if you're truly interested in hearing out and understanding the other person's perspective. The comments to me look like they're more interested in winning the debate.
Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters
#370I think that when people "KNOW" that they are "RIGHT", it sometimes brings moral superiority into people. That, in addition to norms of socially acceptable behaviour, pushes people into a corner. For example - If someone goes to Bill Maher's show, anyone clapping on a conservative view point is seen as a criminal, while people with liberal point of view clap "together" as a group, with the smug arrogance of knowing t…
I think that it goes both ways: take Fox and Friends instead of Maher, and you get exactly the same kind of reaction. I'm not sure why you are singling out "liberal ideology" here, when my favorite new joke is a rehash of an old one: "how can you tell if a person is a Trump supporter? Don't worry, they'll tell you !".
Haha I am amused at your assumption. I am not going to clarify the air too much, except saying that what you seem to be assuming is wrong :)