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Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

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Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#2
In case it's useful to anyone on HN working in/on politics, I've been with some Trump supporting and voting people lately, and my takeaways:

- They hate the idea of getting in trouble for using the wrong pronouns for people. A few strongly disliked, and most somewhat disliked, having to use non-traditional pronouns at all.

- They were very upset about stories of people being suspended from elementary school after using the wrong pronoun

- They were upset about a professor getting in trouble for wanting to only use male and female pronouns based on biological gender

- "Don't force it down my throat and I won't force it down yours"

- They feel like they cannot express their views without being attacked. In response, they now express their views much more aggressively and will attack others (sadly).

- They hate hate hate many things that they associate with social justice warriors, e.g. political correctness, "safe spaces," etc.

- They like Trump's outwardly strong stance on terrorism

- They were concerned about the decline of religion, and worry that this will lead to more radical extremists (with the radical extremists converting people who feel disenfranchised and purposeless)

- They support gay marriage but were upset at a story of a store keeper who got in trouble for refusing to serve a gay couple

- They (as former legal immigrants) hate the idea of illegal immigrants skipping the queue

- Extreme distrust of the mainstream media

- Extreme distrust and disliking of Hillary Clinton

- Strong distrust and disliking of Obama (will update if I recall their stated reasoning)

- Generally seemed pretty anti-politicians

I'm not intending to invite a discussion as to whether their opinions are right or wrong. I'm just posting these here because I think that for anyone on HN working in politics, it may be important to know why your opponents dislike (their image of) you.

See also: http://blog.samaltman.com/what-i-heard-from-trump-supporters

And on changing opinions:

https://psmag.com/news/why-even-your-best-arguments-never-wo...

https://twitter.com/csallen/status/914926162379460609

https://ozanvarol.com/how-to-change-a-mind-yours-or-someone-...

Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#3
I found it outstanding that Republicans view the Wall Street Journal as having a liberal bias. A business-focused, capitalist-centric paper, with a liberal bias. I suppose if that's your definition, of course you'll see journalists having a liberal bias as a whole...

Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#7

>51% of Democrats support a law that requires Americans use transgender people’s preferred gender pronouns. This one blows my mind. A law that punishes people if they don't use certain words? I just... I can't even... Wow.

Not just certain words, but words that defy basic observations about reality. It's really incredible.

Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#8

>51% of Democrats support a law that requires Americans use transgender people’s preferred gender pronouns. This one blows my mind. A law that punishes people if they don't use certain words? I just... I can't even... Wow.

I’ve started calling it the war on words.

Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#9
I think an interesting takeaway for me is that people aren't principled. And of course it's obvious in hindsight, but the scatterbrained nature of this data puts the sheer reality of it right in your face. There's no admonishment intended, this is entirely my err. It's so easy lose touch with humanity on the Internet: discussions are formal, responses are picked apart word-by-word, contradictions are jumped on. But it's so out of touch of how we think -- we're a bundle of feelings and contradictory opinions trying to create structure and order in a world of chaotic discourse. It's silly to think that a person's opinion about something is the a rote application of abstract principles or vice versa.

So dammit, I'm going to try and do better.

Re: Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions

#10
Though published by Cato, an institution with a clear leaning, for me at least these statistics seem to broker an overdue potential peace.

By offering a better understanding of another party's views, it opens up the opportunity to draw parallels that lessen tension.

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