Offered without comment

from a nurse in South Dakota

I don't think you can fix this.

I'm at a loss for words.

Y'all clearly know what I'm thinking, and what I could say ...

Well, just more that DJT needs to answer for, for how he has changed the GOP on public health, science, and so many things by using and amplifying pre-existing biases (many in the US remain on the wrong side of the Scopes Trial, for example).

Reading some of the comments about people refusing to believe it's real, even as they are hospitalized themselves... well, they are doing exactly what 45 tells them to do. His entire "rip the mask off" theater when he returned to the WH from Walter Reed was completely designed to tell his base that it wasn't a big deal.

The irony for me is that they moan about personal freedom and call mask-wearers "sheep," as they quite literally follow their leader to their deaths in some cases.

That said, it's too easy to sit back and call them stupid. We can't afford that smug attitude as a nation.

These folks have been around since well before DJT showed up.

From a 2013 Pew Research study:





https://www.pewresearch.org/fa...lution-and-religion/

Science isn't their strong suit.

quote:

Originally posted by Nina:
I'm at a loss for words.

Re your other thread on "nope, you're an idiot" I don't think reacting viscerally to this idiocy is smug. This must be resisted more than "politely understood."

quote:

it's too easy to sit back and call them stupid

Mr. SK and were having this exact discussion at lunch today. He was sort of taking the position of "wow, the stupid, smh" kind of stance.... And I was saying, ok maybe, but we can also look at them as victims, victims of Trump-ism, and we should be sympathetic rather than smug or exacerbated. Mr SK agreed with me for like a nanosecond, and then he said, "well they're awfully darn stupid for letting themselves fall victim to Trump then."

quote:

I don't think reacting viscerally to this idiocy is smug. This must be resisted more than "politely understood."

Yes, I agree with this as well.

I'm not saying resistance is, in itself, smug. Of course we need to resist and reject what Trump is selling.

But I still feel that too often the methods of resistance come off as smug. I know that when I read a comment that contains name-calling (Obummer), "libtard," "sheeple," etc., there's really no room left for a discussion. I will reject anything that person says.

But how often do our comments reflect the same? "Cheeto," "trumptards," etc.? I'm using "our" in a generic sense here. And if we can't acknowledge that many of the protests we've seen have NOT been peaceful because of violence on both sides, or that they haven't also been potential vectors for spreading COVID-19 (just like the SD Harley rally), how seriously can we be taken, and who will listen?

This is not a plea to sweep things under the rug, or to "understand." Because, to me, the understanding we need to arrive to is why so many voters haven't migrated to the progressive side, even while acknowledging that Trump is a buffoon. Sure, the screaming, heckling masses make for great TV, YouTubes and headlines, but they are not representative of all the people who voted for Trump.

Our challenge, IMO, is to understand why we haven't been able to draw people over to the progressive side. That's the understanding we need.

My 2c.

I'm convinced this is because of the "alternate universe" model that has been nurtured through conservative media in the past decades by claiming fiction is fact...

quote:

Originally posted by Nina:
I'm not saying resistance is, in itself, smug. Of course we need to resist and reject what Trump is selling.

But I still feel that too often the methods of resistance come off as smug. I know that when I read a comment that contains name-calling (Obummer), "libtard," "sheeple," etc., there's really no room left for a discussion. I will reject anything that person says.

But how often do our comments reflect the same? "Cheeto," "trumptards," etc.? I'm using "our" in a generic sense here. And if we can't acknowledge that many of the protests we've seen have NOT been peaceful because of violence on both sides, or that they haven't also been potential vectors for spreading COVID-19 (just like the SD Harley rally), how seriously can we be taken, and who will listen?

This is not a plea to sweep things under the rug, or to "understand." Because, to me, the understanding we need to arrive to is why so many voters haven't migrated to the progressive side, even while acknowledging that Trump is a buffoon. Sure, the screaming, heckling masses make for great TV, YouTubes and headlines, but they are not representative of all the people who voted for Trump.

Our challenge, IMO, is to understand why we haven't been able to draw people over to the progressive side. That's the understanding we need.

My 2c.

Make it 4c.

Well, except for the Cheeto part....

As well as the systematic prolonged attack on public education.

What real conservatives are trying to conserve is the aristocracy: the idea that a very few are born to wealth and power and the teeming masses should be kept down. The idea is, of course, antithetical to the American Dream, at least the one I grew up with.

It's amazing how they have gotten approximately half the country to believe what they are told regardless of the evidence of their own eyes. In large part, it's telling people what they want to hear, inflaming fear, especially fear of "the other", and turning it into full-blown hatred.

What has really enabled the bubbles is that it's very easy now to listen only to your preferred media: radio, cable TV, online "news". You can easily and effectively shut out any voices or messages that don't match your chosen beliefs. Once you are ensconced in your bubble, everything else is either wrong or doesn't exist at all.

I-1 didn't invent this, but he certainly made hay with it. The man is a life-long con-man and huckster. He is very good at telling people what they want to hear with ZERO regard for how true it is. His followers meet every criterion for a cult.

If he (and all the talking heads) demand his followers not "believe" COVID is real, they will accept as fact that COVID is a hoax.

It's truly amazing. And it's something we damn well better fix, and damn fast.

Here's one guy's perspective:
https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54910344

Let me start by seconding Nina's 2c.

To go beyond that would require me to write a book, which I actually could do, but it would get me rejected by a million relatives and probably doxxed to the point where I would have to live in a cave.

Yes, the elites are manipulating the masses for money, and they're doing it with religion. This has been true for all of history. Marx told us that it was the opium of the people and he was not wrong.

For our culture, the manipulators are using Christianity, mostly evangelical Christianity but other branches are involved. (Using abortion to galvanize religious people was a genius move that brought Catholics, who aren't evangelicals, into the fold.)

The important thing to understand is that making a particular political opinion "essential" to being a Christian is that it does not just affect the poor and ignorant. (I put "essential" in quotes, because there are progressive Christians. We have just been excluded from the definition of "Christian" by the prevailing sects.) It is not just poor, uneducated people rejecting science. Everyone in that subculture below the cynical, money-loving manipulators at the very top has to accept the tenets of their religion or embrace the belief that they're going to hell. This includes doctors and lawyers and professors and business leaders.

To manage this feat, they send their children to church-sponsored private schools that don't teach evolution. (I had a conversation with a man whose child was at such a school and I said, "But she wants to be a nurse. She has to understand biology. How is she going to survive in college?" Deaf ears...)

Many of them are college-educated, some of them in the sciences . The personal mental gymnastics required are impressive. When faced with some incontrovertible proof that science works, they have fallback opinions that say, "Yeah, it works because God makes it work."

Right now, the results of our elections show that logic is in a dead heat with illogic. (Yeah, the electoral college has its thumb on the scale, but the country is still pretty evenly split.) I don't think there's any way to break that deadlock unless we find a way to reach people that doesn't require them to give up their religion. I don't think it does require that. My beliefs have changed, but they still exist. But everyone in reactionary conservatives' lives is telling them that they cannot change without incurring the wrath and vengeance of God.

Anyone underestimating the power of this is a fool.

Quoted from Mary Anna "Anyone underestimating the power of this is a fool."

What we need is a charismatic genius to start a reversal of the current status quo. I know some with a few of the needed qualities, but all of them?
No one comes to mind