politics
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I wonder what percentage of his supporters know full well that all the election hoax stuff is a bunch of bullshit, but just go along with it for the exact same reasons as he pushes it? Just to win.
There's going to be a ratio of people that fall for the bullshit vs people that knowingly go along with the scheme. I wish there was some way to get at it.
I sympathize with the desire to know, but I think it really doesn't matter.
To quote Vonnegut, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
Each requires a different strategy. Someone who is fooled may lack critical thinking skills or exposure to people or ideas outside of their information bubble. These problems are rectifiable if approached with care.
The other is more difficult, and requires a deeper understanding of the underlying causes behind their opinions.
Using the wrong approach on the wrong person wastes time and resources, and also risks hardening their position.
Anyone who pretends to not know what Trump is about is just a liar. People who vote for him want fascism and that's why they vote for him. I'm sick and tired of the excuses.
No, a lot of people just don't pay any attention, unfortunately. If they get their news mainly through the grapevine or social media circles, they might very well have been taken by the con.
That's what they'll say but I'm not buying it.
I mean, you had history classes in HS, right? What percentage of the class engaged, paid attention and learned the material, vs what percentage just did whatever it took to pass the class, didn't really give a fuck, and then promptly forgot everything once they passed it?
We have to remember how our fellow Americans really are. Some pay attention, some just don't. The one's that don't probably couldn't even explain to you what fascism actually is, they'd probably say "I dunno, killing Jews?" or something.
I'm not American.
I don't really think most people form their beliefs based on what is logically true; they get their cues from the group who makes them feel a sense of community.
Deviation from this accepted morality carries the risk of being ostracized, and acts as a control mechanism to keep people in line.
The real issue, in my opinion, is that people are getting their moral cues from an amoral media who wants to enrage them for profit and then the reactionaries carry that back to their communities to feed it into their echo chambers.
Therefore, I don't really think facts will change people's politics; that will not happen until their reactionary community either is no longer useful to them or they find something more worthwhile outside of it. I respectfully reject that there is a fundamentally different strategy for "true believers" and "the fooled;" I'd say both populations are mostly the same (except for the politicians, who know exactly what the game is).
No, facts absolutely can change people's minds, from my anecdotal experience anyway. They simply have to be handled with a great deal of care, you can't speak down to people, you have to ask careful questions and respectfully approach even their false opinions.
Taking an almost Socratic method, in a way, where you're spending more time listening than hosing them down with evidence.
It's not easy, I wouldn't say most people can readily do it without training or at least carefully considering their strategic approach. It does not come naturally, and traditional schooling or debate will not prepare you for it, and can even be counterproductive. There is a real risk of doing more harm than good. But deprogramming is absolutely a feasible goal to work towards. Just takes patience.
I do think that those types of conversations are useful, but only to someone who is doxastically prepared to change due to the aforementioned community reasons.
I think we're mostly in agreement though and we're just using different terms, so thanks for sharing your perspective. If you're interested, I read a great book a while ago called How Minds Change that digs into it a bit more.
Yeah that's a valid point. Thanks for the link, I'm unfamiliar with that book.
I think of it a little differently, and don’t know if this has an attribution: either you have an ideology, or an ideology has you. We may very well not know that we’ve been interpellated into a particular position, and then the “pretending” isn’t actually pretending. And if you’re authentic to an ideological position, it isn’t pretending either. We certainly can engage in pretend to conceal our ideological leanings, but this involves a level of self-awareness that is near impossible to maintain.
I think they all know it - it's entertainment like WWE to them. They just think it's fun to take sides and follow the drama and excitement. What they don't really believe is that it's all very deadly real and not make-believe.
A couple generations of people in the USA have lived without a threat of major disruption and they don't realize how cruelly fast things can change in this world.
Lying and cheating is wrong but the anti-choice crowd literally believes Democrats are baby killers so, I put my money on willful ignorance.
It's very easy to get people to go along with almost anything, as long as they think they'll be on the winning end when the dust settles. As far as they're concerned, it's in their "bast interests", even if they know a certain amount of it is pure BS.
Remove money or the influence of money from the system.
It's not groups of people or nut jobs and their stupid conspiracies that win or affect an election.
It's the millionaire and billionaire donors who buy and sell elections and candidates that decide an election. Wherever their money goes it decides the election.
Remember ... it isn't a democracy ... it's a plutocracy .. this system isn't run by people, it's ruled by money and power.
Hilary Clinton significantly outspent Trump in 2016, and was very cozy with Wall St types. She lost. The establishment candidate backed by money was firmly defeated by noxious asshole with Qanon support.
https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16
That said, I do agree that we desperately need campaign finance reform. Not because money reliably buys elections, but because of the corrupting effect it has on politicians.
Although I appreciate the organization 'opensecrets' ... I don't trust the organizations and groups that give over information for reporting purposes.
Millionaires and billionaires and corporations have a habit of being able to fudge, fake, deflate or exaggerate reported numbers for their own benefit.
I worked in a small way for political organizations at the local level in southern Ontario ... nothing major but nothing minor either. One of the things I learned was that money and those with lots of money easily influence people without having to spend any money - all they have to do is promise money later. It means a campaign can count on the expertise of highly trained people who volunteer for a campaign.
Who do you think has more chance of winning an election .... a campaign filled with inexperienced college student volunteers who have no resources or wealth of their own ... or a campaign filled with business/media/advertising/political/legal professionals who are all volunteering their time and personal resources to a campaign ........... and all of this is never reported as a financial number in a spreadsheet or report, and if it is, it is almost impossible to calculate the value.
Yeah that's fair. I don't think we should devalue the potential for grassroots movements to achieve results though. The potential for grassroots campaigns to achieve success, particularly in smaller races where a candidate can focus more, is still significant. We just need to remember that we're up against what is still a large number of voters that simply favor moderate politicians, even if they can't name a moderate policy position they favor.
Clinton was on track to win, and would have, but James Comey (Director FBI) pulled the rug on her, in October, by publicly announcing the reopening of her email investigation.
Yeah, I'm sure it contributed. There were a lot of factors though. Ultimately, the people that said she was a weak candidate were right, she really notably lacked charisma, and had a penchant for getting herself into trouble. "Basket of deplorables" was a self-own. She also could've played nicer with the Bernie Bros.