First off, I don’t base my views on “what Americans are like” with what people post online. Just about everyone I know personally has just gone off the deep end it seems.
People I’ve known for decades who were “right of center” have now drifted to the far right. Where they used to support separation of church and state, small government, etc. they now want the government to tax the poor, establish a Christian ethnostate, and are openly talking about “the coming revolution”. Meanwhile, most everyone I’ve known who is leftist wants the government to disarm them, claims to be pro-LGBT but blindly supports any Muslim country and blindly hates Israel, and thinks Joe Biden is the “greatest president EVAR”.
Am I just in a weird bubble where 95% of the people in my life are politically and philosophically dipshits? Does anyone else experience this with people they actually know? I feel like I’m going crazy when I can be talking with a “leftist” about trans rights in Texas and then the very next conversation is about how wholesome they think the average Palestinian is in Gaza. Is there anyone else who’s at least left of center and recognizes that religious zealots in the Middle East want to kill you and shouldn’t be supported and religious zealots in YOUR OWN FUCKING COUNTRY want to kill you and you shouldn’t disarm yourself?
Just what the fuck is going on in this country? There’s so much disinformation and paid trolls that I don’t base these views off what’s online. I just run into the exact same lunacy with nearly everyone I’ve known my whole life.
I don’t need to understand where they’re coming from if they want to cut social programs, lower taxes on the rich, support societies that would happily execute gay people, etc.
Even though I don’t need to understand, I do actually. When it comes to the people on the right, it’s mostly people I’ve known from growing up in a religious family and from spending a lot of time doing work in factories. They’re bigoted zealots who think that the real problem with Millennials and Gen Z is that they just don’t want to work anymore. And if they just wanted to work and put in the effort they could all be retiring with nice cars and mansions.
As for the people I know on the left, it’s not as many who are completely insane. But it’s still most of them. People who voted Hillary because “it was her turn!” or even voted Obama because “I feel bad for black people, so he needed to be president no matter what” (those are literal fucking quotes, I shit you not). Not only that, but they’ll talk about how dangerous the rightwing is and how they want to overthrow the country, and then the very next topic of conversation can be about how they don’t trust themselves with a gun and are offended at the suggestion that they should arm themselves.
If you think with either of these I’m talking about you and you’re offended, you need to reevaluate your morals.
You HAVE to understand wherre they’re coming from, because that’s EXACTLY how you fight against useful idiots.
Most of the people you will talk to are NOT experts in … well, anything political at LEAST. If you start condemning people for something they probably haven’t even thought that deeply about, then you are just as guilty as them of ignoring nuance.
If you’re going to condemn people for the natural conclusions of their ignorant actions, then you should be for trying children as adults who accidentally shot a family member. After all, it’s about consequences, not intent, right?
Why does everyone think this? Because you’re wrong. Everybody is wrong about this. 100% of people that believe they don’t need to understand the epistemology of people they disagree with, and especially of people they hate, need to pull their head out of their asses.
These people are dumb. Period.
Yeah, I don’t trust myself with a gun. I would definitely shoot someone in a road rage incident, which are becoming increasingly common. Or I might commit suicide because this country makes me so fucking depressed.
I think this because I’ve spent over a decade of my life trying to understand where people come from and getting nowhere with helping them. I’ve read the scripture they share with me and they just ignore rebuttals and tell me I have “an unteachable spirit” or I “can’t understand their gospel”. I’ll listen to the podcasts of political thinkers they listen to and hear absolutely nothing of substance, nothing that actually provides a foundation for their beliefs beyond “wouldn’t it be nice if we had X”.
The only progress I’ve ever made is by recently telling people they have no clue what they’re talking about and calling them a dipshit or asshole where appropriate. It’s insane. They don’t care about studies, stats, facts, whatever. No attempt at rational debate changes their mind in any capacity. But having the “quiet and patient” person in their life snap at them seems to do something at least.
Sounds like you’re talking to koolaid drinkers and religious, not the politically motivated. Only religious morons and the painfully immature treat “the truth” as an absolute thing you know or don’t know. ESPECIALLY in politics, where EVERY choice has positive and negative consequences to balance.
Trying to get an informed political opinion from a religious zealot is about as useful as getting your calculus homework finished by toddlers…
Sure, but they’re still the people I grew up with in life. I won’t let them be part of my life if they truly believe that the January 6th seditionists did nothing wrong. But I still care about them and try to talk them down from this.
They’ve been through years of programming fed to them by professionals. As just some schmuck that doesn’t understand their beliefs, you’ll never be able to undo what has been done. It’s sad, but they need a LOT more than “Wait. You mean Trump REALLY DID LIE?!? I had no idea! This changes everything!”
I mean, I grew up in the same church environment. So I do understand their belief system intimately. The problem isn’t any understanding on my part, it’s their mindset. They want to make their current beliefs right, not to find the truth and be right. Recently, verbally insulting and degrading them has actually given me results. So maybe their tendencies to do the same to others out of hate is just projection.
You should know that a religious upbringing comes with HEAVY emphasis on faith. By the time you hit adulthood still believing in things with ZERO evidence … how do you expect those people to be able to discern truth!? They’ve spent their lives ignoring truth in favor of faith…
and you wonder why they believe nonsensical things… They can be good people who still don’t know a fucking thing about politics except what they heard on Fox, which absolutely will have them spouting hate.
All they need are words to give them confidance in repeating it. Not facts to back it up. Their faith will make them think their misguided confidance is truth.
First of all, nice bait, looks delicious, think I’ll chow down.
This mindset sounds closer to the problem than to the solution. Do you truly believe that the best way to interact with an extremist is to blindly judge them, then assume that they will question their entire worldview because one person, who has made no good faith effort to understand them, decides to call them names?
Many extremists, though perhaps not most, feel the way they do because they honestly believe they are doing the right thing. They listen to the lived experiences of people they trust and discount the words of people they do not. The blind judgment of others only ‘proves’ to them that it’s all one big conspiracy, everyone else are sheep, and that they are the only ones who can think for themselves.
I don’t know if you necessarily have to understand them, but you should still ask them about it, just to make them think about it.
Lots of people form their opinions out of their ass without ever being confronted with why they have hat opinion.
You don’t have to like these people, but you do need to co-exist. That’ll be difficult if they are allowed to dig themselves into their trenches without any resistance until they start flinging shit at each other.
The only way to avoid it getting worse is to engage in dialogue and keep questioning them. Don’t argue, don’t tell them what is right or wrong, just keep asking “why do you think that?”
The other side of that coin is to allow people to question your beliefs and to actually think about things when they do.
Those two things together is what will really help, imo.
They will ask eventually. I just don’t want to force anything on anyone
I believe that it is impossible to teach anyone anything, but it is possible for anyone to learn anything.
Understanding happens when someone thinks and reaches out.
I have asked them about it, and it generally goes one of two ways depending on which way they identify.
Rightwing: “Because it’s in the Bible.”
Leftwing: “I don’t know, I just think that.”
If a leftist cannot explain to you the reasonings behind their stances… They are a TERRIBLE leftist. Are you sure you’ve actually talked to people?!
I promise you, I know someone who has met only a single Palestinian in their entire life here in America and now believes that at least 80% of Palestinians in Gaza are not bigots because this one person isn’t. I also know somebody who has apparently found “leftist Qanon” and now believes that Hamas is good and literally has not murdered a single baby in Israel.
Who knows? Maybe the area I live in has just been polluted by something? Or maybe COVID fried everyone’s brain? I did move away for most of my life and only came back just before COVID.
I know you’ve met people like that.
The problem is you’re attempting to treat them as some beacon of political wisdom.
What?
Those are good answers. Not for understanding, but because it shows that they admittedly don’t really know, so they’ll now have to think about it.
It would be tempting to keep questioning why they believe in the bible or believe in something they don’t know, but that would likely only result in them getting angry and potentially digging further into their trench.
Don’t push them. You’ve already sown the first seed. Just step back and let them think. Maybe address the issue a while later and hear if they’ve become more open to alternative takes on the issue. That’s the entire point.
This feels like satire.
I wish it was. You want another dumb reason I’ve heard for voting Hillary? “She reminded me of my mom, so I trust her.”