The Stupidity of the Average American Voter

[Mdhorn 5911]

On 12/14/2020 at 4:07 PM, Dnaguy said:

I think more and more people aren’t as ‘stupid’ as we would like to believe. We call them stupid to make ourselves feel smarter.

What all trump voters that weren’t the string puller-uber rich .1%ers have in common is that they’re afraid.

Afraid of change, afraid of their future, afraid of being able to retire, afraid of a rising China, afraid of young people and their ideas, and ultimately afraid of their death and the idea that they’ve squandered their shot.

Look at his electorate. They run off the fumes of nostalgia. 

To most of these folks, the earth stopped rotating when the wall fell and we won the Cold War. What the hell do we do now?!

Then we had a dot.com bubble, 9/11, multiple endless wars, a Great Recession, social media and its lies, Trump, and now a recession+pandemic.

Every single one of those things chipped away at any credibility the government and the decision makers had.

The Republican Party leaned into this hard as their already had a strategy of dismantling the regulatory state.

So more than anything, the american voter is scared shitless. They don’t have hope in the future. 

That is not a great place to be and I foresee more and more candidates like Trump until we do.

That's interesting but why wouldn't people vote for their rights or towards expanding those rights?  That's not Corporate, therefore, that's not Republican.  The biggest fear I have getting older is healthcare.  I would expect retirement and healthcare to be the two biggest concerns.  Why would I vote for the party that looks to retract them?   

[safe sex 11681]

11 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

Then add in their propensity for hateful and violent rhetoric and in some cases actual violence.

Yep, I feel extremely unsafe around vocal Trump supporters. 

[Mdhorn 5911]

1 hour ago, UpperWestside said:

I honestly do not think most of us have done a whole lot of reaching out and mostly it is because it's hard to want to set aside feelings of anger when the person you are talking to still is in an alternate reality fueled by a lying demigod type figure that millions believe had an election stolen from him. Trumpism is a symptom of a much deeper problem and if we do not try to solve that then we are ALL going to be in a world of hurt, Biden voters included. 

We all reach out to our families, parents, former friends.  I go in asking questions, not making statements, to help them draw their own conclusions or get them thinking.   They don't want to answer questions.  That's choosing to be willfully ignorant and to not have to fess up to being wrong or wanting to know.  

Reality is that this isn't an us vs them, it's rich vs everybody.  Playing the masses against each other is the only way they win, especially in a democracy.  It's not enough to be wealthy, it's control and power.     

[UpperWestside 6136]

28 minutes ago, Mdhorn said:

We all reach out to our families, parents, former friends.  I go in asking questions, not making statements, to help them draw their own conclusions or get them thinking.   They don't want to answer questions.  That's choosing to be willfully ignorant and to not have to fess up to being wrong or wanting to know.  

Reality is that this isn't an us vs them, it's rich vs everybody.  Playing the masses against each other is the only way they win, especially in a democracy.  It's not enough to be wealthy, it's control and power.     

The part I bolded is probably the biggest thing that many of us are letting slide. I think this is a simple enough message that we can use to speak to the folks actively engaged in the cult. It's something you have to hammer home repeatedly though. Rich folks got even more wealthy during a global pandemic while millions of people have gone without for the last four plus months as federal aid was cut off. It was not just Democratic voters that lost that aid. Trumpkin voters did too, but so many are still in the throes of listening to the rantings of a mad king and his many grievances that they do not stop to notice or care.

[Fastbreak 3959]

I have lived abroad for 9 of the past 10 years and I yet to meet a trump supporter. Over the past 4 years, this is a typical interaction:

cabbie: “where you from?”

me: “the states”

cabbie: “oh boy! That Trump, what an idiot!”

me: “yeah”

frustrating being the fucking Aggy for the rest of the world. 

[UpperWestside 6136]

1 hour ago, trauma babe said:

Wtf does reaching out and listening even look like to you? What does that mean policy-wise? What does that mean administration tone-wise? What are you personally doing to listen and learn about Trump's victims' motivations? 

Ffs, no one here is seriously saying that Trump voters' families should be separated and locked away in cages (only the actual Trumps). But they shouldn't have any fucking input on how to run the country for the foreseeable future. We know what putting them in charge looks like.

I want to hear WHY they are the way they are. I am well aware as is everyone else here what it is they want. I want to know the root cause of how they came to believe not only in an alternate reality, but why they became who they are mentally. It's a lot of digging that will have to take place to answer those questions, but I think psychologists are already putting the pieces of this puzzle together. It'll take years to complete this type of work, but it is worth it in order to find some answers.

If you want me to talk policy about where I want them included it will not be in what their opinion is of progressive policy. I absolutely believe that we as a country need to become more progressive, but that has to happen gradually whether everyone can understand that or not. I think part of Biden's domestic policy should be re-educating all Americans whose jobs are either being phased out completely (Coal jobs for example) or manufacturing jobs that are not coming back. I believe if you can get the working class on board with the government footing the bill to pay for folks to get educated enough in a new line of work to where they can provide for their family that that is a good start. We cannot leave millions of people behind. Oil and gas jobs are another example of an industry that will need over-hauling. I personally think those folks should be footing the bill on getting their workers up to speed on emerging technology sectors such as clean and renewable energy. I think we all know they won't do it unless we the taxpayers foot the bill though. 

[shnsajax 3589]

On 12/14/2020 at 9:39 AM, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

I know we talk about this in other threads, but I really feel like it deserves its own thread.  Ever since this election cycle has begun, the amount of people who I know to be educated individuals who repeatedly parrott back falso information and propoganda is alarming.  People who I have previously known to be rational, intelligent people, have seemingly lost all critical thinking skills.  How the fuck are we supposed to fix this?

 

My aunt who has a PhD in Education (thanks Dr. Jill Biden) married a right wing nut who has been that way for as long as I can remember. He would constantly get in arguments with my uncle who served in the House as a Dem in Texas in the 80's. Anyways she would complain about Michelle Obama's initiviates while loving Melania.

There is nothing we can do, they are too old, too brainwashed and nothing will change that. They are dying off, and won't be replaced by their offspring at the same capacity. Sadly, only time will fix this I think.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

The fundamental problem is that we hear "reach out to them" and are envisioning the kinds of "reaching out" that would reach us. Insofar as we have to continue existing with the people who are currently continuing to allow themselves to be conned by dangerous lunatics, "nope, not listening" to them is a suicidal option.

Something has to be done, so what will that be? Discarding their votes? Incarcerating them? Executing them? How does any of that improve anybody's moral character or render our society more just or less dystopian?

I consider this not to be a social schism, but a mental health crisis. And there simply aren't enough mental health institutions, let alone enough doctors and nurses to staff them, to manage the problem. It's fun to demonize those who are spewing venom and hatred, but it's more productive to remember that they are the sores and boils on the surface of a very unhealthy human collective. Until we look at "them" as a part of "us" that needs some serious help, we're going to be stuck in a very ugly cycle.

Edited December 16, 2020 by Walden Ponderer
Took out the shouty bits.

[bad_teammate 13132]

The problem isn't mental illness, really, it's insularity. We are reflections of what we surround ourselves with. Some of us are iconoclasts by nature, but thankfully most of us aren't. (What a garbage planet it would be if my sort were more widely represented.)

Y'all should at least lurk TexAgs. It's insightful.

There was  a thread called "BLM Cotton Pickers" and it's about forced labor in China. There is no connection to BLM other than an angry demand to know why BLM isn't speaking out against forced labor in China. That's it. It was just an excuse for a hateful, racist right-winger to call black people cotton-pickers. Staff's solution was to change the name to "BLM ignores forced labor". Their problem isn't the underlying racism that motivates the speech, they are only upset that the quiet part is being said loudly.

You can see the same type of issue on woke social media, as well. Those people exist entirely within an unreal and created sphere that appears to drive them completely insane (colloquially speaking) and disconnected from normal reality. An ecosystem of Tweets and podcasts that drives them further and further away from human experience.

Edited December 16, 2020 by bad_teammate

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

13 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

The problem isn't mental illness, really, it's insularity. We are reflections of what we surround ourselves with.

Well, you may not want to call it a mental health question, but I don't know how else to characterize a complete lack of empathy. All you've done is to describe the method of transmission.

You are absolutely right, though, that this problem is not unique to the right wing, which is why I consider it vital to not simply write them off as troglodytes. The nutters going after J.K. Rowling are not waving guns in anybody's face, or burning crosses on anybody's lawn, but they are suffering from the same underlying disease, and unless we treat the disease, Trumpism in another form is going to flare up no matter how many of the people who voted for Trump, in particular, die off from old age or COVID. Sooner or later, insularity will give rise to another nationalist populist movement with a new body count.

[bad_teammate 13132]

I guess the distinction is that I see that kind of groupthink and herding as perfectly human. Maybe I'm just more fatalistic about it lol

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

24 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

I guess the distinction is that I see that kind of groupthink and herding as perfectly human. Maybe I'm just more fatalistic about it lol

So is throat cancer, but that doesn't mean tobacco should be legal.

[safe sex 11681]

44 minutes ago, Walden Ponderer said:

Well, you may not want to call it a mental health question, but I don't know how else to characterize a complete lack of empathy. All you've done is to describe the method of transmission.

You are absolutely right, though, that this problem is not unique to the right wing, which is why I consider it vital to not simply write them off as troglodytes. The nutters going after J.K. Rowling are not waving guns in anybody's face, or burning crosses on anybody's lawn, but they are suffering from the same underlying disease, and unless we treat the disease, Trumpism in another form is going to flare up no matter how many of the people who voted for Trump, in particular, die off from old age or COVID. Sooner or later, insularity will give rise to another nationalist populist movement with a new body count.

I dunno, people going after one of the wealthiest white women in the world, who continually expresses and double-downs on an unrepentant transphobic worldview, is not the same as Trump fans attempting to destroy democracy. I do not think it is of the "same underlying disease." 

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

3 minutes ago, trauma babe said:

I dunno, people going after one of the wealthiest white women in the world, who continually expresses and double-downs on an unrepentant transphobic worldview, is not the same as Trump fans attempting to destroy democracy. I do not think it is of the "same underlying disease." 

Suit yourself. Take any of a number of other issues that someone on the left takes too far (and just sticking with gender issues, freaking out over pronouns is a very good example) -- my point is that doubling down on a single issue that is not as life-and-death as your rhetoric makes it sound may not have the same impact if you're not carrying a gun, but it is the same impulse, the same neurological feedback mechanisms in the brain, and is, in fact, the same disease. And eventually, it blows up into the same social crisis.

[SydneyCarton 47884]

I'll put on my cynical hat and say there's not shit any of us can do, at an individual or even a widespread level. I don't disagree with anyone's point particularly on the topic of what to do, but the answer is there isn't shit.

We fight and bicker and can't even get together or vote in the resources to help the comparatively small percentage of people in this country with more "traditional" mental health problems. And you think we're going to put together a coalition of voters who will vote in changes that literally will affect what, 20-30% of the country? Who also votes? Somewhere between 40-60% of the US politicians, who also make the very same laws that you're trying to push into reality, but they'll jump on board? 

We're more likely to literally find an impossible way to blow up social media and remove politics from it and reintroduce the fairness doctrine. But remember, these people literally believe the the other political side of them are the enemy. They actually believe in their bones that the other side is going to destroy the country. They emotionally feel like their backs are against the wall. That's not casually overcome with a few changes, and it's certainly not likely that the inmates currently running the asylum are going to agree to a battery of medicine and therapy being suggested to them by folks they believe are trying to end democracy and capitalism and America. 

[TwiceHorn 31280]

1 hour ago, Walden Ponderer said:

The fundamental problem is that we hear "reach out to them" and are envisioning the kinds of "reaching out" that would reach us. Insofar as we have to continue existing with the people who are currently continuing to allow themselves to be conned by dangerous lunatics, "nope, not listening" to them is a suicidal option.

Something has to be done, so what will that be? Discarding their votes? Incarcerating them? Executing them? How does any of that improve anybody's moral character or render our society more just or less dystopian?

I consider this not to be a social schism, but a mental health crisis. And there simply aren't enough mental health institutions, let alone enough doctors and nurses to staff them, to manage the problem. It's fun to demonize those who are spewing venom and hatred, but it's more productive to remember that they are the sores and boils on the surface of a very unhealthy human collective. Until we look at "them" as a part of "us" that needs some serious help, we're going to be stuck in a very ugly cycle.

Personally, I think Walden is onto something here.  I think a lot of societal dysfunction may be related to low-grade chronic mental illness.  I can't prove any of it. 

I have thought for several years that a lot of poverty is related to depression and there are studies indicating that the environment of poverty contributes to brain dysfunction in a way similar or identical to depression, and often includes a higher-than normal degree of impulsivity, and there's the hereditary component.

Edited December 16, 2020 by TwiceHorn

[Neonmoon 38127]

I appreciate the sentiment by Westside, but I think there is a disconnect between message board conversations and reality. Meaning, please do not take internet postings and assume this is how one converses with family, friends, and neighbors. It is not. I do not talk about politics with my neighbors, but if things come up, the amount of compassion and understanding shown towards conflicting beliefs would make Ghandi proud. I’m a little more challenging with friends, but again, promote understanding, and I’m downright adversarial with family. My family mostly agrees on things but we have one hardcore Trumper. How do you reach someone that believe whatever Newsmax says? Either way, I’m not out there telling people they are stupid for their beliefs. 
 

but this is a anonymous message board. 

[UpperWestside 6136]

1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

Personally, I think Walden is onto something here.  I think a lot of societal dysfunction may be related to low-grade chronic mental illness.  I can't prove any of it.

I think Walden is onto something as well and I do think what you are saying here is something else that is a contributing factor to our ongoing dysfunction that continues to push us further and further apart as a society. 
 

I would be interested to see what studies are currently being conducted by people who have similar thoughts. I think our best tool at combating our breakdown of society is ourselves. Giving up is not an option on this. 

[Mdhorn 5911]

7 hours ago, Fastbreak said:

I have lived abroad for 9 of the past 10 years and I yet to meet a trump supporter. Over the past 4 years, this is a typical interaction:

cabbie: “where you from?”

me: “the states”

cabbie: “oh boy! That Trump, what an idiot!”

me: “yeah”

frustrating being the fucking Aggy for the rest of the world. 

My impression was that other countries had significant rises with nationalism parties.  

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

8 minutes ago, UpperWestside said:

I think our best tool at combating our breakdown of society is ourselves. Giving up is not an option on this. 

Amen.

I think a lot about a program being run by one state's prison system (don't remember which state) a few decades ago where they would give lifers who were in for violent crimes a hamster to take care of. These are guys who committed gross atrocities and didn't give one flying fuck about anybody. Well, to take care of a hamster, you have to feed it, water it, play with it, clean its cage... and these guys would do that for a year and a half or so, and then their hamster would die. Because that's what hamsters do.

Every last one of them was reported to have bawled like a baby when their hamster died. And practically all of them showed improved behavior and fewer discipline problems. Because, you know... oxytocin. It's simple science.

I don't know what the large scale social equivalent would be, but I'm fairly sure someone smarter than me could find one.

[wildcat09 29256]

9 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Personally, I think Walden is onto something here.  I think a lot of societal dysfunction may be related to low-grade chronic mental illness.  I can't prove any of it. 

I have thought for several years that a lot of poverty is related to depression and there are studies indicating that the environment of poverty contributes to brain dysfunction in a way similar or identical to depression, and often includes a higher-than normal degree of impulsivity, and there's the hereditary component.

Nothing here is incorrect but I don't think any of it really explains Trumpism or the broader fascist/authoritarian bent. Most of Trump's most fervent support doesn't come from people in poverty or the working poor just outside of poverty, it comes from the middle and upper-middle class. His base isn't the trailer park, it's College Station and Kingwood. I'm not going to say aggy don't suffer from chronic mental illness, but it's not from living in poverty.

[Brisketexan 104624]

9 minutes ago, Walden Ponderer said:

Amen.

I think a lot about a program being run by one state's prison system (don't remember which state) a few decades ago where they would give lifers who were in for violent crimes a hamster to take care of. These are guys who committed gross atrocities and didn't give one flying fuck about anybody. Well, to take care of a hamster, you have to feed it, water it, play with it, clean its cage... and these guys would do that for a year and a half or so, and then their hamster would die. Because that's what hamsters do.

Every last one of them was reported to have bawled like a baby when their hamster died. And practically all of them showed improved behavior and fewer discipline problems. Because, you know... oxytocin. It's simple science.

I don't know what the large scale social equivalent would be, but I'm fairly sure someone smarter than me could find one.

So......you want us to give everyone hamsters?

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

1 hour ago, bad_teammate said:

The problem isn't mental illness, really, it's insularity. We are reflections of what we surround ourselves with. Some of us are iconoclasts by nature, but thankfully most of us aren't. (What a garbage planet it would be if my sort were more widely represented.)

Y'all should at least lurk TexAgs. It's insightful.

I've been reading your posts over there occasionally when I have time. Fun times. I'll have to go back if you're posting more. I skimmed it last week and so many posts were titled with a version of: "Tell Me Libs, How Is This Not Cheating?" that I got bored and stopped checking. Very little discussion there.

 

The fear based propaganda over and over and over has a long term effect, too, I believe. Especially with the middle and upper middle classes. The stress of it adds up until the rational thought process declines--some of that may be age related and why more of the older folks were and are worried about "invasions" by gangs, antifa, black people, caravans, Californians, Chinese spies, and so on. it's easily reinforced and goes to a basic element of a need to feel 'safe.'

[UpperWestside 6136]

15 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Nothing here is incorrect but I don't think any of it really explains Trumpism or the broader fascist/authoritarian bent. Most of Trump's most fervent support doesn't come from people in poverty or the working poor just outside of poverty, it comes from the middle and upper-middle class. His base isn't the trailer park, it's College Station and Kingwood. I'm not going to say aggy don't suffer from chronic mental illness, but it's not from living in poverty.

I think that the underlying condition that I personally believe to be the link between the poverty Trumpers and those who are better off monetarily Trumpers is going to find links to some form of mental illness. I think there are characteristics that most will be found to have shared once we see conclusive studies done. Things happen in childhood that go unfixed and ignored and it carries over into adulthood. Money, or the lack thereof, means nothing when you have been emotionally or psychologically scarred as a child.
 

I think the last four years were an horrific affront to democracy and it was exacerbated by a guy who fashioned himself as an authoritarian. I think the good that can come from it for society as a whole is learning the why of it mentally. No one is born with this level of hatred for others. Whatever each of us can do to contribute to helping find concrete answers so that future generations do not go through this same fiasco is well worth the effort.

Edited December 16, 2020 by UpperWestside

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

1 minute ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

The fear based propaganda over and over and over has a long term effect, too, I believe. Especially with the middle and upper middle classes. The stress of it adds up until the rational thought process declines--some of that may be age related and why more of the older folks were and are worried about "invasions" by gangs, antifa, black people, caravans, Californians, Chinese spies, and so on. it's easily reinforced and goes to a basic element of a need to feel 'safe.'

Resentment is addictive. It's really not complicated. We just need to replace the negative feedback loop with a positive one. Somehow. And hope aggy doesn't aggy it up.

[UpperWestside 6136]

4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

So......you want us to give everyone hamsters?

Hamsters

 

2 minutes ago, Walden Ponderer said:

Resentment is addictive. It's really not complicated. We just need to replace the negative feedback loop with a positive one. Somehow. And hope aggy doesn't aggy it up.

Might have to cordon off College Station for a generation or so just to be safe.

[wildcat09 29256]

Just now, UpperWestside said:

Hamsters

 

Might have to cordon off College Station for a generation or so just to be safe.

How? Walls don't work. We'll have to nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

3 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

How? Walls don't work. We'll have to nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

You can recover from it, though. I haven't been there in 16 months, and I have not once gone to a restaurant and intentionally ordered a bland chicken finger in all that time.

[bad_teammate 13132]

16 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

I've been reading your posts over there occasionally when I have time. Fun times. I'll have to go back if you're posting more. I skimmed it last week and so many posts were titled with a version of: "Tell Me Libs, How Is This Not Cheating?" that I got bored and stopped checking. Very little discussion there.

I'm constantly getting temp banned when I'm critical  of the forum's prevailing inwardness. They don't like that.

You know me, though, give me posting or give me death.

Quote

The fear based propaganda over and over and over has a long term effect, too, I believe. Especially with the middle and upper middle classes. The stress of it adds up until the rational thought process declines--some of that may be age related and why more of the older folks were and are worried about "invasions" by gangs, antifa, black people, caravans, Californians, Chinese spies, and so on. it's easily reinforced and goes to a basic element of a need to feel 'safe.'

Yep.

The way they constantly change the subject in any discussion where they feel their footing is unsure is very much like a child scared that he's going to get in trouble. Almost impossible to have a conversation. It's like an elementary school and this is a high school.

[Neonmoon 38127]

Again, marketing works. Manipulation of our basic instincts works. Propaganda works. The constant and unfiltered fire hose of fear based propaganda from Fox, OAN, Newsmax, Twitter, Facebook is creating large cracks in human reality. Until these are turned off or restricted, these problems will continue to exist and get worse. 
 

Everyone buys a Diamond because marketing works. 
Everyone buys expensive jeans because sex sells. 
Half the country believes lies about voting fraud because propaganda works

 

 

[SimonBolivar 10931]

Found this gem on TexAgs and it explains a lot.

 

Wuhan Virology Lab

8:16p, 12/15/20

 

AG

 

My government teacher in high school was the head basketball coach, so his class consisted of watching Rush Limbaugh and making Bill Clinton jokes. I miss the good ol' days before wokeness.

[UpperWestside 6136]

1 hour ago, Neonmoon said:

Again, marketing works. Manipulation of our basic instincts works. Propaganda works. The constant and unfiltered fire hose of fear based propaganda from Fox, OAN, Newsmax, Twitter, Facebook is creating large cracks in human reality. Until these are turned off or restricted, these problems will continue to exist and get worse. 
 

Everyone buys a Diamond because marketing works. 
Everyone buys expensive jeans because sex sells. 
Half the country believes lies about voting fraud because propaganda works

 

 

I believe this to be true as well. The trick is piecing everything together to form a full view of all of the contributing factors that get people to this point of believing outright propaganda.

[JimmyJames 12271]

Here’s the problem.
 

Throughout the history of American society, approximately 5-10 percent of the country has always been amoral scamming carnival barkers. Con men, grifters, etc. 

Then you have approximately 50 percent of the country or so that either lack critical thinking skills, have a mental illness, or are just getting old, ie “the marks.” 
 

In the past the 5 percent of the carnival barking con men could only reach a limited amount of the mark population. From our youth in the 80s think about the telemarketing scams that hoped the person answering on the other side was some old person. 
 

Now today with the Internet, the con men and grifters can reach practically everyone with little operating costs. So they have a much higher success rate. In fact, Fox News and rush make billions off of this principle. 
 

What’s the solution? Hell if I know but first you have to recognize the problem before you can solve it. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

17 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

Here’s the problem.
 

Throughout the history of American society, approximately 5-10 percent of the country has always been amoral scamming carnival barkers. Con men, grifters, etc. 

Then you have approximately 50 percent of the country or so that either lack critical thinking skills, have a mental illness, or are just getting old, ie “the marks.” 
 

In the past the 5 percent of the carnival barking con men could only reach a limited amount of the mark population. From our youth in the 80s think about the telemarketing scams that hoped the person answering on the other side was some old person. 
 

Now today with the Internet, the con men and grifters can reach practically everyone with little operating costs. So they have a much higher success rate. In fact, Fox News and rush make billions off of this principle. 
 

What’s the solution? Hell if I know but first you have to recognize the problem before you can solve it. 

Not just the internet. The aging Boomers are the foremost generation of television and its commercial invasion into our lives. Sure, print and radio had advertising, but television made it very commonplace once most homes had televisions. I approach many ads with a jaded pov, but there are viewers that are outraged if an ad shows minorities in some number they deem to oversaturate the time allotted and completely miss the objectification of certain genders or groups, or the subtle reinforcement of certain societal mores. The pump was primed and the internet's ability to target just overwhelmed participants to the point of research exhaustion (or chaos; I cannot recall the terminology). People joked about the Oxiclean commercials but Billy Mays and the company whose products he sold made a lot of sales by loud repetition, repetition, repetition.

It's why Trump's tweets seem repetitive. They are. That delivery works over and over again.

The voters are going to constantly hear the name Biden (specifically Hunter) over and over again and the word fraud. It will stick. Does not matter if it's true. I don't have a solution either...

 

Edit-left off where I was going with the Boomers: so, post Boomer generation most households had television, then computers, then smart phones until now it's an afterthought. The corporate tech runs us more than we run it.

Edited December 16, 2020 by Mrs Whiggins

[washparkhorn 9935]

12 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

There are millions of people . . . who want to see every Trump voter . . . suffer everyday they have left on this earth.

That is a consistent worry expressed by Trump voters. Fear is a mind-killer. 

[Satchel 6908]

Re: our real mental health crisis among right wingers:

 

HOUSTON — A former Houston police captain was arrested after allegedly running a man off the road and threatening him at gunpoint — what prosecutors say was part of an elaborate attempt to find evidence for a false conspiracy theory of widespread voter fraud in Harris County.

Mark Aguirre was working on behalf of a powerful Republican megadonor’s group to investigate unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud when, in October, he allegedly pulled a gun on a man described by the Harris County district attorney’s office as an “innocent and ordinary” air conditioner repairman.

Aguirre was arrested Tuesday, according to the Harris County district attorney’s office.

Prosecutors say Aguirre’s election fraud claims were baseless and that he was paid $266,400 by the group Liberty Center for God and Country, whose CEO is prominent Texas right-wing activist Steven Hotze.

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/12/15/steven-hotze-texas-election-fraud-Houston-police-arrested/

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

 

[washparkhorn 9935]

12 hours ago, trauma babe said:

Yep, I feel extremely unsafe around vocal Trump supporters. 

Situational awareness is a critical component of higher-level decision making and safety. 

https://ece.northeastern.edu/fac-ece/kokar/publications/IS-27-03-Cpss.pdf

People playing dress-up cop/soldier is not normal or rational. Shun and avoid.

[HillaryFan420 121]

 

3 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

I think that the underlying condition that I personally believe to be the link between the poverty Trumpers and those who are better off monetarily Trumpers is going to find links to some form of mental illness. I think there are characteristics that most will be found to have shared once we see conclusive studies done. Things happen in childhood that go unfixed and ignored and it carries over into adulthood. Money, or the lack thereof, means nothing when you have been emotionally or psychologically scarred as a child.
 

I think the last four years were an horrific affront to democracy and it was exacerbated by a guy who fashioned himself as an authoritarian. I think the good that can come from it for society as a whole is learning the why of it mentally. No one is born with this level of hatred for others. Whatever each of us can do to contribute to helping find concrete answers so that future generations do not go through this same fiasco is well worth the effort.

This is ridiculous and pathologizing these people makes you no better than the "liberalism is a mental disorder" types.  

 

I think the cleavage that is forming between college educated and non-college educated voters is more to do with a difference in values surrounding nationalism vs cosmopolitanism and other more bourgeois values.  Think of the contrast in messaging between America being a unique place with characteristics worth preserving and the messaging that stresses intelligence, competency, and qualifications.  I think Republican messaging will become less and less racialized and in doing so Republicans will be able to head off the demographic doom Democrats have been clamoring about for decades.  Look at the shocking gains Trump made in the RGV for instance.  That's the future of the Republican party.

[Biff Tannen 45495]

42 minutes ago, HillaryFan420 said:

4 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

 

This is ridiculous and pathologizing these people makes you no better than the "liberalism is a mental disorder" types.  

I must have missed where liberals full on joined a cult that abandoned reality altogether.

[UpperWestside 6136]

2 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

I must have missed where liberals full on joined a cult that abandoned reality altogether.

I was kind of wondering the same thing.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

12 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

I must have missed where liberals full on joined a cult that abandoned reality altogether.

The differences are mostly in degree of danger at present, because most of the things Liberals are guilty of ignoring reality about are not so fundamental to, you know, the health of our economy, the wealth of our middle class, or the very existence of our historically discriminated-against brethren and sistren, but there's plenty of delusion on the left, too. A good example would be the fact that it's evidently okay for a Liberal to criticize Christianity, but not any other religions. There's nothing any more ridiculous about fundamentalist Baptist nonsense than there is about forcing women to wear a hijab, but it's heresy for a Liberal like me to say it.

[Brisketexan 104624]

1 hour ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

Not just the internet. The aging Boomers are the foremost generation of television and its commercial invasion into our lives. Sure, print and radio had advertising, but television made it very commonplace once most homes had televisions. I approach many ads with a jaded pov, but there are viewers that are outraged if an ad shows minorities in some number they deem to oversaturate the time allotted and completely miss the objectification of certain genders or groups, or the subtle reinforcement of certain societal mores. The pump was primed and the internet's ability to target just overwhelmed participants to the point of research exhaustion (or chaos; I cannot recall the terminology). People joked about the Oxiclean commercials but Billy Mays and the company whose products he sold made a lot of sales by loud repetition, repetition, repetition.

It's why Trump's tweets seem repetitive. They are. That delivery works over and over again.

The voters are going to constantly hear the name Biden (specifically Hunter) over and over again and the word fraud. It will stick. Does not matter if it's true. I don't have a solution either...

 

Edit-left off where I was going with the Boomers: so, post Boomer generation most households had television, then computers, then smart phones until now it's an afterthought. The corporate tech runs us more than we run it.

The Old Glory Robot Insurance ad was rather prescient:

 

And before that, remember all the old people suckered into subscribing to 100 magazines, because they thought that would guarantee their odds of winning the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes?

Still happens:

https://www.freep.com/story/money/personal-finance/susan-tompor/2015/09/02/dads-prize-patrol-dreams-drain-family-savings/30727551/

Remember reading any number of stories about America, particularly the American west, with the traveling snake oil and miracle tonic salesmen?  Same shit, different century.

We're some dumb, gullible motherfuckers.  But now in the age when everyone has a computer in their hand that is plugged full of algorithms aimed at getting scams sent right to their brain, the reach is 10,000 times more efficient than when you had to travel from town to town, or send a direct mailer. 

[Biff Tannen 45495]

6 minutes ago, Walden Ponderer said:

The differences are mostly in degree of danger at present, because most of the things Liberals are guilty of ignoring reality about are not so fundamental to, you know, the health of our economy, the wealth of our middle class, or the very existence of our historically discriminated-against brethren and sistren, but there's plenty of delusion on the left, too. A good example would be the fact that it's evidently okay for a Liberal to criticize Christianity, but not any other religions. There's nothing any more ridiculous about fundamentalist Baptist nonsense than there is about forcing women to wear a hijab, but it's heresy for a Liberal like me to say it.

Wat?

All organized religion is a sham and anyone that follows it is a sap.

There.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

11 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Wat?

All organized religion is a sham and anyone that follows it is a sap.

There.

That's it, bub. you're not allowed in to the next meeting of Hijab-Hugging-Hipster-Liberals-R-Us.

[safe sex 11681]

1 hour ago, washparkhorn said:

Situational awareness is a critical component of higher-level decision making and safety. 

https://ece.northeastern.edu/fac-ece/kokar/publications/IS-27-03-Cpss.pdf

People playing dress-up cop/soldier is not normal or rational. Shun and avoid.

Not super sure of the point of this?

[washparkhorn 9935]

4 minutes ago, trauma babe said:

Not super sure of the point of this?

“Your instincts are sound” (using needlessly wordy words in sentences). Sorry. 

[wildcat09 29256]

1 hour ago, HillaryFan420 said:

 

This is ridiculous and pathologizing these people makes you no better than the "liberalism is a mental disorder" types.  

 

I think the cleavage that is forming between college educated and non-college educated voters is more to do with a difference in values surrounding nationalism vs cosmopolitanism and other more bourgeois values.  Think of the contrast in messaging between America being a unique place with characteristics worth preserving and the messaging that stresses intelligence, competency, and qualifications.  I think Republican messaging will become less and less racialized and in doing so Republicans will be able to head off the demographic doom Democrats have been clamoring about for decades.  Look at the shocking gains Trump made in the RGV for instance.  That's the future of the Republican party.

The Republican pretending to be a Democrat is concerned about the rhetoric coming out of some of you.

[TwiceHorn 31280]

5 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

Nothing here is incorrect but I don't think any of it really explains Trumpism or the broader fascist/authoritarian bent. Most of Trump's most fervent support doesn't come from people in poverty or the working poor just outside of poverty, it comes from the middle and upper-middle class. His base isn't the trailer park, it's College Station and Kingwood. I'm not going to say aggy don't suffer from chronic mental illness, but it's not from living in poverty.

I gave poverty as an example of a dysfunction that may have a big mental health/psychological component.

"Race and place" insecurity is probably another.

I'm not saying it's some uniform field theory to explain the current political dysfunction, but there's probably a component to it, at least.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

4 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

The Republican pretending to be a Democrat is concerned about the rhetoric coming out of some of you.

My only real problem here is really wishing no one who references Hillary Clinton in any way should ever be allowed to use the word "cleavage".

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

31 minutes ago, trauma babe said:

Not super sure of the point of this?

Faux militia and Civil War Reenacters are crazy. I thought that was so obvious as to be tautological. 

Meanwhile, to totally derail the thread, at the Bennett Place in Durham, where Joe Johnston surrendered to W.T. Sherman, last year (pre-pandemic) there were not just reenacters on the battlefield, but also a Santa who was passing out sample toys like what went through the Union lines (they had little toy effigies of Jefferson Davis hanging from the gallows -- real heartwarming stocking stuffers), and we had absolute proof that Santa was a Yankee.