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0 pointsmistermann6y ago0 comments

> If you knew in November 2016 what you know now, would you still have voted for him? Do you plan to vote for him in 2020?

I'll throw my hat in the ring and say yes to both questions, under the circumstances.

> ignorantly bumbling his way through economic, trade, and foreign policy

I disagree with this characterization, but can certainly understand how someone could come to this conclusion.

> Put another way: it just seems unlikely to me that all the "burn it to the ground" supporters expected or are happy with the fact that burning it all down also causes them more suffering, too; more suffering than the establishment has been hit with. And yet, here we are.

I suspect the way they evaluate the situation is dramatically different than yours. There are a handful of people who are actually looking into what's behind the seemingly paradoxical (and coordinated) behavior of a large number of people around the world rather than just wagging their finger, but unfortunately hardly anyone seems interested in what they've found.

One such person is Jonathan Haidt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt

http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/home.html

https://www.edge.org/conversation/jonathan_haidt-what-makes-...

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jonathan+haidt

Two others I'd recommend looking into are:

Mark Blyth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Blyth

http://markblyth.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGuaoARJYU0 Global Trumpism and the Future of the Global Economy

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mark+Blyth

Thomas Frank

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Frank

https://www.tcfrank.com/essays.php

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Thomas+Frank+po...

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gerbilly6y ago

Ok I understand that conservatives view morality differently¹ , and factor in a wider range of concerns², fine.

But I don't see how voting for Trump advances conservative voters any further in shifting the moral framework to one they would prefer. I see trump mostly as amoral if anything.

Or is the point, as the study suggests, to burn down the system? To dismantle morally offensive programs/legislation? Am I missing something?

1: I.e. that it's not just about how we treat each other, but also supposed to act as an organizing principle for society. 2: loyalty, respect for authority purity

war10256y ago

The main thing Trump has been doing as a favor to conservatives is heavily loading the court benches with conservative justices. That will have a long-term impact.

I think the mistake liberals make when looking at Trump, is they think he must be viewed by his supporters the same way they looked at Obama.

Obama is someone they looked up to on a personal, moral level.

Trump is, as you said, amoral. He goes where the political winds and his instinct take him.

I think people would feel much more at ease at least with the whole unstable, incompetent leader thing if they bothered to read Art of the Deal (written in 1987), in which he lays out how he views the world basically word for word in line with what he said during his 2016 campaign.

He may be unorthodox, but he is consistent.

Would I want to be his friend? Probably not. But that's not the role he applied for.

gerbilly6y ago

Ok, thanks.

I'm not conservative, just FYI, so I find it interesting to discuss differences with thoughtful conservatives which you seem to be.

If conservatives value loyalty/respect for authority more than so called 'liberals', then aren't you afraid that the conservative agenda carried out to it's logical conclusion might descend into authoritarianism/theocracy?

(You didn't state that you held these views or preferences, but I just assumed them in the interest of getting my question out quicker. Correct me if I am wrong.)

war10256y ago

I'm politically unaffiliated. When asked, I identify as a "Not-Democrat", which is mainly because I feel that the Democratic party pulled a bait-and-switch on the working class by using their "everyone go to college" meritocracy thing as a convenient segue into just backing the wealthy the same as Republicans do.

If both parties are just in favor of keeping the powerful in power, then I will personally side with the party that explicitly says so.

Regarding "logical conclusions", I think the key is that the goal isn't to carry it out to its extreme, but to counter-balance the pull from the other side. Sure it feels good to have momentum, but no one should be surprised when the tides turn back the other way for a while.

The goal is to find dynamic balances between opposing ideals. In order to do that, you need to try to pull past where you think the correct middle ground is. I think that's true for both sides.

A thought I had extending my previous Trump / Obama comparison, is that if you compare it to the David vs Goliath story, I think people viewed Obama as David. I.e. the unsuspecting hero that comes out of nowhere to save the people. Trump is more of a Goliath character. Did people expect Goliath to be nuanced and articulate and thoughtful? No. They just wanted him to be a big tough bastard that would go beat up on the enemy.

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gerbilly6y ago

Ok I understand that conservatives view morality differently¹ , and factor in a wider range of concerns², fine.

But I don't see how voting for Trump advances conservative voters any further in shifting the moral framework to one they would prefer. I see trump mostly as amoral if anything.

Or is the point, as the study suggests, to burn down the system? To dismantle morally offensive programs/legislation? Am I missing something?

1: I.e. that it's not just about how we treat each other, but also supposed to act as an organizing principle for society. 2: loyalty, respect for authority purity

war10256y ago

The main thing Trump has been doing as a favor to conservatives is heavily loading the court benches with conservative justices. That will have a long-term impact.

I think the mistake liberals make when looking at Trump, is they think he must be viewed by his supporters the same way they looked at Obama.

Obama is someone they looked up to on a personal, moral level.

Trump is, as you said, amoral. He goes where the political winds and his instinct take him.

He may be unorthodox, but he is consistent.

Would I want to be his friend? Probably not. But that's not the role he applied for.

gerbilly6y ago

Ok, thanks.

I'm not conservative, just FYI, so I find it interesting to discuss differences with thoughtful conservatives which you seem to be.

(You didn't state that you held these views or preferences, but I just assumed them in the interest of getting my question out quicker. Correct me if I am wrong.)

war10256y ago

If both parties are just in favor of keeping the powerful in power, then I will personally side with the party that explicitly says so.

The goal is to find dynamic balances between opposing ideals. In order to do that, you need to try to pull past where you think the correct middle ground is. I think that's true for both sides.

1 more reply

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