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F--k You, WaPo, I Do NOT Have To "Understand" Trump Voters
(opinionatedogre.substack.com)
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this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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Sun Tzu, The Art of War:
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” (That last describes the Democratic party to a tee.)
So yes, it behooves us to understand them if we want to win. If you want to rage and stick your fingers in your ears, good luck with the toddler approach.
And since 100 toddlers will take that statement to mean "appeasement" or "how to get on their level", fuck you, you're a child. Leave these discussions to grownups. In the mean time, go read a grownup book. (Hint: The Art of War is 100% applicable here.)
Here's one with far too much nuance for liberals:
“When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.”
Not even going to explain that one in modern political terms. In any case, we lost, and goddammit we're not going to learn anything from it!
There's more people who don't bother voting than there are conservatives. And not only are there more of them they're also easier to get on our side. IMHO it's better from a game theory perspective to focus on them than to try to understand conservatives.
Some people would rather be right than try to solve the problem.
Genuine question. How do you solve decades of religious indoctrination, poor education, and racism en masse?
I could maybe educate my two parents, maybe. But then what?
Genuine answer: one mind and one heart at a time. With any luck, some of them become influential and the message spreads more rapidly.
Religious indoctrination is hard, because so many of them teach that indoctrinating others is a way to save them. Ultimately, however, the whole belief system is a house of cards. It takes surprisingly little to bring it down. Ask them how they know that what they believe merits their belief. It starts there.
Nominate an opposing candidate that speaks directly to the underlying issues that made scapegoating minorities attractive. (See AOC / Trump split ticket voters.)
Encourage them to educate their friends. Tell people you successfully educated your parents. You can’t change this alone, but that alone does heavy lifting in that sentence
EDIT: I think I'm just done here. The work will always need to be done by those most vulnerable and I'm just tired. I'm tired of being blamed and threatened when I've done everything I'm "supposed to do". Donated to who I was "supposed to donate to". Voted for who I was "supposed to vote for". Understand whatever you want, no one on their side is really trying to understand me.
I just can't pretend that my allies are allies. I'll be yelled at for venting. I'll be told to calm down when I'm scared. I'll be told to be enraged while trying to find some peace.
I wish I could say something helpful, but I'm tired too, and I know there's nothing that can really be said to help. So I won't try to help, and I'll just stop for a moment and we can be tired and scared together.
I'd send you a hug in a box if I could. Here is my doggo instead
Your pup is very cute. Thank you for sharing, friend.
You armed? Because you fuck well should be, as well as practiced and educated.
Oh shit. Just realized you missed the entire fucking point. You are losing Miss. Trans. It would be in your best fucking interest to figure out why you are losing and to do that you have to figure out what the enemy is thinking.
Or, you could keep whining about how these people have no empathy for you. Yeah. We already knew that.
When OP speaks of allies not being allies, it's comments like yours that I think of. You use "we" like we're on the same side here, but (ironically given you say this of OP) you have missed their entire point.
We're not going to survive (let alone make progress) if we tear each other down like this. This isn't me saying "they go low, we go high" nonsense, because you're quite right that relying Trump voters to show empathy doesn't look like a good strategy. I don't see that OP was actually saying anything of the sort though. This is about how we (people opposing Trump and co.) treat each other. It would be easier for us to become practiced and educated if we could rely on the people who are meant to be allies.
I want to believe that you're a decent person who wrote an assholish comment. It happens to the best of us. I hope that you'll reread OP's comment and your own and see how unproductive this approach is for everyone. But maybe I'm wasting my time here, in much the same way that expecting empathy from Trump voters is probably unwise. That's up to you, I guess
Fuck yourself.
We do know them. They are mostly stupid. They are mean. They are all trash.
Some of them may not have been these things but if I have a garbage can and someone throws a perfectly good apple into, that apple is now trash.
One can remove the apple and culture the bacteria to prove it.
There is no reason to get to know the trash, it won't stop being trash because I have further refined all of the smells and rot involved.
If getting to know trash was possible we wouldn't be were we are. The left has been attempting to understand for decades and it has only lead to the bacteria and rot infecting the democratic party to the point where calls for a new leftist party are increasing with each cycle.
Way to miss the entire fucking point. Keep losing!
Says the one that missed mine. We know what they are, trash. Doesn't matter you or they accept it.
Hate movements do not have the nuance you imagine them to have.