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Originally Posted by ResAlien
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Now not everyone who voted Trump is an out and out Muslim hating, sexual assault advocating, race baiting hate monger. Thinking that would be silly. But it stands to reason that a large section of those who did vote Trump didn't find any of those things to be a big enough problem to guide their conscience somewhere else. There are other options of course. Perhaps they don't consider social issues to be important in the least in a vote for president, maybe they don't possess the capacity to understand the repurcussions of these ideas, or maybe they are kind of awful people. These are all options I'd think but that's part of my liberal elitism showing through and I'm ok with that.
What my rambling is saying is that tired and frustrated doesn't get to be the cop out argument for why you don't want to address it. That it makes you uncomfortable is a good thing, because that means you know it's crappy. Sure they have their own problems with poverty or loss of jobs and that sucks but it doesn't absolve them from the consequences of their vote.
Apologies if this is all over the place, I was just trying to capture the spirit of the thing you know?
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Perhaps they recognize that social issues are less important than providing the basic necessities and surviving.
There are many different groups of people that voted or Trump.
1. Evangelicals. These people voted for Trump because of social issues. It's not that they necessarily agree with Trump's treatment of women and minorities, but for them saving lives is more important than ensure people have comfortable lives. This is to say they voted for Trump for his appointments to the supreme court and in the hope of overturning Roe vs Wade.
2. People most strongly effected by the shift to Chinese manufacturing. These people came out in droves for both Bernie and Trump. Bernie Sanders would probably have won some of these states had he been the Democratic candidate. These people recognize that fighting over identity related social issues is a luxury for people with money, but putting food on the table and dealing with problems like mass drug addiction come first. These people don't care about Trump's sexism, racism, etc because they have bigger, more life threatening things to worry about. For these people trade, immigration, and corporatism were the biggest issues.
3. Sexists, Racists, etc. These people overwhelmingly endorsed trump because he's sexist, racist, etc.
So it comes down to priorities, who you trust, and how much you think congress will limit the president. Right now, there are enough people that are willing to let trump say sexist and racist things for a shot at fixing a broken political system, immigration reform, and better trade deals that he is President. And with good reason. Reduce corporatism, increase the influence of the common person, and fix the economy, and you end up with an America that works better for more of the country, especially for the bottom half economically. Short term pain for longer term gain is a rational position to take.
So yes, tired and frustrated isn't an argument. Tired and frustrated is an emotion. So is desperation. Emotion alerts us to things that are most strongly affecting us, and effects how we rank the important of things and drives motivated reasoning and other cognitive biases.
Given this, it's not surprising that people will rationally choose to elect a bigot that promises to give them an actual voice and government representatives that actually work for the people they represent. Motivated reasoning will affect how much of a bigot that voter thinks Trump really is, causing this rationality to be applied to bad information, but doesn't mean that the voter is endorsing trump for those things.
So yes, these people are willing to tolerate intolerance in the short term for the hope of a better tomorrow. Realistically they will continue to do so until their economic standing improves. Not willing to tolerate intolerance? Then encourage your representatives to do what they can to improve the social safety nets, end the war on drugs, etc. Find ways to get people employed. Start calling out intolerant ideas and fight the modern callout culture that confuses bad ideas and bad people; do so with humility and tact.
Just like you can't teach a hungry man to fish, you won't substantially reduce intolerance, sexism, racism and so on without first solving the economic pressures that are fueling it.