If Liberals don't understand that they may be acting in a way that is counter to their own better interests (alienating potential support) then they are beyond help.
Liberal Hubris is a MAJOR strategic shortcoming.
Other than inflating your own ego, I don't see much upside of continually insulting all Trump supporters.
Here's the issue, and I've repeatedly brought this up with regards to this discussion, what's the other option?
We've seen it happen over and over in this very thread, when faced with facts and logic and proof to the contrary, Texas Flames Fan has merely waved it away as fake or biased. Absolute refusal to accept facts. Often with Trump voter/Breitbart types, it's nearly an actually hostile reaction to facts.
Talking nice and reasoning with them doesn't work.
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Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos
Hubris (and snobbery, arrogance, elitism, insults...) are supposedly what lost the Democrats the election because people don't like that!
But they lost it to the most arrogant, elitist, insulting snob who possibly ever lived. The irony.
I had that conversation with a client of mine who supported Trump. She kept going on and on about how she just couldn't wait until Obama was out of office, how terrible he was, how she thought Trump would be so much better.
I almost always just bite my tongue and give vague "oh, uh-huh..." answers for stuff like this, but after speaking glowingly of how wonderful Trump would be, she told me she needed Obama gone because he's just so arrogant.
I couldn't stop myself at that point. "I mean...Trump is pretty arrogant himself..."
She didn't have a response to that one.
They're fine with arrogance, as long as the arrogant jackass is echoing their views.
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So, the argument here is that if we disagree with someone's views we should just call them names to their face, even though we all agree it is ineffectual?
Hey, I'm fine with calling people names behind their back, as I'm sure some people do to me, but it is very different when you decide to do it to their face because you think their views are stupid.
Hey, I get caught in that too, there are people with what I believe are incredibly stupid views on things. But I like to think I'm smart enough to know that calling people names to their face is going to do nothing to legitimize my views, or make my character appear to be something that others should listen to or consider following.
It isn't that I expect that to cause people to change their views, but I know that being an arrogant jerk certainly isn't going to do it either.
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The demonizing of the word "liberal" by the right, the rampant abuse of big money in politics, the dumbing down of the electorate, and the echo-chambering of "media" and "influence sources" are the great scourges of the American political system. The first two things should be corrected. The second two take care of themselves as a natural consequence.
I seem to recall there was a TED talk on how to persuade extreme right wingers, and it basically came down to making emotional, moral arguments rather than well reasoned ones. Basically, if they feel something is right, it is nigh-on impossible to persuade them otherwise through reason - you almost have to appeal to their sense of moral outrage.
That's why it's so difficult for a liberal-minded person to reach them - they're not used to making emotional arguments or using rhetoric.
And it's also why a guy like Trump appeals to them so much. He embodies their outrage, and provides them with an outlet for it: Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants, whatever. Once they've hitched their emotional/moral wagons to that train, you're not going to reason them out of it with stats. You need to give them another train, probably with a louder whistle, that they'll hopefully switch over to.
As a pretty rational chap myself, I find the idea of making my arguments in this way a very, very difficult proposition (call it cognitive dissonance, hypocrisy, whatever). But the Democrats are going to have to find a way to do this somewhere along the line.
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Let's not pretend that this is a one-sided thing here.
"How dare you call me stupid, you leftard!"
Oh absolutely, it definitely comes from the extremes on both sides. Which is why deciding to lower yourself to the worst on the other side seems like a pretty shallow way to carry yourself.
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Here's the issue, and I've repeatedly brought this up with regards to this discussion, what's the other option?
You know, there may not be an option for changing their mind directly. The best option might be just to ignore the dumbasses and maybe they will figure out Trump is hopeless.
We all want the same thing...less Trump supporters. Some people think that Trump supporters deserve ridicule and that ridicule will lead to less Trump support...I don't see it that way. That's not to say that any individual person who spews BS about X or Y shouldn't be called out...however, I don't think that the knee-jerk bigotry towards people who supported Trump will lead to less support for Trump. I believe it will, overall, have the opposite effect. It's not about coddling them...its about being strategic.
And I also think that there are a surprising number of reasonable people who chose Trump because they felt they had no better option...the main goal (which the Dems are fumbling right now) is to provide those people with a better option.
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"WHAT HAVE WE EVER DONE TO DESERVE THIS??? WHAT IS WRONG WITH US????" -Oiler Fan
"It was a debacle of monumental proportions." -MacT
Last edited by Fozzie_DeBear; 04-23-2017 at 11:10 PM.
Trump won't fire Spicer because 'he gets good ratings' lol
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President Trump has no plans to fire press secretary Sean Spicer, comparing Spicer’s daily press briefings to a daytime soap opera.
“I’m not firing Sean Spicer,” Trump said, according to the Washington Post. “That guy gets great ratings. Everyone tunes in.”
Spicer’s job security has come into question after a series of gaffes, most recently when he said during a press briefing that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler did not use chemical weapons during World War II, and then referred to concentration camps as “Holocaust centers” when he tried to clarify his remarks.
Spicer’s comments set off a firestorm of criticism and both Republicans and Democrats demanded he lose his job.
Spicer has also become the brunt of jokes on "Saturday Night Live," where actress Melissa McCarthy portrays him as short-tempered and mocks his relationship with the White House press corps.
So your solution is appeasement. Historically not the best plan.
Choosing not to randomly insult people is not appeasement.
You don't let bad behaviour slide, you don't allow buffoons to compromise the integrity of the US constitution, you don't endorse ignorance and you certainly don't overlook potential treason. You fight for all of these things without carelessly insulting your fellow citizens.
That's not appeasement.
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"WHAT HAVE WE EVER DONE TO DESERVE THIS??? WHAT IS WRONG WITH US????" -Oiler Fan
"It was a debacle of monumental proportions." -MacT
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Choosing not to randomly insult people is not appeasement.
No, but your suggested approach is. Again, you don't have a clue what you are talking about. You have no idea just how divided things are down here and how quickly the right will hurl insults. They do it as a test. If you don't respond, they don't respect you.
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You don't let bad behaviour slide,
And how do you do that exactly? Point out how bad their behavior is? That just feeds their bad behavior. That just gives them exactly what they want. Milo Yiannopolis fed off being told he was a jackass. His followers lived vicariously through him and the attacks he took. The end for him started when he was allowed to sit at the big boys table and two well respected experts in their fileds had had enough and told him to #### off. You can only reason with an idiot for so long before you have to drop the mitts and get ugly.
And if you think Yiannopolis is too extreme an example, how about one of the icons of the conservative media, "Papa Bear" Bill O'Reilly. There is no bigger bully, no one quicker to through an insult, no one more willing to ignore facts and spin his own line of BS. How well did people reasoning with O'Reilly go? How well did it go with John Stewart inviting him on the Daily Show and crushing him with facts and rational discourse? Didn't do a damn thing and actually got O'Reilly more fans, because O'Reilly looked strong and was able to insult Stewart at will. O'Reilly wouldn't do Colbert anymore, because Colbert used very smart insults to embarrass Papa Bear. Colbert made the big man look like the little man that he really is, and most importantly, weak. Stark contrast with very different results.
When you don't stand up and do what is needed with these jerks you just feed them and their followers.
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you don't allow buffoons to compromise the integrity of the US constitution,
And how do you do that? The vast majority of people in the US don't even know what the Constitution is. Most think it is the Bill of Rights. You can't have a rational argument about something that people know nothing about.
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you don't endorse ignorance and you certainly don't overlook potential treason.
And how do you do that when a certain ideology creates its own shared reality? You've seen it in this thread with Texas Flames Fan and Illuminaughty. To a lesser extent you see it with Corsi and Peter12. They ignore facts, they ignore real happenings, and they rely on fallacies and fantasies to frame their reality, or worse, make arguments based on ridiculous philosophical beliefs that live in a vacuum and detached from reality. You do not reach these people with facts. They are not going to move off their position with facts.
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You fight for all of these things without carelessly insulting your fellow citizens.
How??? I'll be waiting for this wonderful plan on how to move the needle with people who won't listen to facts and live in their own insular fantasy world.
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That's not appeasement.
If you won't do what needs to be done, that's appeasement. If your child is acting up and they won't respond to "time outs" and you refuse to yank their pants down and paddle their little ass, that's appeasement. You're encouraging their bad behavior. If diplomacy fails, you need to take things to the next level. That's where America is right now. Diplomacy with the RW has failed in most quarters. Ask Senator Elizabeth Warren how hitting these creeps with facts works? All she got was censured. She appeased them and got crushed.
So do the conservative/Trumpish extremists that hurl insults do anything to convince you your side is wrong?
And it is the most unlikeable and disgusting of those you disagree with that you want to emulate?
Look, maybe the detail that's being missed is if some individual idiot comes up and starts insulting you, sure go ahead and call him names back. We'd probably all do it, productive or not.
But don't decide you should call all people with a viewpoint that you think is stupid names, because some people with stupid views call others names.
63 million Americans voted for Trump. As much as that blows my mind, and makes me kind of sad for democracy and the human race, there are many decent and smart people that made that choice. Calling them all names because I disagree with their political choice seems as ignorant as the people on the other side that call names of those they disagree with. Those are the last people whose behaviour I'd want emulate.
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you're not going to change my mind on questioning people's obtuse reasons for voting for Trump, and then bashing them when they can't provide anything logical or based in reality.
and besides, why all the deflecting from the real story.
Trumps approval ratings are the lowest ever, and he has accomplished nothing, yet says he has high approval ratings, and has accomplished more than any other administration in the first 90 days in office. What a moron, and the people that still support his lying, dummys.
"The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill
Honestly when it comes right down to it, American politics can just be decided by the flip of a coin. Democrat or Republican. No need for voting and the circus behind it.
lol... what? for two questions that Donna Brazile provided...better check your facts again
Your boy Trump couldn't answer questions on policy even remotely coherently... and when that happened he appealed to his base's by spouting off lies, falsehoods, ad hominem attacks and empty promises.
I thought she won the debates based on substance...Trump's base attention span is more tuned to like clown shows, so his 'hot takes' stuck in their heads...
So with those two questions we can admit that Hilary cheated and that automatically she loses the debate right?
