Politics over Religion at MD&D

[Guest]

[_Chap]

So far as I can see, Selek and Water Dog seem to be saying that they did not vote for Trump mainly because they thought he would make a good president. They did not vote for him mainly because they thought that the policies he intended to implement would have results tending to make their own lives more prosperous and more secure.

They voted for him because they believed that this would upset a group of people who for some reason they seem to dislike and resent intensely.

As a result, so long as enough people of the kind they dislike criticise Trump, they are satisfied. Trump does not have to do anything positive at all: he just has to go on being criticised by the kind of people Selek and Water Dog hate - and the more bitter the criticism, the more they are sure that Trump is doing a good job.

The problem is that Trump would, on this basis, retain approval from Selek and Water Dog even if he was to enact policies that were by any measure deleterious to the essential interests of the US. So long as the people they hate criticised Trump for those policies, they'd still be happy, whatever he did ...

[_canpakes]

Water Dog, it seemed you engaged Kish without really having a command of the issue. Understanding something and articulating it well are signs of elitism only to the proudly ignorant. It is truly deplorable that grasping an issue is taken as a sign of elitism; it's a form of cultural rot that is turning us all into basket cases.

I have studied the issue of private property rights for quite some time. Your "command" of the issue amounts to garden variety punk activist socialism and is too immature to be worth engaging.

WD, whoever issued the first title to any piece of land within what now comprises these States, and upon what was it based?

[_Kishkumen]

I would engage this thread further if not for the level of elitism.

Weak and lame. Pony up with real reasons, why don't you?

[_Kishkumen]

I have studied the issue of private property rights for quite some time. Your "command" of the issue amounts to garden variety punk activist socialism and is too immature to be worth engaging. I doubt you could last more than about five minutes in an actual debate. Which most likely correlates with how long you'd make it in the real world, outside the sheltered context of govt subsidized academia and tenure. If my revulsion scores as an intellectual victory to you that only serves to validate that my decision to avoid this cesspool was the right one. All the best.

And this sounds like the common bilge spewed out by pseudo-conservative snowflakes. Truly disappointing.

[_Kishkumen]

...I have to consider all the facts and ponder the evidence carefully before awarding Donald Trump the grade of A+. He has done an incredible job of doing exactly what I had hoped he would do in the off chance he defeated that naggy harridan and her corps of gender indeterminate hipsters, coastal snobs, race hustlers, aspiring libfascists, media scum, and wussy pseudo-conservatives terrified that a Hillary loss would mean people might expect them to do more than wear bow ties and go on NPR to prattle about Burke in their high-pitched, nasal voices.

There can be no serious debate. Donald Trump has done a truly outstanding job of not being Hillary Clinton.

His not being Hillary Clinton was and remains my sole expectation of Donald Trump’s presidency. Nothing else matters in the end; it is enough that Trump foiled Felonia von Pantsuit’s creepy scheme to subjugate forever the deplorable mass of normal people she despises.

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/05/22/donald-trump-has-done-an-amazing-job-at-his-most-important-job-n2330044

I dearly hope this is some kind of stupid joke on your part, Water Dog. The person who wrote that is the kind of wildly irresponsible, nasty idiot who would place us all in peril out of pure resentment. This guy truly strained at a gnat to swallow the camel.

I was never a fan of Hillary. My big hope right now is that she not try to make a comeback next presidential cycle.

That said, never in my darkest moments of concern for this country would I have compromised all of my judgment and principles to vote an ignorant, corrupt, abuser of his fellow human beings into the presidency.

The extent to which anyone takes the GOP seriously right now is the extent to which people have lost their freaking minds, fatally compromised their values, and thrown concern for the American Republic as a functioning state out the window.

And what do we see coming out of it but tax cuts that enrich the obscenely rich by further grinding down the poor? It is so utterly vile and disgusting, that anyone speaking up for this monstrosity does not merit the name of Christian or Mormon. They pervert these words beyond recognition.

Private property? “F” off. Thievery is more like it. "I'll arrange for someone to take more of your property so they don't take mine."

No principles.

[_Meadowchik]

So far as I can see, Selek and Water Dog seem to be saying that they did not vote for Trump mainly because they thought he would make a good president. They did not vote for him mainly because they thought that the policies he intended to implement would have results tending to make their own lives more prosperous and more secure.

They voted for him because they believed that this would upset a group of people who for some reason they seem to dislike and resent intensely.

As a result, so long as enough people of the kind they dislike criticise Trump, they are satisfied. Trump does not have to do anything positive at all: he just has to go on being criticised by the kind of people Selek and Water Dog hate - and the more bitter the criticism, the more they are sure that Trump is doing a good job.

The problem is that Trump would, on this basis, retain approval from Selek and Water Dog even if he was to enact policies that were by any measure deleterious to the essential interests of the US. So long as the people they hate criticised Trump for those policies, they'd still be happy, whatever he did ...

Could we call these nihilising confirmation bias?

[Guest]

They voted for him because they believed that this would upset a group of people who for some reason they seem to dislike and resent intensely.

As a result, so long as enough people of the kind they dislike criticise Trump, they are satisfied. Trump does not have to do anything positive at all: he just has to go on being criticised by the kind of people Selek and Water Dog hate - and the more bitter the criticism, the more they are sure that Trump is doing a good job.

The problem is that Trump would, on this basis, retain approval from Selek and Water Dog even if he was to enact policies that were by any measure deleterious to the essential interests of the US. So long as the people they hate criticised Trump for those policies, they'd still be happy, whatever he did ...

I remember very distinctly the day I saw Lou Dobbs on his CNN business show ranting about a Mexican conspiracy to take over the southeastern United States. I thought the guy had lost his mind. Not long after that he moved over to Fox News. In my mind, that was a moment. I grew up in a home where Rush became a regular voice in the background, and for a long time I was on board with this kind of stuff. At some point, which hit a new peak when Glenn Beck, wearing glasses of course, brought out his crazy board with its insane flowchart to detail the left-wing conspiracy that included NBC somehow, it descended into an intellectual sewer, and it has not reemerged since.

Increasing racism, sexism, and, well, just anxiety and anger dominate Fox News. Aside from a couple of people who don't seem to have completely lost their minds, it's really not worth watching at all. In fact, it is poisonous. People whose regular diet includes the conspiracies, anxiety, anger, and misinformation of Fox News are the kind of people who seem to think Trump is a reasonable answer to so-called "liberals" (mostly centrists who have not given up hope on civilization). But what kind of answer is he? A vulgar gesture.

That's it: a vulgar gesture.

No matter how smart and well read you are, if this is what you use your vote for, then your behavior is not only an insult to the Republic, but also a threat to its lasting health.

Such people are the chumps. Voting on the basis of how much you hate liberals is the very definition of being a chump. It's so freaking obvious that it baffles me to see someone who can be so thoughtful and well informed (if not someone I agree with) on some issues like Water Dog post this trash as a way of justifying the choice to vote for the worst president in American history, a man who looks to be on the brink of hollowing out our Republic and turning it into an authoritarian regime.

What is even more shocking is to see the open dissension of Republicans on the basis of conscience and good sense, which is subsequently ignored by the people who support the party no matter what on the argument that these people were not real conservatives anyway. The rot in the thought process that leads to such conclusions in defiance of sensible warning signs is manifest.

[_Symmachus]

So far as I can see, Selek and Water Dog seem to be saying that they did not vote for Trump mainly because they thought he would make a good president. They did not vote for him mainly because they thought that the policies he intended to implement would have results tending to make their own lives more prosperous and more secure.

They voted for him because they believed that this would upset a group of people who for some reason they seem to dislike and resent intensely.

As a result, so long as enough people of the kind they dislike criticise Trump, they are satisfied. Trump does not have to do anything positive at all: he just has to go on being criticised by the kind of people Selek and Water Dog hate - and the more bitter the criticism, the more they are sure that Trump is doing a good job.

The problem is that Trump would, on this basis, retain approval from Selek and Water Dog even if he was to enact policies that were by any measure deleterious to the essential interests of the US. So long as the people they hate criticised Trump for those policies, they'd still be happy, whatever he did ...

I think you've mostly cracked it, Chap. Elections are always about stories, and there is a deep story (to borrow the phrase of an eminent sociologist who has studied this) among Trump supporters that informs everything around the discussion of their candidate: in their minds, they're hard-working, independent folk who don't depend on the government, which is run by corrupt elites; these hard-working people actually the ones who fund the government, and yet the elites are using those funds to help minority groups who want a fast track to the American dream—they just happen to be blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, homosexuals, and what have you. These hard-working people are in line waiting for the American dream, but the lines not moving for them because all these minorities keep cutting in and they are totally disrespectful to the hard-working people who have been waiting and doing what they're supposed to; one of minorities even got to Harvard somehow and became president! (there must be something fishy about that...how do we know he was even born here?)

Of course there are variations on this theme, but Trump remains popular among this group, which still constitutes a huge portion of the electorate, because he knows how to play to this story. There is no material reason why otherwise decent people—and imagine that Water Dog is a decent person—should support someone that is blatantly corrupt, obviously incompetent for the job, dangerously unstable, and demonstrably uninterested in helping those same supporters in anything beyond playing to their deep story. It works because that story is part of their identity. That story embedded in Water Dog's head has its own internal logic, and that is how he so predictably leaps to the conclusion that I am a socialist tenured professor who can't make it in the real world (ha! I wish! I'm from a working class background, I have no political power, own no assets or property, and I make barely enough to pay the bills only 9 months of the year; I am sure Water Dog is doing better than I ever will, and I don't even have a measly Visiting Assistant Professorship at Cassius University). Consequently, it is hostile to any fact that could undermine the core. It doesn't matter to Water Dog that his state probably depends on the federal government for about 30% of its budget—which helps funds transportation, towns, cities, healthcare, courts, education and all the other the other infrastructure needed to run a modern economy for people like Water Dog, who imagine that they make it in the real world all on their own. It's probably higher if it's a red state. In the final analysis, most Trump supporters are dependent on the redistributive power of the federal government.

As I told Water Dog—it seems to have gone right over his righteously indignant head—I don't know much about property rights behind the obvious truth that public is the antonym of private. Even such an unmistakable fact of language is just too much for him to handle. He can't even bring himself to address it, because that would open the possibility of questioning what Trump actions with Bears Ears and Escalante. It reminds me of the mentality of the classical Mormon apologetics.

That's because support for Trump is almost like a religion. It operates on the same psychological plane, and that's why Hilary is the Devil, even though she is just a private citizen now (...or is she? ). Mythless truth is unpleasant compared to the cosmic drama of watching Daddy Trump, with his A-Team tough guys Limbaugh and Hannity, punch those mean liberal elitists in the face. This isn't even really a partisan issue; Democrats like Joe Manchin can survive in Trump country because they don't really factor in to the drama. Like a religious myth, watching Trump play to their story makes his supporters feel good because it makes them feel strong and protected from forces they can't control or facts they don't want to face. They don't want to hear that they're weak and dependent because it undermines their self-story of independence. Instead, they turn the bureaucrats who try to serve their needs—the educated people who work in the various layers of government—into the agents of elite masters who impose dependence on them, all while helping the undeserving (who just happen to be blacks, Hispanics, and homosexuals...). They don't want to hear that Trump couldn't give two good god damns about making their lives materially better because he makes them feel better. At the end of the day, feeling better off Trump's being better off.

But it's pretty obvious how fragile his supporters are as soon as you pop the narrative: these people are as hypersensitive as a gender-fluid vegan frantically looking for a non-binary restroom at the Golden Corral. As is the case with religious people, Trump supporters like Water Dog want us all to respect to their cherished myths, and they get really angry the second you don't grant them the respect they feel they deserve. It's a dangerous problem, because while religion has a socially sanctioned space within which it is immune to criticism, political views in a democratic society are supposed to scrutinized, debated, and even attacked. Emotional narratives have always had a part to play in American politics, so that's not new; what is new is that these narratives are becoming the driving factor, even the only factor.

When Water Dog jumps on to the thread only to say that he won't engage in a discussion about policy because the line of the thread feels unpleasant to him (which is what he means by lobbing charges of elitism), what he is basically implying is two things: 1) this thread is not a space where he feels his views will remain safe from criticism, and 2) those views deserve such a safe place. This is becoming an accepted premise for politics in America, which means in the end that there will be no safe space for reason itself.

[_Symmachus]

I have studied the issue of private property rights for quite some time. Your "command" of the issue amounts to garden variety punk activist socialism and is too immature to be worth engaging. I doubt you could last more than about five minutes in an actual debate. Which most likely correlates with how long you'd make it in the real world, outside the sheltered context of govt subsidized academia and tenure. If my revulsion scores as an intellectual victory to you that only serves to validate that my decision to avoid this cesspool was the right one. All the best.