Dimsum said:
From May, but still relevant.
"Why Trump voters are not 'complete idiots'".
https://medium.com/@Chris_arnade/trump-politics-and-option-pricing-or-why-trump-voters-are-not-idiots-1e364a4ed940#.ynpytlana
Oh, Boy. I promised myself to hold back on this thread but this post got me antsy.
Firstly I do buy into the genral premise of this article that individuals, for the most part, want to move themselves "to the right" ie better themselves and their family's position in life. Much of the rest I think misunderstands society in general.
You can scrap this entire analysis as silly if you want, but please try and understand the core point missing from much of the current dialogue — large parts of the US have become completely isolated, socially and economically.
I don't think that "large parts of the US have become completely isolated, socially and economically ...". If you look back fifty years and more you'll see that there always was a divide between the richer and more affluent elements of society. What happened after WW2 was that large parts of the poor class moved upward leaving other elements behind. The big point though is that we generally accepted our lots in life. Growing up in the Fifties all of my schoolmates and friends came from the same economic class as myself and we never really were dissatisfied because, in large part, we didn't know better. Communications these days are all pervasive (even for the poor country cousins) and now everyone who doesn't reach Kim Kardashian wealth levels feels that they are being "held back by the man". It's not isolation, but too much communication and too great a feeling of entitlement that fuels dissatisfaction.
Kids are growing up in towns where by six, or seven, or eleven, they are doomed to be viewed as second class. They feel unvalued. They feel stuck. They are mocked. And there is nothing they feel they can do about it.
See Kim Kardashian above. They are not mocked but may very well consider themselves looked down on. There is an answer for that: education and hard work. The trouble is that a large part of our society resists being educated and turns to disablers such as toxic relationships , drugs and alcohol which will ensure that they will never move to the right.
When they turn to religion for worth, they are seen by the elites as uneducated, irrational, clowns. When they turn to identity through race they are racists. Regardless of their color.
I disagree that the "elites" take this view. In fact in much of the US, the so-called elite is, or at least pretends to be, highly religious. It is quite appropriate however to question why individuals govern themselves and attempt to govern others with various faith-based belief systems that were designed for nomadic shepherds thousands of years ago. Over a century ago Karl Marx stated that "religion is the opiate of the masses". He was right then. It continues to amaze me that with all the knowledge that is available to everyone these days that there are still tens or more of millions of people allow themselves to become indoctrinated and stay tied to such systems. One doesn't consider them uneducated or clowns but one does question their ability to think rationally.
The only thing they can do, faced with that, is break the f***ing system. And they are going to try. Either by Trump or by some other way.
This is another sign of how some people refuse to be educated, or at least refuse to learn from history. The most simple study shows that "breaking the system" in an anarchic sense leads to a decrease in the standard of life for the vast majority of the populace and particularly for the lower classes for a significant period of time. If your aim is to guard the hen house from coyotes, why would you elect a coyote to be the hen house guard? The policies being expounded by Trump do not demonstrate a logical path to increased opportunities or a bettering of the opportunities for the individuals the author is writing about. It is simply an attempt to leverage fears (some rational some highly irrational) that exists within segments of the American society.
So (with due respect to others who might differ) Trump voters aren't "complete idiots" but one has to question their ability to analyse issues and evaluate them rationally. One may be tempted to take God on faith but it would be suicide to do the same with Trump and so far that's all he's offering.
Okay. That's my last word on the subject. Have at it.
:cheers:
