It's funny how we demand immigrants "assimilate" but the majority party courts the least-assimilated

[ck4829]

I mean they wave a flag of a faction that broke away from our government - Seems the opposite of assimilation to me.

They are, for lack of a better word, paranoid about their fellow Americans if they are different colors, religions, of a different sexuality, etc.

They are antagonistic, sometimes just to be antagonistic, to institutions in our country: Whether it's the media, fact checkers, watchdogs, the medical community, and more. It's to the point where they are proud of this distrust.

They can't accept the US as it is in the year 2018, they prefer the US magically go back to some era that only exists in their minds.

We do have an assimilation problem in this country - But the Republican Party and Fox News simply calls them "forgotten Americans".

[dawg]

1. They are "patriots" who love America.

Except that they think most Americans are lazy degenerates who don't even belong here; they think America's culture is degraded and sinful; they think America's laws are weak and permissive; and they think America's natural beauty is just something to be strip-mined and used for profit.

But other than that, they love America.

[ck4829]

2. This right here, this is both nationalism and authoritarianism defined

[marylandblue]

4. Maybe they just have a different view of what America should be

I am not saying they have a correct view, but it is possible to love a country with many flaws and it is also possible for people to vigorously debate what those flaws actually are.

Take America's culture. I think reality shows degraded our culture. Some people said so in the early days of reality TV, but they were ignored. Now our entire country is a reboot of "The Apprentice." I still love America.

[dawg]

5. Nope.

They love their fantasy of what they think America *should* be.

They hate the America that actually exists.

[marylandblue]

6. They say the same thing about us.

[dawg]

7. So?

It's objectively not true.

Piss on this "bothsidersism".

We certainly aren't the one's who think America needs to be "made great" again.

[marylandblue]

9. When you have large numbers of people on two sides of an issue

And they are both strongly passionate about it, you are at an impasse. The three options I see are convince them, compromise with them, or force them. I doubt the first will happen, the third may result in extreme violence, so that leaves the second.

I don't think that compromise is as difficult as it seems, but it is important we understand what they want. I think the key issue is immigration. The possibility of "open borders" scares them to death, even though nobody actually wants that. But they are not clear on what we want, we are not clear on what they want. I believe that a Democratic president who runs on a workable immigration reform package will be the next POTUS. If we can find someone willing to touch the issue.

[dawg]

10. I think it's really sad that you still believe all that after everything that has ...

happened over the last ten years.

Very sweet, yes, but also very sad.

It is in our nature to be nuanced and to try to understand things from the other side. But, sometimes, things really are as simple as they seem to be. (And sometimes monsters are real.)

President Obama was that president who ran on a workable immigration package. In order to demonstrate his willingness to compromise, his administration oversaw an unprecedented ramp up in border patrol enforcement and the number of deportations skyrocketed. By the end of his administration, there was zero net migration from Mexico to the U.S.

None of that mattered.

"Build a wall", they said. "Rapists and murderers", they said.

Then they separated children from their parents and put them in cages.

THERE IS NO COMPROMISING WITH THESE PEOPLE!

The only compromise they accept is doing things their way.

We just have to outvote them. And, sadly, wait for the oldest of them to die off.

And in the meantime, we need to use whatever influence we have in this world to make them feel like pariahs for their hate-filled attitudes and deeds.

[marylandblue]

12. This is not about sweetness or nuance

Many people have observed the rising tide of authoritarianism around the world. Here in the US, we tend blame Donald Trump. We think all we have to do is remove or vote him out and then return things to "normal." But he is a symptom of the disease not a cause. If we don't cure the disease, authoritarianism will continue to rise, with or without Trump. And sooner or later, your vote won't matter.

People become authoritarians when they feel threatened by outside forces they can't control. It doesn't matter if the threats are real or not, existential or cultural. Fear takes them over, and they look to repressive or violent solutions. This is why they put children in cages. Not because they are bad people. But because they are afraid.

Obama did what he could, but he failed on this issue. Not necessarily his fault, and perhaps more in perception than reality, but that's a different discussion.

Hate comes from fear. The fear has to be resolved. There are calming strategies and there are inflaming strategies. We need calming stratwgies.

[dawg]

13. I agree that it's not just Trump.

But your approach has already been tried and found to be wanting.

Coddling these people does no good. They only perceive it as weakness and lack of resolve on our part. It only emboldens them to push harder.

There are millions of non-voters out there to appeal to. The deplorables are a lost cause.

[marylandblue]

14. Both parties are made up of coalitions of voters

The coalitions shift over time, but not at an even rate. Looking at an entire party as just a basket of deplorables is a big mistake. Deplorables exist, they always vote Republican, but they are not the entire party. They are ascendant at the moment because Trump is one of them. The current coalition is mostly economic conservatives, social conservatives and the white working class.

IMHO, this coalition has been fraying for some time and is almost ready to split. Trump has held this group together by promising tax cuts for the economic conservatives and stirring up the fears of social conservatives. Economic conservatives don't seem to be so interested in tax cuts anymore and aren't anti-immigrant.

Obama did understand this, but, among other things, the timing wasn't right. Policies that split up the Republican coalition would help build a new Democratic coalition. Health care was a good choice, but it was a costly change at the time. Now people like Obamacare and the Republicans are split on what to do about it because they have no better solution.

Immigration seems to be the biggest issue right now, so it's another place to create a split.

Trying to attract non-voters is great, but they may not vote Democratic and they will always be the least reliable part of any coalition.

I am not sure what you mean by "coddling." We aren't dealing with children and we aren't in power. Winning the House is just a first step back to power, assuming we do win. But a demagogue is still in power. And he will probably have two more years to stir weak-minded well-armed people. There will be more attacks. If you aren't afraid of this, you haven't been paying attention.

[Volaris]

8. That's factually correct.

The difference is that we acknowledge the scientific correctness of the Fact(s).

And they don't. We can prove the validity of our positions in a classroom AND a court of law.

They have to go on Fox news and am radio.

[marylandblue]

15. People make decisions on values and emotions not facts

Last edited Wed Oct 31, 2018, 11:44 PM - Edit history (1)

And rationalize later. Especially today in our post-fact world. We argue about facts, but that's just the surface level. We are really arguing about values. And both sides are getting angry about it. That's bad. Their side is getting violent. That's even worse. It's a death spiral. We will never get out of it by arguing facts.

We need to work on the level of values. It's commonplace on the left to assume everyone who voted for Trump is a racist and therefore unreachable, but I know too many Trump voters who are not racist to believe that. I also know true deplorables, but they are different from the rest.

[JI7]

16. their view is America should only be for White People . that's why that party is made up of white

people. especially white men .

and more specifically Christian and Heterosexual Whites .

[marylandblue]

3. Yes it is funny that way, but there have been some signs of improvement

There was a small shift after the Dylan Roof massacre, when there was a move to take down Confederate flags.

There was a shift in attitudes towards gay rights after Matthew Shephard's murder.

There was another shift last year with Confederate statues, but unfortunately Trump promoted a backlash. I wonder if the latest tragedy might help promote another shift in conjunctions with next week's election. Sometimes it takes a tragedy. I think it will shift a bit now, but also Trump will try to hold it back, so the next few years will be bumpy.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

11. I've never seen it put in these terms. Damn! But it makes perfect sense. nt