Who are these fools

[RazzleCat]

Yesterday at a family gathering I was speaking with my sister in law, we were speaking about retirement, the costs, health-care et al. She commented that she is so glad that she will be getting medicare in four months that insurance is really expensive. Well I commented it's good that your able to get it this year, I think you will be grandfathered in. She gave me a blank look, I went on, you know it looks like Paul Ryan is going to get his way, and he has always wanted to dismantle medicare and social security. These were her questions. Who is Paul Ryan, answer Speaker of the house from Wisconsin, remember he ran with Romney? Yes she remembered. Next question how could that happen, who would do that, again I answer Paul Ryan, she asked again, so I realized she had no idea how you make laws and or repeal current laws. I answered, he could do it many ways, via health care reform, via budget, or he could introduce new legislation. She goes, but no one would ever approve of that, I just looked at her and said have you looked at the new elected Congress? With that she said I don't want to talk politics. That's is when I understood who the fools were that have elected our next government. They are not all racists, or angry people full of hate, nope many of them just have no idea of how our government works, to the extent that if they see advertising saying I will do X or they did Y, that they believe it because they know no better.

[handmade34]

1. ...

"An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people."

...attributed to Thomas Jefferson

[elleng]

2. 'These fools' are ill-informed and educated Americans.

Right, 'they are not all racists, or angry people full of hate, nope many of them just have no idea of how our government works, to the extent that if they see advertising saying I will do X or they did Y, that they believe it because they know no better.' I'm conversing with a similarly uninformed high school classmate. Surprises me, there are a few of them. We obtained a very good education there.

[MFM008]

3. and they have gifted us

with the biggest moron in the world.

[tblue37]

4. AND they vote R because that's "their team," even though they have no clue about

what the Republicans have done and intend to do going forward.

[LWolf]

6. Democrats do the same thing,

when it comes to supporting and voting for the team, rather than the people or issues. You can see it play out right here at DU, where people will be up in arms about an issue until a D candidate adopts what they were railing about, and suddenly they spew talking points in support of what they opposed a year or two ago.

So yes; it's lack of information, it's the craving to belong to a team, and it's treating politics like a sport instead of like a government of the people.

[7962]

8. +1

[Perseus]

12. Not true

There we go again, trying to make things equal...

Most democrats are well informed while most republicans are not. That is a reason why the people who were creating fake news stopped targeting the democrats because democrats found out and the story was day within days while republicans just believed it and never tried to find out the truth.

I do agree there is a lack of information but don't try to make things equal because they are not.

[Dustlawyer]

21. Its not black and white. A great many Democrats, or people who believe in general

what Democrats believe in, live in a bubble. Many do not believe that most of our Democratic politicians are compromised by campaign contributions, but it is true. Our campaign finance system is set up for the wealthy to legally bribe our representatives. To not believe that there is a quid pro quo is to be in a bubble. I am not saying it is equal, but it is close enough so as to not make a difference!

While Democrats are generally more empathetic and slightly better educated, they still suffer from cognitive dissonance like the Republicans! Our media reinforces this instead of breaking it down as it should. This is no accident as our media is owned by TPTB!

[LWolf]

24. You make my point so easy,

just by using Ronnie's famous line.

And then you add to that by claiming stereotypes that aren't objective.

And finally, you top it off by trying to spin my point as making "things" "equal," which it was most emphatically not.

I simply don't like hypocrisy, and that means I don't want to watch the supposedly pristine pot call the kettle black. In other words, we ought to clean up our own mess before we point fingers.

[DeeDeeNY]

15. You make an excellent point

Treating politics like a sport.

[DanTex]

18. I wouldn't say "Democrats" but yes I've noticed that with BoBs and other far lefties.

At one point the gun industry were the good guys because Bernie voted in their favor, and then Putin was a rock star simply because he was against Hillary/Obama.

It's basically because the far left just wants to be against "the system" but doesn't have any rational ideology.

[Dustlawyer]

23. I couldn't disagree more.

[HAB911]

5. LOL, Had the same conversation last night

and I knew the lady had no idea who Paul Ryan was. I told her privatization of Medicare, SS, and Tricare was coming. She and her husband are on Tricare.

All she could say was, "the stock market is doing well". I said it probably will until he starts the trade war. It flew right over her head.

[GoCubsGo]

7. I have had it at least twice over the past couple of weeks.

Both times, the people involved were utterly clueless. At least, in one case, the woman said, "I'm going to have to look into this." The second time, they just looked at me like I was talking gibberish. The horrifying thing about it is that one of them is a teacher, and the other is retired from working at the local newspaper. One would think they would both have an idea about how their government works, but nope. The one who wanted to look into things? She cleans offices.

[mobeau69]

13. The market's going to correct soon regardless.

It's way overbought right now.

[HeartachesNhangovers]

19. The market was supposed to correct if

Mr Trump was elected because of "uncertainty". I was absolutely convinced this was true (and I don't usually feel sure about anything having to do with the stock market) and every analyst who offered an opinion said the exact same thing: Trump election triggers a correction on uncertainty. Instead, the opposite happened.

Now I'm back to believing that I and everybody else is just guessing what the market is going to do - and guessing wrong half the time.

[JHan]

9. I get flak for blaming voters but this is reason no.1 why I do.

[Croney]

10. Slightly different, but about a really ignorant teacher.

A few months ago I heard a fifth-grader get up and give a short presentation about President Obama. She mentioned Obamacare, which had been repealed.

I replayed that in my head...yep, she said it and I wasn't going to let it stand. When she was done, I asked her to lead me to her teacher. I was polite. She said she didn't write the speech, another teacher did, and she assumed it was accurate. So now there were two stupid teachers and a classroom full of misinformed kids. I asked them to let the kids know, but they probably didn't.

[LWolf]

25. I'm almost afraid to ask

in what state 5th grader's curriculum includes political propaganda from any side.

And, of course, includes reciting speeches about politics given by a "teacher," instead of researched and written by the student.

In neither of the states I've taught in, nor in the districts, nor on the school sites, would such a practice be allowed. Thankfully.

[Croney]

27. Oh, I wasn't clear because I was trying to be brief.

Each student was assigned a president. They wore costumes and wigs and gave brief historical speeches; date of birth, important events during their tenure, things they are remembered for. I, too, would have expected the students to have written their speeches, which is why I approached this girl very kindly, thinking she had gotten confused somehow. Rather than accept responsibility, she said she had just memorized her teacher's notes. So that led me to the clueless teacher.

This was in my blue state of Massachusetts, in Arlington. Teachers get busy and make mistakes, but I was a little worried that some political thinking had influenced this subject matter. It was not an earth-shattering mistake, but it was a mistake about something I care about.

[LWolf]

28. I care about it, too.

I can say that squeaky wheels get heard; bringing concerns to an admin will get a hearing, and the admin will talk about it with the teachers. Depending on the concern, and how it's presented, something will change...or not.

For example, when a very conservative parent expressed horror with the literature (district adopted) I was using in the classroom, we did a couple of things.

First of all, my admin reminded the parent to always approach the teacher first. He didn't, because I'm just a woman and the admin is male. That happens a lot in a heavily fundamental xtian community.

Then he had me call the father and explain the discussion and work happening with the literature (it was an excerpt from Gary Soto's biography, an award-winning author of books for young people), and that the fact that something objectionable exists in literature isn't an endorsement of that objectionable something, but an opening to process it; to analyze, to interpret, to come to a conclusion.

Finally, I let him know that I'd leave a folder in the office with his name on it, holding any other upcoming readings so that he could examine them, talk to me about what we were doing with them, and decide if his child needed alternative materials.

He never picked up the folder or spoke about it again.

Now this was a sincere complaint. The parent didn't get what he wanted, which was to remove the material. He did get heard, and we did accommodate him.

If a teacher is handling what could be an engaging and appropriate assignment badly, that teacher will be (privately) counseled about how to improve that handling. The parent complaining will never know. If it's truly an inappropriate activity, the teacher will be directed to drop it. Again, the parent with the complaint will not know.

[lunatica]

11. You've hit the nail on the head

Bingo!

It's those people who don't care much about politics, and being mostly ignorant about it they have no idea how it permeates their lives and forges their future.

That's one of the main reasons DU is so important. People who understand politics abound here.

[tosh]

14. Yes, I have encountered this too.

Over and over again.

[certainot]

16. find some way to mention talk radio or limbaugh or

hannity in passing and see how they respond - i think you'll see it's not just a total apathy - they will recognize those names and even if they don't personally listen to it it's likely someone near them does - and they will repeat that hillary was a very corrupt liar..... and trump wants change - even if they got it osmotically

few people can completely avoid politics and in most parts of the us rw radio dominates, and has a massive secondary and tertiary effect

[Buckeye_Democrat]

17. Yep, there's some of those kinds of Republican voters too. n/t

[SleeplessinSoCal]

20. Stunned to hear my Republican cousin clueless on Medicare coming from Social Security check.

He opposed Trump until the general. Hates Hillary cause "crook".

He is 62. In bad health. Worked for a company with good insurance, saved a $ million. But he and his wife are smokers with emphysema. More than anything they are bigots. Likable, until race talk and politics come up ("poor people caused the housing crisis&quot And then THEN starts asking about Medicare AFTER the election.
😩

[treestar]

22. Sounds like she may

Not even have voted.

[coco22]

26. Lol!

I have had the same conversations and the person always says THEY can't do that then I explain how,they usually are shocked about what Trump can destroy.