Letters to the Editor: At this point, how can you reason with Trump supporters?

[Caliman73]

36. "rational" can be a tricky concept.

The typical definition is that being rational is about being based on reason and logic, which as you point out, would lead to your question, "How can anyone support Trump and the Republican Party?" I would add the Conservative movement in general to that question.

It depends on the "facts" and attribution that are identified for the problems you posed. Supporters of Trump and the Conservative movement basically live in the same environment that we liberals/progressives/leftists live but they get very different "information" about why it works the way it does. I would say that liberals and leftists see things very differently from each other as well, but that is for another time.

The author of the letter to the editor is correct. America is definitely not working for many many people and it is not working as well as it should for ALL except a very few.

The original letter to the editor is behind a paywall, but the title is: "Yes, Trump voters know they are supporting a racist autocrat" which implies that they support Trump because he espouses views which they hold, which would be rational, at least in the sense of, "If I support Trump and the Republicans/Conservatives, America will look like and become more like I imagine I would like it to be.

Again, the problem comes to information and attribution. People not on the right, see the problems in the US and attribute them in varying degrees to Racism, Sexism, and Capitalism (or "corrupt Capitalism&quot . Typically, because we see that 400 families in the US have as much wealth as half of all Americans combined, which would be about 165 MILLION people. That figure is a bit dated, but the US has always had a very high level of income and asset inequality. We see that and we want to make policies which will distribute the wealth of the country, that the PEOPLE mainly generate through their work and their consumption, more equitably.

Conservatives, on the other hand, are fed constantly that their problems are caused, not by the artificial scarcity caused by the wealthy hoarding the wealth, but by Black people being criminal, by women invading the spaces that men should rightfully occupy, by immigrants coming to America to steal jobs AND be lazy and take welfare (go figure that one), and by LGBTQ people "destroying" traditional culture. Their attributions for the problems of this society are FUNDAMENTALLY different. So, operating by their "logic", a person saying they will, "get rid of those people causing all the problems" seems rational. It isn't the actual truth or fact, but within their perception of the world, it is rational.

The trick and the challenge is how do we get them to have a more accurate attribution to their problems?