Donald Trump: polls of approval and favorability

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-21-2017, 02:38 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(06-21-2017, 02:18 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: ... I grew up blue, and you don’t have to work hard to get me pushing most blue positions.  (Most.  Let’s only briefly mention the Second Amendment.)  However, there are valid, well though out or deeply set in habit alternatives to the blue.  If one labels and thinks of the other guys as stupid, evil, ignorant, insane, brainwashed, etc… it is not the other guys who are ignorant.  There is, on both sides, a willful and deliberate effort to not understand, to remain ignorant, to demonize anyone who conflicts with one’s own culture...

Let me add a quick comment.  We need to be cautious of too much fairness too.  Balancing Position A on equal terms with Position B is fine, as long as both are at least arguable.  If either rests on a bed of fallacious assumptions, then balance actually favors lies over truth by giving those lies unjustified stature.  So yes, let's avoid demonizing people we disagree with, but let's not give a hand wave to bogus ideas either.  If we're fair about calling out the clearly false and only the clearly false, we are less likely to be framed as blind ideologues ourselves.

I'm not that eager to balance Position A and Position B.  As I've said, for the most part I lean blue.  The positions aren't equal.  One shouldn't go in with a presumption that they are.

I've got more of a problem with individuals being demonized, with their opinions being replaced by straw man parodies.  If one says all conservatives are ignorant, or if one says that all conservatives think like (fill in the blank), while the conservative sees himself as having a well thought out and researched view on (fill in the blank) that has nothing to do with the liberal's straw man argument, it isn't the conservative that comes across as ignorant and obtuse.  It's the liberal who hasn't done his homework, who hasn't thought out his argument.

I don't know that each side should be presumed to have an equal argument.  It would be nice, though, if both sides made a sincere attempt to understand the other's real points of view rather than to make up demonized straw man perspectives that reflect only hate and prejudice.

Now, I quite understand why Eric is known as 'obtuse'.  He just doesn't listen.  However, I make futile attempts to communicate with him and not to Galen as I find Galen even more  obtuse.  He too is locked into a perspective and is even less apt to understand or change than Eric.  Perhaps I owe Galen equal time to Eric.  In the meantime, as long as those two make no real attempts to understand and respect the other, as long as they demonize, as long as the indulge in attacking straw men, the hate and distrust balloon and understanding is not touched.

To me, Kinser made an interesting argument favoring conservatism, the notion of tribal thinking.  Yes, people are apt to advocate policies which are to their advantage or the advantage of those from a similar tribe or culture.  'Love', what is sometimes in behavioral psychology called the peer bond, is not universal.  It is part of the species and many cultures to respect and support those who share a culture and tribal identity while shunning and debasing those outside of the bond.

This shouldn't be hard to understand.  Appreciate, celebrate and support one's own, and shun everyone else.  It is altogether too human.  It isn't just human, but many animals that share a group bond show the behavior.  Genetically, tribal thinking is a cost effective way to spread one's group's contributions to the gene pool.  To remain ignorant of tribal thought is a bad idea.  In many ways, it is the core of what many consider evil or selfishness, a lack of empathy with the outsider.  At worst, it is how Hitler treated the Jew, or Genghis Khan treated whatever group of unfamiliar people happened to live over the next rise of ground.  There is a big distinction that can and is made between 'us' and 'them'.

Borrow and spend trickle down is tribal thinking in spades.  From such a perspective, it is entirely proper to vote for representatives who will reward and enable 'us' while disparaging and dismissing 'them'.  Whether one sees oneself as benefiting from tax breaks to the middle class, whether one follows a particular form of Christian religion, whether one's culture of origin or skin pigmentation labels one as 'us', it is easy for humans to slip into a very human pattern of hate and oppression.

To me, and to many a liberal, the definition of who 'us' is would be different.  All US citizens, all Americans, perhaps all humans, are 'us'.  All men and woman are in theory equal.  It is quintessentially American to act on the theory.  It is the government's job to manifest that equality.  It is the People's option or duty to overthrow a government that doesn't work towards equality.

That, to me, is a key abstract and theoretical difference between red and blue.  The red will exploit the divide between 'us' and 'them' to their own benefit.  The blue will attempt to minimize the divide.  It's the old "Good Samaritan" parable.  Do you embrace modern equivalents of the prejudices that made Jews hate Samaritans back in the day, or does one attempt to overcome any prejudicial divides, to treat all equally, well and with respect.  If you see a poor guy laying hurt by the side of the road, will you rise your nose, turn your head in the other direction and pass by, or will you vote for solid inclusive health care?

It is easy, trivially easy, to treat rural red conservatives as bad Samaritans.  It is too often what they do.  It is so easy to show them the flip side of their own very old coin.

But to the extent that this is part of the core problem, I think the liberals are going to have to grow some.  Too many are too set in their ways to do so.