Are Trump voters ruining America for all of us?

[Associate Justice PiT]

Why blame the voters?

     It's easier to blame other people than to recognize where their own movement has gone wrong and driven millions into his arms.

Eh I figure that a certain percentage of the country will always vote (R) no matter what.

But this western neoliberal Left that sprung up in the 90's by infusing liberal social values with soft-Reagan/soft-Thatcherite economic policies in order to target the upper class professionals who regularly vote and big money donors did create a working class vacuum that's been usurped by populist right wing movements.

So I guess it's just a waiting game to see when the Left can build a credible opposition to this. I don't see that happening until 2022/2024 in the US.

I know that Biden can take trump in 2020.
But will Biden run .... and will the orange-haired clown run again (I say no).

     You missed his point. Trump is easy to assail on any number of issues and far from the strongest candidate to have ever run for President. The Democrats could beat him in 2020 without doing anything to respond to the fundamental disquiet that elected President Trump in the first place. Without correcting the problem that Timmy identifies, it is likely inevitable that something like this will happen again.

[Associate Justice PiT]

    It's easier to blame other people than to recognize where their own movement has gone wrong and driven millions into his arms.

It doesn't seem fair to absolve the voters of any culpability if Trump and his brain trust do indeed end up screwing up this country, whether it is selfishly driving up the debt massively for younger generations to deal with, or starting a conflict overseas, or even just bringing a ton of shame and embarrassment to this country, which he already seems to be doing by just being himself on the world stage. I say this in part because the warning signs were all there before the election. It was obvious what kind of man Trump was and continues to be. It's not like all his shortcomings were a secret only recently revealed.

To quote the article:

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This goes beyond Democrats having an unconvincing message. Trump supporters are giving him a pass on what seems like almost everything and completely ignoring his numerous conflicts of interest and ridiculous behavior. Let's not even talk about the huge levels of double standards here. Many of same things Obama & Clinton were lambasted for are readily being accepted/forgiven by Trump supporters, or being called fake news.

No one forced them to vote for Trump. They could have not voted or voted for Johnson. If Trump does long-term harm to this country, his voters have to own up to that as well.

     And people voted for Trump despite these shortcomings, for reasons that articles like this serve to reinforce. It's easy to paint the issues in a way to make it look like it is no big deal, but there were other issues on the table that Democrats simply refused to acknowledge. Michael Moore had it right: Trump was a grenade that people who were angry with the status quo could throw.

     I am probably not the best to talk about people giving him a pass, since I try to criticize him when I think he messes up and defend him if I think he is getting undeserved criticism. With that said, I could easily flip your point around and comment that Trump is getting pilloried for many of the same things that Obama did without incident. I suspect that much of what you're identifying is partisanship at work, and partisan myopia is nothing new.

[Associate Justice PiT]

This article is really unnecessary.

1. When Trump voters voted for him, he was expected to lose. Hence, the moment the election was called for him, he already 'delivered' more for his supporters than they expected, while Hillary delivered less. For them to regret their votes, they would have to fall below the level of faith not only of November 9, 2016, but of November 8, 2016.

2. No one likes to admit they made a mistake. Asking someone if they regret their vote is probably a good way to elicit a 'no' response.

3. A lot of Trump voters were voting against Hillary. So just because they don't regret their vote, it doesn't mean they will always support Trump. Since the election, Hillary has been tarred as a loser, and criticized extensively, bringing her favorables down. In order for them to regret their vote, their drop in faith in Trump would have to overcome that.

So to sum, in order for a Trump supporter to regret their vote, their drop in faith in Trump would have to be substantial enough to (1) overcome the fact that Trump won, (2) overcome their own hesitating at admitting a mistake, and (3) overcoming the fact that Hillary lost.

Finally, after being tarred and insulted as "deplorables" who are "ruining America" for years, admitting that they regretted their vote would be a humiliating concession that the people calling them these names were, in some way shape or form, right, even if not in their direct attacks. For that reason alone, Trump voters may resist reevaluation.

Conversely, liberals have a perverse need for validation. Unrealistically soon after the election, I noticed articles zeroing in on supposed Trump regret stories. These articles reassure liberals that despite losing the election, they have won the argument after all, and tomorrow is a better day. When polls like this take that reassurance away, the liberal has a psychological crisis and lashes out at Trump voters with articles like this.

Part of the problem with liberals is that they place a very high emphasis on self-image. To them, Trump voters are the ugly, uneducated, boorish uncle who you wish you weren't associated with but have to anyway. And Trump is the manifestation of that relative's flaws on the highest stage, airing the dirty laundry for the entire world. He is an everyday reminder that this country doesn't live up to the image that liberals want it to have. He embarrasses them. And this embarrassment causes them to become angry at the voters, the people who put him there. Not realizing that the more these voters are castigated, the more they dig in their heels.

The bubble must end. The reflexive contempt that liberals have for anyone who does not think like them must end, for it is a block. When I first joined this forum almost 14 years ago there was a lot more debate, and discussion, between liberals and conservatives. We exchanged ideas, evidence, arguments. As the years have gone by I have seen more snark, opinion stating, and expressions of contempt without any content. This tendency is degrading our discourse. We must learn to talk to one another as equals again and engage in a dialogue of back and forth.

     This is the best post I've seen in a long time. Your last paragraph in particular is really on point, and describes a phenomenon has driven a huge wedge between me and the left. I never agreed with them, but I used to respect them and value their opinions. Today, with a handful of exceptions, I really don't respect liberals or value their opinions, and I know the feeling is mutual.

     The effect of this is that I am largely relegated to discussing ideas with people on my own side, which naturally generates groupthink as ideas are not properly challenged. People become increasingly extreme as they hold to specious notions that are neither realistic nor well-conceived. Our country is in a hole, and de-escalating this partisanship and breaking down the echo chambers is the only way to dig it out of there. Yet, with how influential the internet has become and how easy it is to simply block your adversaries and ignore their opinions, this task will not be an easy one.

[Associate Justice PiT]

This article is really unnecessary.

1. When Trump voters voted for him, he was expected to lose. Hence, the moment the election was called for him, he already 'delivered' more for his supporters than they expected, while Hillary delivered less. For them to regret their votes, they would have to fall below the level of faith not only of November 9, 2016, but of November 8, 2016.

2. No one likes to admit they made a mistake. Asking someone if they regret their vote is probably a good way to elicit a 'no' response.

3. A lot of Trump voters were voting against Hillary. So just because they don't regret their vote, it doesn't mean they will always support Trump. Since the election, Hillary has been tarred as a loser, and criticized extensively, bringing her favorables down. In order for them to regret their vote, their drop in faith in Trump would have to overcome that.

So to sum, in order for a Trump supporter to regret their vote, their drop in faith in Trump would have to be substantial enough to (1) overcome the fact that Trump won, (2) overcome their own hesitating at admitting a mistake, and (3) overcoming the fact that Hillary lost.

Finally, after being tarred and insulted as "deplorables" who are "ruining America" for years, admitting that they regretted their vote would be a humiliating concession that the people calling them these names were, in some way shape or form, right, even if not in their direct attacks. For that reason alone, Trump voters may resist reevaluation.

Conversely, liberals have a perverse need for validation. Unrealistically soon after the election, I noticed articles zeroing in on supposed Trump regret stories. These articles reassure liberals that despite losing the election, they have won the argument after all, and tomorrow is a better day. When polls like this take that reassurance away, the liberal has a psychological crisis and lashes out at Trump voters with articles like this.

Part of the problem with liberals is that they place a very high emphasis on self-image. To them, Trump voters are the ugly, uneducated, boorish uncle who you wish you weren't associated with but have to anyway. And Trump is the manifestation of that relative's flaws on the highest stage, airing the dirty laundry for the entire world. He is an everyday reminder that this country doesn't live up to the image that liberals want it to have. He embarrasses them. And this embarrassment causes them to become angry at the voters, the people who put him there. Not realizing that the more these voters are castigated, the more they dig in their heels.

The bubble must end. The reflexive contempt that liberals have for anyone who does not think like them must end, for it is a block. When I first joined this forum almost 14 years ago there was a lot more debate, and discussion, between liberals and conservatives. We exchanged ideas, evidence, arguments. As the years have gone by I have seen more snark, opinion stating, and expressions of contempt without any content. This tendency is degrading our discourse. We must learn to talk to one another as equals again and engage in a dialogue of back and forth.

     This is the best post I've seen in a long time. Your last paragraph in particular is really on point, and describes a phenomenon has driven a huge wedge between me and the left. I never agreed with them, but I used to respect them and value their opinions. Today, with a handful of exceptions, I really don't respect liberals or value their opinions, and I know the feeling is mutual.

     The effect of this is that I am largely relegated to discussing ideas with people on my own side, which naturally generates groupthink as ideas are not properly challenged. People become increasingly extreme as they hold to specious notions that are neither realistic nor well-conceived. Our country is in a hole, and de-escalating this partisanship and breaking down the echo chambers is the only way to dig it out of there. Yet, with how influential the internet has become and how easy it is to simply block your adversaries and ignore their opinions, this task will not be an easy one.

Thank you. You have always been one of the more reasonable conservatives around here. Be careful though, Trumpism thrives on incivility and hyperconfrontationism (which is why many of his supporters did so well in GamerGate, which was minimum substance and maximum drama/outrage) if what I advocated comes about, I think he would lose.

     If that happened, I would be fine with him losing. He has no real solutions and I didn't think he did. More than anything, he is simultaneously a symptom of the problem and a reaction to it. As much as I disagree with him otherwise, I credit Michael Moore for recognizing this in advance of the election when he said that Trump was a grenade for the angry and disaffected people to throw at the status quo. We wouldn't have had to come to this if people believed that they could be heard otherwise.