The root cause of America’s radicalization and polarization problem

submitted by BioEssentialism from self.TumblrInAction

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]Chipit 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yeesh, 2001-2004 was horrible. People unironically calling Bush Bu$hitler and saying he was going to implement a fascist dictatorship. You know Trump Derangement Syndrome? Back then it was called Bush Derangement Syndrome.

And then when Bush was re-elected in 2004, journalists were completely baffled. They did not know anyone who didn't vote for the Democrat and were utterly in the dark about anything outside of their own circles. They sent reporters into darkest middle America to find out what the fuck had happened and how people could be so stupid as to vote for anything but what others thought was best for them. A book, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" spent years on the best-seller lists. Its conclusion was that Americans are too stupid to be allowed to vote and decide what kind of government they want.

[–]Haylstorm 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

People are always like this. Some uni students are despised where I am cause they're like that. Go into a local's pub and let them know they voted liberal democrat or labour for them, aren't you happy i'm helping you? Only to find that people in there voted conservative. Then they get pissy about people voting against their own self interest and basically call them idiots and wonder why no one there is receptive to listening to them. Then they don't listen to WHY people have voted conservative, just continue to call them idiots. Not really helping their case there if you've ever met the stubborn old man at the pub who doesn't like being told what to do.

[–]jet199 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

One of the main things you learn as you get older is that no one votes against their interests.

Rather you just don't understand what their interests are.

People get the politicians the deserve.

[–]Haylstorm 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Honestly a lot of it just seemed to be that they didn't get people had other priorities. The business owner you're talking to doesn't care about family tax breaks but is pretty interested in the business grants a party might want to offer. It's like they don't want to even think about the reasons people might have, they just think the person is stupid and dumb for it. Def pushes people more away.