Can Our Democracy Survive This?

[_EAllusion]

Maybe we could try to agree on what the essential elements of freedom might be?

It apparently does not involve freedom to avoid being killed by your government for being a member of the wrong race. Of course, when Ajax is feeling generous he might say he was being rash when he made those comments and only actually wants to use police-state sponsored murder as a last resort to enforce the purity of his gene pool.

What Ajax is doing here is a simple bait and switch. He has horrifically evil opinions. Whenever they're attacked, he inserts a generic strawman and claims he's being attacked for those instead. So he favors a barbaric and racist immigration policy. Like, he literally wants non-whites forbidden from entering the country. If you attack that, you're just against "enforcing the border."

[Guest]

So he favors a barbaric and racist immigration policy. Like, he literally wants non-whites forbidden from entering the country. If you attack that, you're just against "enforcing the border."

Your hatred of my belief in enforcing the border doesn't just extend to me but to every US citizen who voted for Donald Trump.

[_Chap]

So he favors a barbaric and racist immigration policy. Like, he literally wants non-whites forbidden from entering the country. If you attack that, you're just against "enforcing the border."

Your hatred of my belief in enforcing the border doesn't just extend to me to every US citizen who voted for Donald Trump.

I doubt very much whether you have access to a databank of the beliefs and sentiments of all the people who voted for Trump in this election, any more than you have access to a databank of the beliefs and sentiments of the larger number of people who voted for Clinton.

You take too much on yourself, I think.

[_EAllusion]

I doubt very much whether you have access to a databank of the beliefs and sentiments of all the people who voted for Trump in this election, any more than you have access to a databank of the beliefs and sentiments of the larger number of people who voted for Clinton.

You take too much on yourself, I think.

What he's saying is that I think all Donald Trump voters/supporters are just like him. I don't think this and have said nothing to indicate that I do, but that's how Ajax thinks.

On another note, he's an optometrist making 6 figures per year and views himself as part of the benighted working class. That's because to him "working class" means "works for a living" as opposed to works for a modest wage. He uses the term like Marxists use "proletariat." He also thinks that minorities, Democrats, and immigrants largely don't work for a living, but rather live off the fat of the government. He exists in a bubble of bigoted delusions, in other words.

[_honorentheos]

On another note, he's an optometrist making 6 figures per year and views himself as part of the benighted working class. That's because to him "working class" means "works for a living" as opposed to works for a modest wage. He uses the term like Marxists use "proletariat." He also thinks that minorities, Democrats, and immigrants largely don't work for a living, but rather live off the fat of the government. He exists in a bubble of bigoted delusions, in other words.

This speaks to how convoluted the spin has gotten. We all recognize that the few posters on this board who vilify so-called liberal ideas also tend to attack people with legitimate conservative views on issues where they aren't completely black-and-white in the way they've been trained to imagine the boundaries have been drawn between right ideas and wrong, even evil, ideas. They tend to be professionals (ajax is an optometrist, subbie an architect, bach claims to be in management so let's give him that) and certainly the professional class is precariously positioned in the 21st century economy as vulnerable to a number of factors in ways it may not have seemed a generation or two ago.

It's almost evil genius that this has been effectively framed in a way that stratifies groups by how vulnerable they feel and then pitting those who feel vulnerable while being pretty well off against those who are decidedly not well off at all and being left further behind every year.

Personally, I think one of the great tragedies of the cold war was in how it made capitalism a synonym with democracy and good guys, and communism was what defined the soviets and their allies rather than making authoritarianism synonymous with the worst of what it was we were opposing. It's confusing the issue in the modern era as people see the problems we face today (inequalities, globalization, the rise of the non-labor economy not yet formed and terrifying in it's implications...) but lack clearly defined parallels they can draw to assess what they ought to support going forward. I forget if it was Ajax or Bach who freaked out over being accused of opposing progressivism because they were only against liberalism, but those moments are indicative of the problem.

It's a major reason why I'm skeptical, and concerned, when I hear liberals in any sense wanting to take the spin doctoring lessons of the far right and apply them to selling liberal ideas. In part, it's very much out of line with traditions of the enlightenment that provided the soil for liberalism to grow. It's a contradiction, in my opinion, because it also means we've stopped recognizing the difference ourselves between legitimate conservative philosophical ideas and this metastasized view that is not an ideology at all but a dangerous anti-philosophy. We don't need that to split and clone into cancers all along the political spectrum but I fear that may be what we are watching happen now.

We need to be as clear as we can be in what it is we believe in, and what motivates it. If it is largely an "anti" position against some "other", it's time to stand down and rethink where one is coming from, I suspect.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

On another note, he's an optometrist making 6 figures per year and views himself as part of the benighted working class... He uses the term like Marxists use "proletariat." He also thinks that minorities, Democrats, and immigrants largely don't work for a living, but rather live off the fat of the government. He exists in a bubble of bigoted delusions, in other words.

It's odd because he accepts, presumably, Federal Reserve notes, Medicaid and Medicare, and operates within a wholly Socialist system of which he advantages himself. He's as nestled up to the government's teat as anyone else is.

- Doc

[_honorentheos]

Or, you know, part of a cooperative society.

[Tator]

This speaks to how convoluted the spin has gotten. We all recognize that the few posters on this board who vilify so-called liberal ideas also tend to attack people with legitimate conservative views on issues where they aren't completely black-and-white in the way they've been trained to imagine the boundaries have been drawn between right ideas and wrong, even evil, ideas. They tend to be professionals (ajax is an optometrist, subbie an architect, bach claims to be in management so let's give him that) and certainly the professional class is precariously positioned in the 21st century economy as vulnerable to a number of factors in ways it may not have seemed a generation or two ago.

It's almost evil genius that this has been effectively framed in a way that stratifies groups by how vulnerable they feel and then pitting those who feel vulnerable while being pretty well off against those who are decidedly not well off at all and being left further behind every year.

Personally, I think one of the great tragedies of the cold war was in how it made capitalism a synonym with democracy and good guys, and communism was what defined the soviets and their allies rather than making authoritarianism synonymous with the worst of what it was we were opposing. It's confusing the issue in the modern era as people see the problems we face today (inequalities, globalization, the rise of the non-labor economy not yet formed and terrifying in it's implications...) but lack clearly defined parallels they can draw to assess what they ought to support going forward. I forget if it was Ajax or Bach who freaked out over being accused of opposing progressivism because they were only against liberalism, but those moments are indicative of the problem.

It's a major reason why I'm skeptical, and concerned, when I hear liberals in any sense wanting to take the spin doctoring lessons of the far right and apply them to selling liberal ideas. In part, it's very much out of line with traditions of the enlightenment that provided the soil for liberalism to grow. It's a contradiction, in my opinion, because it also means we've stopped recognizing the difference ourselves between legitimate conservative philosophical ideas and this metastasized view that is not an ideology at all but a dangerous anti-philosophy. We don't need that to split and clone into cancers all along the political spectrum but I fear that may be what we are watching happen now.

We need to be as clear as we can be in what it is we believe in, and what motivates it. If it is largely an "anti" position against some "other", it's time to stand down and rethink where one is coming from, I suspect.

Here's the conundrum. Lately the phenomenon known as the backfire effect has gotten some deserved attention in the press.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/05/1 ... t-mcraney/

Once something is added to your collection of beliefs, you protect it from harm. You do this instinctively and unconsciously when confronted with attitude-inconsistent information. Just as confirmation bias shields you when you actively seek information, the backfire effect defends you when the information seeks you, when it blindsides you. Coming or going, you stick to your beliefs instead of questioning them. When someone tries to correct you, tries to dilute your misconceptions, it backfires and strengthens those misconceptions instead. Over time, the backfire effect makes you less skeptical of those things that allow you to continue seeing your beliefs and attitudes as true and proper.

When you start to pull out facts and figures, hyperlinks and quotes, you are actually making the opponent feel even surer of his position than before you started the debate. As he matches your fervor, the same thing happens in your skull. The backfire effect pushes both of you deeper into your original beliefs.

This process is known as biased assimilation and is something neuroscientists have also demonstrated. McRaney cites the work of Kevin Dunbar, who put subjects in an fMRI and showed them information confirming their beliefs about a specific subject, which led brain areas associated with learning to light up. But when faced with contradictory information, those areas didn’t fire — instead, parts associated with thought suppression and effortful thinking lit up. In other words, simply presenting people with information does nothing in the way of helping them internalize it and change their beliefs accordingly.

Simply presenting reasoned and logical arguments doesn't dissuade people from erroneous beliefs. Anyone who's participated in online discussions for more than 2 minutes recognizes the unfortunate truth of this phenomenon.

So, what republicans (and Mormons) have correctly identified as having the power to convince is FEELINGS. Republicans learned the art of the spin, often deliberately constructed to trigger strong feelings, a couple of decades ago. (thank you Frank Luntz, may you one day rot in imaginary hell) Democrats, because they tend to be more liberal (using the term in an apolitcal way), already tend to do what you want them do to more of. It's not working. I think it's not working because of the backfire effect. So do more of what hasn't worked? (Here I have to qualify that it may have worked on a level playing field, but it hasn’t worked with the electoral college and the move towards state-level control and gerrymandering that the republicans have mastered the last decade)

I do agree that it's dangerous. I just don't know what else liberals can do, other than bunker down and prepare for the worst.

I did listen to 3 or 4 faith leaders talking about changing people's minds on NPR. (the diane rehm show: http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2016- ... ed-country ) Most of the show was about overcoming prejudices, such as the prejudice against muslims. One of the leaders made a really insightful comment. He (I think it was one of the he's at least) said that his church is working to create opportunities for their members to work with members of different faith communities on service projects. He said, summarizing less poetically than he did, that:

Hands change hearts
Hearts change minds

In other words, working side by side on an altruistic project made the members FEEL differently about the people they were working with. Getting to know average muslims changed their hearts. THEN, and only THEN, could they change their minds.

Haidt makes the same argument in Righteous Mind. There's the elephant (intuition, feelings, subconscious processes) and the rider (how we rationalize and consciously try to reason). So the republicans have figured out how to appeal to the elephant, and democrats are busy talking to the rider. It isn't working, with the current constraints of our political system.

I will say that the one “elephant whisperer” that liberals have going for them is Hollywood. Movies, TV shows are our myths that speak deeply to our hearts. Republicans recognize the power of Hollywood and that’s why they vilify them. in my opinion, Hollywood made a significant different in the battle for LGBTQ rights, for example.

I don’t know what the answer is. All I know is that I’m deeply concerned that the factors I outlined in my OP have significantly, and probably permanently, changed the playing field. Those who support liberal ideas have to find a way to play on that new field.

[_beastie]

The triumph of Western liberalism, especially from the late-period cold war on, had given a lot of people, myself included, a great deal of optimism that the world is getting better all the time and will continue to do so. Liberal markets and liberal democracies combined have been improving the lives of people in the world at a pace and degree that is so staggering it is hard to take in all at once. The political freedoms and standards of living of humanity has been rocketing into an unparalleled golden age. Moreover, there had been wide understanding that once a nation liberalizes, it becomes very resilient to falling back into illiberalism. Mature democracies rarely fall. And democracies rarely go to war with one another.

There was a lot of reason to be optimistic and to tell pessimists to relax because the world is getting better day by day.

Then, since a little after the turn of the century a trend developed in the world where it is getting less free over time. Indexes that measure freedom in the world have been gradually moving backward right at the time when it seemed like the upward march was inevitable. More and more academic work has been turning up flaws in an optimistic belief that western liberalism is self-sustaining. It's become apparent that there are vulnerabilities all over the place. The US, the crown jewel of world democracy and its military benefactor, has been becoming increasingly vulnerable to authoritarian takeover. Then we have the election of Trump, someone who essentially ran on an illiberal ideology with the Republican party behind him collectively imploding into a state of complicity and quasi-fascist leanings.

This is depressing. While there may be a lot of disagreement on the political spectrum among the intellectual class, there does seem to be a mutual support of Western liberalism among all but a fringe of America's elite thinkers. This is why you there's a palpable despair among that class covering a huge range of political beliefs.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

[_Maxine Waters]

I do agree that it's dangerous. I just don't know what else liberals can do, other than bunker down and prepare for the worst