To beat Trump, we need to know why Americans keep voting for him. Psychologists may have the answer
To beat Trump, we need to know why Americans keep voting for him. Psychologists may have the answer
US culture is an incubator of ‘extrinsic values’. Nobody embodies them like the Republican front runner, writes Guardian columnist George Monbiot
US culture is an incubator of ‘extrinsic values’. Nobody embodies them like the Republican frontrunner
Many explanations are proposed for the continued rise of Donald Trump, and the steadfastness of his support, even as the outrages and criminal charges pile up. Some of these explanations are powerful. But there is one I have seen mentioned nowhere, which could, I believe, be the most important: Trump is king of the extrinsics.
Some psychologists believe our values tend to cluster around certain poles, described as “intrinsic” and “extrinsic”. People with a strong set of intrinsic values are inclined towards empathy, intimacy and self-acceptance. They tend to be open to challenge and change, interested in universal rights and equality, and protective of other people and the living world.
People at the extrinsic end of the spectrum are more attracted to prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth. They are strongly motivated by the prospect of individual reward and praise. They are more likely to objectify and exploit other people, to behave rudely and aggressively and to dismiss social and environmental impacts. They have little interest in cooperation or community. People with a strong set of extrinsic values are more likely to suffer from frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour.
It’s because his base are fucking idiots.
I have lots of empathy for people and usually try not to judge people by demographics and happenstance, but this pestilence of right-wing mouth breathers all over the world is an absolute horror show.
Organized ducking idiots are truly scary. They're the equivalent of a stupid tsunami with all of civilization built on the seaside.
It's difficult to abandon your empathy, but we have to confront them to save us all.
I definitely think plenty of them are ignorant and uninformed. But it goes much deeper than that. Many of them feel that government hasn't served or helped them in decades or even lifetimes. And they're not wrong in that.
The real problem is they don't view themselves as being part of the issue. They've externalized everything to the government and made it the government's fault. Therefore there's nothing they can do. Since they are blameless, in order to change it. They perceive themselves as having done everything right despite having done everything wrong. And so logically in their minds. The only solution they can see is to tear it all down. And hope the warlord that replaces this system will be slightly magnanimous to them.
It doesn't matter that it's a thing that never happened or lasted longer than a year or two when it did. Because the alternative would be to admit fault and learn from it. Something which culturally we've largely been conditioned to reject.
We're living through a zombie apocalypse. The zombies just happen to be more high-functioning than they are in movies.
Yes! And the populist demagogues love it that way.
That's true. But what is to be done about it?
Calling these people names won't fix the problem. It won't eliminate them and it won't convert them. So what will?
As I’ve said. It was a moment of frustration.
I have lots of empathy for people and usually try not to judge people by demographics and happenstance
but you don't, and you are...
The frustration that we feel over bigotry can be expressed in so many ways. We don’t need to rely on ableist slurs. Alternative phrases are more descriptive, and more accurate; unintelligence is not the prevailing problem with right wing extremists, for instance, nor is it the cause of their actions. Ignorance, prejudice, and disregard for the rights of others are.
Conflating harmful actions with lack of intelligence does everyone a disservice. To suggest that “stupidity” that is what makes people act badly undermines any real accountability. The causes of problematic behavior rarely have anything to do with mental acuity, and we can’t properly address harmful behavior while being so reductive about its causes. Carelessness, bias, hatred, greed, closed-mindedness, indifference – these are the traits that lead to oppression. Our intelligence is not the issue so much as our sense of compassion and justice.
A person can be unintelligent and still know right from wrong. There are people with cognitive disabilities who I respect a thousand times more than those who are supposedly more abled. They have stronger principles, seek to better themselves, and are committed to being good people. They are just capable of being sensitive and caring as everyone else. To imply that they aren’t is outrageous.Oh hey! I’m not saying that people with limited cerebral facilities are automatically bad. I’m saying that the particular conservative base are fucking idiots in a really determined and self-fulfilling way which feeds their own pathology.
Remember there’s that study showing that conservatives are literally neurologically different and physically primed for fear and disgust due to brain structure.
Plus, to be honest, I’m really really frustrated reading about all these assholes and the damage they cause to what could be a progressive society.
Right, so stripping away all the bullshit: he’s a gaping, hemorrhoidal asshole, beloved by other assholes.
It's embarrassing that nobody in mainstream liberal circles seems able to answer this very basic question: why do people vote for trump? It's not that they are racist womanizing nazis (though some of them certainly are). That is some of it, that's the convenient story, but it really misses the mark.
I'm a through and through liberal, I vote D in every race, I vote in primaries, etc. Some other comments here have gotten some good points in so I won't re-iterate them. Before all you tankies jump in and tell me that the entire point of the two party system is to capture dissent and manufacture consent and how the only point of the democratic party is to move the needle as little as possible while staying in power as often as possible, yes, obviously, we're all impressed that you went to college, now let's move on.
I'll tell you what Trump's appeal is:
- He, and his party, are the only ones who openly acknowledge that the entire system is broken and corrupt. This is a talking point among all major republican candidates. Most democrats don't even give lip service to this problem, they just blame republicans and promise things only if we somehow get them a supermajority. Bernie, AOC, and Warren may touch on this topic from time to time, but as a party, the DNC does not. Their position is largely that "the system works, and the reason it's not working well right now is because there aren't enough democrats". Trump says things are "the deep state" or "the swamp" or whatever, but he openly acknowledges that the entire system is corrupt to the core. That is very powerful and speaks to every disaffected voter regardless of why they are disaffected. He did so well and beat poll expectations in the year he won because he got people out the polls who had given up all hope in the electoral system, he got so many non-voters to vote. And they won't vote for anybody else. Hell, some trumpers are former bernie supporters who were so disgusted by the DNCs primary that they thought "well, at least this guy says it like it is, how much worse could be possibly be?". I don't know about you, but are there less disaffected people out there now than there was in 2016? Is the average person's economic position better? Are people feeling less socially isolated? Does the world feel more stable and safe? If not, that's how people like Trump get powerful. Trump is the symptom, not the cause.
- He speaks to people that, rightly or wrongly, feel ignored by those in power. Rural voters, for example, may actually get a bigger vote than those in cities, but it doesn't change that on most issues they get outvoted. They may have all of their social services funded by blue areas, but that doesn't change that their towns are constantly subject to brain drain and under-investment and have no real job opportunities, and that they are looked down upon by people in cities. Whenever politicians do pay attention to them, it's only a quick scam to get their vote and they never come through on their promises. Frankly, democrats could absolutely rake in the vote from rural counties if they wanted to, but for some reason it's like they don't even try. Their policies would be popular, much of the democrat platform is about serving the under-served, yet for some reason it's like democrats don't even try to capture rural voters. Protecting the environment is good for people who enjoy hunting and living in rural areas. Funding education and making job opportunities are easy wins in this area. Funding infrastructure is good for these areas. Remember how Trump delayed COVID checks to put his name on them? How come every build back better project doesn't have a similar requirement? Democrats are embarrassingly bad at taking credit for their wins.
- Republicans may not ever actually accomplish anything legislatively, but boy are they good at making noise and pretending to be fighting for something. And remember, if you believe the entire system is broken and corrupt, you don't care that congress isn't accomplishing anything. Hell, it might even be a good thing to you! Most democrats are absolutely milquetoast. Nobody cares about policy, they care that their politician is speaking their language and fighting for them. Republicans do this well. This grandstanding about the border? What a great show. Passing laws that have no chance of surviving a court appeal but make their base happy? Every month. Their refusal to vote for things because of the "national debt"? Great strategy. Look, I know some or all of these issues are baseless, but that doesn't mean they aren't effective.
- For all ills people are facing in life whether social or economic, the right has a clear boogeyman or two to point at and blame. Is that blame appropriate assigned? No. But at least they have somebody or something to blame. Liberals blame... republicans? That's a particularly dangerous strategy when dems are crushing it in elections and when the republicans can't even vote as a block in the house of reps. Dems are too afraid to ever point the finger at "the rich" or other easy targets, instead they're always like "it's complicated" and "nuanced" and nobody gives af about that, it's not how people vote.
- Republicans are 100% better at social media and running their own media. Fox News is a genius concept that liberals still have yet to copy effectively despite being around for.. two decades? Play the fucking game liberals, it's how you win. Democrat messaging is milquetoast through and through. Their social media game has gotten better the past few years, but I'm not convinced they have surpassed republicans in this yet.
Your second point is far more important than many people realize. I was born, raised, and now live in "flyover country", and I totally get the appeal of Trumpism to people here. The sense of abandonment is real and pervasive. It feels at times like we've been turned into a caricature, a punchline for city-dwellers on the coasts. Just a bunch of dumb, racist hicks whose opinions and agency don't matter because "LaND DoeSN't vOte", as though there aren't millions of us living here, many of us even (shockingly) in cities of our own. Those cities don't apparently don't matter though because they're not NY or LA.
The amount of hypocritical elitism I see from supposed leftists who turn their noses at desperate blue collar workers in the rust belt hurts my heart every time I see it. The right's biggest recruiting tool here is not the racism, or the homophobia, or the crazy batshit christo-fascism. It's the ever-present messaging that "the left doesn't want you". If you want to belong somewhere, join the Trump train. These people used to be the leftists in North America a century ago. Now it's all been beaten and ridiculed out of them, and all that's left is populist rage and a list of enemies who have "wronged" them. When I bring this up in leftist circles though, more often than not the response I get is some variant of "lmao fuck off". I am still a staunch leftist, but it's through gritted teeth that I stand by some of my coastal comrades.
The land doesn't vote thing is about disproportionate representation, that somehow your opinions matter more because you're from a state with less people, not that "we" dont consider you worthy of having a say. It's just frustrating that tens of millions (costal state) = hundreds of thousands/single digit millions (think: Dakotas) in terms of representation and therefore control of the Senate/Presidency.
The amount of hypocritical elitism I see from supposed leftists who turn their noses at desperate blue collar workers in the rust belt hurts my heart every time I see it.
Are there social welfare programs the left has proposed like single payer healthcare, UBI, etc which are designed not to help people in rural/rust-belt areas?
It feels at times like we've been turned into a caricature, a punchline for city-dwellers on the coasts. Just a bunch of dumb, racist hicks whose opinions and agency don't matter
So build something worth visiting? The French and Italian countryside is mainly populated with uneducated conservatives, because most smart people understandably leave. They are still amazing places to visit that attract people the world over.
When your biggest draw is "the world's largest ball of yarn", why should people care about you? People in cities don't ridicule you; they never even think about you. You think about them and how they live in an amazing place, constantly downplaying the benefits of living in a place that has no tourists making everything crowded and expensive.
You nailed it. The Dems should win overwhelmingly given how divided, useless and repugnant the Repubs have been for the last decade. Unfortunately, the race is closer than it should be.
Too many leftists make the lazy assumption that half of America is a bunch of racist, homophobic cretins. There is a kernel of truth behind that assumption, in the sense that rural communities tend to be small-c conservative, more religious, more homogenous, and less keen on cultural change. But Trump is none of those things, so what gives? The real answer to the rise of Trumpism is alienation.
I live in a pretty rural area. Just a couple of decades ago, millions of people in flyover states could easily get decent, secure factory or resource sector jobs right out of high school. All those jobs created vibrant communities, but now most of those jobs are gone and there is little chance of those jobs coming back. The vast majority of regular blue-collar folks don't really give too much of a shit about hot-button cultural issues like homosexuality or Palestine or abortion. They may not like those things, but those issues are peripheral to the main issue, which is having a well-paying, secure job that doesn't involve sitting at a desk all day. They know in their bones that is was the corporate establishment, in cahoots with the "liberal" elites in the boardrooms of the coast, that got rich by shipping all of their jobs overseas. And they are fucking pissed off about it. I completely agree that a real labour-oriented populist like Bernie could have done well in the rural states, but instead we got Trump, who is a fake narcissist populist who is just riding the wave of alienation.
I agree with all of this, and it is well articulated.
But what is your explanation for -why- things are the way they are? -Why- are Democrats so ineffective and blind? You're (seemingly) just a random person on the internet, yet you can see all of this; Democrats have the best paid consultants and advisors and pollsters and they still don't see it. How can that be?
You openly say this:
Dems are too afraid to ever point the finger at "the rich" or other easy targets, instead they're always like "it's complicated" and "nuanced" and nobody gives af about that, it's not how people vote.
Yet also pushback against this:
the entire point of the two party system is to capture dissent and manufacture consent and how the only point of the democratic party is to move the needle as little as possible while staying in power as often as possible
yes, obviously, we're all impressed that you went to college, now let's move on.
Why would we "move on" from a very plausible explanation of reality? Do you disagree with this argument, or are you just dismissing it because you find it to be too abrasive to fully come to terms with? Don't we need to name and describe the problem, and encourage others to do the same, if we have any hope of solving our problems?
You, correctly, notice that Democrats are terrible at acknowledging the legitimate problems that normal Americans face, particularly those in rural areas. But aren't you doing the same thing by refusing to even acknowledge the reasons for why the Democrats are so ineffective? We can't ignore or look past our problems and expect them to be solved - and I only have one life, so I'm more concerned about systemic solutions than I am about protecting the feelings of our Democratic elites
Politics have become identity for a lot of people and for the people who have not chosen this road it's very difficult to engage. You no longer have an abundance of open dialogue anymore. I can't remember the last time i even tried to talk about social issues with people without hearing some bullshit talking point from Facebook/CNN/Fox or whatever that has ended the conversation before it's really begun for them.
I'm getting saying to "move on" from that to say "I'm not proposing we scrap everything and start from fresh, I'm assuming the context we live in with our current government and political structure having some sense of legitimacy, now let's explain why these parties behave the way they do within that context". There are obviously wider discussions to be had, I was just trying to limit context.
Our method of voting has a lot to do with it, ranked choice, STAR, or other voting methods can solve a lot of problems with our governance and political system. Not all of them, but some. All the radical alternatives I've seen proposed to our current economic and political system are either untested or failed spectacularly in the past, often because they don't have good ways to handle bad actors. Not that they can't succeed in the future, just that I'm a little skeptical of trying them again without some major revisions. I'm all for experimentation though, our systems have to continue to grow and change, it is very unlikely that any system at any given point in time is the best system humanity could ever come up with. It's easy to talk about "revolution" and critique the current system, but most proposals for how to do that involve a lot of blood and instability that could be avoided if we can intelligently use the levers of power available to us currently. Yes, there are incentives which prevent us from adequately using those levers of power (such as the way money influences elections), but they are not un-overcomeable. Most people don't vote, if those non-voters voted, especially outside of a two party context but even within it, and particularly if they voted in the primaries, our political landscape would look a lot different. If people never participate in primaries, then yes, we will always get a choice between two candidates chosen by the party elite. But, if MAGA world can get their crazy sauce guy to be the nominee, certainly liberals and leftists can nominate somebody equally crazy. Right? They won't though. Because the people who would nominate somebody who isn't milquetoast mostly sit home during primaries and local elections. I've been one of those people, I get it, the whole game is rigged, why play right?
You are right to point out that the basic incentives of our political system produce bad outcomes, including the uselessness of the democrats. Changing the voting system is one way to fix that, that's some that can be done within our current political structure. Another way to fix those kinds of base incentives is by adopting new economic systems that have rules which are not enforced by people or trusted parties. If we eliminate the need to trust people to implement rules, we can solve a lot of problems. This is, imo, one of the main failings of communism. It put the power of the government and the market in the hands of the state with few roadblocks for bad actors. We needed to trust somebody to manage the state and the market, which concentrated immense power in one place. At least capitalism splits the power between the two, kinda.
Regarding changing incentives, for example, there is a trend in capitalism for capital to aggregate into monopolies. We rely on government (a trusted party) to prevent that, but they are subject to regulatory capture and aren't particularly effective. If the entire US economy used a blockchain instead of the government for this role, a rule could be enforced such as "once you have accumulated a billion dollars, congratulations, now you can't accumulate any more" or things like universal income could be baked in at the protocol level. A 2% tax is levied on all transactions that goes into a pot, and once a year that tax is distributed evenly to all people who have the currency. No party needs to be trusted to do that, it just happens automatically. Just like every 10 minutes a new block is added to the Bitcoin blockchain and that's gonna keep happening forever no matter what your national government has to say about it. Blockchain technology can be decentralized, trustless, and immune to nation-state level attacks. You may be a rich and powerful person who is used to getting their way in the legal or political system, but you are still bound by the same laws of physics and math as the rest of us. That's a powerful thing.
The nice thing about using blockchain technology is that:
- We don't have to do it one whole national economy at a time. You don't have to overthrow a government and shed a bunch of blood just to try out a new economic system. Instead, these ideas can be proposed, people can use and try them, and if they work well they will grow organically and eventually displace whatever other current economic systems are in use, just as trade and capitalism inevitably did to all the other forms of economy that existed before it.
- Voting can happen within this same system, in a transparent way. This means, for example, people could vote on the % tax that goes to universal income or whatever. And when the vote is complete? The changes are made to the protocol immediately and automatically, without anybody having to be trusted to make those changes. These technologies have massive potential to increase people's participation in democratic systems.
- We can create rules which are counter to the way that incentive structures organically work. Capitalism's aggregation problem is not something that one person is enforcing, it comes out of natural power laws and things that aren't related to "economy" or "money" at all, they're related to resource scarcity and how power works and human psychology and a whole bunch of other things. But we can create rules, within a network, that are counter to those power laws, that don't rely on trusting any party to "act correctly" either because incorrect acting is forbidden or because we have aligned their incentives so any self-interested party will act correctly, just as our current system aligns incentives to produce certain behavior.
Blockchain is mostly talked about in popular culture as it relates to finance, investing, scams, etc but really what Satoshi did (the author of the Bitcoin whitepaper and software) was solve a problem humanity has had for millennia: how do you administer a system where you can't trust the parties who participate in it and where you can't select a single party or party(s) to administer it properly? Having an answer to that question has implications way beyond the minting of currency. Ultimately, the more systems we can build that are based on code instead of trusting individuals or groups of people to 'do the right thing', the less we will even need government as a structure.
So, personally, that's where I am focusing my efforts these days. I believe this kind of technology has the capacity to change human society in profound and important ways and undo many of the injustices of our current economic and political systems. Much of it needs time to mature, but the framework has been put out there and now people just need to build on top of it.
Fox News is a genius concept that liberals still have yet to copy effectively despite being around for… two decades? Play the fucking game liberals, it’s how you win.
Interesting bit of history thank you for this!
That goes nowhere?
Republicans are 100% better at social media and running their own media. Fox News is a genius concept that liberals still have yet to copy effectively despite being around for… two decades?
Because that doesn't work with democrats. You're missing something -- conservatives literally have different brains than us. They're driven by stories and images of fear. Trump just sounds like a hateful moron to me, there's nothing he does better than Biden. His "style" just appeals more to people who have a very different brain than mine.
In short: Trump is the lesser evil.
I just can't understand how ppl think of Biden as a better human being after how he handles Afghanistan, Palestine, Yemen...
That guy has zero appreciation for human life!
Oh.. so close, you almost had it. Trump is the far greater evil masquerading as a lesser evil.
Proud of you for trying though.
Trump will back everything that Bibi wants to do in Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and Lebanon:
“So I fought for Israel like no president ever before recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which is a big deal. And [I] even recognized Israel sovereignty over the Golan Heights, something that they never even thought — we gave them that,” Trump said.
If you want unmitigated disaster in the Middle East AND here at home, vote for Trump.
They are more likely to objectify and exploit other people, to behave rudely and aggressively and to dismiss social and environmental impacts. They have little interest in cooperation or community. People with a strong set of extrinsic values are more likely to suffer from frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour.
So, half the country has antisocial personality disorders, basically.
Yes. And my little pet hypothesis is that many of those with antisocial personality disorders are the result of prevalent cycles of emotional abuse and neglect.
Sure, cycles of emotional abuse and neglect which are being caused by people with antisocial personality disorder.
It's the cycle of the drama triangle. In the end, everyone ends up a victim.
That doesn't mean half the country isn't caught in it.
No, just a quack trying to pathologies individuals reacting to our social systems of oppression exactly as they were designed to.
Individuals reacting to oppression in a way that causes disease (mental illness) is part of the study of pathology.
Also, modern psychology is well aware U.S. culture is a pathogen, and the journalist was also aware considering they drew parallels between mental health and U.S. culture.
In fact, psychology is becoming more blended with sociology and medicine all the time. They can't really be separated out the way they've been done in the past. Because of this, I'd like to point out, that the psychologists aren't trying to blame individuals, but point at the conditions creating the disease.
And in the paper's abstract, they pointed at U.S. political culture specifically (our social systems of oppression).
Implications for contemporary political discourse are discussed.
Everyone has this hot take about why people support Trump. It's not rocket science and it definitely doesn't require a PHD to understand (lord know he doesn't have one and none of his supporters do either). It's very simple: America is a country where half of the population hates everybody who isn't a conservative heterosexual cisgendered white man. Sounds crazy. But it's the truth. Trump makes these people feel okay for carrying such hatred. That's it.
Except that's not the case at all. Reality isn't that simple and if you believe it is then you need to get out of your bubble and start listening to your left-wing allies in Trump country when they tell you what is going on.
Wow since when did Cracked start writing the truth.
While correct, the why is also very important. It's not always pure hatred of the other out of nowhere, it's propaganda outlets causing you to believe the things/people you aren't entirely comfortable with are the exact reason things are so bad in the country.
We have a gigantic propaganda problem that has no real solution as our 1st amendment (rightfully) protects our media even if they're completely antithetical to our continued survival as a nation... It's fucked up.
America is a country where half of the population hates everybody who isn't a conservative heterosexual cisgendered white man
… but doesn’t that beg the question, why half of America is like that? I wouldn’t find the answer “they just are” sufficient.
The article explains that. You will find that it is caused by something called "education" (or, in that case, the lack thereof). Look into it, it's literally empowering.
Also: "extrinsic" which comes in opposition to "intrinsic", means, quite obviously, "coming from outside". Now, if you add the term "values" to it, "intrinsic values" means "contributing", while "extrinsic values" means "profiting". It is literally a fancy term to designate selfish, kleptomaniac, toxic behavior. And this type of behavior is caused by the intimate conviction that one is unable to provide for oneself, and so, must take from others or suffer. This is, in turn, due to a lack of skills and knowledge, stemming from poor education.
Modern conservatives believe poor people have it easier than rich people and the majority ethnicity and religion are oppressed by the minorities. They are comfortable and uninterested in learning, but believe they should be treated with the upmost respect and consideration.
The factors are:
Lack of empathy
Stupidity
Fear
Its not just a lack of empathy.
its a downright terrified fear of empathy.
Because they think giving a shit about their neighbor might make them liberal, or gay, or whatever other weird connection their fucked up driven-mad-by-fox-news-brain comes up with.
Same reason they are terrified of trans people, because they are terrified of being attracted to a trans person cause, in their head, that makes them gay, which comes with the fear of being treated like they've treated gay people.
Honestly, almost everything comes back towards a baseless, ignorant fear. Mostly fear of having done to them what they've done or wanted to do to others.
This is just as false as saying "all liberals are snowflakes". There are people who lack empathy, sure. But all people show empathy. The difference is that for liberals there is less of an out/in group mentality. And so they express empathy more widely. For conservative people (in the context of this article) they feel empathy just like everyone else, except it is only towards their in-group. Because of this idea of being different to out-groups.
its a downright terrified fear of empathy. Because they think giving a shit about their neighbor might make them liberal, or gay, or whatever other weird connection their fucked up driven-mad-by-fox-news-brain comes up with.
It's a fear of empathy, but not for the reasons you describe.
Working class conservatives are afraid of caring for their neighbor, let alone caring for a stranger, because they fear being taken advantage of. They fear being victims of a scam. They fear being deceived. They fear that the person asking for help is actually a rich person who is dressed up like a poor person because asking for handouts is an easier way to make money than working for a living. Where you and I see the unhoused and the genuine victims of capitalism, they see grifters and charlatans.
Which is all obviously a distortion of actual reality - the unhoused are not tricksters who are out to deceive us. But that is the narrative that needs to be addressed and countered if we want to build genuine empathic behavior
Utmost*
Decent summary, but I would put fear as no.1 reason. Everything leads back to fear and denial.
This writer almost gets there, but stops short of figuring it out. He cites the current British treatment of the homeless, including a £2500 fine for rough sleeping: presumably if they had £2500 to spare, they wouldn't be out on the streets.
I think it's because the current batch of Conservatives are not content with simply using their extrinsic values to shape policy, they also have to use the tools of Government to punish people who don't share their values. Look no further than all the Culture War nonsense in the US these days. Our Conservatives have turned their heartfelt belief that life begins at conception and are using it to punish those who don't believe that way. And they are openly hostile to LGBTQ+ people.
I think the conservative mindset is always looking to punish others lower on their imaginary hierarchy.
I think this study is more at the root of the issue:
"One explanation for this might be that conservatives see "loyalty" as an innate moral principle and liberals don't. There was a study that asked people to explain how they judged scenarios as right or wrong. It came to this conclusion:
Liberals have three principles by which they judge morality: care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression
Conservatives have six principles by which they judge morality: care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation.
This explains why it's hard for conservatives and liberals to have a debate about morality. Say the topic is flag burning. The conservative would say that burning a flag violates sanctity but a law against it violates liberty, so the principle of sanctity must be balanced against the principle of liberty. The liberal doesn't see sanctity as a moral principle so only sees the violation of liberty. The liberal can see no reason to ban flag burning and can't understand the conservative's reasoning. However, both can agree that murder is wrong because it harms people, and that rich and poor must obey the same traffic laws because of fairness.
These are two extreme examples, but if I understand the theory correctly moral reasoning exists on a spectrum. A question for those who believe they don't see sanctity as a moral principle at all: if your beloved dog died of natural causes, would you be comfortable serving its body as a meal? If you hesitated at all, you're at least slightly morally conservative.
Dead link now: https://www-bcf.usc.edu/~jessegra/papers/GrahamHaidtNosek.2009.Moral foundations of liberals and conservatives.JPSP.pdf
Possible alt: https://daverupert.com/2017/08/jonathan-haidt-the-moral-roots-of-liberals-and-conservatives/
More differences:
Agreed, but it seems that Trump's rise has coincided with a change to those 6 conservative values. Sanctity in particular seems to be drastically less important than it used to be, as vulgarity has been embraced by the right to an unprecedented degree. Gone are the days when Ned Flanders and David Brooks personified the typical conservative. Vulgarity, foul language, lack of church attendance, sexual impropriety, substance and gambling use, etc are all drastically more acceptable today than at any point in America's post-WWII history
Having said that, there still are elements of Sanctity that these conservatives care about - kneeling during the NFL's national anthem being one of them. But these occurrences seem to be increasingly uncommon
It’s easy, he positioned himself as a political outsider. He’s a fake populist, and the rubes voting for him fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Of course, in reality he’s a sociopathic loser.
You want to beat Trump in the biggest political ass whooping this country has ever seen? Let a real populist run against him, to enact meaningful progressive change to positively improve the lives of all Americans. Won’t happen because we’re held captive by other sociopathic dinosaurs and corporations all looking to line their pockets, but it’s certainly possible.
Seems like we need something like a bernin' sandrstorm to fix the problem.
People are stupid. Saved you a click.
Lead pipes
Gas leak?
This isn't anything that hadn't been said before. What they are describing is shitty people and assholes. Folks have been saying that for awhile now.
The type of people breed by suburbs; under-socialized and lonely.
We are not born with our values. They are shaped by the cues and responses we receive from other people and the prevailing mores of our society. They are also moulded by the political environment we inhabit. If people live under a cruel and grasping political system, they tend to normalise and internalise it, absorbing its dominant claims and translating them into extrinsic values. This, in turn, permits an even crueller and more grasping political system to develop.
If, by contrast, people live in a country in which no one becomes destitute, in which social norms are characterised by kindness, empathy, community and freedom from want and fear, their values are likely to shift towards the intrinsic end. This process is known as policy feedback, or the “‘values ratchet”. The values ratchet operates at the societal and the individual level: a strong set of extrinsic values often develops as a result of insecurity and unfulfilled needs. These extrinsic values then generate further insecurity and unfulfilled needs.
This is the actual interesting point here. Framing with some epiphany about "extrinsic" and "intrinsic" values is just putting a psychology-friendly label on things we've been saying since 2015.
On the other hand, I fully admit I thought that Trump being elected would backfire big on the GOP, and that America, seeing how awful he was and how readily GOP members of congress flipped on democracy and embraced fascism, would recoil. I thought after a horrible 4 years, the GOP would be done in the country. And at first, it was true. The "Muslim ban" and his other nonsense always triggered 5-10% drops in polls, which then recovered thanks to Fox News and other news orgs normalizing it. And then...it just stopped. It became fully normalized around 2018. After that, nothing impacted his polls.
Now we're staring down 2024 with Trump at all-time highs and the right-wing base is just getting worse and worse. Trump's supporters have abandoned their moral standards, abandoned actually testing their candidate (Trump) against any values they previously held. So now, I at least find that this explanation makes sense.
It's a nihilistic view of humanity - that people will just get worse and worse if people like Trump continues to be allowed to make the behavior "acceptable." - but at least it explains the data.
It's the normalisation that disturbs me the most, the gradual slide into what would once have been seen as abhorrent.
Show some of the headlines from just this last week to people in 2015 and I expect most would recoil in horror. The GoP's presumptive nominee openly using racist dog whistles; a court case where the judge warned jurors to never reveal their identify because of the fear of reprisal from the GoP nominee and his followers; the raw fact that he sexually molested a woman in the 90s; his instigation of civil war on the border in Texas... To name but a few.
All of this stands shoulder-to-shoulder with articles discussing his political prospects, his strategy to win over voters, how he is polling among white, middle-class women... as if he is in any way a normal candidate.
We need to take a step back, to think about what is happening here. Sadly, the very people who need to listen are the very people who can't listen, people for whom any negative discussion of this candidate would merely serve to strengthen the narrative and reinforce the reality they've conjured into being.
There would seem to be no way out of this situation that won't take decades, and which doesn't stand every chance of being derailed whenever an election goes the wrong way.
Some psychologists believe our values tend to cluster around certain poles, described as “intrinsic” and “extrinsic”. People with a strong set of intrinsic values are inclined towards empathy, intimacy and self-acceptance. They tend to be open to challenge and change, interested in universal rights and equality, and protective of other people and the living world.
People at the extrinsic end of the spectrum are more attracted to prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth. They are strongly motivated by the prospect of individual reward and praise. They are more likely to objectify and exploit other people, to behave rudely and aggressively and to dismiss social and environmental impacts. They have little interest in cooperation or community. People with a strong set of extrinsic values are more likely to suffer from frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour.
Pretty garbage takes here: we have the good, properly motivated group that votes for good guys and the bad people who are attached to the superficial and illusions...
This would not be different from a conservative analyzing the left as motivated by prestige/status (proper virtue signaling as approved by academia/mass media) and material gain through democrat policies, while the right is motivated by reason and real values, true philosophy, etc. Something I think we've heard done...
Pathologizing your political opponents is absolutely never a good look whether left or right does it.
I will not say that there are aspects of the above that are not true, however, just as how some leftists are very performative and only concerned with appearing correct and receiving accolades from people they admire. But to really suggest the majority of Trump voters (which are conservatives in general) are not motivated by their own principles and visions is just demonizing your opponents.
This article strikes me as the typical dayjob of "intellectuals" - to explain to the masses why they are being fucked not because how the system is fucking them, but because for some fancy esoteric reason.
Trump embodies a new fascism and the neoliberal system reducing effective quality of life and prosperity and education and manipulative media and science denial have paved the way for it for many decades. But to look at those root causes, the justified anger and easy manipulation would mean pointing the finger at themselves and at their masters.
So their job becomes one of confusing people to distract from meaningful change. A lot of this simply has to do with material prospects, and when it gets too bad it opens the door for people who promise inequality in order to solve it.
I've been thinking about this article again. I think your comment gets at what people are missing from this article. The author is very much saying the system is fucking us. The reason is straight forward and I have noticed this about my conservatives friends. They want to be successful, be famous and win at any cost. They've internalized the late stage capitalist system we live in and made the flaws that enable massive wealth disparity their values.
We are not born with our values. They are shaped by the cues and responses we receive from other people and the prevailing mores of our society. They are also moulded by the political environment we inhabit. If people live under a cruel and grasping political system, they tend to normalise and internalise it, absorbing its dominant claims and translating them into extrinsic values. This, in turn, permits an even crueller and more grasping political system to develop.
If, by contrast, people live in a country in which no one becomes destitute, in which social norms are characterised by kindness, empathy, community and freedom from want and fear, their values are likely to shift towards the intrinsic end. This process is known as policy feedback, or the “values ratchet”. The values ratchet operates at the societal and the individual level: a strong set of extrinsic values often develops as a result of insecurity and unfulfilled needs. These extrinsic values then generate further insecurity and unfulfilled need
This is how we end up with tankies, people on the far left who go to bat for communist dictatorships. And I've talked to a number of tankies on lemmy. They've internalized the flawed democracy we live in and made the flaws that allow for minority rule their values. They don't just want to impose their economic polices on everyone using a dictatorship. The dictatorship is what they value. It's the system they already think they are living in. To them doing away with the electoral system is just doing away with a valueless formality. To them the US has always been a dictatorship.
Fascists don't just want to impose a dictatorship on everyone using their economic policies. The late stage capitalism is what they value. A tiny minority owning all the wealth where everyone else lives in destitution is the system they already think they are living in. To them doing away with social programs to fix wealth inequality is ensuring the natural order of things. To them hundreds of millions of people below the poverty line is normal.
Intrinsic values vs extrinsic values explains the modern saying, "Nobody wants democracy, they want a dictatorship that agrees with them". This isn't about liberals vs conservatives. This about what people believe our society is fundamentally about. It's people who see the flaws in our society and want to do better vs the people who see the flaws in our society and think that is the way it has always been and that is the way it should always be. Different people internalized different flaws in our society, but they were all fucked by the same system. If we fail to stop fascism now, the next generations will have worse conditions to live under. Many of them will internalize those conditions as their values and then they will in turn create worse political and economic conditions.
Conservatives believe in a hierarchy and stratification of society.
They simply place themselves as the leaders and arbiters of that order based on their self-appointed superiority. They will always place themselves at the top of the totem pole.
Therefore, even if they were to completely acknowledge their failings (not a chance), their failings will never be reason to upset that order; but everyone else's failings, perceived or real, will be more than sufficient to be kept to the end of the totem pole stuck in the dirt.
- The internet makes people feel that they are actually smart - Like they possess a lot of knowledge just because they have access to it, in theory
- This country was founded in part, by very deeply racist people. That racism never actually "left", it's just had moments of quiet, but it's always there because we didn't punish the traitors behind the civil war hard enough. We also allowed the daughters of the confederacy to attempt to literally rewrite history.
- trump is a poor person's idea of a rich person. They also see him and think inside, quietly, "he's an idiot, so that means if I wanted to be the president, I could be the president, I just don't want to right now". Then when people attack trump, they feel personally attacked and defend him.
It's somewhere in the balance of these three points.
Jfc, this is pathetic, but sadly reflective of the actual big picture it thinks it's giving - trump is a symptom. He is not the cause, he is not the single issue that we need to "beat", the system that enables him to exist is.
That same system that indoctrinates all of society in to capitalism and the systems of oppression it (and the likes of trump) relies on.
The same system this psychologist is conveniently ignoring to get their nonsense published as some sort of revelation, when in reality it is serving that very system by continuing to deepen the divide in the working class and blame those being manipulated instead of those in charge of the system based on manipulation.
Some people being able to break free from that indoctrination doesn't magically make those who don't [insert ableist slur/armchair diagnosis], it makes them victims of a scam. And you don't free them (and by extension yourself) by blaming them and pretending like if only they voted for the other puppet in the 4-yearly illusion of choice show all our problems would be solved, you free them by ending the fucking scam.
(to be clear - this doesn't mean you don't hold people accountable for their actions, but that you look at the big picture to gain some fucking perspective and understanding, and then hold people accountable for what they're actually responsible for, rather than everything that is wrong in the world and systems far beyond their control, and then pull a shocked pikach face when it doesn't work. No fucking shit sherlock..)
Agreed, this is well written. It seems even more see obvious trump is a symptom because so many other trump-esque politicians are rising up and finding success across the globe in many other countries. Right-wing recessionism is really popular right now, but it's mostly because the systems themselves seem largely without hope, and broken.
I thought we went over this in 2016 and the answer was "Economic Anxiety".
Well it certainly didn't go away.
And the average person economic situation has drastically deteriorated since then, especially post-Covid
Source: grocery prices and housing costs
Trump's team realised how many racists exist in America when they saw how popular his birther campaign was. These people are overwhelmingly conservative.
The interesting thing about America is that it was founded on the idea that people are equal, religion has no place in politics and conservative rules were holding back the common man. They fled the monarchies of Europe to create a more egalitarian society but ended up creating a divided and racist society with a capitalist aristocracy.
The interesting thing about America is that it was founded on the idea that people are equal
While our early national rhetoric certainly hammered the idea that all humans are equal, our early national actions discriminated against everyone except for landowning white anglo-saxon protestant men.
We have been an oligarchy from the start. Albeit an oligarchy with a phenomenal Public Relations department
Our founders did flee European monarchies - but they didn't do it for the equitable reasons you describe. They fled the dictatorships of the aristocrats in order to create a new dictatorship - a dictatorship of the merchant class. Said another way, a dictatorship of the wealthy. Said yet another way, a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. That is what the United States of America is, and that is what we have always been.
lead poisoning
I read the whole article, yet in my head it was being narrated by Adam Curtis. Same vibes.
We talk about society’s rightward journey. We talk about polarisation and division. We talk about isolation and the mental health crisis. But what underlies these trends is a shift in values. This is the cause of many of our dysfunctions; the rest are symptoms.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
From the tower bearing his name in gold letters to his gross overstatements of his wealth; from his endless ranting about “winners” and “losers” to his reported habit of cheating at golf; from his extreme objectification of women, including his own daughter, to his obsession with the size of his hands; from his rejection of public service, human rights and environmental protection to his extreme dissatisfaction and fury, undiminished even when he was president of the United States, Trump, perhaps more than any other public figure in recent history, is a walking, talking monument to extrinsic values.
If people live under a cruel and grasping political system, they tend to normalise and internalise it, absorbing its dominant claims and translating them into extrinsic values.
If, by contrast, people live in a country in which no one becomes destitute, in which social norms are characterised by kindness, empathy, community and freedom from want and fear, their values are likely to shift towards the intrinsic end.
Ever since Ronald Reagan came to power, on a platform that ensured society became sharply divided into “winners” and “losers”, and ever more people, lacking public provision, were allowed to fall through the cracks, US politics has become fertile soil for extrinsic values.
Under the criminal justice bill now passing through parliament, people caught rough sleeping can be imprisoned or fined up to £2,500 if they are deemed to constitute a “nuisance” or cause “damage”.
If so, his victory will be due not only to the racial resentment of ageing white men, or to his weaponisation of culture wars or to algorithms and echo chambers, important as these factors are.
The original article contains 1,061 words, the summary contains 274 words. Saved 74%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Toxoplasmosis.
Mental illness
Feels like some BS, using many words to separate the world into sane people and Trump (or his kind) supporters.
The author should pick a line between "inclination towards empathy, intimacy and self-acceptance" being attributed to one side and "dismissing social impacts" being attributed to another. Because "self-acceptance" is in direct conflict with "social impacts".
And a lynching crowd is a "social impact" too, for example.
Also behaving rudely and behaving aggressively is not the same. Most of time aggressive behavior is not rude and rude behavior is not aggressive in my personal social experience.
They have little interest in cooperation or community.
So every commenter here saying nothing meaningful except for "another part of my country consists of idiots and I'm of course smarter than them" is interested in cooperation and community?
However, I'm pleased by "intrinsic" here being something good and "extrinsic" being something bad. At least my kind of people is presented as the better kind for a difference.
are more likely to suffer from frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour
Well, of course people in pain would be less pleasant. But your usual average human would say that they are themselves to blame, because the universe is a fair game (except for market economics and climate change and gender dynamics, of course, here they do notice problems or pretend to notice), so let's just call them all idiots who should be stripped of voting rights or something.
I agree with everything you said, except I think you chose a weird example. Burning flags especifically is a nuanced issue. I'd argue that a lot of liberas would be in favor of not burning flags, because of the harm principle you mentioned. There is no non-viopent situation in which you burn a flag, therefore laws like these tend to be supported by both sides.
But can psychologists explain why neoliberal, procorporate "moderate" Democrats would rather lose to Trump than compromise with leftists?
Because deep down many Americans dream of being outlaws on the run in the wild west being chased down by federales. They see themselves as the next Pancho and Lefty or Billie the Kid.
This is silly. The reason why people are voting for him is because he's NOT a Democrat. It's the same shit on both sides. Biden's a fucking idiot, and most Demcorats know this...yet, they will keep voting for him because he's NOT a Republican.
Nah, it's because Trump is far worse. They are not equivalent idiots.
I don't want to vote for either of them. They both suck.
They may both suck but Trump and party made abortions a lot harder to get, have made life a lot harder for Trans people, tried to stop the transfer of power and are undermining the nations confidence in elections. In addition, some are now trying to undermine a bi-partisan deal on border security to have a talking point at the ballot box.
Elections a lot of times are a vote for the lesser of two evils. And because the President gets to nominate Supreme Court justices it's critical to vote. every. time.
Saying 'they both suck' is a cop-out.
Both of them do suck. I hate both of them, not the leaders I'd want in office. I'd rather vote for RFK, but even he has his quirks. My family is right leaning, I'm not, but I'm sure as hell not voting for Biden to get relected.
Are you going to respond to the other comment below yours? Or are you just here to ensure Trump gets elected?
Wasn't on my phone yet jackass
I just want a democrat/republican ticket. So tired of this 2 parties war that brings us nowhere at best, back in times at worse. Give me a Biden/Hayley nom, I don't care but bring back boring and normal.
That won't happen with today's politics. In that scenario the only objective the Republicans would have would be to impeach Biden so they could install Hayley as president.