Trying this again.
Are there any Trump supports out there? Do you know any?
If so, I have been trying to find an answer to this question:
-- Why do you support your candidate?
I've been looking for an answer in the positive which does not address Obama or Clinton. I haven't yet found one.
If you can answer, please do! If you know someone who could, please plus them in.
Moderation policy: This is NOT an argument thread. Any attempt to argue with a Trump support will be deleted. I may ask questions, which'll be similar to "Will you you explain more about that?". At the same time, any post such as "killary for prison" will be deleted and, at my discretion, the poster blocked. I explicitly reserve the right to delete this post or any comments without warning or explanation.
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Listening.
ReplyDeleteWanna reshare, Robert Bohl ? You've got a tendency to attract the people I'm looking for.
ReplyDeleteNo. :)
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeletei don't support either major party candidate, but i can speculate why some people might vote trump. my republican friends, i think, are all abstaining or voting off-ticket. believe what reasonable people "like" about him is probably summed up here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-donald-trump-supporters-reasons-20160610-story.html
ReplyDeleteand here's a fascinating opinion https://www.quora.com/Why-do-you-support-Donald-Trump-1
ReplyDeleteYeah, Todd Sprang , I'm aware of these things. That absolutely does not do what I want, which is to ask a person why they believe what they believe and to ask clarifying questions about why.
ReplyDeleteEssentially, to use the Socratic method.
Oh you want a dialog! Good luck there. It's my ardent belief that no intellectual, thinking person would vote for Trump, and therefore you have no people to discuss this with. :)
ReplyDeleteTodd Sprang I'm suspicious of that sort of absolute statement.
ReplyDeleteYeah I did use absolutes, when I'm sure there must be a few intellectuals
ReplyDeletein the US who for some reason think Trump is the right idea (though I fail
to come up with any I've heard of personally or via media - I mean, his own
running-mate...). However, you're asking people who follow you on G+, and I
think I'm probably safe to say zero are Trump voters. Wrong?
Well ... let me put forward a less absolute, hopefully more nuanced statement.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the campaigns appeal to people with the same sort of argumentation.
HRC's campaign has been projected and sustained in a language that privileges academic rationality: The presentation of premises, and then the construction of arguments upon them ... including all of the possible "gotchas" that such argumentation permits.
Trumps campaign has been projected and sustained in a language that privileges honoring emotional impact: The honest unveiling of human needs and drives, and validating them... including all the possible "gotchas" that such argumentation permits.
HRC people don't want to talk Trump language: "You feel like you're worse off? Sweet merciful crap, you're a millionaire living in the greatest era in human history. Your feelings are invalid you moron!"
Trump people don't want to talk HRC language: "Logistical problems of deporting eleven million people I don't like and don't care about? Don't give me logistical problems, that's just your excuse to ignore me!"
Now before anyone jumps in with the question: Yes, I know there's a false equivalency here. I'm not arguing which sort of argumentation is better suited to forming public policy ... and if I did argue, the argument would be very short and very lopsided.
But, that having been said, it's maybe worth noting that the "Socratic explication" that you're hoping to draw a Trump supporter into is about as deeply academic-rationality language as it is possible to get.
Does that make sense as a proposition?
oh, and let me back up a second: I'm not really trying to do what Socrates did -- that of asking questions until someone blows up because you're an asshole, and then Alcibiades goes and knocks the dicks off of gods. Not that.
ReplyDeleteRather, to ask questions about why people put forth specific statement. What it means to them. To try to understand, as I have failed to do for months now.
And yeah, maybe it is too academic a stance. But, it is the one I am trained and inclined towards.
If the majority "vote party", then you're basically wanting to inquire of "undecideds" why they're leaning Trump?
ReplyDeleteOr anyone, Todd Sprang !
ReplyDeleteWell, I find it less difficult to deduce answers when I ask the questions that seem to matter to the campaign.
ReplyDelete"Why do you feel angry?": Demographic shifts are changing "white" from a position of privilege to just another minority. Economic globalization has left behind the least educated. Government has not responded, and increasingly acts as if it's not obliged to respond to that economic hardship. And most of all, of course, the Democratic party has repeatedly said in many ways large and small "Your anger isn't valid. Go fix that."
"Why Trump?": He tells me it's okay to be angry. If I elect him, we get a world where my anger, my needs, count.
"But do you really think he'll enact policies that ...": You aren't listening. My emotions will have been heard.
"He'll betray you.": Yes! You finally get it!
"Wait, what?": The democrats couldn't betray my feelings. They have said straight up "Your feelings and needs don't count." At least when Trump screws me over, it will be a response to me.
"Lots of people will suffer and die.": And gosh, heck yeah, that would be sad. But I've lived my whole life being told "Don't feel what you feel, because it will hurt other people," and the honest fact is I can't live that way. I can do it for a year, or a decade, but not forever ... and forever seems to be what you're asking me for. You rebalance the Supreme Court, and that's going to be there for my whole life. Why would you even bother pretending to listen to me after that?
Am I making any sense? I don't claim to actually speak for Trump supporters, but these are among the many justifications I can imagine.
If it's the case that so many Trump supporters are racist, misogynist, hateful, what have you, there's little to discuss with them I think. First, they probably are not in touch with their actual motivations and would deny claims of any/all of those (sound familiar?). Then, say you actually got someone to say "I admit I like Trump because he appeals to my fears," what kind of Socratic dialog do you hope to have with them? It sickens me to hear how we need to make America great again, because I know who that message targets: people who miss segregation. There are few modern metrics the US could be held against that don't make us pretty fucking great already, and we're only getting better (unless the bully-in-chief gets elected, in which case this country could seriously spiral down). And his "great" I'm sure doesn't refer to better education or late-life care.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I stick with my "reasoned debate with Trump supporters is unlikely to occur." I haven't seen evidence of intention or reason yet. Just fear-mongering and reactivity.
These seem semantically equivalent to saying that there is no reason to support Trump, and that no person can decide to vote for him for any reasonable reason.
ReplyDeleteI really hope that is not true. This is why I have been seeking one, for months, to ask according to my own abilities.
I think that's unfair.
ReplyDeleteYou can say the reasons are bad reasons without erasing them as powerful motivators that humans are very prone to base their decisions off of.
I have not heard a reasonable reason to vote Trump. Have you? I've heard
ReplyDelete"bad", emotionally-charged reasons. Nothing rational, other than one
prefers to vote republican.
I have not! My ignorance is part of why I try posts like this. That I don't know about something didn't mean it doesn't exist.
ReplyDeleteWhile absence of proof never becomes proof of absence, after enough digging absence of evidence does become evidence of absence.
ReplyDeleteQuite, and I continue to look for the evidence that may well be absent. I haven't yet found it.
ReplyDeleteAre you still looking for someone, William, even after the election? I know a guy--he's a gamer I respect as well as a well-spoken Trump supporter, but he's on FB.
ReplyDeleteEven more so, Aaron Bostian. I am not on fb, so here'd be the place.
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna mute, with no offense intended to anyone.
ReplyDeleteOh, and Aaron Bostian ? If your friend doesn't want to talk in public on my G+ thread, we can arrange something else. I won't go to facebook because reasons, but email is a reasonable substitute.
ReplyDeletePM sent.
ReplyDeleteBrian Renninger So wait, you didn't vote for Trump?
ReplyDeleteOr you did, but can't say why without referencing HRC or Obama?
I'm unsure. And this isn't the thread for talking about big tent politics, it is the thread for explaining why DT is worth voting for.
Well, William Nichols, if part of DTs positive draw was a coalition that offered more and had lower barriers to entry, then doesn't big-tent politics have to be part of that discussion?
ReplyDeleteI'll admit, though, that it's easier to talk about it as a political force in general than to respond to "if you don't prioritize this factor then you're a big stinky hypocrite." Rhetoric makes a difference in these kinds of discussions.
Tony Lower-Basch Part, sure. I can get behind HRC in part because, say, my wife could get behind her.
ReplyDeleteBut that's not sufficient. There's got to be something about the candidate. I cannot believe that the only appeal is that other people were into him. For somebody there's got to be some other positive.
William Nichols Dang it. I went to delete my big tent post but, spazzed and deleted my other one instead. But, my opinion is that most Trump voting was driven by disenchantment with both parties. Now, you can read this as including HRC and Obama and it does. But, the disenchantment was broader than that. The example I gave of Sanders supporters switching to Trump reflects that. Sure the some Bernie Switchers were driven by anger at HRC but, my opinion is it is broader than that. The switch makes no ideological sense unless you view them as inchoate rage in general. So, I guess I buy into the anger at elites hypothesis. But, also class rivalries amongst the middle class as well. Call someone a bigoted, evil, redneck, long enough soon they will wear the black hat proudly.
ReplyDeleteBrian Renninger: Would it be unfair to sum up as "Oh yeah, I can give you a reason people voted Trump that isn't about HRC or Obama ... there's a whole laundry list of people and institutions they were voting against, not just those two"?
ReplyDeleteBrian's comments support my theory that Trump was the "candidate of
ReplyDeletechange". Of course reality is nothing like the campaign (the swamp is
certainly not getting drained), but that's how he positioned himself, and
why I think he got the massive support, and even Bernie votes.
Point of order: He did not get massive support. Full Stop.
ReplyDeleteHe got a million+ less votes than HRC. What he did do -- surprisingly well! -- is to get rural white evangelicals to vote for him. He played the game of counting to 270, not the game of winning the popular vote.
Sorry, in my head, winning nearly half the popular vote and taking the
ReplyDeleteelectoral victory is "massive support". Massive to me cuz I figured he'd
lose horribly. Massive by contrast, if only "respectable" in reality.
Todd Sprang Sure, I can see that. I rather emphatically do not want the story to become that he won with "overhwelming" support. For a bunch of reasons, one of which is that it is false.
ReplyDeleteIn reality, he won several states by very slim margins on the votes of white evangelicals and the rise of third parties. The electoral college tends to magnify the difference between #1 and #2 -- and, of course, erase #3 and below.
Oh, and voter suppression. How could I forget.
ReplyDeleteYep just meant "a lot" of support, which is basically to your original question. He did not win by a landslide and lost the popular vote (not that it matters).
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch That's about right. It's complicated.
ReplyDeletethere's a petition to abolish the electoral college in case you want to lodge a complaint. i signed it. think a bill's being put forth in congress too. not like any of that will matter.
ReplyDelete