I have very little to disagree with here, and I somewhat accept your premise that we’re being driven to be the thing we’re behaving as. I mean, that’d just be “fake it til you make it” in a particularly gross context.
However - I’ve drank beers (and bad shots, why not) around exactly the kinda folks you’d expect to find in some of the diviest bars in parts of rural America that barely (or don’t) have a grocery store. Some of those folks are irredeemable, don’t get me wrong. A whole lot of them, though, are truly decent folks who’ve been completely misled.
That was a work thing that I hated and left behind some years ago, but I know very personally two current Trump voters. If you reduce those 2 people to a ballot, pretty easy to condemn them. If you know them the way I do, it’s just blatantly obvious they have no idea who and what they voted for. They were fooled, conned, by a known successful conman. It’s really that simple.
Because they are constantly conned and have no idea how they are voting somehow makes them good and ok? Idk still seems insanely ignorant and dangerous to me.
I’m not making excuses for them, and I intend to keep track of the most egregious things that happen under the upcoming Trump administration so I can say to them “is this what you wanted? We knew this would happen and voted against it, you voted for it, is this what you wanted?”
And I never said their ignorance makes them good and okay, what a silly idea. They are good people first - one of them, for example, fought for custody of his kids and raised them as a single dad. It was super necessary and he did it very well. That’s a few steps beyond just “okay”, anyway.
There’s that line from MiB: “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.”
While not entirely accurate (there are plenty of dumb individuals, willfully so or otherwise), to paraphrase it a little that encountering individuals one-on-one is almost always great. People can be really interesting, and are generally pretty cool. As soon as hot button topics pop up, the ideology kicks in, and they’re not so cool or interesting anymore. They get angry, mulish, and make it personal.
While I do know just what you mean (and find that line useful too), I’m not describing the same thing you are. I’m describing people I know very well who don’t substantially disagree with me on hot button topics, but have been fooled into voting against the things they actually care about.
I’m not describing casual acquaintances that don’t work out once people get to know one another, I’ve absolutely had that experience though.
I have very little to disagree with here, and I somewhat accept your premise that we’re being driven to be the thing we’re behaving as. I mean, that’d just be “fake it til you make it” in a particularly gross context.
However - I’ve drank beers (and bad shots, why not) around exactly the kinda folks you’d expect to find in some of the diviest bars in parts of rural America that barely (or don’t) have a grocery store. Some of those folks are irredeemable, don’t get me wrong. A whole lot of them, though, are truly decent folks who’ve been completely misled.
That was a work thing that I hated and left behind some years ago, but I know very personally two current Trump voters. If you reduce those 2 people to a ballot, pretty easy to condemn them. If you know them the way I do, it’s just blatantly obvious they have no idea who and what they voted for. They were fooled, conned, by a known successful conman. It’s really that simple.
Edit: redundancy
Because they are constantly conned and have no idea how they are voting somehow makes them good and ok? Idk still seems insanely ignorant and dangerous to me.
I’m not making excuses for them, and I intend to keep track of the most egregious things that happen under the upcoming Trump administration so I can say to them “is this what you wanted? We knew this would happen and voted against it, you voted for it, is this what you wanted?”
And I never said their ignorance makes them good and okay, what a silly idea. They are good people first - one of them, for example, fought for custody of his kids and raised them as a single dad. It was super necessary and he did it very well. That’s a few steps beyond just “okay”, anyway.
There’s that line from MiB: “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.”
While not entirely accurate (there are plenty of dumb individuals, willfully so or otherwise), to paraphrase it a little that encountering individuals one-on-one is almost always great. People can be really interesting, and are generally pretty cool. As soon as hot button topics pop up, the ideology kicks in, and they’re not so cool or interesting anymore. They get angry, mulish, and make it personal.
While I do know just what you mean (and find that line useful too), I’m not describing the same thing you are. I’m describing people I know very well who don’t substantially disagree with me on hot button topics, but have been fooled into voting against the things they actually care about.
I’m not describing casual acquaintances that don’t work out once people get to know one another, I’ve absolutely had that experience though.