Well, if the main take-away from my discussion of the 2nd amendment above is that I'm anti-gun(*)
, I can only conclude [from this final/concluding straw in my combined interaction in these Trump/Clinton threads] that what mostly matters in this election is not about the politics or the content of what's being said but all about whether whoever is saying it belongs to or is superficially perceived to belong to one's own party or that other party.
Yeah, I finally grok I am out of touch with the American Main Street voter. However, when iDave says that engineers and PhDs in his area happily vote Trump, I realize that I'm also out of touch with the average Rocket City voter. (And I used to live in the California version of Rocket City. Strangely most of those PhDs and engineers were Democrats
) I have obviously failed to grasp/refused to acknowledge that party-loyalty reigns supreme as the paramount value with the American voter exceeding all other considerations, such as for example, proposed politics, political qualifications, and personal character. During this election, I've seen people (including on these forums) fervently oppose Trump... until he was chosen as the candidate at which point they were suddenly all behind him. Now that's party loyalty if I ever saw it.
Like, really, I'm quite unfamiliar with that kind of party-loyalty living in my intellectual cosmopolitan elitist bubble and all.
So, yeah, I finally grok, that if party loyalty is the most important value, I'm pretty much wasting my time talking about any kind of analysis of the consequences of whatever politics. Because it doesn't really matter. People are just going to vote their party affiliation no matter who their candidate is or what they stand for. From an international perspective, that's rather highly unusual so that's maybe why it took so long for me to get it.
So ... I think I will, from now on, understand US presidential elections and very many American voters as engaging in something akin to the
Cola Wars. Most people, aside from a few Cola wonks, can't really taste the difference between Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola in a blind test but as soon as the drink gets poured from a brand name bottle, they will definitely insist that they can and that their favourite brand tastes much better than OTHER brand.
Furthermore, cola brand loyalty goes so deep that even if one finds ones particular brand suddenly containing bottled sewage water, most people will still insist that such sewage tastes better than cola insofar the cola came from the other bottle. This is regardless of whether we add raw sewage to the Pepsi Cola bottle or the Coca Cola bottle. People will still drink crap while trying to keep a straight face because it's THEIR brand.
(Indeed, I bet most people will think I'm now attacking THEIR brand and not both brands and proceed to claim that I'm somehow biased or belong to the other bottle company.)
People will go to extreme ends to argue that whatever they taste represents the true brand. For example, if/when Coca Cola came up with a new recipe, New Coke, people will insist
that New Coke is the one true Coca Cola, that New Coke has always been the one true Coca Cola regardless of what the original recipe was and regardless of whether others still remember Coke Classic. Regardless of whether Coke Classic is still being sold.
(Indeed, I bet most people will now say that that's not at all what's going on.---That the rest of the world are simply wrong about Cola because Coke Classic despite the taste being sold in the US not so many years ago and still being sold all over the world does not represent True American Coca Cola)
At the dumb end, I've talked to them, people repeat a few slogans---something they saw on a meme on facebook. At the smart end, I've talked to them too, you get debate with cherry picked facts and arguments. If you haven't met both of of these, you need to get out more. In any case nobody wants to step out of their bottled-up think-scapes.
Apparently it doesn't matter that any candidate is an asshole. What matters is whether that candidate is OUR asshole. This goes for both sides. I'm not just saying that as some kind of elitist theorizing from my personal ivory towers. I make a point, thanks ERE, to talk to everybody going wide. These sentiments are everywhere. I wish more people could somehow rise above it and put themselves in the position of OTHER. Speaking of guns, I bet this failure---to actually admit just ONCE that maybe the other side is more correct on just one single point, which shouldn't be statistically unlikely---is what propagates most strife. Like Chicago gang wars: "We do it, because they do it." Yeah, I can program that in BASIC. Goes like this...
10 PRINT "I'M AN IDIOT."
20 PRINT "YOU'RE AN IDIOT"
30 GOTO 10
Sorry, people, but ... I don't know ... whatever ... I give up. I never should have engaged in these threads. Everybody knows that gotos are bad practice
I often wish that I could watch this election in a parallel universe where Trump had run for the democrats and Clinton would have run for the Republicans. Would Republican voters still make the same excuses for Clinton if she had done/said exactly what Trump did/said? Conversely, would Democrats still accept Clinton if we moved her one iota to the right and let her run for the Republicans having done what she's done/said? Like what if Trump had his own private email server and Clinton was playing footsie with Putin?
I would want to watch both the reactions from American voters (complete attitude flip-flop, I bet) and the rest of the world (more or less the same, I bet).
So I guess I'm done trying to explain US politics in any detailed manner that's contingent on specific politics.
I think these simple rules explain far more about what's going on that any kind of political evolution:
Let X be the voter's political affiliation (to a first order equal to whatever they voted the last time) and let Y be the convenient political affiliation of a given candidate. For simplicity, restrict the range of X and Y to the set of {D,R}. Then the following three rules are practically all that's needed
1) If X=Y, I'll make up any excuses for my candidate regardless of how outrageous/unrealistic/uncouth they may be. Because they're my candidate.
2) If X!=Y, I'll attack the other candidate even if their propositions make more sense or they demonstrate more skill, etc. Because they're not my candidate.
3) Most voters are severely sticky on the X variable.
Now, I'm not saying that extreme party-loyalty for the sake of loyalty is bad in and of itself. Personally re-evaluating loyalty over intellectualism is some personal growth I've yet to do (See Haidt). After all, the US system hasn't managed to produce a dictator yet since 1776 whereas both Europe, Russia, and China has, so in going with Taleb in the spirit of his opinion on coffee and wine-drinking: If something has been around for that long, it's probably not that bad. On the other hand, it does seem that the US loyalty system is capable of pushing through very extreme positions simply because voters will allow anything as long as it passes party-color. In Ego's words, either party's voters are entirely willing to drive the bus off the cliff to avoid switching sides. (And maybe now we have two busses heading towards the cliff ... but hey ... whatever,
I'm on a bus!)
So yeah, I think I get US politics now. It's way less complicated than I thought it was.
(*) Come on guys, please re-read what I wrote, eh? At no point did I suggest taking away people's precious guns. I mean, holy shit, I like guns and I already got my own "tree guns" picked out: Ruger Blackhawk in .357, Mossberg 500 (despite the fact that FIL bestowed his Remington mo. 31 on me. I just don't like the loading port and having to get 2.5" shells) or alternatively, an H&R Topper so I can shoot .357 out of it with an adapter, and ... okay, not decided on the rifle because IL hunting is shotgun only (imagine a three day season with rifle bullets flying all over and it kinda makes sense?!) but otherwise a Remington 700 or something from CZ. Only reason I haven't bought any is that it's 1hr+ to the nearest shooting range that isn't a^Hthe sketchy hand-gun only basement in the neighbourhood and that Chicago makes you pay out the nose for annual certs, etc. So too much hassle. I wish they'd change it. I like guns AND I'm smart enough to realize that if I don't shoot myself or my family NOR get shot by ditto NOR get into with black gang activity on the Chicago south and west sides AND showing my hands whenever I get accosted by the police for walking on the sidewalk (obviously a suspicious ERE behaviour; it has happened twice already in ten+ years! Fortunately, I'm white or one of those incidences could have gone bad ... it was freezing and I put my hands in my pockets. That didn't go over well!) I'm as likely to get shot by an American as I am by a friendly Canadian. So there!
