Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Intended for constructive conversations. Exhibits of polarizing tribalism will be deleted.
BRUTE
Posts: 3797
Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 5:20 pm

Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by BRUTE »

brute has spent a lot of time since the election trying to come up with a framework for understanding it that doesn't rely on the axiomatic "(Shr/K/B)illary did Benghazi and emails" nor "all Trump voters are trans-race-miso-phobe-gynists and literally Hitler".

this is not supposed to be a moral indictment, even if it will sound like one.

here's brute's current hypothesis: economic shift in urban/rural balance towards urban, democrats have become too decadent in their policies and messaging for rural voters, focus on different levels of Maslow pyramid is being misinterpreted/perceived by both sides.

1)human needs/desires are ordered in a hierarchy, e.g. Maslow's pyramid
2)therefore, basic human needs (shelter, food, security) must typically be fulfilled before higher-level needs (self-actualization) are fulfilled
3)for the purpose of this hypothesis, brute defines "decadence" as a human's focus on higher-level needs/desires, while lower-level needs are perceived as not having been met by another humans - i.e. focus on transgender bathrooms while large parts of the population are not secure in their basic needs, or are literally dying (opioid epidemic). this means decadence is in the eye of the beholder.
4)economic factors have shifted since the 1990s to largely favor professional, urban jobs and centers. thus, even after 2008, most metro areas are doing very well. this is where Democrats live. rural areas have not been doing well, with real wages probably declining (brute is too lazy to look it up) since the late 90s.
5)thus, rural populations are struggling to fulfill lower-level needs/desires.
6)at the same time, urban humans are focusing on higher-level needs, misinterpreting the lack of interest of struggling humans as opposition. i.e. the disinterest of an unemployed Appalachian in transgender bathrooms is misinterpreted as transphobia.
7)struggling rural humans perceive the focus on high-level needs/desires as decadence (see 3), i.e. "nobody cares about transgender bathrooms when it's unclear if there will be dinner"
8)since urban humans completely dominate the national media, they have (unintentionally?) broadcast a sort of contempt for ~50% of the population.
9)while the economic power has shifted towards urban centers, the electoral college has not
10)brute, while being a professional urban yuppie, cannot help but sympathize with "real Americans (tm)" and believes they are the underdogs in the current political climate.
11)Trump's lifestyle and behavior is probably perceived to be decadent by almost all humans, but ironically, his messaging is focused on the lower-level needs/desires of the struggling, whereas Democrats' messaging and policies are focused on the high-level needs/desires.
12)QED

JamesR
Posts: 947
Joined: Sun Apr 21, 2013 9:08 pm

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by JamesR »

The trump train has the biggest cowcatcher of them all!

ducknalddon
Posts: 249
Joined: Fri May 20, 2016 5:55 am

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by ducknalddon »

BRUTE wrote:
Sun Aug 06, 2017 8:50 pm
10)brute, while being a professional urban yuppie, cannot help but sympathize with "real Americans (tm)" and believes they are the underdogs in the current political climate.
Weren't the Republican voters wealthier than Democrat voters on average?

From the outside, it appeared to me the Republicans had been effective at painting a negative picture of the Democrats and Hilary in particular, a campaign that ran for a long time. I really don't know if that was deserved or not but I suspect they would have achieved the same if Mother Theresa had been standing for the Democrats.

If you look at the figures the Republican vote has been consistent for the last few elections, it was the Democratic vote that plummeted.

Dragline
Posts: 4436
Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:50 am

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by Dragline »

BRUTE wrote:
Sun Aug 06, 2017 8:50 pm

10)brute, while being a professional urban yuppie, cannot help but sympathize with "real Americans (tm)" and believes they are the underdogs in the current political climate.
Suggest you go live with them for a few years -- make it an anthropological adventure -- then to see how much you actually sympathize with them, as opposed to your academic idea of them. Those of us who originated in such environments have no such romantic notions about "underdogs" or "real Americans". These people are often thugs and bullies to anyone who sticks out and does not adhere to their social norms -- they stay ahead by keeping other people down or at least on their level. You've never really experienced social correctness until you've lived in a small town where everyone knows you and your family and is happy to judge them publicly every day. That they claim to be "victims" now because they can no longer control the private behaviors of other people through threats and sanctions fairly well drips with irony. Don't believe the hype.

Alternatively, just go read "Hillbilly Elegy" and see what you think of the author's mother and the way he describes many of his other relatives. You'll understand why the author "got out" and why he sees their problems as more related to personal behaviors repeated from generation to generation than any changing political climate, even though he still cares for them and about them.

I think Prospecting Theory provides a simpler and more accurate analysis than a model based on Maslow's hierarchies, because these people are not really wanting for basic needs - they do not lack shelter, food or security any more than people do in the "bad to average neighborhoods" in suburban and urban environments. What they do have is a perception, sometimes real and sometimes imagined, of having less than they did in the past in comparison to others (which is what really matters to most people caught in the consumerist mindset). Prospecting Theory says losses are felt more acutely than gains, and thereby invoke stronger reactions.

It also explains why there is a sharp divide by age as to voter preferences across all jurisdictions -- it is the older generations who are feeling the perceptions of loss and have cast their lots with Trump's appeals to golden era nostrums, not the younger people who are actually less well off than their elders. There should be no significant difference in older and younger voting patterns under the proposed Maslow-based analysis.

BRUTE
Posts: 3797
Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 5:20 pm

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by BRUTE »

it would be interesting to see a breakdown by age and occupation/location. young professionals who have brain-drained to metro areas from their rural spawning points would very likely be pro-Clinton rather than pro-Trump according to brute's theory.

purely blaming everything on "ain't got what they used to have, and they're dicks" feels too simple to be all the truth. there is certainly a massive moralization of certain social behaviors that used to be enforced on all humans (until the late 60s at least). but brute thinks that 1)that can't be the only reason, and b)progressives are doing the exact same shit with different values instead of taking the high (Libertarian) road. PC is the new religion.

Tyler9000
Posts: 1758
Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:45 pm

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by Tyler9000 »

@Dragline -- As someone who grew up in the town King of the Hill was based on and who later moved to Silicon Valley, I know where you're coming from but strongly disagree with your conclusion. I found people in the Bay Area far more ignorant to southern life and culture than the other way around, and I think it's a legit problem for Democrats politically.

Brute makes a good point about how coastal liberal decadence has driven a wedge between the modern leadership and the classic Democratic voting block. Seeing the issues they're hanging their hats on right now and the key midwest states they lost by not even bothering to campaign there, I don't see how that's even debatable.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3178
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by Riggerjack »

purely blaming everything on "ain't got what they used to have, and they're dicks" feels too simple to be all the truth. there is certainly a massive moralization of certain social behaviors that used to be enforced on all humans (until the late 60s at least).
And don't forget the "to kill a mockingbird" theme that runs through the hearts and minds of urbanites. The poor and rural must be morally unworthy to justify the treatment they have received. Authors coming to urban centers and declaring their loyalties by loudly proclaiming the gospel of "rural hatred and stupidity, back home" becomes an overarching justification for the disenfranchisement of rural populations.

There is a certain oppressor's guilt that has manifested in yankee's treatment of the victims of crony capitalism as morally inferior people. This goes back 150-175 years. This makes sense if you have a moral compass based on the actions of the group you identify with, rather than based on your own actions and morality. Most humans are well tuned to the morality of their clan, and rarely develop any rules of their own, for their own behavior.

This is how someone can say such hateful things about one group, and such sympathetic things about another. They honestly care very little about either group, and are just waving the right flag for self identifying as part of a third group, that is sympathetic/disdainful to the first two.

We didn't get trump because he was good at being a politician/President. We got him because urbanites were just so comfortable in their disdain, they forgot to hide it.

IlliniDave
Posts: 3837
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by IlliniDave »

I'll have to throw in with Tyler (and Brute) on this one. Rather than sitting around the big cities on the coast reading books and reinforcing each others stereotypes (usually based on generations-/decades-old stereotypes), Dems would be better positioned if the coastal elites that dictate their beliefs would acknowledge that flyover country is not actually populated with roving bands of thugs and racists and other deplorables.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3178
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by Riggerjack »

Suggest you go live with them for a few years -- make it an anthropological adventure -- then to see how much you actually sympathize with them, as opposed to your academic idea of them. Those of us who originated in such environments have no such romantic notions about "underdogs" or "real Americans". These people are often thugs and bullies to anyone who sticks out and does not adhere to their social norms -- they stay ahead by keeping other people down or at least on their level. You've never really experienced social correctness until you've lived in a small town where everyone knows you and your family and is happy to judge them publicly every day. That they claim to be "victims" now because they can no longer control the private behaviors of other people through threats and sanctions fairly well drips with irony. Don't believe the hype.

Alternatively, just go read "Hillbilly Elegy" and see what you think of the author's mother and the way he describes many of his other relatives. You'll understand why the author "got out" and why he sees their problems as more related to personal behaviors repeated from generation to generation than any changing political climate, even though he still cares for them and about them.
Case in point. It was as though he were writing to fit my description.

classical_Liberal
Posts: 2283
Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2016 6:05 am

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by classical_Liberal »

...
Last edited by classical_Liberal on Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Dragline
Posts: 4436
Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:50 am

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by Dragline »

Tyler9000 wrote:
Mon Aug 07, 2017 1:27 pm
@Dragline -- As someone who grew up in the town King of the Hill was based on and who later moved to Silicon Valley, I know where you're coming from but strongly disagree with your conclusion. I found people in the Bay Area far more ignorant to southern life and culture than the other way around, and I think it's a legit problem for Democrats politically.

Brute makes a good point about how coastal liberal decadence has driven a wedge between the modern leadership and the classic Democratic voting block. Seeing the issues they're hanging their hats on right now and the key midwest states they lost by not even bothering to campaign there, I don't see how that's even debatable.
Was your father a funny looking little brown man who talked a little different in your hometown? Read my post again. I said nothing about people on the coasts. My post was about people in the middle who are still there and did not move to follow the opportunities as you did.

BTW, was Khan ever invited to the street corner to drink beer with the guys in King of the Hill?
Last edited by Dragline on Mon Aug 07, 2017 8:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Dragline
Posts: 4436
Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:50 am

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by Dragline »

Riggerjack wrote:
Mon Aug 07, 2017 1:53 pm
[ an overarching justification for the disenfranchisement of rural populations.

. . .

We didn't get trump because he was good at being a politician/President. We got him because urbanites were just so comfortable in their disdain, they forgot to hide it.
What does the first statement you made really mean to you? In it ordinary definition it means being deprived of the right to vote. This makes no sense and is counterfactual, as rural populations are very generously over-represented in the electoral college and the Senate. Please admit that it was incorrect or justify it with a different definition that expresses what you really meant.

As for the second statement, we got Trump because certain people voted for Trump. Stop blaming people who did not vote for Trump for the people that did. Were they too stupid to make up their own minds about what they wanted? They made their own decisions and should own up to them. Another example of "but we're the REAL victims, therefore we can blame other people for our decisions" bullshit.

Dragline
Posts: 4436
Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:50 am

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by Dragline »

BRUTE wrote:
Mon Aug 07, 2017 12:17 pm
PC is the new religion.
Agreed. And its no better or worse that the old ones. Just different. And in another generation, the social norms are likely to change again.

"This is no social crisis, this is you having fun. . . . Just another tricky day -- for you. You'll get through."

Dragline
Posts: 4436
Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:50 am

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by Dragline »

BRUTE wrote:
Mon Aug 07, 2017 12:17 pm
i
purely blaming everything on "ain't got what they used to have, and they're dicks" feels too simple to be all the truth.
Occam's Razor is a bitch,ain't it?

But Prospecting Theory won a Nobel Prize, so I'll take Occam and Nobel over a complex theory that seeks to justify bad behavior.

You did not respond my assertion that your theory does not hold up given the disparity in age-based voting. Do you have a response or do you agree that my factual assertion (and thus falsification of your theory) was correct?

BRUTE
Posts: 3797
Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 5:20 pm

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by BRUTE »

Dragline wrote:
Mon Aug 07, 2017 8:18 pm
But Prospecting Theory won a Nobel Prize, so I'll take Occam and Nobel over a complex theory that seeks to justify bad behavior.
yea, but "the other side are irredeemable, stupid assholes" triggers brute's bullshit alarm, especially when coming from the side in power.
Dragline wrote:
Mon Aug 07, 2017 8:18 pm
You did not respond my assertion that your theory does not hold up given the disparity in age-based voting. Do you have a response or do you agree that my factual assertion (and thus falsification of your theory) was correct?
false. brute did respond. Dragline can check above.

bryan
Posts: 1061
Joined: Sat Nov 29, 2014 2:01 am
Location: mostly Bay Area

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by bryan »

brute's bullshit alarm should be working well enough to know that people on either side of the "line" are full of it. Or rather everything is a distribution and it's not nice to mis-represent those.

Kind of reminds me of that Googler's "sexist manifesto" and especially the huge reaction to it. (aside... what if that guy is a master strategist and did that whole thing since he knew Google would "buy him out" (i.e. give him money for signing a separation agreement) as a response to protect their image?)

How about we get rid of bigots as well as the folks who are so fast to reach for the pitchforks?

I wonder who would be President if we disallow everyone who voted for Clinton/Trump in 2016 from voting in 2020?

Also reminds me of an SMBC comic https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/mona-lisa

edit: to add, it should be clear that many "i told you so" or "haha, your side has been proven wrong! eat crow!" instances are not real. I mean people incorrectly conclude that some people are/were tightly coupled with other/previous people. Like, "haha, you snowflake liberals (xor white-trash) really got yours!" when many would justly think: "Well, actually.."

BRUTE
Posts: 3797
Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 5:20 pm

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by BRUTE »

in a way, the overblown crazy reactions to that Google Manifesto might have caused brute to post this. even the suggestion that discussion about gender equality issues should be possible has immediately caused an outrage/calls for his termination.

brute doesn't think that the other side of the line are great human beings. but he never expected that.

in a sense, brute feels deeply betrayed by "liberals". growing up, social conservatives were in charge of culture, and they were using their position of power to moralize, stigmatize, and sometimes even outlaw those humans with different preferences or opinions. brute was not gay or a woman or whatever, but he was different in his own ways, and so he sympathized and even considered himself somewhat liberal.

but as soon as liberals got into the throne of (cultural/media/economic, not necessarily white house) power, they used it to moralize, stigmatize, and sometimes even outlaw those humans they disagreed with.

the whole thing has made brute deeply cynical about humans. there are no good humans, just humans that aren't in power. this has forced brute to sympathize with and somewhat support some of the same humans he used to hate when they were in power, and to abandon those he sympathized with or supported a decade ago.

power truly brings out the ugly in humans.

bryan
Posts: 1061
Joined: Sat Nov 29, 2014 2:01 am
Location: mostly Bay Area

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by bryan »

Your reply is sort of what I'm talking about with my edit... those "liberals" that got into power are at best a subset of the "liberals" that you sympathized with.

I read an article about Peter Coyote, one of the guys behind the Diggers of the hippie moment. Sounds like he never got into any sort of power yet plenty of folks then went on to use (to their own advantage) the movement he helped put into motion.

I haven't been convinced that power necessarily corrupts and thus we should get rid of power. I suppose I'll submit that it'll shift some distribution of actions/behaviors and that mostly we've seen it bias things towards "ugly". Of course there are examples where people in power are very nice. Now I'm thinking I'm making the same sort of argument that Googler was (not sure, didn't bother reading it..) i.e. distributions.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3178
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by Riggerjack »

What does the first statement you made really mean to you? In it ordinary definition it means being deprived of the right to vote. This makes no sense and is counterfactual, as rural populations are very generously over-represented in the electoral college and the Senate. Please admit that it was incorrect or justify it with a different definition that expresses what you really meant.
I seem to have ruffled your feathers. I apologize. I was posting by phone at work, not my best work.

First, I have no issue with what you said, or how you said it. I quoted you because what you said fit into what I was trying to convey, neatly.

By disenfranchisement, I was taking a page from the PC dialog, to separate a group from power, prestige and or money. If the group we are talking about was the subject of progressive sympathy, you would be using that term. Instead, I believe deplorable is the term of choice.

Voting is disproportionate in rural areas in that these areas still treat voting as a duty, and a higher percentage of rural citizens take that duty seriously.

As to what I said about Yankee guilt, I stand by it, but have nothing but my own experience and observations to back it up. My whole youth I had a vision of southern life matching up with the descriptions in to kill a mockingbird. But, when I was in the service, it didn't match up with the people I knew from the South. Or their experiences, from what they told me.

Since I got out, the stigma that used to be a southern thing has been expanded to the flyovers, and even rural coastal areas, by the people I have talked to in the greater Seattle area. Now I'll be the first to admit a certain xenophobia is rampant here, but it's mainly directed at Californians (though displaced Portlanders are starting to raise suspicions). And most of the fine folks talking smack about redneck white trash, couldn't find Ohio on a labeled map. As I have said before, it's just social signaling, but what use to only be said privately is not on Facebook. This is what I mean when I said "so comfortable in their disdain they forgot to hide it."
As for the second statement, we got Trump because certain people voted for Trump. Stop blaming people who did not vote for Trump for the people that did. Were they too stupid to make up their own minds about what they wanted? They made their own decisions and should own up to them. Another example of "but we're the REAL victims, therefore we can blame other people for our decisions" bullshit.
Well, let me again point out that I voted Johnson, and I still think trump is doing less damage than Clinton, though I believe she to be far more competent.

When I blame Dems for Trump, it is because, if I remember correctly, trump pulled a normal Republican vote. Nobody showed up in droves to support the douchebag. But Dems stayed home, mainly because the DNC made it clear they don't respect or trust their base, and shoved Clinton down their throats. Don't get defensive, the Republican party did the same thing 4 years earlier with Ron Paul, though he never had the support Bernie had...

If there are any other parts of what I said that bother you, let me know, and I'll try to be clearer. I have no skin in this game. I am just trying to describe what I see.

Spartan_Warrior
Posts: 1659
Joined: Fri Dec 02, 2011 1:24 am

Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

Skimming, it's frustrating to see how much of this is true, only for the wrong conclusions to be drawn. I see this so often with libertarians. They recognize in a deep but vague way their own exploitation by the system, but instead of attributing it to capitalism, they blame all these weird right-wing bogeymen like "political correctness" and "regulations" and "immigration" and "atheism" and etc, etc. That Occam's Razor thing does have something to be said for it.

Also, MFin' this:

"Stop blaming people who did not vote for Trump for the people that did. Were they too stupid to make up their own minds about what they wanted? They made their own decisions and should own up to them. Another example of "but we're the REAL victims, therefore we can blame other people for our decisions" bullshit."

Locked