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posts like this are always grating and show a general lack of understanding of how the average right wingee thinks.
I grew up around right wingers but considered myself centrist for a long time. It has nothing to do with the poor. Or more accurately it has everything to do with individuals.
If your life is hard that is a result of you failing to make it better (or so the right wing thinking goes). It's not that you deserve to suffer. It's that life is "equal" suffering for everyone by default and if your current situation sucks it's up to you to figure it out
The system is "fair" insofar as "everyone" can start a business, word hard, and live the "american dream"
This line of thinking is attractive because it calls to the herocomplex all (white male) American's grow up with. There's a problem, go fix it (yourself, by yourself). The suffering of it all is just a matter of existing
By failing to enagage this philosophy directly we fail to address the very real and human concerns that right wingers have. (That is to say their response to the status quo is emotional and thus understandble. Not to say it is justifiable) And as such fail to win people over in a culture war which very well may determine the future of all of us
Posts like this serve nothing but the ego. To truly break your enemy down you need to show them empathy and understanding. Meet them on a human level. Expose yourself to possibly being wrong about someone and their motivations
But this view of the world is objectively incorrect at basically any scale observable, so why engage with it?
Moreover, if you zoom in, even conservatives appreciate charity within their own community as a positive trait, and see selfishness or callous indifference within their community as a negative trait. If you can have empathy for a starving child who attends your church, but not for one who attends a different church, all that means is that you have a very narrow view of where your community ends.
Most reasonable people see this as the former case - selfishness and callous indifference, leading them to conclude that the boundaries being drawn around the conservative community are, in fact, based on prejudice, and not any kind of internally consistently morality.
All you've brought up is abstract and assumption. If you actually believe this is someone's motivation or understanding you should go ask them. Maybe you'll change their mind
How many times has your first instinct to a problem been the correct solution? How many times have you needed someone to explain something for it to make sense?
If everyone is a result of their circumstances as the left claims (and as much of the research claims) then be the change of those circumstances you wish to see. Expose these people to the thinking and information you believe to be so transformative and true
We can't because they won't let us. The rich people they worship tell them not to listen. If the left does something to better their life, their overlords take credit or tell them why it's actually bad. If the right does something that makes their lives more miserable, they explain that it would have worked if not for those liberals or minorities or whatever.
Nearly all my extended family was rural south conservatives. They're selfish people.
I feel for you it can be pretty hard. I think part of the issue is that what they need is the next step toward understanding and showing more empathy. Rather than people explaining where they aren't (hey why aren't you on step 200 yet?) Unravelling the propoganda and culture you grew up with takes great effort. If you personally have tried and not succeeded then good on you
My point here really is that posts like this don't support the actions that do help, but simply vilify people who are misguided
As an aside I was born and raised in Louisiana so I too have personal experience with right wingers. It can feel exhausting at times to get to people so entrenched in their ways, but it's not impossible. I'm sorry your family is that way
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If everyone is a result of their circumstances as the left claims (and as much of the research claims) then be the change of those circumstances you wish to see. Expose these people to the thinking and information you believe to be so transformative and true
And all you've done is demonstrate that you don't understand what the left is fighting for. We are (probably the only ones) fighting to change the circumstances. Those benefiting from those circumstances, aka the capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal, ableist, cis-heteronormative status quo, even if very mildly, being uncomfortable is a tiny price they're just going to have to pay, because prioritising the their personal comfort over change is how we got here in the first place.
You basically just said, "No we don't hate the poor! We just believe in the just world fallacy (A philosophy which inherently contempts the poor)!"
You're missing my point which is that that's a consequence of the choice not the choice itself. These people act out of fear and basic assumption and are capable of change just as much as you or I
Attacking them, ridiculing them, and otherwise dismissing them makes us no better than them
Nah, toleration is a treaty, you break it, you're no longer protected by it, conservatism in America literally is incapable of existing without violating the treaty.
Several of my family members are very right wing, and they've pretty much all made it clear that they think anyone who doesn't work exactly as hard or harder than they do deserves to be put out in the streets.
I love everyone in my family but it's pretty difficult to rationalize that way of thinking. This is why we don't discuss politics at family gatherings lol
Whaaaaaa bigots are bigots because marginalised people weren't nice enough to them!!11 🤢
(hint: blaming systemic problems on individuals is never the answer, especially when the individuals you blame are the only ones calling out said system. Bigots are bigots because it benefits those in power for society to be as divided as it is, and as long as that is the case, no amount of coddling will fix the problem, it only makes a handful of bigots a little more comfortable, while the rest continue as they were)
posts like this are always grating and show a general lack of understanding of how the average right wingee thinks.
~~But I am literally asking for perspective here...
And you didn't address anything I said, and a lot of things I didn't.~~
Edit: My bad, thought this was a reply to my comment.
I think a big part of this issue is conflating of terms. We see it all the time. There's a big difference between conservative citizens and conservative politicians. People don't differentiate which one they're talking about, leaving the reader to assume the wrong one, and therefore the op must not know what they're taking about.
Oh 100%. Most of the Great Culture War :tm: is a giant communication problem imho
We're just seeing it happen in real time and at a scale never possible before
But I will say that it seems clear to me that the screenshot itself is calling out centrists as a voting group. But I could be wrong about that