rolling explaining conservatism

I actually don't know!

Symbolism and its precipitates, most likely, which were routinely dismissed as 'decadent'.

This was all adequately addressed by Eric Hoffer in 1951. The mail bomber, the synagogue shooter, they all fit the characteristics of The True Believer. Quotes from the wiki synopsis:

The "New Poor" are the most likely source of converts for mass movements/for they recall their former wealth with resentment and blame others for their current misfortune.

A variety of what Hoffer terms "misfits" are also found in mass movements. Examples include "chronically bored", the physically disabled or perpetually ill, the talentless, and criminals or "sinners". In all cases, Hoffer argues, these people feel as if their individual lives are meaningless and worthless.

Hoffer argues that the relatively low number of mass movements in America at that time was attributable to a culture that blurred traditionally rigid boundaries between nationalist, racial and religious groups and allowed greater opportunities for individual accomplishment.

As the developing world benefited from the recovery after WWII and globalism, it meant Americans had to compete, so most Americans could no longer maintain the lifestyles their parents enjoyed. American living standards peaked around 1970 (not coincidentally with American oil production), so everyone of working age recognizes a decline.

However, being a "true believer" isn't conservatism. Conservatism, as I've noted upthread, is the innate predominance of a fearful/anxiety ridden cognitive core, centered on the reptilian amygdala. Neoliberals from the Wall St. and Silicon Valley nouveau riche aren't intrinsically conservative, though many are eager to take advantage of innate conservatives for financial gain. The steady conservatives are your neighbors that close their blinds/curtains even in safe neighborhoods, who were born fearful, and who vote for the reactionaries.

Once social progressives understand that anxiety and fear is central to Conservatism, we can reorient our messages to achieve progress. Will and Grace won over far more independents that "... get used to it" pride parades.

"President Obama's regime annexed Crimea. Not Putin."

lol @ usa

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/11/matthew-whitaker-world-patent-marketing

krav #maga

xxp I tend to regard this kind of psychologizing with skepticism. It makes intuitive sense, but I don't think conservatives are on the whole more or less fearful/anxious than liberals or progressives. I've known plenty of folks on the right and the left who don't fit that dichotomy. I think that personal identification is a bigger determining factor in one's politics than psychology.

personal identification isn't a psychological issue?

I was just about to say… I'm wary of over-psychologization, especially when it brushes over the political, but this is not one such instance.

It's less about the presence of fear/anxiety and more about the response to the fear/anxiety.

Good point, reggie. I think "personality" is maybe closer to what I mean than "psychology." The personal identification thing is psychological for sure, but sociology seems like the bigger factor. I think people are more likely to share the political views of whoever they regard as their peers, regardless of whether they have the typical personality of someone who holds those views.

The main reason I think this I have to admit is anecdotal and personal; my father, who is genuinely kind-hearted and gentle, invariably votes R because for whatever reason that is where he has put his identification. He's been drinking the conservative media Kool Aid for a long, long time. If you didn't know how he voted, you would never guess it in a million years from his personality (well, maybe a little--he can also be a bit of a crank). The contradiction is something I've been grappling with for years, but especially since 2016.

zchyrs, i think this is a struggle a lot of us have had to face. people who we have never known as anything but kind and loving supporting people who are openly monstrous.

in a way i do feel fortunate that i'm not the one being tested most strongly here. when i was younger i dabbled in voting based on my personal beliefs, likes, dislikes, based on the candidate rather than the party. partly it was out of genuine belief that all of us had a common national interest that transcended party (i no longer believe this), but partly it was an unhealthy need to prove myself as an Independent Thinker.

electoral politics on a national scale has no room for Indepdendent Thought. I vote to support my tribe, in fact i moved across the country so i could be in a state where my tribe was strong. i feel a moral imperative to support them, even when they run a candidate i don't like or who has policies i don't agree with.

ultimately i don't actually believe in democracy. i still vote, though, because the people of my tribe need my help.

Goes the opposite way too. I've probably been socially shunned because I look like a narc, I've voted Dem since 1992.

bro holder was way more corrupt than whitaker is. death tax!

i liked this comment from politico’s quillette puff piece

pic.twitter.com/h5KfGJxsbX

— maura 🎙 johnston (@maura) November 16, 2018

avenatti bad! mega MAGA 2020!!

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/02/michael-avenatti-crash-burn-1037151

I know the bar was finally lowered to the extent that we decided to just snap it off and pitch it in the trash but I'm still all like 'wut' re: anyone having ever taken Avenatti seriously as a presidential candidate.

his main constituency were people with bad vision who thought it was #pasta and who loved pasta so, so much

you don't say

https://nypost.com/2018/12/04/chaos-at-conservative-think-tank-after-donor-revealed-as-ukrainian-born-oligarch/

“A t the time, Hudson Institute’s president and chief executive, Ken Weinstein, told Fancy Bear in a Wall Street Journal op-ed to ‘get stuffed.’”

michael flynn was a deep state double-agent all along. lock him up! free paul manafort! MAGA!!

good nancy jo sales piece on conservative women at unc

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/11/conservative-college-women-university-of-north-carolina-republicans

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/12/08/what-psychology-experiments-tell-you-about-why-people-deny-facts

Basically: tribalism. And being exposed to different viewpoints literally hurts.

I did flinch at the part about how banning handguns doesn't decrease violence. Yes, it fucking does.

i'd rather not give the economist a click, based on what evidence did they say this?

They quote several studies, including Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber's The Enigma of Reason. The gist of it is that reason purportedly evolved to 'help us justify our beliefs and actions to others … and evaluate the justifications and arguments that others address to us.' Belonging trumps all else.

oh no i meant the handgun thing

Oh sorry, they refer to a 2013 study by Dan Kahan, who

asked 1,110 people a question about how effective a skin cream was in reducing a rash. The question required some simple mathematics to solve. Unsurprisingly, the most numerate were most likely to solve the problem correctly [the skin cream worsens the rash]. Then Mr Kahan gave the group the question in a politicised form, asking how effective banning handguns was in reducing crime (the underlying mathematics was the same). This time, the most numerate people did not necessarily get the right answer. Rather, Republicans who were good at maths were more likely to conclude that banning guns was ineffective, whereas Democrats said the opposite.

Here's a longer article about the study: https://grist.org/politics/science-confirms-politics-wrecks-your-ability-to-do-math/

incoming strong take alert

The Stigma Against My Conservative Politics Is Worse Than The Stigma Of Being Gay

But just as I did not choose to be gay, I did not choose to be conservative. My political evolution happened over time as I came to realize that I valued truth and reason over narrative and emotion. I became an outspoken voice on the right because I felt I had no other choice than to speak up and shout the truth, despite overwhelming pressure from the media.

The left has become empowered to actively stamp out our voices. Not just that, but they feel fully justified in doing so. But just as I realized at 16 with my sexuality, I embrace today with my political worldview: I can no more deny what I know to be objective truth than I could deny my feelings about my own sexuality then.

lolz

I'm very curious to hear what he calls 'truth and reason'. His entire piece consists of generalizations.

a conservative with shoddy reasoning???????

I guess it's probably true that sociopathy isn't really a choice.

Then Mr Kahan gave the group the question in a politicised form, asking how effective banning handguns was in reducing crime (the underlying mathematics was the same)

Yes, but were the mathematics embedded in the question capture the real world relationship between handguns and crime? Or were the data synthesized to ensure that the only isolatable difference between the handgun question and the face cream question was that the subjects of the study had preconceived ideas about handguns, but not about an imaginary face cream?

Because Kahan's point was not about handguns and crime, but about people's ability to apply strict logic to a problem where a heuristic answer has already been arrived at and internalized as true.

Good point. The numbers were probably fictive throughout, come to think of it. So my initial reaction only goes to show that he was right.

remember, until you can prove that mr. trump was told that russia hacked the DNC and mr. trump replied, "thank you; I will get you sanctions relief in exchange," none of this counts as real criminal activity. that Russia did hack the DNC and the president did pursue sanctions relief and there were dozens of laws broken fragrantly by the campaign and then lied about for two years doesn't make a difference because that's totally normal except to sore loser self-righteous liberals who hate small business owners and america on the hunt for witches. arrest obama first because he didn't stop it if it bothers you so much

Wrong thread, but we're knee deep in admissions of criminal activity from Cohen et al right now. There's now way AMI would have been given immunity for multiple felony violations of campaign finance law unless there was a shitton of dirt they would hand prosecutors.

This was pretty illuminating/infuriating.

the smart money is getting out of the market before the house adjourns democRAT. war on christmas! fire the fed! NO COLLUSION :)

His "Why We Needed Trump" trilogy is available at Amazon

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/01/07/mitt_romney_ready_for_my_close-up_mr_demille_139097.html?rc_fk

conservatism really in a good place RN

Sebastian Gorka is a huge star at CPAC. He enters to that "Best Day of My Life" song, then gets huge cheers for calling Michael Cohen a "rat fink."

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) February 28, 2019

(wondering when my autocorrect will start replacing "conservatism" with "fascism")

gets huge cheers for calling Michael Cohen a "rat fink."

Well, Cohen broke the code of omerta.

Dave Eggers in El Paso:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/02/why-donald-trump-could-win-again-by-dave-eggers

incredible how the entire conservative apparatus exists now solely to cover and run interference for Trump and his family, with sworn enemies like Michael Cohen (RNC finance chair and Trump's right-hand man), Jim Comey (a Republican who singlehandedly threw the election to Trump), and Robert Mueller (a Republican cop). did any Republicans ask Cohen a single question about Trump during the hearing on Wednesday?

The free market said no. pic.twitter.com/1VsN34F9s7

— Carl Zha (@CarlZha) March 2, 2019

come on, that has to be a troll

It was really nice of The Guardian to give Eggers a place to write 19,000 words ruminating on a Trump rally after waking up from that three year coma that prevented him from reading the hundreds of essays identical to this one that have already been written.

i thought eggers already broke up. is this just like his amygdala and a bunch of touring cells cause i don't have time for any of him i don't think

Most conservatives don't really have a political philosophy other than reaction, but those who do have a philosophy can usually be summed up as thinking that wealth and power are too important to society to allow them into the hands of anyone who doesn't already have wealth and power, preferably in the hands of families that have been wealthy and powerful for multiple generations.

They are certain that this provides stability, or at least a reassuring predictability, which comes with reliable hands at the tiller, or it would, if it weren't for the constant agitation and discontent among the slaves servants common people, stirred up by radicals who want to reweave the whole fabric of society just because it has a few flaws and inequalities.

If conservatives could just crush out this ill-advised radicalism, the common people would once more accept their lot in life and be content with things as they are, creating the social harmony and peace that occur naturally in a well-regulated society run by conservatives. Then everyone would be happy.