reohn2 wrote:Vorpal wrote:I don't think that insulting his followers helps. I have some friends and family members who are followers, and I have to admit that I am not comfortable with someone who follows Trump. Not because I think they are stupid (they aren't), but because of what he says and does and represents. What I do think is that many of his followers are unwilling to examine their own privilege and racism. Most have lived with it all of their lives and don't recognise themselves in the behaviour that others describe. They also believe that the press inaccurately portray Trump.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... on/568147/
That seems pretty thick and stupid to me,there is non so blind as them that will not see.
I think they have just never been in circumstances that forced them to look at themselves. The Trump supporter that I am closest to is a family member (not immediate) that I interact with at family gatherings, and sometimes on social media. He lives in a Midwestern Town that is 95% white, and he has been middle / upper middle class all of his life. He thinks that being friendly with his black colleagues means he's not racist, and nothing I can tell him will shift that opinion. He also thinks that it would be good if there were some women or minorities in his all-middle-aged-white-male engineering department, but doesn't think that they should get any special treatment to get them there. Because they 'have the same opportunity' as him. He will acknowledge that it's good to 'encourage' women and minorities to pursue technical careers, and concedes that it's okay if organisations such as the Society of Women Engineers offer scholarships to just women, though he doesn't seem entirely comfortable with the idea.
When it comes to Trump, most of the negative stuff published about him is either 'that was a long time ago', or 'fake news'. He produces as 'evidence' stuff from websites with a poor a track record for accuracy and seems unable to be critical of them. IMO, he was never taught any form of critical/logical thinking outside of mathematics and engineering, and consequently determines what is or is not 'fake news' mainly by what matches his world view.
I have tried to get him to approach politics and social things like an engineering problem to be solved, but he just says it's completely different because it involves people's emotions, and that's that. He not too good with emotional stuff, etiher, but I guess that's to be expected. And it's not so unusal, either. I mean our parents, aunts, and uncles, etc. were sent to school and told not cry the day their grandmother died because that's just how things were, then. There was work to do, farms to be seen to, and the Protestant work ethic to uphold.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Perhaps you should get your Midwestern family member to watch it - although he'd no doubt dismiss it as 'fake news' in itself.....
