379
To beat Trump, we need to know why Americans keep voting for him. Psychologists may have the answer
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
379 points (93.4% liked)
politics
19107 readers
3649 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This is the actual interesting point here. Framing with some epiphany about "extrinsic" and "intrinsic" values is just putting a psychology-friendly label on things we've been saying since 2015.
On the other hand, I fully admit I thought that Trump being elected would backfire big on the GOP, and that America, seeing how awful he was and how readily GOP members of congress flipped on democracy and embraced fascism, would recoil. I thought after a horrible 4 years, the GOP would be done in the country. And at first, it was true. The "Muslim ban" and his other nonsense always triggered 5-10% drops in polls, which then recovered thanks to Fox News and other news orgs normalizing it. And then...it just stopped. It became fully normalized around 2018. After that, nothing impacted his polls.
Now we're staring down 2024 with Trump at all-time highs and the right-wing base is just getting worse and worse. Trump's supporters have abandoned their moral standards, abandoned actually testing their candidate (Trump) against any values they previously held. So now, I at least find that this explanation makes sense.
It's a nihilistic view of humanity - that people will just get worse and worse if people like Trump continues to be allowed to make the behavior "acceptable." - but at least it explains the data.
It's the normalisation that disturbs me the most, the gradual slide into what would once have been seen as abhorrent.
Show some of the headlines from just this last week to people in 2015 and I expect most would recoil in horror. The GoP's presumptive nominee openly using racist dog whistles; a court case where the judge warned jurors to never reveal their identify because of the fear of reprisal from the GoP nominee and his followers; the raw fact that he sexually molested a woman in the 90s; his instigation of civil war on the border in Texas... To name but a few.
All of this stands shoulder-to-shoulder with articles discussing his political prospects, his strategy to win over voters, how he is polling among white, middle-class women... as if he is in any way a normal candidate.
We need to take a step back, to think about what is happening here. Sadly, the very people who need to listen are the very people who can't listen, people for whom any negative discussion of this candidate would merely serve to strengthen the narrative and reinforce the reality they've conjured into being.
There would seem to be no way out of this situation that won't take decades, and which doesn't stand every chance of being derailed whenever an election goes the wrong way.