How conservatives groomed the perfect suckers for Trump

[SimpleDon]

https://newrepublic.com/article/134667/conservatives-groomed-perfect-suckers-trumps-epic-scam

Lots of people (including me) have pointed out that Republican rhetoric made the rise of Trump inevitable. For example they conditioned people to be simultaneously racist while denying their own racism, making them vulnerable to Trump who is more open about his racism.

The author of this piece takes a different angle. The nature of Republican rhetoric makes conservative voters more vulnerable to huxters in general ("Buy our generator or ISIS will get you!"), and several small-time Republican politicians have made an industry out of using presidential campaigns largely as a means of keeping their names in the papers for off-season scams (e.g. Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain). Trump is merely better off at scamming Republican voters than the likes of Gingrich.

Worse, a lot of the anti-science and anti-intellectual rhetoric of Republican propaganda removes from Republican voters the very intellectual tools they need to be able to spot charlatans, whether it's the guy selling anti-ISIS power generators, Gingrich, or Trump.

The Republican elites have spent decades cultivating the perfect idiot in order to get them to vote against their own interests out of fear, and in doing so they kind of made something like Trump inevitable. I suspect that the number of scam artists sending "fund raising" emails to Republican voters or running various other scams will rise dramatically now that it's perfectly plain that Republican voters will pretty much fall for anything.

Oh, and for the liberals reading this, let this be a warning. The anti-science and anti-intellectualism on the left may not be as bad as it is on the right, but it's very much there: anti-GMO, alternative medicine, organic food health claims, "Big pharma" conspiracy theories, etc. If we don't work to clamp down on this anti-science idiocy soon, we could end up making Democratic voters as vulnerable as Republican voters are now. You have been warned.

All good points, but I don't think the rise of Trump can't be summarized within just these observations.

Racism might be a real thing within the Republican party but it's the least of their issues. For one thing, ever since the Bush regimes young people, minorities of all varieties, women, irreligious, and the like have been unable to identify with the GOP. Many of these conservatives try to frame this as a 'coolness' issue - as many books would have you believe. But it comes down to Republicanism simply being behind the times. It used to be that this country was against equal rights for gays, hearing secular viewpoints, and educating children on the origins of our universe from a perspective that didn't require religion. Now, everybody has gone the other way, and to make matters worse for the right-wing, minorities, women, and millennials are now the true deciders of current general elections.

Unfortunately, instead of getting with the times Republicans have gotten arrogant. They insult the demographics they need to win elections, and show they are completely out of touch on where the country is headed: legalizing vice crimes, getting the military out of the worlds business, keeping religion out of public policy, holding judges and police more accountable, and making our social programs more effective.

Whether they like it or not, that's where the country is headed in the big picture. Until they do that and get their heads out of their fat asses, they'll continue to lose election after election, and people will just see them as part of the problem - rather than solutions to them.

A glancing blow, like the article.

I am sorry that I haven't addressed the article directly.

But the commercial abuses of conservatives is down the list of the threats that movement conservatism or neoliberalism or whatever you prefer to call it presents to us.

One I have read recently calls it the political movement that dares not to speak its own name, but that, while true, is somewhat unwieldy.

Racism is being used by the conservatives in the same way that it has always been used, to make whites afraid that the blacks are going to overtake the whites in the social order, to keep them from noticing the class war being waged against them by the wealthy, a class war that they have almost always lost.

The Republican strategy was always doomed to long term failure, but like most financial strategies its target was short term financial gains, which it has delivered, far beyond probably the widest dreams of those who envisioned it. The success of it produced the hubris among the Republicans that produced Trump, as you have said.

And while the demographics are against them there is always the hope that sometime the Democrats will stop trying to box in the Republicans by becoming themselves more conservative and will start trying to present a real alternative to the conservatives, ala Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

And that the Democrats will find once again their support of the poor and middle class whites that they so ably served in the past. This is also pretty easy to do, easy to at least to make a start at, by advancing the idea of economically eliminating poverty by putting more money into wages instead of profits rather than by trying advance the interests of one race, even if it is a race that was horribly disadvantaged before. This was the idea of one Martin L. King, who was killed before he could institute it.

There is no doubt that we can do this. Poverty is an economic condition of too little money that can be solved simply by directing more money to the working poor. Countries that have far fewer resources than we have have done it.

 

[SimpleDon]

The thing is, other than the presidency the republicans really aren't losing election after election.

Howard Dean was right, the Democrats must contest every election in the country. They have to have something more to offer than the pink neoliberalism that they now offer. They have to abandon the largely race heavy identity politics that they now depend on, it plays directly into the Republicans' hands. Instead the Democrats should hammer on the economic themes of improving our current income inequity and eliminating poverty.

 

[prideandfall]

But what you fail to acknowledge is that the conservative voters are being manipulated into supporting neoliberalism, the feed the rich agenda.

i don't fail to acknowledge it, i just think you're wrong - i see no evidence of manipulation nor indication that this is a top-down problem.
a particular strand of religious conservative ignorant cultural zeitgeist in this country worships people who are rich simply for the fact that they have money, and the automatic assumption is that anyone with money is inherently superior to other people and deserve privilege and special treatment. nobody forced these idiots to idolize money, and nobody coerced them into viewing people with money as divine - and if the GOP was clever enough to maybe take advantage of this fundamental stupidity of their voter base to foster the idiotic idea that being rich is all about lifting yourself up by your own bootstraps and that wealth is a meritocracy that is attainable to anyone but also your own fault if you're not it, well then good on them for exploiting an existing mental weakness... but they didn't create that weakness in the first place.

Not by the conservative politicians, but by the rich through their virtual lock of owning the media. Not to mention the absurdities of "money is free speech" and "corporations are people."

you fundamentally blame the liar for telling a lie.
i fundamentally blame the believer for believing the lie.
(at least in the context of politics and this sort of obviously ludicrous denial of reality like we see going on with the media and the GOP)
i understand the perspective you're coming from and respect your opinion on this, but don't think that my laying blame on those that i consider to be to blame for this means that i'm just mistakenly not noticing some part of the situation.

People are constantly conflating cause and effect. The conservative politicians are an end effect of the feed the rich agenda and the propaganda that promotes it. And that isn't destructive of anything but that agenda to point it out.

we agree on the first part, i just think the propaganda started with 'the people' in the first place.
but i diverge from most people in that i perceive exploiting a weakness to be the fault of the weak, especially when that weakness is of an intellectual or philosophical nature.

 

[Elixir]

Also, add the NRA to this bag. They scream and peddle fear that someone will take their guns away in order to increase gun sales. How many times have they had a gun scare since Obama took office and had a run on guns and ammo? Yet these people fall for it. Every. Single. Time.

Yeh - that's amazing. Certainly fear sells, but... the SAME fear? Over and over again? Even the Boy who Cried Wolf eventually wore out his audience. Sheesh.

 

[Treedbear]

...
Oh, and for the liberals reading this, let this be a warning. ... If we don't work to clamp down on this anti-science idiocy soon, we could end up making Democratic voters as vulnerable as Republican voters are now. You have been warned.

What are you suggesting we do with regard to "clamp down"? Eugenics is so out of fashion these days.

If you think eugenics is a liberal position, then you are not among the group I was speaking to when I said that.

I don't. In fact it was the liberals who opposed the pro-eugenics Progressive movement back in the early 1900's whose goal at the time was to clamp down on idiocy. It was eventually abandoned, partly because it was seen to limit necessary genetic diversity in the population. I didn't want to derail the thread by opening up each of the "anti-science" issues you mentioned. I just wonder what you mean by your rather aggressive "warnings" to "clamp down". Especially since liberals are known for their equanimity.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Those aren't the same liberals though, since back then liberals and progressives were quite opposed to each other.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

I'm old enough to remember when there were just the big three networks. And I remember hearing from my conservative parents how bad they were because they gave way too much time to those stupid Democrats. So of course I believed the same thing because I was like 7 or 8 years old. In retrospect, I think the networks probably gave equal time to both sides. This was back in the late 1970s.

But there was a market to be cultivated. One that was eventually first hit upon by Rush Limbaugh and eventually fully fleshed out by Fox News. There had been fools before them. Wally George comes to mind. But he was playing a role and most people knew he was something of huckster to laughed at. But Limbaugh was serious. And he attracted a lot of fans. Before him, talk radio (at least in the L.A. area) consisted of local guys talking about local things. They harped on whatever the news of the day was and I don't remember them being flagrant cheerleaders for a side. Until Limbaugh showed up.

And when cable came along, it gave rise to an entire network dedicated to conservative spin that called itself "Fair and Balanced." It only took a matter of months before Fox vacuumed up the conservative hordes who were dying to be told, "Yes, you really have been right about everything you've been thinking this entire time. We know it and we're on your side."

Fox didn't have a big landmark coverage like CNN did when they were a new network. CNN was cerebral and able to cover ground more rapidly than the big three. Fox on the other hand just opened the door to conservatives and they poured in like dogs on a binging tour of an Alpo factory. And there they've remained; intellectually fat and lazy, gobbling down soft, boiled horse meat until they're bloated and too stuffed to move.

 

[untermensche]

Appeals to faith and emotion are ways to drive people from reason.

Appeals to religion is a way to drive people from reason.

Appeals to patriotism is a way to drive people from reason.

Appeals to the magic of the market is a way to drive people from reason.

Appeals to fear is a way to drive people from reason.

This is all the Republicans have been doing since 1980.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

i have to strenuously disagree with this assertion, while also positing that it's an extremely politically and culturally dangerous position to adopt.

republican politicians didn't 'make' republican voters out of the ether, and their BS doesn't secretly target conservatives and only effect their brain waves... republican politicians are the evolutionary result of republican voters, who are simply literally physically retarded.
voters make the politicians, not the other way around.


disagree, i think religious nutbag lunatic neocon douchebaggery of the voters is what forces republican politicians to be anti-intellectual and anti-science.

The Republican elites have spent decades cultivating the perfect idiot in order to get them to vote against their own interests out of fear, and in doing so they kind of made something like Trump inevitable.

the republican elites are simply the whey that rose to the top of the cesspool of conservative voting, i don't think they did jack shit to the electorate aside from molding themselves into being exactly what the people want them to be.

You are correct in saying that the voters make the politicians what they are. But what you fail to acknowledge is that the conservative voters are being manipulated into supporting neoliberalism, the feed the rich agenda. Not by the conservative politicians, but by the rich through their virtual lock of owning the media. Not to mention the absurdities of "money is free speech" and "corporations are people."

People are constantly conflating cause and effect. The conservative politicians are an end effect of the feed the rich agenda and the propaganda that promotes it. And that isn't destructive of anything but that agenda to point it out.

He's really stating - and I agree - that you can't make that silk purse out of that sow's ear. Conservative voters are stupid people. There I said it, and they're never going to be smart people. They vote with there feelings and have no plans other than to kill the bad guys and go to heaven to be with Jesus, along with a few other things about sex.

 

[Will Wiley]

https://newrepublic.com/article/134667/conservatives-groomed-perfect-suckers-trumps-epic-scam

Lots of people (including me) have pointed out that Republican rhetoric made the rise of Trump inevitable. .

Do you think anything else might have led to the rise of Trump?
You seem to ascribe an awful lot of power to "Republican rhetoric".

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Do you think anything else might have led to the rise of Trump?
You seem to ascribe an awful lot of power to "Republican rhetoric".

Don't underestimate the power of Republican rhetoric. I knew this guy once who was exposed to two minutes of Republican rhetoric, and now he's forgotten everything he learned in High School. Another guy was exposed to a full five minutes and now he needs a nurse to feed him. And don't even get started on what exposure did to Underseer.

 

[Underseer]

Oh, and for the liberals reading this, let this be a warning. The anti-science and anti-intellectualism on the left may not be as bad as it is on the right, but it's very much there: anti-GMO, alternative medicine, organic food health claims, "Big pharma" conspiracy theories, etc. If we don't work to clamp down on this anti-science idiocy soon, we could end up making Democratic voters as vulnerable as Republican voters are now. You have been warned.

I think the difference is that the anti-intellectual leftists don't have a major TV news network spewing their lies/misinformation 24/7.

No, but we have social media and the like.

Surely you've noticed that alternative medicine proponents, anti-GMO, organic proponents, etc. are every bit as resistant to valid scientific arguments as most conservatives are about evolution, anthropogenic climate change, etc.

 

[Underseer]

...
Oh, and for the liberals reading this, let this be a warning. ... If we don't work to clamp down on this anti-science idiocy soon, we could end up making Democratic voters as vulnerable as Republican voters are now. You have been warned.

What are you suggesting we do with regard to "clamp down"? Eugenics is so out of fashion these days.

If you think eugenics is a liberal position, then you are not among the group I was speaking to when I said that.

I don't. In fact it was the liberals who opposed the pro-eugenics Progressive movement back in the early 1900's whose goal at the time was to clamp down on idiocy. It was eventually abandoned, partly because it was seen to limit necessary genetic diversity in the population. I didn't want to derail the thread by opening up each of the "anti-science" issues you mentioned. I just wonder what you mean by your rather aggressive "warnings" to "clamp down". Especially since liberals are known for their equanimity.

Because the anti-science crap on the left seems to be getting worse.

Recently, David Wolfe promoted a much-shared meme claiming that scientists had a "secret cure" for cancer that they refused to release because "big pharma" makes more money from treating cancer than from curing it.

Of course, the real reason people like Wolfe seek to discredit science is so that they can sell you alternative medicine snake oil. If he can convince you that science is not to be trusted because all they want is money, then you'll be more likely to trust people like Wolfe, who for the low price of $120 will sell you a "grounding pillow case" that will suck the "wi-fi toxins" out of your head while you sleep.

Much of the other anti-science gooberism on the left is similarly motivated by people who want to sell you books, get speaking fees, or even sell you alternative medicine quackery. Much of the anti-GMO nonsense is coming from people who make money from alternative medicine.

Maybe I'm just imagining things, but it really feels like the anti-science quackery on the left is getting worse. That pisses me off both because I dislike anti-science sentiments of any kind and because I preferred how things were when I could think of anti-science quackery as a largely right wing phenomenon. Anti-science quackery of any kind annoys and angers me, but when I have to admit that some of it is coming from my own side? That really torques my 'nards.

 

[Bronzeage]

It's a great article, but no one on that side is listening.

 

[zorq]

I would argue that Organic-Anti-GMO Anti-Vax nonsense isn't well categorized as "Leftist." These sentiments are very conservative ones. They inform that progress is dangerous and the ways of the past were better. They are quite conservative. Yes they seem to have some of their origins in the Hippy/Naturalist crowd of yesteryear who were the leftist radicals of the 60s, and they align well with Leftist distrust of big corporations, but the sentiments themselves are anti-progressive and conservative.

IMO These anti-science nutcases are conservatives , not progressives and therefore shouldn't really be classified as Leftist.