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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsConversation with a Republican friend.
I've mentioned this guy before: we've been friends for about fifty years and rarely talk politics. But a recent conversation got me thinking.
The few times I've let him (briefly) talk politics over the past few years, his focus has been on the Democrats, not the Republicans, as in how bad the Democrats are. In fact, I can't recall one instance in which he talked about why he specifically agreed with Republican policies, or with Trump. And I'm saying "I can't recall" because I know I would have responded.
Now this guy was a successful businessman until he retired a few years ago, so he's no dummy. It makes me wonder just how many conservatives may fall into the "I hate Democrats" category instead of the "I agree with Republicans" one, due to where they get their news and commentary. It really does.
I don't want to use the term "brainwashed" here. But, if people like him focus on why they dislike something instead of why they like the opposite, I really have to wonder what's going on in their heads.
[Edit]: After reading a few of the posts below, I have to wonder how much of the Republican or Trump agendas and issues some of these people actually know or understand. Can they even discuss them?
Aristus
(66,329 posts)If you tell me he's smart, I'd believe you.
But I wouldn't make that the measure. My father-in-law is a successful businessman, and he isn't bright by any generous stretch of the imagination.
Alan J. Lerner once stated his belief that making money is a talent, like singing or painting. You either have it, relative intelligence aside, or you don't.
grumpyduck
(6,232 posts)I just said he's no dummy. And I could have left that sentence out and still made my point.
TheRealNorth
(9,478 posts)They have to convince themselves and others that they are voting for the lesser of two evils.
grumpyduck
(6,232 posts)BootinUp
(47,144 posts)Has been used to defame Democrats for so long, it starts making sense. Your observation is similar to what I have experienced on more than one occasion.
rurallib
(62,412 posts)"Democrat" into a scary word that conjures up very negative images. Of course it is a pack of lies. But there is probably 35 to 40% of the electorate that would never even think of voting for a Democrat based on that.
Mariana
(14,856 posts)Democrats are stupid. Democrats are evil. Democrats hate America. Democrats hate white people. Democrats hate rich people. Democrats hate middle-class people. Democrats hate Christians. Democrats hate Jews. Democrats hate God. Democrats worship Satan. Democrats are socialists. Democrats are communists. Democrats are Nazis. Democrats love terrorism. Democrats love rioting and looting. Democrats want kids to use drugs. Democrats want to force women to have abortions. Democrats want to kill off the elderly and disabled. Etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
TeamPooka
(24,223 posts)It's why they were founded.
It's their only mission.
CanonRay
(14,101 posts)grumpyduck
(6,232 posts)Politicalgolfer
(317 posts)I hope we have learned that the way Republicans operate is not by selling their ideas (which fuck over the little guy) but by liquoring up the minions to hate, hate, hate the "other". Bluntly, it takes a person who loves to hate who swallows the crap....that is who they target
LizBeth
(9,952 posts)liberals.
I furrowed my brows and considered that and asked, what have liberals ever done to you.
Of course he shrugged it off as a joke, but it wasn't, so immersed in his very red, conservative area well protected from any liberal and able to blow them up into a caricature or something. But over the last four years I have considered that conversation and ask him, again, what have liberals ever done to any of you to cause you so much angst?
Ask me what Republicans have done to me. Lets compare.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)was destroyed to get it of the way of wannabe kleptocrats and divide the electorate, it was (all too easily) replaced with attack-dog opposition to Democrats and liberalism. Easy because political conservatism is mostly negative emotional reactions without an intellectual basis to anchor it.
I remember when, after the end of the cold war, the great hostility toward the great existential enemy they must always fear (Russia and communism until then) was turned on Democrats as the new great existential enemy. .
I've read a number of analysts who've reported it's become all about opposing us. Various fears and hates are manipulated and created to keep the hostility stoked up, but the need to stop whatever evils Democrats are attacking America with now is the morally and intellectually void ideology.
Azathoth
(4,608 posts)There's a reason conservative entertainment secretly prefers to have Democrats in office. It's *far* easier to foment hatred of others than to defend your own side.
It's been years since I've had an intelligent, reasonably informed, non-insane Republican try to defend their party's policies to me. Invariably, the first words out of their mouth are "But Democrats will destroy the country!" That's why Trump's behavior doesn't faze them: there is absolutely nothing he could do that conservative entertainers haven't falsely accused Democrats of in the past, including mass murder (the "Clinton body count" chain emails still get forwarded around by elderly white people).
sanatanadharma
(3,703 posts)In the 1951 movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still", George says, "People my foot, they're Democrats (sic)"
grumpyduck
(6,232 posts)I just seriously dated myself...
nakocal
(552 posts)Because they know if people actually understood what republicans stand for, republicans would never win another election.