I point this out because the left is generally the side that will have the most tolerance for different beliefs and opinions. And that is too often to the degree that those with opposing views are given too much latitude. There comes a time to realize where people’s heads are at, when their beliefs are reaching a point of intolerance where the status quo of things are going to change. The right is getting more aware of the fact that people are looking at their political positions in a harsher and more critical light. This is causing them to pull away from interacting, but more importantly it is creating a real attitude, they are Butt Hurt that Trump is being treated so unfairly by a lying press, they believe this shit.
Prior to the election I talked almost every day with a neighbor named James, and less frequently with some other friends. James and I refused to let differences in opinions get heated between us, but he had shared that he was at extreme odds with the liberals and family he knows who were against Trump. My point being that things are causing a strain between the right and left that was getting tense before the election.
So after the election I had told James that there was no point in discussing politics, we have too many shared interests we enjoy talking about to waste time talking about something he will never wise up about. We actually had gotten together several times for a few beers in the afternoon without anything political coming up. He recently edged into a couple of things, and I asked him if he was going to be able to watch Trump and be critical of holding him accountable for anything that might not be done by constitutional norms. He wanted for instances and I told him that prior to the election he had maintained that everything Trump campaigned on was all BS, that Congress was there to provide a check and balance. I said that now that it was obvious that that wasn’t so would he be against Trump if he violates the constitution in any way, either emoluments clauses or overreaches with executive orders. He indicated that he ran with everyone knowing he had conflicts of interest, at which time I corrected him to say no he didn’t he always said he would release his tax returns and do some form of divestiture which never happened. He now says that he ran saying he would do a Muslim ban and his base wants him to do everything he is.
Another friend that I shoot pool, fish, and shoot with is a relatively hard right winger, I’d classify him as not being the sharpest tool in the shed, he brought something up about the Muslim ban from the Trumpian position and it was on. I told him that it was important that he pay attention to what was going on and what the facts were behind everything. He said he didn’t want to pay attention, doesn’t think he needs to. I find this attitude offensively repugnant. I was a bit heated and I asked him if he didn’t feel at all foolish to have leaders of the republican party telling them to their faces that they were lying. He acted clueless and I asked if he had seen Conway deflect a challenge on the truth to THe effect that simply an alternative fact, and that the GOP openly acknowledges that if a lie is repeated enough times that people will believe it and it becomes their truth. He said he had, I asked him just what is an alternative fact, he said it was another way of looking at it. I told him no, it is a lie, there is only one reality and set of facts. I asked him if he had heard Newt Gingrich open say that when misinformation otherwise known as lies are repeated over and over that they become the facts, he said he had, and added that when people believe something it is their belief and truth. I could not help it, I asked him if he was that slow that he didn’t know the difference between a lie no matter how many times he’s heard it and the truth, the facts, the way it is? That made him angry, as facts that someone doesn’t have a response to so often does, and we dropped politics. That said I really have no use for him at this point. Being around someone this stupid doesn’t sit well. I told him it was going to crack me up in a dark sort of way if martial law is declared and the Trumpster is who is behind taking our guns away. He said that would never happen. I asked him if he thought it was possible that Trump was going to start arresting protesters, he said “well yeah, they are getting violent”. I said exactly, and do you think that will result in martial law? He said well maybe it would, I asked him if he was under the belief that they were going to take just liberal’s guns, or everyone’s. He looked like a deer in headlights. I jabbed at him with a “get real, martial law is martial law and everybody’s guns will be seized”.
I have little to zero tolerance for dangerously ignorant people. I used to be able to tolerate political ignorance to a degree, and shut down and refuse to engage in any talk with those who are morons where that’s concerned. I’m finding myself preferring to avoid idiots that couldn’t figure out the truth if their lives depended on it, which isn’t far off. I’ve seen a lot of right wingers who have rejected associations with those they see as liberals, but never really associated it as something the left is inclined to do. That is changing.
The level of intolerance I am feeling makes me prone to being insulting about people’s political ignorance, my disgust and disdain for it is surfacing in a way that I can no longer hide as easily as I used to do.
On the one hand you can’t do this if you want to keep a friend, but on the other hand I am starting to think that progressives and liberals on the left are doing no favors for the truly ignorant people on the right by acting like they are normal and everything is hunky dory. People who get it need to let morons know they are dangerously ignorant and it’s not okay to normalize that ignorance by refusing to call it what it is. We are group social creatures, and people learn by those around them, and part of the problem is the degree to which the right hangs with the right. If they choose to be around intelligent people those intelligent people need to let them know in as nice a way as is possible that they blew it, they are idiots. (maybe that isn’t the right way to say it, Lol). Point out to them the things that are taking place that is going to affect them, it’s the only way they will hear it.
The only problem is, how exactly do you tell someone they are woefully ignorant without insulting them? I called my sister ignorant about something she knew nothing about and she snapped back, “don’t call me stupid, I’m not stupid”. I whipped back a quick, “I didn’t call you stupid, I called you ignorant, and interpreting that as stupid makes you stupid. My mom started laughing, which totally insulted Laurie. Typical ignorant right winger, she was arguing about the energy crisis in California that cost us $40 billion dollars. I had asked her if she knew anything about it, she said she knew everything she needed to know. I asked her what she knew about Enron, she said nothing. I asked her if she would like a quick rundown of what went on there and she said she didn’t need to know anything. That led me to ask her how someone who is completely ignorant about an issue could have so much to say about it? Hence the I’m not stupid… reply. You can’t argue with people who believe stupid things.
My point here is that this rift that was building to dangerous levels is going to a new place. The right is withdrawing as things get more and more heated, they are finding that more and more people are becoming less tolerant of opposing their political beliefs, which is what this is. Friends are losing friends, family are at each other’s throats.
I have been in three incidents now where jerks have accosted people who look foreign, and one black guy. I tell them to knock it off, it gets the expected “fuck you” response. The last was three twenty something big aggressive hater types flying a confederate flag from their truck. When I told them to knock off the insults they were going to attack me, no doubt about that. The woman said that her husband had called the police, and we heard sirens coming our way so they beat feet, the one said they would “catch” me later.
I went over across the street to the gun store and paid for my concealed weapon permit class. Young guys fight, old guys use guns to defend themselves, it has come to that in this hard right community. I know several other people who have gotten a permit as well.
I expect as Trump either goes to greater violations of the constitution, or the GOP uses their majority to violate democratic procedures, either the courts will intervene and shut things down, or Trump will exercise greater and greater violations and things will be blowing up in the worst possible way. At this point intelligence and the military has to be looking at where the line is between lawful orders. The dynamics of inhibiting and aggressively responding to protests is going to be the crux of this matter. I suspect the intelligence community is sitting on a powder keg.
I believe that we have to talk about where things may be headed in order to proactively head them off. It’s not going to work to keep responding to Trump nonsense. I am not sure that ignoring this divide with Trump supporters is the right approach, they believe what they believe and the only thing that will break that pattern is to get it through their heads that mainstream media is not where the alternative facts are coming from.
I live in heavily republican county in a mountain rural community, many of the people who live here were born in the area. There are almost no blacks in this county, ditto Asians, lots of Hispanics. There is a large skinhead/clamper presence here. These are hateful and prejudiced people who can’t seem to see a minority without voicing their bigoted beliefs. I know that many more people live in populated areas where this divide I see isn’t quite as in your face.
The more Trump is blocked by court actions, the angrier his supporters are getting. They support the things Trump is stupidly doing, and conversations between the left who opposes everything about the SCROTUS (So Called Ruler OTUS) and the right will get edgier and edgier. They are getting really angry that the media is being so hard on Trump and not giving him a chance to see how good his ideas are (Boo Hoo Hoo). The more they get pissed off about this and the level of protests the left is getting involved in, the more they will support an aggressive military and incarceration program. They will fully believe these are violent protests when all it will take is half a dozen people breaking some things while hundreds watch without joining in. My friend in response to me telling him that of the 200 arrested it was five guys doing the window breaking as evidence by extensive videos. He believes that if they were arrested they must have done something, he will never believe that police could be wrong about that. This is what we are up against, angry people operating on blind faith in all the wrong things.
Perhaps people are more polarized in a community like this, I hope so.