(01-20-2021, 03:55 PM)Dahlsim Wrote: My only intention 15th, with my comments on your comments, was to imply that its possible that 74 million people might not be completely baseless in their concerns any more than 81 million people would be with opposing concerns. Perhaps give all of fellow citizens a little more benefit of the doubt and allow that all sides may have reasons that should not be easily disparaged.
Fair enough. Full disclosure is that I have to live that "benefit of the doubt" that you're talking about. Most of my interpersonal relationships (and literally, my closest relationship) are with people that either buy the election fraud stuff, because of their mistrust of the media and the left, or don't want to talk about politics at the moment because they don't want to enter into the divisiveness of the current situation. If I spoke harshly or insenitively about these things I'd hurt the people I'm closest to.
Also, I'm well aquainted with why many of the politically conservative folks in our country believe, speak and vote the way they do. I'm in that world. I'm an outlier in that world. But I'm not an outlier because I'm a "liberal" or "democrat". I'm neither. I'm not attracted to the game of reductionism that political parties have to play in order to court voters. Once upon a time I was so dissolusioned with the whole game that I didn't vote much. Now I only vote on the races that I have time to research for myself (which doesn't mean gathering up all the rep or dem flyers and believing them). In 2020 my votes probably went about 50/50 republican/democrat, with one vote for an independant I liked in a local election. I didn't vote on all the races because I ran out of time doing my research. I have to say that the direction of the political right, which seems to be embracing the reductionist caricature of itself (reemember, I live in their world), had me primed for voting for more democrats, but as I did my research, I found many democrats I couldn't vote for because they've skewed so far into the more radical and fringe portions of their agenda. I chose not to vote in some races because I couldn't support either candidate.
I just want you to know where I'm coming from when I speculate about what Trump and voter fraud supporters are going through. I don't get my stuff from youtube. I've been saying that Christians don't need to be seeking power through politics and creating enemies out of neighbors since the 1990s. That's not the way Jesus did things. I've been saying that the Christians need to get out of the culture war since the 90s. Complete and total mistrust of U.S. institutions and Christian flags (why the heck is there a Christian flag, anyway?) being raised at an insurrection are the logical outcome of the direction that this evangelical/republican alliance has been going for some time. The rhetorical seeds that grew this plant have been sown for decades.