The Surprising Cure for Political Division | Psychology Today

[Yakuda]

I suspect you wouldn't be so amenable to that notion if we were to talk about stereotypes of those on the right .



I believe there are some deep seated reasons for why people supported Trump. I also believe that the article from Chris Hedges that I linked to in the post you're responding to gets into these reasons. For the audience, this is the article I linked to in my previous post:

Chris Hedges: The Politics of Cultural Despair

It is despair that is killing us. It fosters what Roger Lancaster calls “poisoned solidarity,” the intoxication forged from the negative energies of fear, envy, hatred and a lust for violence.

scheerpost.com

I said root causes, plural, not singular. As to "the assumption", it's yours, not mine. I never said there was nothing wrong with the left, or to be more specific here, the democrats. Again, Chris Hedges gets into the many things that were wrong with the democrats leading up to Trump's second electoral victory in November 2024 in the article I've linked to above.

I may not be but that doesn't mean what I said isnt true.

You need to pay attention to what I said, there is plenty wrong with the left, what I said was many in the left never consider they might be wrong. Thats what i said.

 

[Yakuda]

I think it does actually. I think the main problem here is that you didin't read the article I linked to and jumped to a false conclusion as to what those root causes are. For the audience, I'm referring to this article:

Chris Hedges: The Politics of Cultural Despair

It is despair that is killing us. It fosters what Roger Lancaster calls “poisoned solidarity,” the intoxication forged from the negative energies of fear, envy, hatred and a lust for violence.

scheerpost.com

I'm going to read it

 

[Yakuda]

Getting someone to see that they're mistaken about their deep seated beliefs is never going to be easy. I think the best we can do is be respectful with each other and try to understand why we disagree with each other. Over the decades that I've posted online, I think I've seen a few positive outcomes in the realm of change. I myself have changed my views on certain subjects over the years as well.

Maybe online conversations aren't suited for respectful discussion

 

[Yakuda]

Sure:
**
The legal recognition of same-sex marriage in the United States expanded from one state in 2004 (Massachusetts) to all 50 states in 2015 through various court rulings, state legislation, and direct popular vote. States have separate marriage laws, which must adhere to rulings by the Supreme Court of the United States that recognize marriage as a fundamental right guaranteed by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as first established in the 1967 landmark civil rights case of Loving v. Virginia. Same-sex marriages are also licensed in and recognized by Washington, D.C. and all U.S. territories except for American Samoa, but not in some Native American tribal nations.
**

Source:

Same-sex marriage in the United States - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You had mentioned that, historically, marriage had been between a man and a woman. I mentioned that, historically, slavery was legal to get you to consider that changes in what society thinks should be allowed and not allowed can sometimes be a very good thing.

That first part doesn't show that gay people were prevented from marrying because they were gay.

I think slavery should have changed but not marriage.

 

[Scott]

I suspect you wouldn't be so amenable to that notion if we were to talk about stereotypes of those on the right.

I may not be but that doesn't mean what I said isnt true.

Fair enough.

You need to pay attention to what I said, there is plenty wrong with the left, what I said was many in the left never consider they might be wrong. Thats what i said.

Alright, that sounds fairly reasonable. I think that the same could be able to be said about many on the right though.

 

[Scott]

I think it does actually. I think the main problem here is that you didin't read the article I linked to and jumped to a false conclusion as to what those root causes are. For the audience, I'm referring to this article:

Chris Hedges: The Politics of Cultural Despair

It is despair that is killing us. It fosters what Roger Lancaster calls “poisoned solidarity,” the intoxication forged from the negative energies of fear, envy, hatred and a lust for violence.

scheerpost.com

I'm going to read it

That's what I'm talking about . I know it's rather long, though, so I'd like to just draw your attention to the first 4 paragraphs which I'll quote below. I'd like to know what you think of them:
**
In the end, the election was about despair. Despair over futures that evaporated with deindustrialization. Despair over the loss of 30 million jobs in mass layoffs. Despair over austerity programs and the funneling of wealth upwards into the hands of rapacious oligarchs. Despair over a liberal class that refuses to acknowledge the suffering it orchestrated under neoliberalism or embrace New Deal type programs that will ameliorate this suffering. Despair over the futile, endless wars, as well as the genocide in Gaza, where generals and politicians are never held accountable. Despair over a democratic system that has been seized by corporate and oligarchic power.

This despair has been played out on the bodies of the disenfranchised through opioid and alcoholism addictions, gambling, mass shootings, suicides — especially among middle-aged white males — morbid obesity and the investment of our emotional and intellectual life in tawdry spectacles and the allure of magical thinking, from the absurd promises of the Christian right to the Oprah-like belief that reality is never an impediment to our desires. These are the pathologies of a deeply diseased culture, what Friedrich Nietzsche calls an aggressive despiritualized nihilism.

Donald Trump is a symptom of our diseased society. He is not its cause. He is what is vomited up out of decay. He expresses a childish yearning to be an omnipotent god. This yearning resonates with Americans who feel they have been treated like human refuse. But the impossibility of being a god, as Ernest Becker writes, leads to its dark alternative — destroying like a god. This self-immolation is what comes next.

Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party, along with the establishment wing of the Republican Party, which allied itself with Harris, live in their own non-reality-based belief system. Harris, who was anointed by party elites and never received a single primary vote, proudly trumpeted her endorsement by Dick Cheney, a politician who left office with a 13 percent approval rating. The smug, self-righteous “moral” crusade against Trump stokes the national reality television show that has replaced journalism and politics. It reduces a social, economic and political crisis to the personality of Trump. It refuses to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for our failed democracy. It allows Democratic politicians to blithely ignore their base – 77 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of independents support an arms embargo against Israel. The open collusion with corporate oppression and refusal to heed the desires and needs of the electorate neuters the press and Trump critics. These corporate puppets stand for nothing, other than their own advancement. The lies they tell to working men and women, especially with programs such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), do far more damage than any of the lies uttered by Trump.
**

Full article:

Chris Hedges: The Politics of Cultural Despair

It is despair that is killing us. It fosters what Roger Lancaster calls “poisoned solidarity,” the intoxication forged from the negative energies of fear, envy, hatred and a lust for violence.

scheerpost.com

 

[Yakuda]

Fair enough.



Alright, that sounds fairly reasonable. I think that the same could be able to be said about many on the right though.

I couldnt agree more.

 

[Yakuda]

That's what I'm talking about . I know it's rather long, though, so I'd like to just draw your attention to the first 4 paragraphs which I'll quote below. I'd like to know what you think of them:
**
In the end, the election was about despair. Despair over futures that evaporated with deindustrialization. Despair over the loss of 30 million jobs in mass layoffs. Despair over austerity programs and the funneling of wealth upwards into the hands of rapacious oligarchs. Despair over a liberal class that refuses to acknowledge the suffering it orchestrated under neoliberalism or embrace New Deal type programs that will ameliorate this suffering. Despair over the futile, endless wars, as well as the genocide in Gaza, where generals and politicians are never held accountable. Despair over a democratic system that has been seized by corporate and oligarchic power.

This despair has been played out on the bodies of the disenfranchised through opioid and alcoholism addictions, gambling, mass shootings, suicides — especially among middle-aged white males — morbid obesity and the investment of our emotional and intellectual life in tawdry spectacles and the allure of magical thinking, from the absurd promises of the Christian right to the Oprah-like belief that reality is never an impediment to our desires. These are the pathologies of a deeply diseased culture, what Friedrich Nietzsche calls an aggressive despiritualized nihilism.

Donald Trump is a symptom of our diseased society. He is not its cause. He is what is vomited up out of decay. He expresses a childish yearning to be an omnipotent god. This yearning resonates with Americans who feel they have been treated like human refuse. But the impossibility of being a god, as Ernest Becker writes, leads to its dark alternative — destroying like a god. This self-immolation is what comes next.

Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party, along with the establishment wing of the Republican Party, which allied itself with Harris, live in their own non-reality-based belief system. Harris, who was anointed by party elites and never received a single primary vote, proudly trumpeted her endorsement by Dick Cheney, a politician who left office with a 13 percent approval rating. The smug, self-righteous “moral” crusade against Trump stokes the national reality television show that has replaced journalism and politics. It reduces a social, economic and political crisis to the personality of Trump. It refuses to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for our failed democracy. It allows Democratic politicians to blithely ignore their base – 77 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of independents support an arms embargo against Israel. The open collusion with corporate oppression and refusal to heed the desires and needs of the electorate neuters the press and Trump critics. These corporate puppets stand for nothing, other than their own advancement. The lies they tell to working men and women, especially with programs such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), do far more damage than any of the lies uttered by Trump.
**

Full article:

Chris Hedges: The Politics of Cultural Despair

It is despair that is killing us. It fosters what Roger Lancaster calls “poisoned solidarity,” the intoxication forged from the negative energies of fear, envy, hatred and a lust for violence.

scheerpost.com

Responding only to the picture he paints, it's what happens when faith is stripped from a society. This is the stain of moral relativism, where not it is wrong and how dare you tell me it is. Trump won because honest and decent people who just want to live their lives were tired of being brow beaten by people who were sure they were better than everything ne else b came of their beliefs.

 

[Scott]

Getting someone to see that they're mistaken about their deep seated beliefs is never going to be easy. I think the best we can do is be respectful with each other and try to understand why we disagree with each other. Over the decades that I've posted online, I think I've seen a few positive outcomes in the realm of change. I myself have changed my views on certain subjects over the years as well.

Maybe online conversations aren't suited for respectful discussion

That's actually the argument made by the author of the Psychology Today article that I referenced and linked to in the opening post of this thread. I think he's a bit too pessimistic. I think that online conversations -can- be respectful, but I think that in order for this to happen, great care must be put in by the participants to ensure that happens. All of this reminds me of a conversation between Yoda and Luke in The Empire Strikes Back. I agree with most of it, just not the "once you start down the dark path" bit- I think there are second chances all the way until our dying day and I think in the end, George Lucas agreed, exemplified in Vader's final redeeming act. Anyway, to the quote:
**
A Jedi's strength flows from the Force.

But beware of the dark side.

Anger, fear, aggression -- The dark side of the Force are they.

Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight.

If once you start down the dark path ... forever will it dominate your destiny.

Consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice.

Vader.

- Is the dark side stronger?

- No, no.

Quicker, easier, more seductive.

How am I to know the good side from the bad?

You will know ... when you are calm, at peace ... passive.

A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defence ... never for attack.
**

Source:

The Empire Strikes Back/Transcript

Echo Three to Echo Seven. Han, old buddy, do you read me? Loud and clear, kid. What's up? I finished my circle. I don't pick up any life readings. There isn't enough life on this ice cube to fill a space cruiser. The sensors are placed. I'm going back. Right. I'll see you shortly. There's a...

movies.fandom.com

For those who like the animated version ...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gONQCIevSN0

 

[Freddy Figbottom]

This is why we can't have nice things. We need to stop jumping to conclusions about each other.

it's not a jump.

it's a logical and evident progression.

you'rer just in denial about who's who, ok, Joy Behar.

 

[Freddy Figbottom]

Well, we agree on the innefective vaccine part at any rate. As you know, I don't believe that biological viruses exist, which means that regardless of what those doing gain of function research -think- they're doing, for me they're just playing make belief, at least if we're talking about biological viruses. I suspect that the dangers of bacteria are greatly exagerated, but I at least believe in bacteria.

you're a wild yeti.

 

[Freddy Figbottom]

Well, we agree on the innefective vaccine part at any rate. As you know, I don't believe that biological viruses exist, which means that regardless of what those doing gain of function research -think- they're doing, for me they're just playing make belief, at least if we're talking about biological viruses. I suspect that the dangers of bacteria are greatly exagerated, but I at least believe in bacteria.

ineffective and cancer and disease causing.

be fair.

 

[Freddy Figbottom]

Well, we agree on the innefective vaccine part at any rate. As you know, I don't believe that biological viruses exist, which means that regardless of what those doing gain of function research -think- they're doing, for me they're just playing make belief, at least if we're talking about biological viruses. I suspect that the dangers of bacteria are greatly exagerated, but I at least believe in bacteria.

what do we call people who knowingly inject poison into the population at large using government coercion and profiting from it?

you have to choose sides.

just like Mark Levin said.

 

[Libhater]

No the most important thing is to be willing to compromise. Thats how things get done.

Willing to and certainly able to compromise is exactly what Trump has done as president. Just check out his tariff compromises
where he's gotten our worldwide nations to even out the finances--even got our NATO nations to pay their fair share of 5%. Then
look to see Trump's amazing tariff negotiations get some $20 trillion dollars back to the U.S., and get companies and corporations
to move back to the U.S. to help build our economy and create more employment.

Anyone think that the liberals are going to support or congratulate Trump on his very successful time as president? I don't see any
chance of having democrats/socialists/progressives/leftists/TDS-ers etc. ever compromising with the sane Republicans/Trump.

 

[Hume]

I suspect that that's not what Hume meant. Let's see if he responds to my question.

What question?

 

[Hume]

What concept?

The concept of bias. Like asking whether people want to eat food to survive.

 

[Scott]

You have to show that the law prevented gays from marrying because they were gay.

Sure:
**
The legal recognition of same-sex marriage in the United States expanded from one state in 2004 (Massachusetts) to all 50 states in 2015 through various court rulings, state legislation, and direct popular vote. States have separate marriage laws, which must adhere to rulings by the Supreme Court of the United States that recognize marriage as a fundamental right guaranteed by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as first established in the 1967 landmark civil rights case of Loving v. Virginia. Same-sex marriages are also licensed in and recognized by Washington, D.C. and all U.S. territories except for American Samoa, but not in some Native American tribal nations.
**

Source:

Same-sex marriage in the United States - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That first part doesn't show that gay people were prevented from marrying because they were gay.

I -think- what you're saying is that gay people could still marry heterosexually before 2004, if that was their desire. Is that what you mean?

 

[Scott]

That's what I'm talking about. I know it's rather long, though, so I'd like to just draw your attention to the first 4 paragraphs which I'll quote below. I'd like to know what you think of them:
**
In the end, the election was about despair. Despair over futures that evaporated with deindustrialization. Despair over the loss of 30 million jobs in mass layoffs. Despair over austerity programs and the funneling of wealth upwards into the hands of rapacious oligarchs. Despair over a liberal class that refuses to acknowledge the suffering it orchestrated under neoliberalism or embrace New Deal type programs that will ameliorate this suffering. Despair over the futile, endless wars, as well as the genocide in Gaza, where generals and politicians are never held accountable. Despair over a democratic system that has been seized by corporate and oligarchic power.

This despair has been played out on the bodies of the disenfranchised through opioid and alcoholism addictions, gambling, mass shootings, suicides — especially among middle-aged white males — morbid obesity and the investment of our emotional and intellectual life in tawdry spectacles and the allure of magical thinking, from the absurd promises of the Christian right to the Oprah-like belief that reality is never an impediment to our desires. These are the pathologies of a deeply diseased culture, what Friedrich Nietzsche calls an aggressive despiritualized nihilism.

Donald Trump is a symptom of our diseased society. He is not its cause. He is what is vomited up out of decay. He expresses a childish yearning to be an omnipotent god. This yearning resonates with Americans who feel they have been treated like human refuse. But the impossibility of being a god, as Ernest Becker writes, leads to its dark alternative — destroying like a god. This self-immolation is what comes next.

Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party, along with the establishment wing of the Republican Party, which allied itself with Harris, live in their own non-reality-based belief system. Harris, who was anointed by party elites and never received a single primary vote, proudly trumpeted her endorsement by Dick Cheney, a politician who left office with a 13 percent approval rating. The smug, self-righteous “moral” crusade against Trump stokes the national reality television show that has replaced journalism and politics. It reduces a social, economic and political crisis to the personality of Trump. It refuses to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for our failed democracy. It allows Democratic politicians to blithely ignore their base – 77 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of independents support an arms embargo against Israel. The open collusion with corporate oppression and refusal to heed the desires and needs of the electorate neuters the press and Trump critics. These corporate puppets stand for nothing, other than their own advancement. The lies they tell to working men and women, especially with programs such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), do far more damage than any of the lies uttered by Trump.
**

Full article:

Chris Hedges: The Politics of Cultural Despair

It is despair that is killing us. It fosters what Roger Lancaster calls “poisoned solidarity,” the intoxication forged from the negative energies of fear, envy, hatred and a lust for violence.

scheerpost.com

Responding only to the picture he paints, it's what happens when faith is stripped from a society. This is the stain of moral relativism, where not it is wrong and how dare you tell me it is. Trump won because honest and decent people who just want to live their lives were tired of being brow beaten by people who were sure they were better than everything ne else b came of their beliefs.

Well, Trump has now won and, unfortunately, we now have injustices, Trump style. Again from Hedges' article:
**
Oswald Spengler in “The Decline of the West” predicted that, as Western democracies calcified and died, a class of “monied thugs,” people such as Trump, would replace the traditional political elites. Democracy would become a sham. Hatred would be fostered and fed to the masses to encourage them to tear themselves apart.

[snip]

All cults are personality cults. Cult leaders are narcissists. They demand obsequious fawning and total obedience. They prize loyalty above competence. They wield absolute control. They do not tolerate criticism. They are deeply insecure, a trait they attempt to cover up with bombastic grandiosity. They are amoral and emotionally and physically abusive. They see those around them as objects to be manipulated for their own empowerment, enjoyment and often sadistic entertainment. All those outside the cult are branded as forces of evil, prompting an epic battle whose natural expression is violence.
**

Source:

Chris Hedges: The Politics of Cultural Despair

It is despair that is killing us. It fosters what Roger Lancaster calls “poisoned solidarity,” the intoxication forged from the negative energies of fear, envy, hatred and a lust for violence.

scheerpost.com

 

[Hawkeye10]

Well, Trump has now won and, unfortunately, we now have injustices, Trump style. Again from Hedges' article:
**
Oswald Spengler in “The Decline of the West” predicted that, as Western democracies calcified and died, a class of “monied thugs,” people such as Trump, would replace the traditional political elites. Democracy would become a sham. Hatred would be fostered and fed to the masses to encourage them to tear themselves apart.

[snip]

All cults are personality cults. Cult leaders are narcissists. They demand obsequious fawning and total obedience. They prize loyalty above competence. They wield absolute control. They do not tolerate criticism. They are deeply insecure, a trait they attempt to cover up with bombastic grandiosity. They are amoral and emotionally and physically abusive. They see those around them as objects to be manipulated for their own empowerment, enjoyment and often sadistic entertainment. All those outside the cult are branded as forces of evil, prompting an epic battle whose natural expression is violence.
**

Source:

Chris Hedges: The Politics of Cultural Despair

It is despair that is killing us. It fosters what Roger Lancaster calls “poisoned solidarity,” the intoxication forged from the negative energies of fear, envy, hatred and a lust for violence.

scheerpost.com

Hedges is a solid member of my grapevine, and the quotes are right.....add in they dont believe in anything......they have no roots.....they flow where ever personal opportunity takes them.

 

[Scott]

he's a big pharma fascist depopulation Nazi.

This is why we can't have nice things. We need to stop jumping to conclusions about each other.

it's not a jump.

it's a logical and evident progression.

Feel free to provide any evidence you have that domer is a "big pharma fascist depopulation Nazi".