On Sept. 30, for example, the University of Virginia Center for Politics and Project Home Fire released a survey showing unexpectedly large percentages of voters agreeing with this statement: “The situation in America is such that I would favor states seceding from the union to form their own separate country.”
Among Trump voters, 52 percent agreed, with 25 percent in strong agreement; among Biden voters, 41 percent agreed, 18 percent strongly.
Wednesday, October 06, 2021
Conspiracies
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7 comments:
This is great! Finally, the "intellectual left explain why the Trumpers are racist, sexist, homophobic authoritarians who can’t spell and are going to destroy the country..."
Why? It's simply that "right-wing authoritarianism provides a person with a place in the world, as a loyal follower of a strong leader"
Come on, we all need to feel we have significance.
The good news is like you said, a large percentage of voters are in favor of having their own country. Maybe we CAN have Red and Blue America in our lifetime. Can I reserve a warm and beautiful spot in the southwest?
It's a well constructed article and the guy is about as even handed as it gets. Are we at the point where a researching historian and social scientist is automatically questionable because his job title somehow alone makes him biased? He also explains the contempt the right feels for liberals, you could have just as easily have quoted that as well.
I'm not questioning the researchers findings although the many studies quoted mush together as a grab bag. No, My snarky reaction comes from the same place it has since November 2016. Contempt of one side by the other is equal opportunity confirmation bias. It's demeaning regardless of the origin.
Our tendency to explain away 'the other' - be it an erudite historian or ignorant redneck - only validates deepening trenches.
In my idealized America, this is the national anthem...
https://youtu.be/7xGxQXmu7Os
We all have to start somewhere in attempting to create a little daylight and understanding. Going directly into a problem and documenting the language we use about it, seems like a decent place to begin.
One more minor thing - It's not studies mushed together. This is exacting work where the author is sifting through volumes of research in order to extract a quote or two that propels the study along and organizing them in a readable coherent way.
I read Thomas B. Edsall all the time - he's great. This article is well organized and coherent, supporting the title's premise.
Yesterday, my reaction to it was purely emotional, and it felt to me like 'scholarly mush'. I recognize that I am the mush, and I projected it onto Edsall's essay. I don't know how to create daylight and understanding other than to sing "Get Together".
LOL - I suspect that song is being fervently sung in church basements and old age homes throughout the country. I always reference a quote from Ani Pema Chodron, it's helpful for me. She says, more or less, 'The bad news is that we are in free fall. The good news is that we never hit bottom.' The quote has may applications, but the world is always falling apart, it's just that right now the energy that is polarizing people is especially strong. We're like magnets repelling each other, we need to turn the magnet around. Just today I waved to an old friend, a Trump supporter no less, from the street as he drove by. He looked at me and frowned. It's the mean streets of the suburbs.
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