SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the and-a-polite-discussion-ensued... dept.
Recently published in Journal of Social and Political Psychology by Thomas F. Pettigrew seeks to understand the psychological profile of Trump supporters:
The Trump movement is not singular within the United States (the Know Nothing movement in the 1850s, the Wallace movement in the 1960s, and the more recent Tea Party Movement). Moreover, other democracies have seen similar movements (e.g., Austria's Freedom Party, Belgium's Vlaams Blok, France's National Front, Germany's Alternative for Germany Party (AfD), and Britain's U.K. Independence Party (UKIP).
In virtually all these cases, the tinder especially involved male nativists and populists who were less educated than the general population. But this core was joined by other types of voters as well. Five highly interrelated characteristics stand out that are central to a social psychological analysis – authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, outgroup prejudice, the absence of intergroup contact and relative deprivation.No one factor describes Trump's supporters. But an array of factors – many of them reflecting five major social psychological phenomena can help to account for this extraordinary political event: authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, prejudice, relative deprivation, and intergroup contact.
(Score: 4, Informative) by stretch611 on Thursday December 07 2017, @01:43AM (25 children)
I agree that the 2 party system is a pile of shit.
The two party system allows us to leave assholes in power because people vote for the lesser of two evils. But this is what allows us to keep horrendous asshats in power; when you only have to beat your single opponent, and they are just as bad, there is no incentive to actually have someone good.
For being more of a fuck you to the two major parties, why are the people supporting one of the two parties to do it?
The way out is to vote third party. Of course everyone says that it is throwing away your vote. Saying that keeps the 2 parties in power, which is why all the politicians and media report that you are wasting your vote.
It won't be a waste when enough people wake up and do it. When we have an option and politicians actually have to compete with competent competition, it will get better.
People say the third party candidates aren't that good. I voted for Johnson last year... Tell me... even if you don't know him... could he be worse than Trump? or Hillary? possibly, but not very likely.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 07 2017, @03:30AM (1 child)
I'm not even sure that's a possibility. You are asking far to much of your fellow man.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday December 07 2017, @05:55PM
I'm not commenting on the rest of the crap, since it's been hashed out again and again and again and again.....
but your fucking sig man made me laugh out loud this morning.
Merry Christmas
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @04:19AM (14 children)
Ralph Nader is a really smart guy.
He has also run for president as a 3rd-party candidate 4 times.
He now says that that's not the best bet.
If you look at the election return numbers, he's clearly right.
(You have to go back to Lincoln to see one of the Big 2 parties getting bumped.)
Ralph says that getting involved in the existing Big 2 is the best plan.
Do what the Tea Party did and take over the party that you think needs improvement, making sure that the right people get nominated and the right platform gets adopted.
If you want real change, showing up at the polls occasionally is not enough.
Thom Hartmann closes his radio/TV program with
"Remember: Democracy begins with you. Get out there. Get active. Tag. You're it."
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by rylyeh on Thursday December 07 2017, @07:11AM (5 children)
All a 'Third Party' needs to become a major political force is a charismatic, maverick leader who can out-think the other parties by thinking out of the box to solve concrete problems.
Those of like mind will flock to the new 'Third Party' when this happens. 🚀
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @10:54AM
I noticed that you didn't give an example that followed your model and was successful.
Another thing that Ralph Nader notes is that thinking that you can easily grab the top spot and that the world will fall in line behind you is just silly.
It takes LOT AND LOTS of -LOCAL- organizations to get things going.
That is, precinct-level operations.
You need a bunch of folks from your party on town councils, on county commissions, in state assemblies, and in Congress before you will ever get traction for your agenda at the national level.
I mention the "bottom-up" thing a lot here.
This is very much a case where that applies.
Having a guy who connects with the masses is a big plus, but it takes organization to move the ball down the field.
One guy going it alone is gonna get creamed.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Thursday December 07 2017, @04:56PM (3 children)
Oh. Too bad Bernie Sanders didn't run as a 3rd party candidate.
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday December 07 2017, @09:01PM (2 children)
As a non-American it strikes me as weird that you talk about third parties.
I live in a country of about 4 million people that until recently had eight parties in Parliament.
We have proportional voting though. We also have sane(ish) campaign finance rules and an independent electoral comision that sets the electorate boundaries.
I'm going to continue to assume that a country of 350 million or so that winds up represented by only two parties is not really a democracy at all, unless someone can convince me otherwise.
(The whole big-tent party argument is not compelling).
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @11:23PM
Even as the same teachers glossing over it tell us we need to study our history classes lest we be doomed to repeat the past.
America has *NEVER* since the *BEGINNING* been by the people, for the people. It was always for the merchants and landowners. The regular colonists, farmers, and common man were regularly fucked over, including as veterans of the revolutionary war.
While there have been some some 'apparent' political shifts over the years, it was usually infighting between the different merchant/landowner/media mogul/faux aristocrat class influencing the voters in ways that were financially beneficial to them. Either by pushing legislation benefitting them, causing controversy benefitting them, or by weakening opponents through erosion of their economic base (see both the whiskey tax and slavery, which favored the genteel class over the working class, and the industrialists over the plantation owners.) In the end it shoudl err on the side of the individual, but only so long as the individual was making a good faith effort and not doing anything intended to obviously defraud the party investing in them.
One of the details often overlooked in regards to slavery is that during the early colonial period slavery *WAS* illegal. However indentured servitude was not. Which thanks to weak labor laws and enforcement, combined with an uneducated working class seeking opportunities in the new world lead to some people being contractually bound into servitude by immoral people who found ways to defraud their indentured servants from agreed upon contractual terms that would have allowed them to buy our their contracts after a few years, fulfilling the economic investment in bringing them to the new world, while providing sufficient repayment to hire a replacement worker at the end of their term. The same thing happened with company towns, factory jobs, slavery itself (losing all semblance of contractual labor), and continues even today with military service and a variety of 'foreign held corporation' jobs that work around American labor laws by being flagged in other countries (see various maritime industries for current examples.)
The real problem faced both then and today is the same: Using legal minutae to distract from the simple question: Is a certain business relationship mutually beneficial, or disadvantaging to one, usually weaker, party? If the answer is yes and results in said party being unable to move on within 2-5 years (perhaps longer, but only in the case of trade professions requiring 10 or more years of experience, and only if the investment can be terminated at 2 year intervals if either party is unsatisfied with no financial balance remaining between them.)
(Score: 1) by rylyeh on Sunday December 10 2017, @03:47AM
Yes, it is quite apparent that the US suffers form an overwhelming lack of imagination when it comes to politics as well as education, etc.
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday December 07 2017, @10:01AM (7 children)
Awww, how cute. Make them feel like they're important, eh?, humaans love flattery like that.
"Remember: flying begins with you. Get out there. Get flapping."
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @11:05AM (5 children)
The example of The Tea Party was already given.
Surely you noticed how they hijacked the GOP.
It's completely do-able.
The first step is showing up and signing up.
...and the Democratic Socialists[1] of America have been working on the superdelegates thing.
[1] I really hate redundant names.
...and they aren't about the collective ownership of the means of production either.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Thursday December 07 2017, @03:37PM (2 children)
Once democracy has begun, can it *continue* with the help of you being active.
The USA's approximation to democracy is so dysfunctional it's naive to call it a democracy. With the dysfunctional electoral college system as it currently is, it's not even a democratically elected oligarchy. And you're the poster-child for Duverger's law to boot (in large part due to the flaws in the system that make it undemocratic), which almost guarantees the stable equilibrium.
The USA needs the miracle still. (Ever worse and worse presidents might be the impetus required, but you're only at the President Comacho level currently, there's plenty worse possible.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @09:25PM (1 child)
The USA's approximation to democracy is so dysfunctional it's naive to call it a democracy
Amen.
I find the term Oligarchy to be appropriate.
It's the way the place was set up.
...with just enough of a veneer to convince the suckers that they count.
The term The 99 Percent, coined by Occupy, puts a fine point on how much power Joe Average has--if he'd use it collectively against his actual oppressors.
Duverger's law
Didn't know that it had a name.
Yeah. You may have seen me advocating here for Ranked Choice Voting.
All the really great places have that.
Way more democratic.
President Comacho
s/Comacho/Camacho
...but, yeah.
you're
I keep forgetting that you're in .fi.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Friday December 08 2017, @07:13AM
One thing I like about Estonia is that, at least for municipal elections, a lot of the time when you vote for person X, and they reach a mandate level, they you are represented by person X precisely, not just some party person X has chosen to affiliate themself to. A full 43% of the representatives are independent or ad hoc coalitions (representing 27% of the voters)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_municipal_elections,_2017
Duverger's Law still hasn't kicked in here, even though the 5% cutoff for any representation at all (in Tallinn, with 79 seats, even 2% of the vote is surely enough to prove there should be representation) does encourage it somewhat. (I'm one of those idealists who believes that if 2% of Tallinn's population is extremist racist whackjobs then, as long as they don't interfere with the smooth-running of democracy, they should be represented.}
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @05:41PM (1 child)
I'm not sure that the Tea Party hijacked the republicans, so much as gave notice to the party bosses that they couldn't just arbitrarily ignore their constituency.
In a way, it was a populist democratic wave in the republican base. They demanded purity, not a total policy base change. Their slogan was that they were going RINO-hunting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @09:08PM
Disagree strongly.
The Tea Party was a bunch of White suckers, funded by the Koch brothers.
They put the Republican mantra Increase inequality via tax cuts for the rich on steroids, i.e. working against their own best interest.
(The main GOP mechanism doesn't do Joe Average a bit of good, BTW.
The latest scam is big tax cuts for billionaires and corporations that are permanent and tiny tax cuts for a small number of folks--with the latter expiring quickly, after which Joe Average's share of costs goes up while programs that benefit him have been cut.)
their constituency
Last count I saw said that 29 percent of USAians say they approve of the #GOPTaxScam.
(...and the poll was taken while the Repugs were still scribbling things into the margins of the bill).
That number doesn't seem to indicate to me that they're serving their base in an acceptable way.
It certainly doesn't sound "populist".
Republicanism[1] only works if your goal is to further empower The Ownership Class (The Oligarchy).
If you're looking to shift power to Joe Average, you bet on the wrong horse.
[1] ...and voting Democrat wasn't significantly better last time around--and for a lot of elections before that.
Neoliberals of all stripes suck.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday December 07 2017, @06:28PM
"Remember: flying begins with you. Get out there. Get flapping."
Ummm....you are aware that humans have the ability to fly now, right? All because a couple guys got out there...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Sulla on Thursday December 07 2017, @06:08AM (4 children)
The general opinion of the subsect of 18 million people who go to 4chan a month (claims google analytics) who go to /pol/ was that Trump was a fuck you to the republican party as well. Old people thought him better than hill out of no other choice and young folks loved how much he shit all over the primary process. I don't really consider him a rep due to his views going back being traditionally liberal in some respects (acceptance of gays) and non-republican due to his running as reform party in 2000. The amount of hatred that establishment republicans have for him is nice as well.
I voted for johnson in 2012 but he annoyed me with his focus on "dude weed" in the 2016 run. Ended up voting for Daryl Perry instead in '16 but don't like him as much recently.
Another unaccepted cause of youth support for Trump was that he was funner to meme than Hill. The more the left protested and called them evil the more they would meme harder for the lulz. Draft our Daughters, Hill having Kuru/Parkinsons, murder lists, email servers, "why am I not 50 points ahead" , etc. Had /pol/ known more about Jeb! Bush's autism early on, they likely would have fought harder for him to have four years of memes. The like of Trump would have died much faster if it wasnt for Drumpf, two scoops, made him eat the meatloaf, dumping the koi food, etc. If the media would stop pushing fake issues and latch onto fake things iit is likely places like /pol/ would find other things to do than support the president.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday December 07 2017, @09:20PM (3 children)
Trump ran a 2010s election based on memes and social media and awesome tweets
Hillary ran a textbook perfect 1975 campaign complete with total endorsement and "should be illegal" collusion with every legacy newspaper and legacy TV network out there. Crazy, really. Everything that defined a perfect 1975 campaign. She did nothing post-disco era at all, but she knocked it out of the park for 1975.
If it were 1970s we'd be talking about Prez Hillary instead of Prez Carter. But of course its 2010s so we got Trump.
Also Trump hung out with all the big name D party folks in his youth, however, he doesn't molest women or children so the D party didn't want him. Al Franken could only have been a Democrat, ditto bill clinton and all the rest. I was totally confused about Moore, how could that guy not be a "D" party member? Thats what inspires me to think the accounts are fake.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @11:31PM (1 child)
VLM, in case you haven't been paying attention, there are just as many sexual harassment/molestation charges against Republicans at this point as against Democrats.
Honestly the biggest detail I have seen left out on most of them is what the age of consent was in the particular states at the time the accused actions took place, but just like British Parliament, the US Senate/Legislation/State Governments are as rife with sexual harassers, hebephiles, and other creepers as Hollywood, Print media, and all the others. Hell, at least Hugh Hefner had the sense to start an adult magazine if he wanted to fuck around with and sexually harass women. The rest of those catered to a naive mostly relgious group of people and have a scorecard of most of the major sins.
Glad I'm an atheist. It saves me from having to keep score :)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @05:14PM
They don't cover that stuff on Fox.
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Sunday December 10 2017, @01:38AM
Hillary's big campaign screw-up is that she didn't actually campaign. Trump actually went out there and campaigned, and he we was campaigning everywhere. Deep in Democratic territory, deep in his own territory, out in the swing states, big cities, small towns, places that mattered, places that maybe mattered, and places that didn't matter at all. He was out there campaigning, getting his message out, and drumming up support. And he was successful, as people knew what Trump stood for (even if they thought it was stupid), but not so much for Clinton. She only made the bare minimum number of campaign stops and public appearances that her numbers people said she needed to make, and otherwise was too busy flying between the coasts to attend elite fundraising dinners and doing paid speeches. If Clinton had only put some effort into the middle of the country instead of taking their votes for granted she would be President today.
A fun fact is that Clinton's side was actually worried that she'd win the electoral vote but lose the popular vote from Trump drumming up so many votes in places that "didn't matter".
(Score: 3, Informative) by rigrig on Thursday December 07 2017, @09:31AM
The problem is the first-past-the-post system.
Just imagine Alice being the preferred choice of 40% of voters, and Bob the preferred candidate of 60%.
They are completely opposite: Alice voters hate almost all Bob policies and vise-versa.
In comes Carol, whose policies are exactly the same as Bob, except for some minor issue which splits the Bob/Carol voters evenly.
So now Alice wins with 40% votes over 30% for Bob and 30% for Carol, even though 60% would much rather see either Bob or Carol in charge.
And even if somehow Bob or Carol wins, that means you end up with a country where 40% of the voters ends up with a president whose policies they hate.
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday December 07 2017, @05:22PM
Third parties will have a chance when proportional representation comes about.
(Score: 2) by Sourcery42 on Thursday December 07 2017, @06:29PM
“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."
~ Douglas Adams