Seems reductive to compare those values, especially when someone says they value compassion but doesn't extend that compassion outside of their family circle.
Seems reductive to compare those values, especially when someone says they value compassion but doesn't extend that compassion outside of their family circle.
I agree. The method of determining "sameness" by leaning on words with near universal positive connotation doesn't really show anything. If you asked "do you like good things to happen?" you could...
I agree. The method of determining "sameness" by leaning on words with near universal positive connotation doesn't really show anything. If you asked "do you like good things to happen?" you could get a similarly overwhelming agreement.
If two groups agree that "personal responsibility" is important, but disagree on the definition, methods, and scope of achieving personal responsibility, they don't actually agree.
Yeah, I would say a woman being responsible for her own body gives her the right to an abortion while someone else would say that same value means she can't get one.
Yeah, I would say a woman being responsible for her own body gives her the right to an abortion while someone else would say that same value means she can't get one.
The AP article doesn't do a very good job actually describing the survey. The survey questions asked takers to rank on a scale of 1-7 in terms of importance the following values The survey then...
The AP article doesn't do a very good job actually describing the survey. The survey questions asked takers to rank on a scale of 1-7 in terms of importance the following values
A government that is accountable to the people it serves.
A government that is representative of the people it serves.
The rule of law is applied fairly and equally.
Protecting the individual liberties and freedoms defined by the Constitution.
A sense of patriotism and pride for the country.
The ability to learn from the past and keep working towards improving the future of the country.
Having mutual respect and compassion for each other despite our differences.
Personal responsibility and holding yourself accountable for your own actions.
The survey then asked takers to rate those values based on how they think the other side feels. The results were that almost everyone ranked the values highly for themselves and lowly for people on the other side of the political spectrum.
I don't know how much value is gleaned from asking these 8 questions. They probably would have benefited from asking more probing questions like whether someone should treat their family better than strangers.
But then their data would have shown that we don't actually share a common set of core values, which would undermine their mission goal and preferred strategy. It's clear that two large camps of...
I don't know how much value is gleaned from asking these 8 questions. They probably would have benefited from asking more probing questions like whether someone should treat their family better than strangers.
But then their data would have shown that we don't actually share a common set of core values, which would undermine their mission goal and preferred strategy.
It's clear that two large camps of Americans absolutely do not share very similar core values with each other. You can tell by the massive gulf in difference of verifiable actions taken, regardless of the words that actually come from people directly about their views.
The simple act of defining "justice" for instance between the two groups would lead you to extremely different definitions of the word and concept. Each side would say they have it as a core value but the actual underlying meaning of the core value would vary wildly and significantly. People would talk past each other and never agree on anything.
How can we share a core* set of values when the meaning behind our understanding of said values are, in many cases, exclusive of the other?
Former Me and other people. I couldn't be told what truth, morals, and values were if everyone was different and their own person. Everything was a construct according to one's own perception....
Former Me and other people.
I couldn't be told what truth, morals, and values were if everyone was different and their own person. Everything was a construct according to one's own perception. Some just happen to be more favorable or unfavorable, but it doesn't make them "wrong."
My reaction to those eight points wouldn't be to rank them, but respond with: if any of these are important, valuable, or even true, then consider...
No human should ever be accountable for another human. If that's the case, then they (including the government) can tell them what to do with their body, lives, etc.
Governments can never represent the people they serve. If that's the case, why do citizens always hate their government or are dissatisfied with it? It's impossible and just a fantasy that we keep chasing for the sake of survival as a species.
"The rule of law" on whose ground? And why should any have to follow that rule? If it's to be equal or fair, then it must do more than merely consider that many would not want to be forced under that rule. How then can it be fair and equal?
Drawing back to #3..."individual liberties and freedoms." Why must one person or a group define what that is for a person, especially if that person wants to exercise their individual liberty?
No thanks. Unless a country does what it needs for someone most of the time, it doesn't make sense to have pride for it. If anyone had a spouse (who they chose) and ultimately almost never agreed with or didn't agree with or the important things, would it make sense for that spouse to still be proud of their marriage? Usually not, and they divorce for "irreconcilable differences."
This I can agree with. Some people, though, simply don't care to learn from the past, and that shouldn't be expected of any person or government.
Circling back to #3 and #4.
This is so inconsistent with #1. And this is why humans just don't make sense and should stop trying to pursue unification and, ironically, reason. It just will not happen because humans have not been and will never be a unified people.
I'm from Ireland and I found the questions really strange and loaded. What does accountable mean? In some countries the constituency can trigger a by-election if an MP has misbehaved and the local...
I'm from Ireland and I found the questions really strange and loaded.
A government that is accountable to the people it serves.
What does accountable mean? In some countries the constituency can trigger a by-election if an MP has misbehaved and the local electorate can hold them to account. The form this takes can vary by country.
A government that is representative of the people it serves.
That is a perfect example of proportional representation. In a country that uses STV (or other PR system) then that question makes sense. I have no idea what that even means in the US. From gerrymandering, to 2 senators per state, then the electoral college system. None of it is a government representative of the people it serves.
Protecting the individual liberties and freedoms defined by the Constitution.
That's just weird, the US constitution has been constantly reinterpreted and effectively redefined over decades. Would that include protecting the right to use slave labour under the 13th amendment? When the US never banned slavery and the constitution still protects it I find questions like that bizarre.
A sense of patriotism and pride for the country.
Questions like that are frankly disturbing. Are Americans supposed to have patriotism and pride regardless of the actions of their country? When the US conducted an airstrike on an Afghan wedding are Americans still supposed to hold pride. Or when they saw the photos from Abu Ghraib, were they supposed to be filled with waves of patriotism?
Personal responsibility and holding yourself accountable for your own actions.
Very disturbing, if you fell down a man hole because it wasn't covered, then you are responsible for not paying attention to where to walked? That question only makes sense if written like this:
Institutional responsibility, when the state and/or companies endanger the public they should be held responsible. If after given ample warning and ignoring safety precautions, you should hold yourself accountable.
Having grown up extremely conservative and religious, but shifted well away after college, I've discovered this to be largely true through earnest discussions with conservative (and liberal)...
Having grown up extremely conservative and religious, but shifted well away after college, I've discovered this to be largely true through earnest discussions with conservative (and liberal) classmates and friends. Still, I think this article and survey is rather superficial, and does not address the epistemic (knowledge) divide that ultimately differentiates (and contextualizes) peoples' understanding of these values.
I'll try to keep this somewhat short and understandable—although I did write a less-politically-focused paper on epistemic frameworks and their relation to jurisprudential modes, along with some of the psychological bases for these, as part of my Law & Psychology class last semester—but ultimately the way in which people form knowledge leads to certain base worldview assumptions, through which values are seen; in turn, differing epistemic frameworks tend to render such shared values potentially incomprehensible.
One of the main divides here is between foundationalism and coherentism. Foundationalism builds knowledge deductively, brick-by-brick, in essence an edifice of knowledge built upon foundational axioms or beliefs. This edifice can be difficult (sometimes impossible) to change when confronted with new data that requires a refinement, or if any of the base assumptions turn out to be incorrect or lacking. Foundationalism, then, tends to proscribe questioning of the existing system. Coherentism, by contrast, tends to be inductive, fitting data and values into a best-fit model, or "web of belief," which can be flexibly rearranged as needed. The scientific method and paradigm shifts (e.g., the Copernican Revolution) are a good example of this. The upshot is that someone with a foundationalist epistemology tends to desire the appearance of certainty, base principles, and tradition (and tends to suffer an epistemic crisis when their worldview or knowledge framework is shattered), whereas a coherentist may not have certainty, but is always flexible and curious in seeking an ever-refined understanding. I would argue that psychological factors, e.g. tolerance of ambiguity, play into one's epistemic affinity.
How does this relate to politics and the topic at hand? I would posit that many (although not all) conservatives tend to have a foundationalist epistemology, whereas many more liberal people (again, though not all) have a more coherentist epistemology. The fixed nature of foundationalism tends to resonate with conservative values (the groundless coherentist web of belief is seen as chaotic and disorderly), whereas a coherentist model allows for the liberal idea of growth, change, and adaptability.
Seen through these viewpoint lenses, then, such values as identified in the article's survey—e.g., fairness, compassion and personal responsibility—have fundamentally different meanings and ultimate ways of expression. Take compassion, for example: A foundationalist conservative is likely to view compassion as within their in-group, paired with social discipline (looking to parenting styles as an analogy), whereas a coherentist liberal is going to express the compassion in a broader, less enforcing the social hierarchy way (that said, some very ideological liberals can be foundationalists, with the same issues as on the conservative side).
This is mostly a working theory of mine, but I've found it provides some explanatory power and can moderate some of the political polarization, especially when you understand at a deep level why people believe and think the way they do.
I was also raised conservative/hardcore fundamentalist, but didn't veer away from that world until my mid-30s. I agree that this issue runs deeper than most people realize, and whoever manages to...
I was also raised conservative/hardcore fundamentalist, but didn't veer away from that world until my mid-30s. I agree that this issue runs deeper than most people realize, and whoever manages to figure out the best way to bridge the gap and help people understand each other, will get filthy rich.
The whole foundationalism vs coherentism is a little deep for my tastes, but the premise sounds accurate. If I had to break it down for a layperson, it would sound more like: "Conservatives are empathetic about people they meet in person or have a direct relationship with, while liberals tend to be empathetic about people they have never met and have no relationship with."
Probably an oversimplification, but at least I'm using smaller words and the point might be received a little easier.
Came here for this. What is fairness? What is compassion? What is personal responsibility? Where we are today is because we reduce things to as few words as possible and look to extract zero...
Seen through these viewpoint lenses, then, such values as identified in the article's survey—e.g., fairness, compassion and personal responsibility—have fundamentally different meanings and ultimate ways of expression. Take compassion, for example: A foundationalist conservative is likely to view compassion as within their in-group, paired with social discipline (looking to parenting styles as an analogy), whereas a coherentist liberal is going to express the compassion in a broader, less enforcing the social hierarchy way (that said, some very ideological liberals can be foundationalists, with the same issues as on the conservative side).
Came here for this. What is fairness? What is compassion? What is personal responsibility? Where we are today is because we reduce things to as few words as possible and look to extract zero nuance. Of 10 different people, even if half are one party and half the other, each one might have a different answer to each of the three and overlaps on some and differences on others. I'll say this - the average person is going to be more agreeable than those in power about individual ideas.
It's like when people are polled about whether they think the country is "on the right track" or going "in the wrong direction." Right now, in a hyperpartisan, super polarized nation, you're going to have almost two-thirds vote wrong direction. News sources will extrapolate from that that it's a reflection on the leadership. But whoever surveyed these people didn't ask why they feel these ways. Is it the current leadership? Is it external forces? Is it the fear of other leadership?
Surveys need to be laser-focused in their wording to get real meaning out of them. Like, "would you vote person X or Y?" Not, "compassion is important," which I'm sure people would be inclined to lie and say yes to as well so as not to look like a prick.
Oh my goodness! I just wrote the same general idea and I'm glad to see someone else could explain them in more academic terms. I'm never sure if I'm doing a good job at explaining these difficult...
Oh my goodness! I just wrote the same general idea and I'm glad to see someone else could explain them in more academic terms. I'm never sure if I'm doing a good job at explaining these difficult subjects.
My experience outside of American conservatives take that to an extreme. I think it is there in conservatives of other countries, but not so pronounced.
My experience outside of American conservatives take that to an extreme. I think it is there in conservatives of other countries, but not so pronounced.
It's really disappointing that the survey they linked to points to a youtube video. Here's the actual survey results and methodology. On the surface, I think that we're having a "Tower of Babel"...
On the surface, I think that we're having a "Tower of Babel" situation. The words of this survey may be the same between both groups, but the meaning that they take is different. Take for instance the prompt, "The ability to learn from the past and keep working towards improving the future of the country." What past are they talking about? There's a lot of history and I can guarantee you that nobody knows all of it. What lessons are we learning? What kind of future are you aiming for? It makes perfect sense for someone to say that they agree with the idea but the outgroup doesn't - their specific idea of what those words mean is internally consistent. These prompts are essentially meaningless because they are not specific enough.
In any case, the fact that we are divided is not something we need a survey to discover. The reason why we are divided is related to that same problem I had with the survey; people are basically living in different worlds. That's something that's almost impossible to discover via survey but is plain to see if you were to actually talk to people. That Tower of Babel reference wasn't just a literary device; there are actual differences in the ways that far right Republican voters talk versus the ways that far left Democratic voters talk. Just think about all the times you've heard a rightist nutjob bring up terms like "woke", "CRT", and "riot".
Taking a more political view, I think that while this Starts With Us group organization may have a noble cause, I fear that they might be advocating on conceding on important issues that should not be conceded. The solution to division is never to just say "everybody get along now!" You need to break apart the systems that are causing people to separate in the first place. This isn't new, but it's somehow an option that nobody wants to take.
I have reason to believe that the main thing that is keeping people so divided (other than media echo chambers, of course) is that people are dissatisfied with their lives and end up projecting their dissatisfaction to other things. And it's not hard to see what people are so upset about. People have very low job satisfaction. Wages have been depressed for generations now. Housing prices continue to soar to new unattainable heights every day. The price of food needed to survive has skyrocketed over the past few years. And in the meanwhile worker productivity is insanely high. Both left and right are trying to fix it, but in vastly different ways; In broad strokes, the left wants to fix things by redistributing the wealth distribution, while the right wants to fix things by improving the overall economy.
I could talk about the things blocking real solutions from happening but to be frank, there are real people to blame and I don't want to get into the weeds on that conversation.
I think it's better to say voters and voters share core values but distrust each other. Politicians do not share core values with their voter base. My super-conservative parents will agree with me...
I think it's better to say voters and voters share core values but distrust each other. Politicians do not share core values with their voter base. My super-conservative parents will agree with me on heathcare, income reform, etc, but the second you put a team to any of those policies, suddenly they're working against their desires, it's weird as hell how much they've been brainwormed to vote against their own desires.
They used food stamps themselves, so they have zero issue, they didn't like LGBT until we had some family friends that were a gay couple and helped them out of a bind, so now they're cool-ish with...
They used food stamps themselves, so they have zero issue, they didn't like LGBT until we had some family friends that were a gay couple and helped them out of a bind, so now they're cool-ish with that (they still don't understand trans, I'm slowly working on that, I have hope but it's gonna take time), and abortion is a little touchy, but they don't support the zero-exception laws that republicans have been pushing, as even my mother had to get one due to a complication that would have killed her and the fetus, but would have been illegal under a new proposed law.
It's definitely an upstream battle de-programming decades of propaganda and hate hammered into them, but I think working on that is better than outright isolating and abandoning them, as that will only shove them further into the cesspool. My sister hooked up one to facebook which I'm still pissed at her for, as I've definitely seen an uptick in the more absurd conspiracy stuff since she did that.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans on the right and the left have a lot more in common than they might think — including their strong distrust of each other.
A survey published on Wednesday finds that when asked about core values including fairness, compassion and personal responsibility, about nine in 10 Democrats and Republicans agreed they were very or extremely important. Yet only about a third of either group said they believed the same was true for the opposing party.
The results of the poll, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago and the nonprofit group Starts With Us, reveal a stark truth at the source of the polarization that has a powerful grip on American politics: While most Americans agree on the core principles underlying American democracy, they no longer recognize that the other side also holds those values.
... “When you get worried is when polarization turns into dehumanization — a sense that the other is somehow less than human, or evil, or unable to share your decent human values,” said Nealin Parker, executive director of Common Ground USA, a group that works to resolve conflict by building trust among Americans. “That should be concerning to anybody, because those are the necessary psychological steps to doing harm to each other.”
Seems reductive to compare those values, especially when someone says they value compassion but doesn't extend that compassion outside of their family circle.
I agree. The method of determining "sameness" by leaning on words with near universal positive connotation doesn't really show anything. If you asked "do you like good things to happen?" you could get a similarly overwhelming agreement.
If two groups agree that "personal responsibility" is important, but disagree on the definition, methods, and scope of achieving personal responsibility, they don't actually agree.
Yeah, I would say a woman being responsible for her own body gives her the right to an abortion while someone else would say that same value means she can't get one.
The AP article doesn't do a very good job actually describing the survey. The survey questions asked takers to rank on a scale of 1-7 in terms of importance the following values
The survey then asked takers to rate those values based on how they think the other side feels. The results were that almost everyone ranked the values highly for themselves and lowly for people on the other side of the political spectrum.
I don't know how much value is gleaned from asking these 8 questions. They probably would have benefited from asking more probing questions like whether someone should treat their family better than strangers.
But then their data would have shown that we don't actually share a common set of core values, which would undermine their mission goal and preferred strategy.
It's clear that two large camps of Americans absolutely do not share very similar core values with each other. You can tell by the massive gulf in difference of verifiable actions taken, regardless of the words that actually come from people directly about their views.
The simple act of defining "justice" for instance between the two groups would lead you to extremely different definitions of the word and concept. Each side would say they have it as a core value but the actual underlying meaning of the core value would vary wildly and significantly. People would talk past each other and never agree on anything.
How can we share a core* set of values when the meaning behind our understanding of said values are, in many cases, exclusive of the other?
Yeah, who would say they don't hold those values?
Former Me and other people.
I couldn't be told what truth, morals, and values were if everyone was different and their own person. Everything was a construct according to one's own perception. Some just happen to be more favorable or unfavorable, but it doesn't make them "wrong."
My reaction to those eight points wouldn't be to rank them, but respond with: if any of these are important, valuable, or even true, then consider...
People who think like this genuinely exist.
I'm from Ireland and I found the questions really strange and loaded.
What does accountable mean? In some countries the constituency can trigger a by-election if an MP has misbehaved and the local electorate can hold them to account. The form this takes can vary by country.
That is a perfect example of proportional representation. In a country that uses STV (or other PR system) then that question makes sense. I have no idea what that even means in the US. From gerrymandering, to 2 senators per state, then the electoral college system. None of it is a government representative of the people it serves.
That's just weird, the US constitution has been constantly reinterpreted and effectively redefined over decades. Would that include protecting the right to use slave labour under the 13th amendment? When the US never banned slavery and the constitution still protects it I find questions like that bizarre.
Questions like that are frankly disturbing. Are Americans supposed to have patriotism and pride regardless of the actions of their country? When the US conducted an airstrike on an Afghan wedding are Americans still supposed to hold pride. Or when they saw the photos from Abu Ghraib, were they supposed to be filled with waves of patriotism?
Very disturbing, if you fell down a man hole because it wasn't covered, then you are responsible for not paying attention to where to walked? That question only makes sense if written like this:
Having grown up extremely conservative and religious, but shifted well away after college, I've discovered this to be largely true through earnest discussions with conservative (and liberal) classmates and friends. Still, I think this article and survey is rather superficial, and does not address the epistemic (knowledge) divide that ultimately differentiates (and contextualizes) peoples' understanding of these values.
I'll try to keep this somewhat short and understandable—although I did write a less-politically-focused paper on epistemic frameworks and their relation to jurisprudential modes, along with some of the psychological bases for these, as part of my Law & Psychology class last semester—but ultimately the way in which people form knowledge leads to certain base worldview assumptions, through which values are seen; in turn, differing epistemic frameworks tend to render such shared values potentially incomprehensible.
One of the main divides here is between foundationalism and coherentism. Foundationalism builds knowledge deductively, brick-by-brick, in essence an edifice of knowledge built upon foundational axioms or beliefs. This edifice can be difficult (sometimes impossible) to change when confronted with new data that requires a refinement, or if any of the base assumptions turn out to be incorrect or lacking. Foundationalism, then, tends to proscribe questioning of the existing system. Coherentism, by contrast, tends to be inductive, fitting data and values into a best-fit model, or "web of belief," which can be flexibly rearranged as needed. The scientific method and paradigm shifts (e.g., the Copernican Revolution) are a good example of this. The upshot is that someone with a foundationalist epistemology tends to desire the appearance of certainty, base principles, and tradition (and tends to suffer an epistemic crisis when their worldview or knowledge framework is shattered), whereas a coherentist may not have certainty, but is always flexible and curious in seeking an ever-refined understanding. I would argue that psychological factors, e.g. tolerance of ambiguity, play into one's epistemic affinity.
How does this relate to politics and the topic at hand? I would posit that many (although not all) conservatives tend to have a foundationalist epistemology, whereas many more liberal people (again, though not all) have a more coherentist epistemology. The fixed nature of foundationalism tends to resonate with conservative values (the groundless coherentist web of belief is seen as chaotic and disorderly), whereas a coherentist model allows for the liberal idea of growth, change, and adaptability.
Seen through these viewpoint lenses, then, such values as identified in the article's survey—e.g., fairness, compassion and personal responsibility—have fundamentally different meanings and ultimate ways of expression. Take compassion, for example: A foundationalist conservative is likely to view compassion as within their in-group, paired with social discipline (looking to parenting styles as an analogy), whereas a coherentist liberal is going to express the compassion in a broader, less enforcing the social hierarchy way (that said, some very ideological liberals can be foundationalists, with the same issues as on the conservative side).
This is mostly a working theory of mine, but I've found it provides some explanatory power and can moderate some of the political polarization, especially when you understand at a deep level why people believe and think the way they do.
I was also raised conservative/hardcore fundamentalist, but didn't veer away from that world until my mid-30s. I agree that this issue runs deeper than most people realize, and whoever manages to figure out the best way to bridge the gap and help people understand each other, will get filthy rich.
The whole foundationalism vs coherentism is a little deep for my tastes, but the premise sounds accurate. If I had to break it down for a layperson, it would sound more like: "Conservatives are empathetic about people they meet in person or have a direct relationship with, while liberals tend to be empathetic about people they have never met and have no relationship with."
Probably an oversimplification, but at least I'm using smaller words and the point might be received a little easier.
Came here for this. What is fairness? What is compassion? What is personal responsibility? Where we are today is because we reduce things to as few words as possible and look to extract zero nuance. Of 10 different people, even if half are one party and half the other, each one might have a different answer to each of the three and overlaps on some and differences on others. I'll say this - the average person is going to be more agreeable than those in power about individual ideas.
It's like when people are polled about whether they think the country is "on the right track" or going "in the wrong direction." Right now, in a hyperpartisan, super polarized nation, you're going to have almost two-thirds vote wrong direction. News sources will extrapolate from that that it's a reflection on the leadership. But whoever surveyed these people didn't ask why they feel these ways. Is it the current leadership? Is it external forces? Is it the fear of other leadership?
Surveys need to be laser-focused in their wording to get real meaning out of them. Like, "would you vote person X or Y?" Not, "compassion is important," which I'm sure people would be inclined to lie and say yes to as well so as not to look like a prick.
Oh my goodness! I just wrote the same general idea and I'm glad to see someone else could explain them in more academic terms. I'm never sure if I'm doing a good job at explaining these difficult subjects.
My experience outside of American conservatives take that to an extreme. I think it is there in conservatives of other countries, but not so pronounced.
It's really disappointing that the survey they linked to points to a youtube video. Here's the actual survey results and methodology.
On the surface, I think that we're having a "Tower of Babel" situation. The words of this survey may be the same between both groups, but the meaning that they take is different. Take for instance the prompt, "The ability to learn from the past and keep working towards improving the future of the country." What past are they talking about? There's a lot of history and I can guarantee you that nobody knows all of it. What lessons are we learning? What kind of future are you aiming for? It makes perfect sense for someone to say that they agree with the idea but the outgroup doesn't - their specific idea of what those words mean is internally consistent. These prompts are essentially meaningless because they are not specific enough.
In any case, the fact that we are divided is not something we need a survey to discover. The reason why we are divided is related to that same problem I had with the survey; people are basically living in different worlds. That's something that's almost impossible to discover via survey but is plain to see if you were to actually talk to people. That Tower of Babel reference wasn't just a literary device; there are actual differences in the ways that far right Republican voters talk versus the ways that far left Democratic voters talk. Just think about all the times you've heard a rightist nutjob bring up terms like "woke", "CRT", and "riot".
Taking a more political view, I think that while this Starts With Us group organization may have a noble cause, I fear that they might be advocating on conceding on important issues that should not be conceded. The solution to division is never to just say "everybody get along now!" You need to break apart the systems that are causing people to separate in the first place. This isn't new, but it's somehow an option that nobody wants to take.
I have reason to believe that the main thing that is keeping people so divided (other than media echo chambers, of course) is that people are dissatisfied with their lives and end up projecting their dissatisfaction to other things. And it's not hard to see what people are so upset about. People have very low job satisfaction. Wages have been depressed for generations now. Housing prices continue to soar to new unattainable heights every day. The price of food needed to survive has skyrocketed over the past few years. And in the meanwhile worker productivity is insanely high. Both left and right are trying to fix it, but in vastly different ways; In broad strokes, the left wants to fix things by redistributing the wealth distribution, while the right wants to fix things by improving the overall economy.
I could talk about the things blocking real solutions from happening but to be frank, there are real people to blame and I don't want to get into the weeds on that conversation.
Whilst still often refusing to do things that might actually fix the economy, and instead keep trying to out-Reagan each of their predecessors.
Well, at the very least they believe that they are helping.
I think it's better to say voters and voters share core values but distrust each other. Politicians do not share core values with their voter base. My super-conservative parents will agree with me on heathcare, income reform, etc, but the second you put a team to any of those policies, suddenly they're working against their desires, it's weird as hell how much they've been brainwormed to vote against their own desires.
What are their thoughts on LGBT, abortion, and food stamps?
They used food stamps themselves, so they have zero issue, they didn't like LGBT until we had some family friends that were a gay couple and helped them out of a bind, so now they're cool-ish with that (they still don't understand trans, I'm slowly working on that, I have hope but it's gonna take time), and abortion is a little touchy, but they don't support the zero-exception laws that republicans have been pushing, as even my mother had to get one due to a complication that would have killed her and the fetus, but would have been illegal under a new proposed law.
It's definitely an upstream battle de-programming decades of propaganda and hate hammered into them, but I think working on that is better than outright isolating and abandoning them, as that will only shove them further into the cesspool. My sister hooked up one to facebook which I'm still pissed at her for, as I've definitely seen an uptick in the more absurd conspiracy stuff since she did that.
That's the crux of it, there's the future that's being made