On having empathy for Trump voters
Geoff Edwards writes: Not your most erudite piece, Jonathan Green. There are a few weaknesses in your train of logic to the extent that I have been capable of discerning it.
“…The moral comfort of self-interest? That’s perhaps the most recognisably human trait of all” is a highly contestable statement. Economics would tell us that self-interest drives human behaviour, but a range of sciences would claim otherwise. Humans have cooperative and communitarian genes as well as self-preservation ones.
“Moral outrage … leads to a sense of dismissive superiority”. This is a claim made by the right wing in the USA, and Sky News here, about the attitude of the progressive left. I don’t think that the progressive left here really does have such an arrogant attitude towards the general public — I think much of this criticism is fabricated. The behaviour of people like Trump and his acolytes should be judged against normative standards of behaviour, including the law; and the policy prescriptions of his movement should be judged against normative standards of public policy. If the progressive left is at fault, it’s because of its earnestness in pointing out the standards of public interest policy, which is a different battlefield from the cultural one on which Trump and his supporters have fought.
Third, you haven’t mentioned the mob-inciting role of the conservative press. There is a rich history of the ability of demagogues, polemicists and the media to whip up mob hysteria and distort facts in the service of propaganda. When these forces are in full flight, normative standards can quickly become irrelevant.
Katherine Stuart writes: While I certainly think that Jonathan Green is onto something, no-one ever seems to talk about the moral outrage on both sides of the conservative/progressive divide that we now seem compelled to have. It is constantly and consistently being stoked and fuelled by the mainstream media (who have largely fallen in behind those getting more attention these days on social media), but mainly by social media’s numerous commentators — with little to recommend beyond their skills at fuelling said outrage.
It’s like being constantly stung by bees. Or perhaps paralysis ticks might be a better analogy? Because as far as I can see, being constantly stimulated by outrage for its attention-grabbing properties is what the new media landscape is all about. It’s now had an extremely serious, real-world consequence: the election of an orange-faced buffoon with so little to recommend him for the job he is about to be given that it beggars belief.
What we have now is a collective kind of ADHD from being overstimulated in parts of our brains that would normally not see that much action except perhaps in times of extreme emergency, leading ultimately to apathy.
Standing in line at the local organic growers’ market on Wednesday afternoon, I mentioned to the nice lady next to me that I hoped Donald Trump wouldn’t win. She had the opposite view. I asked her why, out of interest. To be non-confrontational, I said I just couldn’t get past his attitude towards women, looking for common ground. She said for her it was about what he did rather than said, that he was “rooting out corruption”. I looked sceptical and she said tellingly: “It depends on where you get your news.” So, the fake news argument. But also, where we’re getting our particular flavour of moral outrage — the thing that will grab our attention and suck the living daylights out of it like some kind of digital Dementor.
Social media has a lot to answer for. Or rather, a lot of accountability to catch up on. And how is that ever going to happen without some serious regulation?
Andrew Sweeney writes: To those like Jonathan Green who lament that we need to understand the Trump voter: we already do.
Study after study has confirmed that the public who vote for Trump (as opposed to the cynical, rich Republicans who boosted him) are uninformed, closed to fact and reason, uncritical of their favoured authority, and are near-impossible to persuade. They vote for Trump’s lies for the simple reason that they do not know they are lies, and will fight you if you offer them a fact-check.
Calls to find commonality overlook that it’s fallacious to assume everyone thinks the way you do. Conservative minds and progressive minds work very differently, probably since the womb. You cannot convert Trump’s voters; what persuades you does not persuade them.
Eventually, as with [Brexit’s] “Leave” voters, the worsening of their lives will lead Trump voters to the blinking realisation “this isn’t what we wanted!” By then, of course, it will be too late; Trump will have devastated the government and installed himself as president for life. Women, LGBTQ, and immigrants will lose their rights. Trump will purge those who criticise him. Then it will happen all over again here in Australia.
Save your compassion for yourself and those close to you. You will need it.
