andrewducker | How do you negotiate with crazy people?

You don't negotiate.

You say, "Hey we have at least another nine months of a majority in both houses of Congress, so fuck you all, we are going to push our legislation through. If you'd like to be part of the process, fine, but if you are just going to say 'no' to everything we try to do, fuck off, we'll win anyway."

ISTR there was a similar story going around a little while ago, and a closer look at the polling methodology revealed it to be deeply suspect. I'm inclined to reserve judgement until I know a lot more.

I list 3 other polls with similar results in a comment here. I assure you others can be found with a brief search in Google, as I did.

I'm not convinced by the methodology of any of those polls either (in fact, one of the was the similar story going round a while ago that I referred to). I'm sure that people who have these beliefs exist, but I sincerely doubt that they're anywhere near the levels indicated by the polls.

And if they are, one of the polls you link to also has 32% of Democrats as 9/11 truthers, and another 19% undecided, so the daftness swings both ways.

I just went to look; 2K+ people surveyed by Harris, who I respect enough.

I'll look at the proper methodology when I've time, but odds are it's wrong because it's taking the numbers from registered Repubs, which isn't the same thing as those who voted repub.

Ah - here's some criticism of it.

Criticism, yes, and some of it is valid, however he says

I’ll lay off the sampling, though this survey was done among people who sign up to click through questionnaires via the Internet in exchange for points redeemable for cash and gifts – not a probability sample. Been there before.

Which, according to HArris themselves, isn't a fair assesment

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population.

I studied polling methodology, and while I have a problem with weighted samples, that's what virtually all UK poll companies do these days, and Harris switched from face to face, to telephone and now to internet panel surveys.

Their methodology is very close to YouGov's over here from what I can see, and my only problem with YouGov currently is that they're under-weighting for Lib Dem identified voters compared to other weightings (and I'm talking about that with their stats guy currently as he disagrees).

Some of the rest of his points (biased questioning, etc) are valid and true, but they add weight to existing beliefs, they don't create them out of nowhere.

There is in a lot of media a desire to go against internet polling generally, and the linked article in the bit of his I quoted is both incredibly snobby (and typical), and lumping in the type of unsampled internet polls that do offer rewards with no real methodology with much more reputable and effective methodology.

Panel polling, where you invite people to a specific poll from a much larger group of volunteers, and weight the invitees, can be very effective.

ABC pays money to traditional, expensive, face-to-face pollsters. They don't report internet polls, even from Harris, because doing so is to acknowledge that their expensive polls might be just a waste of money.

Yes, the poll is flawed, but it's nowwhere near as flawed as that guy makes out (it is, however, commissioned by an author trying to plug a book).

Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did"

... eating, sleeping, attending meetings, participating in the process of government, being commander in chief of his nation's armed forces, ...

I hear he also loves dogs. Clearly he _is_ Hitler!

But he smokes whereas Hitler didn't

And NewHitler isn't a vegetarian any more.

(Obviously, ZOMBIE HITLER CRAVES MEAAAAAAAT.)

...attempting to rejuvenate the economy and give people jobs, diverges from the prevailing ideal racist aesthetic, charismatic, from Hawaii/Austria, widely depicted making a specific "extreme" hand gesture...

Thank you! You and I had the same thought...

Wow, those simpletons are fucking idiots, right?

Well, no.

Their idea of "political engagement" is different. They don't really care much who is in Washington as long as that person gets the hell off their lawn, in every sense. They aren't particularly interested in whether or not that person's a socialist, or a Muslim, or whatever. What seems like a really important distinction to us is irrelevant to them and it's not based on the same level of judgement. It's more like asking, "Is Tom Cruise a golfer?" Well, uh, I dunno. Don't have a clue, don't really care. Maybe? I'd probably tick a box marked "might be a golfer".

And the mainstream political discourse completely excludes them. It's all about "is this plan or that plan good for the nation". But most of them couldn't give a fuck about this or that plan - they don't want any plans at all, they want Washington to shut the hell up and stop giving them plans.

So when the few people who understand that, who speak to them, say, "Hell with these damn Washington politicans and their socialism", then, well, obviously that's who they'll listen to. "Socialism" is redefined to mean "Letting my neighbours use my lawn". "Facism" is redefined as "Telling me what to do with my lawn".

It's perfectly reasonable and I'm sure that if I lived in the South and had similar political priorities, I'd come out with some of the same kind of things.

Ok, so some of the antichrist stuff is harder to swallow.

But damn if I'm not fed up of this kind of "haha lol they so stupid" analysis of the voting priorities of those who have been identified as "Republican".

Nobody is judging every Republican. I'm talking about the 45% who believe he has no right to govern because he was born abroad (with no evidence to back this up). The 57% who think that because he's got a funny name and a different colour of skin he must be a Muslim. The 34% who believe that a mythical source of all evil sent him to earth to bring about the apocalypse.

If people want to have a small government and think that voting Republican will get them it then they're merely completely ignorant of actual behaviour of the previous Republican administrations. If they want to believe blatant lies and idiocy then they deserve to be called on that.

If people want to have a small government and think that voting Republican will get them it then they're merely completely ignorant of actual behaviour of the previous Republican administrations. If they want to believe blatant lies and idiocy then they deserve to be called on that.

I don't think this is a very kind or accurate way to understand it. You have massively more information about the US political parties than most Americans. If you live in middle or southern America (and this is true elsewhere, but particularly in these areas), and if you believe in everyone's power to realise their dream through hard work - which many, many do - then you receive two kinds of messaging.

1) Posh twits laughing at you
2) Down-to-earth people saying common-sense things such as, "making everyone buy insurance is bad!". And also saying other less common-sense things, which get associated with the common-senseness of their other actually common-sensical opinions.

A third category is desparately required - down-to-earth people saying common-sense things who don't also say crazy shit.

Right now, you're a posh twit laughing at them, you're part of the problem.

So I'm a twit. And I'm laughing at people.

Good way to engage there. Insults and accusations.

I'll be happy to engage with you when you're not behaving like that.

I'll just sit in the naughty corner then.

Cas. You're acting like a twelve year old. I know that you're better than that.

Well, no, not really. I don't actually feel particularly harshly towards

andrewducker here, but this post could do with some gentle mocking.

I think it's likely there's a bit more going on here than my tone being outrageous and hurtful. One, it's not - "twit" is hardly on a par with the amount of scorn

andrewducker is pouring on those "idiotic" Republican voters - and two, it's not like "those crazy Yanks" is an uncommon narrative in geek circles. What does it take to uproot that?

Do you have a better suggestion on how to respond to, "I think you were mean so you are wrong"?

Nobody is saying "I think you were mean so you are wrong". What I am saying is "You are not engaging in a way that I find likely to lead to any kind of useful results. I have a lot of other things I can spend my time on, responding to insults and baseless accusations is not on my list of priorities."

I never insulted any individuals, and accusing me of laughing at people because other people do isn't going to get you very far either.

Dude, I think that if I was one of the Republican voters you're discussing and I and read this, I'd think you were a posh twit laughing at me. That's not the same as me thinking you're a posh twit. Because you're asking, "How do I negotiate with them", I'm trying to represent what - to my best understanding - are the problems of going in with that attitude.

I'm really not trying to insult you here.

This piece isn't aimed at the republican voters though. This piece is me venting my frustration at the situation. I don't think I have any Republican readers, let alone any who would endorse any of those opinions.

There is a difference between his refering to the views as idiocy, and claiming that they're all idiots - plenty of smart people believe stupid things. (c.f. our past selves - probably also our present selves)

Do you have a better suggestion on how to respond to, "I think you were mean so you are wrong"?
"...so you are wrong" != "...so I'm not willing to engage whilst you're behaving like this". A better response to the latter is "Okay, here's my point without the insults".

I don't agree with you here and I'm not sure how to explain in what way. I think we've got a really different approach to this kind of conversation.

I think the problem that you're falling into is another one of stereotypes. The idea of Democrats and anyone agreeing with them being posh twits is the same exact kind of stereotype as the toothless Republican hick. It's false and basically derailing to the argument.

The way we deal with these sorts of situations is to continue as is being done, and to offer good news sources and truth to dispel misinformation. Yes, it sucks that polling shows that some people hold some really ignorant views. But some of those views are anywhere near as crazy if you look at them through the lens of authoritarianism. The mindset that supports the Republican party most fervently is going to divide the world into two camps. Us and The Other. Obama is The Other, and he's in a place of power, and he's the leader of the opposition, and for a long time the religious right in America has been pushing the idea that the end times are coming.

In that light, suspecting that he's the anti-christ, while still pretty goddamn despicable, seems like a lot less water for them to cross.

It is reasonable to say that such people are crazy, because there's no way you can engage with them in the debate of 'is Obama the anti-christ' and such. But it is probably a better idea to offer better information instead of calling them crazy.

The idea of Democrats and anyone agreeing with them being posh twits is the same exact kind of stereotype as the toothless Republican hick. It's false and basically derailing to the argument.

Well, of course. I said that this is the messaging received by some of the voters the OP is discussing. Of course it's misleading stereotypes, that's what messaging is.

I'm not laughing. You likely read my post yesterday. I take this current turn real damn seriously. I grew up and now live in the Southern US. The idea that this is "All about hicks" is disquieting, and as simple as you accuse Andrew of being.

This in't about them being stupid, and I don't know where you make this out to be just hicks. We have, here in America, People in Congress saying these things on National TV, pushing resolutions about Birth Certificates and the like. We have a cable channel devoted to passing these ideas along. We see these ideas reporting in the overall media, and not always debunked. These ideas are EVERYWHERE, now.

Moreover -- to argue that we should give people a pass because they are NOT reasoning, not seeking knowledge, seems an odd way to debate an issue that is literally causing people to revert to activities and behaviors we decided to reject as a cultural decades ago. You'll agree that ignorance is no excuse for breaking laws, right? Then, in like fashion, is ignorance no defense against pointing it out.

If, in truth, the core of the GOP and Tea Party ethos is Individual responsibility, then how in all that's Holy can you then say it's someone else's responsibility that they lack these points of basic knowledge? Isn't it incumbent upon them to learn? Isn't it incumbent upon Nationally-known elected leaders they look up to -- far more than just one -- to not promulgate ideas such as Birtherism?

By your lights, I feel like no one should have called out McCarthy, because hey! He was just ignorant. And I fear for a discussion that starts from any premise like that. I strive mightily to be civil in my political discussions, but there's a line that must not be crossed, and people who hold these beliefs are crossing it. I just kicked someone off my Facebook today for wishing the President would die. and that's not the only incident like that's I've personally seen recently.

So, how, exactly, do we approach this, given that I don't even see where Andrew mocked them?

So, how, exactly, do we approach this, given that I don't even see where Andrew mocked them?

Man, I don't know, I wish I did. And I agree absolutely with everything you've written here. There's a whole system of shit going down over there and it's coming from voters and media and influential politicans and companies and just everywhere.

I don't think this is "just hicks" - and if it seems like that's what I'm saying, then, I haven't expressed myself very well, because that's almost my point - it's not just hicks. It's not even just voters. It's everything, all pushing this misinformation at once. And in that situation, I think it is tough to make up one's mind.

In fact can I just link this comment, because this says what I want to say:
http://andrewducker.livejournal.com/1998022.html?thread=13454790#t13454790

That's not the same meaning I get from the original post which is just more ammo for the "whoa those dudes are stupid" stuff. Who's writing these surveys which show these results? Who's interpreting them? If I speak to 100 Americans, do 14 of them really think that Obama is Satan's minion?

Easy to post those surveys, easy to believe them, easy to laugh (or get angry) at Americans for believing what the surveys imply they believe. I don't think they believe that, I give them more credit.

I don't think they believe that, I give them more credit.

Then we're at a crossroads. They do believe it. I've met them. I've debated them, as much as one can. I had to confront a damned contractor at my house over spewing this stuff! And there are a lot of them, including critical media figures.

Here's a report on another poll. Here's a report on polls from New Jersey on the topic. Another national poll by the same outfit -- and I assure you, I can go on.

This is not a joke. Not a misinterpreation of one poll. It's widespread, it's deeply embedded, and it's real. Please understand that, if nothing else.

Ok, I didn't express myself very well, and I'm sorry, because man, is this complicated. I'm trying to say loads of stuff at once.

I've met them too, ok? I've had those conversations though not in person, and eep. Good luck with that contractor.

And I know it's widespread and that the polls are, in some ways, accurate. But they're so damn misleading when they're posted without context.

I don't see how you can put an option into a poll of "Obama is the Antichrist" unless you've got an agenda. Every one of those polls is a weapon designed to achieve an agenda, whether that's bolstering a sense of superiority, or cheerleading a fan base, or spreading misinformation.

I'm sure that the basic statistics as shown in the polls are more-or-less accurate. But the stories they tell, embedded in the highly selective context they are posted in, are tapping into large cultural narratives such as:

"Americans are stupid"

"The current government is illegitimate"

"Christians are under attack"

So when I say I give Americans more credit, I mean... it's not about being stupid. Or about having been clearly confronted with nice simple facts about birth certificates and wilfully believing something else.

Am I managing to make any more sense?

Btw - I'm also cool with yelling at people with stupid politics, and indeed kicking them off facebook or whatever. I mean it's not a duty to engage in negotations with people who are stomping on your head, and anyone's got the right to scream "FUCK YOU" at them, I know I do often enough. But if one wants to talk to them... hell, thinking of them as crazy is just a really bad place to start. They think what they think for reasons, they consider themselves rational person, they have consistent worldviews. If one wants to "negotiate" - then that's all gotta be taken into account.

Even judging that large percentage is pretty sweeping though. Assuming (and as noted earlier, I think it's a dubious assumption), that these polls are an accurate assessment of republican views, does it really seem likely to you that such a large number of people are stupid or "crazy"*, rather than that they've got a hugely different set of inputs and influences?

*as an aside, as someone who has suffered from fairly severe mental illness, I'm not keen on using crazy as shorthand for "has views which I find stupid/repulsive/incomprehensible"

I can judge their opinions. I don't blame individuals for holding opinions that are clearly reality-divergent, I blame the system and society they're brought up in. but I can certainly hold a person responsible for not looking into things in more detail and attempting to educate themselves (whilst bearing in mind the social and educational environment that they come from).

I'm certainly not laughing at anyone. I'm bloody furious at the system/culture/media, not at the individuals on the ground. What I want, as the original post said, is a way to negotiate with people whose beliefs and opinions are based on lies and mythology.

Dude, I totally agree with you here, and if the OP had said this, I wouldn't have commented in the first place. Quoting those surveys without any analysis is... out-of-place, somehow, and feeds into the general snobbish UK geek-culture narrative of "those americans are stupid". If I saw more comments like the one I'm replying to here and less reposts of polls without context then I probably wouldn't go off on this stuff.

Could you try to avoid going off anyway? Or go off in your own journal? I don't mind you saying (as Wildeabandon did) that these things are generally biased, etc. I'm all behind being corrected on my stupidity. I just react badly to anger directed at me, particularly if it feels like it's based on things I didn't say.

I want to take this in the context of lots of the conversations we've had here, not just on this post. In this post I'm not angry, and that the communication appears to have anger in it is probably based in that context. In many of the other conversations, actually I have been angry sometimes because you were doing things I perceived to be really unhelpful and harmful to me and people I really care about!

So in that situation... well, I dunno. Do you expect me to pretend not to be angry? Or not to get angry in the first place?

I know that it's no fun being yelled at, I don't like it either. I respond to it pretty badly too. But when I've pissed someone off, well, they're going to be angry with me, right?

I have no control over your emotions, and I wouldn't want to control them. Your emotions are yours.

Your actions, on the other hand, are things I feel I do have a right to talk about, and to react to. And I feel justified in asking people to refrain from certain actions in my journal, no matter what their emotional state might be.

If you feel terribly angry about something and want to express that in an aggressive manner then I'd suggest that your journal is the right place for that :-> If you feel terribly angry about something and are willing to engage in an assertive manner then I'm very happy to engage with that.

Of course it's not as simple as that, and I generally try to err on side of engagement, because I don't want to end up not listening to people just because they're angry. But there are definitely limits to my energy, as I'm sure there are to yours, and I know that both of us are a lot less drained when we're not shouting at each other :->

Oh, sure. I just wanted to be clear what you were asking. If you'd like your LJ to be a place where that doesn't happen, then that's cool, as I suggested a while back by PM, I don't wanna engage if all that does is be draining and unhelpful.

I think that the split you're making between "aggressive" and "assertive" is a split which makes more sense in your head than in mine. I do see a kind of "assertive" based on calm logical strong arguing that you and lots of other people do, but if I do that it comes out as sarcastic and cold, so perhaps what you're asking for would be best satisfied if I didn't engage here.

Are your Interesting LJ Links available via RSS? I enjoy reading them. :)

The assertive/aggressive thing is something I got from an assertiveness training course, and from the counselling I did. It's not something that works for everyone, I'm sure.

Links are available at:
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/andyduckerlinks/
and also at:
http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/AndrewDucker
(which is where they come from - http://delicious.com/AndrewDucker is where I tag them to in the first place)

I have to say that, say, at the moment, you're not coming across as sarcastic and cold at all. You're coming across as, well, human :->

Same, say, here:
http://andrewducker.livejournal.com/1998022.html?thread=13456838#t13456838

Well, no, because I'm not expressing my opinions about things I dislike. When I express my opinions about things I'm angry and upset about, I'm angry and upset. When I don't, I'm not. I'm not some hysterical character that can't stop expressing emotions, but I also won't suppress them to be calm and logical if I don't feel it. I'll communicate directly, which is what I'm doing. If I ever come across as "not human", for heaven's sake, CAPTCHA me.

I think there are a couple of things that you do when you're angry which aren't expressions of anger per se, and tend to be what makes it hard to engage with you. One is that you stop responding to what someone actually said, and start responding to what you assume they meant based on the least charitable assumption of what they said. The other is that you insult the person you're arguing with (or a generalised group of people that you assume they belong to), rather than talking about what's actually being discussed.

There are plenty of ways of expressing anger without doing these things.

That seems fair enough, although I think your modifier in parantheses is important - I've spent my entire life being taught to question things, and can't imagine whether I'd be inclined to do so otherwise.

What I want, as the original post said, is a way to negotiate with people whose beliefs and opinions are based on lies and mythology.
Understood, but a good place to start would probably be a)not calling them crazy and b)trying to understand why they've come to their views and beliefs on that basis. Exasperating as Cas's comments may have been, their suggestion that there need to be people espousing facts and sense in a way that isn't simultaneously sneering at people who don't initially agree is a good one.

with no evidence to back this up?

They have plenty of 'evidence' for these claims. They keep being told it by their leaders, their columnists, their politicians. That's their 'evidence' they trust the people who tell them this stuff, so they have no need to go check it.

Just like you believe this article by John Avlon which may or may not be slanting the interpretations of the poll to make a point but is largely a plug for his book. Note that I don't know what spin he has put on the figures, but nor do you. And that Andrew, is the problem here. We all believe the people we want to believe. And as you demonstrated a few weeks ago, how the question was asked makes a difference to the answers received. 'Obama is a Muslim, agree or disagree?' will get very different answers to 'What religion is Obama?'

They keep being told it by their leaders, their columnists, their politicians. That's their 'evidence' they trust the people who tell them this stuff, so they have no need to go check it.

And I object to that on a terribly deep level. I don't trust my leaders, my columnists or my politicians. It's obvious with only a little experience, that all of those people can lie, be corrupt, and be mistaken. I listen to people from "the other side" a fair bit, and I deliberately read around to try and get a balanced view. If you're only ever reading your side's view on things then you're asking to be taken advantage of.

And of course the polling isn't perfect. It never will be. But this is hardly the first time I've come across figures like this, and it isn't contradicted by any of the data I'm getting out of the USA.

That's very interesting. Even though I'm still anxious about some of those statistics (even if the real proportions are much lower), I was literally unsure how some of those points took hold, and that's a good explanation of how someone could be thinking (that I might or might not still think it's awful, but at least can understand what people DO want, rather than just treat them as incomprehensibly hopeless).

Also remember the complete information vacuum in the States. Everything is opinion pieces, nothing is raw information. The media and politics combine into an endless soap-opera with narratives which are told to kids in primary school. Someone who didn't grow up there just can't have any idea what it's like - and I speak as someone who didn't, by the way, so my understanding is likely flawed as well.

But isn't there a responsibility on voters to attempt to find stuff out? If an opinion piece here were to say "50% of people believe Gordon Brown is a socialist" I'd think that 50% were (unfortunately) misinformed and want to do a bit of digging under the headline.

I'm not sure what you're saying. Do you mean that there's a responsibility on middle-American voters to figure out what "socialism" means in UK political discourse and change their own definition to match that? Or do you mean that they should be better informed on the ways in which the current US administration's policies differ from socialist policies?

The democratic system gives those with no interest or knowledge the same voting rights as those who form an opinion. I've never been convinced this is a good thing. But what are the alternatives - some sort of qualification or permit to vote? That sort of elitist idea is never going to get far.

You're talking to the wrong person, I'm not a big fan of the parties-and-votes model in the first place. I think it lends itself to this kinda stuff and I don't see how you make it function!

I mean that any voter in any jurisdiction should be prepared to find out enough about their candidates/leaders to come to an informed conclusion (whatever that might be). Perhaps "socialism" is the worst example I could have chosen from the above list (and I only chose it so I could have a go at Gordon Brown for not being an adherent :-) but to take a different one, as far as I'm aware, from what I've read as an interested outsider, there's no evidence that Mr Obama is ineligible because of his place of birth and considerable, easily available, irrefutable evidence that he was born in Hawaii and therefore is indeed eligible. There isn't a complete information vacuum on this issue, it seems to me, just an unwillingness to look at what's available and think about it critically.

What you're talking about is republican civic virtue. It's an idea that starts off in Aristotle, forms the basis of Machiavelli's thought, and has seen a revival in some more recent political philosophy.

The basic idea is that if a republic is to remain free, and not collapse or degenerate into a monarchy, the citizens must exercise some degree of public service, engagement with political life, and concern for the good of the republic as a whole.

To civic republicans, this willingness of each individual to put a little work into understanding politics and playing their part in public affairs is the foundation and safeguard of freedom. From this point of view, the trends toward low turnout elections (particularly in the UK) and uncritical batshit insanity (particularly in the US) are worrying signs of a diminution of civic virtue.

What tends to be lacking in civic republican thought is an account of how to inculcate or restore such virtue. Here in the UK, the kinds of political reforms promoted by the Liberal Democrats are at least a step towards a partial solution, but we really need to look hard at things like press standards, education and various legal reforms as well.

As for the US, I don't know what can be done except for the non-crazies to work hard to ensure that the crazies are kept away from the levers of power in the hope that their craziness will eventually burn itself out. This is not a terribly satisfactory plan, I know.

They aren't particularly interested in whether or not that person's a socialist, or a Muslim, or whatever.

No, sorry, you're wrong here. This is dead fucking serious to a lot of Americans. America has had exactly one President who wasn't a Protestant Christian, and we killed him, and I think it'll be a long time before we get another. Mitt Romney's religion (he's a Mormon) is a major factor in why he's unlikely to be run by the Republicans. Religion in American politics--religion in America, period!--matters in a way that you probably have trouble understanding on a visceral level. It is flat out not equivalent to "golfing" in the way that you wrote it off to be.

We're still fighting about whether evolution versus "God created it all" ought to be taught in our public schools because of religious beliefs. Ditto "abstinence only" sex education vs. education that actually teaches things, ditto whether or not pharmacists have a religious right to not dispense prescribed medicine that they have a religious objection to, ditto the place of homosexuals in society (second class citizen or "to be converted"?), ditto ad nauseum.

You asked in another comment whether or not, if you went into the US and asked people, you'd really find 14 out of a 100 people who said that President Obama "may be the Antichrist"?

The answer is: In some areas you'd find far fewer than that. In other areas you'd find it to be a widespread, hardheld conviction. Of course the same thing can be said in America about snakehandling, spontaneous healings, speaking in tongues, feng shui, the imminent Apocalypse, and people rising from the dead.

The religious aspect is one thing I constantly forget. Thank you for reminding me, and yeah, I totally withdraw that.

Thanks to evangelism, belief to many Americans seems to be an active thing, rather than a result of evidence and experience. I think most of them choose to "believe" this crap, much as they pray for more faith in God.

1) as defined by their main media sources he is a 'socialist'
2) and 3) they get told this by supposedly reputable sources. Our conservatives are equally lied to by The Daily mail, telegraph, etc.
4) Whilst not defending all of Hitler's policies in any way, as I understand it he did bring in policies to bring Germany out of the depression that were considered perfectly reasonable at the time. The issue is the extrapolation of 'bad man does good and bad things therefore anyone who does same good things will do same bad things' which is again down to media spin.
5) He might be, you never know...

Actually large numbers of the UK population believe easily disproved things on the EU, Immigration, Single Mothers, Climate Change, etc.

You are in a minority. Most people do not and come to an informed, logical opinion about politics. They form opinions based on gossip, hearsay or even media headlines. This is not unique to the US, it is the same over here and probably in every other country in the world.

I know this. And it makes me angry.

Is that a problem?

It makes me angry too. But although you say "They don't believe that the leader of the oppositon is the fucking antichrist, or other things that can be disproved by 30 seconds with Google", they CAN'T actually disprove some of these things with Google... A google search will find you a lot of sites that confirm their ignorant positions. Google offers wonderful access to misinformation...

I should probably reply to the actual title of your post! :)

> How do you negotiate with crazy people?

First you stop calling them crazy and understand the context.

Then you find common ground and work from that. Most people are angry at the control that big business has over Congress. Common ground, excellent, get together on opposing lobbyists. I think that's one of the biggest deals at the moment and I don't understand why the Left isn't hand in hand with the Tea Party movement protesting it together.

Thank you - that was exactly what I was looking for :->

Due to the amounts of money required, it is impossible to get into US politics unless you have a vast personal fortune or are sponsored by big business. Putting a limit on the amount that can be spent on a campaign may address that.

In the UK a party can spend a maximum of £30,000 per candidate on an election campaign. That equates to about £19 million (roughly $28m) on the entire UK election. That would probably just about buy the coffee for a US election campaign.

Who said anything about getting into politics or running campaigns?

I don't understand why the Left isn't hand in hand with the Tea Party movement protesting it together.

Because the teabaggers are violent, homophobic, racist douchebags who want "the Left" *dead*?

What you're asking is basically "why aren't there any black people joining the Ku Klux Klan? Don't they *also* want safer neighbourhoods?"

Touché, sir!

And yet Stop The War featured pro-Palestine groups, pacifists, military families and anarchists (not that I'm implying that those categories are mutually exclusive), and they all marched on the same shared ground despite some massive disagreements in other areas.

What you're asking is basically "why aren't there any black people joining the Ku Klux Klan? Don't they *also* want safer neighbourhoods?"

No it's not.

Actually, yes it is. The Tea Party is a nativist/populist movement; it's ideology is a reaction against changes in society that they perceive to be threats to "traditional American values". Said values, alas, include blatant racism. (In all the photos I've seen of Tea Party protests I don't see anyone with so much as a good tan.) That they express themselves as minarchists is part false-flagging and part self-delusion; in actual fact, they want nothing to do with anybody but their own kind and are perfectly willing to repress others to get their way.

-- Steve can't see the Teabaggers ever condescending to recognise anyone on "the left" as allies, with all the anti-left rhetoric they throw around.

What on earth is the "left" in America? Is it the Democrats? Or is it the Starbucks employees who unionise under the IWW? Some of those may even be teabaggers.

Look, I'm not talking about platforming or legitimising them. I'm saying there is this massive base of dissatisfaction with government, and the only people mobilising it are the right, under false pretenses. There is no grassroots tea party organisation, of course, we both know it's all Fox.

LOL.

I don't understand why the Left isn't hand in hand with the Tea Party movement protesting it together.

I've said on my journal, before, that I've admired the energy and power of the Tea Party.

But the John Lewis incident underlines the point. What underlines that act, as well as ones as the lack of respect for Obama shown in these polls is the point. It repels people who might otherwise agree, including Liberals, not simply because we like Obama, but because these acts show things about how we see ourselves we'd not like to invest in.

Politics aside for the moment (and there are a LOT of political differences between the far left and the Tea Party), a movement like the Tea Party that gets known for racism and sexism and homophobia, that totes guns around like they're toys....what's there for any Liberal of conscious?

You keep saying to us to "understand they context", but it's the context of their beliefs, and actions on those beliefs that discourage us. I actually have a couple to Tea Party folks on my LJ, ones I've friendly with. So for some, yes, there is common ground. There are things, issue, they and I agree upon, and I'm cool with them, by and large. Our discussions are heated, but civil.

But there are things, like my belief that one of them "white-washes" the American Civil War to make it about how the North wanted to control the South. And that touches on issues I can't in good conscious give credence too, because it touches on the core of my identity as an American citizen. When you start that process of writing my ancestors out, you risk writing ME out. And I can barely manage that.

And then, there's the slurs -- and that bit I posted the other day is but the latest in a line of hatred that some of these folks have engaged in. And again, its not that there's haters, it that's No One's Calling Them Out. At best, I get a bunch of "lone gunman"-style apoligies that ignore the responsibilities of other citizens in these matters.

Seriously, how can I feel at all comfortable in spaces like that? The common ground is seeded with salt, and it's done by their actions, not just their beliefs. And I've been in enough "majority-white" spaces to know about how racism can "sneak up" on you, and how badly it hurts when it does.

But in the end, you're asking for Common Cause, for us to understand, people that we do, honestly and truly, understand. And at the base of it, we don't just disagree with their policies, we reject their attitudes and expressions, and their scorched-earth interactions with anyone "not like them". And that is at the core of these polls, and the points being made to you.

It's not about their narratives. It's about their hate.

I agree with almost everything you've written here enthusiastically, except that I'm confused by some of it because I'm all for calling them out too, so you don't need to be trying to persuade me of that.

Do you think that when I say "understand" I mean "accept" or "forgive"? I don't mean that.

I don't want to platform tea partiers or more specifically their organisers like Fox.

I commented here because I'd like one precise thing to stop: People who want to negotiate trying to negotiate from a position of: "You stupid. How do I teach you?"

I dunno if it's worthwhile anyone trying to negotiate but that precise route is guaranteed to backfire, right?

24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."
Uh no, that was George W. Bush. Cheney is an archduke from Hell.

Seriously.

;)

Americans are batshit insane.

I'm telling Erin you said that!

She is too, but in a warm fluffy (occasionally metallic) way ;)

One word - Insanity.

I thought about this a bit and compared it to my reaction and the reaction to many serious leftist Americans to Shrub. We use different language, but several of those points sound like they amount to believing that Obama is not a legitimate president and that he's a horrifically bad one.

In fact, on one point, "38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did", if asked that question about Shrub, I would have responded yes in the sense that I saw a whole lot of proto-fascism in his rhetoric and his policies.

What's different here are several points. First off all, many of these people are confusing facts (claims about Obama being a Muslim or not a US citizen) with opinion, and also while I know a whole lot of people who (like myself) believe that Shrub was the worst US president in a century, believing that Obama may be the anti-christ is a seriously greater level of distrust and dislike than any but a tiny fringe of nutty leftists.

So, what I mostly see is a combination of several factors:

Far greater numbers of people oppose Obama than opposed Shrub, which is clearly driven by the fact that the far-right has a much larger mass media presence that the far left.

The people have a strong tendency to confuse facts and opinions.

Many of these people feel a level of hatred and fear regarding Obama that is substantially greater than any but an exceptionally tiny number of people felt about Shrub.

The result of these three factors means that these people's ideas are self-reinforcing, they are largely impervious to reason, and there a far greater likelihood that some of them are going to get violent. Combine this with the obvious racism, homophobia, and similar hatreds common to many, or perhaps most of these people, and the odds of violence are even higher. In short, these people scare me.

They scare me too. I understand (at least partially) the reason why they are the way they are, but I'm still angry, frustrated, and scared by the whole tihng.

A security guard in Westfield shopping centre in Shepherd's Bush told me Obama was the anti-Christ because he saw me carrying the man's autobiography. He was perfectly serious about it. These views are not just present in America.

45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president"

Do they know where John McCain was born?

(And, yes, Senator McCain was quite eligible to be President.)

The fact you think Google can prove Obama is not the Antichrist just goes to show what an America-hating socialist you are.

How do you negotiate with crazy people?

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Do they really?

Not necessarily crazy just wrongly informed

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