How do you negotiate with crazy people?

[andrewducker]

• 67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.
• 57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim
• 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"
• 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did"
• Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."

From

I mean, I know a lot of, say, Conservatives in the UK have beliefs I don't agree with.  But the vast majority of them, so far as I can tell, just have different experiences to me, and different opinions about how things should be organised.  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.

Comments

[meihua.livejournal.com]

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.

[andrewducker]

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

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

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.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

Who said anything about getting into politics or running campaigns?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

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?"

[broin.livejournal.com]

Touché, sir!

[meihua.livejournal.com]

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.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

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.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

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.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

LOL.

[asim.livejournal.com]

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.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

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?