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

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

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."

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

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.

[simont]

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, ...

[andrewducker]

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

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

But he smokes whereas Hitler didn't

[meihua.livejournal.com]

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".

Do they really?

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

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.

Not necessarily crazy just wrongly informed

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

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.

[andrewducker]

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.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

...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...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

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).

[meihua.livejournal.com]

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.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

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.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

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.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

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.

[andrewducker]

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.

[andrewducker]

I know this. And it makes me angry.

Is that a problem?

[meihua.livejournal.com]

I'll just sit in the naughty corner then.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

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?

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

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"

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

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

[andrewducker]

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.

[chilperic.livejournal.com]

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...

[asim.livejournal.com]

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?

[meihua.livejournal.com]

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"?