A P.R.R.I. poll in 2021 found that 23 percent of Republicans agree that “The government, media and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking operation.” Even now, some two-thirds of Republicans believe that President Biden was not legitimately elected. Only 40 percent of Republicans say that the benefits of Covid vaccines outweigh the risks (which is why research suggests that Covid may have disproportionately killed Republicans).
From a New York Times Op-Ed.
Hum... are they delusional? The lower class Republican body is pretty sure they have been screwed by the upper class. In broad terms, starting in the mid '60s, the US upper class decided that the US lower class, especially the white lower class, could make the sacrifice of standing still while the rest of the world caught up. As long as there was "feeling of appreciation" for their non-consensual sacrifice the lower class were willing to grin and bear it. After all it's easy to feel a guilty eating your meatloaf and potatoes while kids are staving in China. Now, it seems that they have forgone the advances that the upper class have granted themselves and and are being damned for not doing more. Achieving equality of outcome for Black Americans will eventually fix the sucking chest wound caused by slavery, undoubtedly the worst problem in the US. But again, this going to come mainly out of additional sacrifices by the white lower class. For which the Left calls them the "deplorables" and treats them like dirt. So yeah, there is a lot of hatred there, for the way the lower class is being treated. And of course they are going say bad stuff about their enemies, and maybe believe (internalize) it.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the status quo doesn't work for a group of people doesn't preclude those people from being delusional about what is going on and the causes of their misfortune.
ReplyDeleteso you favor trillions of us dollars in reparations for slavery ?
ReplyDelete@neo
ReplyDeleteWhere in the world did you reach that inference?
Honestly, I haven't thought through the issue in depth, but nothing I've said suggests a position one way or the other.
Also, what the hell is with this increasingly common practice of putting a space between a word and a question mark?
LA Times
ReplyDeleteNew poll finds California voters resoundingly oppose cash reparations for slavery
https://news.yahoo.com/poll-finds-california-voters-resoundingly-110012996.html
Slavery stole Africans’ ideas as well as their bodies: reparations should reflect this
Published: August 24, 2023 8.32am EDT
https://theconversation.com/slavery-stole-africans-ideas-as-well-as-their-bodies-reparations-should-reflect-this-212128
Behind the math: How California got to $1.2 million for reparation payouts
A state task force recommended cash payments for five types of discrimination Black Californians faced
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/17/black-reparations-price-tag-california-00110137
$1.2 million for reparation payouts for every black man and women and child * 46.8 million people in the U.S.identify as Black = trillions of dollars . even Michael Jordan and Oprah
democratic party platform
what about american Indians? or recent African immigrants ?
Re: andrew said...
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the status quo doesn't work for a group of people doesn't preclude those people from being delusional about what is going on and the causes of their misfortune.
I'd nuance that by saying they are not delusional about who is throwing them under the bus. And the fact that it's the Democratic party makes the burn a lot worse. These are folks that never liked or respected the Fat Cat Republicans and now they feel the upper class left has betrayed them as well. Of course they parrot every nasty thing they hear (or can make-up) about the elite, that's just normal hating. Pointing out their delusions without nuance is piling on more hate, good for justifying additional actions that will work to the detriment of the lower class whites.
Re: neo said...
ReplyDeleteso you favor trillions of us dollars in reparations for slavery ?
Sure, it's just money. If I was relatively sure it would work, I'd be all for it. Has the research been done to see whether this sort of reparations has a significant possibility to achieving real cultural change? Will it reduce hatred? Will it inflame passions and cause more violence than it cures? I mean, maybe? I'm for agreeing to reparations in principle and then paying out over time with a big federal bureaucracy to manage it. Lots of good lower middle class jobs there.
hyperinflation
ReplyDeletedemocrats are also "The Delusional Party"
@Guy
ReplyDeleteDemocrats at least aren't trying to throw them under the bus. The ones who are doing it on purpose are the very political leaders they vote for. The GOP policies leave them worse off which make them hate the system more, but for some reason, they can't seem to figure out that they are being conned, by GOP political leaders, by preachers, by their cultural icons.
Some of it is probably zero-sum thinking. If Democrats help women and non-white people then they must be against white men, they figure. Then, they figure, enemy of my enemy is my friend.
But failure to understand how the world works has plunged a whole swath of society into a dysfunctional vicious circle.
Really, the only conservative white people who are really benefitting from their delusions are Mormons. O.K., their theology is wack and was devised by a con man. But the social model and culture that they prop up with their wacky religious beliefs (which are mostly but not entirely harmless) keeps fewer Mormons poor, helps people in the community support each other, and hasn't been warped by Evangelical theologies built to provide intellectual backup for slavery and a plantation economy. It wouldn't be my choice but it is a viable alternative model that isn't just digging a deeper and deeper hole of failure for itself.