Why Do Millions Still Stand By Trump Despite the Evidence?

[zazen]

Me critiquing the excesses of the left, and observing how this plays into a reactionary right who have their own excesses - isn’t me endorsing the right or overlooking their crassness either. I’m simply pointing out the rise of populism that is based upon economics as the gut punch, with cultural dislocation layered on top as the slap in the face. The whole left isn’t some caricature of “wokism” and neither are the whole right a caricature of some “ATV riding hillbilly” excited to show off his rifle.

The institutional sway is clearly progressive. One side clearly controls the cultural narrative that is adopted by academia, media and corporations. Progressivism basically has an ideological monopoly over institutions that have an outsized, disproportionate influence. This makes conservatives feel uneasy and want to rebel. That’s why they celebrate Musk buying Twitter or The Daily wire being what it is - they’re building parallel networks because they feel the existing ones deviated too far from their core values.

We are seeing a phenomenon we see in every empire that reaches a stage of peak prosperity of dominance and decadence. At the end of an empire’s cycle, we see moral experimentation, a loosening of boundaries and an indulgence in individual freedoms that can feel to some like chaos or “moral decay.” Societies at this stage of the cycle often spiral into divisiveness and moral fluidity. The difference is that while past forms of decadence indulged in an excess of the senses ie feasts and orgies in Rome - US/Western decadence is redefining foundational claims about our senses, about reality, about the reality of identity and biology.

Another difference is that past decadence was an elite past time confined to aristocrats, today it’s mainstream because of media and institutional buy in which then disseminates this decadence. Promoting decadence is speed running a society into decline - I”m not a doomer nor a moral bible thumper, this is simply observational and has a causal chain that would make this post to lengthy to go into.

The right’s resistance to progressive issues isn’t solely about hatred or bigotry either, although that exists in its extreme factions. It’s often about a fear of losing any sense of order or stability in a world that seems to be reimagining the very foundations of reality. That’s not an excuse for prejudice, but it’s a piece of the larger picture. When you push people’s norms to the breaking point, there’s going to be pushback. When you force one version of progress without a balanced dialogue, people dig their heels in.

 

The paradox of progressive values - compassion, universal human dignity, equality - is that they have roots in the ethical teachings of Christianity itself. Christianity introduced these values to the Western world as a counterpoint to the more individualistic, honor-based morality of Europe’s pagan past. It’s as if the cultural left has inherited Christianity’s ethical framework but stripped it of its religious context, advocating for what are essentially Christian values without acknowledging their origin. They’re promoting an ethic of kindness, inclusivity, and justice, which were revolutionary ideas introduced by early Christianity into the hierarchical and often brutal societies of Europe. These values have secularized and embedded themselves in Western culture to the point where they’re seen as simply “human” values rather than specifically religious ones.

Meanwhile on the other side, we see a similar irony among many on the religious right, particularly evangelical neocons. Although they claim to defend Christianity and see themselves as champions of “Christian values,” their focus often leans toward nationalism, militarism, and capitalist individualism - ideals that align more closely with a pre-Christian, pagan ethos of dominance and power. They embody the warrior ethic or “master morality” that Nietzsche described as characteristic of Europe’s pagan past, even as they claim the mantle of Christianity.

In essence, it’s almost like a role reversal or a change in costume. The progressives have adopted Christianity’s ethical core but shed the religious shell, while many conservatives have held onto the religious identity of Christianity but seem to have embraced an ethos that often contradicts its teachings on compassion and humility.

This contradiction is a fundamental part of Western identity: it’s a civilization at war with itself, torn between the humility and compassion it claims to cherish and the conquest driven, imperial instincts it can’t seem to shake. Western politics is a battleground between these two impulses, with the secular left pushing for the communal values rooted in the East, and the conservative right clinging to an identity it often doesn’t understand, mistaking power and dominance for faith.

In the end, the West is haunted by the very ethos it borrowed and transformed. It’s a civilization that took on Christianity, tried to bend it to its old pagan ideals, and now finds itself forever in conflict between these two. And as long as the West clings to its myth of moral superiority while hiding its imperial intentions under noble rhetoric, it will remain a culture divided - struggling, as it always has, with its own reflection.

 

Edited November 1, 2024 by zazen

[thedoorsareopen]

I see it more as the American left, psychedelicized by the consciousness revolution of the 1960s, began naively reaching for a morality based on cosmic consciousness. And this strain is still a powerful motivator of liberal thought in American politics. However, mediated through the news cycle and party politics, this can't really be stated explicitly without being laughed out of the discussion. So there isn't enough explicit awareness of that cosmic origin and holistic nature of liberal morality that represents stage Green.

On top of that, many naive hippies and radicals of the 1960s shipped off to Africa and southeast Asia, thinking that like the Beatles told them, "love is all you need," and that plus a little elbow grease would solve world hunger and whatever inequities existed around the world. However, they didn't realize they were looking at the world through a lens of white western paternalism, and had no awareness of the ongoing histories of the rest of the world. So it turned out that their idealistic attitude, and lack of awareness of their own privilege, couldn't on their own solve world inequality. So by the 80s, there was a sense that the entire movement had failed.

They thought that holistic, cosmic thinking would erase borders and unite the brotherhood of man into a beautiful, technology assisted utopia, but trustafarians reached the limit of what they could accomplish without having to turn the lens of inequality back onto western society as a whole, which the US power structure had already rebuked with Nixon, and by the 80s these idealists reached middle age and retreated back into the power structures of American capitalism.

Despite this, one of the enduring legacies of the 1960s has been western society incorporating more and more minorities closer to the mainstream of society, whether it's women, racial minorities, gender and sexual minorities, mentally ill, and the disabled. So by the 2010s, a new generation that had benefitted from this generational work, armed with good intentions, reached for the echoes of this cosmic, holistic consciousness that reverberated through the Sixties, but they didn't really acknowledge its origins as that, as they had filtered through society through academia -- feminism, critical theory, philosophy, and art.

So in effect this became the "woke" movement, but love and light can only go so far without acknowledging the darkness of duality, and it has its imbalances. I still think of it as an admirable effort, but one we would all benefit from pursuing more consciously. And one we'd benefit from thinking about outside of the duality and realpolitik of American party politics.

Edited November 1, 2024 by thedoorsareopen

[Basman]

2 hours ago, zazen said:

The right’s resistance to progressive issues isn’t solely about hatred or bigotry either, although that exists in its extreme factions. It’s often about a fear of losing any sense of order or stability in a world that seems to be reimagining the very foundations of reality. That’s not an excuse for prejudice, but it’s a piece of the larger picture. When you push people’s norms to the breaking point, there’s going to be pushback. When you force one version of progress without a balanced dialogue, people dig their heels in.

Stage Green group-think is one of its worst aspects of Stage Green and a major reason why Green tends to make things worse politically in my opinion. The left does tend to have better policy in practice but Stage Green alienate people with their uncompromising idealism and ignorance of human nature, making the left lose voters.

Edited November 2, 2024 by Basman

[Jodistrict]

1 hour ago, thedoorsareopen said:

On top of that, many naive hippies and radicals of the 1960s shipped off to Africa and southeast Asia, thinking that like the Beatles told them, "love is all you need," and that plus a little elbow grease would solve world hunger and whatever inequities existed around the world. However, they didn't realize they were looking at the world through a lens of white western paternalism, and had no awareness of the ongoing histories of the rest of the world. So it turned out that their idealistic attitude, and lack of awareness of their own privilege, couldn't on their own solve world inequality. So by the 80s, there was a sense that the entire movement had failed.

 

I think that the current politics is a negation of the idealism of the hippies.  The hippies only lasted a few years and the movement was destroyed by Charles Manson.  The current Western establishment, including the democratic party, are neoliberal capitalists in favor of forever wars to secure their power and privileges.   This is exactly the opposite of the old left that opposed the Vietnam war and the old 60s liberals who believed in tolerance and free speech. 

[thedoorsareopen]

Quote

The current Western establishment, including the democratic party, are neoliberal capitalists in favor of forever wars to secure their power and privileges. 

One of the reasons I'm so bullish on Biden and Harris is that Biden made a marked shift in policy for the first time in my lifetime from the previous neoliberal era, and yknow what? It worked. It worked really really well. He proved that Keynesian economics and industrial policy had good effects on the economy. Instead of Obama's austerity and giving in to the Republicans, leading to a slow recovery that took approximately 8 years, Biden proved that stimulus bounced the economy back immediately, saving untold years of middle class misery. We take that for granted, but it was decidedly not the standard policy in the neoliberal era, since at least Bretton Woods and the 70s, if it ever was.

Biden Just Declared the Death of Neoliberalism

Quote

“I want to change the paradigm,” declared Joe Biden — not once, but three times — during his first press conference as president, back in March 2021. Biden was talking about his economic agenda.

 

[TheAlchemist]

What does the devil need to make a deal with evangelical Christians?

-  Despise lgbtq+ people

- Pretend to care about unborn babies

That's really all that is needed for evangelicals to sign that deal with a passionate sense of duty. 

Similiar deals are easy to make with different voter bases. Just appeal to their central, heart issues and it wont really matter how much of devil you are outside of that. 

[zazen]

On 02/11/2024 at 0:10 AM, Basman said:

Stage Green group-think is one of its worst aspects of Stage Green and a major reason why Green tends to make things worse politically in my opinion. The left does tend to have better policy in practice but Stage Green alienate people with their uncompromising idealism and ignorance of human nature, making the left lose voters.

Yeah definitely. I think the fringe fundamentalists of any group tend to dominate the conversation. Like most people aren't really opposed to religion but to fundamentalists, just like most aren't that opposed to liberals as they are to fundamentalist far leftists. Literalism and fundamentalism is a mind virus that can capture any group or idealogical framework, secular or religious. Moderate people, because their moderate, lose control of their narratives and ideas because the fundamentalists in their respective groups are so active and intolerant of moderation.

On 02/11/2024 at 0:15 AM, Jodistrict said:

I think that the current politics is a negation of the idealism of the hippies.  The hippies only lasted a few years and the movement was destroyed by Charles Manson.  The current Western establishment, including the democratic party, are neoliberal capitalists in favor of forever wars to secure their power and privileges.   This is exactly the opposite of the old left that opposed the Vietnam war and the old 60s liberals who believed in tolerance and free speech. 

That's why a lot of liberals distance themselves from modern day liberalism and identify with old classical liberalism. A saying that captures the difference: ''Old liberals wanted protection from the state, modern liberals want protection by the state.''

The problem we have today is bureaucratic bloat of a late stage empire. ''The bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the ever expanding bureaucracy.'' When it becomes more profitable to manage the problem rather than solve it, and theirs a whole web of interests who become dependent on the problem persisting for their own financial needs or wants - this kills a civilisation. 

 

Edited November 3, 2024 by zazen