Comment by skybrian
12 days ago
If you’re sure you already know what other people think, I guess there’s not much point in asking them their opinions? You’re not going to listen to their answers anyway.
All you really want to know is what category to put them in.
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> Voting for Donald Trump is unarguably an evil action in my book.
I'm not sure why I'm bothering, but I'll bite.
I didn't vote for the guy, don't like the guy, never have.
Trying to understand _why_ people _did_ vote for him is much more important than declaring half the country (really like 30-35% of the country, more people didn't vote than did vote for a specific candidate) evil.
If we need to assign blame, Biden should have dropped out long before he did so the democrats could have found their next Obama, or something.
Or maybe, just maybe, people were desperate for a change and they were manipulated into a false sense of illogical hope.
The question is, why did they need hope? What was so wrong, in their mind, that we all ended up here?
Or, just declare them evil and hold a useless sense of moral superiority. This solves nothing, but I suppose it makes you feel better.
I’m not I the states and only see America through the media and social media like this.
You ask why did they need hope, do you have an answer why did they need hope? What’s so bad in America that people could be manipulated as you put it.
It feels a like a repeat of Brexit, where people vote against there own material gains to punish others because that’s the quickest high they can get https://youtu.be/GPgatTnVvVY
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Most Trump supporters are pretty explicit that making people like me feel bad is their primary goal. There's a lot who just want Mass Deportations Now, and a handful of hard single-issue voters on something or another, but the cruelty is the most common thread. The Republican party is right now selling official merchandise (https://shop.gop.com/products/liberal-tears-mug) celebrating the fact that they've successfully upset me.
Why should I believe that they're disguising some secret, more sympathetic motivation? I spent a long time hoping that was the case, because I don't want to believe that so many people favor inflicting harm for its own sake, but there's a point where trying to understand someone in terms I find reasonable becomes falsely putting my own ideas in their mouth.
Or... Trump isn't evil, he loves America and is doing the things he said the President should do since the 1980s. People who blanket think Trump is evil are victims of propaganda. People who voted for him are the ones paying attention.
Trump on Oprah in 1988 https://youtu.be/SEPs17_AkTI?si=odkWs3urOu0xq2nX
I'm not voxl, but I do want to point out that he didn't declare anyone evil. He declared an action evil (the action of voting for Donald Trump).
That's an important distinction to me because I believe people can change and start choosing better actions.
But, a whole lot of people haven't changed, still support Trump, and until that changes, those people are dangerous.
And sure, we can empathize with the reasons that got them to do that, but it doesn't follow that we should just pretend what they did was okay, especially is they continue to do harmful things.
I said it was an evil action, I didn't call them evil. This is the standard essentialism fallacy of morality. Doing an evil thing does not make your inherently evil. Holding slaves in 1800s is evil, but I don't think the people are inherently evil.
I have a pretty good understanding of why people didn't vote, the block I care about a lot more. The people that did vote for Trump specifically either are ride or die conservative, fell victim to misinformation, or are otherwise uneducated.
Trying to say that Biden and the DNC is "too blame" for someone picking a president that is happy sending citizens to an El Salvador prison is something. I expect a bit more from the electorate myself, and think they should take some accountability for their own mistakes.
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