The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch.
And we don’t like anybody very much.
The crowning glory of the post at FiveThirtyEight on the intolerance of Trump supporters is the graph above and this summation:
The nearly unequivocal story is that Trump supporters are no different from others, including Clinton and Sanders supporters.2 The one clear exception is supporters of John Kasich (~7 percent of the sample), who are demonstrably more tolerant than Trump’s. Kasich’s supporters are distinctive because 30 percent of them in this poll are self-identified Democrats, but also because the majority of them (54 percent) will not vote for Trump if he is the nominee – just over a quarter will peel off and vote for Clinton and the other quarter claim they will not vote. Kasich support appears effectively to be a protest against Trump by people who wish a restoration of good democratic order.
The main difference among us is less whether we hate than whom we hate. As you may have noticed just about everything reminds me of a quote, frequently a quote from a movie. I wish I could remember the source of this one: finding someone to hate is just as important as finding someone to love.
Not a well done study, or at least not very meaningful IMHO. The Democrats were intolerant towards just one group, the KKK. Of note there, everyone is pretty intolerant of them, just the Democrats are more so. (Am I the only who who reads methods?)
Steve
Yeah, that was an uncharacteristically stupid post from Nate’s people.
If I hate puppies, and you hate Nazis, we are not equally intolerant. One of us is right and one of us is a dick.
A even bigger problem with the methodology is that this is self reported. So we learn that Democrats are willing to admit only that they’re illiberal and intolerant toward the KKK while Republicans own up to treating other groups with intolerance. Noted.
I think many social progressives define “intolerance by personally setting the standards and measurements of what constitutes a moral code, augmented by their extreme imbibition of politically correct justifications. Since this group of people operate under a secular code of consciousness they first and foremost have no tolerance for Judeo-Christian beliefs or values. From their perspective evangelicals, Jews, Christians are viewed on a sliding scale from cretins to misfits. They are demographically disdained — their majorities inhabiting either “fly-over” country or southern bigot states. Such unwashed thinkers/voters are frequented referred to as “yahoos,” and not worth the cost of the paper indicating their voter registration. You can actually hear the acidic dripping of progressive intellectual sentiments towards these people all the time, caustically assailing their character and reputations.
Such a mordacious coating is now being applied to Trump supporters, in basically labeling them all as “lesser than,” essentially implying they are irregular, stupid folk. However, the Black Lives Matter mobs, the micro-aggressive-complaining youth aimlessly marauding around Ivy League Campuses, the $15 or bust crowds who want to immediately buy a home when they get this raise (not considering how they might be squeezed out of a job by then), these are the non-stupid people courted by the warm-hearted empty promises of the Kool kids enthralled with the social progressive magical ideology.
“they first and foremost have no tolerance for Judeo-Christian beliefs or values. ”
What a bunch of BS. What world do you live in? Almost everyone where I live is a Jew or Christian, at least nominally. Being in the reddish purple area of a purple (turning blue) state, there are plenty of liberals and conservatives around. I don’t know anyone, I have not heard of anyone, who does not tolerate Judeo-Christian values. Yes, I suppose if I go online or head over to the liberal arts section of a few select campuses I might find a few such people. However, most on the left honor and practice Judeo-Christian beliefs. Honestly. I have no graven images. I honored my mother and father while they were alive. I don’t kill. I don’t covet my neighbor’s house, wife or anything else, etc. None of my fellow liberals out here do much of that either, at least not anymore than the conservatives who are certainly as bad about the wife thing as those on the left. (I am excluding the conservative guy with the life size statue of Tom Brady. Not sure if that is a graven image.)
I guess I should point out that a lot of left leaning people live in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois, etc. Flyover states. And, I never actually hear anyone, ever, use the expression flyover states. I read it a lot in columns and posts written by conservatives.
So, do some liberals make fun of conservatives? Absolutely. Do some conservatives make fun of liberals with equally bad or worse comments? Absolutely. Get over it. I grew up in the Midwest. When i went to boot camp the guys from my area made fun of guys from the East and vice versa. Everyone makes fun of everyone else. Always have. Only now, the folks from the middle part of the country have become victims. A bunch of pussies. Grow some balls.
Steve
The first attested use of the term “flyover country” was about 25 years ago. It’s always been “a stereotype of other people’s stereotypes”.
An expression I’ve heard in LA with a similar sentiment and not said ironically is “there is no life east of Sepulveda”.
Of course by ‘east of Sepulveda’ they really just mean the valley.
An expression I’ve heard in LA with a similar sentiment and not said ironically is “there is no life east of Sepulvedaâ€.
I’m impressed Dave, that you would be privy to this local expression — being from Chicago and all.
Yes, that is commonly associated with the LA area. My husband, however, phrases such an inclination as simply “We never go east of Sepulveda.” When we are in S. CA, our home is on the Westside, near the coast. Both of us dislike traffic and the general complexities of a big city, including cultural events etc. We generally hang in Venice, Abbott Kinney locales and buy local. This proclivity, though, has nothing to do with shunning life east of Sepulveda, it’s just we are low-key types and are attracted to low density areas. We have friends who are far different and chose their neighborhoods close to the museum and Miracle Mile centers, as they thrive on stimulus and exciting things to do 24/7.
Steve,
You get so angry when people allude to any negativity directed at leftist politics. It’s as if it’s OK to point out right-sided defects, the racism, the prejudice, any thinking you derive as strident or misplaced. However, when comments are made regarding misgivings dealing with social progressive policy or behavior, it’s as if sins are not only being committed, but are personally being directed at you. Also, while I listen to your anecdotal stories on left and right criticisms, and who delivers the worst, mine have been different from your’s. Living in CA most groupings I’m in are full of progressive voices, and the comments made are very derisive with absolute feelings that it’s always one side (republicans) who are at fault for everything wrong in the country. I usually just smile, because the flavor is always the same, and so I’m used to the constant mischaracterization of an opposition party.
At this blog, though, I am able to take a more confrontational route, defending some of the hyposcrisy, bias, and hyper exaggerated claims made by the left. However, the bottom line is partisan extremists dominate both parties. And, consequently cogent, sensible conversations are frequently demeaned and drowned out by the extremes who see nothing purple, only red or blue ideologies.
Of course by ‘east of Sepulveda’ they really just mean the valley.
Not in the lexicon used around here.
“You get so angry when people allude to any negativity directed at leftist politics.”
Nope. Be as negative as you want. It just bugs that people, especially people who are bright, could even remotely believe something like the “left rejects Judeo-Christian beliefs”. Those permeate everything in our law and our daily life. We on the left most live by them also, maybe not as consistently as on the right, but certainly with less hypocrisy. Just don’t say incredibly stupid stuff that you read on right wing sites or hear on talk radio.
Steve
BTW, what in the hell are “Judeo-Christian” values? For most of “Judeo-Christian” history the Christians have been massacring the Judeos. So what what do you mean, “we,” paleface?
I ask people from time to time to list those alleged Judeo-Christian values and all I get back is some riff on the Ten Commandments which is itself just a listicle version of Hammurabi’s Code. The essence of Judaism is a legalistic approach to maintaining a covenant (contract) between Hebrews and Jehovah. The essence of Christianity is faith – which may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable, according the great theologian, Saint Mencken of Baltimore.
Legalism and faith are not the same thing. A Jewish emphasis on a virtuous life with no heavenly reward is not what Christians believe in. And Christ as the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy is specifically rejected by Jews. So it’s mostly nonsense to talk about Judeo-Christian anything, and it’s more nonsensical still in that both groups cherry-pick whatever they like from their respective versions of the Bible while carefully ignoring anything they don’t like.
At the very least it should be Judeo-Muslim-Christian values if we’re going to be tossing religions together, since they are after all the three major monotheisms. And if they share a ‘value’ it is surely intolerance. Individual rights, democracy, equality under the law, which your average evangelical thinks of as Judeo-Christian values are, if anything, Judeo-Secular values. The Christian contribution is cannibalistic god-eating rituals and the iconization of a Roman instrument of execution. Oh, and Christmas trees, which are kind of cool.
I can always count on you, Michael, to go into the weeds on a topic, finesse it & then boil it down further until nothing but pulp remains. Nonetheless, it’s an adventure to read your stuff.