No, not the rich, they aren't anywhere close to half. I'm talking about republicans. I talk to a lot of republicans on a daily basis. My family, my coworkers and now I picked up a new hobby I really like that is primarily dominated by republicans. It's easy to see them through the lens of their politicians, pundits, protests, postings... something else that starts with a p, and turn them into one dimensional representations. But they aren't. They are people. People who, but for a few major flaws, are probably good inside. Flaws that leave them vulnerable to be exploited by the Fox News's and Ted Cruz's of the world. I want to talk about those flaws right below the little orange loop de lue.
One of the most common problems I see with republican people is that they have some fundamental idea for evaluating the world that is broken. I'll use my dad as an example. My dad won't stop using Internet Explorer. I've been trying for years. I have been building my own computers since I was 14. I am almost done with a second degree in software engineering. I've taught classes in computer programming. I'm the guy in your office that you come ask how to do stuff on your computer when you don't wanna call the tech people. But I can't convince my dad to stop using Internet Explorer. In his brain there is a train of logic that goes like this:
-Microsoft is one of the biggest names in the tech industry. Therefor they are responsible to their customers. You can see what they make, what they sell, you can know how they make their money. Their product must be the best. It's the industry standard and the company is trustworthy.
-Mozilla is a non-profit. I don't know how they make their money. I don't know why they do what they do. I can't understand them as a company so I doubt their motives. They are untrustworthy.
-Google sucks up everyone's data. They drive around in cars taking pictures of everyone. They are this giant company that doesn't sell anything. They aren't responsible to me as a customer so I can't trust them.
Now, the majority of those thoughts are trueish and for the record, Microsoft is a good company and they do make good software. But they also have a giant target on them. The reason you use Firefox instead of IE isn't because it's better software, it's because all the attacks are built to hit the biggest target. I have been trying for years to get this across but it can't punch through my dad's fundamentally broken idea of what makes a company trustworthy.
There are big glaring examples of this that I see over and over from republican people. Ideas that simply don't add up in practice but are so fundamentally ingrained in their methods for understanding the world that reality bends to fit them. Biblical fundamentalism, government incompetence, fear of "other" kinds of people, the destructive influence of unions, taxes kill the economy and trickle down economics. These are some examples. There are many more. They lead to a lot of evil in the world and I am not trying to excuse that. But there have been a number of diaries about, "how bad republicans are," and I wanted to talk about the why. There are a lot of republicans who this doesn't describe. Who really are just greedy or hateful. I wouldn't blame anyone who has been on the other end of that for lumping them all together.
My parents both worry about the world that my sister and I live in. They remember a time when a good education got you a job that turned into a career that you could support a family with. They don't know what went wrong because they can't draw a line from the things they believe at their core to the things that have gone wrong with the world. It doesn't help that their source of news is constantly feeding them stories that reinforce their core ideas and fears. I don't know what it would take to break those core ideas but I feel that the conversations would be too painful to have. So I just avoid that last step. The one that goes from agreeing with, "the debt is a huge problem and the only ways out are default, hyper inflation or giant taxes that would kill the economy," to, "raising taxes on the rich and the corporations might help the economy." That statement would snake down and violate any number of core beliefs that are simply not up for debate in their world view. It would take hours to hash that fight out and even if I won the argument, like I have so many times with Internet Explorer, it probably still wouldn't change their minds.
Thanks for reading all, sorry it got a bit long but I wanted to get that out.
Edit: Removed by popular demand.