Trump and Biden supporters are more intermingled than one might think based on our winner take all Electoral College voting results maps. I grew up and spent a good chunk of my adult life in a very blue area, suburban Maryland just outside of Washington D.C. Since then I’ve been in very red states and I can tell you that I knew and know plenty of conservative people in Maryland and plenty of Democrats in the states I’ve lived in since.
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See, this is the part I’m always curious about. How is it that some people, sometimes, manage to step on the brakes, but others do not? How do I know when to say “this far, no farther”?
I suppose the question is both trivial and profound; all our shared myths about liberal democracy and free-market economics depend on the assumption that people make their choices, and perhaps more importantly change their choices, on the basis of (new) information.
More and more we are seeing that these assumptions do not have much empirical support. Maybe we’re just lucky to have lived through the sliver of the human epoch when the conditions allow some approximation of informed civic participation.
The hardest thing to change is someone’s mind. Especially when people define themselves by their beliefs.
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I worry more about what this worship (and it IS worship) of Trump than I do anything like BLM, @zecarlo…
I hope I am wrong…but I don’t see it all leading to anything good…
I dunno. For me and possibly others it’s life lessons learned the hard way which creates an awareness that one could be wrong, and that things Can go too far.
But it requires that lessons be learned. Not everybody does. We all know of that one beaten woman, or guy that does drugs and they are going to die by their decision. There is no point at which say “enough” and put a punctuation mark on that part of their life and move on.
I really don’t have any allegiance to any politician or side. I have my own, and I’ve been burned enough times to know that it can happen, and what it looks like.
So where some people go “You have my vote 
For Ever! ”
I say “You have it, for now. 
”.
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Frustrating, but yes. I think regarding the pandemic itself we had for a long time 2 “different” pandemics. There was an NYT article on it this spring. For a long time most of the rural counties and regions in states basically went about life as usual while the cities dealt with problems. Many of those people were maybe kinda cavalier at the start, and then went on about their life as usual. It’s only lately in the past couple months that the surge has really hit these areas. Ironically, probably because of earlier measures.
So I think that plays into it.
Well you seem to think I am really important seeing as how you never miss, or even create opportunities to insult me personally like you have some immutable superiority to pretty much everybody else. Perhaps you project only your own meaninglessness on to me, as per my observation that almost nobody cares for you and your made up tropes with no basis in reality whatsoever are never backed up by anything at all.
I can insult people too, that’s easy. Bringing something to the table is much harder, you have to be educated to do it, so I can understand why you don’t.
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Why has nobody been able to list one? I didn’t assert there were zero, no one who has claimed he’s been the most scandalous president in history has been able to list even one. You sure has shit haven’t. Stupid is as stupid does, I suppose.
Perhaps you should just allow the adults to talk. You can watch cartoons on my phone while the adults talk.
Which is why you choose the former.
You aren’t.
We’ve listed a number. The fact that you don’t like them doesn’t mean they aren’t scandals.
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Pat is a liar, moron, coward and piece of shit. He blocks posters who make him look like the idiot he is. My advice would be that all of you who argue with him, who he has not put on ignore, is to ignore him. He doesn’t really care what you think and won’t engage you honestly. You can’t post whatever evidence you want and he wont even bother looking at it. He will only become condescending and insult you. Then he will put you on ignore.
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I think this is always the case of those who are looking for “rational” reasons why people are behaving irrationally. I catch myself doing this all the time but it’s worth remembering.
A lot of people who voted for Trump have moved on. They have accepted he lost. They may be disappointed and wonder how anyone could have voted for Biden or whatever but they accept the loss.
The others are largely unwilling to ever accept this fact. It’s how they have moved from somewhat valid or at least plausible initial concerns (did you see that Michigan change…oh wait they corrected it in minutes and it was human error) to…
“Well it’s simple you see North Korea is sending ballots through Maine, Venezuela is in on it, massive global conspiracy, etc.”.
No amount of “evidence” can refute this. These people have convinced themselves that Donald Trump couldn’t have actually lost (see those rallies!). And if he couldn’t have lost and “did” then any explanation for how becomes rational to them. Doesn’t matter what it is. At that point you’re just explaining how something happened that you know is true. So if the Chinese used carrier pigeons to drop votes overnight when Biden was behind in Georgia then the Chinese used carrier pigeons. Because that makes more sense to them than a Trump loss.
No chance. Can you imagine the ocean of pigeon shit that would be coating everything when we woke up the next morning? Not even flat earthers could ignore that steaming mountain.
Obviously it was Venezuela.
Oh yeah, as I’ve been told many times–“See for yourself man! There’s all kinds of stuff on the internet about it!”.
It’s like weaponized confirmation bias.
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Oh you’re so naive. These were genetically modified pigeons created by George Soros and developed in sweatshops in China. They don’t shit at all. They were bred for a singular purpose.
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Suicide mission eh? That’s sneaky.
Man are you guys in for a surprise. It’s never too late to pull your head out of the sand brothers.
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Oh you don’t have to tell me. Just wait until that footage of North Korea delivering ballots through the harbors of Maine comes out! And the Dems were so sneaky to only use those ballots in a handful of states and not use any of them to build a lead in the house or take the Senate.
It was simply brilliant. It’s actually on Hunter Biden’s extra secret third laptop that he only used to communicate with Kim Jong and Soros!
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If I had a dollar for every “Do your own research!”
How exactly does one do their own research about vaccines, or environmental collapse, or nuclear fusion/fission? No one knows enough about all the things that matter in this heavily interconnected world, not even the most learned. Laypeople who have misplaced confidence in their own internet sleuthing are nearly as bad as those who trust without verifying, and often even worse.
It’s why I’m always writing about razors and rules of thumb and heuristics. In a world full of information, good and bad, and no way to rigorously check it all, common sense is so, so very valuable.
Teaching children how to evaluate information is already considered the central goal of education by some in the field.
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