yes, easy to find folks who denigrate the other side. you can find them on either side. what i can also find are a lot of folks on the anti-trump side who want to thoughtfully engage in a discussion. what i cannot find are many for them to engage with.

i don't think the other side is dumb. i can't find many who are willing to talk in a reasonable way, and i think it's because "reasonable" equates to factual, science-based, logic-based, truth-based, and these smart folks on that side have grievances which are real, and substantive, but not solvable inside of a fact-based, history-based framework.

dismissing my side as a bunch of folks who, as a group, denigrate the other side as mouth breathers is a way to sidestep the discussion the other side is unwilling to have.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I’m not categorizing a political group one way or the other. I’m simply reacting to people who ACTUALLY call Trump supporters (whether enthusiastic supporters or not) derogatory names and describe them all as ‘uneducated’ - which perhaps they are as relates to a college degree. And, therefore, they are too stupid to understand the issues affecting them/our country. I disagree with this sentiment where it exists. I’ve heard it from Dems mostly but some others as well.

Happens in the LR regularly and on FB constantly. Deplorables is close enough - which I heard someone state somewhere describing Trump voters.

I’m simply reacting to this notion of uneducated equating to some lesser important or intellectually incapable people. That’s it. Perhaps YOU are interested in an open dialogue across boundaries but many YOUs are not. It’s beneath them to break bread with heathens.

By the way, I’ve been to your place. If you want to be part of the real world, your isolated compound says otherwise. ; )

ETA: I’m curious about how much time you spend out of your professional circle. Triathletes tend to be college educated, high wage earners. Plenty of evidence here on ST. Do you spend time in other states in between CA and NY on non triathlon related trips?

you're falling into the trap set for you. there are people out there who make a lot of money getting you to hate me. telling you to not engage with me. rather to fixate on some real or perceived slight. to do anything but engage with people of goodwill. most big money in politics and advocacy is designed to get you to hate me, to sneer at me, to categorize me, to do anything but listen to me. what terrifies them is the specter of you treating me like a fellow human, and having a human discussion with me.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

What?

I don’t hate you. I am engaged in a dialogue with you. Im not a Trump supporter. Those who are I don’t refer to in derogatory terms. I see many who do. In writing. I don’t agree with that sentiment. I think it’s ignorant to presume that those in this country who aren’t formally ‘educated’ through college are ignorant. My experience re level of advanced education and value of political contribution or intelligence is that it’s an irrelevant measure.

I’m not stating anything more or less than that.

Do you disagree? Do you not believe this occurs regularly? Do you value the vote and sentiment of those in this country who are not educated through college?

I do not completely disagree with your points.

However, and maybe I am falling in to exactly the trap you describe. I do not think anyone, politicians included, have really understood the impact of the policies that they have enacted over the last 40 years.

Historically trade was bi or tri lateral and slowly we have had scope creep and established trading blocks.

Everyone can see the impacts locally, its no longer cost effective to produces steel, tires, or pretty much anything in the west unless its so prohibitive to import it.

So, I agree people of all political beliefs have seen and understood what the impacts of historical policies have been.

What I am not sure that they have understood is what other countries and trading blocks have been doing in the interim.

I am on business in China, its my first trip. I consider myself reasonably we travelled, have spent 75% of my post college career working overseas, a decade in the US, 7 years in the Middle East and now in China.

I work for a company with 400k employee's, a massive conglomerate that is expanding at an unimaginable pace.

I met their director of strategy at the weekend, he has a team in London, NY and Silicon Valley who's sole aim is to identify business opportunities.

What blows me away about this the level of infrastructure development that has taken place in the last 20 years, I am currently staying in a new city - 250k people, and it did not exist a decade ago.

People may understand what is happening locally, I am not sure that they have completely understood (and this includes the politicians) what is happening outside their frame of reference. Obviously some do, but there are 1.4 billion Chinese and they all want exactly the same things as a middle class westerner wants and they are investing with that aim. The new silk road is a massive investment. Trump just announced he wants 1.5t for infrastructure. China is spending 1tn per year till 2030 on the new silk road.

I think Trump is absolutely right, that international trade has not been a good deal. It has been an excellent deal in the sense that jobs were traded for cheaper goods. It has been a terrible deal in the sense that the desire for cheap goods has cost the country skills, manufacturing and revenue that its unlikely to ever get back.

I am no supporter of trump but I think he has understood exactly what has happened and that if deals are going to be cut, the US needs to get more than cheap products as part of them.

This isn't true. From the beginning economists knew the relative winners and losers associated with globalization.

Quote:

What blows me away about this the level of infrastructure development that has taken place in the last 20 years, I am currently staying in a new city - 250k people, and it did not exist a decade ago.

The Chinese doing well is not our failing. It's an accomplishment of the Chinese. If they work harder and smarter than we do then we shouldn't be surprised that they are closing the gap on our huge economic differences.

Quote:

I think Trump is absolutely right, that international trade has not been a good deal. It has been an excellent deal in the sense that jobs were traded for cheaper goods. It has been a terrible deal in the sense that the desire for cheap goods has cost the country skills, manufacturing and revenue that its unlikely to ever get back.

International trade has been a great deal. There's no revenue that's been lost hasn't been made up for in spades. Who would produce the tires and the steel and all these other things anyway? We've got 4% unemployement as it is.

Also, the American people have seen the education and discipline necessary to be useful (read: well paid) in today's economy. And a huge number have decided they just aren't interested. That's a national conversation we need to start having.

I think economists may have known it. I am not sure that politicians took it on board and made decisions in the best interest of the economy. Automation is going to further decimate those employed in the service sectors; cashier free stores, driverless trucks, taxi's and anything else that does not really need human intervention. Then what are you left with? highly skilled, highly paid roles and a significant gap between them and the rest.

I have no idea what the solution is, but I think europe and NA are facing similar fundamental issues.

some on one side call the other side a mouth breather. i think that's probably because of the large majority of that side's unwillingness to articulate a reasoned defense of their votes, and to choose instead to discard history, precedent, decency, science, reason, and snowflakey stuff like that.

i've twisted myself up trying to understand the sentiment of those who voted for trump, whether they're PhDs or high school dropouts. have they tried to understand why i didn't vote for him? that hasn't been my experience, tho i'd certainly like it to be.

as well as i can tell, you think certain people are offended because they think they're considered morons for voting for trump. maybe they voted for trump for reasons they can't defend, and they're mad, half at others, half at themselves, for their inability to articulately defend their positions. if this is not the case, this can very easily be remedied by having these conversations with their fellow americans. speaking for myself, i won't bite.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

It sounds like Dan has been participating in the SOTU drinking game. Your point is very clear, and yet he keeps insisting you are saying something else.

I have a close friend who was probably a C student at best and never took any classes after high school. He ended up building a paint business with five paint stores. While he is not educated, he is a very smart businessman. He sold the businesses but kept the real estate with a 10 year lease worth $8M. I'm guessing he is probably worth $12-15M. Some people might look down on him because he has no college education, but he has achieved more success than most college educated people.

here's what the "other" side says. (just above.) now, this notwithstanding, i'm still willing to engage in a reasoned, fact-based discussion of why a trump presidency, with all that comes with it, is a good thing. and, there are elements of the economic plan, and the immigration plan, i agree with. but it's this, quotes like this, in place of an ability to articulate anything but sophomoric insults, that causes those of us who are (mostly) on the other side to throw our hands up in frustration. that is why you hear the mouth breather comment. nevertheless, hear i am, and here a lot of anti-trumpers are, willing to hear the rationale, willing to find a way forward with our fellow americans, many of whom don't consider us good faith fellow americans.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Except I can't stand Trump. Never have liked him and never will. You won't hear/read me supporting Trump's presidency. You just keep missing JD21's point. It seems that you have simply have something you want to get off your chest and are using his posts to do that, even though you're arguing against something he isn't saying.

To be honest, the way I see it - there are very few people here who appear to be all-in Trump supporters. There are some of us who try to objectively discuss/refute attacks from the vehement Trump haters. I completely understand why people don't like him, but it isn't necessary to pounce on every thing he says/does and interpret it for the worst. He provides enough ammo for the reasonable person to dislike him, but some discredit themselves by jumping on everything he does.

I don’t know why you choose to ignore my point and try to steer this discussion elsewhere. If you want Trump supporters to engage with you in a discussion defending their vote then you’ll need to do so with a Trump supporter. You’re barking up the wrong tree trying to bait myself or rick_pcfl

SH is right, the US is been a major beneficiary of global trade. Given gridlock, it is impossible for any legislation to pass (except for the recent tax cut). There are tons of plausible issues to deal with automation, but there isn't an economic imperative when unemployment is at 4%.

You certainly don't need to be smart to be successful. My father probably reads at a middle school level, it's painful to listen to him read something. He hasn't read a book since he got out of high school, and it's not like he has educated himself via some other media. He reads the local paper and watches the local news, but it seems like most of what he knows is from just from talking to the the locals.

He's not wealthy by any means, but as a barber he is quite comfortable because he owned his own business, he put in a lot of hours and he bought the building his shop was in.

He basically has enough money to do whatever he wants now that he's retired.

I gather you're one of "those guys" who think the President impacts the stock market.

You mean like Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman?

So can I assume that you have full confidence in everything Krugman says about the economy and that you support all of his positions?

I want to get this on record.

i remarked to something you said, which you seem to feel strongly about, because you stated it a number of times to my post. i answered you comprehensively. you just didn't like my answer.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

//
You certainly don't need to be smart to be successful. My father probably reads at a middle school level, it's painful to listen to him read something. He hasn't read a book since he got out of high school, and it's not like he has educated himself via some other media. He reads the local paper and watches the local news, but it seems like most of what he knows is from just from talking to the the locals.

He's not wealthy by any means, but as a barber he is quite comfortable because he owned his own business, he put in a lot of hours and he bought the building his shop was in.

He basically has enough money to do whatever he wants now that he's retired. //

Thank you for posting this..this is exactly the point I wanted to make. I don't know who your dad voted for, but many in this country who are like your dad voted for Trump. I constantly hear them referred to as 'uneducated' (followed by other choice derogatory words) as if their lack of formal college means their vote was wrong. They're too stupid to understand the issues at hand so fall for a person like Trump. I wasn't commenting that these people are sensitive about the name calling. I was commenting that I believe it's wrong to assume people with street smarts or lacking a college degree are somehow too stupid to understand the issues facing our country. Then I provided firsthand examples in the industry in which I have worked for a very long time.

I don't know where Dan went off the rails on the point I was making and as I reread what I wrote I'd just be repeating myself whilst he is saying he addressed my point and somehow I don't like his 'answer'. The majority of people in the US are not college educated and that does not make them stupid or incapable of understanding complex issues and their vote shouldn't be denigrated because of the 'uneducated' aspect.

I really don't know how to explain it more clearly.

His point was that if you don't fall in line with these smart folks' factual, science-based, logic-based, truth-based, thinking, then you are a low information, mouth breathing, deplorable, troglodyte.

My Dad is a traditional southern Democrat who didn't jump to the Republicans as they courted them over the last couple of decades. Not sure why. He certainly has views that I think have aligned a lot of those folks more so with Republicans than Democrats. He's not into the whole god and guns thing, so maybe that is why he never jumped ship. Maybe switching sides would be too much like admitting he was wrong.

Anyway, despite being a racist (and not in any sort of subtle way, but in a way that any one would agree is racist) he voted for Obama.

I think he basically sees the Democrats as the party that looks out for the working class and Republicans as the rich man's party. Given where he is in life now, from a financial (and social for that matter) perspective he is probably voting against his interests by voting Democrat.

No, his point was that far too many folks (on both sides) thrive on a victimhood culture in which they actively depend on finding instances of "the other" who belittles them or their ideology. There is an entire industry dedicated to finding examples to bolster those feelings of persecution and that is often in lieu of actual policy debate. (some moronic teacher was the latest poster child of this technique). In the end each tribe depends on legitimizing their own justifiable "snowflakiness." Slowman's post was a description of this and a personal and ideological repudiation of this dynamic. Your post above is a complete misreading, and is pretty much an exact description of the problem. You've pretty much proven his point better than he ever could.

Sorry but Slowman's statements and arguments here are a joke. He is the poster child for the irrational tribalist. Unfortunately, the dude has no self awareness of this, so he'll probably come here and try to defend himself like we all haven't read his inane, chicken little, the sky is falling posts over the past year. Nobody owes Slowman indulgence in one of his nutty discussions. Nobody owes Slowman a justification for their vote.

Uh, no. Look up. Most of this discussion started when someone brought up the correlation between Trump support and (lack of) college education and (lower) income levels. It's not about victimhood, or how both sides do it. It's about the nearly relentless low information voter, ball washer, etc. comments, that show just how far out of touch the coastal elites (ok, so I just did it too, but it's not nearly as common).

In the end. The left is so sure of the factual, science/logic/truth based selves, that when Trump won, despite what all their polling, all the pundits, and all the talking heads expected, their heads exploded. They thought they were smart, that they were right, but they were wrong. Of course, that can't be the truth, because that would mean that they aren't as smart as they thought. So it must have been because of white supremacist, sexist, misogynistic, racist, low information voters. Or RUSSIA! RUSSIA! RUSSIA! There was no way they were wrong, that they were caught up in their own ivory tower, academic, main stream media, coastal, urban echo chamber, and completely unaware of the rest of the country.

Yes, you did, and you kept doing it for the entirety of your rant. Rather than congratulate yourself on barely surpassing a set of people that you despise, you could perhaps aim a little higher?


Are you done? Is that all that you have? Anger spewed out in a big "YOU always call me names, but YOU were wrong, and I have a list of names that I can call YOU, HA!!" That's it? Whatever. If ever want to actually discuss things with a real person, rather than the tribe that you detest, let me know. As pedantic as I am, I don't recall pushing the "sexist, misogynistic, racist, stupid" meme, ever. Hardly discuss anything about Russia, either. Also, I made good money betting that Trump would outperform in the election. Ah well, ....

I think this comment answers your own question as to why you can't have a conversation with what I will call "the other side".

In it you presume that you would need "to talk down to" Helen Keller. Why? Do you think she was not as intelligent as you? Or is it that since she uses different ways to communicate that you do that she must be talked down to?

Then you refer to her as "helen fucking keller". Not just Helen Keller like every book or article I have ever read about her does. Again, why? Why the need to use profane name calling? What did she do to elicit this from you other than being different from you?

When you start what you claim to be a sincere desire to have a dialogue with something like these comments, you have guaranteed that you won't succeed.

And just for the record, I cannot stand Trump as a person and I wish someone more qualified had won. But I don't take my disappointment out on a dead, deaf, dumb, and blind woman.