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Sam Harris on Why People Vote for trump

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
Interesting, short audio clip from Sam harris.

My inelegant summary is: Liberals make people feel guilty, trump doesn’t.

 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
Don't watch videos, but if their thesis is that dumpster is an amoral psychopath, they are an amoral psychopath. That's not something to emulate. And if you don't feel bad about voting for an amoral psychopath, that's.... yeah.
 

JustGeorge

Not As Much Fun As I Look
Staff member
Premium Member
I didn't vote for Trump. But I get the sentiment, in a way...(I didn't watch the video, I have trouble concentrating on videos)

During the last election, I was poor. I don't have a formal education(I refuse to call myself uneducated, though. Education is so much more than a degree). And I was stuck in the midst of a group of liberals at the time(long story) that no matter what I said, what I did, what actions I performed, saw me as nothing more than a subpar idiot who was just dying for their superior help. I needed correction, guidance, empowerment, and probably a handout. It was dehumanizing, and honestly, the bullying I experienced in that group(though it was subtle), did much more damage to my psyche than all the years of being bullied in school. I heard similar complaints from many who voted Trump as opposed to Hilary. I wasn't compelled to vote for him, but I got what they were saying.

As for this election, we now know what the man is like in office, so I find it much more confusing, but I will say he gives permission to people to behave badly through his actions. Maybe they like the license to do so. Though I suspect some just voted for him because they either vote Republican no matter what, or simply found Biden unpalatable.
 
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A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
People from the other side pontificating on why opposite voters vote the way they do is hilarious. You could just, you know, ask them?
In the video he states that he tried... but what he was told didn't make sense. At least not to him. Regardless, I don't trust very many people to accurately expose their own feelings. They may honestly be able to gauge them quite well, for all I know... but many often times seem loathe to be honest about it.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
In the video he states that he tried... but what he was told didn't make sense. At least not to him. Regardless, I don't trust very many people to accurately expose their own feelings. They may honestly be able to gauge them quite well, for all I know... but most people seem loathe to be honest about it.
Given what JustGeorge said above, I'm not surprised. We are taught to avoid political conversation and political conflict within convseration, so I think it's likely a backwards way of politeness.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
I don't always agree with Harris, but on this one, I think that I really do. Because I have to confess, I simply have not been able to understand why so many seem to support Trump -- nothing in the world could make me into a support of his. He could send me a cheque for a billion dollars and I'd still dislike him.
 

Laika

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I didn't vote for Trump. But I get the sentiment, in a way...(I didn't watch the video, I have trouble concentrating on videos)

During the last election, I was poor. I don't have a formal education(I refuse to call myself uneducated, though. Education is so much more than a degree). And I was stuck in the midst of a group of liberals at the time(long story) that no matter what I said, what I did, what actions I performed, saw me as nothing more than a subpar idiot who was just dying for their superior help. I needed correction, guidance, empowerment, and probably a handout. It was dehumanizing, and honestly, the bullying I experienced in that group(though it was subtle), did much more damage to my psyche than all the years of being bullied in school. I heard similar complaints from many who voted Trump as opposed to Hilary. I wasn't compelled to vote for him, but I got what they were saying.

As for this election, we now know what the man is like in office, so I find it much more confusing, but I will say he gives permission to people to behave badly through his actions. Maybe they like the license to do so. Though I suspect some just voted for him because they either vote Republican no matter what, or simply found Biden unpalatable.

Thanks for sharing. I realise it must have been hard to type that out. :)

(Edit: It's weird as I am finding myself thinking of all the emotional blackmail and manipulation that has been going on over the past four years and wondering if that is why I've felt such a strong sense of relief that Biden didn't win a landslide in 2020. I'm actually feeling really confused about this whole thing. Somehow a marginal Biden victory was the "right" outcome in all of this.)
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
People from the other side pontificating on why opposite voters vote the way they do is hilarious. You could just, you know, ask them?
I was thinking the same.....it's like we share 1 brain!!!
Reminds me of some Christians telling me why I'm an atheist.
I can get away with whatever I want....I hate God...I'm lying to
to myself because everyone is born knowing God...etc, etc.
 
I don't always agree with Harris, but on this one, I think that I really do. Because I have to confess, I simply have not been able to understand why so many seem to support Trump -- nothing in the world could make me into a support of his. He could send me a cheque for a billion dollars and I'd still dislike him.
Take the billion though, you could do a lot of good with that.
 
I was thinking the same.....it's like we share 1 brain!!!
Reminds me of some Christians telling me why I'm an atheist.
I can get away with whatever I want....I hate God...I'm lying to
to myself because everyone is born knowing God...etc, etc.
Maybe I was standing behind you and they were guessing correct things about me?
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
Interesting, short audio clip from Sam harris.

My inelegant summary is: Liberals make people feel guilty, trump doesn’t.
Sam is so mistaken about the reason. He, like most, is trying to find the reason in Trump and in the voters instead of in the DNC. He (correctly) describes Trump this way: "One thing that Trump never communicates and cannot possibly communicate is a sense of his moral superiority. The man is totally without sanctimony...even when his total purpose is self aggrandizement." True. People voted for him because they saw a fighter. Its the simple explanation. They wanted someone who would not back down.

Now consider for a second how people perceive not Biden but the actions of the DNC. It never admits fault, doesn't listen to the minority groups that support it, loses elections without any apparent ability to introspect. It never faulted itself in 2016 despite everything. Even now its actors are in motion to explain how the fault is not because of the DNC, but it is. It was the DNC which discouraged people from voting Democrat. It brought its supporters to the precipice of exasperation by refusing to listen to them and killed what could easily have been a blue congress and presidency combined. Now Sam is trying to understand why people voted for Trump, but he doesn't question why they voted for the DNC. Just like in 2016. I predicted this right here on this forum, watched the DNC unable to sniff its own funk, and so I feel like I have got a point. The DNC blew this chance twice in exactly the same way and for the same reasons. Its not Trump.
 
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