Thirteen months after launching his campaign for president on the promise of being the purest conservative in the contest before a large and exuberant crowd, Ted Cruz ended it abruptly Tuesday night in a cavernous room here in front of a small group of downtrodden supporters.
Acknowledging that he had no path forward against Donald Trump, the Texas senator suspended his bid in the state he had hoped would keep him afloat until a contested Republican convention, where his strong relationships with party activists would help him claim the nomination.
There are three lessons in Ted’s rise and fall. One, you must always fight liberals, the more aggressively the better. Ted rose to prominence because he fought liberals the hardest of all the candidates prior to Donald’s entry. Donald won because he was the most effective at demeaning and humiliating the leftists once he got in, and he did it more publicly than any other candidate. As Donald made apparent, most conservatives like the boisterous rhetorical fight they see more than the intellectual fight of ideological philosophy, or any strategic fight revolving around legislation. When leftists began trying to destroy Trump’s rallies, he increasingly became “our man,” in the thick of the battle, in the minds of conservatives. From then on, when others attacked him, they began to be subconsciously linked in people’s minds to the leftists we hate, regardless of their issue positions.
Second, never take the left’s side. Even if your conservative opponent starts a fight wrongly with a liberal, you set aside your differences, hold loyalty with our side, and help your opponent grind the liberal into the ground. Most ideological conservatives are occupied with work and life, and thus are conservative more because they hate liberals, than because of some deep intellectual examination of the ideology. Ted suffered most when he tried to take the side of the leftist agitators who attacked Donald’s supporters. Every conservative, even Ted’s supporters like me, saw their opinion of him plummet in moments, because we liked Donald’s supporters, and hated the leftists and #blacklivesmatters assholes who attacked them. Suddenly, Ted was on our enemies’ side. That type of subconscious association sticks in the mind.
Third, don’t seriously attack a candidate whose supporters you want, especially as lines harden. Nobody who supported Cruz took Donald’s humorous “Lyin’ Ted” attacks seriously. But when Ted angrily called Donald a pathological liar, a narcissist, and a bully, Donald’s supporters took it seriously. One candidate solidified support against him, the other did not.
Finally, don’t try to demean the act of attacking leftists as bullying, even when it clearly is. Liberals don’t respond to logic, reason, or decency. There are only two ways to combat them, and stall the ascension of leftism. You can kill them violently en masse, in a bloody civil war, or you can bully and humiliate them publicly until they retreat from the debate. Donald is advancing conservatism and saving the country the only way it can be done peacefully when he bullies liberals. The only other alternative is the respectful and dignified method of George W Bush, which basically handed the nation to the left, and gave us Obama.
Bullying is good when it is done to oppressive assholes who won’t respond to logic, reason, or decency. It cows them, and prevents their despotism from rising to the point that they need to be killed to be free of them. It is an act of love. Leftists need bullying, and Donald has shown he is the man to do it.
The greatest service he has provided however, is giving a demonstration to future candidates on how to win by providing a real life example of why all the pacifistic beliefs of the GOP elites are completely and utterly wrong. Don’t be moderate, don’t be civil, and don’t back down, ever. Always attack, always face violence head on, and don’t compromise. Before this is over, Donald will have violated every tenet of the GOPe’s commonly held beliefs, and he will have thrived while doing so.
Given his success, only an idiot would deny that the best possible course for the GOP and its candidates in the future is to imitate Donald. He is singlehandedly making our future leaders more effective.
[…] Ted Cruz Is Out […]
This is where it fell apart for Cruz. It happened when Trump made his abortion “gaffe” and I called it at the time. It didn’t matter what Trump said — what mattered was that voters saw Cruz lining up right next to Hillary and Bernie on the issue.
It was far more damaging for Cruz to align with them than the statement itself was to Trump.
Ted Cruz has “suspended” his campaign which leaves open the possibility of RNC hijinks. I don’t think it will happen, but I’ve been wrong before. If said hijinks occur and Trump does not get the nomination, that will probably be the end of the Republican Party.
In any case, your analysis was quite good. When Cruz blamed Trump for the violence at the rally in Illinois, that was when he lost a lot of support.
I don’t see what Donald is doing to Liberals as “bullying”. I actually see what the left is doing as the original act of bullying, and Donald is standing up to the bully.
There is a really great website, kickbully.com, and it identifies specific bullying tactics, and when you see a list of these tactics, it is easy to see that the left is way more guilty of this than Donald
1. Manipulates through seduction
A bully encourages others to obey him by offering to meet their emotional and financial needs. He promises friendship, respect, career advancement and financial rewards, hoping you will strive for the success and acceptance that can come through him. However, he only delivers on his promises when it benefits him.
2. Intimidates through verbal aggression
A bully is verbally aggressive in order to intimidate others into compliance. He uses angry outbursts as a weapon. He threatens failure, or uses guilt and shame to appeal to your sense of duty. If you resist, he argues vehemently. And if he feels you need to be taught a lesson, he embarrasses you in front of others.
3. Uses political gamesmanship
A bully is constantly building his power base. He builds alliances within the company and undermines anyone who won’t support him. He gathers damaging information on his opponents, or blames them for any failures. He uses subtle, negative phrasing to demean his opponents and weaken them. He also seeks to control more company resources, which means fewer resources are available for his rivals.
4. Plays mind games to distort the thinking of others
A bully creates an alternative reality in the minds of those around him. He keeps people off-balance through half-truths, hearsay and misstatements. His distorted version of events is intended to obscure and confuse. or he intentionally misleads you so that you arrive at an incorrect conclusion, and then exposes your mistaken opinion as proof of your ignorance or unreliability.
5. Disguises his true intentions and emotions
A bully puts on a good act to gain your trust and respect. he never reveals his true intentions, which are self-serving and at times harmful to others. He conceals his innermost attitudes and emotions, which are self-absorbed and disrespectful of others. He maintains an image of strength, vision and leadership, and thus avoids exposing his underhanded, manipulative nature. A skilled bully can achieve a lifetime of success through his deceptions, not just in a typical workplace, but in entertainment, media and politics.
___________________________________________________
Of course, you can look at “building political base” and being harsh to critics and see a lot of Trump here, but you’d be missing the deeper point about what makes bullying bullying. It’s the manipulative, narcissistic elements of bullying that make it so insidious, not the overt harshness or the unwillingness to be politically correct. So, the left acts like gaslighting pricks, creates a toxic environment where everyone is walking on eggshells out of fear of being called racist (this is called “ambient abuse”), and when someone stands up to them or challenges their perception/version of events, they immediately play the victim card and act like the challenger is some kind of crazed abuser who is attacking them for no reason (this is projection, and also gaslighting).
Abusers always do this. For example, a person who is lying HAS to claim that it’s the other person, the one telling the truth, who is lying. This creates a false symmetry where bystanders cannot tell whose version of events is correct – it just looks like both people might be lying, or both people could be genuinely convinced that their version of events is true, so to outsiders, it just looks like a random disagreement or a case of. All the liar has to do is have a good enough poker face and he can accomplish this false symmetry.
When the left bullies conservatives and anyone who disagrees with their grandiose worldview, they accuse them of being bullies. Doing this is always in the best interests of the bully. Think about it – when someone is bullying you and harassing you, they want any possible outsiders who happen to stumble on the situation to see it as an honest disagreement between two people who both have their own version of events, but in reality, the bully is harrassing and the other person just wants to be left alone. The whole point for the bully is to control information and to CONFUSE everybody about what’s going on. Normal people use speech and conversation to clarify things, to make them easier to understand, whereas abusers want to confuse everyone and create ambiguity in everyone’s minds about what’s really happening. (think of the left intentionally throwing red herrings into every conversation just to derail it and to confuse people with irrelevant information – Chomsky is the master at this tactic).
The reason they do this is because their entire existence depends on other people being confused about what’s really going on – it depends on ambiguity. Evil people need others to be confused and to be unable to differentiate between abusive behaviors and normal behaviors (as in, they want people to see abuse as just a normal disagreement between two people). If people were actually good at recognizing abusive tactics and behaviors, the abusers would have a much more difficult time finding victims. So instead, they want people NOT to be good at recognizing abuse, so that they can make it look like anyone who claims that their behavior is abusive is just experiencing a misunderstanding or a normal disagreement.
Think of the way this relates to the left’s attempts to dissolve the moral fabric of our society and to create a situation where people don’t really believe in right and wrong anymore. They think everything is just “different” and one person has one approach to life while another person has another approach, and there’s no such thing as morality. So, they introduce all of this sex-positive, pro-gay, pro-kink, pro-bdsm stuff that treats sexual deviants as cute alternative lifestyles and teaches everyone to “not judge” anyone. Instead of seeing clear right and wrong, they to tell us that abusive relationships that are inherent in BDSM and kink culture are actually “alternative lifestyles” and that people who think of it as “wrong” are big meanies who can’t handle diversity.
Once you add ambiguity to a situation that should otherwise be morally clear, you can take advantage of that ambiguity, which is what the left does. Think of all the perverts who love the fact that more and more young people are brought up to think BDSM is a fun, exciting option. They get a lot more eager victims for feed their addiction to destroying the lives of young girls. They get to get laid, they get to get their dicks sucked, etc. None of this would be possible without first introducing a lot of ambiguity into people’s ideas about morality, and getting people to believe that there’s no right and wrong, just “different”.
Donald Trump is not disguising his true intentions or emotions, he is not being manipulative the way the left is. He isn’t gaslighting the nation like the left is doing when they claim that Donald Trump was the cause of the violence at the Chicago rally, or at any of his events. Donald Trump is calling out the gaslighting, the abusive behavior of political correctness – he is standing up to it. Just because he is being firm and is not afraid to be harsh or to outright insult his targets does not automatically make his behavior “bullying”. Bullying is a specific thing, and it’s what the left is doing, not what Donald Trump is doing.
I do agree with the premise that being extremely firm with these fuckers is the ONLY way. Glad that voters seem to agree.
I don’t see what Donald is doing to Liberals as “bullying”. I actually see what the left is doing as the original act of bullying, and Donald is standing up to the bully.
There is a really great website, kickbully.com, and it identifies specific bullying tactics, and when you see a list of these tactics, it is easy to see that the left is way more guilty of this than Donald
1. Manipulates through seduction
A bully encourages others to obey him by offering to meet their emotional and financial needs. He promises friendship, respect, career advancement and financial rewards, hoping you will strive for the success and acceptance that can come through him. However, he only delivers on his promises when it benefits him.
2. Intimidates through verbal aggression
A bully is verbally aggressive in order to intimidate others into compliance. He uses angry outbursts as a weapon. He threatens failure, or uses guilt and shame to appeal to your sense of duty. If you resist, he argues vehemently. And if he feels you need to be taught a lesson, he embarrasses you in front of others.
3. Uses political gamesmanship
A bully is constantly building his power base. He builds alliances within the company and undermines anyone who won’t support him. He gathers damaging information on his opponents, or blames them for any failures. He uses subtle, negative phrasing to demean his opponents and weaken them. He also seeks to control more company resources, which means fewer resources are available for his rivals.
4. Plays mind games to distort the thinking of others
A bully creates an alternative reality in the minds of those around him. He keeps people off-balance through half-truths, hearsay and misstatements. His distorted version of events is intended to obscure and confuse. or he intentionally misleads you so that you arrive at an incorrect conclusion, and then exposes your mistaken opinion as proof of your ignorance or unreliability.
5. Disguises his true intentions and emotions
A bully puts on a good act to gain your trust and respect. he never reveals his true intentions, which are self-serving and at times harmful to others. He conceals his innermost attitudes and emotions, which are self-absorbed and disrespectful of others. He maintains an image of strength, vision and leadership, and thus avoids exposing his underhanded, manipulative nature. A skilled bully can achieve a lifetime of success through his deceptions, not just in a typical workplace, but in entertainment, media and politics.
___________________________________________________
Of course, you can look at “building political base” and being harsh to critics and see a lot of Trump here, but you’d be missing the deeper point about what makes bullying bullying. It’s the manipulative, narcissistic elements of bullying that make it so insidious, not the overt harshness or the unwillingness to be politically correct. So, the left acts like gaslighting pricks, creates a toxic environment where everyone is walking on eggshells out of fear of being called racist (this is called “ambient abuse”), and when someone stands up to them or challenges their perception/version of events, they immediately play the victim card and act like the challenger is some kind of crazed abuser who is attacking them for no reason (this is projection, and also gaslighting).
Abusers always do this. For example, a person who is lying HAS to claim that it’s the other person, the one telling the truth, who is lying. This creates a false symmetry where bystanders cannot tell whose version of events is correct – it just looks like both people might be lying, or both people could be genuinely convinced that their version of events is true, so to outsiders, it just looks like a random disagreement or a case of. All the liar has to do is have a good enough poker face and he can accomplish this false symmetry.
When the left bullies conservatives and anyone who disagrees with their grandiose worldview, they accuse them of being bullies. Doing this is always in the best interests of the bully. Think about it – when someone is bullying you and harassing you, they want any possible outsiders who happen to stumble on the situation to see it as an honest disagreement between two people who both have their own version of events, but in reality, the bully is harrassing and the other person just wants to be left alone. The whole point for the bully is to control information and to CONFUSE everybody about what’s going on. Normal people use speech and conversation to clarify things, to make them easier to understand, whereas abusers want to confuse everyone and create ambiguity in everyone’s minds about what’s really happening. (think of the left intentionally throwing red herrings into every conversation just to derail it and to confuse people with irrelevant information – Chomsky is the master at this tactic).
The reason they do this is because their entire existence depends on other people being confused about what’s really going on – it depends on ambiguity. Evil people need others to be confused and to be unable to differentiate between abusive behaviors and normal behaviors (as in, they want people to see abuse as just a normal disagreement between two people). If people were actually good at recognizing abusive tactics and behaviors, the abusers would have a much more difficult time finding victims. So instead, they want people NOT to be good at recognizing abuse, so that they can make it look like anyone who claims that their behavior is abusive is just experiencing a misunderstanding or a normal disagreement.
Think of the way this relates to the left’s attempts to dissolve the moral fabric of our society and to create a situation where people don’t really believe in right and wrong anymore. They think everything is just “different” and one person has one approach to life while another person has another approach, and there’s no such thing as morality. So, they introduce all of this sex-positive, pro-gay, pro-kink, pro-bdsm stuff that treats sexual deviants as cute alternative lifestyles and teaches everyone to “not judge” anyone. Instead of seeing clear right and wrong, they to tell us that abusive relationships that are inherent in BDSM and kink culture are actually “alternative lifestyles” and that people who think of it as “wrong” are big meanies who can’t handle diversity.
Once you add ambiguity to a situation that should otherwise be morally clear, you can take advantage of that ambiguity, which is what the left does. Think of all the perverts who love the fact that more and more young people are brought up to think BDSM is a fun, exciting option. They get a lot more eager victims for feed their addiction to destroying the lives of young girls. They get to get laid, they get to get their dicks sucked, etc. None of this would be possible without first introducing a lot of ambiguity into people’s ideas about morality, and getting people to believe that there’s no right and wrong, just “different”.
Donald Trump is not disguising his true intentions or emotions, he is not being manipulative the way the left is. He isn’t gaslighting the nation like the left is doing when they claim that Donald Trump was the cause of the violence at the Chicago rally, or at any of his events. Donald Trump is calling out the gaslighting, the abusive behavior of political correctness – he is standing up to it. Just because he is being firm and is not afraid to be harsh or to outright insult his targets does not automatically make his behavior “bullying”. Bullying is a specific thing, and it’s what the left is doing, not what Donald Trump is doing.
I do agree with the premise that being extremely firm with these fuckers is the ONLY way. Glad that voters seem to agree.
OT, https://twitter.com/vdare/status/727944239800193026
Can you do Elizabeth Warren’s two faces? Fascinating stuff.
Provocative thoughts AC. It reminds me of Vox Day’s recent interview with Stefan Molyneux where he pointed out that the worst possible thing the leftist parties in Europe could do for themselves now is to win, because winning means crushing the right-leaning parties that just want to cut immigrant welfare, or at worst deport them. If that happens, then it merely paves the way for actual Nazis to take power, in other words the ones that want to kill and destroy foreigners.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
–John F. Kennedy
I notice quite a few cucks are already blaming Trump for the economy crashing.
Gotta deploy that meme quickly, I guess.
Cruz didn’t actually fight progressives. He staged a few smoke and mirror shows, but they were just light and noise. Since his election he has been a stalking horse to try and con traditional Americans.
Most ideological conservatives are occupied with work and life, and thus are conservative more because they hate liberals, than because of some deep intellectual examination of the ideology
???
Most ideological conservatives….deep intellectual examination of the ideology….???
I think the motivator is hatred. I don’t think most have read texts on it by Locke or the Federalist Papers, or studied the history of the movement. I think what drives them is a hatred of people like Clinton and Pelosi. From there, they adopt the positions because they are appealing, but that appeal isn’t the primary motivator.
No, conservatism and liberalism aren’t instinctual, they most certainly are intellectual. You’re telling us that a person may be conservative simply by hating public liberal figures. I do not agree. I think that is absurd.
Furthermore, you seem to be saying that Trump is a powerful candidate capable of defeating Hillary. Again you are espousing incongruous nonsense. Do you really believe that a man who has never set foot in Capitol Hill is going to get elected? Donald Trump took out the entire GOP establishment because the GOP establishment has pandered to ignorant and hateful simpletons for decades and are simply reaping what they have sown.
One further thing to consider beyond the hyperbole: Bernie Sanders has always had more electoral votes than Donald Trump. That’s right, Sanders has had more political clout than Trump since, well, since forever!
You cannot hold a position based on hatred and expect to get anywhere. Thank you for the exchange; I appreciate your time.
So, in other words, there are no smart conservatives? If ideology were right/wrong, or intellectual, you would see all the smart people in one party, and all the dumb people in the other. Poor rural folk would vote for the welfare state, and taking money from the rich. Sexual behavior wouldn’t be linked to it, nor would rearing urges. Liberalism/Conservatism is r/K reproductive strategies.
As for Bernie’s brilliance, it won’t do him much good. He is going to lose to a woman who repulses most people and who has no chance of being elected.
When Trump is sworn in, I want you to ask yourself if you might not be as smart as you thought, and if by extension, liberals might not be the smart ones.
No, I am not saying that there are no smart conservatives; but I am saying that there are plenty of idiots in this country and they’re in the pocket of the right. Essentially most of the really vial ignoramuses that make decisions based on guttural emotions (such as hatred) are in the Republican Party. I am saying Trump’s position has been propelled by the abundance of these simpletons. What do they think is going to happen if Trump is elected? They behave is if they are going to win the lottery or something! Anybody that believes a wall at the Mexican border will stop the assault of illegal aliens is not only ridiculous, but also fiscally irresponsible – a genuine offence to true Republican principles. (Illegal aliens, by the way, are chiefly people that arrive here legally but overstay their visas. A wall will not stop that.)
I really can’t address your remarks about poor rural folk and the welfare state because I do not understand your point. Who are the people that take money from the rich? I do not know – but I can tell you a fact that the blue states give more than they receive while the red states rely on these federal funds. Sexual behavior, rearing urges (wtf?) or r/K reproductive strategies (really?) – these appear to be no more than the right’s incessant pandering to nitwits! But perhaps you’ll enlighten me as to what those latter two phrases mean; do not take offence!
Again, Donald Trump has never so much as stepped foot inside the Capitol building! Hillary Clinton spent eight years in the senate followed by four as Secretary of State. You remind us that people hate Hillary Clinton. Why? At least she has a track record that you can criticize! What does Donald Trump have, a bad attitude and a narcissistic personality disorder?
The smart people in the Republican Party have disavowed Donald Trump. Only the bush-league thinkers that believe more guns will diminish violence are in his corner.
“I am saying that there are plenty of idiots in this country and they’re in the pocket of the right.”
You mean like Black Lives Matters, Occupy Wall Street, or the chick who said gleefully, Obama would give her money, and when asked where it would come from said, “I don’t know… His Stash?” Once you corner the low-IQ welfareites as a voter block you lose the ability to denigrate the IQ of your opposition.
“Only the bush-league thinkers that believe more guns will diminish violence are in his corner.”
You do realize guns diminishing violence has been essentially proven through detailed statistical studies to such an extent the left doesn’t even try to formulate studies to argue against it? Disarm an area legislatively and confrontational crime goes up immediately, like night follows day. Legislate away current gun controls, and confrontational crime goes down immediately.
On the wall, are most illegal-alien-violent-criminals visa-overstays, or illegal border crossers? Seems a wall would preferentially remove low-income, criminally inclined illegals preferentially. That is a huge advantage.
Here is a prediction. Trump will win, and in a landslide, and he will destroy Hillary Clinton’s ability to ever operate in politics ever again. If I don’t know what I am talking about, I’ll be wrong. But I have a feel on election day you will have to confront the reality that I may have a firmer grasp on reality than you do.
This is wrong. The decision making science shows that virtually all decisions made by virtually all people are made based on gut reactions (the System A decision making). Saying, “most… are in the Republican Party” is as stupid as saying “Most of the people who eat meat are in the Republican Party.” Virtually everyone makes decisions this way (barring some sort of brain injury, everyone.)
This is a lie. Now that we know that you are a lying liar who lies, we know how to take the rest of your lying comment, liar.
http://www.pewhispanic.org/files/factsheets/19.pdf
Seems to me that if that is a liberal complaint, the solution is to stop spending so much federal funds.
Boy, did you wander onto the wrong blog for this one. We know NPD around here, and Trump is absolutely, positively NOT NPD. The last tiny shred of credibility you had here is now shattered.
But then, you admitted that you wandered in here without bothering to read any of the links of the right. By all means, carry on. We’re the hyenas who love torturing trolls who wander under the wrong bridge.
So, you only believe in science when it is convenient for your own preconceptions. It’s such a common trait that it’s the mildest of vices, but it’s a vice nonetheless.
Okay, so I am a liar? I am not claiming to be a scientist. My point belabors the claim that people may be considered conservative simply because they hate a liberal. That is absurd! There has to be an intellectual bar; doesn’t there? If you go about foaming at the mouth with John Lock’s treatise on personal property you may be welcome amongst like-minded people that justly consider themselves conservative. But if you walk into a parking lot in Arizona and open fire on a congresswoman and eighteen others you shouldn’t be welcomed by anybody! Similarly, casting a vote for a candidate because you hate their opponent exhibits a lack of intelligence or, as you put it, an emphasis on instinct. There are no laws prohibiting people from voting instinctively, and I believe ultimately we are agreeing that Trump’s strength is exactly this type of behavior. So, my point is first of all: Trump does not attract conservatives, he attracts stupid people. And secondly, you won’t find these stupid people in the Democratic Party (specifically: liberals do not consider themselves to be liberal because they hate conservatives, that is absurd).
As for illegal immigration I am questioning the legitimacy of Trump’s wall. The very fact sheet you offered from the Pew Hispanic Center cites the following concerning unauthorized migrants:
The calculations reported in this fact sheet suggest that roughly 4.5 to 6 million or 40 to 50% of the total entered the country legally through ports of entry. Of them, some 4 to 5.5 million entered with nonimmigrant visas, mostly as tourists or business visitors, and another 250,000 to 500,000 entered with Border Crossing Cards.
I said that most people arrive here legally and overstay their visas while you’re information claims it’s actually slightly less than half (40 to 50%). But consider the following article:
http://cis.org/seminara/new-pew-report-confirms-visa-overstays-are-driving-increased-illegal-immigration
I am not a liar. We can refute each other with other people’s statistics as long as you’d like while you ignore my point: Trump’s wall is financially irresponsible. Only a subset of illegal migrants are actually crossing the Mexican border and the thought of Mexico paying the cost of building and maintaining the damn wall is ludicrous. It ain’t going to happen. Get over yourself.
Donald Trump is absolutely, positively NOT NPD? Well, I will concede to you there, Mack. You can call him what you will. I don’t know what he is, but he certainly is not an intellectual. But that does not appear to be of any importance to his admirers. Think about that the next time you’re polishing your guns.
And, finally, after I had posted my comments I explored the site and read about these rearing urges and r/K reproductive strategies. What this hell is this, one of those morning radio comedy shows?
To be clear, the point was their prime motivator to vote was hate for liberals.
The Arizona shooter didn’t hate per se, he was delusional. Mental illness has nothing to do with ideology.
But conservatism is an instinct, designed to adapt an individual to an environment of limited resources. As such, it develops the brain to be triggered by behaviors not conducive to surviving a shortage and producing the fittest children possible. That pushes toward behaviors that offer benefit in a shortage, such as protectionism, hoarding, careful mate selection and monogamy, group association with success and rejection of aberrance and failure, etc.
Nothing says that people who have had their brain develop those ancient instincts must also study or familiarize themselves with the intellectual foundations of conservatism. Indeed, Locke wrote based on his instincts, and wrote in a way designed to elicit triggers in others who have those instincts. Locke was pressing brain buttons in others which he first found in his own head, and they were put there by evolution. Likewise, Locke will fall flat when read by others who lack those triggers because their brains were adapted to a glut. Locke isn’t going to be read by Bernie Sanders and Bernie is going to go, “Aha! I’m conservative!” It isn’t logic, but instinctual urges, which are, after the fact, supported by ideas that create rosy feelings.
Likewise, Marx had a brain which for whatever reason, was designed to exploit a glut. It expected a glut. It operated as if there was a glut. It felt there should be a glut for everyone. And it was negatively triggered by indices of, and behaviors designed for, an environment of limited resources. Any sign of shortage or hoarding would set Marx off, and that was untenable – to the point that even a person’s earned property could be taken by force. Marx had an instinctual molding of his brain, adapting it for a glut, and even expecting a glut, and that created the triggers that guided his writing. He wrote to trigger similar brains in a similar way. But a person doesn’t need to read Marx to have those instincts.
On both sides, the instincts came first, burned in by evolution. The intellectual supports are just people giving voice to those primitive brain programs, supporting them with logical arguments, and eliciting supportive thoughts for them in others predisposed to them.
Now inherent to the instincts is a revulsion, or perhaps less accurately “hate,” triggered in the face of the opposing brain adaptation. K-strategists don’t like r-strategists, and r-strategists don’t like K-strategists. It is instinctual, and since most humans trend toward the K-strategy, my assumption is most people who vote conservative gain the motivation to do so based on an instinctual revulsion at r-strategists. I will say I was more or less apolitical, and even loathed GHW Bush, until Clinton entered the picture. My initial motivator to vote Republican was Clinton. I’ll bet most are the same.
On Trump, file away that I said he is not only an intellectual himself, he is a genius, of a sort you will rarely see. You won’t believe it now. But he is operating on a level that no politician since Reagan has operated on. He will wipe the floor with his opposition, and when he does, you might want to pause and wonder if the conservatives who supported him to damage liberalism didn’t know what they were talking about when they got behind him. I have known some very smart people, who blew me away with their abilities. I am not sure I have ever crossed paths with a mind as brilliant as his. When you see this “idiot” do things no idiot could possibly do, you should wonder if he is really dumb. Simply taking out the GOPe, with almost no money spent at all? A magician couldn’t have done that. Trump did it with his eyes closed, on the first try. Romney spent millions, had the best minds, and was supported by the GOPe, and it still took two tries to get the nomination.
And I would get ready for r/K. Conservatives accept it innately, it is spreading exponentially among them based on traffic, and it will eventually, inevitably be taught in POLYSCI 101. Whether you look at the neurobiology, the genetics, the adaptive nature of the behaviors, or the historical record, shortage breeds K-selection, and gluts produce the slide toward r-selection, and each is adaptive to its precipitating environment.
Yes, they’re “ideological conservatives” but it has nothing to do with “ideology”; they simply hate liberals. So why do you call them “ideological conservatives”. Based on your analysis it would be more appropriate to call them “ignoramuses”.
That’s what you meant to say, right, that Republicans are “ignoramuses”! Kill them violently en masse or bully and humiliate them??? That is your suggestion?
Good luck in November fucktard!
Conservatism and liberalism aren’t intellectual, they are instinctual. Most Conservatives are motivated more by the drive to war than by a nuanced understanding of Locke, Milton Friedman, and classical liberalism.
As for November, we don’t need luck, we have Trump. He took out the entire GOP establishment, when they owned the apparatus. What do you think will happen to Hillary, when many democrats grimace when they hear her voice?
If you really believe that, the it means that you have lost the culture war, and you need to be very, very worried. Liberals have disarmed themselves and avoided military service for 30 years, while conservatives have formed the backbone of the military and spent the last 10 years buying 200 MILLION Guns and 10 TRILLION rounds of ammunition (which is more than all the military and law enforcement combined, several times over).
I’ve seen how liberals act in these situations (and I’m talking about liberal political systems). If you REALLY thought conservatives were dangerous, you would be negotiating and surrendering, not blustering on websites and rioting outside political rallies.
People make their choices irrationally as a rule. There are two decision making processes in the brain — a fast, emotional and intuitive one, and a slower, rational one. For the vast majority of decisions, the fast system makes the decision, and the second system rationalizes the first system’s decision (rather than making its own independent decision).
This is how most people make almost EVERY decision in their life, especially political ones.
Hillary doesn’t connect emotionally to people. Trump does. It’s easy enough for that first system to fire off a “not trump!” decision and have the second system rationalize that into “I like Hillary”. The problem for Hillary is that this isn’t enough to get people to affirmatively go to the polls and vote for her. Responding to a poll is a passive act, while voting is active.
Dear Sir, you’re driving home a point that I have already accepted to some degree; namely our intellect is derived from our instinct. I have suggested that behaving instinctually correlates to stupidity. I don’t know if you agree with me or not but that, in a nutshell, was the extent of what I was trying to say. (Oh, and also: forget about it, Trump is NOT going to win in November, no frickin’ way!)
Unfortunately your TLDR; tirade does not interest me. I get it; people are interested in books and ideas that validate their instincts, so what? You don’t have anything to say about why people play the guitar or study the stars. You just go on and on begging the question “why are wolves better than rabbits?”
Trump is a genius because he is exploiting the Republican Party’s pandering to people’s basic instincts? Yeah, that’s brilliant! Thanks again for the conversation.
our intellect is derived from our instinct. I have suggested that behaving instinctually correlates to stupidity.
If intellect is derived from instinct then those behaving intellectually are behaving instinctually – they are just taking the long way around the cognitive barn to make themselves feel better.
If Trump wins, you should recognize an error in your read of the world and reconsider your view points. At this point I believe it is beyond question he will win, and possibly by an unimaginable margin in the EC.
Sure, taking the long way around the cognitive barn in order to feel better about ourselves is basic instinctual behavior. It’s completely natural. It’s existential. And it’s not going to change; Americans are not going to elect a buffoon as president. Trump’s anti-intellectual charm will not engage the population.
And, sure, there must certainly be errors in my read of the world; each of us sees through the glass darkly.