This isn’t just a liberal issue, it’s a political climate issue that everyone plays a part in. Liberal ‘smugness’ is a reaction to conservative anti-intellectualism. When their feelings are as good as your facts, there is nothing left to debate.
No matter how simple liberals try to explain things, it doesnt matter. Conservativism has stopped having substance worth debating over when it is no longer about policy, but all about taking the opposite side of every liberal stance.
Liberals are not at fault for the willful ignorance of rural voters. No one starts off being smug and condescending to people. This happens after they’ve tried to explain with civility a thousand times and nothing worked. When ego and pride, not empathy and understanding, are the only things of value to conservatives, liberals resort to contempt. There is nothing left but to resent these people for being pigheaded and small minded. Their world views are set in stone by fox news, and any attempt you make at showing them the truth is deemed as a personal attack.
I’ve managed to radicalize multiple of my blue collar, truck loving, baby Jesus spouting, coworkers. It’s a process, but so was my on radicalization, just a different one due to our different material conditions.
Obviously, you can’t change everyone’s minds, but in my experience, there’s not much mind changing that has to be done in a lot of cases, just education on the root causes of the things they already know and notice.
When one party is telling you that this is the best time in our history, while your wages have gone down for 30 years straight, and the other party is the only one addressing their issues, but is doing so through inflammatory rhetoric and outright lies, it’s easy to see why someone would lean towards one over the other, and why they’d come to believe one sides lies over the other side. The trick is that most rural atomized people recognize most of the same problems in our society, the same way the rest of us do, they’ve just had people telling them lies about why those things are happening.
If you want a mass movement, you have to meet the people where they are. If you want to feel superior, then dunking on rednecks is the way to go. That doesn’t mean accepting bigotry, but recognizing that everyone is at a different stage in their political development, and that it takes a custom catered approach towards each individual in order to best effect said development.
A big problem i see liberals having when trying to change the minds of both leftists and conservatives, is an inability to even consider any aspect of another’s perspective, and a belief in one’s own perceptions as objective reality. In doing so, they will argue against their perception of others beliefs, rather than actually discussing and finding what those beliefs are, or where those beliefs come from.
It’s almost like no one remembers that redneck meant socialist union organizer before it was corrupted to truck loving suburban hillbilly wannabe. The working class is ripe for radicalization, but you have to treat them like full people first, not caricatures.
I have talked to my conservative friends on Facebook about their problems and their perspectives and try to understand where we agreed on things; what I found was that we agreed on a ton of things. This is funny because they would often times believe I was conservative simply because I was listening to them.
The biggest hurdle seemed to be some kind of weird mental block whenever it was revealed that they were talking to someone who didn’t religiously follow certain political stances or certain politicians. This bothered me because I wanted to discuss certain topics and politicians and the conversation would immediately end whenever doubt was introduced.
Meanwhile, it seems whenever I criticize a liberal ideal with liberal friends I would get a lively conversation and nobody hating anyone at the end. I want to know why it’s like this!!
Cognitive dissonance.
“Coping with the nuances of contradictory ideas or experiences is mentally stressful. It requires energy and effort to sit with those seemingly opposite things that all seem true. Festinger argued that some people would inevitably resolve the dissonance by blindly believing whatever they wanted to believe.” Festinger, Leon (1962). “Cognitive Dissonance”
See my other comment. I think that wall of doubt is consciously or subconsciously knowing that if they agree with you, have a realization, and their thinking changes, they will stick out and face getting that same cold shoulder from their friends, family, and community forever. Peer pressure is very real, especially in rural places where there aren’t too many peers to choose from.
I find similar issues when I discuss things with liberals. So many are so religiously committed to their parties ideological stances, that they often don’t even realize they are ideological stances, but insist that they’re just “common sense” that the rest of us are too stupid to recognize. No, I won’t support your reactionary policy that neglects the foundational material conditions that create the very issue that you’re seeking to address. No, I won’t succumb to, “Yes what we did was wrong, but we’re past that now” when there has been no meaningful actions taken to ensure that it wouldn’t happen again, and evidence shows that it is still happening and never stopped. No, I won’t cheer on the alphabet agencies just because they’re attacking “the other team”. I think they should be dismantled, and that position doesn’t change based on who they’re attacking right now.
If you figured out how to turn them (bluepill?) why not write down the blueprint somewhere and share it.
Because it’s not a blueprint, it’s a process that is catered to each individual and their circumstances. There’s no shortcuts.
It’s almost like no one remembers that redneck meant socialist union organizer before it was corrupted to truck loving suburban hillbilly wannabe. The working class is ripe for radicalization, but you have to treat them like full people first, not caricatures.
That’s not what redneck originally meant at all. That usage came later in the 20th century. Have a quick look at the Wikipedia article.
A big problem i see liberals having when trying to change the minds of both leftists and conservatives, is an inability to even consider any aspect of another’s perspective, and a belief in one’s own perceptions as objective reality. In doing so, they will argue against their perception of others beliefs, rather than actually discussing and finding what those beliefs are, or where those beliefs come from.
I’ve noticed this a lot, but mainly on the internet, especially with people that I have either a more distant social connection with or none whatsoever. It’s especially visible when talking about guns, since that’s a subject where the average conservative is significantly more well-informed than the average liberal (I say this as a leftist, not a conservative). The liberals that engage in these arguments seem to be fully convinced that they are in fact more informed, even though they tend to have an active aversion to guns, rather than an interest that would motivate them to learn more.
In-person results are better. There’s a level of politeness that comes with interacting face to face, plus some level of mutual respect and trust that comes with social connections. I’ve managed to significantly shift the opinions of a number of my friends on the subject. I could be in a bit of a left libertarian-leaning bubble, though. The current cultural climate is probably also significant. The threat of an active fascist movement in the US is a pretty decent motivator. A very large portion of liberal internet commentators seem to be unmoved, though.
I grew up around and still live with these people. Let me tell ya how they think: They don’t. They don’t even really know what a liberal is.
To them a liberal is something other than them. And the ingroup they’ve spent their whole lives trying to fit into says that’s bad, so they are against liberals and everything they do and say and want. But so is everyone they know, so they’ll oppose liberals even louder and more extreme, in a bid to get noticed by their peers at work, church, family, and party.
And of course they’re right, liberals are shit. But they don’t know why, because again they Do. Not. Know. What. A. Liberal. Is.
And if they ever figure it out and outgrow the childish mentality of opposing without understanding, they will be outcast from their friends, family, and community. And that is the fear that keeps them lockstep in line, voting for the apocalypse.
NOTE: I will be using the word “Liberal” as the US term for “left of center” since you seem to be doing that as well. As such, I’m including people who would not be internationally treated as “liberal”. /disclaimer
I will suggest liberal smugness might be exaggerated. Not saying it never happens.
I’ve spent my entire life in farm towns… deep blue farm towns. I’ve also worked in Boston for most of my adult life. I have not once seen some so-called “smug liberal” have a problem with my rural roots, nor treat me or farm-town locals like we’re idiots. At best, people thought I was crazy to drive 2 hours to work to avoid moving closer to the city.
Even when we talk about deep-red states, we’re talking about the membership that empowers and reinforces that deep-red nature… and not every individual. As such, I really think “liberal smugness” is largely a fabrication of conservatives to make them hate and distrust liberals.
There are a few “Liberal” stances that are a bit problematic, you’re not wrong. Gun control is substantially different to a person in a city than they are to me, when my hometown outsourced police to the next town over and had no animal control; 20-30 minute response times and police are not equipped to help with pest predators. Nobody looking to ban firearms is looking to create the infrastructure allowing people living in the middle of the woods to live without them. I’ve never seen a well-focused gun control bill that effectively took the tool-use of firearms in rural America into account. Or the fact that we have population control zones that include our own property, where people with guns need to be here, killing animals (whitetail deer in my area) to prevent a collapse of our local ecosystem.
That’s the type of overblown rhetoric and ignorant takes that we’ve come to expect from uneducated, inbred, welfare-taking red states.
I’m an anarcho-communist in one of the most secure blue states there is, but thanks for proving my point I made in another comment that liberals argue against their perceptions of peoples beliefs rather than their actual beliefs.
Haha, I guess I really should have added the slash s. Did not think it was needed, but here we go. Good job with the self-own I guess.
Man look at the rest of these comments, I’m sorry but it’s been nearly constant attacks on the working class since I posted this meme, I may have gotten a bit defensive. Cheers!
ITT class is created primarily by cultural signifiers and not material conditions, pay no attention to the $100k trucks and the houses the rural elite own outright, it’s liberal renters in the city that are oppressing the yokels! I will be very condescending to make this point about Elite New York Liberal condescension
Nevermind that your cities are destroyed and paved over for the convenience of this exact group of rural people, nevermind that your neighborhoods are destroyed for their comfort, nevermind that you are derided as undeserving poor, that your services are defunded to appease these people, that they trash your homes as shitholes, that they advocate sending in the army when you protest these conditions, that they themselves march through your cities with guns to intimidate you, that they cheer the corporate takeover of your homes and advocate for lower taxes to reward the corporations that do so.
This is very clearly talking about the working class rural south who are not the same people driving $100k trucks, or if they are they’re deeply in debt to keep up what they see as necessary appearances - which is again a result of capitalist advertising and only works to keep these people poorer in the long run even if they have a nice expensive new toy temporarily.
I know the meme is that rural southerners all drive massive new trucks, but the majority of the rural south is extremely economically depressed and is 100% not going to respond well to liberal policies that do in fact come from urban areas with completely different material conditions. Even if the majority of people in both rural and urban/suburban settings do share a status of oppression from the capitalist class, their relationship to this oppression and the actual solutions to it often don’t look the same - something that the democratic party will never compensate for.
On the bright side many of these rural southerners see themselves as libertarians to a large degree. Even if their ideas of liberty have been poisoned by the modern right wing, I’ve found they will often respond well to (historically conscious) libertarian socialist ideas when presented individually and outside of their predisposed ideas of left-right politics.
Not to mention that in many southern states voter turnout is extremely low, and the reality is that even though our politicians are mostly garbage right wingers - the people here are simply being trapped by their economic situation and the policies enacted by the few only further entrench their inability to escape poverty.
At the end of the day the working class rural south is primarily suffering from a lack of class conscious education and economic policies brought on by their ignorance.
Of course there’s also a history of racism here that has historically been exploited by the right wing to further entrench itself, but again the further down the economic totem pole you go the more you find that white and black folks in the rural south suffer from this in much the same way, and they often know it.
This is very clearly talking about the working class rural south
It is very clearly not, neither in the OP nor the comments has anyone made this distinction, nor have they made the distinction in the other direction, that the capitalist oppressors of the urban liberal are not the same as the urban liberal themselves. There is no one in the thread connecting the status of the urban liberal to the rural poor conservative: i.e. that both are oppressed as a result of their lack of class consciousness
they’re deeply in debt to keep up what they see as necessary appearances - which is again a result of capitalist advertising and only works to keep these people poorer in the long run even if they have a nice expensive new toy temporarily
Then ppl itt should be comparing the trucks to student loans, but they’re not, they’re defending the trucks and the people they’re defending demand usury of the urban liberal
I can respond to your points if you’ll ensure to me that you’re arguing in good faith. I’m not inclined however to debate with someone who uses straw men and whataboutisms.
I will say that I agree with you in that both rural and urban folks suffer from a lack of class consciousness that prevents any meaningful change.
I would however point out that from my perspective the entire point of the meme and this thread is to connect the struggle of the rural and urban poor.
ok an european here, country people suck ass. Homophobes and bootlickers, while also blaming minorities for their problem. They hear “left”, they say “totalitarianism”
Plenty of educated people and academic leftys live in the country, they just lay a bit low to avoid problems with the types of people you’re describing. And I hate to break it to you, but talking like that will only make things worse for you. Nobody wants to move away from their city conveniences, especially when they think the country is like a scene from The Hills Have Eyes thanks to people who don’t know what they’re talking about spreading negativity like you just did.
Country people led our (US) labor movement in the 1890s-1930s in conjunction with immigrant industrial workers in the big cities and longshoremen and others on the coasts. While there has definitely been a turning away from the left for the working classes in many places, the mere existence of historical working class socialist movements show that it is not an inevitable outcome, and with the proper analysis and action, can be reversed.
The country people of the 1890s are not the country people of today. Big city folk were a significantly smaller part of the population then, and the college educated population was miniscule. The ability to become educated is the largest relevant metric here. Now you can hit up khan academy and stanfords YouTube channel and get a world class education for free. Back then you had to be straight white wealthy connected. The excuses for ignorance are gone, for current country people.
But yes, these problems can and should be reversed, and done best communicating outside of the specific “lie-beral pedo demonrat vs racist Jesus warrior firearm creep” paradigm; placing things in terms of labor vs ownership class.
