[geedy]

> It's not a great move to assume that conservatives are dumb, racist, and unsophisticated.

I don't love labels, but I don't think "conservatives" are simply any of those things.

This isn't an original thought, but I think they are mostly afraid of losing their community if they change their mind.

Fear of disconnection is innate and biological. When my trump supporting friends say "I believe it" to somebody suggesting that the Capitol Hill rioters were antifa pretending to be trump supporters, their lack of interest in challenging their own beliefs stems from the risk incurred with disagreeing with their friends and loved ones.

This effect is so strong that our brains give hits of dopamine whenever our beliefs are confirmed. We are not weird to change our minds.

So no. "Conservatives" aren't dumb. Just like the rest of us, they biologically afraid of social disconnection. And all that shouting across the isle makes it harder for them to see "progressives" accepting them.

[rsyring]

I'm a conservative and it has zero to do with identifying with a certain community or concern about being rejected by them.

Republican candidates are more likely to vote on issues I care about in a way that aligns with my values. That alignment is far from perfect, but it's a lot better than it would be with a Democrat, especially a progressive Democrat.

That's why I typically vote Republican, sometimes begrudgingly. Has nothing to do with belonging to a community. In fact, the communities I am a part of rarely discuss politics. We discuss values that inform our politics, but the politics themselves are secondary.

I have absolutely no fear of social disconnection due to my political views. If I was to suddenly start voting democratic, no one in my closest circles would even need to know.

And I care nothing about whether progressives accept me. I simply have very different values and don't believe where they want our culture and country to move is healthy. So, I don't support them in elections. How they feel about me is irrelevant.

[kjakm]

You may not want to share this but I’ll ask anyway because I’m quite interested:

1. What are important issues for you that republicans vote the right way on?

2. What are the top issues for you that republicans vote the wrong way on?

[mlac]

Take the bathroom ban in North Carolina. It got polarized into a trans/non-trans fight, where all people who supported separate gender bathrooms were dumb, transphobic people. The polarization marginalizes a legitimate argument:

Women should not have to walk into a rest stop restroom at night during a road trip, see a man, and then think about whether or not he should be there. And a man should not have the right to be there because he "identifies" as a woman when he really doesn't and is just a pervert in a rest stop bathroom. But with a new law, it then has to go through the court to prove whether he had the right to be there. The damage is done way before that day shows up.

The polarization and simplification meant that democrats couldn't vote against this because it became associated with transphobia. A vote to keep separate bathrooms would mean being canceled and losing their seat. The republicans were villainized, but they have a fairly decent point. Obviously, no one should feel uncomfortable using the restroom, but what unintended consequences come with the law? You can say perverts in bathrooms is an edge case, but I'd argue a trans person being denied a restroom is also an edge case.

Starbucks arguably came up with the best answer with gender-indifferent restrooms that are single occupancy, but this isn't always scalable. There are single occupancy family restrooms in many places, so if someone truly feels unsafe to use a restroom, they could use those. These were options that were put into place without laws.

It's not "right or wrong" or "black and white" on nearly any issue we face today. It's complex, and federal laws, given they impact 330 million Americans, have more unintended consequences than laws enacted at the local or state level. And that's what the republican, conservative party wants - less "big laws" with fewer unintended consequences in favor of state laws that allow people to govern themselves at the local level. It's also why any vote to undermine a State's right to certify its election results flies in the face of conservatism.

[chub500]

I'm not the OP but I know several voters who seem to match the OP's sentiment:

1. Abortion is simply the legally sanctioned killing of helpless human beings. I know _many_ single issue voters who begrudgingly voted for trump because of this.

2. Climate change denialism is pretty much anti common sense. Anyone who completely ignores the issue stinks of corruption.

[mlac]

Many complex topics with a lot of gray areas are often framed in soundbites that are extreme - you're either pro-life or pro-choice. You're either pro-Trump or anti-Trump.

A person can be a staunch supporter of women's rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness but draw the line at a woman's right to end another's life. The "all-or-nothing" approach pushes people into one of two camps that each holds extreme opposing views, and it's happening across the different issues we face today.

[mlac]

Votes in a functioning democratic society are anonymous. You can vote one way and tell folks you voted another to "fit in".

But people become who they hang around. So if they are in a vacuum and they only hear that the election was stolen, anything else is fake news, and the president is telling them this, they may seriously believe that democracy is under siege.

Amp it up with technology echo chambers and reinforcing behaviors and you wind up with extreme situations where a group of people storms the capitol.

It's when people don't believe they can end up with similarly distorted views on a topic that they are susceptible to this themselves. This is along the lines of the Lucifer Effect.