Relevant here and in other threads.
A close family member votes Republican. Now I understand why. The core isn't bigotry. It's worse.
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2019...erstand-why-The-core-isn-t-bigotry-It-s-worse
——-
After she had spent about an hour complaining about a situation that she was stuck in, and I held back pointing out all of the parallels in which she’s putting other people, including me, in that same situation, I eventually couldn’t keep quiet about it anymore. In the later part of a conversation, I eventually asked (with a manner that was entirely curious and not at all aggressive or frustrated, which I think was important):
“If you knew someone else at work was in the exact situation that you’re in, and you weren’t in this situation, would you feel like you had to do something about it? Someone you don’t really know on a personal level, but whose situation you knew all the details of?”
Her answer was “No, because it wouldn’t directly affect me.”
I responded, “I wouldn’t be able to let that go. I’d have to do something about it.”
She was blown away. Bewildered. Her mind couldn’t make sense of what she’d heard, much less what it might mean about reality.
Then I filled in some of the blanks by saying, “That’s how everything is for me. It doesn’t stop affecting me, eating away at me. It doesn’t matter if it directly affects me or not.”
That thought had never occurred to her. After a few moments of wide-eyed, stunned comments, she said “You must feel so much..” — and she couldn’t put a word to it.
I finished the sentence, “Responsibility. I feel responsible to try to stop bad things from happening to people.”
She was, again, stunned.
After a few more elucidating exchanges, she said, “The only things that eat at me are things I need to do to keep things in order around me. Like cleaning, work responsibilities, and appointments being set. Things around the house. Daily stuff.”
I don’t think this is the difference between Democrats and Republicans. I used to vote Republican, and I’m sure that many Democrats are like her, but just surrounded by different social norms than the horrible place that I live in.
But this does explain why so many Repugnant voters are so comfortable with horrible things, which they acknowledge are horrible, happening. Why they don’t try to change things for the better, and why they accept horrible things coming from a person or thing that they think directly benefits themselves personally (like a politician, preacher, family member, or friend).
The scope of their world of thought and of care, of responsibility, is tiny.
After all, she does things that constantly make my life harder in order to make hers easier, without even thinking beforehand about how it affects me, or having much remorse after the fact. And she’s the family member I see almost every day.
And she sees nothing wrong with how she thinks and feels. In fact, she said, “Don’t you think that’s a bad thing? That you feel so strongly about those things?”
———
One last note, about the bigotry: When I saw myself as a Republican, I was drowning in anti-gay, anti-non-Christian, anti-non-white bullshit, but it was usually subtle — more of a flavor added to most of the food, rather than a dish in and of itself. I didn’t listen to Rush Limbaugh or watch Fox. The messages still flooded my existence. I felt disgust at people who were gay or black. I felt that anyone who was black was out to do me harm. My mental image of a black person was “violent thief” — and that was without anyone explicitly shouting that kind of bullshit bigotry from a preacher’s podium. And that bigotry survived through a family member marrying a black woman.
And it’s important to say that I didn’t think that I was a bigot. After I came out of all of that, I used to think that the reason I didn’t think I was a bigot was because I was logically convinced, due to my terrible sources of information, that I was on the right side of things, and because I didn’t harbor any personal animosity toward anyone I stood against just because they were gay, black, or (inset aspect). I felt that my opposition was totally disconnected from an emotive stance against them as people, and I didn’t feel that my conclusions were incorrect. Someone calling me a bigot seemed like an attempt to say that what I wanted was driven either by deep hatred or by being wrong about what was true — as so far as I could tell I wasn’t full of hatred or wrong. And so, it seemed like slander. Most white people and trump supporters say the same things today.
....
But now, looking back, I can see that I didn’t think I was a bigot because I didn’t feel that I was a bigot, and that the real reason I didn’t feel that I was a bigot was because I still cared about people even when I was opposed to them — even when my opposition was causing them pain. It was a very twisted “I hurt you because I love you”-parent, condescending, belittling, minimizing, horrible way to be, to justify myself, and to hurt other people without feeling much pain while doing so. It helped to deaden the entanglement I felt with their suffering.
And for people who don’t have that feeling of entanglement with other people’s suffering, I can easily see them feeling that they aren’t bigots simply because they don’t feel that they care much about how other people feel: in regard to hurting them or helping them. “Hate” and “bigotry” in their minds, might be solely associated with deep personal loathing — not the consequences of their actions, or the things that they believe or say. If “bigotry” means an internal feeling to them, then they don’t believe that they are bigots. Well, except for the ones who do, and who relish it.