Just to give you some context: I’m Black, my family is Black, and my uncle was the pastor of a church. It was an evangelical Presbyterian church that was very racially diverse. We had White people, Black people, Asian people, interracial couples, and so on. So, on the surface, it seemed fairly liberal, right?
The church had a lot of Trump supporters, but it also had a lot of Black members, including my uncle, who hated Donald Trump and still do. They didn’t like Trump, didn’t like the Republican Party, and generally voted Democrat.
To be specific, our youth group was small—only eight teenagers, four of whom were brothers. We were all people of color. One of the church members, however, was a hardcore Republican and MAGA supporter. He invited me and some of the other kids to come paint his fence one day, but my aunt told my mom she didn’t want me going over there because of his politics. There was even some friction within the church because some members supported Trump, while the anti-Trump members strongly disliked those who voted for him.
However, here’s what confuses me: almost every single one of the anti-Trump members—outside of me and maybe two other people—was extremely homophobic and transphobic. They were also all strongly pro-life. They hated abortion and viewed it as “murder.” One kid in the church literally said, “Gay people deserve to be hurt.”
So they held very socially conservative views, yet they didn’t support the Republican Party and hated Trump. Why is that? Why would someone hate MAGA while basically agreeing with many of the same social positions? Why would they call themselves liberals or Democrats? My uncle literally said he was a liberal who votes Democrat, yet he’s extremely pro-life. How can that be?
I’ll ask the same question about the other side. Look at Brad Polumbo—he’s gay, supports LGBTQ+ rights, and has spoken out against racism and homophobia, yet he’s still right-wing and supports the Republican Party. The same goes for Arielle Scarcella, who’s a lesbian, and Blair White, who’s a trans woman and probably the most famous example. I don’t think Blair is necessarily transphobic, but she supports Trump and identifies as Republican.
So why does this happen? Why do some people identify with a political party even when they disagree with that party on major issues? And why do some people reject a party despite agreeing with many of its core positions?
Most people are single issue voters and often those are social issues.
It’s a side effect of first-past-the-post voting systems. What starts as fix or six parties, over the course of several election cycles, consolidates into two parties as other, lower-performing parties merge to have a better chance at the polls.
Maybe you don’t agree with the party you support 100%, but supporting the (very small) party that does 100% align with your beliefs is basically throwing you or vote away since that candidate has virtually no hope of winning.
I don’t like it either and I wish ranked choice were used instead because it’s intended to avoid the inevitable dichotomy.
I’ve met plenty of Republicans who just think that the R means a better economy. Single issue voters. Not socially conservative, live and let live, but terrified that Democrats will crash the economy somehow. Don’t ask me, I don’t understand it either.
And plenty of liberal Christians, which actually makes more sense.
On social issues like LGBTQ there’s a generational effect, like a shifting baseline. I’m a millennial and I support gays and trans people as much as the next guy, but because I grew up with it, I’m not as sensitive to the use of gay as a casual epithet as someone younger.
If we didn’t have a political system that drives people into 2 parties, there would probably be a party for blue dog democrats that’s more moderate and socially conservative.
Look up Moral Foundations Theory to get a better understanding of the psychological underpinnings of political ideology.
Because people have very diverse political beliefs and don’t fit neatly into two groups, but the mechanisms of our elections lead to two parties. As a result, they select one of the two parties, even if it doesn’t perfectly align with their beliefs.
To drive this point home, even if there are smaller alternatives voting for them is actively harmful in first-past-the-post elections because you are effectively giving an advantage to the party that you are least aligned with. (Look up the the “spoiler effect”.)
So in most countries the logical voting strategy is to vote for whichever of the two most popular parties you favour, even if the reason is just that they are marginally better than the alternative.
You’re right obviously, but it’s frankly wild to see that take from an .ml username
Most people are social animals and will travel with any group that accepts them. No ideologies necessary.
Stupid people, seems you’ve met a few
These are Cipolla’s five fundamental laws of stupidity:
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Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
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The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
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A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
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Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
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A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
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Because political parties are brands that serve politicians. They herd people who aren’t political into buckets of false choice.
Your family is like many, many families in that their politics is not even close to covered by any single party, but a single issue, typically religion (and the typical anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ stance), will be what forces them to one side or another.
It’s fear of the other group. If one group tells you to be afraid of the other group, the one telling you to be afraid is your friend. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
“I don’t care what he does, as long as the libtards cry!” Their focus is on negative consequences for the people they hate, not positive outcomes for themselves. That only works as long as the group is relatively comfortable, or believes they are.
“I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” ~Lyndon B. Johnson
Why trust anyone in the first place? Mom and dad did, and/or everyone around them does. That hooks them in, then they fall for the same BS.
After that they belong to the group, and belonging is a powerful motivator to continue.
It’s just tribalism. Humans love it. Whether it be sports, race, religion, or politics.
Generations have been brainwashed to see a political party as their tribe, and its easy to overlook issues within your own tribe when you’re focusing on beating the other one. Especially when the leaders of your tribe lie as easily as they breathe.
Lack of integrity, inconsistent or non-existent values. They just do whatever works for them at the time. My parents are the same way.
My mom is Cuban. She came to the US in '61. The Cubans were indoctrinated to believe that Kennedy, a Democrat, was responsible and that his party were all Socialists and that led to Communism.
This is why most Cubans believe what they do and vote GOP. It is absolutely based in ignorance.
She voted for a Democrat for the first time in 2008 and has ever since. It’s better than the alternative. But I’m not going to convince a 72 year old woman in the starting stages of Alzheimer’s there’s a better way.
Because of overlapping vectors of group socialization often contradict each other. What vector a person is subjected to first usually takes precedent until a more impactful one imposes a new structure. People are often introduced to church before they are old enough to understand politics.
People very rarely reevaluate their stances without some major life event forcing them to. Instead, they take the stances already taught to them by others and look around trying to find confirmations.
Americans are brainwashed fools with no spine for reality. That’s why.
You’ve just thought about it more deeply than most of these people combined.
I’m sorry you’re self aware. Drugs will help with the pain, but can make the underlying problem worse. Philosophy may seem tempting, but don’t-it will make the problem worse.
Edit:
If you want a less dismissive but very tired slightly high answer: we like to think we’re conscious higher beings who function on logic and imagination and individual will and all these other strong forces that emerge from within us.And we can be. All those things are possible. They happen. But generally we’re not, and whether by structural pressures confected by centuries of authoritarianism or some evolutional quirk or the fact the warming climate has been starving all our brains of oxygen for over a century; we tend to avoid thinking when possible.
So there’s identity pressures and social pressures best compared to running parts of your computer’s operating system off the cloud and millennia of innovation in abstraction and groupthink to keep anyone from ever having to think or form opinions for themselves.
They don’t make sense. They’re not trying to. They do not bend towards justice. They don’t even know what that is and trying to tell them would be a kind of attack.
