What’s weird is he’s the ceo of replit.
Replit’s product is a website where you can write a snippet of code and run it without having to install anything. An activity that human developers would do to test out something.
So if his prediction comes true, his product will lose all value.
Brand that old uncool politicians go on tv and beg people to buy.
Good thing American consumers love desperation.
It’s the problem that reality is more complicated than the simplified version trump gives his followers.
If you don’t know how something works and someone very confidently tells you how it works and it sorta maps onto familiar concepts, boy is that catnip.
Maybe all the countries are just sitting around like people and Canada is like a guy buying our stuff and we are just making that guy pay a tax. I’m a guy, I pay taxes, sucks to be that guy but probably rules to be the guy getting the tax revenue, and now trump made that us, awesome!!!
Transmitting this wrong idea is fast because it maps onto their lived experiences. It’s easy for them to conceptualize Canada as a single monolithic entity that is buying shit and having to pay a tax. So in one stroke they get a double dopamine hit.
So here you come to explain, “that’s not how any of this works” Canada isn’t one entity, it’s many. Sure the tariff is on their stuff, but it’s paid by the person buying it, us. And you can go on about all the ways they are wrong but you are threatening the fact that they are not dumb and they already understand this and their understanding means they are winning. So you want them to admit they are dumb and getting fucked and that’s a hard sale.
This is the real danger of hypernormalization, it allows people like trump to replace the complexity of reality with a fake but simpler version. And it’s so dangerous because the people that buy in to that fake but simpler version have this weird insane incentive to defend it.
It depends.
When the group hurts you through its own incompetence, you can land in hard times and still believe the ideals of that group. The ability for people to rationalize things is incredibly powerful.
Now let’s say that the trump supporter is ready to no longer support trump now that they’ve been personally victimized. Where they end up can be a massive spectrum. Cult followers tend to idolize and forge parasocial relationships with their cult leader.
You might think that you are seeing them reject trumpism and all it stands for, when in reality it’s much closer to someone feeling betrayed by someone they believed they had a close personal relationship with. Their rejection of the cult has nothing to do with what the cult believes, but comes from a reaction to a feeling of betrayal by the beloved cult figure.
In that case the fertile ground to win hearts and minds isn't there. There are excellent case studies of this “embrace to change minds” strategy working.Daryl Davis converting 200 Ku klux klanmen is an inspiring story, and one that many point to to support the idea of embracing people instead of punishing them.
The problem is that this isn’t the same situation. Daryl Davis was willing to spend years talking with, and building relationships with people that actively hated him. He didn’t go to people who had a tiff with their local klan leader and tell them “it’s ok buddy, let’s be friends now, I forgive you.” Instead he put in a tremendous amount of effort to build relationships which made it impossible for these guys to continue to hold on to their bigoted beliefs
So what’s the danger in not treating these people like shit? Even if it were ineffective, isn’t it better to just be nice to them anyways? We have a contemporary example to draw from, reconstruction.
After the us civil war there was a difference of opinion much the same as the one we argue today. And we tried the gentler approach
As it became clear that the war would end in a Union victory, Congress debated the process for the readmission of the seceded states. Radicaland moderate Republicans disagreed over the nature of secession, the conditions for readmission, and the desirability of social reforms as a consequence of the Confederate defeat. Lincoln favored the "ten percent plan" and vetoed the radical Wade–Davis Bill, which proposed strict conditions for readmission.
Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, just as fighting was drawing to a close. He was replaced by President Andrew Johnson. Johnson vetoed numerous Radical Republican bills, he pardoned thousands of Confederate leaders, and he allowed Southern states to pass draconian Black Codesthat restricted the rights of freedmen. His actions outraged many Northerners and stoked fears that the Southern elite would regain its political power. Radical Republican candidates swept to power in the 1866 midterm elections, gaining large majorities in both houses of Congress.
Many argue that the confederacy and its ideals never truly died. The light touch, left many holding regressive ideals in places of power. They had not given up their ideals, they just couldn’t be a part of the group anymore.
In most cases the argument is somewhat moot. The most likely scenario is that my relationship (and most peoples relationship) with some random trump supporter that gets kicked in the nuts by trump will be the same as before, no relationship at all. In the rare situation that this person is someone you do plan to forge a relationship with (either net new or reestablishing some previous relationship) I think it is neither wise to “treat them like shit” nor “let them off the hook”
Instead it should be a careful assessment of what they actually believe. Do they still blame immigrants and trans people for everything that’s wrong in their life but just don’t like that trump fired then, then they can kindly go fuck themselves. They haven’t learned any lesson, they just don’t like that they had something bad happen to them. Sure give them a chance, don’t immediately piss all over them, but if the only problem they have is that it finally directly impacted them, they are no ally.
If it’s a catalyst for true and lasting change, sure nurture that.
I think the comment you are replying to is not about the unordered list — but your use of em dash.
See the above sentence for an example