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To beat Trump, we need to know why Americans keep voting for him. Psychologists may have the answer
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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Its not just a lack of empathy.
its a downright terrified fear of empathy.
Because they think giving a shit about their neighbor might make them liberal, or gay, or whatever other weird connection their fucked up driven-mad-by-fox-news-brain comes up with.
Same reason they are terrified of trans people, because they are terrified of being attracted to a trans person cause, in their head, that makes them gay, which comes with the fear of being treated like they've treated gay people.
Honestly, almost everything comes back towards a baseless, ignorant fear. Mostly fear of having done to them what they've done or wanted to do to others.
This is just as false as saying "all liberals are snowflakes". There are people who lack empathy, sure. But all people show empathy. The difference is that for liberals there is less of an out/in group mentality. And so they express empathy more widely. For conservative people (in the context of this article) they feel empathy just like everyone else, except it is only towards their in-group. Because of this idea of being different to out-groups.
Well then they must hide it really fucking well, Cause there sure hasnt been any outward signs of empathy towards their in-groups.
Just a cycle of no-true-scotsmaning themselves into smaller groups any time someone dares to have wrong-thought.
It's a fear of empathy, but not for the reasons you describe.
Working class conservatives are afraid of caring for their neighbor, let alone caring for a stranger, because they fear being taken advantage of. They fear being victims of a scam. They fear being deceived. They fear that the person asking for help is actually a rich person who is dressed up like a poor person because asking for handouts is an easier way to make money than working for a living. Where you and I see the unhoused and the genuine victims of capitalism, they see grifters and charlatans.
Which is all obviously a distortion of actual reality - the unhoused are not tricksters who are out to deceive us. But that is the narrative that needs to be addressed and countered if we want to build genuine empathic behavior