Sunday, February 19, 2017

The republican voter and the Stockholm syndrome (#2942)

     It is becoming clear to me that the republican voter is trapped in some kind of twisted relationship with the republican party. A Stockholm syndrome of sorts. The typical republican voter will vote for the republican party candidate without much objective thought to a more attractive alternative. Being satisfied with what little they get from their republican representatives as being a greater reward than anything the democratic or any other party has to offer them. How is this possible you may ask? Well I have been working on this most of my life and it is still less than perfectly clear as to why.
     However I can somewhat conclude that it is a combination of things. Cultural and fear. The democratic party has been maligned as being for the fringe and the outcasts from normal society. The staid republican has been inculcated to believe that anything beyond a white, religious, heterosexual mindset is perverted and weak. They see themselves as the guardians of an illusion where we are all basically need to be the same without exception, excluding the others of course. When we who are not who they are try to explain that an objective free will society is the one we live in they get riled up and spout their philosophy with a vile that underpins their own regression. It is what happens to folks who are forced through the fear of rejection to only think and live inside the box of an illogically perceived way of living. It is not that they are outwardly jealous of those of us who choose how we live our lives but there is some repressed vindictiveness that they are hard pressed to explain, given their own personal unspoken internal struggles.
     So republican voters come to embrace their lot in life and their duty to uphold it as a group that is not much exposed to different and varied experiences. They are controlled by it and have found a niche that satisfies their need for a "safe harbor". They don't have the luxury of being thoughtful and objective about reality. They are not encouraged nor are they rewarded for using logic and scientific methods over their normal convention of myths, mores and yes, even superstitions. Rocking the boat is frowned upon and cause for being outcast from what they know. They truly are victims of their own geographical and cultural identity and how we can ever change that dynamic is still an ongoing consideration in my own mind.

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