Since Ohio is a fairly red state, I wonder if this could be a "You can food some of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." As much as I am angry at MAGA for not prioritizing my civil liberties, it does seem like conservatives are starting to notice that those in power don't actually care about conservative principles like privacy, small government, and individual liberty.
Conservative voters themselves have been quite clear that they don’t actually care about any of those principles either.
I remain skeptical.
Or, they are convinced the other side is much worse
The term "voter" seems relevant -- in my conversations with conservatives, they care quite a bit. In the way they conduct themselves (ignoring voting), they care quite a bit. It's only the voting in which there's an obvious disconnect. Ignoring that risks applying the wrong fixes to the wrong places.
Voting is where the rubber meets the road. If they don't vote like they care, then they don't care for all intents and purposes.
Voting is choose between two terrible candidates, neither of which represent the majority of any group’s interests. No one ever elected has delivered 100% satisfaction to the majority of their constituents.
A reminder to support approval voting, star voting, and proportional voting so we can end the 2 party system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhO6jfHPFQU https://www.equal.vote/
> Voting is choose between two terrible candidates
This framing makes it seem like the candidates are identically terrible. Which is never the case.
Correct. They each offer their own unique flavor of extreme terrible.
Edited this after the fact to reduce the intensity of my tone.
This “both sides” nonsense is not particularly convincing when one party literally has masked goons on the street sending people extrajudicially to concentration camps.
In other words, “the point of a system is what it does” applies to humans as well.
Alternatively, they can care about principles and issues that differ from that of the other party.
No candidate is going to perfectly match your desires. So voting becomes a measurement of where your priorities lie.
Of course, media and the candidates themselves will use propaganda to manipulate your priorities.
Right-wing media has done a great job convincing people that the greatest threat to them are trans women in women's sports and illegal immigrants.
Given that the Republicans claim to be the “party of personal responsibility”, I utterly reject this attempt to frame its voters as the poor and unfortunate victims of manipulation and choose instead to hold them personally responsible.
Most of the erosion of our civil liberties is too abstract and requires education and awareness. Average voters will defer to generic arguments about "safety" from authorities. The "four horsemen" get trotted out so often that they're basically show ponies at this point.
The Flock(tm) cameras are very conspicuous. Even the dullest among us can see these engineering senior-design contraptions ruining the most rural landscapes. You don't have to read EFF press releases or read interviews with Snowden to understand what is happening. It was a baffling miscalculation not to anticipate this backlash happening.
It's not just "conservatives" who are behind this. The Clinton and Obama administrations did their best to undermine our right to privacy at every step and turn, just as the others have.
At the same time, our security state apparatus is in a full-force China panic; they've failed to offer a better social contract. We are the ones actually getting a social credit system, without getting anything in return.