How do these republicans live with themselves? I mean, really.

[Hamlette]

I have an inner dialogue and have convinced myself that my job has meaning and I have helped a fair number of people along the way.

How do they convince themselves that this is good for people? I get the "personal responsibility" argument but they know we have to have a bunch of people work at minimum wage and at that rate, even if we could get it to $15,00 per hour will never be able to buy adequate health care. A phone won't make the difference. They know that.

do they truly believe if we don't help people, they will pull themselves up by their boot straps? And that is the best thing for a society? But those who have pulled them selves up, like insurance company execs making more than $500,000 deserve help by way of lower taxes? Those aren't job creators.

What am I missing. There must be a world view that drives them. What is it? How is it Christian.

[littlemissmartypants]

1. Public servants.

Let that sink in. I'd like to know what public these fools are serving. There's no doubt something went seriously wrong sometime ago. Thanks for the post Hamlette.

We have to stay strong and be encouraged by each other.

♡lmsp

[get the red out]

2. You are assuming they are normal humans

And have the capacity to care for other people.

[Hortensis]

3. Yes, they do think, if people have to, most will do what

is required. BUT: Offer welfare and of course people will decide not to work. Societal decline and crash. That's the basic notion.

Conservatives have a relatively dark view of human nature. To my surprise it turned out they like people just as much as liberals, who have a far more respectful view of others, but conservatives don't expect people to be good on their own. They specifically believe people will behave badly if not discouraged, that the stick is an important tool of healthy societies.

Anyone ever work for a conservative who kept the supply room locked? It may not have been only to keep others from stealing pencils for the company's sake, but also to help others be good. Instead of being insulting and inefficient, to them locking can be part of how responsible members of society help take care of others. Not that they think all this out. It's kindergarten-level morality, which, amazing to them, somehow liberals seem incapable of understanding.

A ridiculously authoritarian pair of employers, the tremendous inefficiencies and the vast sums of money they wasted trying to keep uber-control over their staff, was what started me reading about conservative personality in the first place.

Btw, they can be, and often are, just as giving and generous as any one else, but big liberal-style programs encouraging societal sloth--big no.

[erinlough]

8. You really brought back a memory for me there.

The supply closet.....the boss who would rather lock up the markers and let them dry up then let anyone use them for the purpose they were intended. One of the biggest fights I ever had with a boss was when I pointed this out to them. Those were the days when you still could argue with your boss.

[Hortensis]

14. Lol and not so. Authoritarian management has risen in business

again just as in government. It's incredibly stupid and wasteful, whole library sections are filled with books about it, but business can't keep people from being themselves.

For those old enough (!), remember when authoritarian bosses wouldn't allow employees to use the copy machine, complete with monitoring and repeated threats at office meetings? Anyone who needed to run off even a sheet or two had to go to a copy store on lunch break instead--or perhaps just ask humble permission, head tilted winningly but submissively. When I was hired to run a small business long ago, practically first thing I did was make that a perk of employment.

[Locrian]

10. good analysis

I'll also add in that that same boss may be the one that is using company funds to remodel his home. Cause it's also about what level / class you are in who gets access.

$0.25 markers for lowly employees? Lazy slackers, no way!
Company paid 3 martini lunches and business trips to Hawaii - sure! We're the job creators, masters of the universe and deserve it.

[Hortensis]

13. Yes, no discussion of conservative personality is

complete, certainly, without pointing out their comfort with hierarchical society and perks of the privileged (deserved as evidenced by their positions in society) and their perceived need to keep "lower" sorts in firm order.

OR with the desire of most for some degree of authoritarian leadership and their belief in the virtue of obeying and giving special respect to authorities, even if it's just an office manager or bus driver.

[treestar]

15. I agree; I often ask them

When they claim people "don't work" because there are safety nets, that they are telling me about themselves more than anything. They are afraid they will quit working because they could possibly live in poverty without working?

Or the one where they call jail "three hots and a cot" as if people commit crimes so they can be in jail rather than work.

It is their usual black and white thinking: anyone who has "a job" must have a job that has benefits and pays enough to buy a house and send children to college - there are no jobs, in their view, that don't pay as much as theirs.

[Hortensis]

18. And in this era, minimum wage has been re-styled in their

thinking as not what a real job pays. Teens can work min wage for pocket money, but there is something very wrong with an adult who works for that wage instead of getting a better job.

See how it works? There's nothing wrong with society paying tens of millions of its full-time workers wages they can't support themselves on. The problem lies with the work ethics, or lack of them, of the employees. We have millions of irresponsible, lazy and shiftless full-time workers who don't deserve more than they will get for themselves.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

4. they care about winning at any price. different mindset

Polarization sets this in motion.

[Scarsdale]

5. Show us the money

is their code to live by. Investigate how it happens, that they make less than $200,000 per year, yet in no time at all they are millionaires? Their political committees pay their expenses, such as phone bills and other bills. They seem to think they are actually ABOVE ordinary workers, once they get to DC. Time to show them that they are NOT. Surely, the message is slowly sinking in, since they are avoiding constituents at town hall meetings? We need to get our message across at the polls. The repubs. are already gerrymandering districts, to make them a shoo-in for the coming elections. We have to fight that. They really ARE a bunch of crooks. Just like their "leader" the flabby orange one, they are filled with their own importance.

[n2doc]

6. Hate and envy drives them

Their 'God' is the prosperity God, the one who favors some with material wealth. If you aren't well off it is a sign that God hates you.

RW Hate Radio is a big problem, basically people are indoctrinated to believe that everyone else is trying to steal what is rightfully theirs, government is evil, and anyone who isn't rich is lazy or evil.

[Trumpocalypse]

7. Selfishness and arrogance

Stupidity helps too.

[global1]

9. This Way They Could Absolve Themselves Of Any Blame And Say....

that the person made a bad choice.

They are cowards with no integrity.

[bucolic_frolic]

11. What's missing is

aside from catastrophic and dental insurance, no one would be sick
if their body received natural products and functioned the way it
was meant to function. Diseases aside from genetic origins are largley
caused by human diet. You know the litany - sugars, salt, chemicals,
pollutants, antibiotics, heavy metals, pesticides. Eliminate them from
diet and find ways to help the body eliminate those already ingested and
health improves. Most doctors are not part of that equation. They treat
disease and illness and their medicines have side effects which create
more disease and illness. Preventive medicine has roots in an all natural
diet.

I've been down this route. No more doctors for me. Never, ever.

[MountCleaners]

12. This will never change...

until we can convince them that social spending is for the COMMON good, the general welfare. I believe we all benefit when people are healthy, stable, and well-educated.

[LaydeeBug]

16. Because, to them, *we* are the enemy. This is why they need to be TOLD not reasoned with

They *like* being TOLD.

[Mr. Ected]

17. Remember when the economy starting collapsing around George W. Bush?

Republican constituents around the country flailed about and angrily started pointing fingers at....Democrats?

SOS, Round II.

[Orsino]

19. As you said: by living only with themselves.

Some nominally Christian voters have remarkably narrow definitions of the word "neighbor," and people of other sub-cultures, who live elsewhere, tend not to count.

It's tribal thinking, of the sort that must have had significant survival value when the world was largely unpopulated, but which today retards the growth and stability of civilization. They still think it's all a game, and a zero-sum one.