Will Trump’s base accept it if Trump concedes?

I think this is something that is worsening our polarized political climate in general.

People are social creatures by nature, and we have a hard time leaving our support networks. Abusers know that the best way to make someone compliant in their own victimhood is to separate them from their old support network and to make them entirely dependent on the abuser, and perhaps the abuser's network, for emotional support.

This certainly explains why so many people have trouble leaving cults, or even more mainstream religions, where the spiritual community becomes the member's primary (possibly only) social community.

We now live in a climate where politically active people tend to have few, if any, friends who don't share their political views. This paper in Science "Political Sectarianism in America" is interesting, because it shows the shift that has occurred in politics where people in both parties have far fewer friends or people they like/trust in the other party than they used to. The full article is only available to AAAS members, though the summary is available to all. Note that people of both parties tend to mistrust and dislike people of the other party and to be unwilling to date or even befriend people with opposing political views.

However, I am not sure this is just the cause of politics becoming more extreme. It may well be a consequence. I do still have some people I like who are very conservative, but I am finding it harder and harder. They are really unpleasant to be around when they express their views about an increasing number of topics, as almost everything (from science, to human rights, to wishing someone happy holidays) is political these days. Thanks to climate deniers, even the weather is a loaded topic! Why should I want to spend time with people whose views make my gut churn and where I must constantly bite my tongue to keep the peace?

Regardless of which came first, though, the extreme polarization certainly makes it less and less likely that people will have a support network that includes at least some friends who don't share their political views. And the lack of wider networks further polarized people and so on.

Is there a way to break free of this? Simply exposing people to opposing viewpoints or arguments doesn't work--it simply polarizes them further.

Yep. I've wasted quite a lot of time in the past few weeks reading the deeper, creepier sections of social media, where these people hang out. There's nothing you can say to them. They feel like they belong to something more important that the rest of us are missing out on. The more reason and facts you use, the more suspicious they become. I thought I knew the craziest of their conspiracy theories, but some (which I won't repeat here, because it's public, and who knows who's reading) are so unhinged and based in nothingness I was shocked.

My new favourite is that the Washington Monument is evil and needs to be torn down, because if you add up the this measurement, and divide it by that measurement, and multiply it by some other measurement, and subtract some significant year, and divide it again, you get the number 666.

Roxxsmom said:

I do still have some people I like who are very conservative, but I am finding it harder and harder. They are really unpleasant to be around when they express their views about an increasing number of topics, as almost everything (from science, to human rights, to wishing someone happy holidays) is political these days. Thanks to climate deniers, even the weather is a loaded topic! Why should I want to spend time with people whose views make my gut churn and where I must constantly bite my tongue to keep the peace?

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^^That. ^^

I just saw this joke on Reddit :

Two Trump supporters die and go to heaven. God meets them at the Pearly Gates and asks if they have any questions.

One of them says, "Yes, what were the real results of the 2020 election, and who was behind the fraud?"

God says, "My son, there was no fraud. Biden won the Electoral College fair and square, 306 to 232."

After a few seconds of stunned silence, the one guy turns to the other and whispers, "This goes higher up than we thought."

As to the OP question, the looney fringe will never accept it, however the mainstream will lick their wounds, regroup, and set their sights on the 2022 midterm (I think the Dems will be in trouble due to the super-thin House margin and likely minority in the Senate already) and of course 2024, then quietly work in the background and wait it out. Just like the Dems did after 2016 and with likely similar results (without the Trump crazy factor, though, which was huge). The Dems can't afford to not take this threat seriously. It's already started in the Virginia governor's race.

Sonya Heaney said:

My new favourite is that the Washington Monument is evil and needs to be torn down, because if you add up the this measurement, and divide it by that measurement, and multiply it by some other measurement, and subtract some significant year, and divide it again, you get the number 666.

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Lol. I've not heard about that, but it doesn't surprise me at some level. Construction was initially stopped in the 1850s for 25 years after the National Washington Monument Society got taken over by the "Know Nothings," the anti-black, anti-immigrant, anti-Jew, anti-Mason, anti-Catholic, anti-everybody white nationalists of the 1850s who drove it into bankruptcy. But even before that, the very idea had been plagued with design problems (base was too small for the height, etc.) and the final result varies so much from the original plan even if someone wanted to put secret satanic dimensions into the design (to do what? I doubt Satan's plans of world domination are foiled by a bumbling engineer miscalculating some 3-4-5 right triangle) they would have been changed by a later engineer, or work already completed would have prevented some devilish later engineer from incorporating them. Blog-length history of the Wash Monument.

ETA as an aside: The irony has always struck me how the same faction of Christians who are the first to proclaim "one God and that's all, no other power exists" are the first to be spooked by any hint of witchcraft. Even as a practicing Christian myself, I don't get it.

Introversion said:

I hang out in Quora. This question was asked there, and I thought this answer was inciteful.

https://qr.ae/pNUZEd



This does sound rather much like Trump’s core support, doesn’t it?

I try to recognize when facts prove my beliefs wrong, and admit it, and change my beliefs to conform. It’s not always easy, and I’m not always gracious in admitting my error, so I understand how some people would rather double-down than change. But the notion that some might actually be worried about losing friends over that change — the feeling of being rejected by a close group — wasn’t something I’d ever thought of.

It doesn’t bode well for my country, sigh. Hard to see how we can unite against, say, a pandemic, or income inequality, when we don’t all believe our elections are valid?

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It's really common for people to deny the veracity an opinion that comes from an expert source, or the result of a study, if it conflicts with one's anecdotal experience or with a hypothesis one thought had been well supported by evidence.

It's always hard to accept data that refute a hypothesis you love or have invested a lot of intellectual and professional energy into defending, and it's even harder if it strikes at something that is central to your world view or values.

So it's not surprising people often frown and say, "The experts don't know what they're talking about!" or "I've been training dogs/raising kids/fishing commercially/ranching/logging/dealing with extreme weather etc., and I know what they are saying is hogwash!" But there's a big step between assuming that the experts are missing some vital piece of information or are over generalizing or that the laboratory conditions under which they are generating data don't quite parallel reality (or simply project an idealized world we don't live in) vs. assigning malign intent and insisting a huge conspiracy is the reason why the data don't square with one's anecdotal experiences or core values.

I suppose it's a progression for some people, once the evidence becomes so overwhelming and experts making a given claim become so widespread it's harder and harder to argue that they are mistaken. At some point, paranoia takes over with some folks.

And of course, climate deniers and other scientific cranks are just one flavor of conspiracy theorist who wear their persecution complexes on their sleeves. I suspect there is also (possibly) a personality type that is more vulnerable to this kind of manipulation, and also (possibly) a set of life experiences that leave someone embittered and mistrustful of authority beyond the normally desirable level of questioning things and not being blindly accepting or obedient. Ironically, these folks who pride themselves as "mavericks" or "awakened" to a concealed truth are extremely vulnerable to manipulation, both by people who believe their own lies and by those who are being cynically manipulative.

At times I pity these folks, because they mostly seem pretty miserable about something. But since it's clear they are also doing a lot of harm to others and to our democracy, we can't afford to feel too sorry for them.

Marian Perera said:

I just saw this joke on Reddit : Two Trump supporters die and go to heaven. God meets them at the Pearly Gates and asks if they have any questions. One of them says, "Yes, what were the real results of the 2020 election, and who was behind the fraud?" God says, "My son, there was no fraud. Biden won the Electoral College fair and square, 306 to 232." After a few seconds of stunned silence, the one guy turns to the other and whispers, "This goes higher up than we thought."

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God sighs and shakes His head. "Boy, there's no fooling you two, is there? You're right - there's a higher authority on this than Me, with all the answers you want! Right this way!" And He escorts them to the coal chute down to "Alternative Heaven"...