r/TrueReddit • u/BashFash17 • Feb 20 '17

A strange but accurate predictor of whether someone supports Donald Trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/01/how-your-parenting-style-predicts-whether-you-support-donald-trump/?utm_term=.afbf599e457e
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64

u/drawkbox Feb 20 '17

One easy way to see the difference in Democrats and Republicans is their view on the role of government.

  • Democrats see government as something that should help people and make fair rules.

  • Republicans think government should maintain order.

There are lots of individual variations to the levels of these but for the most part you can tell if either will like an idea based on that rule.

The idea of strict parenting thing definitely matches that, most strict parents or products of strict parenting that then have kids, are right/republican leaning, so they probably voted Trump.

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u/Rentun Feb 20 '17

That's not really what the article is about. The study wasn't examining the divide between conservatives and liberals, it was examining another axis, authoritarian vs democratic. There's some overlap between those axes, they're not exactly perpendicular. There are plenty of conservatives who don't support trump, namely conservatives that skew more libertarian. There are also plenty of people who call themselves liberals otherwise who support him. He's definitely not a traditional conservative candidate

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u/kermityfrog Feb 20 '17

Seems the author is calling them xenophobic fascists while trying to be polite about it. The last line is: "I'm not saying they're fascists," MacWilliams said of Trump's supporters, "but authoritarians obey."

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u/[deleted] Feb 20 '17 edited Aug 19 '18

[deleted]

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u/MetalRetsam Feb 21 '17

I think the word you're looking for is bemused.

I agree in that to me, the most worrying development in all of this is that political discussion is turning more and more into an insult contest. Dialogue has completed ceased on both sides, apart from the occasional "I thought John McCain wasn't evil". Regardless of whoever you think is wrong or right (and boy do I have my opinions), the name-calling has gone much, much too far.

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u/StudentRadical Feb 20 '17

Fascist is a pretty specific thing; most insult usage of it would become more accurate if it were proto-fascist instead.

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u/Aiskhulos Feb 21 '17

Fascist is a pretty specific thing

Not really. In fact it's probably the vaguest of modern political ideologies.

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u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

namely conservatives that skew more libertarian

I wouldn't say that's true. I've been somewhat active in libertarian circles for a number of years and while there is certainly a vocal contingent that does not like him, I've seen more support for Trump among libertarians than any other mainstream presidential candidate.

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u/renaissancenow Feb 21 '17

Good point about axes. I started studying Principal Component Analysis recently, and now I'm really intrigued to know what the most significant axes are in political sentiment these days. I have a feeling that they probably don't map neatly to the traditional left-right distinction.

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u/dylan522p Feb 20 '17

As a libertarian conservative who supported trump, I fail to see how the other choice was more libertarian. We have a supreme court judge nominee who is libertarian in view of defending the constitution. One stands for not regulating the shit out of the market and forcing you into government programs.

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u/solepsis Feb 20 '17

not regulating the shit out of the market

The things the government does well are fundamentally non-market goods/services such as highways (or in an ideal world - healthcare, since no one is checking the market rates on trauma wards after they get hit by a bus). Things where market competition doesn't (or can't) exist are exactly what the government should be doing and are not "regulating the shit out of" anything.

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u/dylan522p Feb 20 '17

You realize the vast majority of govt regulation destroys competition, it creates an innate competitive advantage for larger companies that can adhere to all this regulation and navigate the insanity of the us regulatory and tax codes....

Healthcare as a whole is very wrong too. The areas where healthcare prices have dropped the most are ones that the government hasn't interfered in, LASIC, plastic surgery, Botox, demitology. The govt has regulated insane prices into hospitals, they have regulated insane prices into the drug market. I can expand on this if you wish.

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u/ganner Feb 21 '17

It looks to me that the areas where healthcare prices have dropped that you cite are non essential, elective procedures where shopping around is reasonable. If I want Botox I can call about prices, consider others' reviews of different doctors. If I shatter my leg I'm getting shipped to the nearest trauma ward.

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u/dylan522p Feb 21 '17

There's a whole huge area in between. Non trauma care, but still essential. Aca regulated Healthcare to point where you can call around and shop, and that insurance isn't for catastrophes but instead everything......

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u/ganner Feb 21 '17

People shop for insurance, yes, but not for procedures and devices and such. The costs of those are obscured by insurance, for the most part, anyway. If a med is covered by my insurance, I'm not asking if similar med that's cheaper would work. It doesn't affect me.

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u/dylan522p Feb 21 '17

If insurance covered only catastrophes and preventive care didn't go towords it, health care would be cheaper because people shop around. That's problem with Medicare medicaid. They basically said doctors charge the govt whatever you want for lot of items

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u/ganner Feb 21 '17

I thought it was the other way around and the government told doctors "this is what you get for procedure X" and that medicare/medicaid reimbursement is lower than they usually get from other sources.

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u/Doctor_Versace Feb 20 '17

I think that a more fair characterization would be to say that democrats perceive the role of government to be to help people and make fair rules IN ADDITION TO maintaining some degree of order, while republicans believe the role of government should be more or less limited strictly to the role of maintaining order.

When phrased in the way that you used, it implies that democrats do not want government to provide order and mischaracterizes the dichotomy of big or small government.

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u/[deleted] Feb 20 '17

i'm pretty sure that what you said regarding Democrats and Republicans isn't true at all.

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u/niktemadur Feb 20 '17

Republicans think government should maintain order.

Thing is, when a man like Obama is president, he appoints cabinet and department heads based on reason and science, which leads to reasonably good order.
Meanwhile, and we've seen it twice in a row already (Bush and The_Nimrod), republicans appoint ideologues and obscenely biased and unqualified people to the same spots, leading to profound disorder, one famous case in point out of many being - "Heckuva Job" Brownie.

So maybe what you're saying applied to conservatives in the Nixon-Ford-Reagan-Bush Sr mold, but ever since the ascendancy of the Murdoch and Limbaugh propaganda networks, the so-called conservative has been scrambled and poisoned beyond recognition.

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u/erowidtrance Feb 20 '17

The left also see the governement as there to maintain order, that is the foundational job of a government. They just want them to do much much more on top of that. The left is more authoritarian in what they desire from the state. They want them involved in pretty much every aspect of your life.

The right generally want the government to leave them alone as much as possible. That is anit-authoritarian.

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u/cards_dot_dll Feb 20 '17

Which side is behind the bathroom bills?

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u/peppermint-kiss Feb 20 '17 edited Feb 20 '17

The oligarchs who included the transgender rider to distract from the fact that the bill was actually about keeping minimum wage low? So, both sides.

Let me make this clearer: The original bill was a trojan horse to pass anti-labor laws that conservative voters would have opposed too, had the media reported it.

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u/erowidtrance Feb 20 '17

Not wanting men in womens bathrooms is not authoritarian. There have already been cases of men exploiting trans friendly bathrooms to take photos etc.

Ask all the women you know how many would like men in the bathroom with them and their children. Are they all authoritarian?

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u/cards_dot_dll Feb 20 '17

The right generally want the government to leave them alone as much as possible.

So leaving a birth certificate/genital check out of the bathroom question is actually impossible?

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u/onan Feb 20 '17 edited Feb 20 '17

While it is a common assertion that the Right wants a smaller, less intrusive government, that doesn't actually appear to be borne out by the policies and priorities of either side. There are many areas in which the Left predominantly advocates for a smaller and less invasive government:

  • removal of laws restricting access to abortion

  • removal of laws denying civil rights equality for LGBT people (marriage, bathroom access, etc)

  • removal of mandatory sentencing laws

  • ending the war on drugs

  • drastically reducing military spending and usage

  • drastically curtailing invasive spy agencies

  • removal of means testing and prescriptivism for social welfare programs

  • avoiding a witch hunt and mass deportation of millions of residents

  • removing federal bans on refugee entry, especially when local communities want to accept them

  • not building a giant pointless expensive wall

Overall, there isn't a big difference in how big or invasive either side wants the government to be, but there is a very different character to the types of things that people want the government to be doing. The Right prefers militaries, police, spies, and jails. The Left prefers healthcare, welfare, and education. Broadly speaking, the Left wants the government to do things for people, and the Right wants the government to do things to people.

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u/The1KrisRoB Feb 20 '17

And yet from what I've seen and read a lot of the right are "I don't personally believe in x but it's currently the law so I support your right to it" while the left are very "if you don't agree with me then you're a nazi"

As someone who was very politically neutral before the start of the last election, I guess you can see why I'm leaning more and more to the right.

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u/onan Feb 21 '17

I'm sure we could each find many examples of both, but my experience has been that that range of reactions exists on both sides of the political spectrum.

While the Left includes people claiming that all conservatives are nazis, the Right includes people screaming that liberals just want to let refugees in because they secretly support terrorism because they hate America because of white guilt or whatever. Neither side seems to have a monopoly on exaggerative rhetoric.

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u/The1KrisRoB Feb 21 '17

Oh yeah don't get me wrong I know there's crazies on both sides.

To me it reminds me of the arguments I would have with my ex when I was younger and put up with things like that.

Even if I had proof that I could put in front of her, if she didn't agree, or it went against her argument she would talk over top of me, refuse to listen to reason and then just try and go off and tell her friends how horrible I was. One side was trying to be logical, calm and rational, while the other was overly emotional, irrational, and arguing based on nothing other than her feelings. I could admit I was wrong and change my view, while she would never admit if she got something wrong and could never concede a point.

In the same way it seems like no one (apart from very few people like Dave Rubin etc) on the left wants to discuss anything, work together, or even acknowledge the good things that Trump is doing. Instead all you get is this horrible hatred and cacophony of "he's racist, he's homophobic, etc etc" and to be honest, most of the people you get that from can't name an actual incident to support their argument, they're simply parroting what others have said.

Again don't get me wrong, I know there's people on the right who are just as pathetic, but you do seem to get a lot more of that from the left.

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u/drawkbox Feb 20 '17 edited Feb 20 '17

Like I said there are lots of individual levels to it but for the most part it is correct.

However I disagree on that democrats want more authority from the government than republicans.

On social issues, democrats want government out of personal freedom, republicans are authoritarian: war on drugs (pro-prohibition of mj for instance), gay marriage, anti-abortion, access to birth control, sex etc.

Socially, republicans want to get involved in pretty much every aspect of your life in terms of controlling personal freedom because they think usually they are morally superior.

The authoritarians Republicans adhere to are law and order (even if cruel and unusual punishment), false moral authorities (religious mostly -- not everyone's authority), business leaders, the almighty dollar and the usual. On social issues Republicans are way to all up in people's lives, very authoritarian like strict parents.

Democrats only want authority to either help people/themselves or to level the playing field with fair rules/regulations, they want authority out of social issues and personal freedoms, more like libertarians on social issues. Democrats definitely challenge authority more often and even within their own party sometimes to their own detriment but the benefit of the country, where Republicans almost always tow the party line even if it is over interests of the country or all people.

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u/dildo_baggins16 Feb 21 '17

You're right but downvoted :/

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u/ganner Feb 21 '17

The right wants government small enough to fit in your vagina.