Most people don’t like retail politics, generally speaking. It’s alienating and inaccessible. It feels like you’re getting in on the ground floor of an MLM with no practical way to rise through the ranks. And it forces you to support people far better at talking rich people out of their donor dollars than votes out of the neighborhood. They’re folks you’ll find smug, shitty, and morally repulsive if you ever have to share a room with them.
The degree of cynicism people feel blunts any kind of revolutionary rhetoric. Meanwhile, their fear of things getting worse leaves them suspicious of any kind of advertised sweeping change. So you end up with bland, toothless centrism as a default position that meets the low expectations voters have cultivated.
Oh yeah, the “I act like I’m smarter than everyone but I’m actually a fucking idiot who’s never actually read a book on economics and gets all his info from uncited YouTube videos, also I’m going to be super condescending about it” type of guy. Those guys are the worst.
The husband in the couple I still speak with is in finance. He knows to liquidate before a Republican takes office and buy the dip. He even tried to get me to take the maximum loan out against my 401k and move the rest to utility stocks to protect it. I should’ve listened.
I only still talk with one couple who voted for Trump first term but knew better this time around. I’m fairly sure they’re going to vote for Democrats in the midterms though. They want this madness to stop. I bet they go right back to voting red after that though.
I’ve known a few couples who fit this description. Often both well-educated and successful, usually pleasant conversationalists, sometimes even fun. But it’s maybe the third or fourth time we hang out that I start noticing something’s different about them and their relationship.
It varies but sometimes there’s too much obviously calculated social performance between them, or maybe they incidentally rank people using some arbitrary measure, or seem to avoid touching each other, or express overt cynicism re: others’ intentions. They tend to have pre-nups and separate finances, which always comes up when they divorce and decide which of them gets to keep me as a friend.
I never can feel very close to them, even if they say I’m a close friend, in part because they never get to know me or are only interested in me knowing them.
It’s just a constellation of attributes that repeats enough to suggest an archetypal couple dynamic or personality type, but I’ve never quite put my finger on it.
Definitely feel that. It sounds a bit like narcissistic personality disorder but not entirely, and I’m not sure that would explain how they gravitate toward one other. None of the ones I knew had children but I remember thinking the Silicon Valley pronatalists must overlap strongly.
There’s just a fundamental self-centeredness evident throughout their behavior and beliefs. It could be errant notions cultivated with early socialization, or socially maladaptive neurodivergence, or simply a series of self-serving misinterpretations of scientific consensus that eventually becomes a worldview. The end result is a self-styled “power couple” who essentially have no friends because they never learned what that means.
He’s a classic narcissist she’s an enabler when they’re together and more self-righteous when they’re apart. It’s one of those friendships I’d never have, had we met any time after high school.
It’s because most people don’t like right wingers, and they know it, so they try to hide behind that.
Most people don’t like retail politics, generally speaking. It’s alienating and inaccessible. It feels like you’re getting in on the ground floor of an MLM with no practical way to rise through the ranks. And it forces you to support people far better at talking rich people out of their donor dollars than votes out of the neighborhood. They’re folks you’ll find smug, shitty, and morally repulsive if you ever have to share a room with them.
The degree of cynicism people feel blunts any kind of revolutionary rhetoric. Meanwhile, their fear of things getting worse leaves them suspicious of any kind of advertised sweeping change. So you end up with bland, toothless centrism as a default position that meets the low expectations voters have cultivated.
Oh yeah. I know/knew several NY Republicans who are all “fiscally conservative and socially liberal” people, who only vote on economic policy.
Liberal is still right wing.
Oh yeah, the “I act like I’m smarter than everyone but I’m actually a fucking idiot who’s never actually read a book on economics and gets all his info from uncited YouTube videos, also I’m going to be super condescending about it” type of guy. Those guys are the worst.
Just one more tax cut bro, it’s gonna trickle down for sure real soon.
The husband in the couple I still speak with is in finance. He knows to liquidate before a Republican takes office and buy the dip. He even tried to get me to take the maximum loan out against my 401k and move the rest to utility stocks to protect it. I should’ve listened.
and how’s that working out for them this time around?
I only still talk with one couple who voted for Trump first term but knew better this time around. I’m fairly sure they’re going to vote for Democrats in the midterms though. They want this madness to stop. I bet they go right back to voting red after that though.
I’ve known a few couples who fit this description. Often both well-educated and successful, usually pleasant conversationalists, sometimes even fun. But it’s maybe the third or fourth time we hang out that I start noticing something’s different about them and their relationship.
It varies but sometimes there’s too much obviously calculated social performance between them, or maybe they incidentally rank people using some arbitrary measure, or seem to avoid touching each other, or express overt cynicism re: others’ intentions. They tend to have pre-nups and separate finances, which always comes up when they divorce and decide which of them gets to keep me as a friend.
I never can feel very close to them, even if they say I’m a close friend, in part because they never get to know me or are only interested in me knowing them.
It’s just a constellation of attributes that repeats enough to suggest an archetypal couple dynamic or personality type, but I’ve never quite put my finger on it.
On the money. It’s so odd. I’ve known him since high school, but I feel like I don’t know them at all. It’s kind of surreal.
Definitely feel that. It sounds a bit like narcissistic personality disorder but not entirely, and I’m not sure that would explain how they gravitate toward one other. None of the ones I knew had children but I remember thinking the Silicon Valley pronatalists must overlap strongly.
There’s just a fundamental self-centeredness evident throughout their behavior and beliefs. It could be errant notions cultivated with early socialization, or socially maladaptive neurodivergence, or simply a series of self-serving misinterpretations of scientific consensus that eventually becomes a worldview. The end result is a self-styled “power couple” who essentially have no friends because they never learned what that means.
We may be talking about the same couple. Lol
He’s a classic narcissist she’s an enabler when they’re together and more self-righteous when they’re apart. It’s one of those friendships I’d never have, had we met any time after high school.