Most working middle class conservatives are incapable of answering the question presented by the photo below with a response that benefits their families. Most will assume, with no possible way to make it happen, that they will end up in group A--the group of politically powerful and super wealthy white men.
Knowing this, I should not have written this response to an avowed conservative. "You are an idiot. But like most idiots, you don't know it". I should have done better, but my reply on twitter was in response to a comment about President Obama that was hyperbole so obscene, vile, and stupid with no basis in reality that it defied a rational response. His reply to my reply was even more vile and obscene.
None of this came as a surprise. It provided another literal example that raises the question: "why is the conservative right so full of illogic and crazy talk?" My put down to his tweet about the President grew out of my decision and belief that trying to have a rational argument with a right wing conservative is a waste of time. Still, my response should have been more similar to a reply I made to another proud right wing red neck conservative: "I don't argue with people who aren't paying attention."
Trying to have a rational conversation with a right wing conservative is frustrating because it is difficult to wade through the nonsense. The worse, however, are right wing redneck conservatives who seem convinced that their vile, obscene, mean, and dumb comments are funny, brillilant, and irrepressible--even when (especially when) they don't make any sense.
Ask a right wing junkie a question about his diatribe to which he is hard pressed to come up with a rational original response , more often than not, his reply will be a profanity laced tirade, prefabricated party lines, obvious lies, profanity laced LGBT tirades, silence, or retreat.
Or they resort to what is becoming of their favoirte exercise--falsly characterizing and accusing liberals and democrats of emotions, positions, and behavior that more correctly define themselves.
Understanding this, the true liberal should have sympathy for and show more compassion for our conservative possessed brothers and sisters. The conservative brain is capable of nothing else.
Most liberals know that addictions are terrible afflictions. In a sad state of affairs, unfortunately, the conservative mind is addicted to simplicity.
Republican will deny he ever said it, but, as President George Bush so succinctly put it: "Thinking is hard!" That statement may be amusing to the liberal mind, but President Bush was correct; thinking is hard. However, for a liberal, critical thinking is necessary. Taking the easy way out, hardly ever solves problems. Critical thinking is also fun and cathartic. But, catharsis requires an ability to think outside a box . It requires an ability to see the other side.
Unfortunately, for the right wing conservative mind, there can be no other side because the other side is a scary place. And because they scare easy, poor, working class, and middle class conservatives are easy marks for right wing conservative pundits and Tea Party Republicans who are immoral enough to prey on those fears for political and economic gain.
Ask any poor, working class, or middle class white conservative where they get their news and most will say Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and/or Fox News--nothing else. The reason is very simple--Fox, Rush, and Beck offer simple solutions to complex issues. Or they confuse their followers with what-ifs, suppositions, false analysis, outright lies, scapegoats, and bogeymen. Currently President Obama is their favorite bogyman.
Poor and working class right wing conservatives don't want solutions, they want easy answers. Sometimes they just want a scapegoat--someone, other than themselves and others who are like themselves--to blame for their problems and their failures. Conservative pundits and Leaders on the conservative right are more than willing to give them that.
Right wing conservative pundits and politicians know that people who scare easily are gullible. Feeding that fear, creating anger, and taking advantage of that gullibility buys Republicans a non-thinking following that produces some potentially devastating results for democracy as well as for poor, working class, and middle class white America--including those who vote for Republican candidates.
There is hope. All poor, working class, and middle class conservatives are neither dumb nor vile and evil. Many are just misinformed and/or possessed by a need to feel superior to someone--someone conservative pundits are all too willing to give them.
Still, liberals may be able to liberate some intelligent conservatives from the jaws of fatal conservative logic by simply presenting them with unemotionally charged facts.
While arguing with a conservative can be a waste of time, where intelligence exists, and a glimpse of the other side can be safely seen, perhaps intelligence will win the day.