Question for atlas democrats

[Bismarck]

So I get the impression that many of you feel that people who disagree with you politically are either bigoted, stupid, uneducated, or evil.  I mean in general, not just in regards to Trump. What percentage of republicans are in your opinion normal people who just disagree with you about what is best for the country?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Many Trump voters are normal, decent people.

All pro-Trump activists however are:

either bigoted, stupid, uneducated, or evil.

I struck through uneducated because I don't think that trump supporters are especially uneducated. The uneducated normally have more sense than that.

[nicholas.slaydon]

Not a Democrat, but I am on the left. I would say about 40-50% of Republican voters are just far-right religiously motivated bigots. and about 50-60% are just people who think Republicans will lower their taxes and make their lives easier.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The fact of the matter is, policies have an impact on people's lives. Sometimes this impact can be immense: lives have been destroyed by ill-conceived or deliberately cruel policies. If you are voting for a party that promotes a number of such policies (and few parties in the Western world promote policies as ill-conceived and/or deliberately cruel as the GOP), then you are an accomplice in the harm that they cause. This is and should be relevant in judging your morality.

This doesn't mean that people's reasons for voting the way they vote might not be valid to them - in some cases they can even be genuinely altruistic. And there are, of course, many other factors to take into account in judging someone's morality. I'm sure there were many NSDAP voters who were loving spouses, caring parents, loyal friends and assiduous workers. None of this, however, exonerates people from their responsibility in allowing an immense evil to occur.

[RFayette]

I don't think there's anything especially abnormal about being bigoted, stupid, uneducated, or evil, and that remains true whether we are talking about Republicans, Democrats, or any other group of people.

The other key thing is that the definitions of these terms vary greatly.  No one with a high school degree would have been considered "uneducated" in 1900, and given our modern definition of "bigoted," virtually every American adult in 1950 would be considered a bigot.  When someone calls their opponents evil, bigoted, etc. it testifies to the moral framework that said person uses, which in turn leads them to formulate benchmarks or definitions for what constitutes evil, bigoted, etc.  The same thing applies with "normal" as well, of course.

[Xing]

First of all, let's not act like Democrats have the monopoly on judging people who disagree. If we're talking about general policy disagreements, I certainly won't call the other person evil, uneducated, or bigoted. The fact that they can articulate a position on the issues demonstrates that they are not just "ignorant." If I strongly disagree, I may question their reasoning or ask how they came to that conclusion, but I would certainly not resort to name calling or dismissing them as uneducated or evil.

If we're talking about someone who just screams that "Hillary is a corrupt liar! Liberals are destroying America!" and has no evidence or reason to back up what they're saying, other than a hit piece from Breitbart that they found from a quick Google search, then that's a different story.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

So I get the impression that many of you feel that people who disagree with you politically are either bigoted, stupid, uneducated, or evil.  I mean in general, not just in regards to Trump. What percentage of republicans are in your opinion normal people who just disagree with you about what is best for the country?

90%. But the fact that even ~10% of people who support a major party presidential nominee are

bigoted, stupid, uneducated, or evil

is concerning. This also applies to the stupid/uneducated folks that support Hillary who can't construct a better argument than "I read on Tumblr that Trump wants to personally behead every Muslim in the world, so he shouldn't be President" because fxck that shyt.

Liberals/leftists/progressives who oppose Trump under the guise of being more intelligent aren't doing so to belittle Trump supporters per se, they're trying to reinforce the notion that the country deserves better. I've met plenty of leftists who would have welcome John Kasich, Jon Huntsman, or even Marco Rubio as the nominee of the Republican Party because, while they may not agree with them, they're at least sane people who try to think rationally and don't try to "rally the troops" whenever a journalist says something mean about them.

I still believe that a vast majority of Trump supporters are either folks that I just plain disagree with, or are misguided in their conclusions to solving problems. I know plenty of Trump supporters (I live with two) who can construct logical arguments that I can at least understand why they feel the way they feel, even if I don't think it's the right way to feel. What I try to explain to them is that making Trump the figurehead for your movement is self-destructive, and will only do more damage to its image and legitimacy.

tl;dr, there's no problem with being a Trump supporter as far as I'm concerned, but the fact that so many of them are certifiable bigots says more about the state of the Republican Party and politics in America than it does about Trump himself.

[DINGO Joe]

So I get the impression that many of you feel that people who disagree with you politically are either bigoted, stupid, uneducated, or evil.  I mean in general, not just in regards to Trump. What percentage of republicans are in your opinion normal people who just disagree with you about what is best for the country?

What percentage of Republicans aren't going to vote for Trump?

[Monolith]

I'd say about 75% of republicans are Christian of some sort, about 25% of Christians are at least slightly bigoted of some sort, so maybe 18-20% of republicans are bigoted.

I of course didn't factor in bigoted people who aren't religious, I just figured the correlation between the two made my math easier, so maybe 25%?

[Goldwater]

I'd say about 75% of republicans are Christian of some sort, about 25% of Christians are at least slightly bigoted of some sort, so maybe 18-20% of republicans are bigoted.

I of course didn't factor in bigoted people who aren't religious, I just figured the correlation between the two made my math easier, so maybe 25%?

25% of Republicans aren't Christian? That actually seems like too high of an estimate to me.

[Monolith]

I'd say about 75% of republicans are Christian of some sort, about 25% of Christians are at least slightly bigoted of some sort, so maybe 18-20% of republicans are bigoted.

I of course didn't factor in bigoted people who aren't religious, I just figured the correlation between the two made my math easier, so maybe 25%?

25% of Republicans aren't Christian? That actually seems like too high of an estimate to me.

I guess it's a lot better to guess low than to guess to high and be called out for generalizing

[Maxwell]

Well I used to be at least fairly conservative on a few issues, so I don't think that at all. I have family members who have such different political views from me and I know they are decent people, so I see that can be the case.

[Person Man]

The interesting question is what Rs/Trumpeters think about Ds/libs. Do they think all or some of us are innately immoral, inferior beings?

Personally, I think some Republicans are very reasonable, some are unreasonable and just have different needs than my own, there are some that vote R to blame others for their loses (muh coal, muh wolves, they took er jobs..you know, people who depend on a certain set of privileges and gifts from R officials to get by at the expense of others), and then yeah...there are people who are Republican for antisocial and immoral reasons. 

If you really wanted to put numbers on it, I'd say its a pretty even split.

[PresidentSamTilden]

I'm glad you brought this topic up. The other day I had a poster accuse me of thinking all trump supporters are dumb. Clearly there's some animosity between red and blue on here, I guess as is to be expected.

First and foremost though I gotta say that your wording is a little off, I disagree with a lot of democrats politically too. I've seen red avatars on here say climate change isn't real. Some hardcore Bernie supporters think that guy can fix everything that's wrong with the country on his own. I don't agree with either of those viewpoints. So it's not like every democrat agrees with each other, we have a lot of differences also. But I assume you mean Pubs vs Dems more than anything.

Realistically, Republicans and Democrats are probably equal in terms of intelligence. You have your blind, dumb supporters, and you have your geniuses on both sides of the isle. There are republican posters on atlas that I think are intelligent and good contributors.

That said though, there are certain issues where I feel the democrats are much stronger than republicans. I'm sure blue avatars feel the same way about some other issues. That's okay though, the whole point of a forum like this is that we can engage each other.

So if I challenge someone on a particular issue, or about a particular candidate, I might be right or I might be wrong. I might even be a little confrontational. But I don't do it to say you're evil or dumb. I just have a different perspective than you.

[uti2]

So I get the impression that many of you feel that people who disagree with you politically are either bigoted, stupid, uneducated, or evil.  I mean in general, not just in regards to Trump. What percentage of republicans are in your opinion normal people who just disagree with you about what is best for the country?

90%. But the fact that even ~10% of people who support a major party presidential nominee are

bigoted, stupid, uneducated, or evil

is concerning. This also applies to the stupid/uneducated folks that support Hillary who can't construct a better argument than "I read on Tumblr that Trump wants to personally behead every Muslim in the world, so he shouldn't be President" because fxck that shyt.

Liberals/leftists/progressives who oppose Trump under the guise of being more intelligent aren't doing so to belittle Trump supporters per se, they're trying to reinforce the notion that the country deserves better. I've met plenty of leftists who would have welcome John Kasich, Jon Huntsman, or even Marco Rubio as the nominee of the Republican Party because, while they may not agree with them, they're at least sane people who try to think rationally and don't try to "rally the troops" whenever a journalist says something mean about them.

Actually, that's EXACTLY what rubio does. He rallies the troops in the exact same manner:

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/ken-walshs-washington/2015/06/11/marco-rubio-hits-back-at-new-york-times

You shouldn't group him in with the other 2. Maybe your friends weren't exposed to him enough to realize that, we know that cruz's favorables went down when he got more media exposure in Mar/Apr. That is also exactly why cruz/rubio refused to attack Trump in the beginning and enabled him, they were all playing the same game, and were willing to risk Trump in the first place, if it meant hurting Jeb, etc.

[dead0man]

my favorite part was the subtle Godwin...ing.

[Associate Justice PiT]

First of all, let's not act like Democrats have the monopoly on judging people who disagree. If we're talking about general policy disagreements, I certainly won't call the other person evil, uneducated, or bigoted. The fact that they can articulate a position on the issues demonstrates that they are not just "ignorant." If I strongly disagree, I may question their reasoning or ask how they came to that conclusion, but I would certainly not resort to name calling or dismissing them as uneducated or evil.

If we're talking about someone who just screams that "Hillary is a corrupt liar! Liberals are destroying America!" and has no evidence or reason to back up what they're saying, other than a hit piece from Breitbart that they found from a quick Google search, then that's a different story.

     I like this post. A lot of Atlas Democrats are hacks who would suggest Republicans are some evil cabal dedicated to spreading misery to all. Truth is, a lot of Republicans would say the same about the Democrats, though those people are less represented on Atlas. Our political discourse would benefit from less of that sort of toxic rhetoric that seeks to demonize people over legitimate disagreements.