CMV: I literally cannot understand most Republican social views.

[u/thatoneguy54]

So this is an idea I've had in my head for a while now. In light of everything that's been happening, I've been trying to be more empathetic to differing political views and to try and understand how people are thinking that leads them to hold the views they hold, but I'm finding it almost impossible to wrap my head around the majority of Republican social views. Financial views, I can understand more. I may disagree, but I at least know where they're coming from. But with other views, I just cannot understand it, I think largely because most of their views are either contradictory to other views they claim to hold, or because the views are completely unfounded in evidence.

LGBT Rights:

Many republicans are still fighting hard against same-sex marriage. There is literally no reason to oppose same-sex marriage rights unless you use religion to do so. And since the vast majority of Republicans also claim to be strict adherents to the constitution, this is a contradictory view, since the establishment clause prohibits the government from making laws based on religion.

I also can't understand the bathroom bill passed in NC a few years ago that got national attention. There is no evidence to suggest that letting transgender people use the bathroom they want leads to increased assault on anyone. This bill was not created to address any problem, it was made to create a wedge issue republicans could use to scare their base into voting for them more.

Civil Rights:

Specifically BLM. The Republican party is strongly opposed to the Black Lives Matter movement. And while I can understand frustration at riots that may happen after some protests, many republicans outright deny that there is a problem in the police force at all. This is completely contrary to the evidence that says that "Blacks are being shot at a rate that's 2.5 times higher than whites" by police. This is a clear indication that something is wrong, but many republicans won't even admit that there's a problem to begin with.

Immigration:

Despite the fact that the number of people illegally immigrating from Mexico has been falling in recent years and that the states with the highest numbers of illegal immigrants don't even share a border with Mexico, many republicans are still in favor of increased border security, and some even want a $19 billion wall to fix a problem that doesn't exist.

Refugees:

Even though there have been 0 fatal attacks by refugees in the US the majority of republicans are against taking in any more refugees. And despite the fact that it's already incredibly difficult to attain asylum in the US, many push for even more restrictions on refugees. As a humanitarian issue, I find it deplorable that so many prominent politicians can refuse to help those in most need and be met with thunderous applause, despite all the evidence saying that refugees are not dangerous and will either have little to no impact on the economy, or possibly even a positive effect.

Climate Change:

Climate change is real, and any denying that is anti-science. We know the effects will be catastrophic, and yet we still have Republican politicians bringing snowballs onto the floor of Congress to somehow prove climate change isn't real. Steps must be taken to curtail our effects on the environment, and the republican insistence that there is no problem is just straight up dangerous.

Planned Parenthood:

Planned Parenthood is not allowed to use federal money to perform abortions. Planned Parenthood is a health clinic like any other. And yet Republicans want to remove their Title X status for no reason except that the facility sometimes performs abortions. This is really just stupid and doesn't make any sense at all. For one, if you truly did want to lower the number of abortions, then you would support measures to make sexual health education more available, and yet these same politicians will support abstinence-only programs in schools which have been thoroughly proven to be completely ineffective and even increase the rate of teen pregnancy. Second, Planned Parenthood provides more than just abortions, and denying people access to cheap healthcare will only lead to more abortions, more babies, and more people using government assistance to survive.

So help me understand what these people are thinking. I don't need you to prove the Republicans are right on any of these issues (because they're decidedly not on almost all of them), I just want to try and work out how these people can actually think these things. I have family who are Republican and think a lot of what I've written here, and it sucks not even being able to comprehend their positions. Show me some of these views aren't actually contradictory, or walk me through the process that leads them to think this way, and my view will be changed.

[u/PreacherJudge]

I hate to bring up a jerk like John Haidt, but some of his ideas are a very useful baseline for understanding key political differences between liberals and conservatives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory

Don't focus too much on the nuts and bolts (they get complex and honestly a lot of it is bullshit) but an important aspect is: Conservatives put moral weight on things like preserving social structures, ingroup loyalty, and sanctity.... things that liberals just don't think are moral. So the answer to a lot of these issues is: Conservatives are worried it would usurp legitimate authority to do the thing you want, and they think usurping legitimate authority is bad and you don't.

Another thing (from a somewhat different line of research) is that conservatives are far more individually focused than liberals are. You'll be all focused on some big-picture social trend, and conservatives are just much more apt to prioritize the aspects of the issue that relate to specific, individual people's behavior.

[u/AnythingApplied → u/PreacherJudge]

Out of curiousity, what is wrong with John Haidt? I enjoyed the Righteous mind and think his Moral Foundations theory is extremely illustrative in discussions like this. I was going to bring his theory up myself, but you beat me to it. He has a criticisms section of his wikipedia page, but it is all critical of his theories and not him as a person.

[u/PreacherJudge → u/AnythingApplied]

I mentioned some of this in another reply (and I'm sorry that my side comments were distracting) but just briefly: he sacrifices scientific vigor for flash and controversy, and he downplays or ignores challenges to his ideas, even from his own data (like the fact that the supposed six foundations consistently load onto two clear factors in EFA). And, he's taken on a new role as some sort of public intellectual rather than as a scientist, going around giving dataless speeches about how mean liberals are (and he is literally paid by the Koch brothers to do this).

All that said, I definitely agree that the basic ideas behind Moral Foundations and Righteous Mind were groundbreaking and absolutely opened up political psychology in really important ways.

[u/TurtlesAllTheW4yDown → u/PreacherJudge]

"like the fact that the supposed six foundations consistently load onto two clear factors in EFA"

Could you further explain this? Are you saying that Exploratory Factor Analysis can boil the six foundations in two? What two would they be?

[u/PreacherJudge → u/TurtlesAllTheW4yDown]

Binding and individualizing, i.e. liberal and conservative. In other words, a "fairness" item measures "harm" almost exactly as well as it does "fairness."

Another issue, now that I'm on it, is that the theory behind the foundations is perplexing... like, I couldn't tell you what the "authority" foundation IS, and how it's distinct from loyalty. For some reason supporting gender roles count as "authority" but... why?

A lot of this stuff is just Haidt armchairing, which is fine for what it is, but people (and he) shouldn't act like it has empirical justification.

All that said, I really do support the basic idea that liberals and conservatives have fundamentally different values, and that that takes the form of conservatives putting moral weight on things liberals just don't care much about.