No Stupid Questions

Uh, how common do you think mail-order brides are?

They're not winning, they're the pigeons knocking over the chess pieces, shitting on the board and declaring victory.

I’m responding to point #3 specifically because I have anecdotal experience. I immigrated via a work visa (white collar work), and at least from my circle, most if not all of us do not have republican/conservative views. All of us from 3rd world countries moved because we were tired of the low pay, low quality of life, and government corruption in our home countries. And since we are part of an educated class of workers who actually have experience living in poorly governed countries, most if not all realize that conservatives are the ones slowly turning the country into what we were escaping from in the first place.

The demographics you describe in 1 and 2 are de facto an incredibly small minority compared to other, more typical forms of immigration. Just think about what percentage of the population is wealthy enough to emigrate, let alone engage in borderline sex trafficking.

As for #3, yes, we have a party who is currently succeeding in pitching populism and proto-fascism dressed up in culture war nonsense. The job of progressives is to address those same economic concerns in a manner that actually works rather than the trickle down myth from the right that has so thoroughly gutted the middle class.

Short answer?

Because people always choose what’s easy.

Buying into hatred, fear, mistrust and rhetoric is, in the end, just easier than working out the progressive thought processes to arrive at what is deemed to be societally more beneficial.

Combine that with the serotonin rush that comes with the outrage culture and its enablers…

…and there you go.

We are just stupid apes in the end.

Republicans campaign on "YOU are better than THEM. We will protect you from THEM." With them being whatever group plays on fears the most. Republicans don't campaign on tax cuts for the rich, which is what their policies actually are. People are happy to be miserable as long as they think they are better than someone else.

Democrats campaign on the idea that everyone can be equal and things can be more fair. There isn't a perfect fair for everybody in all circumstances, so each kink is an attack vector. And people who are miserable would have to actually take a look at their life and have some responsibility if they are equal to others.

Fear is a powerful motivator, and it can focus a person on just the fear and ignore everything else happening to them. Especially the ones who have purposely been kept dumb.

I don’t understand how this can be so powerful, but so many people believe it and vote accordingly. It’s not rational, it is identity, it is tribe.

Who we are and how we see ourselves is extremely powerful. Take me for example: I cultivate a self-identity of an aspiring intellectual. I generally want to be seen as rational, with evidence-based beliefs, and having spent time thinking about my own thinking. I go to great lengths to shore up this identity for myself. This may not make me popular with the ladies, and I may not be able to easily converse with my friends on pop culture topics because I prefer analyzing arguments, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

In contrast, some people want to be seen as loyal. This is irrational to me, but it's not like being an intellectual with properly weighted beliefs has ever been particularly useful for fitting in. Being loyal means adhering to the norms of the group because it's your group. Fundamentally, it's about identity for those that value loyalty and want to be seen as such. They'll side with their SO even if their SO is wrong to demonstrate that loyalty. They'll terrorize the out-group, believing themselves virtuous, because being loyal is virtue to them.

Republicans are winning this game. And we're becoming increasingly tribalistic in the U.S., where loyalty is more valued than a belief in democratic pluralism. What is public transport, public healthcare, unions, expanded medicaid, access to abortion, etc, in the face of belonging, being valued as a member of a greater community? The latter is existential; the former, just policy.

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.