Different Worlds...

I just finished watching Surrounded. You might have seen some clips from it recently. One liberal sitting in a circle with 20 conservatives surrounding him and they debate. The whole thing is long, just over an hour and incredibly frustrating at times, but also very interesting.

The things the people talking to him believe are...

well...

Not the things I believe. Or what most of you believe. Or what most of the people you probably interact with believe.

It's a whole different world.

They have talking points and "facts" that they circle back to again and again. The things they really believe are happening. And they cannot be convinced otherwise. One guy kept insisting that government agencies get tax breaks for hiring Black people no matter how many times Sam tried to explain to him that government agencies don't pay taxes so they cannot get tax breaks. They are funded by taxes. They aren't private corporations. But the dude was certain he was right. Super wrong, and super condescending about it. Of course the same guy in a later segment said that "all of his trans friends agreed with him" on a point that I guarantee you they did not. And after they saw that clip, if they exist at all, he probably no longer has trans friends. Well, unless they are all like Caitlyn Jenner.

There was the very religious guy and the white supremacist woman who espoused Christian Nationalism and why xenophobia was a good thing. That made a few of the other people in the circle blanch a little. But sorry, y'all, this is who you are sitting with. If you are in a circle with a Nazi and you don't move or kick them out then you are a circle of Nazis.

They believe we have all been told lies. That nothing that we (speaking we as in liberals) believe is actually true.

The same thing we believe about them.

It does make me wonder though what they back up their thoughts with. Like I believe what I believe about economics, for the most part, because I've read things with examples and numbers and facts that back up what I think. There are a few things that the sample size has been too small to be 100% THIS IS THE TRUTH about but the small samples have shown that things like UBI work and I think they should be expanded and tested more. Especially as we are looking at more and more jobs being eliminated. Entire fields of work are disappearing. But I will say things like, "from what I've read" or "small studies have shown that" couching things in the reality of what I do not yet know for sure.

Not them. Full chest wrong thing spouted. And when corrected they would double down. "Check the facts, bruh." "The numbers aren't with you, bruh." Umm...sorry. But check your own facts, bruh. Get someone to explain the numbers to you because you clearly don't understand them. Like why a similar tax rate on billionaires would bring in less money under say Obama than it would now under Trump. BECAUSE THERE ARE MORE BILLIONAIRES! For fuck's sake, the wealth gap has increased by multitudes. Do you not understand that the same percentage of a larger number is going to be larger?

And no. No they do not.

They think, somehow, that it means that Trump is actually taxing the wealthy at a higher rate than any other president in recent history. One of them actually said if you want to tax the rich you need to vote republican.

What?

Like I said, it was frustrating. But also interesting.

I know for me I have a really hard time seeing how anyone voted for Trump. How they hear what is said and think, yes, that sounds right. But it's because they believe in a totally different world than we do. They have their own frame of reference that does not need fact checks because it's all a vibe really.

I just don't know what it will take to break that hold.

I mean the current administration has been working overtime this week to convince the base that a recession is actually a good thing. They've got material out there on why climate change is actually beneficial.

It's a totally different world.