[hide]@Monkey:
Which comes back to you assuming the Philippines is Somalia or something.
But you ended up doing something else in the process, you martianized the third world country so much that you made it into something beyond approach of conversation.
Which is the problem with First World relativism across the board.
This sort of talk leads to many of the same places that carelessly passing judgement on third world countries does.
In part i think that comes from having this conversation where i by default end up in that position. But i'm also very much coloured by my experiences with the Phillipines, which mostly circle around church programs and exchanges my family takes part in, which by their nature focus alot on the poverty and hardship and are also very centered on the urban areas. So to circle back to the point, yeah i probably do at some level, so fair point.
I can assure you my understanding of the ravages of populism on national issues is not detached academia.
As you should. But assuming and operating off the idea that things that take root are legitimate let alone rational when investigating such things, is like assuming a cancer is a good thing when looking into how it formed.
I think what i had in mind was along the lines of not by default assuming irratonality on the part of the voter.
But still you absolutely have a point.
Do you not think millions of words, spoken or written, haven't been utilized examining the evolution of the American right wing? In this year alone? Let alone all the previous years with all the previous proto-Trump phenomena such as the Tea Party?
You're being very resistant to having an opinion on the basis of understanding where something comes from, as if that takes precedence or changes the amoral result.
This is honestly far too neutral a stance to take as comes to right wing populism.
Understanding is important yes, so is having a moral stance.
Oh it's not really a stance i'm holding very strongly, even if it can come across as such when were having a conversation like this. It's mostly just a thought i'm batting around, and twisting and looking at a bit. I guess my little stream of thought came out of a thought about how stances can come across as more or less reflexive. And that taking moral stances based on face value can come across as feeling more like a statement made for your sake than a genuine concern about the people involved. For an un-related example, let's take the phenomenon of how smalltowners in the countryside of my little homeland feel left behind without any options or future prospects, they veer toward the rightwingers because they offer them something, that to their ears, resemble a start to a "solution". The rightwing bloats and people of course take the moral stance that these people are racist and should be shunned and/or mocked. Without ever adressing, considering or even acknowledging the existance of the problem that had a large part in making that disturbing veer take place in the first place. Sure racists are bad, islamophobia is bad, badly worn folk costumes are bad. But is pointing this out and sitting back in anyway a productive thing? Without understanding why people walk down the paths they walk, and pondering how to combat or positively alter the how's and why's a stance seems, to me atleast, like a fairly hollow thing. And it's here i should of course note that not everything has a point of understanding, some things that look like a bag of poop are just that, as in your cancer comparison above. But most things i'd hope are understandable, and in turn treatable. Which i know can be described as a naive notion, or maybe even dangerous. But i personally think it's worth to waste a thought on if nothing else.
Did it also occur to you that in democracies even a winning candidate doesn't represent the whole of the people? If Trump won twice he'd still be winning twice after Obama won twice.
Are you assuming the same population made these results?
In the Philippines, go check the election that made Duterte win with 40% of the vote, and see how the remaining 60% was divided by at least four other parties (well three parties and an independent run). How can you see that and talk about Filipinos as some lock step behind him population in the first place?
Good points all around. [/hide]