Geoff Edwards writes: This is not your most erudite article, Jonathan Green. There are some weaknesses in your logic as far as I have been able to discern them.

“…The moral comfort of self-interest? “It is perhaps the most recognizable human trait of all” is a highly questionable statement. Economics would tell us that self-interest determines human behavior, but many sciences say otherwise. Humans have cooperative and communal genes as well as self-preservation genes.

“Moral indignation…leads to a feeling of dismissive superiority.” This is a statement from the right in the US, and from Sky News here, about the attitude of the progressive left. I don’t think the progressive left really has such an arrogant attitude towards the general public – I think a lot of this criticism is fabricated. The behavior of people like Trump and his acolytes must be judged against normative standards of behavior, including the law; and the policy prescriptions of his movement must be judged against the normative standards of public policy. If the progressive left is at fault, it is because of its seriousness in emphasizing the norms of public policy, which is a different battlefield than the cultural one on which Trump and his supporters fought.

Third, you didn’t mention the mob-inciting role of the conservative press. There is a rich history of the ability of demagogues, polemicists and the media to whip up popular hysteria and distort facts in the service of propaganda. When these forces are in full swing, normative standards can quickly lose their relevance.

Katherine Stuart writes: While I certainly think Jonathan Green is right, no one ever seems to talk about the moral outrage on both sides of the conservative/progressive divide that we now seem forced to feel. It is constantly and systematically fed and fueled by the mainstream media (which has lagged far behind those getting more attention these days on social media), but primarily by the many social media commentators – with few of things to recommend beyond their skills to fuel said outrage. .

It’s like being constantly stung by bees. Or maybe paralysis ticks might be a better analogy? Because from what I can see, being constantly fueled by outrage for its attention-grabbing properties is what the new media landscape is all about. This now has an extremely serious and concrete consequence: the election of an orange-faced buffoon with so little to recommend. him for the work entrusted to him, this is beyond comprehension.

What we have now is a kind of collective ADHD due to overstimulation in parts of our brain that would not normally be subject to so much action, except perhaps in extreme emergencies, ultimately leading to apathy .

Waiting in line at the local organic farmers market Wednesday afternoon, I told the nice lady next to me that I hoped Donald Trump didn’t win. She had the opposite view. I asked him why, out of interest. Not to be confrontational, I said I just couldn’t get past his attitude towards women, looking for common ground. She said for her it was about what he did rather than what he said, that he was “rooting out corruption”. I looked skeptical and she said tellingly, “It depends where you get your news from.” » So this is the fake news argument. But also, where we get our particular flavor of moral outrage – the thing that will grab our attention and suck the daylight out of it like some kind of digital Dementor.

Social media has many responsibilities. Or rather, a lot of responsibilities to catch up on. And how can this happen without serious regulation?

Andrew Sweeney writes: To those like Jonathan Green who lament that we need to understand the Trump voter: we already do.

Study after study has confirmed that the public voting for Trump (as opposed to the cynical wealthy Republicans who supported him) are ill-informed, closed to facts and reason, uncritical of their privileged authority, and are almost impossible to convince. They vote for Trump’s lies for the simple reason that they don’t know they are lies, and they will fight you if you offer them a fact check.

Calls for finding commonalities overlook the fact that it is fallacious to assume that everyone thinks like you. Conservative minds and progressive minds operate very differently, probably from the womb. You can’t convert Trump voters; what persuades you does not persuade them.

Eventually, as with Leave voters, the deterioration of their lives will lead Trump voters to realize: “This is not what we wanted!” By then, of course, it will be too late; Trump will have devastated the government and installed himself president for life. Women, LGBTQ and immigrants will lose their rights. Trump will purge those who criticize him. Then it will happen again here in Australia.

Maintain compassion for yourself and your loved ones. You will need it.