Do you think the USA may learn from this experience and put in place a nomination system that prevents such a folly and embarrassment in the future?
Yes and no. You'll even see evidence of it, but by and large whatever effect you might notice in some people is subject to the sorts of averaging effects that get us into these problems in the first place.
The question I can't quite figure has to do with the "conservative brain". It's just a matter of understanding the functional thematics of prioritization schemes, comparative comparisons, and so on. I mean, you know, we look at other people through very general lenses even when we're attempting granular analysis.
Effectively, though, I can't understand what manner of communication is required to compel conservatives I've known over the years to do anything but affirm themselves. Unfortunately, some manner of traumatizing demand for reprioritization is about the only thing I've ever seen disrupt the trend.
There's a lot more to it, of course; it's just that self-reporting behavioral studies have certain functional limitations that present an excellent juxtaposition: Figuring out what's going on with our conservative neighbors requires understanding what they're saying, because at the valence of dysfunction we're discussing,
they don't actually know what they're saying―consider the idea of a self-reporting study surveying subjects pathologically unable to answer the questions accurately.
I'm not saying they will always lie. But if the question is what color are your eyes, and the answer is, "Firecrackers, olive oil and two midgets dancing on a snooker table", interpreting the data will be something of a challenge.
(perhaps if he is damaging enough to his own party there may be bipartisan support generated for changing the rules that disqualify someone from becoming president.)
One of the reasons we don't do certain things is that we don't trust each other.
It's hard to explain, but consider for instance that less and less of what we buy is what it actually is.
Not quite a joke: In the U.S., it is still easy enough to find a car with a manual transmission and clutch in it, but the manufacturers would very much like to get rid of them. It's easier to mount all the technology on other transmissions. The result is that you, the driver, no longer have that same connection to the road; your electric clutch will drop in your paddle-shifted "manual" transmission as it pleases; your automatic transmission will do whatever it wants. Try powering out of a slide with a transmission that will decide for you when you need drive to the wheels. Switch tracks: Add in that we used to have cars that got forty to fifty miles to the gallon, and now it's a fight trying to get the manufacturers to thirty-five. What happened is that we looked at all that fuel efficiency and decided to use it up. At first it was quick-defrost and seat warmers. Now it's computer systems. Recent developments have convinced me: I'm not buying a mobile phone, but a point-of-sale and advertising suite mounted on a pseudotelephonic form factor. The family vehicle I saw advertised during an American football game only informs me that we no longer buy cars, but, rather, mobile communication devices mounted on an automotive form factor, a thirty-thousand dollar iPad or Galaxy or Surface, with a V-6 and seating for eight.
Okay, so, these are our priorities. Great.
Here's why it's not a digression:
Do I want these people tinkering with the Constitution? Tune up the First Amendment? I saw that one around Sciforums, the other day. Natural-born citizenship, free speech, voting rights, basic equality, government obligation to domestic tranquility; there's quite a lot some people want to edit out of the Constitution, and I would, at this time, remind once again of the
JASTA debacle↗ to remind how easy it is for Americans to get so worked up about an issue as to go and do something stupid and
then cry about the damage. And, hell, besides, it's kind of circular: We're talking about the people who nominated Donald Trump.
The Constitution is, of course, but an example; it's also the Supreme Law of the Land and likely, after we've fought it out in legislatures and ballot boxes and courtrooms, what will have to change.
Indeed, the thing is that
people need to change, and that's where it all gets stupidly tragic. Consider a future, maybe fifty to a hundred years out, in which "Christians" are an economically disempowered group largely because they holed up in communities of conscience and kept their kids out of the rest of the world, with such a result that the rising generation reaches college at an inherent disadvantage. (It's
an utter mess↗, to be honest.) Setting aside the challenges of caring for them―especially if they somehow manage to fulfill, as they often do, anyway, their superstitions about people in need of societal welfare assistance―it's mostly a melodramatic notion to illustrate a more dystopic result. Americans can be incredibly stubborn and stupid, and in this case what needs to change is the traditional heart of our furious obstinance.
(Edit: Fix tags, 12 Oct. 2016, 22.41 PDT)
