Not from the US either. I'd be far too biased if I were to express my personal stance, as well. Yet as far as irrationality goes, a few things stand out:
- To quote Eliezer himself: politics is the mind killer. Even more so, when the general population doesn't seem to be either aware of, or particularly concerned with, the ease it is swept by the tidal waves of their respective tribal call to arms with.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-is-the-mind-killer
- For a rather substantial portion of it (at least, to an outsider's perspective - which very well may be as distorted as it can possibly be), the question seems to have less to do with Harris or Trump as candidates, or their policies. Much more: with what they claim to stand for.
Harris represents the system. She's been part of the establishment for as long as she's been on the radar of the public. She's a woman. She's Hispanic. She's a Democrat. She's pro all the minorities. Thrilling start for any PR team!
Trump is the embodiment of the exact opposite. He's the anti-system, anti-bureaucracy, anti-spending, anti-NATO. Pro back-in-the-day.
"Make all things great again".
Harris is riding a wave of (rather questionable, accountability-avoidant, no-interviews-please?) trust by the most progressive portion of the population in that their voices have been heard, and the changes they (alongside the minorities they are allegedly protecting) expect are just around the corner. As long as Harris wins.
Trump is riding a wave of discontent. Of the dissatisfaction with the status quo, with the establishment, with the MIC, with politicians - everything a typical, down-to-earth, quid-pro-quo American has likely grown to despise.
Harris = trust us, we are going to change.
Trump = trust me, they are lying to you again.
The growing gap in between concerns of the left and the centrists/right certainly doesn't help. Yet a more fundamental belief in one's ability to actively influence to one's benefit, on one side; and ever increasing distrust towards, the system as a whole, on the other one; doesn't seems to be the least significant of a factor here.
Trump has certainly contributed to the amount of distrust the latter are now feeling, of course. Though I'm personally struggling to say whether this was due to his positioning alone, or (at least in part) thanks to an increasingly larger portions of the "machine" actively weaponizing more and more of its metaphorical antibodies against the threat of his highly unwarranted "invasion".
- Lastly, differences in acting styles. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to take a US politician's self-expression at a face value given all that's transpired over the last decade, so forgive me that particular term.
Trump is a celebrity. He's honed his skills as a public figure quite well while running his empire. He's also lived through enough controversies and humiliations to develop his own style, which he's likely only refined further with "The Apprentice".
To stay a celebrity, you have to continue supplying people with what they expect from you. Here, you can either choose to passively play into trendy people's whims. Or to craft an image, conditioning people to expect a certain "shtick".
What has he conditioned people to expect, over the decades in real estate and later - show-biz?
One, larger-than-life, Trump-Tower-'esque show.
To create one, you need a central theme. You can't orchestrate it around 6-hours long debates on contentious issues without an immediate, visceral, instant response from the public.
What about a catchy slogan? Yes, please.
"Make America Great Again", it is.
What about a Big Brother as an enemy? Done.
A fascinating side effect / self-fulfilling prophecy here, in particular. The more he's baiting / provoking / exposing / calling out the establishment, the more compelled this last one feels to adopt increasingly Big-Brother'esque tactics in direct response to his shenanigans.
Those, who have originally anchored him as a "threat to democracy" would then get even more polarized towards the "he's the next Hitler" part of the spectrum. The ones who already resonate with his MAGA performance grow to support him even more, as more and more of their own doubts, concerns, and suspicions come to life.
Combine all three points with a more traditional, conservative, occasionally: God-fearing perspective; concern about Biden's cognitive decline supported by Harris & Co enthusiastic conviction in him still being as sharp as ever, (virtually completely?) unattended border situation - and you'll probably get yourself a rather coherent picture of a Trumpist.
How much of it is pro-MAGA and "Trump will save us all" vs "Biden and Harris just have to go"?
No idea, to be completely honest.
Completely open to having all of my "arguments" torn to shreds, of course. The sole fact there is such a perfectly civil, patient, non-hostile discussion taking place on topic of this sort has already been an incredible sight to witness.
Ok, well first let me correct that misconception: I am definitely making an effort to understand. Knowledge is the only thing I get out of this. If you feel I'm being insincere about any specific point, feel free to ask about it. But I think the difficulty in communication really just shows exactly that: real communication is difficult.
I interpreted your initial "That makes it sound like I've done something I think I should to feel bad about." to mean "It sounds like you are implying that my reason for supporting Trump is bad" (I took the word 'judged' from your original post, btw), so this reply was saying "no, I am not implying that it is bad".
Apparently, you were actually criticizing my description. By that, do you mean that you do think "not feeling judged" is a bad reason to support someone, or do you mean that it's not an accurate statement about you. If the former, why do you think that it's a bad reason, and what in general do you consider acceptable reasons? If the latter, how is me saying I don't view it as bad "doubling down"?
For your next objection to my "it doesn't make sense to like someone for both their morality and amorality", perhaps I should have paraphrased less as directly quoted you with "the Kavanaugh thing wrecks that narrative".
This implies you think it is actual and current. Do you think we currently have a thought-policing dystopia?
That's reasonable. I would like there to be no enemies. Now, obviously that's not the case, but it is almost never true that an entire group is an enemy, and it is often true that calling people enemies creates and perpetuates enmity.
You're correct that I trust the establishment, though obviously not to a degree that I think is too much. I also think that you're correct that this may be a crux. For your test, without Googling, my belief is that Trump said "there are fine people on both sides" in reference to the Charlottesville protests. Even if I'm incorrect about that though, I don't think that it measures how much trust I have in the establishment news, since you haven't measured my confidence in that belief or how resistent it would be to counter evidence. If some random person on the street tells me they just ate a bagel, I will believe they just ate a bagel, despite a relatively low level of trust. But that doesn't mean I would stake much on that belief or resist counter-evidence. I don't know if my current belief on this is true, but if not, I guess you can test how I react to counter-evidence (though you may have to distinguish between my resistance to changing my belief and my level of trust in the source of whatever counter-evidence you provide).
I was recently thinking about how I would explain my general trust in the established systems (science, education, free press, democracy) to someone who didn't share it. It's quite difficult, because I think at core it comes down to beliefs about what other people are like. Perhaps the best way to explain it is that my base assumption is that other people are like me, and when I think about how I would act in these systems, the result of them being filled with people like me is that they would be fallible but reasonably reliable. The other reason it's hard for me to explain why I don't distrust them is that trust seems like the default to me. Like I said, I'd believe a complete stranger's claim about what they ate. When I ask a cashier the price of an item, I've never once thought they might lie to me. The vast majority of things I hear people say (and the things I say to others) line up with reality, so against that background prior of P(statement|human said it)~=0.99, it feels like I would need to understand why someone else think P(statement|human said it & establishmentIndicator)<50%, before I could begin to explain why I haven't reached that conclusion.
I'm curious, do you have any beliefs that others label as conspiracy theories? How do you determine which sources to trust? Do you trust any of our established systems in (science, education, free press, or democracy)?