Quote Originally Posted by JamesWales View Post
This doesn't read like a response to the points I was making really.

I have no idea why you feel morally superior to others, but thats not a good thing because you probably aren't and it's probably a sign to look for more evidence as to why people vote why they do. I'm sure part of the reason may be why many people voted Labour in 2017 and 2019 despite having grave reservations about Jeremy Corbyn. People aren't looking for perfection, they are trying to find the best of realistically two options.

I wasn't talking about this, but as it happens, I was very left-wing in my youth, as a paid up member of a far-left party. I regularly bought the Morning Star. I don't regret it, I learnt a lot. I'm open minded on who to vote for now and consider myself a centrist liberal - needless to say that includes criticising left-wing politics so you get characterised as far-right, but that kind of distortion of reality just reinforces that left-wing politics isn't for me anymore.

I also don't think the two parties are the same - I'm never someone who says "they are all the same", although as it happens, I think the reality of governance means a great many of the decisions made would be very similar as thats how the real world works.

No, what I said was that peoples reasoning for how they vote is broadly the same, in that they want whats best for themselves, their family, their community or the country. Characterising those who vote differently as having radically different motives or morals is not much different than characterising those of a different religion of being the same. There's patterns of difference, sure, but most people are just trying to get on in life and live in a successful country.
I feel morally superior to many people these days because I struggle to see why so many of them are prepared to forgive essentially bad, selfish people anything if they represent the Conservative or Republican parties (I realise there are bad people in more liberal parties as well) but I agree that it’s not a healthy viewpoint to have. I’ve lived my life to a set of morals though that I feel are based on fairness and decency and it surprises and disappoints me that other, fundamentally decent people are prepared to, it seems, back the likes of Trump and Johnson no matter what they say or do. If they are prepared to do that, then I can at least rest easy in the knowledge that I’m not doing anything to keep such people in their positions of power, hence my feeling of moral superiority - this is something that is well beyond just party politics.