Hooooooooooooooooooboy. Mainly, he got lucky in time. WARNING, WALL OF TEXT
This is a continuation of the build up to the original civil war in America, when post reconstruction under a President who was sympathetic to the confederates after Lincoln was assassinated. You’ve had generations still calling for civil war (spend 30 minutes around a group of Texans and see if you can get out without hearing them declaring Texas never signed to become part of the union again). With the “war of northern aggression” myths that are pervasive you’ve got people believing that it was DC that invaded the south instead of the south attacking first, as well as “states rights” making it seem like big government is picking on the states.
Into the racism territory, the original civil war was about slavery. Full stop. If you have questions, please refer to declarations of causes of secession from Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas (which its formation was specifically stealing it from Mexico to become a slaveholding state), Virginia, then look at the Constitution of the CSA Article I, Sec. 9(4), Article IV, Sec 2(1)(3), Sec 3(3). States rights indeed.
This may seem odd to dredge up all of that but living in the South this has been the drum I grew up around my entire life and spoken of as gospel. Am a descendant of a Confederate officer and people tell my family that we should be proud… I’m proud of my parents for responding that he’s a traitorous piece of shit and deserved to be hung. This offends the locals in modern era. Now with jobs that had me traveling, you find the Virginia battle standard (that’s not the Confederate flag, the actual Confederate flag is mostly white, then they changed it to the “blood dipped banner” with a red strip at the end because the actual flag looked too much like a flag of surrender… ironically changed the month they surrendered. Whoops) all over the country in small communities. It’s weird to see “It’s heritage, not hate” in Ohio. So the ghosts of the Civil War are not yet gone.
But lets get out of the Civil War and move to more modern wounds the country still has festering. The Civil Rights act when taught in schools is almost treated like it was ancient history… my dad’s high school cancelled prom because the principal would not have the first integrated prom in the state, people are still alive from that era and anyone thinks hatred was overblown, Eisenhower had to send the 101st Airborne and federalize the Arkansas National Guard to protect 9 students because the Governor mobilized the National Guard to bar their way into the school. Following Ike, you had JFK a Democrat who ran with LBJ, the running mate was chosen because LBJ was your old school southern Democrat, wildly racist, which spoke the language of the very angry South. JFK was pushing integration, but as VP, LBJ actually seemed to spearhead it harder than JFK, and when he became President after JFKs assassination made it a point to continue integration full steam ahead (not a saint, his words to people still racist… he was a complicated figure in history). He signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 1968, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and changed politics in the country for the foreseeable future, the Southern “Dixiecrats” felt betrayed by the Democratic party. This was added on by the Southern Strategy pushed by Nixon and his political strategist Kevin Philips.
The words of Phillips himself in 1970, warning: language of the era
From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don’t need any more than that… but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.
During the Nixon era, the War on Drugs started up. Former Nixon Domestic Policy Chief John Ehrlichman told outright the war on drugs was made because you couldn’t arrest people for being against the war or black, so tie weed with hippies and blacks with heroin and now they had a ready made excuse to disrupt communities, arrest leaders, raid homes, and vilify them on the news. Another one of those talking points of the Republicans you hear about today was a Nixon favorite “the Silent Majority”. We all know about the Watergate Scandal, and if you don’t good lord a writeup of it would take up more than I’ve written now, but an overreach of Nixons power and lead to his impeachment trials. So Nixon is a shamed president, we don’t need to look at him anymore… Except many of his policies are quietly still used by the Republicans, which shouldn’t be a surprise, one of President Trump’s political consultants, Roger Stone, has a tattoo of Nixon on his back.
Against the war… RIGHT, another boogeyman of the US: Communism. Understand Fascism, Socialism (often attributed to Communism, since we’re talking US politics, the words are interchangeable even though in reality they are not), and Anarchy were political theories that butted heads about the same time. During WWII it was even in the US “we gotta stop the communists” and of course the Cold War made it worse. Containment, the US doctrine to prevent the spread of Communism started roughly with Truman, as put in by Nixon on the trying to go against hippies, the attitude continued and still Communism is a bad word today. Good lord that discussion is its own article, but good to remember that we have situations like McArthyism, a second Hooverism where persecution against left wing individuals under the guise of “weeding out communists” has happened and getting called for now where people were encouraged to turn in people suspected of communist sympathies, happened a lot in Hollywood, so a distrust of the conservative crowd of the liberals and such like the “Hollywood Elite” is ingrained in our society for nearly a century.
THE MODERN REPUBLICAN PARTY, good lord we finally got here. It can really be chalked up to their patron saint Ronald Reagan. Old Ronald pushed a lot of the economics that are still worshiped by the right wing today, as well as much of the political control. He was an odd duck, not a politician, but an actor who got a cult of personality going and a massive following that felt he could do no wrong. Wonder who that sounds like? No idea. Again, another point where I could go a long time how his administration shaped the country but there’s a really important one that explains how we got here. The 11th commandment
Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.
Look at the Republicans for decades after that. They softballed each other while holding Democrats to a higher standard. Republican does something distatetful the Republicans would protect, but a Democrat do something and hang them out to dry. This became the main doctrine of the Republicans, lockstep together and do not faulter. Clinton sleeps with someone, Impeachment trial, W starts wars with countries not involved in 9/11 nada, Obama and Biden impeachment inquiries for… reasons? The republicans started their “win at all costs” move, a lot spearheaded by Mitch McConnell (yet another… good lord long article)
This is going to seem like an aside, but is important, during this, 9/11 happened and the real advent of 24/7 news cycles showed up. This will be important because this beast lives on advertising, it’s a for profit business, and so keeping butts in chairs and eyes glued to the screen is very important.
So in comes the turd in the punchbowl, Donald Trump. He doesn’t believe in rules. He is more intimate with guys in drag than the truth. He’s ran as a democrat to get president, failed miserably. Ran as republican, failed miserably. But the perfect storm happened. A black guy is in the White House! 24/7 news is blasting anything they can. Trump has been able to stay in media and keep crowds entertained, honestly his true talent is working crowds. So he finds that “birther” conspiracy and ran with it, all the major news networks were happy to parade Trump on and give him free publicity, Fox because he’s helping spread hate against the Democrats, CNN and MSNBC happy to show him off because “haha, look at the dumb conspiracy nut” and gave him ALL of the press. Then the primaries came after Obama, and a pile of Republicans, all following the 11th commandment are together, being nice, cordial, while jockying for who’s in charge. And Trump ignored the rules, tore each and every one of them apart, so the divisions of a pile of candidates who softballed and he threw elbows landed him the nomination.
I want this understood, this is still VERY MUCH an ELI5, truncated and painted with the broadest brush explanation of what’s going on. I could go into fuckups of the Democrats, that Bill was the beginning of the end of the actual left wing to corporatism or the running of Hillary being a dumb move, but you asked about what did Trump tap into. The TLDR is “We’re still dealing with shit that came up before Lincoln was elected.”
There’s always been a sort of background radiation of this. Decades ago Rush Limbaugh was prolific in inspiring a weird new direction of fashy talk radio shows and Fox capitalized on it like no other. Trump didn’t do it, he just rode the surf.
Big question with a lot of nuance and different angles you could approach from. What I think will clarify some things: the emotional side of liberal vs conservatives is that one side sees how humanity could be better and strives for that change, while the other worries that we’ll get worse and resist the change.
Well for quite some time, things have been rapidly changing like no other time in history due in large part to advancements in technology. Both sides can see that we’ve ended up in some dark places as a result and generally the world is more confusing, divided, and stressful than ever.
In reality there is a lot of great progress that we’ve made in recent times. But people who are slow to adapt don’t see it that way, which makes them extremely uncomfortable and left feeling like it totally justifies their philosophy. But nobody is listening because the popular media shuts them out.
So basically they’re throwing a huge temper tantrum and trying to kick over the sand castle everyone else has worked so hard to build, because they feel fed up, self-righteous, and ignored. They don’t see it that way, of course, they feel they’re renegades tearing down a godless society and saving the world. They vote for a buffoon because they’re tired of that idea being weaponized against them, so they’re owning it. With him they’re able to take center stage and be so loud and in your face that you can’t ignore them.
See, all the really open minded citizens in America were just so happy when the country elected a black guy as president that they just had to go out and share that joy with the rest of the world!
His televised narcissistic collapse (now in it’s 13th year) has emboldened every Archie Bunker wannabe, vacuous contrarian, all the racist chucklefucks, and miscellaneous shitstains the country has to offer. The rest of the people are sick and tired of having their empathy and compassion mocked and derided, their hopes and dreams dashed, and their future turned into nightmare fuel.
Yes, he was always a privileged asshole devoid of human compassion or understanding, but this is the moment at the WHCD on 4/30/2011 where he broke beyond repair: v.redd.it/sk0jqm81r5kd1
every Archie Bunker wannabe, vacuous contrarian, all the racist chucklefucks, and miscellaneous shitstains the country has to offer. The rest of the people are sick and tired of having their empathy and compassion mocked and derided, their hopes and dreams dashed
I couldn’t help but to read this in the most tired, South London accent ever.
people are realizing that the American dream was a lie and they don’t want to believe that the people they voted for all along are the ones who caused it
no, if you were a white middle class boomer born between 1945 & 1970ish who managed not to go to vietnam, you got to live the American dream. then we methodically voted for the people who stripped away all of the policies that made it possible
Hey, my boomer dad got to be a slave soldier AND live the dream.
Because his dad was a dentist and he could afford to pay for college after Uncle Sam, it turns out, got him shot twice, blown up once, and gave him leukemia.
But at least Vietnam doesn’t have universal healthcare.
I know, I’m referring to the fact that all that got done to him to defend a fascist state against Big Scary Communist Ho Chi Minh who actually wanted to be a US Ally against Chinese influence in Asia.
And then they didn’t even fucking win. Which was probably good, but still.
The funny thing is it used to kind of work for a lot of small businesses and poor people in general. It sucked but you could do it. Only true visionaries like hunter s Thompson and Carlin really understood that the system was rotten before it all started to fall apart.
Tldr: The media attacked him, turned him into a symbol of unhappiness.
America isn’t doing so great. Unemployment is high, inflation is spiraling out of control, wild habitats are being bulldozed, hell it’s getting hard to put food on the table.
I think even lemmy can agree that the economy isn’t doing so well.
Back in the 80s, we had factories, with unions. NAFTA decided that America should send most of our factories to Mexico and beyond. Immigration went up, importing cheap labor, basically scabs.
The Democrats, who claimed to be for the common worker, made a farce of it, saying “they took our jobs” was racist. And you know what, those jobs weren’t stolen, there were given away.
Every year, year after year, it gets worse. Politicians on both sides are lying to our faces and won’t do jack shit to bring in tariffs or lower immigration.
Then comes Trump. He’s a fucking scumbag just like every other politician, but at least he attempts to pander to the millions affected. And then the media started attacking him.
This just made him look like someone who might actually be on our side. Sure, he might fuck over every other country, but God damn it, America comes first, not Mexico, not China, not the EU, America comes first.
Half the population is below average IQ and will listen to whoever screams the loudest. That’s a gross simplification but basically what’s going on. People with low IQ do not have logical reasoning.
Besides coming across as iamverysmart, that doesn’t match the actual demographics. Somehow, low-IQ people are all born poor, white, male and decades ago? You could make the argument for the tendency to be uneducated, but even that’s not a perfect correlation with raw intelligence.
I’m not sure what your argument is. I’m not saying all dumb people are poor. Absolutely not the case. There are plenty of absolute morons who are rich that support Trump. I literally never made any correlation claims about wealth?
Also I’m not talking about myself at all so idk why you took this as me saying i am very smart? Weird take…
Most Trump supporters are white, old, uneducated, male and/or poor. If Trump supporters are all dumb, there must be a strong correlation between these things and being dumb, statistically speaking.
In fact, Trump supporters may skew a little less intelligent, but there’s also plenty that are smart. (And I won’t even get into the validity of IQ as a valid measure of intelligence)
I’m stuck on the convincing people it exists step—too much of an asshole to be an ambassador I guess. Fight for public schools, and access to healthcare, and the arts. No better tools than health, knowledge, and a shared language of empathy. Embrace every opportunity to put self-sufficiency back in the hands normal people instead of further consolidating under the control of rich white fucks. Even if it costs you something, or if you won’t see the benefits right now. Buy local. Try and keep those profiting from your labor within metaphorical punching distance, should they ever need a metaphorical pop. Show up for local elections, run in local elections if you have a soul. If you care and are willing to learn you will be a godsend to some of your local boards.
The more the ruling elite have, the more they rig the system for themselves, the more the way to squeak up or cling to a rung on the ladder of prosperity is to emulate them, the more a narrative of superiority calcifies, the more stratified and shit people become. Trump tells them that’s fine, the truth is what feels the most comfortable. Not to think critically about how we got here because for his ilk the system is lining the pockets intended. Tells them to stop doing the painful work of looking within and pulling up any pernicious roots they might have grown out of; that it is okay to close their eyes to any consequences and causation if it makes them uneasy. Rural places more vulnerable to Trump’s rhetoric are more than capital poor. There’s nothing there to shake up these narratives before they harden and he’s telling them that’s not a tragedy, but cause for celebration.
LOL not laughing at you but you remind me of one of my brothers who currently sits on the city council in our home town. And he uses there own speech/weapons against them since they are all pro douchebag except my brother. When they wanted to ban books he showed up reading one while they talked and when they came to him to place his vote he said oh I am sorry I was reading a banned book and then read it allowed until his time passed and since it required all of them to vote he abstained by just reading outloud from a book that would get banned. He read the whole thing whitch took an hour until the rest got pissed off and gave up. We don’t know where he gets it from or how the hell he was elected but he is a huge smartass. So in our county no books got banned because of him. He still pisses them off by putting is feet up on the table so much they had to do a ruling about it. I think at some point in his life he read a handbook of polotics or something and uses the grey area pretty much to his own free will. Thats enough for now…I appreciate you writing all that out and it was very inciteful…no sarcasm.
Among other factors, I think humans have a certain instinctive drive: when there’s a broad sense of social malaise—when lots of people feel there’s something wrong with their social institutions, but there’s no consensus on how to remedy it—they gravitate toward whatever thing the social establishment seems most afraid of, because in our deep history that’s been an effective way to break out of dangerous institutional stasis.
Depending on the social establishment at the time, that anti-establishment movement could take many forms—religious, ideological, nationalistic, etc. So I think Trumpism is an inevitable reaction to the rise of the neoliberal establishment under Clinton and the Bushes: the underlying cause of the neoliberal malaise is economic, but the most visible social anxieties are over racism, sexism, and other social factors. So that creates a feedback loop of growing fear that attracts those feeling a general sense of discontent.
He basically told all the racists, homophobes, transphobes, xenophobes, and anyone else who feels they’re entitled to more than anyone else that they were right and they don’t need to maintain any air of dignity or even basic human compassion about it anymore.
Look at that list and you’ll see it’s all people who base their whole identity around hatred of things they’re afraid of or don’t understand. That’s what he tapped into, ignorance and fear.
American politics has been described as a two party system, but it is really a one and a half party system. One party creates a winning political coalition while the minority party has to deal with the remains. Sometimes the minority party wins major elections, but it is generally rare.
There are two ways the parties shift or reorganize.
The first is when one party collapses. Most recent examples were Republicans in 1932 and Democrats in 1968. The majority party messes up so much that it is blatantly apparent that they aren’t going to win elections any more and the transfer of power is rather peaceful.
The second is due to mainly demographic change as the majoriry party becomes the minority party. This is generally more risky for democracies as the shift is gradual and there isn’t a firm reason parties to switch. There is also more electoral chaos as votes are a lot closer.
One example was the Election of 1800, where Southern and Westward expansion in the country had led Jefferson and Burr to beat Adams, but then there was a stalemate on who would be picked. While a political solution was found in the end, militias were being drawn up and there was a growing threat of civil war.
The second example was the Civil War. While Lincoln won a minority of votes, it was apparent that future elections would likely be won by the party of thr North due to increasing immigration.
It seems like Trump is tapping into this demographic fear. More educated voters vote Democratic and the populace is becoming more educated. Outside of Florida, it appears that voters are choosing to move to Republican Sun belt states and voting Democrat. What was thought of as a party collapse in 2008 is turning out to be a demographic shift instead. So, the former dominant party is fighting back to delay or prevent the shift.
A lot of old-fashioned “good old homegrown” folks who feel that the world is changing and the economy is leaving them behind. Think of coal towns, mid-west mining towns, etc…
Insert a republican who tells them enough times that it’s not the fault of big business screwing literally everyone over, it’s actually the fault of the immigrants/LGBTQ+/Mulsims/Blacks (insert marginalised group of choice here) coming and taking what should rightfully go to Good Honest Working Folk/Christian Evangelicals (Insert the group you’re trying to court here) and then promise to change that.
The low-key greatest quote came from LBJ in an off-hand remark to an aide. Not even from a speech.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
True then. True now. And true internationally. There is no country where the Conservative Right Wing doesn’t play by that exact rulebook.