my informal survey of supporters of Donald Trump indicates that none of them believe what i believe about him... they all say he won't do the worst things he has said he will do... i deeply desire to be proven wrong...
@mbkriegh I think this is important. I also know a lot of Trump supporters (my county went for him 75-25 three elections in a row). I can and do believe a lot of horrible things about Trump himself but I simply cannot support the accusations being brought against most of his everyday supporters. The problem, as I see it, is that the two “sides” live in totally different universes.
@Annie we have to be really careful not to blanket tag his supporters with his intentions as we believe them to be.
@Annie @mbkriegh @jabel Something I don't understand is if they are paying attention to his speeches and the things he is saying and has been saying, how do they square that? I read the story @jabel recommended a few days ago, The Abandoned Americans, and it's pretty clear that working class Americans, the working poor, have been left behind. There's much to be said about the dynamics of the political parties and party politics and elections.
But how do "they" reckon with the things Trump has repeatedly advocated? The hate, the incitement to violence, the very long list. If he does in fact act as he said he intends to wil they just throw up their hands and say, "Jeesh, we didn't see this coming but I guess we have no choice now but to go along." I understand the built up anger in America and resentment against a system that is fundamentally broken and unjust. It is justified. But it also seems to me that there are a lot of people who are deeply racist and misogynist who do want much of what he has advocated.
@Denny Well, I don't think it's an either/or situation. I think there are hateful people who see in Trump the permission to be as hateful as they want to be (and to even be lauded as heroic for that hate). I think those are the people who are flying a dozen flags on their trucks and going to the rallies etc., probably. But I think there is also a vast majority of people who are literally not paying attention to his actual speeches or policies or promises. Like @jabel said, they are living in a very different universe. They see filtered versions of his words in memes and reactions and retellings from what the algorithm feeds them in their little universe, and they're not going out of it to check the original or find a different perspective. They're not examining, they're consuming.
I did a little FB stalking before the election. The very conservative, religious people I grew up with were sharing articles/links/etc about pro-life/right-to-life/etc. Nothing about immigration, nothing about foreign policy, nothing about the economy. One issue voters, and Trump's their guy on that issue, and that's all they're sharing back and forth with each other (and I'd assume that's pretty much all they're seeing). Also with this one clip of Trump pointing heavenward and saying "We need help" along with added captions of a religious nature.
@Denny Someone said several years ago that Trump’s supporters take him seriously but not literally and his opponents take him literally but not seriously. I think they understand him to be a bullshitter who enjoys pissing off the libs as much as they do. (David Graeber has something about this dynamic and I’m trying to find it.) As for “fascist”, I think they take that as seriously as we take Biden or Harris being called a communist. “Typical election year name calling,” they’d say.
Now it may be that Trump turns out to be these things. But it’s not hard for me to see how his supporters could see him as I’ve described above.
@Denny But, also also, to your point "But it also seems to me that there are a lot of people who are deeply racist and misogynist...." I think that's true, too. I don't think they call it that, or even necessarily want exactly what Trump is advocating. But we're living in an empire founded on racism, with baked-in misogyny, and folks who aren’t consciously fighting against that internalized bullshit are most likely still making choices based on it, whether they recognize it as such or not.
@jabel the two “sides” live in totally different universes — Two different countries, anyhow. It reminds me of the story of the blind men and the elephant, where one thinks he has a snake, another a tree, another a wall.
@Denny @Annie @jabel my mother is a case in point… leading up to election her three children all tried to tell her about Trump… her main news source is Fox… she does watch some of the others… i have watched Nicole Wallace with her on MSNBC… she is a smart woman and a caring person, but at the end of the day she didn’t believe what we and any alternative news source were telling her… she was more worried about Harris/Walz being a socialist ticket… since the election my brother, sister and i are all grieving and expressing fear in a family thread… “it won’t be as bad as you think,” she commented… i finally got her to agree that if Trump does the things we believe he will, that would be bad…
@Annie Damn, that's so well explained! Thank you. It's those subtleties, the nuance, that it is internalized and perhaps not even recognized. And, I think, likely, for many, a part of Christian upbringing, hence it being widespread and internalized.
@jabel Yeah, that rings true as well and I think I recall seeing those points about how different people take him depending on where they are coming from. Makes sense. @mbkriegh
Appreciate the conversation peeps, thank you!
@PhillyCodeHound fortunately we are able to set our politics aside and enjoy each other in other ways. Also, she lives in Seattle so she’s surrounded by liberals.
@Denny @mbkriegh @jabel @Annie Even if we discount what he says he will do, how did good folks square a Trump vote with what he already has done? To take but one example, what about sexual assault? I suspect many Trump voters would think Bill Clinton's morals should have kept him out of the White House, but Trump gets a pass. (Of course, Jan 6 is the elephant in this particular room.) Are we unable to think anymore?
@JimRain But I was watching the Today show when Hillary said the accusations against her husband were part of a “vast right wing conspiracy.” Motivated reasoning can move mountains.
@jabel Hillary may have believed people were airing Bill's sins for partisan purposes, but I have no doubt she knew that they were true. Her Trump analogue is Lindsey Graham. We haven't had great choices since 2016, have we? 🎶 Where have you gone, Mitt Romney? A lonely nation turns its eyes to you. 🎶
@jabel I will say, when they spoke at the DNC this year, I thought of the shameless way they lambasted Lewisky in the process of that denial. Again, I voted for Harris, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit thinking “A party that still holds these two up does not in any meaningful sense deserve to win.”
@tinyroofnail Yeah, I’ve voted Democrat since 2008 but I still regularly annoy my Dem friends when I say the best thing that’ll happen to the party will be the deaths of the Clintons and James Carville.
@JimRain again, my mother as an example, she has to believe he has done such things to even be in the squaring space... i don't think she does... Jan 6 is also a case in point... she does not believe it was an attempted overthrow of the government... as Kelly Ann Conway famously said, "Facts don't matter. What people believe matters." I consider that one of the most significant statements of truth of the current century.