What mind set is it that allows millions of people to seemingly approve of a president who is so obviously mentally ill; who makes bad decisions, and is morally bankrupt?
Since we are in GQ, you won’t get an answer, as there is no factual response that exists. While I may (and, indeed, do) agree with your description, it is still an opinion.
This is better suited to The BBQ Pit rather than General Questions (although largely redundant). Title edited to indicate subject.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
“I hate these people. He says he hates these people. Ergo, he’s my friend. We’re a team. Go team us !”
It indicates just how far the liberal intelligentsia have left behind “the deplorables” over the past couple of decades. Progress may well be inevitable but you can’t leave behind a bloc that represents an electoral majority in a functioning democracy.
In a nutshell, it’s schadenfreude.
Resolved: Deplorable.
Colonialist sociopathy. People like Trump, Bolsonaro, Boris, Putin, Morrison, etc & their acolytes are of course gonna be big numbers amongst a species that’s turned its back on God & Nature.
Not that Trump’s electoral opponent was much better.
“Pool full o’ piss, or pool full o’ shit? Sorry, clean water is not a viable option!”
Because he is a bigoted, fascistic bullying son of a bitch who gets away with it. They wanna get away with it too. He mouths the same shit they quietly (sometimes) think. He tries to shit on the same groups of people they want to shit on.
Yes.
I’ve linked to this article before:
This Political Theorist Predicted the Rise of Trumpism. His Name Was Hunter S. Thompson.
In Hell’s Angels, the gonzo journalist wrote about left-behind people motivated only by “an ethic of total retaliation.” Sound familiar?
Most assholes are not mentally ill. Differentiating the two situations is worthwhile, since one is treatable.
And his distinct lack of a brain/mouth (or brain/thumbs) filter appeals to those who appreciate “telling it like it is”.
Best thing I’ve read on the subject that has crystalized the Trumpcult ideology so succinctly and accurately. Rings so true in context of the comments Trump has made in the past about the biker “tough guys” being some of his greatest supporters.
Ahh, I see we’re now in the correct forum for the answer:
Trump supporters are really fucking stupid people who are woefully misinformed and lacking in critical thinking skills.
Rebels without a clue.
OK, I read it. So is there any way to reason with this crowd? Or does the Democratic Party just need to out-vote them? (BTW, it seems weird that they’re identifying with him, given that he’s pretty much the social opposite of them; born to wealth, Manhattan resident and hobnobs with the elites.)
It’s a good article.
I can’t help thinking that the trouble with modern politics in a lot of Western nations is that it’s aligned itself around the wrong things. Time was (certainly in the UK, don’t know about America) when the difference between left and right was primarily economic - left was for the workers, right for the bosses. That seemed to change in the UK when Thatcher swooped in and gathered up a whole bunch of socially conservative working class voters on the basis of values and it never really changed back (Disclaimer: I was nine at the time and may be oversimplifying by a lot). It’s still mostly aligned with economic issues in Australia - the Big Two parties flirt with Identity Politics occasionally, but mostly they leave it to fringe parties - and honestly I think that makes Australian politics way more functional than what I see coming out of the US (for the rest of the Anglosphere, NZ and Canada seem to be going okay too, though I’m hardly an expert)
It honestly does mystify my that Trump - a born millionaire who is well known to stiff his workers whenever he thinks he can get away with it - has somehow become the candidate of choice for working class Americans. It’s like their economic interests aren’t even a thing - the conversation just inevitably gravitates to social and identity themes over and over again
No. I don’t believe there is common ground to reason with them on this subject. My understanding is that they identify not with his upper class social standing (which they do find aspirational and therefore lends him additional credibility), but with his ‘call a spade a spade and burn it all down’ attitude. He gives them permission not to be nice in polite society. They’ve not had that kind of freedom for a long time.
I’m trying to imagine a way the DNC can appeal to them.
Once in a while, I hear/read something that Trump himself or one of his supporters has said, and I think, “I wish I believed that. It would make me a lot happier about the way things are going right now.”
I suspect that many Trump supporters have made the decision to believe in him, and have decided not to listen to or to seriously consider anything that anyone says against him. It’s not that they’re stupid per se; it’s that they’re filtering everything they see and hear and think through Trump-colored glasses.
A lot of people do this kind of thing, not just Trump supporters. “Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”
Like I said years ago: blue collar workers are frustrated as hell. The system does not work for them; in fact, it works off of them, and they know it. They know they are taxes more than millionaires, that they work harder than millionaires and that ultimately, those millionaires will use lawyers and lobbyists and laws to take what little they have left after they are over-charged for rent, food, clothing and medical care. They know the system is rigged, so why not try a different way of rigging it?
The problem is, as noted above, they are really fucking stupid people who are woefully misinformed and lacking in critical thinking skills.