Yes, I remain astonished at the success the Republicans have at convincing a lot of people to vote for Republicans as a response to problems the Republicans caused.
And Christians, and the military, and working-class people, and his own voters… Trump’s hates don’t match theirs. He just hates everyone.
The generation following Gen Z is currently dubbed ‘Generation Alpha’ (hey, I didn’t make it up), and it includes people who haven’t even been born yet. And its oldest members are grade-schoolers. It seems premature to speculate about their political leanings.
But that said, I’m not sure I’m following the extrapolation-from-previous-patterns logic. The radicalism of the ‘60s is usually attributed to Boomers, though it’s probably fair to credit the older cohorts of the Silent Generation as well. Mario Savio, for example, was born in 1942, which is Silent Generation. (Yes, I get the weirdness of generational boundaries.) The boomers’ followers, Gen X, is not exactly known for reactionary conservatism. Sure, Millenials and Gen Z are leftier, but the data really seems to suggest a leftward drift by generation, not a ‘reacting against your parents’ pendulum model.
Election scientists, if I may use that word, have surmised that a “generation’s” (and I get that that’s a pretty generalized term in and of itself) political leanings are mostly influenced by the great issues and leaders during the times it became politically aware. That may not be particularly obvious in most cases but over time we can observe differences. Silents and older Boomers have vastly different experiences than do today’s Zoomers and younger Millennials and it’s a wonder to me that the two groups are ever to find common ground.
We might be looking at three upcoming generations whose defining moments consist of simple general decay in terms of standards of living.
In his legal teams pocket, actually.
He will need a lot of $$ for legal battles once he is out.
Welp, the huge Million MAGA March never materialized, did it? While we had the lunatic fringe out there of course, the GOP rank-and-file was conspicuous by their absence. Today we had what-a few sad strange solitary individuals show up at various state capitols, stare at the barricades in the cold whistling winds for a spell, then slowly walk away into the darkness.
[This is NOT to minimize the appalling attempt by said loons to invade the Capitol of course-want to be clear on that]
Now.
Imagine that.
You CLAIM in every single solitary poll that comes your way that you are angry that the election was (allegedly) stolen, and are chomping at the bit to show the world just how pissed off you are.
Yet, very very few of them could be arsed to actually, you know, show up and demonstrate their supposed fury at Da Steal. Compare these sparse crowds to various million+ strong progressive demonstrations against GOP malfeasance over the last two decades.
Think about that, deeply, for a few moments.
Are these the (non) actions of a huge core of True Believers, utterly devoted to their Noble Champion in his brave crusade against the Deep State?
Or are they simply a bunch of insincere trolls who only profess such things to get a rise out of the libs and to show their solidarity to their fellows.
I now have my own mother trolling me, when she constantly complains about her tardy snail mail service. When I’ve tried to explain to her that Trump is solely to blame, she looks at me like I am completely crazy, claims she has zero idea of what I am talking about, and quickly changes the subject. This from the woman who taught me a valuable object lesson when I was 6 when she said she could tell that I was lying because my ears were (involuntarily) wiggling.
The thing is, it reveals a deeply nihilistic mindset. You would rather knowingly lie, to pollsters, friends, family members, and/or anyone else in earshot, rather than honestly & authentically admit the truth about the topic in question, all for oh, I don’t know, just for the secret yuks if nothing else. Bear false witness against the people in your life that you profess to love. It reveals that these people would ultimately rather see the world burn than to admit that their core viewpoint is wrong, all in the service of pale and weak egocentric rationales (as such).
It also reveals that they are moral cowards, to the core, completely unable to sack up and own up to their errors in either judgement or fact.
I do hope these people can unfuck themselves and stop seeing the world in these insane ways, and maybe Biden can begin said process, but Lord Ghod I simply cannot imagine living within such a mad mindset.