But (risking the Scotsman’s wrath here) it’s not really conservatism at all, there are no actual ideals, nor is there any real thought nor anything which remotely resembles an actual philosophy in anything which he says or does.
Again, many posts here have focused on the core of his support, and, again, I get that. So, again, I ask: where are the massive amounts of bleeding on the soft left side of that group? Mothers who are turned off by the anti-abortion stuff? Rational businessmen from the old conservative school who are repulsed by the divisive rhetoric? People who saw their homes go up in flames in the northwest last year thanks to AGW? Parents who don’t want to see his education Gestapo running (and ruining) their schools and universities? Those who don’t want to see him kill off democracy in this country for good?
I’ve seen his support described as “stupid.” That’s an insult to actual stupid people. What I see instead is sheer and utter mindlessness. That 45% or so of the population could be THAT mindless is what I find to be truly disturbing. [And when it comes to other topics I am not so sure about the other 55%, but that’s for another topic]
Thanks for this viewpoint. I’m actually not all that liberal, and some trumpist policies, inasmuch as there were or are defined policies, were really not always all that conservative sometimes, in odd little ways. Like the brief flirting with prison reform (though that was mostly Kushner; surprised trump went along with it at all).
I’ve made the argument to trumpists I have talked to in real life, when I think they may more amenable to debate than some,“what, of the things you wanted him to accomplish, did he actually accomplish, really?” This list you provided is great; some of it I’m aware of, some I may have been more aware of and forgotten. Will definitely do some googling on this stuff. The NAFTA renegotiation I remember in particular being barely different than the existing agreement; just something they shuffled a few sub rules around and rebranded it to great fanfare.
And then how much of it is actually the influence of trump’s “grand vision” and not that of his handlers? Not much, I think. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a good figurehead if I like the handlers around him. But, the figurehead has to bring something to the table. trump is a bulldog who is great at tearing down opponents; he also has that fake showman razzmatazz thing going. But again, it seems like it’s not enough to sustain the run he’s had, that it would fall apart eventually.
The picture that is typically painted on this forum (which the above post is a very good example of) is of 80 million or so rabid foaming-at-the-mouth Repubs/right-leaning indies in a monolithic unchippable bloc who want to see all of their disliked groups suffer greatly in some way or another, that know full well what Trump is and what him and his allies & cobelligerents (such as McConnell) want to do (bye bye Social Security and Medicare and such), and just hate hate hate liberals in general and certain liberal allies specifically (such as trans people).
But instead what I see are what appear to be a lot of decent people on the GOP side, ones who would never hurt a fly, but they vote for him/them anyway, no matter how many hateful or divisive things he says, no matter how many pussies he grabs, no matter how much fraud he commits, no matter how much he cozies up to foreign dictators.
An example from a golf tournament I watched a couple of months ago. There was a Korean player (may have been an American citizen) who was getting a lot of support from the crowd, who chanted “Wooo!” whenever he hit a good shot or drained a putt.
I am certain that most of his fans would have to be solid Repubs (given the demographics of golfers). And that, after cheering on a person who isn’t a WASP like themselves, they would invariably go home, log into their blogs and subs and message boards-and express their hate for immigrants and libs and inclusiveness and such and so on. At least according to a lot of people on this board.
There seems to be a massive disconnect somewhere, something simply does NOT follow. No, simply declaring that T = C most certainly does NOT explain diddly-squat. Nor does in-group dynamics, or the simple inability to think critically, the notion that they got brainwashed somehow, and so on and on and on and on.
I just find it a strange question, why is the leading conservative a viable candidate for president in a country with millions of conservative voters? It’s seems self answering… whoever is the most powerful conservative will always be a viable candidate. Trump is the most powerful conservative because he’s who conservatives overwhelmingly support.
Trump gets lots of support from non-conservatives. In part, he gets support from the same blue-collar workers that used to support Democrats.
I understand their grievances. I don’t agree with it, but I know the litany they tell:
"I go to work, and I have to sit through a session on DEI and we have Pride flags in the office. I am forced to participate.
"I stop for gas on the way home, and the price is way up because some elite thinks I need to pay more.
“I stop to get groceriess, and the out-of-control spending of the Democrats cost me $50 more because of inflation.”
“I pick up my kid from school, and suddenly he’s hostile with me and repeating the talking points of the left. And he’s thinking maybe he’s a girl.”
“Some parents went to a school board meeting to protest the left-wing agenda, and the President called them terrorists and sent the FBI after them.”
“I sit down to watch the news, and it’s endless left wing propaganda.”
“I get sick of it all, so I just want to sit down and have a beer and watch the game. Except the players are wearing Pride colors, and there’s a transgender person on my beer can.”
“The President was just on TV, in front of a blood-red wall, shaking his fists and delaring that people like me are the enemy.”
In short, they feel like River Tam from Firefly, describing why the outer planets don’t like the progressive inner worlds:
People are tired of being told what to think, how to act, what to like and not like. They’re sick of being called deplorable or yokels or rednecks. So when a guy like Trump comes along, they’re like moths to a flame.
I predicted this back when the left was trying to destroy Mitt Romney. I said, “The Republicans tried a nice, serious candidate. The Democrats turned him into a misogynist monster who tortured dogs, kept women in binders and beat kids in high school. If youy’re going to treat a reasonable candidate like a monster, expect a less reasonable candidate next time.”
Ironic that you’re complaining about strawmanning by erecting the granddaddy of all strawmen.
As I suggested upthread, the majority of Trump supporters simply like the cut of Trump’s jib, and either don’t engage in politics much or only watch stuff like FOX. They are generally not well informed but not bad people.
I do suspect a correlation between animosity towards migrants and support for Trump though. It’s somewhat subjective if we want to say that that makes them bad people though, because a lot of them have been trained to think that way based on disinformation.
That is to say, if the kinds of “facts” that they “know” about immigrants were actually true, then I might feel as strongly as they do about policing the border and deporting people.
No, they’re tired of not being able to tell people what to think, how to act, and what to like. They’re angry, because gay people aren’t listening to them when they tell us to get back in the closet. They’re angry because Black people aren’t listening when they tell them to stop complaining about being second class citizens. They’re angry because women aren’t listening when they tell them what they are and are not allowed to do with their bodies.
They aren’t angry that there’s a pride flag on their beer. They’re angry that there’s a pride flag on someone else’s beer.
Democrats didn’t make Donald Trump. We didn’t turn millions of Americans into bigots by being mean to Mitt Romney. Donald Trump outperformed Mitt Romney because Donald Trump gave Republican voters exactly what they’ve always wanted: a platform for all their worst impulses. They didn’t vote for Mitt Romney because he wasn’t bigoted enough to get them to turn out on election night.
Although this is true, it comes from all sides. The Democrats and Republicans both are trying to dictate beliefs. The Democrats are possibly overemphasizing identity politics. The Republicans exaggerate these views for political effect (and many businesses and most younger people of both parties support more inclusion, though office lectures annoy some and probably don’t lead to widespread change) and are not shy about imposing their views on quasi-political issues like vaccines and abortion rights.
It is hard to see a solution to this imbroglio if there is no room for discussion, intraparty friendships, common cause or moderate views. Canada has many problems but when the level of dysfunction seems high, one need only look south.
Trump entertains some, and his fans think he has a bold sense of humour. His use of social media was groundbreaking and many felt a personal connection. The thing about caricatures is that they seem exaggerated when the real person is smarter and more likeable in person than opponents may wish to portray. He accomplished more than Democrats credit him for. For all of the media handwringing, you are correct CNN seems to be trying very hard to placate Trump.
Yes, it is. Not so much in direct marching orders, but in terms of how society needs to change.
Think back to the days of Segregation. There was a lot of wealth produced by Black people for White people. If we actually treat everyone equally, Joe White Guy’s share is less, because he’s no longer taking two-thirds of Joe Black Guy’s share.
We’re hearing all the time about Climate Change and how our cheap and easy dependence on the automobile and fossil fuels has to be rethought. This is true, but instead of hearing “your parents and grandparents bought an easier life at a terrible, terrible price, and now the bill is coming due,” people are hearing that social change is being forced upon them.
For these two examples, I’m personally for full equality and for a move away from the auto, but for a lot of people, it’s Librul Elites making unnecessary decisions and forcing it on them. It is neither in their habit nor their interest to do the deeper thinking to ascertain why the Librul Elites would do such a thing; they see the evidence (often carefully curated for them by Fox). And there is evidence—it’s just being misinterpreted.
What I see in American Conservatives is a longing for a society that’s just less multicultural. They don’t mind Black people, brown people, gay people so much, but they want them and women, to know what the core values of American Society are. It just so happens that historically those values are racist, sexist, homophobic, but that’s not the selling point. They don’t feel racist, and they don’t want to be racist: they’re just naïvely ethnocentric and really believe that White culture is somehow more American than Black culture, except of course for those parts of black culture that they’ve accepted.
My read is that the individuals don’t have the interest in examining why they feel that things have just gone wrong, but somehow they just have, and if we can just turn the clock back a little bit—not all the way—we can, well, Make America Great Again. They are truly blind to the millions of lives that really were worse back in the day.
Americans in the civic sphere are not deep thinkers. We (as a whole) respond well to fallacious reasoning, particularly appeals to emotion and to patriotism and to fear. What Trump does is tell people, “It really IS that simple.” This is a lie, but it’s a lie they desperately want to believe, because then even if Trump is wrong about every specific thing, he validates what THEY know to be true.