I strongly suspect he voted in his perceived self interest. He believes he will have more money in his pocket if Trump is elected. The extent to which this is due to inflation, taxation, or other more complicated trade issues which may have a personal effect on him (his wife is part owner of a large manufacturing company in another country), I do not know.
And that’s all I’m going to say on the issue. I don’t mind putting words in his mouth if I’m pretty sure I know that’s what he’d say, but it’s not like we sit around with copies of the Republican and Democratic platforms and go through them point by point.
I’m clearly referring to the people I know in my personal life. Obviously I have seen online influencers or Proud Boys on the news who clearly ARE coming from a place of hate, but none of the Trump supporters I know in my own life are like that.
Once again, it doesn’t especially matter what a person says are their reasons for supporting Trump, if we’re figuring out what they’re actually supporting:
The only reason it matters what they state is if you can use it as leverage for pulling them away from Trump.
By voting for Trump, a man that attempted to end representative democracy, those people have already declared that they don’t care about me. They’re just too cowardly to admit it. Demanding the same relationship afterwards is gaslighting and abuse.
I’m not willing to say that he’s not as bad as Hitler in potential. If we don’t figure out how to constrain him, I think he presents the sort of existential threat Hitler presented.
To be fair, whenever any Republican ran for office they were called Nazi or fascist since at least Goldwater’s time. Crying wolf has its consequences.
Now, if you really believe that you and billions of others are in mortal danger, then why are you wasting your precious time spamming a message board instead of doing something about it?
Mike Godwin may only be a pop culture name, but it is still worth hearing his take on this issue. He is far from alone in his thinking [wasn’t paywalled for me]:
I said nothing about that cliche. I said crying wolf has its consequences. Regardless of the accuracy or not of calling the Glorious Orange One a fascist or a Nazi, the impact is diluted by the hysterical and disingenuous overuse of the term for generations. Der Trihs’s rhetoric is not in any way new or uncommon.
That might be true, but I doubt it. Trump has always struck me as closer to a Grachii Brother than a Caesar or even a Sulla. In terms of actual harm caused by his policies, I think he will be similar to his first term.
The real harm has already been done. We have rewarded the perpetrators of Jan 6 with reelection, thus delegitimizing our entire system of government and the principle of peaceful transfer of power.
I hope you’re right–but I think the people driving the clown car have spent the last eight years figuring out how to drive it better, and I’m deeply, deeply concerned at what they’ve learned. Trump with full control of the legislative and judicial branches and with the backing of Project 2025 has potential to enact some full-on horrors.
If he’s going to be stopped, it’s going to require some pretty serious effort from folks who aren’t okay with fascism, and there’s fewer of us than I thought. We need to be very strategy-minded, and not let our spleens control our decisions.
No, I’m saying that regardless of what they thought they were supporting when they filled out their ballots, what they were actually supporting was rape and political persecution. I explicitly said that twice in my last post, which wasn’t all that long, so the fact that you missed it both times makes me question how accurate your understanding of the motives of your Trump voting acquaintances actually is.
Unless you know 37,000,001 Trump supporters, and have talked to each individually, you don’t know what “most” Trump supporters actually support.
Me, I’m going to keep going with the assumption that the reason most Trump voters supported him, is because they supported the things he ran on, which included massive amounts of sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and good old fashioned racism. I’m sure it makes you more comfortable to believe that “most” Trump voters don’t agree with that stuff, but I find that pretty unconvincing. It’s not like Trump was secretive about that shit, or that it wasn’t covered adequately in the media.
It is paywalled for me. So, I couldn’t read it. Point is, if you want words to mean something use them appropriately. Everyone is prone to hyperbole now and then. But a constant drum beat that everyone to the right of Chairman Mao is literally Hitler is counterproductive. At some point, the left has to realize that most people don’t like being the target of disgust or condescension and that such attitudes are repellant to the degree that they will chase off potential allies.
Furthermore, if the left were right, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. Nor would all the talking heads in left of center media be having the same sort of debate. Double down if you wish. You think that will be helpful in 2026, 2028 or beyond?
So … sit up and pay attention now. That’s all anybody can do … now. Don’t blame your blind spots on Every Liberal Who Ever Lived.
Besides, the problem you cite is a Trump tactic. Steve Bannon lovingly calls it ‘flooding the zone with shit.’
It’s time to pay attention. Recriminations for having cried wolf can definitely wait.
ETA: Also, because your straw man contentions about what other people think could happen, and when, haven’t come true only means that your straw man argument went by the wayside.
Hey, I don’t have a blind spot with regards to Trump. I didn’t vote for him. Not that that has ANY relevance to factual discourse. But if you think the tactics of intellectual heavyweights such as Der Trihs and Czarcasm are the key to Democratic or progressive dominance in Western civilization keep on keeping on.
And, um, it’s not actually a fallacy when you are responding to the actual strawman…