- People have been preaching “Democracy!” for decades and decades, slowly converting people into believing that we’re not a Republic, and so eroding the safeguards against populism.
- The Internet has removed the minority of professional gatekeepers of information, who ensure at least some minimums of standards. And the success of stupid information for stupid people has migrated back to the gatekeepers, with some taking it up as the best way to make a buck.
I think he’s a symptom of leftwing problems.
Now I’m Ms Lefty McTrotsky, but I think the left hasn’t done much for the poor in a long time and, in fact, looks down on the stupid redneck/chav masses who they feel are just too stupid to vote for them. I don’t think voting for a millionaire who will favour his rich cronies is going to do those people any good, but I do think the left should think about why they aren’t getting those votes.
The parties have been switching since the 70s. Economic policy has been the last to switch, but it’s happening. Socialist economics are a byproduct of Christian thought and, consequently, were popular with Democrats, the South, and Christians all of the way from Jefferson to Roosevelt. Currently, the economic portion has been shunted off from the South and the Christians, but the Republican party is slowly gaining back Socialist economics with Trump and his moves to protect the common man, while the North and the Democrats are slowly switching to favor Capitalism.
We’re probably still a good decade or two from the full switch.
Or the Republican party will just continue to flail with cognitive dissonance between Christian thought and Capitalist economics - which are mutually exclusive to one another.
Kinda both.
A bugle has a natural resonant frequency but it doesn’t make any noise until somebody blows into it.
I’m pretty convinced that Trump is a symptom and not much of a cause. He is an enabler though; all this stuff we’re hearing and seeing concerning hatefulness and general incivility is enabled/encouraged by the way he acts and the things he says.
But it was there all along; Nobody’s some kind of tabula rasa who watches Trump and thinks “Oh, this guy is RIGHT! Those darned moozlems ARE all terrorists!” No, they already think that way, but with Trump saying so from his bully pulpit, they feel emboldened to actually express those beliefs and in some cases, act on them.
Yeppers.
Hitler was a symptom before he was a cause. One can take advantage of evil that’s already there to gain power, but use that power to advance that evil considerably.
I think that is a common misconception because we have a terrible media. Democrats do do things for the poor and working class when they can. In the two years where the Dems controlled all levers of Government (2008-2010) we got Credit Card reform (a very underrated accomplishment most people forget even happened) and healthcare reform. Both boons for the poor and working class. The Democrats have also constantly introduced legislation that would target help to those groups but it gets blocked by the GOP. This is usually boring procedural stuff so it doesn’t get reported.
It isn’t that they aren’t tying to help; it’s that the people they are trying to help don’t know they are trying.