I think the problem with that article is the assumption, or implication, that the only reason that people highlight these examples is out of sadism and we are taking some enjoyment from hearing about suffering. “Schadenfreude” as he puts it.
As I said upthread, I see these examples as positive; that at least some people might realize they have been duped, and (one can only wish for some minority of cases) think about what they could do to not be so easily fooled in future. Fighting ignorance is what this forum is about after all.
And, in terms of hate, most of my hate is directed at the people who knowingly lied, or enabled the liars. The platforms spewing nonsense day after day and earning a lavish lifestyle out of it.
Meanwhile, sure, some people may have voted for bigoted reasons…I think they very much deserve a backfiring, but that’s case by case, not simply the set of all Trump voters.
The more bread you have, the less shit in your shit sandwich.
Gonna be epically bad for a lot of trump voters, both the working poor and the more comfortable who’ve been getting a lot of unnoticed federal subsidies.
I have zero sympathy for anyone who supported trump; they decided they wanted to hurt everyone else, whether out of malice or willful stupidity. If they get caught in the fallout of their evil, that’s just a bit of karma.
The reason why it’s hard to find much joy in it isn’t because they are suffering too, but because their suffering doesn’t make the rest of us off better off in any way. Not even in the “learn from their mistakes” way; this is Trump’s second term, it’s clear they are incapable or unwilling of learning. If they could they’d vote for him again for a third term, even if it was their last act as they die from his decisions.
Trump may not need the MAGA vote anymore, but Republicans in Congress do, and Trump needs them. They don’t bend over and take it up the ass for Trump because they like him, they do so because he has their base wrapped around his little finger. If he loses that base then its going to put a damper on his Keptocratic agenda.
I’ll suggest trump needs them (congress) intermitently. Right now he needs to be able to certify election results on the 6th, so he’s all in favor of them annointing Johnson.
He intends to rule by decree. He mostly needs Congress to sit on its hands and let him do that. The naturally fractious in-fighting nature of the R congresscritters, and the (I hope) intransigent nature of the D congresscritters should ensure inaction without much need of trump to employ what whip hand he has over them.
All that is true, in my view. But we could benefit from this debacle if we could analyze this situation correctly—stop being obsessed by commandments from pundits and party leaders that we shouldn’t blame the Trump voters because they voted solely on the economy, etc. We need to stop pretending to ourselves that it was the economy. If we started looking at the situation without ‘be nice’ colored glasses, we might learn something valuable.
As Calvera said when he had the drop on the Seven, What’s going to happen to these people is going to happen to them whether you’re still around or not.
Yes, the rest of us are going to suffer, too. We might as well collect what schadenfreude we can.
