Nothing radical about opposition to the Viet Nam War, it was an entirely sensible and reasonable position that could be held without any reference to an overarching political position. “Radical” was mostly a smear having more to do with presumed lack of patriotism than anything else. It was more an emotional response to a refusal to support any and all US military action, regardless.
Opposition to an incredibly stupid, expensive and futile war isn’t radical. By the way, anyone know how that Grenada Memorial is coming along?
I think there were a few things that made Trump possible in 2016:
The normal backlash you get after a 2-term president.
The leftover malaise from the great recession. Even though the overall economy had recovered, and we were pretty much back to normal, there were large areas of the country that had not really recovered all that much. These were rural areas, often hard-hit by drugs, and by plant closures.
The fractured primary of the Republican party was an ugly thing to behold, where there were a bunch of candidates splitting the vote early. This is where the real radicalization took place, within the primaries, with the most motivated voters. There’s probably about 10 to 15% of the country on either side that’s absolutely crazy, and these people went with Trump on the Republican side.
Under the backdrop of all of that, it was a great place for a demagogue to show up and blame others - mostly minority groups - for people’s own problems. It cleared the way for the racists to start coming out from behind their sheets, and it just made for a really awful situation in the primaries. It felt like the completion of a process of radicalization that began back in 2008 within the Republican party. The party is sick at its core, and that gave a guy like Trump an opening.
Once Trump got to the General Election, it was mostly people lining up and voting for their party, as usual.
On this board, I might have a different view than some others: I used to be a strong Republican. I used to believe all their bullshit. When Trump won the primaries, I left the party. I had supported Kasich, but he’s now seen as some sort of liberal by the rank-and-file primary voter on the Republican side. And seeing the party bow down to Trump is a very very sad thing to watch. But it cleared my head, and made me realize that I made the right decision. Moderate to center-right have mostly been purged from the party. It’s all Trump, all the time, now in the party. It’s his party.
Because Trump was willing to say what was on many people’s minds - things many people thought or felt but didn’t dare say out loud.
That, and also, Trump was the candidate to vote for if one wanted to see something radically different for once. If you, a football fan, could choose one of two teams to win next year’s Super Bowl, would you rather it be the New England Patriots - who have already been the NFL’s dominant dynasty over the past 17 years - or the Cleveland Browns, who have never come close to winning a Super Bowl and whose championship would shock the sporting world?
Advertisers are wrong on this. Obviously perception affects politics, but reality is reality, and it’s important that we recognize that, while at the same time trying to fight lies and smears.
What about when one of the teams puts out a video of themselves mistreating women, runs ads claiming that there will be new NFL franchises in Flint and Gary, and promises not to sell tickets to Mexicans?
Most Americans are also dumb and ignorant as shit.
Look, Hilary Clinton proposed some reasonable, thoughtful plans for helping to improve the country with a little hard work.
Trump told people that America was the best and that we were getting fucked over by shifty foreigners, sneaky immigrants, lying Liberals and didn’t require anyone to do anything. He also declared “facts” to be no longer relevant so his supporters were no longer required to put up with pesky “logic” and “reason”.
Who do you think the average Fox News watching flag waving moron is going to vote for?
Just “liking Trump” does not justify or excuse belief in blatantly false and empirically disproven conspiracy theories. Attempting to conflate willful ignorance with “liking Trump” is what makes conversation impossible. You are deliberately ignoring OP’s actual criticism.
In the long view yes, but all Trump had to do was fool enough people for a short period of time - until Election Day. They perceived him as the better choice and that was that.
A lot of people thought Obama was born in Kenya, even though there was no evidence of this and plenty of evidence he was born in Hawaii. A lot of people thought people with Mexican ancestry couldn’t do certain jobs, like be a judge. A lot of people thought we should ban Muslims from entering the country.
Ok. To be fair tho, the only reason a lot of people thought Obama was from Kenya was because Trump basically originated (and certainly broadcast) the rumor. So he was “saying what everyone believed” because HE made them believe it.
And alot of people thought there was no problem with Trump re-tweeting factually incorrect inter-racial crime statistics that cast black people in a bad light.
And it didn’t bother them when he pretended not to know anything about David Duke.
And when he encouraged violence at his campaign rallies, I’m pretty sure alot of his base were thinking, “Damn Straight!”