Didn’t Commander Dewey “start” Globalization when he bombed Japan to get them to open up to us?
Romney got 27% of the Latino vote in 2012. Trump got 42% of Latinos in 2024.
Aside from the anti-Māori attitudes, my MAGA mother fits very comfortably in their findings. Like many others, my mother fell down a rabbit hole of Fox News and other, mostly online, conspiracy theorist and her attitudes really changed over the years.
Here in the U.S. we have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) which is a policy to protect undocumented immigrants who came to the United States when they were sixteen or younger. These individuals are sometimes referred to as dreamers and my mother wants them out. I explained to my mother that these individuals were brought to the United States as minors, they had no say in the matter, many of them have never known another home, may not even speak the native language of their parents, and deporting them is both cruel and unjust. My mother acknowledged the truth of what I said, but still supports their deportation on the grounds that she doesn’t want their parents to win.
As far as I can tell, most MAGA supporters I talk to are like my mother. They’re scared, angry, and want to see others hurt.
Yeah, I am Zimbabwean. Robert Mugabe was certainly a cos-play revolutionary (he was a school teacher) who happened to have great speaking ability, but poor ability to lead.
I am a fallen Catholic, and I can’t wrap my head around this sentence. My uncle is a Catholic priest (a bishop of sorts, though he has not been ordained as such) , and while I have not asked his opinion, I suspect his mind would start to boggle if he read it.
Mr. Trump is so far from any religion, not even atheists would accept him, he is in the void (and I am an atheist)
To think my “alma mata”, the fucking Catholics would accept Trump? The Spanish Inquistion (coincidently, affecting Latina women, of a paler colour than in South America) was pretty bad, but we presumably live in more civilized times.
But here we are. Middle ages mindsets in modern countries.
Over here, I’d say there’s a spectrum, from at one end people who are so bigoted as to set out to hurt “the other”, to those who just feel adrift and left behind, as society changes and making a good living and finding secure housing seems ever more precarious.
Interestingly, some recent research spots a correlation between support for the Faragists and concern over the decline of the high street (as a marker of perceived general social decline and decay) . This combines with a perception that “traditional” politicians are just out of touch with those sorts of concerns, and talk past people expressing them, with wooden off-the-peg language rather than listening. Fertile ground for people with simplistic answers.
There are three priests in my extended family (a cousin and two cousins once removed, next generation). One in Pakistan, one in the US and one in Australia. I have spoken with all of them in the last year about the state of the world and society. I’m pretty sure in November 2025 all three of them would be in the “hold your nose and vote for Trump” category.
The one in Pakistan is constantly under threat either from people weaponizing the blasphemy laws against his flock or from weak law government protection afforded religious minorities from the bigots in the majority community. But his preferred solution seems to be a Christian theocracy. Or some kind of militant self-ghettoization.
The ones in the US and Australia are of course very concerned about all kinds of things, but ultimately abortion and same sex marriage trumps everything, plus a good dose of paranoia about “Christianity being forced out of public spaces”. The American one was ranting in January about opposition to some statues of Christian saints being put up in police and fire stations.
Ironically, I find white, non Hispanic Catholic priests to be the most liberal right now. And most at odds with the folks in the pews. Or maybe I should say middle aged folks in the pews. Around here the older congregation and the younger are both trending MAGA.
My mother’s father was an immigrant and a coal miner-- in the northern US, where they have been unionized for over 100 years, IIRC. He had whole life insurance, health insurance, his first home loan from the union, very good pay and a good pension (as well as social security).
He was lucky enough not to get black lung disease, even though he got the benefit; he was totally Deaf by age 60, but refused to admit it could come from mining because his father and an uncle had lost a lot of hearing just from aging. I never knew them, so I don’t know how Deaf they were compared to my grandfather.
His friends worked in the mines with him, and they went out together on the weekends, and celebrated life events together. Because of immigration at the time, there were a number of Jews working as miners who dreamed of educating their children. My mother and her brother went to Jewish day schools, and then to a Catholic high school (there was no Jewish high school where they were), until my grandfather got mad about something, and sent my mother to public high school, where she graduated, and easily picked up valedictorian because she was advanced compared to always-public students.
Both my mother and her brother went to college, and ended up getting PhDs.
Those jobs were good for their time-- but because people had worked hard to get them unionized, and then, USE the unions for collective bargaining.
Other medium-skilled on-the-job-training type jobs that require diploma/GED, but nothing further, exist, and will exist, and will develop, but they don’t come into existence already unionized. The unions exist, though, and don’t have to be built from the ground up with new categories of jobs-- (truckers still belong to the “teamsters” union) the jobs just need to get into the unions. The jobs could be as “good” as coal mining if they did.
I don’t suppose Trump wants to come out and say that, though, since Republicans aren’t so much in favor of unions.
When Loretta Lynn’s song “Coal Miner’s Daughter” came out, along with the story of her growing up in poverty, I asked my mother why Lynn grew up in poverty, and she, my mother, did not, she said that the mines where Lynn’s father worked were not unionized.
Is it true? because Trump pretends to be against abortion? are Latina women more likely than other Catholics to be single-issue voters?
In context of a campaign, the only important issues to address are those that (a) can be addressed by legislative or executive policy, and (b) a likely majority of voters are likely to support, and (c) are demonstrably real.
Item C is particularly important because in this era of social-media lies, candidates and campaigns are constantly trying to push narratives around “lived experience”, knowing that they contradict the data. Knowing how easy it is to convince each voter that their individual problems should be elevated above all others, and possibly are even universally shared by others. Knowing how easy it is to paint a candidate as insensitive and tin-eared for even trying to figure out which problems are truly a priority for most people.
Asking these questions - is this problem real? Is it a priority for most people? should be a core tenet of any democratic campaign. But in a media environment where every individual gets their own social-media megaphone, it’s seen as tin-eared and out-of-touch to even ask the question, because how social media discourse elevates individual anecdotes over anything that resembles investigating what most people need.
I’m not sure I follow you, here; does Trump not do what they want him to do, on abortion?
I am not from the USA, but my Catholic upbringing was hard-core Roman Catholic, which is akin to extreme Islam in many ways (not all). We had Latin mass, which no one understood except my mum, and she was Anglican.
Not quite an outlier, as we had a bunch of Irish priests and nuns around, but pretty far.
This is what makes me love the sitcom, Father Ted.
He does not. If you remember, at some point after the Dobbs decision came out he said something to the effect of he sent abortion back to the states, which is what everyone wanted. In fact, sending it back to the states was precisely what no one wanted - one side wanted Roe to remain and the other wanted a Federal ban with no exceptions which Trump has never said he supported.
I don’t think Latina women are more likely to be single issue than other Catholic voters *- but even if Latina women are more likely to support Trump than Black women, there are plenty of other reasons why they might - including the fact that when they were voting, I’m sure a large number of them both thought citizens and people with green cards were not in any danger of being detained by ICE and resented undocumented people for “jumping the line”.
* BTW, although there was a time when nearly all Hispanics were Catholic if they had any religious affiliation at all , those days are gone. Most of the storefront churches in my area have signs only in Spanish.
It’s not what “precisely no one wanted” — it’s what I wanted — but that’s not my point; I’m saying, if someone who wants a ban with no exceptions chose between (a) the Democrat who wanted Roe to remain, and (b) Trump, do you think they now say, “gosh, on abortiom, the Democrat would’ve been a better choice,” or do they say “on abortion, Trump did a better job than the Democrat would’ve” if asked?
I don’t disagree that he came closer than a Democrat would have - but an awful lot of them aren’t satisfied with what they got and don’t believe he’s really opposed to abortion.
A couple of points about the UK that I missed:
The thing about the decline of the “high street” is that, as a collection of familiar small and often independent shops, it’s a marker for a sense of community, in a way the huge commercial shopping centres aren’t, despite occasional attempts to support community activities.
Abortion, same-sex marriage and other “culture war” issues just aren’t that salient with the public. Indeed, even the loudest white supremacists attempt to present themselves as standing up for gays and women against their imagined Islamists under the bed itching to impose Saudi-style sharia law.
Coal mining is one of those things that for some reason generates a lot of political controversy, disproportionate to the actual size of the industry. Coal mining is about a $28 billion industry that employs around 40,000 workers. Or roughly the total number of people employed by Broadcom.
In contrast, the new car industry in the USA is like $1.something trillion dollars.
I think that speaks to the fundamental problem with society these days. The constant bombardment of fake and exaggerated news that blows every problem completely out of proportion to reality.
It’s not like their lives are so awry or disturbing. I think it’s the combination of living in relatively isolated and homogenous bubbles, whether they are rural townships or affluent suburbs and constantly being told of all these “problems” that they find strange or threatening to their way of life.
Coal mining has effectively disappeared in the UK, which was (more-or-less) the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. If coal mining were to come back, it would employ a mere fraction of the people it once did, using technologies that require little physical strength and entail minimal danger. Is coal mining still physically dangerous in the US?
Concerning apple pies
Originating in the 14th century in England, apple pie recipes are now a standard part of cuisines in many countries where apples grow. Apple pie is a significant dessert in many countries, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Australia, Germany, New Zealand, and the United States.
From which follows that MAGA is not particularly US-American either. They just have America in the name, but the ideology is universal.
As universal as apple pie. More, even.
Some ways to live are righter than others, I am sure we all agree. Don’t be a jerk is better than be a jerk. But too many people are wrong about the right way. I also blame the media, both asocial media and right wing media.
I find it ironically funny that US Americans, when criticising nationalism, assume that their nationalism is worse than other nationalisms, and when criticising religion assume that the branch of religion they are most familiar with is worse than other branches, so much so that have to mention the sects they know twice, like in Protestant and Christianity.
I would rather nominate nationalism, organized religions (all of them) and bigotry, which encompasses numerous -isms, including racism and sexism.
And I see no need to capitalize any of those words. What is that, a sign of respect for them?
And on a technical level, and this is American exceptionalism, the only one I am willing to concede is exceptional, is bipartidism. I know of no other country where for generations there have only been two political parties that mattered, i.e. who had a chance at gaining power. Where people say “I am a democrat” or “I am a republican” as if it was a statement of irrevocable, logical, evident fact.
I am an atheist myself, but the theists do love him. Look:
Many more where those came from.
Yes, but it used to be much more:
and
Which fits into the narrative of MAKE whatever something something AGAIN, like in the '50s. Actually, coal’s peak production was in the '20s, such a great time, better than the '50s. Plus a couple of nice slogans, like “trumps DIGS coal” (so, clever, isn’t it) and Fox News plus asocial media, and the shit hits the fan.
Not really. It used to be mostly underground mining, with all the associate risks (dust and methane explosions, cave ins, coal lung…). Today it is mostly surface coal mining, where one operator and a big machine can do the work of hundreds of workers underground. Fast, cheap and risk free, except for the environement.