But it seems like almost no Trump supporters themselves are happy either. The rich may like the wealth increase for now but then see how Trump’s behavior crashes the stock market and will make things worse economically long run. When I read posts written by my Trump-supporting Facebook acquaintances, they don’t sound happy, they keep complaining about the chaos and turmoil in the world right now (apparently not realizing their man is a big reason for it.) Anti-war Trump supporters have now seen their president do war in Venezuela, Iran, etc. Maybe Federalist Society folks are somewhat happy, seeing their 6-3 majority deliver the outcomes they want. Anti-abortion pro-lifers….maybe happy? Fiscal hawks are miserable, of course; the national debt just keeps skyrocketing. Small government conservatives can’t like the massive governmental overreach of Trump, DOGE, etc. Military hawks can’t like the way Hegseth has incompetently or corruptly gutted the military leadership and trashed the culture. Even Trump himself doesn’t seem happy.
So who in America is actually pleased about the state of things today?
Well, as all loyal MAGAs know, everything bad going on now is the fault of Joe Biden and Barack Hussein Obama. If the woke and traitorous RINOs can be suppressed and all the bad people deported, a golden age will ensue.
The thing is, chaos and disruption are what Trump loves, along with revenge on his enemies and personal wealth accumulation. Those three things have guided his actions as President.
Trump speaking to the press today about missions to rescue downed airmen:
The Republicans I know are still happy specifically because they know how unhappy Trump is making their enemies. They are willing to bear tremendous personal hardships as long as liberal America is destroyed. The ends justify the means.
Yes, this is what Trump is all about. This is what the MAGA movement is all about. They ARE getting what they want. Their problem, and the reason that they aren’t happy, is because by its very nature the goal of the MAGA movement isn’t to provide for the happiness of the true believers. It’s to punish those who aren’t members of the movement, and punishing others, especially those who don’t deserve to be punished and are merely scapegoats rather than the source of problem, can’t provide happiness. At best it will provide for a feeling of “things suck for me, but they’re even worse for those other people that I hate”. As for why anyone ends up with this type of mindset, I have no idea.
There is a subset of MAGA who have fallen for the “chaos is a ladder” mentality. I also think they are basically underwear gnomes, with little idea of how, exactly, to profit from it. They are just glad to know that all the corrupt money is falling on “their side” for once. Again, not understanding that it will all be hoarded by the 1%.
I do think the billionaires are legitimately happy, as they tear down protections that took decades to erect. They will be happily destroying our environment for an extra 5% profit until we can put it all back together again.
I’ve been wondering this too. I hear a lot of “with the way the world is now”, or “in times like these”, or similar phrases indicating that we all accept as given that things are trending downward. I know I’ve been sad since I heard the election results, but if that’s what’s making all of us sad, how the hell did it happen?
Some of the happy people are those who believe the Fox news narrative that the US is neck-deep in criminal immigrants, because deportations and walls are mostly what they care about. They can forgive Trump for quite a bit as long as he’s hurting and preferably eliminating people that they see only as problems.
The other people who are happy are the ones who believe that believe democracy and civil institutions are a scam intended to bring everyone down to the same level of status and achievement. The sorts of people who think the Clean Water Act is just a ruse to prevent corporations from doing too well financially, who think that people with chronic medical conditions are either faking or just need to drop out of the gene pool, who consider every tax dollar to be wasted.
The latter are the “chaos ladder” voters mentioned upthread, I just wanted to expand a little more on that. The failure of norms and civic institutions is welcome news to them, because they are highly invested in their grievances about these things, but have literally no idea how or why they benefit. They’re glad to endure suffering if they think someone else is suffering more, and if it results in a system that’s easier for them to comprehend and fits their preferences. For them, rich white people get more because they deserve more, and they are not willing to listen to a bunch of airy-fairy rhetoric about why that isn’t or shouldn’t always be true.
My response to their social media glee at punishing others with regards to higher gas & food prices is to say nonchalantly:
I am a well off liberal and can weather these economic storms better than most.
(Whether I can or not is none of their business.)
I haven’t used this response more than a few times but as of yet none of them have barked back at me.
Only for ordinary people. Billionaires have their own economy, that is insulated from the ups and downs of the stock market. Billionaires are happy as long as Progressives have no actual power, and therefore no ability to tax their money away. Taxes are what they fear, not markets. (Note: this is strictly my opinion, and I can’t defend it with facts or cites; but if it is not true, then why be a billionaire?)
I’m reminded of a comment I once read; that depressions are great for the sort of extremely wealthy people who use wealth as a club to get their way, since they can still live in luxury while having even more power over everyone else.
All the MAGA people whose FB feeds I look at seem to be happy. They’re especially thrilled about the prospect of genocide in Iran. The Turd Reich might even outdo the Third Reich in murders. They don’t mind the gas prices so much, at long as they can come back with “they were higher under Biden.” It really doesn’t matter how bad things get for them, they are convinced that all of the nation’s troubles are caused by immigrants and as long as the brown people get the iron boot right up the ass, they could not care less about inflation or unemployment or deficits.
The hard core MAGAs seem to be pretty happy. Out of curiosity, I recently signed
up to Trump’s Truth Social just to see what the responses would be to his “Open
the F***in’ Strait, you crazy bastards” post. Nearly all of the replies were along the
lines of "Hell yeah! We’ll show them who’s boss!! USA! USA! USA! "
It’s interesting. My view into MAGA land is largely formed by my wife’s elderly family and a few friends who moved down South.
I don’t know if “happy” is the right term is they never seem like they are happy about anything. It’s more like a firm belief that the world is going to Hell in a handbasket but none of it is connected to Trump or conservative polices.
The best way I could describe it is a complete inability to form coherent logical thoughts and a firm belief that all problems are due to outside agitators.
I would assume its the same people its always been. People high in right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation.
As long as Trump is the great white hope to push back against feminism, multiculturalism, secularism, a multi-racial society, etc then he will have a base of 30-40% of the country
My impression is this is already causing several conservative commentators to get pissed off. They don’t like the US supporting Jewish people. Its a mixed bag. Some conservatives hate muslims more than they hate Jews, some don’t.