The teacher and education theorist Paulo Freire wrote, “I will return to my analysis of authoritarianism, whether that of parents or teachers. As one might expect, authoritarianism will at times cause children and students to adopt positions, defiant of any limit, discipline, or authority, rebellious But it will also lead to apathy, excessive obedience, uncritical conformity, lack of resistance against authoritarian discourse, selfabnegation,and fear of freedom.”
By authoritarianism Freire means much more than rapping knuckles or yelling at people. Training people to line up, respond to bells, learn by rote, simply obey, are parts of it.To this we might add the authoritarianism and hierarchy of the workplace. It is not surprising “the system” has created the problems Freire notes, for “the system” considers these features, not bugs.
Well yes sort of joking. BUt everybody who lived through his first presidency damned well knew what he was doing then, and in the interim discussed exactly what he wanted to do this time, and he is actually doing it. WHy anybody is surprised, not a fucking clue because he is as upfront about it as a brick to the face.
I understand that there are people out there who will never vote blue or red (depending on which side of the aisle they are on), but the ones who I am utterly perplexed by are the ones who lived through Trump’s first term, saw his wrecking ball approach and general disdain for the rule of law and our institutions, and decided “Yeah, I’d rather have MORE of that, than a Harris administration.”
I mean, even if the Democrats were shady as hell trying to pass Biden off as competent and able to serve a second term, that shouldn’t have mattered to anyone who actually values our institutions, system of government, and the rule of law. That shadiness is normal politics, as unfortunate as it is, but Trump’s stuff with DOGE and the flood of dubiously legal executive orders/tariffs is beyond the pale. And these people should have known coming in that he was going to do something similar, and that Congress is feckless and unlikely to actually check him in any meaningful way.
All I can come up with is that a LOT of people are a lot less intelligent than we assume they are, and they can’t really think much past “Inflation is bad, I’m struggling economically, and Biden’s in office, so I’m voting for the other guy.” Or maybe some variation on “The Democrats tried to lie to me by passing Biden off as NOT a doddering old man, so I’m voting for the other guy.” without actually thinking back that Trump lies constantly. Or maybe they’re just racist, sexist troglodytes who prefer a white man, no matter how crooked and venal, to a black woman.
I don’t know the answer, but it has definitely shaken my faith in my countrymen, and my faith in the universal franchise. Maybe not everyone should be allowed to vote after all. Maybe it should be viewed as a privilege, not a right. Not sure how you regulate that though.
I’ve long felt that in order to vote, one should take and pass the same test prospective citizens take (thereby demonstrating at least a rudimentary understanding of civics).
Unfortunately, the Jim Crow South, with its “literacy tests,” thoroughly poisoned that well. So we’re stuck with the current predicament.
For that matter, why didn’t you realize how messed-up Trump was in the 1980s? There were lots of articles about what a mess he was in Spy magazine. Here’s an website about it:
It was obvious as soon as he entered politics that he had no business holding any elected office. Anyone who voted for him in the last ten years is a piece of shit.
I wrote this fairly early on in Trump 1.0. Interesting how the various points have aged. In aggregate, I think it’s evergreen:
Here’s the kind of rhetoric we actually hear from the Right … about the Left:
They’re turning this country socialist, like Venezuela
They’re giving this country over to illegals and brown people
They’re going to ban your guns and your ability to practice your religion
They’re teaching your children to be ashamed of their race, their heterosexuality, and their ethnicity
They’re forcing The Gay Agenda on your kids, most of whom will be forced to undergo gender reassignment surgery without anybody’s knowledge or consent
They’re turning your cities into war-torn cesspools
Your children are utterly not safe in Librul 'Murica
They’re stealing the election. Your vote won’t count
“They’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you. I’m just in the way” (TFG)
You won’t be able to buy a 17 ounce fountain drink
We’ll all be forced to eat nothing but kale. An In-n-Out Double Double will be a Felony
They’re using Agenda 21 to force us all to live in cramped barracks and drive Smart cars
Bill Gates is going to inject a chip into you. Big Brother will own you
You’ll pay 105% of your income in taxes
You’ll have to marry somebody of a different race, have LGBTQ kids, and get an abortion. You’ll just have to
They handing the USA to Putin and Xi
We’ll all be buying Teslas for non-English speaking Welfare recipients
FOR THE LOVE OF GRID … BENGHAZI!!!
They offer these existential threats – pretty much all fiction – in lieu of policy proposals or bipartisanship. And you wonder why the aggressively incurious (still) support them, while the least stable among them occasionally takes to violence?
The common thread is “If the Left gets power, the government is going to take away various freedoms and/or compel you to do things you don’t like or agree with.”
When they’re broadcasting this nonsense to people who are afraid of the modern world and want a return to an era that they feel was better/safer, then it holds a lot of value for them.
But understanding the nuance in a lot of these things is beyond them. They hear that the NYC city government tried to restrict sodas above a certain size in certain venues, and they really hear “the liberals are going to restrict your soda size”, and get all het up about them reducing their freedom to choose a 44 oz drink. Never mind that it was the NYC city government, that they’re in Idaho, and that they only drink 16 oz sodas anyway; they assume all liberals have the same agenda from on high, and they’re just opposed to this in principle.
I’m so fucking sick of people saying “I didn’t vote for this” about things they MOST OBVIOUSLY FUCKING VOTED FOR. Whatever fantasy about Trump you have in your head, everything he’s doing now, EVERYTHING, was completely obvious to anyone who chose to see reality.
Racist is like 12% of what makes Trump so horrific. He’s evil in almost all ways a human can be evil. You would have a difficult time finding a person that was less like Jesus Christ and yet these conservative “Christians” worship him like he’s the second coming.
If I believed in religious bullshit, Trump would be pegging the “antichrist” meter off the charts and yet hardly any of them make that connection. But all the stuff about how some evil person is going to fool all the Christians into thinking he’s great and they give him unlimited power is eerily (and coincidentally) there.
I suspect there are still a fairly sizeable contingent that don’t like any of that, but who have been conditioned over decades to believe some combination of:
a) He’s a Republican, and even with all his lumps, is still better for the country than a Democrat
b) My pastor says I should vote for him, and God works through imperfect vessels, so I’ll let that slide and try to do what’s “right”.
I’m not at all saying I agree with any of this- it’s a massive critical thought failure. But that’s how some of the people I suspect voted for him have commented in the past. In addition, they don’t really see that the game has changed some; they’re still all working from the assumption that Trump’s not undermining our institutions, or if he is, they’re strong enough to withstand it.
I’m not nearly as frustrated with those people as I am with the Leftist types who didn’t vote because Biden/Harris wasn’t left enough. They’re too sanctimonious and up their own butts to realize that withholding their votes in protest is a tacit Trump vote. They’re the ones who deserve extra hemmorohoids in my view.