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I really think that many moderates and liberals simply don't understand the grasp that he has over some people. This is how post WW1 Germany became Nazi Germany right before WW2.
We can make fun of it. We can complain about it. But what I rarely see is people studying it and trying to understand both the draw and the origins of this deadly attraction.
As much as we want to simply call these people "stupid" or "clueless" (which many people in this thread have already one) but it is much deeper than that. In fact taking that simplistic approach only makes it that much easier for him to recruit more people. The Left is so quick to minimize the hardships that many Trump supporters have faced in the past which might have pushed then to join his cult. If you constantly push groups away and this cult is openly embracing them and saying they understand their pain, then you can't be surprised when you hear headlines like the one for this story.
Well, yeah people call them stupid because they have the most access to facts out of all humans throughout history and yet work hardest to reject ALL of them except those they want to believe.
And I don't think most people were all that quick to dismiss these people's pain at first, in fact a lot of us have felt it firsthand. It's just really hard to feel sorry for people who are proudly bigoted, hateful, and willfully ignorant.
You're right, it's not helpful to call them stupid and dismiss their views, but it's honestly like we have no choice. How do you help and have empathy for people who would make your friends' existence illegal? How can you take seriously someone who constantly screams about problems that don't really exist, and are solely based on fearing people who have no interest in bothering them?
Seriously? Real questions.
I miss who my uncle used to be. No idea how he can do a complete 180. His father, who was an illegal immigrant must be rolling in his grave.
How do you go from attending your friend's gay wedding to telling that same friend they should get divorced and seek help?
it makes me think that this constant recital of "people are waking up" is more like people have fallen for deceitful marketing. if he happily attended a gay wedding beforehand, then the only reason he speaks down upon it now is because he's been programmed... played like a kazoo, if you will
because playing a fiddle actually takes some semblance of knowledge, and god knows these guys don't have that lmao
Doesn't that go both ways though?
On one end you are programmed to accept gays,
On the other you are programmed to reject.
And before all that, you are programmed to understand the concept of gay.
It's all programming. Now that social programming happens so quickly and such large scale... Humans weren't meant to handle that much programming.
Now, some people, at some point, start to question all programming. Those are the most resilient to direct programming from others, and the most able to program themselves based on judgement of all the programming going on.
But for the rest it's just a frustrating mess of self inconsistencies.
Rather than trying to understand their pain, my opinion is that the US right wing voter is under the control of one of the largest propaganda networks in history. The evangelical church, the billionaires that own local TV stations (Sinclair), Fox News, AM radio, and now social media echo chambers have led to a complete epistemic closure of the American right. Facts cannot penetrate that wall. Science cannot penetrate that wall. No amount of Democrat messaging can penetrate that wall. Seeing something with their own eyes cannot penetrate that wall.
History teaches us that this kind of propaganda leads to a very bad ending. Civil war, genocide, authoritarian dictatorship... pick your poison. America needs to find a way to dismantle the right wing propaganda apparatus, without that I see no hope. (I know, doom and gloom.) I sincerely hope I'm wrong.
Completely on the dot! A couple of years ago during Covid I landed into the far right echo chamber. The way it happened: I was looking for answers to all the craziness that was unfolding, and found my source for answers. Apparently, it was all just a big conspiracy, and there was a group of satanist elites that were trying to take over the world. Terrifying stuff, and even more terrifying, apparently they had so much power that they managed to gain control of all big news channels! Don't look at the news anymore, and beware of contradicting news sources, they might be controlled opposition! I was in it for about two years and learned about all kinds of weird stuff, Freemasons, MK Ultra, Adrenochrome, Archons, Reptilians, you name it. Recently, through discovering contradictions, I've been re-assessing my beliefs and have come to the conclusion that most of it is nonsense.
The grip is very strong once it's got you. Its whole schtick is in systematically closing off all your access to contradictory information and getting you hooked on sources from the inside, based on fear of the "powerful elites". It's a self-controlling system of more of the same, leading to more and more rigidness and nonsense as you get sucked deeper into the belief. At the same time it is actively trying to gather new members. This is why it can live on so many separate channels, even outside of the internet. No moderators are even needed to control the information from its members, as members themselves already do the job on their own. It's the perfect epistemic loop, and the thought that you're in one won't even cross your mind.
I'm afraid that TV stations, Fox News and the church are not the primary spreaders of this belief. It might not necessarily be spread top-down. The echo chamber can be compared more to a living organism, which self-corrects and evolves based on its environment, to grow and gain members. Scary stuff, the way it traps people looking for answers.
For me the solution has been a new belief system: one where I am aware of the way echo chambers work, and am actively looking for them in my own life so I can escape them, with daily practices and all to assist me in this. A lot of our problems are built on echo chambers that we build ourselves. I've been experimenting with this for about half a year now, with some really great success. I'm making posts about this here on Lemmy if you're interested:
The principles of all echo chambers: https://unilem.org/post/120862
I've been fascinated with how the religious right has stood behind someone so obviously out of line with their 'principles'. There actually have been people doing interesting work on that front, if you know who/where to look. I'd definitely recommend the book "Jesus and John Wayne" by Kristin Kobes du Mez, which chronicles the growing power of conservative Christianity in government starting back in the 40s through the election of Trump, and how electing Trump really was an expression of their values, not a departure from it. Podcasts like "Conspirituality" and "Straight White American Jesus" also try to take an honest look at the cultishness and where it's coming from. What's hard is that deradicalization is hard and often has to be done one person at a time. When we have one percent of the country needing to be deradicalized, maybe we can find people to go talk and make connections with each person. When it's 30% of the country, that's a much different proposition. Maybe society can figure out how to do that better--Conspirituality sometimes talks about how cults differ as leaderless, online only groups. Maybe social media can also reach people... But it won't if kids can't find information online that challenges the worldviews their parents want to program into them.
And recently, that Amazon Duggar documentary "Shiny Happy People" came out, and it's not a bad entry point to understand the issues I'm talking about either. I think it does a good job to show how these 'throwback' values play on nostalgia too act as an on ramp for people to raise their children in--children who are then encouraged to be literal warriors for Christ.
Hey, I'm running a community here on Lemmy that is focused on the topic of echo chambers and the way they form, and I think you might like it:
[email protected]
Excuse my shameless plug, lol
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected]
Ha, thanks bot
They're not actually in a lot of pain. Their struggles with poverty and drugs aren't fundamentally different than those of the left.
What they actually are is secretly hateful and bigoted, and those beliefs are deeply rooted cultural beliefs for them. Trump just made it socially acceptable for them to be openly hateful like they've wanted to be for so long, and gave them the promises of fulfilling their white nationalist dreams, so they jumped all over his dick.
It's not actually that complicated. I had the misfortune of growing up around their ilk, and have rolled with them for two years because of the lockdowns, so I know the score.
You have a rather simplistic view of this. That might be true for what you saw, but please don't project this to all MAGAts out there. The Left's insistence of always turning EVERY goddamn thing into a race issue only makes matters worse and completely misses a whole ton of underlying causes that we as a society should be looking at. If the Left could keep themselves from getting race-baited for even 10 minutes, we might be able to accomplish something one of these days.
Nah, it's mainly a race issue. Do not confuse your 1 semester course on modern history in college with my 40 years of suffering under the heel of vile racists both Black and white. The MAGA movement is mostly made up of racist whites who think like this and dumbasses who sympathize with them thinking they're the exception simply because the MAGA cultists choose to tolerate them to better enable them to manipulate others.
You're the problem. You're just the type that helps radicalize others.
The only one being problematic and immature here is you, friend. My life experience might be inconvenient for you but it trumps any of that carefully crafted nonsense intended to convince people to sympathize with Trump supporters you conjured up (or wrote with Chat GPT, I don't know).
@Hazdaz @pinkdrunkenelephants
Nah. You're the issue here.
Take it like a "man".
At some point the allies decided to just fight fascism with force because the time to soul-search the Germans’ support for the Nazis just would have been a waste and delay the unavoidable.
There’s not any one seriously questioning today whether the world should have waited a bit longer to see if they could figure out just why the Nazis were doing what they’re doing…on the contrary, the consensus is that if the world had acted sooner, a lot of tragedy could have been avoided.
Americans have the chance now to stop these new Nazis - there’s no point in understanding evil.
You're conflating two different questions into one. 'Is there a time to punch a Nazi,' and 'If we study Nazis, can we figure out how to stop people from turning into Nazis that subsequently require punching.' I'm personally of the opinion that the answer to both is yes. There is absolutely a point in understanding evil because, as we are having so comprehensively demonstrated, Nazis are not a one-time problem. Letting things get to the stage where punching is required has consequences.
In theory you’re right of course, but in this particular instance (MAGA) of Nazis, I think further studies would yield no interesting results. Now is the time to fight them (not necessarily yet with violence though). By that I mean that people need to get over the non-nazi candidate being lame and old but just vote for him instead of not voting. If that happens, the problem will be solved without a hint of violence. As long as they don’t start it, of course.
Same with the confederacy, tbh. Biggest mistake was to treat them with kid gloves afterward.
"Race-baited"?
Seems like someone doesn't want to acknowledge how deeply that segment of the population is embedded in "otherism" of all kinds.
Racism is endemic, and for you to call pointing out this very obvious fact "race-baiting" belies a serious lack of awareness on your part.
The part that is fascinating to this Canadian, is that a lot of his supporters' hardships are increased by the policies of the GOP. The demographic that is the largest recipient of federal social aid in the US is poor white people in the South and Midwest. Yet they continually vote for the party that has a clear policy of eliminating these programs.
Just before 2016, I saw this video that I wish I could find again. This journalist went somewhere in the Rust Belt to talk to these (overwhelmingly white) people. Of course, she got the usual "We believe in God, Guns and Country, and active trying to change that... Yada yada" stuff. But the interesting part was when she had an exchange with some fellow that went sort of like this (from memory):
"So, you've voted Republican all your life?" "Yep." "And in your lifetime, have things gotten better, of worse for you?" "Oh, way worse." "So... You keep voting for the same party, and your situation never get better?" "Yeah. But it could..." "Right, but it hasn't. So why not try voting for the other party and seeing?" "Yeah, but it could!"
I'm not sure how you fix this type of "logic".
I tried finding that video a few times the last few years, and couldn't. Maybe it's time to try again.
I think it's possible that a lot of people don't fundamentally understand what voting does. They see it as more of sports team color than the actual underlying policies being driven by political campaigns.
A decent number of young people around me think (or thought) that voting doesn't matter, that the only way to accomplish anything is through violent, disobedient protests.
But those don't fund infrastructure plans to rebuild schools and give schools bigger budgets. Those don't help people get the subsidized vaccines every child needs to be healthy. It doesn't help establish an impartial body for drawing voting maps. It doesn't help establish rights and minimums for the bottom 35% of families in the US. It doesn't decide public foreign policy or local bus and rail routes.
Voting does.
It's a message our young people need. Voting, and the due diligence and research you need to do to make an informed vote, usually takes less than one hour if you look at all their campaign issues, education, and political depth (did they work for a government before, what positions were they in, what were their accomplishments, etc.).
It is all about messaging.
Republicans are masters are connecting with people and selling them a cart full of lies. These people could sell icecubes to eskimoes.
On the flip side, Democrats couldn't sell a starving person a free meal. It is infuriating to watch. Democrats can make big wins and they are afraid to celebrate them because of asinine "liberal guilt".... because god forbid someone somewhere might not be doing so good, so we shouldn't celebrate our successes. It is exhausting dealing with these people. They will suck the fun and excitement out of a room.
The Democratic party should be acting as the "hype man" right now for Biden's successes as President. Reminding people where we were and how much we have accomplished. They should have been doing this for the last year, but even if they started now, it wouldn't be terrible. Will it happen? I doubt it. They should also go on the offensive and attacking Trump and the entire GOP but Dems tend to be too spineless to ever do that.
Policies of Trump... I don't know. About year two into his presidency, wages went up quite a bit in areas I lived in. Jobs became more available. General craziness was down, except for all those spouting hate at Trump the entire time.
I'm not saying I particularly paid much attention or attribute community growth due to his presidency, but things were getting better while he was president and dramatically tanked a year or two after Biden took over.
Just the general feel of places I've lived over the past 8 years or so.
For reference, I lived in low density suburban/rural areas during this time. May be way different in proper cities.
Wages have gone up much more under Biden who after all, inherited a badly crippled economy in the 1st place. Trump talks a lot, makes big promises, tells lots of lies, but meanwhile his only legislative accomplishment was to sign a giant tax cut for the rich that was completely written by congressional Republicans rather than his own administration.
And that's not even mentioning all his foreign policy blunders and the fact that he was an international laughing stock among all our major allies.
I could go on but I won't.
On the low end I haven't seen wages increase, if anything they've fallen, but they may be more to do with the whole of 2020 craziness that resulted in even greater worker shortages amongst the laborers, and the system comming back to equilibrium.
Foreign policy blunders? Pretty sure that's the first thing Biden did. Jump out of Afghanistan so fast we abandoned Europe and trampled some of our own.
Then there's the whole, cripple the European economy thing. I know there's more to it than that, but with the Ukraine thing, America really pressured Europe into crippling itself.
But I digress. I'm not trying to defend trump, nor attack Biden. Just note my casual observinces of my local economy.
Further, doing so will galvanize their support for their guy.
People like to imagine that making it obviously shameful to follow a guy would discourage people, but if you are open to considering the guy, you just get pissed, dig in, and let your persecution complex run wild. Famously, Hilary Clinton did a misstep in calling Trump followers "deplorables". Which might have been an apt word to describe his die-hard adherents, but a much broader population took that as an insult, that the perception of "it's us or them" had been validated. Even if they didn't believe in Trump "per se", the culture is absolutely support your guy, no matter what, or else the bigger evil other guy will ruin your country.
No one wants to believe they are being conned, that they are being manipulated. That the person they believe in is so bad. In the rare case where someone admits they were for Trump, but now recognize that he is a bad person, they are still likely to face ridicule for having ever been in a situation to fall for Trump's shtick.
Making something obviously shameful is to do so with reason. Telling people they are stupid and being manipulated is not people reacting by digging in, they are just responding to personal attacks. That falls to self-defense. Rational discussions about your own beliefs give others a chance to accept them. Trying to force them is just... Well... Facisim.
I agree. Fundamentally, these folks that support him now are not doing well. It's not the same for everyone. Some are feeling disenfranchised from parts of daily life, some are experiencing undesired change, some are terribly unhappy and don't know where to point their frustration, etc. Trump isn't a likely cult leader. He isn't very charismatic like we normally associate cult leaders. But he came with the right message at the right time and for a very large segment of our population, that message made sense to them. It gave them a REASON for how they were feeling, even if they didn't understand their own feelings in the first place.
When the day comes that the spell is broken, society must be ready to re-engage with these people in a meaningful way. Otherwise we are doomed to repeat it with the next person to show up and given them another reason.
There appears to be a good example of Spain in the 30s before the civil war. Both sides saw each other as the devil incarnated. There was no talking with each other,no middle ground. Bloodshed was the only way they were going to sort it out in the end.
Except that the Left doesn't really see Trump and MAGAts as being "devil incarnate". They kind of do, but they spend more time writing funny memes or posting snarky comments on Twitter than anything else. They are simply not taking as seriously as they should.
The Right sees this as war. Not in political discord and verbal debate, but as an actual fight for survival.
One thing I'd like a better understanding of is the percentage of people that really are rabid Trump supporters vs the people who just voted for him because he was the Republican candidate. I feel like the polls at this point are worthless and we really won't know how many of them there really are until the primaries. Maybe we will get a better view after the debates.
Anyway, I'm curious if you or anyone else has stats as to how many cult members there really are?
I personally don't have a problem with Republicans. l think low taxes, small, government and even religion are a valid world views. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I understand why they do, I just wish they backed someone who respected our institutions.
They claim about 60% of GOP votes. That translates to about 20% of all voters are hardcore MAGAts. Even if that number is rounded up a little, I would say at least 15% are the rabid Trump supporters you are talking about. That's roughly 25M people. That is not an insignificant number of people. Then there will be a ton of other votes for Trump and the GOP simply because some people will vote for their party regardless.
Now in THEORY I could agree with you that having a party push for low taxes and small government isn't bad. But the GOP hasn't believed that in decades. They might still campaign on that message because who doesn't want their taxes lowered, but there is absolutely nothing "fiscally responsible" about that party and every time they gain power, they prove that.
And that is my personal biggest worry is that if Trump somehow doesn't win the GOP nomination, some other Republican could step up and start singing the same "lower taxes" bullshit that they've been trying for ages but ultimately when they get power they will try shoving religion down our throats, cut abortion rights even further, cut taxes - but only on the ultra wealthy, which will leave the rest of us with even more massive deficits - and increased spending on military programs we simply do not need.
Republicans have proven time and again that they do not deserve support.
You don't see earnest studying of it because both established parties enjoy the "Go Sports Team" dynamic it's part of.
One of the most frustrating aspects of this whole situation is listening to the absolute braindead takes I hear from the left. There's a lot of coastal elitism going around and it almost makes want to side with the magats just out of spite. I hear armchair socialists who have never done a day of physical labor in their lives making fun of farmers while stuffing their faces full of cheetos made from corn grown in Iowa. The few attempts I've seen to reach across the isle have been from the patronizing position of "we need to teach these hateful know-nothings in flyover country about their privilege and how to vote properly", instead of trying to learn why they believe what they do and how best to reach them.
I know that they're wrong. I know this because I was raised in a stable household by loving parents and was given a good education, but I get why they're angry. To be honest, I'm angry too.
What the fuck are you talking about?
I'm talking about years of cultural division and social neglect which have helped construct a funnel on top of the populist to fascist pipeline, into which an entire generation of young midwestern men are being dumped.
I know these people, they are my family and friends. Many of them started out as promising future-socialists. Then they looked to people who were supposed to be their allies in coastal blue states, and were immediately met with ridicule and derision. This provided a chance for fascists to swoop in and say "fuck those assholes, come roll with us and we'll change the system together". A lot of young men naïvely took the bait, and were radicalized in short order.
Christian fascism relies on a persecution complex, and you(collectively) have been helping feed into it.
You're not pointing at anything.
I'm from the fucking Midwest. Any "young man" that ate the fascist bullshit ate it because they were fed it from their friends and families. It wasn't the scapegoat "coastal elites" or the "globalists" or the "bankers," it was a learned behavior. My dad eats that shit and tried to feed it to me and my siblings. My grandpa eats that shit and fed it to my dad and aunt.
If you want to blame anyone, blame Fox for making it so easy for anyone to feast 24/7 on fascism talking points where you turn your brain off. My dad is a smart guy, no question about that. Lots of Republicans are! But that never stopped him or any of them from being a dumb piece of shit loser. Because he chooses to ignore the facts as they are presented to him. He chooses not to know what the 16th Amendment is. He chooses not to understand the costs of education. He chooses to believe the lies that are said to him when you give direct video or picture proof otherwise.
Because if he didn't, he'd be wrong. And I think he can't accept being that fundamentally wrong.
I'm not blaming any one thing for the rise of fascism in America. There are a myriad of factors which have built up over the past 50 years to bring us to this point. MY point, was that ONE OF THESE FACTORS OUT OF MANY HAS BEEN AN INCREASING HOSTILITY BETWEEN GEOCULTURAL REGIONS OF THE UNITED STATES. This has helped, in addition to the aforementioned other factors, to reinforce a sense of political isolation, and political isolation mixed with economic desperation and preexisting prejudices breeds extremism.
The only people to blame for fascism are fascists and those who profit off of them. It just so happens that I chose to bitch about this one specific element in this specific comment thread because it is one that I feel is often overlooked, you absolute mollusk.
You were the one that assumed I wasn't from the Midwest, not I you.
The increasing hostility isn't the cause of "coastal elites," though, so it is still misplaced rage. The only one you can reasonably blame for that would be the upper class, which, regardless if you understood it or not, is not the same thing. The term "coastal elite" is a loaded term to target certain types of people. It is, as you already put it, another way to isolate, but also one used by fascists themselves., which is why I put heavy emphasis on your usage of it.
But, yes, I do agree that I am typically a slug of some sort and that my mucus trail is both far and wide.
I agree that the coastal elitism is terrible, but please realize that that's not something "the left" does. It's something that liberals do. The Bernie-type left generally doesn't do that type of thing, and has suffered similar kinds of attacks from Clinton/Obama liberals for it (ex: being called "Bernie-bros"). They very much understand that racism and misogyny accusations are wielded as weapons by liberals when given the slightest opportunity. As far as I know, this has been an internal rift within "the left" that has severely hobbled it since the 60s/70s, promoting capitalist and elitist liberals instead.
Can I upvote this more than once??
This is very, very spot-on.
And the fact that someone here has downvoted you speaks volumes to the very point you are trying to make!
The Left is extremely exclusionary and in many ways has HELPED Trump more than almost anyone else. Yes he's a piece of shit. Yes he deserves to die in jail, but stop pushing groups away because eventually they could end up falling for MAGA propaganda. We are already seeing reports of how an alarming number of white male teens are joining right wing groups. What does the Left do? Make it worse by calling out bullshit like "white privilege" or calling them "incels" or simply "racist". These guys are just kids and they hear one side that is constantly degrading males and constantly blaming whites... well what the fuck do you think those teens are going to do? They are going to find a group that accepts them. It is so obviously and yet so infuriating how the Left can't see what they are doing.
I don't hear that side anywhere. I hear at most maybe a few sporadic dumbasses. Maybe get your ears checked.