Guest post: Paranoia juice in the water supply
Originally a comment by iknklast on $1000 a ticket.
As an American (sigh), my experience here in the Midwest is that the people who vote for Trump (and those who didn’t) pretty much regard the president almost as a king in terms of power (he isn’t; the Constitution left him weak, but 20th century presidents grabbed tons of power and Congress let them do it). The Trump voters actually think that stuff is good, and will make America Great Again, by which they mean 1950s for women and children, and 1880s for business [women baking cookies all day and vacuuming in pearls; children being whacked in school when they act up (not their children, because their children are brought up ‘right’); children being required to pray, salute the flag, and have devotionals in school; and business not being fettered by unions, environmental regulations, or minimum wage].
They actually believe that making the world better for everyone actually made it worse for them, mostly because they believe in their own superiority and are sure that in a world freed from ‘liberal tinkering’ they would be on the top of the heap, rich and powerful, and respected both at work and at home. They are not aware that they are where they are because of unions, college grants/loans that allowed them to get their education, and women who did all the damn work so they could succeed. They do not realize that their most likely location in the hierarchy would be working long ass days without a guaranteed lunch or weekend, being paid in scrip they can only use at the country store, and dying young in an industrial accident. That’s because, in this part of the country at least, the educational system has been afraid to tell people anything other than the rah rah creation story of the country where simple farmers went out and won the war without any help (I had no idea the French helped us until college, where history was taught somewhat more accurately). They have been taught that they are the chosen, filled with manifest destiny, and that Western men (and only men) have built things, created things, discovered things, killed things, and established things.
In their world, history was simple and clean until FDR messed it up with the New Deal, and liberals took over and started running everything. Even when Reagan was in power, even when Bush was in power, even with Trump in power, even when conservatives have all three branches of government, they still believe liberals, Jews, women, and gays hold all the power and control all the governmental functions, money, and everything else. No matter that none of those groups have ever held power in this country, and that every small step we’ve taken we’ve had to fight, sweat, and die for, they believe that we have swept through the nation, carpet bombing conservative communities, taking sledgehammers to churches, and castrating males, while demanding worship and veneration (not all literally, of course, because they can see that the churches are still standing and that their balls are intact, but in a real way nevertheless).
So when Trump comes along, they embrace him because he believes those things, too, and is willing to say out loud what these guys have been saying (most of them out loud, in spite of what you hear in the media) for years. I know they’ve been saying it out loud, because I live right here in the heartland, where I can hear it even with my hands over my ears. It’s the same dynamic I saw here one summer when the farmers moaned that there had been so much rain they couldn’t get the irrigators in the fields. They can see the truth, it’s obvious, but they can’t see it because it doesn’t fit the picture of reality they have built.
One woman on the City Council translated to women running everything, though we’ve never had a woman mayor (and the woman who ran for mayor in 2016 was roundly defeated). One gay pride parade on the main street of town (which is not, of course, Main Street) and the gays have taken over everything. One Muslim working at our school teaching economics, and the Muslims are plotting to destroy the white man. Anywhere they see someone in power who does not look like them, and it’s Armageddon for middle-class white males. It’s like someone put paranoia juice in the water supply, or something.
I only have one quibble with the above: “Congress let them do it”. This isn’t quite on; it would be more accurate, I believe, to say, “Congress gleefully encouraged it”. It started, honestly, with the post-World War era, when no politician could bring themselves to vote for a Declaration of War, so instead they started with euphemisms like “Police Action” and “AUMF”. These were deliberate attempts at evading a key duty under the Constitution–deciding when and where we were supposed to spend blood and treasure, and being responsible for the consequences.
This worked out pretty well for them–not only was the President on the hook for the conduct of the war, but now he could be blamed for the decision to go to war, even if every armchair warrior and chickenhawk in Congress voted to let him do it.
Dubya took it to the next level with his notorious “Signing Statements”, where he would repeatedly state that he had the right to ignore any given piece of legislation if he felt like it.
And it was, I’m sorry to say, the Democrats in Congress during the early Obama years that sealed the deal, Throughout his presidency, instead of hammering home a legislative agenda that would need to be undone with similar tactics, the Dems mainly served to prevent the GOP from overturning his executive orders. That meant that much of his legacy was a house of cards built on a shaky folding table. This cemented the notion of the President as King. Sure, it’d been a long slide to get there, but that final step was sufficient to ensure that Trump had all the precedent he could want (especially when playing to the nuance-deaf audience that forms his rally base; all he needs there is a superficial similarity to something Obama did, and they’ll insist it’s hypocrisy to not support his twisted use of that same power).
To be fair… Declaring war is more or less in violation of the UN charter (without UN sanction anyways).
Blood Knight,
The U.N. Charter speaks of the use of “force,” not just “war,” so I’m dubious that it would be a reason why Congress would be willing to authorize force but not declare war. (I’m even more dubious that Congress would give a shit what the UN Charter says.)
The ignorance of how much we owe to unions and to social democracy isn’t confined to the US. The price is still eternal vigilance.
I learned recently of how much help the US revoluntaries recieved from the French government, particularly finance.