Plenty of appetite
Trump has referred to his opponents as “vermin” who are trying to “destroy America and to destroy the American dream,” and claimed that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our nation.” The Hitlerian overtones have not gone unnoticed. And yet, the man who promises to be a dictator on “day one” leads the GOP primary by 50 points. How could this be? The horrifying conclusion is that there is plenty of appetite within the party for this sort of rhetoric and it doesn’t turn many people off.
Surveys back this up. A recent poll of likely Iowa caucusgoers found that 42 percent of them were more likely to vote for Trump based on his assertion that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country. Twenty-nine percent said the comments don’t matter, and 28 percent responded that it would make them less likely to vote for him. In a national poll, 42 percent of Republicans identified themselves as “MAGA” conservatives.
Which is to say, Hillary was correct. About half of Republicans hear Trump’s rhetoric and think, “Yes, this exactly what I want.” These are the Americans who believe they should be forever atop the social and political order because of their race and/or religion and are angry at society for changing in ways that have leveled the playing field even a little. Trump promised these voters that “I am your retribution,” and they are planning to hold him to it.
They were instructed and encouraged in this mindset by Fox News for years, and then along came Trump to make them even worse.
Some might point out that only 28 percent of U.S. voters are registered as Republicans. True, but Republican-leaning independents constitute another 17 percent, and actual swing voters are relatively rare. So the best-case scenario is that only 14 percent of voters are really dedicated to installing a fascist dictatorship. However, history tells us that that is a sufficient critical mass to send a country spinning into horror. When Milton Mayer visited Germany in the early 1950s to interview former low-level members of the Nazi party, he concluded that perhaps only a million out of 70 million Germans were “Fanatiker” (fanatics or true believers)—the rest were just along for the perks or to simply avoid unwanted scrutiny for lack of ideological purity.
And/or a mix of all three – a little true belief plus a little for the perks plus a little conformity.
Then you have the folks who just want to be entertained. I can’t remember where, but recently there was an interview with someone who voted Trump in 2016, and Biden in 2020, who now said he was kind of bored with Biden and would probably vote Trump ’24 because it would be more fun.
Oh goddddd.
Then there’s the pro-choice voter who was planning to vote against Biden in 2024 because she’s mad about all these abortion restrictions. She assumed that since they were happening while he was president, he must be responsible.
Democracy: the worst system except for all the other ones, etc.
Back in the summer of 2016, when very few thought Trump stood a chance of winning, I remember a writer in Der Spiegel making the point that his chances were in fact a lot better than most people imagined. For one thing, as we all know, he didn’t need to win the popular vote to get elected. But just as importantly, because liberals and lefties – or old-school fiscal conservatives for that matter – found Trump so utterly repugnant, they couldn’t quite bring themselves to think that anyone else could find anything appealing about him either. I think this analysis fits well with the way many kept talking as if Trump voters were supporting him by mistake, because they didn’t realize how awful he actually was, and would start abandoning him on mass every time he said or did something outrageous (i.e. every time he said or did anything at all).
Bjarte, that’s definitely something I remember. I also think part of saying the voters were fooled by him is that the media is always careful not to blame the voters. If you voted for someone, it was you that did it, so who else is to blame? If you were fooled by Trump, why? There was probably more known about him before the election than anyone other candidate in my lifetime. He has lived in the public eye.
Nothing he said was unique, either. Living in red states most of my life, I had heard it all, and more. I knew the Trump voters, knew them personally, and I knew they could be kind to children and animals, were pleasant to talk to, and were very nice people…until you got to talking about politics or religion…or climate change, for that matter. Then the dragon came out. They voted for Trump because they are Trump with better house training.
Yeah, it’s not as if subtlety has ever been part of his repertoire. As (iirc) Charlie Sykes put it, when asked if there was anything good he could say about Trump, he’s not a hypocrite. I’ll give him that. He does not pretend to be any more moderate or less awful than he is. Those who voted for him knew exactly what they were opting for, and the fact that his many supposedly career-ending scandals didn’t prevent him from gaining votes between 2016 and 2020 suggests they got what they wanted.
There a very good article on Nick Cohen’s website about Anne Applebaum’s excellent memoir ‘Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends’:
One paragraph:
”(Applebaum) is as wary of the commonplace view that supporters of Trump, say, are conformists, who have been brainwashed online or by Fox News. They may be now in some part, but brainwashing does not explain how populist movements begin. Their leaders weren’t from small towns full of abandoned shops and drug-ridden streets. They were metropolitans, with degrees from Oxford in the case of Johnson and Dominic Cummings. The men and women Applebaum knew (in Poland) were not loyal drones but filled with a dark restlessness. They may pose as the tribunes of the common people now but they were members of the intellectual and educated elite willing to launch a war on the rest of the intellectual and educated elite.’
Sorry, link:
https://nickcohen.substack.com/p/how-reputable-conservatives-paved
Is that the right one?
I long believed that maybe 10% of any population are effective psychopaths who are are only prevented from taking control by the lack of a sufficiently powerful cause. That 14% figure is terrifying.
Oh, thank you again, Ophelia, for saving me!
The only consolation that I took from his winning was that there would be a resurgence of political punk in response, as there had been in the UK when Thatcher was the P.M.
I had to stop listening to NPR in 2016 because as they were doing their “voter in the street” interviews, people would say they were voting for Trump because “we need change.” But the reporters, when someone laid such a question-begging response at their feet, didn’t bother to ask “From what to what? What do we need to change from and how can Trump make it better?” Sloppy reporting from what had once been a sterling news organization.
As far as the punk resurgence goes, I did find a few artists such as the Downtown Boys and the Paranoyds who wrote some of the best punk music in years in response to Trump.
Yer welcome Tim.
From the first link:
Following on from the pioneering work of Albert Einstein, I have derived the following:
E = Tc^2
where E = Ego (of Trump) ; T = Trump himself (units your choice) and of course c = the velocity of light (ie 300,000 km/s.)
I reckon that should put me in the running for a Nobel Prize. Not in physics; rather realism.