The American Politics Thread

No, think of it in context, Steve: in the 40s Americans were Nazis and Nazi sympathisers and spoke glowingly of Hitler; now, European Nazis are wearing MAGA hats and an Aussie writes a Trump manifesto while slaughtering dozens of people in a New Zealand mosque. I believe the technical term would be "bleached-white sphincter reciprocity".

Sometimes I think Trump has no real politics and is quite bright, but conceals it in order to consolidate the lunatic base.

 

Hear, hear!  

And Joe Kennedy Sr., Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, Walt Disney, on and on ...

Assh*les.

I don't even think it's pure ignorance as in uneducated and unaware.  I think Trump like other demagogues inspires passions to such an extent that very well educated people lock themselves in intellectual gymnastics to defend him, making arguments they would probably laugh at if made on somebody else's behalf. 

As always, looking at developments at home gives me a window into what is happening in the case of Trump.  Our Commerce Minister is not only a Chartered Accountant (CPA) but a gold medalist.  He doesn't lack for education or reasoning abilities.  I once had the opportunity to observe him at work in an industry-govt meeting and he was both sharp and sharp-tongued alright.  Now imagine this man making a statement like "dropping out of school didn't stop Einstein from discovering gravity" in defence of anti-intellectualism.  Why, why, why?  I don't believe he doesn't actually know who discovered gravity.  They just get so locked into anti-rational arguments that it sort of becomes second nature for them to say things that would come across as ignorant.  But since they don't see themselves as ignorant, those laughing at such statements and calling them ignorant is deeply offensive to them and they double down on their support for the demagogue in question. 

Scott Adams described in 2015 how Trump was using specific words to hypnotize voters and cited some (possibly dubious) qualifications in the art of hypnosis as his credentials to back such a judgment.  I think in retrospect (looking at Adams' own descent down the drain of Trumpism) Adams was actually describing the process of himself getting hypnotized.  He was self-aware enough to observe that this was what was happening to him but seemingly disgusted enough with 'liberals' that he didn't resist this and allowed himself to be sucked into it.  And I think that possibly happens with many Trump supporters.  What people call ignorance is actually a defensive shield mounted by a strong emotional connection to Trump or rather the causes Trump has promised to fight for.  The chief cause in this case being 'owning the libs'.  And if liberals truly are befuddled as to why owning the libs became so important for Trump supporters, maybe they should reflect on comments like Obama's 'clinging to their guns, racism' or Hillary's 'basket of deplorables'. 

Don't remember which pollster mentioned this recently, but he said Trump talked the way many working class center right voters do, which was what made them connect to him. 

At a certain point, these people found the distance necessitated by the language of statesmanship off-putting/intimidating, however it may be. Career politicians would have worried about the consequences of not issuing a poll-tested message.  Trump didn't go into this thinking he would win, so he went all out. Much to his chagrin, he won and now his ego won't permit him to accept he failed and walk away.