Why does anyone still support Trump and his administration?
Restock of the best explanation I've heard
This substack has been simmering in my brain for a couple of weeks. Me, myself and I have tried to refute it’s contents. But, instead of refute it, I agree with it, at least 90% of it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t locate the author’s name to credit. If anyone knows, please add it to the comments.
I used to wonder how it was possible that Trump could have won in 2016, and then again in 2024, given how emotionally toxic and depraved he is.
I don’t wonder anymore. I think he won for that exact reason. Because he carried at least one broken shard to reflect the broken shards in millions of others.
If you’re a racist, you found your guy. If you’re a misogynist, you found your guy. If money is your only religion, you found your guy. If your heart is armored shut, you found your guy. If you mock the disabled, you found your guy. If intelligence makes you insecure, you found your guy. If you’re a sexual predator, you found your guy. If you trade in humiliation and conspiracy and filth, you found your guy.
If you’ve never done a single hour of emotional inventory, you found your guy. If you cheat, stiff contractors, bankrupt your obligations, and call it savvy, you found your guy. If you lie as easily as you breathe, you found your guy. If cruelty feels like strength, you found your guy. If white grievance is your comfort food, you found your guy. If your ego is a black hole no title can fill, you found your guy. If warmongering fuels your ego, you found your guy. If empathy feels like weakness and dominance feels like oxygen, you found your guy.
If he’d only carried one or two of these pathologies, he might have been dismissed as just another loud, damaged man. But he carried a buffet of them. That was the appeal. Millions could locate themselves somewhere in the wreckage. They didn’t have to agree with all of it. They just had to recognize a piece of themselves in it.
It was never really about him. It was about the validation. The absolution. The permission. He didn’t invent the resentment; he amplified it. He didn’t create the cruelty; he normalized it. He gave millions the intoxicating relief of hearing their ugliest impulses echoed back at rally volume.
I think the author is Michael Jochum. Brilliant (if depressing) stuff. And boy, it's been shared all over the place!
I don't think most of were ready to acknowledge just how many Americans are just awful people. Disgusting, hateful enemies of tolerance, peace and love. War mongering, hate filled brutal beasts.
But on the other side of the coin, I believe there is another much larger group of non-involved, take our freedoms and good fortunes for granted non-voting folks. Many think "all politicians are the same". Many just feel helpless and have tuned out.
A lot of the latter group will start to feel more and more pain. And maybe that will get them to vote. But it took a full blown depression with long lines to soup kitchens, farm land lost to dust and literally losing loved ones to hunger and disease to wake up America during the last GIlded Age.
Both Reich and Krugman had good pieces on the inequality of wealth today. But they are preaching to a choir. The "Uninvolved" aren't reading them.
I am a glass half full kind of a guy. But I am now worried that it will take much more suffering to shift the tide. Maybe it will be another pandemic? Maybe it will be a further explosion of homelessness? Even more expensive food and fuel? Veterans not getting the care they deserve?
The vastly over priced stock market taking a tumble when someone asks why AI companies have little or no ROI?
I just don't know.
Violence has never been my thing. But the storming of the Bastille had its features.