Archived version: https://archive.ph/XeqEM (But this source is really worth subscribing to if you’re in the Southland.)
Many factors explain why people across Western democracies vote for politicians like former President Trump, including economic concerns, rural resentment and racial animosity. Although Trump supporters have been characterized as “left behind,” “stigmatized” or even “marginalized,” these ascriptions are dangerously off base.
For one, they fuel the self-victimization narratives common among radical right movements, driving conspiracies and support for this ideology. Moreover, they neglect that historically powerful groups such as white people, men and Christians are overrepresented among Trump supporters. Even today, these groups remain privileged politically, economically and culturally. By objective measures, most Trump supporters are not left behind, stigmatized or marginalized.
They aren’t marginalized or ‘left behind,’ though they feel excluded. They want to keep their white, Christian, male privilege.
That pretty much sums it up – do I even need to read the article?
I disagree. In the wake of the '08 financial crisis entire communities were left decimated. Those same communities were then victimized by pharmaceutical companies pushing opiates. The right offers easy scapegoats for these people: immigrants, LGBTQ folks, the “deep state”.
The American left doesn’t offer an alternative. Instead of pointing out that the real criminals are billionaires and giant corporations, they try to side step the real issues and engage with distraction of the culture war.
I think a perfect example of this was the Democrats’ “demonstration” after George Floyd’s murder. Instead of pushing for police reform, they just wore kente cloths and raised their fists. They only way in which they were an alternative to the GOP was by not being openly racist. While I prefer that, and I think those that don’t are wrong, it’s understandable that angry, hurt, and uneducated people would be willing to be led astray by someone who actually offered solutions (evil as they are).
They’re not losing any rights. Other groups are just starting to get some of those rights.
The people who have nothing to be proud of except their skin color or what genitals they have are now being told those aren’t something they should be proud of. And now they realize that they don’t have anything to be proud of, they’re rebelling. But they’re blaming those they look down on, instead of directing their rage at the real reason they have nothing- the wealthy ownership class and the political party they control.
No, it’s wrong.
They are left behind.
Because they choose to deny reality, believing we’re still back in the later roman era where the church controls all and slaves exist to serve their bidding.
We don’t point at the Taliban and say “Oh, the poor, left behind, economically anxious, marginalized rural folk!”
You can’t point at Dixiecrats and act like they’re some kind of innocent victims in this, they’ve had a century and a half to actually try to do anything and they’ve doubled down every time.
What the media still gets wrong about Trump supporters is that the vast majority of them are some combination of stupid, racist, or psychopathically greedy. Stop beating around the fucking bush.
You’re still over here in your made up plane of existence just so you can whine that facts don’t line up with what you want reality to be. Blimey, haha.
For every Trump supporter you can find that lives in the unpopulated country in a trailer on a swamp, there are a dozen upper class spoiled brats for whom Trumpism has become core to their identity:
Throwing a little bit of anecdote behind that data, the most rabid Trump supporters in my family like to complain about “government teat” liberals while lounging on their 20+ foot boats which they launched from private docks beside their $1+ million lakeside or shoreside homes. That includes my father in law, 1 of my father’s cousins, 4 of my uncles, and the husband of my own cousin. Not even exaggerating that they all either live on the waterfront or have a waterfront vacation home, and they all have huge boats. Three of my wife’s uncles who are feverish Trumpers inherited a textile fortune from daddy and have never had to work a day of hard labor in their lives. The most rabid Trump supporter in my wife’s extended network who routinely bitches and moans about how offended she is at the idea of “white privilege”, lives on a 154 acre estate and inside a 7,550 square foot home that overlooks a private lake. She’s as die-hard a Trump supporter as they come.
I wish I were joking.
same old bullshit
George Carlin explains the MAGA cult almost perfectly:
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
