…a perfect, brilliant, beautiful statement that I make…
Doesn’t anyone else notice how often he makes these cringily exaggerated statements, and more to the point, recognize how clearly they illustrate the staggering depths of his delusions?
That’s still the thing I most notably don’t get about Trump - the man is obviously profoundly mentally ill, so why and how is he even taken seriously? How in the world is it even possible for such a painfully obvious gibbering lunatic to not only run for public office, but quite possibly win?
Because his supporters don’t care if he’s a gibbering idiot as long as he tells them their particular deplorable -ism is perfectly valid and fine. He gets the racist votes because he tells them that they’re right and all the non-white people are inferior and out to get them. He gets the Christian votes because he tells them that the US has, is, and always will be a Christian nation that should be run by their particular flavor of Christianity and btw all the non-Christians are out to get them. He gets the homophobe and transphobe votes because he tells them yes, LGBTQ+ is a choice, they’re all perverts, and they’re all out to get them and their children.
Basically he tells everyone that’s on the wrong side of history who have been told that they are terrible people for decades that they are in fact not terrible people, that they’ve been right all along, and that it’s all a conspiracy by liberals/democrats/minorities/homosexuals/satanists/whoever to get them, and they eat that shit up. As long as he keeps spouting support for their particular prejudices he’ll keep getting their votes, because they rather elect a gibbering moron who validates them than someone sane and competent that tells them their prejudice is wrong.
You’re absolutely right, and that was very well-written to boot. But it’s not the part that perplexes me. I likely just did a poor job of explaining myself.
I fully expect his intellectually and/or psychologically compromised supporters to fail or refuse to recognize his glaringly obvious insanity. As you note, he affirms their prejudices and tells them that the condemnation they so deservedly receive is actually some sort of evil conspiracy, and they grovel at his feet, lapping it up.
But that just accounts for a portion of his supporters and none of his opponents, and it’s that remainder I wonder about - all of the people who are certainly rational enough to recognize his glaringly obvious derangement for what it is, but somehow just don’t, or won’t.
I have this recurring experience in which I read an essay or article from some more or less neutral site or even an oppositional site in which someone relates something that Trump said, then parses and analyzes it, as if it’s a legitimate statement of supposed fact rather than the deranged ranting of someone who’s painfully obviously profoundly mentally ill, and I can’t even see how they managed to make it that far - how they didn’t just stop halfway through relating whatever it was he said and throw their hands up and say, “This guy is a fucking lunatic!” Because he so blatantly obviously is.
When things like this don’t make sense there is a tried and true method that usually sheds some light on it: Follow. The. Money.
I don’t claim to have some knowledge of some deep state actors or even understand the nuances of late stage capitalism. But, I do understand some writer, reporter, or publisher not wanting to have to explain to their family that they’re moving to a van down by the river because they wouldn’t write an article that didn’t explicitly call bullshit on some billionaires people-based checkers game. It is easy to compromise on a story, then another.
That’s just my hypothetical for this comment, but extrapolate to everything else we’re seeing that just seems batshit insane and yet is being reported on as nothing more than slight variations on business as usual or two sides with slightly different ideological views. You start to feel like the only sane person in the asylum and it drives you mad.
Doesn’t anyone else notice how often he makes these cringily exaggerated statements, and more to the point, recognize how clearly they illustrate the staggering depths of his delusions?
That’s still the thing I most notably don’t get about Trump - the man is obviously profoundly mentally ill, so why and how is he even taken seriously? How in the world is it even possible for such a painfully obvious gibbering lunatic to not only run for public office, but quite possibly win?
Because his supporters don’t care if he’s a gibbering idiot as long as he tells them their particular deplorable -ism is perfectly valid and fine. He gets the racist votes because he tells them that they’re right and all the non-white people are inferior and out to get them. He gets the Christian votes because he tells them that the US has, is, and always will be a Christian nation that should be run by their particular flavor of Christianity and btw all the non-Christians are out to get them. He gets the homophobe and transphobe votes because he tells them yes, LGBTQ+ is a choice, they’re all perverts, and they’re all out to get them and their children.
Basically he tells everyone that’s on the wrong side of history who have been told that they are terrible people for decades that they are in fact not terrible people, that they’ve been right all along, and that it’s all a conspiracy by liberals/democrats/minorities/homosexuals/satanists/whoever to get them, and they eat that shit up. As long as he keeps spouting support for their particular prejudices he’ll keep getting their votes, because they rather elect a gibbering moron who validates them than someone sane and competent that tells them their prejudice is wrong.
Well…
You’re absolutely right, and that was very well-written to boot. But it’s not the part that perplexes me. I likely just did a poor job of explaining myself.
I fully expect his intellectually and/or psychologically compromised supporters to fail or refuse to recognize his glaringly obvious insanity. As you note, he affirms their prejudices and tells them that the condemnation they so deservedly receive is actually some sort of evil conspiracy, and they grovel at his feet, lapping it up.
But that just accounts for a portion of his supporters and none of his opponents, and it’s that remainder I wonder about - all of the people who are certainly rational enough to recognize his glaringly obvious derangement for what it is, but somehow just don’t, or won’t.
I have this recurring experience in which I read an essay or article from some more or less neutral site or even an oppositional site in which someone relates something that Trump said, then parses and analyzes it, as if it’s a legitimate statement of supposed fact rather than the deranged ranting of someone who’s painfully obviously profoundly mentally ill, and I can’t even see how they managed to make it that far - how they didn’t just stop halfway through relating whatever it was he said and throw their hands up and say, “This guy is a fucking lunatic!” Because he so blatantly obviously is.
That’s what I don’t get.
When things like this don’t make sense there is a tried and true method that usually sheds some light on it: Follow. The. Money.
I don’t claim to have some knowledge of some deep state actors or even understand the nuances of late stage capitalism. But, I do understand some writer, reporter, or publisher not wanting to have to explain to their family that they’re moving to a van down by the river because they wouldn’t write an article that didn’t explicitly call bullshit on some billionaires people-based checkers game. It is easy to compromise on a story, then another.
That’s just my hypothetical for this comment, but extrapolate to everything else we’re seeing that just seems batshit insane and yet is being reported on as nothing more than slight variations on business as usual or two sides with slightly different ideological views. You start to feel like the only sane person in the asylum and it drives you mad.