What surprises (and worries) me is that, for his popularity to plunge, he had to have it. So he was popular among gen z’s. How can someone that young think trump is a good choice is something I can’t fathom.
Podcasts are super popular right now. Theo Von, Joe Rogan, Kill Tony, Shane Gillis, Matt McCusker all have a huge audience. They are all pro Trump; Tony famously spoke at a Trump rally, and Rogan is constantly pushing a pro conservative message.
Social networks have all gone to the right, as their leadership stands to benefit. Most of our major newspapers and entertainment networks are also owned by billionaires.
They own the messaging right now, and people aren’t thinking critically because they are either distracted or don’t know how.
Part of it is that the left isn’t seen as fun. We’re too serious and judgmental all the time. Many times there’s good reasons for that but young people don’t want to constantly hear about taxation and proper pronoun usage. Talk about legalizing LSD or something once in a while.
And yes, I understand that the right isn’t fun in a way that most people would want to be but there is definitely something to be said for not gatekeeping language to an absurd degree. Let people express themselves without all the “well actually that’s ableist because…” interjections. People only listen to you a finite amount. If you burn through your educational goodwill on minor stuff no one is going to listen when you warn them about important stuff like fascists taking over the government.
How can someone that young think trump is a good choice is something I can’t fathom.
Lack of experience seeing these kinds of people.
I once saw someone explain Trump’s popularity…
Cityfolk can tell that this guy is a useless yapping businessman who probably doesn’t know shit, and is probably going to rip you off and stab you in the back at any opportunity he gets (maybe just for fun).
People in rural areas haven’t had as many opportunities to interact with these kinds of people, so they aren’t on high alert.
The reason those scummy business people are so successful is because they’re charismatic (in a way), they’re confident, and they give answers that people want to hear (even if it’s a fabrication).
Confident, charismatic people that say what people want to hear? He’s going to get a lot of votes. Especially from the people who don’t know how to detect that.
Then there’s the fact that Trump blames his enemies for his failings, combined with various psychological factors in the voters (sunk-cost? Being blind to their own lack of knowledge?)… he’s able to maintain his status amongst his cult.
I’m in my 40s. I spend a lot of time at the bar. I see a lot of 20-somethings talking pro-Trump or just thinking it’d be funny to vote for him to “shake things up”.
I’ve yet to see anyone express regret yet though. I do see a lot more red hats. I do have to resist murder.
During the election I assumed that the younger cohort was lock-step opposed to trump — until — my college age daughter told me that many of her school friends were probably voting for him. I was absolutely flabbergasted and had to reset a lot of assumptions I’d settled into. During the first trump administration, I was clinging to the expectation that younger generations would be our saviors, but I can no longer count on that.
He was extremely popular with GenZ men. They were hitting voting age during his first term, when they reaped all of the benefits of things like the rock bottom COVID interest rates. Many of them were able to buy houses fresh out of school, while the millennials before them were so bogged down by student debt that they weren’t able to get those low interest loans. And then they saw Biden fail to address (or at least fail to broadcast that he had addressed) virtually any of their concerns.
And all of that started while they were still barely 18, and lacked the knowledge to understand that many of Trump’s biggest wins were inherited from the previous administration, or that Biden had been handed a shit sandwich and was making do with what he had.
What surprises (and worries) me is that, for his popularity to plunge, he had to have it. So he was popular among gen z’s. How can someone that young think trump is a good choice is something I can’t fathom.
Podcasts are super popular right now. Theo Von, Joe Rogan, Kill Tony, Shane Gillis, Matt McCusker all have a huge audience. They are all pro Trump; Tony famously spoke at a Trump rally, and Rogan is constantly pushing a pro conservative message.
Social networks have all gone to the right, as their leadership stands to benefit. Most of our major newspapers and entertainment networks are also owned by billionaires.
They own the messaging right now, and people aren’t thinking critically because they are either distracted or don’t know how.
Part of it is that the left isn’t seen as fun. We’re too serious and judgmental all the time. Many times there’s good reasons for that but young people don’t want to constantly hear about taxation and proper pronoun usage. Talk about legalizing LSD or something once in a while.
And yes, I understand that the right isn’t fun in a way that most people would want to be but there is definitely something to be said for not gatekeeping language to an absurd degree. Let people express themselves without all the “well actually that’s ableist because…” interjections. People only listen to you a finite amount. If you burn through your educational goodwill on minor stuff no one is going to listen when you warn them about important stuff like fascists taking over the government.
We need to get more young people listening to Robert Evans.
To be fair, if they are 18 now and voted for the first time they were 10 when he was first elected.
Lack of experience seeing these kinds of people.
I once saw someone explain Trump’s popularity…
Cityfolk can tell that this guy is a useless yapping businessman who probably doesn’t know shit, and is probably going to rip you off and stab you in the back at any opportunity he gets (maybe just for fun).
People in rural areas haven’t had as many opportunities to interact with these kinds of people, so they aren’t on high alert.
The reason those scummy business people are so successful is because they’re charismatic (in a way), they’re confident, and they give answers that people want to hear (even if it’s a fabrication).
Confident, charismatic people that say what people want to hear? He’s going to get a lot of votes. Especially from the people who don’t know how to detect that.
Then there’s the fact that Trump blames his enemies for his failings, combined with various psychological factors in the voters (sunk-cost? Being blind to their own lack of knowledge?)… he’s able to maintain his status amongst his cult.
I’m in my 40s. I spend a lot of time at the bar. I see a lot of 20-somethings talking pro-Trump or just thinking it’d be funny to vote for him to “shake things up”.
I’ve yet to see anyone express regret yet though. I do see a lot more red hats. I do have to resist murder.
During the election I assumed that the younger cohort was lock-step opposed to trump — until — my college age daughter told me that many of her school friends were probably voting for him. I was absolutely flabbergasted and had to reset a lot of assumptions I’d settled into. During the first trump administration, I was clinging to the expectation that younger generations would be our saviors, but I can no longer count on that.
Some of them are really, really smart, but most of them are dumber than we are. It’s just like every generation at that age.
He was extremely popular with GenZ men. They were hitting voting age during his first term, when they reaped all of the benefits of things like the rock bottom COVID interest rates. Many of them were able to buy houses fresh out of school, while the millennials before them were so bogged down by student debt that they weren’t able to get those low interest loans. And then they saw Biden fail to address (or at least fail to broadcast that he had addressed) virtually any of their concerns.
And all of that started while they were still barely 18, and lacked the knowledge to understand that many of Trump’s biggest wins were inherited from the previous administration, or that Biden had been handed a shit sandwich and was making do with what he had.
Technically it just needed to be non-zero. You can lose popularity even if you’re already pretty unpopular.
People are stupid and selfish. That’s human nature.
Echo chambers are a hell of a thing