"Donald Trump is a poor man’s idea of a rich man, a weak man’s idea of a strong man, and a dumb man’s idea of a smart man.”
Authoritarianism in general has a certain appeal in how much it simplifies life. In a liberal society, life is more difficult and complicated, as each person bears a certain measure of responsibility for learning about and understanding a broad variety of issues, if they want to be a responsible voter.
Authoritarianism removes this complication. If you just want to live your life on a sort of auto-pilot, without having to wrestle with a constantly changing world, then you can just let some authoritarian take care of all of that for you. So long as they sound like you want your leader to sound, you can fall into their trap.
Works great for simplifying things. Everyone would probably be authoritarian if it actually produced good results. Except it just doesn’t, history has pretty clearly demonstrated that it quickly runs out of steam, stagnates and then decays, where more liberal societies remain more competitive and innovative for much longer.
This is exactly it and thank you for expaining it so well.
The desire for simple explanations, from an inability to understand complexity but also from fear of what seems like chaos, is also what underpins a lot of religious belief out there: life is a lot less scary and simpler if everything without an easy explanation is explained by being the will of a god or pantheon.
Hence why if you engage the populists (not just of the Right) in conversation pretty much everything boils down to a world view of black and white with no greys, “my side” vs “the other side”, no subtlety, no empathic understanding and so on.
Mind you, in some countries with voting systems rigged to enforce a power duopoly like the US, this kind of thinking has been activelly promoted as normal since forever because it justifies the power duopoly in the eyes of most people (if you think human problems are two-sided, two-sided politics looks like a reasonable way of allocating power, rather than looking like an anti-democractic suppression of most options), so it’s hardly unexpected that they’re the most fertile fields for populists preaching simple “explanations” and simple “solutions”.
https://www.facebook.com/THEDiDiDelgado/photos/a.271621723285520/306669263114099/?type=3
Apologies. Couldn’t find an original link.
Back in the 2016 election when he had just announced his candidacy, I recall being semi-interested in him after the first GOP debate, based strictly on his performance. His policies already sounded like racist trash (building the wall), BUT the appeal I saw from him was his apparent independent nature. He was a billionaire that wasn’t beholden to anybody, he could potentially reshape how everything was done in Washington, which has become so dysfunctional. He could work with both Democrats and Republicans (he was friends with the Clintons after all), maybe he was just running Republican, but he’d veer to the center after getting elected.
Obviously none of that came to pass and he’s just a fucking grifter who tried to become a dictator, but at the time that was the potential he had. It was an election where everybody wanted somebody who would make a big change. Sanders was far and above the best candidate to “shake things up” in DC, but then Democrats went with the most establishment candidate they could find.
I heard a lot of rhetoric (on Reddit) along the lines of “yeh, we’ve had politicians. What if we need a business man? Trump can run it like a business and make it efficient”.
Seemed fairly logical to me. As a non-american I hadn’t heard of him, wasn’t hugely into politics (let alone American politics).
I remember chatting with mates, and it came up, so I mentioned that perspective. Thankfully, they called me an idiot, described the actual character of trump, and why that was a terrible idea.
It wasn’t difficult to corroborate what they said, and suddenly the whole facade fell away in front of me. That coincided with t_d taking over Reddit, and it became painfully obvious none of it was in good faith nor organic.Did no one pay attention to the news when he was just a real estate grifter? From a decade before, he was clearly without integrity, clearly skating across the line of legal, clearly not dealing fairly with those he did business with, clearly acting mostly in service to his own ego. I do see the appeal of a businessman to lead the country but not that approach to business
I never saw any of that.
2016 was a bit of a political awakening for me (well, maybe 2014, but it was a slow start).
I’m not from America so “Real Estate Crook” never crossed my path
I think this is the most logical argument I’ve heard about him in a while. Thanks for the perspective. I’ve hated him from the beginning, but this does explain a lot.
The Trump supporter I know thinks the government is run by tall white alien Democrats that rape children and drink theri adrenal fluid to stay young and that Trump has been arresting all of said tall white alien Democrats for crimes against children.
Or at least that’s what he told me when last I was still on speaking terms with him.
If you want more insight into how Trump appeals to some people, I can recommend Ian Danskin’s work about the alt-right. This is a good video to start with.
He’s the only one who can stop the Clintons and other satanic reptilians from consuming fetus juice in pizza parlor basements.
I think one of the major thoughts goes like this, somewhere deep inside, “If he’s an obvious idiot and a criminal, and he’s still a wealthy person and president, that means I COULD BE PRESIDENT PROBABLY IF I WANTED TO!!! I just don’t want to, I want to eat these Cheetos… but good to know I have the option.”
Also, just straight racism/sexism. Having an avatar to allow you to not feel guilt/shame for the parts of your personality that you know are rotten and wrong.
As ever, the appeal behind fascists is pussy bitches blaming “others” for their miserable failures in life.
People are stupid and terrible, so he gives them someone they can relate to.
The policies and personality some Americans like.
Lol policies
Next week! It’ll all be revealed next week!
