Who Are These People?

Donald Trump was annoyed by Obama from the start. He entered poltics and ran for real in 2016. He, with media tools and Fox News, was able to reach people that never really followed poltics. A candidate endlessly sending social media messages was a new thing. No senator in 2016 was doing it.

I grew up in the Midwest, my high school was outside a major city. It was 60s and 70s suburbia. I had an idea of what America was and a sense of Americans. It was a predictable world, all the way to about 1990. I was never surprised by anything Reagan said.

But then Trump happened, and Fox News before that. Who are these people? They are not happy with anything. Trump most of all. Other than enjoying babbling to crowds or the press, the rest of his day is spent with hate and revenge.

I avoided these people for most of my life. But for 50 plus years I did not even know they were there in that number, 30-40 million voters. There are entire communities consisting of nothing but MAGA voters.

We had hippies and college and all sorts of experiments going on in the early 70s.

Our bands poked fun at the establishment. We were content doing our own thing most of the time. Politics was not much. We had a bad president, we got rid of him.

America swings left and right in some 8-10 year cycles. The current extreme right authoritarians only won by 1.5%. Yet they cannot stand us or pretty much anyone who is not a white Christian. And education is apparently bad. 

We invented most of the nice things you are enjoying. Technical stuff, cancer cure etc. We went to college for that. It was not necesary for them and it turned us into elites. We understand stuff well, and pretty much produce all change. They work for an hourly wage and simply produce things or provide a service.

We were never so persistent in our efforts to wipe out the opposition as Trump is. to keep himself out of jail. But he only has the MAGA hatred tools to do it with.

So, to simplify our hippie ideal of the 70s, and compare it to now, we are in a new swing in politics. Not just right and left. Now it is love and hate. They have absolutely no tolerance. Democracy is tolerance. That they have forgotten.

We will have to characterize these people sometime later. But it is worth pointing out that even though they clearly have sharp views on much of life and us, most of it is still just hate. Hate and fear. And they have a leader, Trump, who is psychologically at some extreme. His feelings are a bad model for anyone, and I think he lacks empathy altogether.

Added Note from Lynn on Threads, explaining these folks:

"I am not a Trump supporter but I think it has something to do with permission structure. Trump allows/enables us to be our worst selves (greedy, sexist, racist, victim, violent). Kindness, generosity, manners, responsibility and self-control are now "woke."