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There are a lot of bad tweets making the rounds on this, the day of Donald Trump’s more-or-less-official defeat. But the most infuriating one I’ve run across so far comes from political scientist Ian Bremmer:
Can’t we all just get along, he asks. No, we can’t.
It’s not just that Trump supporters have steadfastly refused to treat their opponents — us — with empathy or respect; indeed, many of them spent the past four years gloating about Trump’s victory in 2016 with a sadistic glee. I can’t count the number of times a MAGA-head has responded to my criticisms of Trump with some variant of “cry more.”
But the problem goes well beyond the fact that the typical Trump supporter can be a bit of a jerk sometimes. The problem is that they’ve devoted themselves to supporting a incompetent, inhumane, and deeply racist tinpot autocrat with a distinctly fascist sheen. They supported him when he tried to ban all Muslim’s from traveling to this country; they supported him when ICE began kidnapping babies en masse; they supported his attempts to destroy the affordable care act and rip insurance coverage from millions of the most vulnerable. They made excuses when Trump expressed sympathy for alt-right Nazis. They’ve defended his assault on democracy itself.
Make no mistake, had Trump won the election it would probably have been the last even somewhat democratic election in the United States for years if not decades to come.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that his fans cheered his absolute non-response to COVID, which has led to countless unnecessary deaths, perhaps as many as several hundred thousand before the pandemic runs its course. He’s encouraged his supporters to not wear masks, making it impossible to control the pandemic and putting each and every one of us at heightened risk of catching and possibly dying of the disease.
And did I mention that a significant portion of Trump’s supporters have their heads full of QAnon and other nonsense conspiracy theories and literally want to see everyone from Hillary Clinton to Chrissy Teigen executed for their imaginary crimes against humanity?
I could go on, and on, and on. But let me just move directly to my final point: We can’t offer our sympathies to Trump voters yet because, to put it bluntly, they’re still out there, and still our enemies. They will be doing everything they can to tear down the Biden administration; some will almost certainly do so with violence — and become MAGA heroes like the multiple murderer Kyle Rittenhouse. This is the reality we face right now. There’s nothing warm and fuzzy about it.
Trump supporters don’t deserve our sympathy, and they’re not going to get it, at least not from me .
Bremmer wasn’t the only one posting nonsense today:
Really? Really? One of my very first political memories is of Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon. I was just a kid, but even then I knew there was something deeply wrong about Ford pardoning the guy who had just elevated him to president. And now some people want Biden to pardon the worst grifter to ever inhabit the White House? Please. If Trump wants a pardon, make him do it himself by working out some deal with Mike Pence. If Trump gets pardoned by Pence, it will leave a stain on the office of the presidency. But at least it won’t leave a stain on Biden as well.
What makes the talk of sympathy especially dangerous is that Biden has been talking the same way. We elected him to end Trump and Trumpism, and already he’s talking as if the deep political animosities we face today can be handwaved away. There are good reasons why we see these opponents as enemies. Winning the election feels good, but let’s not let that deceive us as to the nature of our foes or the enormity of the struggle ahead.
@Lainy
I hope you and yours are okay.
I read you were all sick?
I’m not sure if that’s correct, but if it is I hope you all get better as soon as possible.
Just take a timer and wait how long it takes for jews to pop up in any conspiracy theory. Not very long, though some hide it better.
As for the centrism vs bothsides-ism… I think Ohlman is right that it’s more valid when talking about the US. I also think that the US having only two parties with a real chance at being elected is part of that problem. The democrats are called leftist because they are clearly to the left of the republicans. However, in comparison to the rest of the world, aside from some social issues, it’s be more accurate to call them centre-right to right wing. It’s just that the republicans are so far-right almost anything would look leftist by comparison.
Nazism and fascism in general have a ton to do with conspirationism anyhow. There’s no reason to oppose them or suppose they aren’t compatible. In fact, I would say a foundational part of nazism is conspiracy thinking.
In fact, racism in general and antisemitism in particular are super handy as a way to pin to exterior forces your failures. Not only that, but it’s a lot easier to kill jews than to work on self improvement, let go of the past, accept that one isn’t special, all that.
In other words, it’s *both* to feel part of something special, to reject blame on the outgroup, and to get an “easy” solution to all that.
What makes it worse is that some Republican figures like Mitt Romney are taking “the decent route” and offering congratulations to Biden and Harris, with no signs of bitterness.
I call virtue signalling. I don’t trust them. It’s a play to act all nice so that if liberals call for justice and punishment they can pretend we are being “the unreasonable ones.”
@Diego
Oh, definitely. QAnon, much like the propaganda of the original Nazis, is a justifier. Trump fans can justify doing whatever bad thing they want when they’re convinced that their enemies are a satanic pedophile ring. Just like how the original Nazis were able to feel justified when they thought that Jews were controlling their world. Nobody wants to be the villain in their own narrative, so they come up with ideas like QAnon to claim the other side is worse.
@Battering Lamb
And this is the problem. There is no viable left wing party in America, just a center right to right wing one (Democratic) and an extreme right wing fascist death cult (Republican). Ideally the extreme right death cult would disintegrate and the Democratic Party could split into two new parties, one that is more establishment and one that is more progressive (i.e. AOC and those with similar views). However, this is unlikely to happen any time soon.
@sunnysombrera
I’m treating any Republican that turns on Trump now with extreme suspicion. They had 4 years. They didn’t change, they’re just rats fleeing a sinking ship. Do not trust them.
@Sunny : that’s possible, but they may also be genuine. The good thing is that if they are genuine, there’s no need to reciprocate.
The republican party isn’t monolithically made of nazi ideologues. There’s a ton of them, mostly among the advisors of Trump, but there’s also a ton of spineless, faithless shitstains like Romney. Thoses don’t care about the racism, or any ideology, and will gladly accept anything that advance theirs goals. Since Trump is a mean for an end, they are sincere when dropping ship and saying congratulation to the new president.
They also will turn on Biden, or anyone for that matter, as soon as it’s convenient for them to do so. They’re pretty reliable in that. In a sense, I can see much more easily given a job back to Romney than to Trump, because you just have to carve him a post where his interest and your interest will coincide, and jettison him as soon as it don’t.
(of course, that would be if Romney had any useful skill whatsoever, which is doubtful)
Fuck the trumpers. Let them rot. I hope every single Trump voter gets covid. (in minecraft)
Why would they even want empathy? Republicans have made it crystal clear that they despise empathy. They regard any human feelings other than rage and contempt as weakness.
What is there even to be empathetic towards? Blindly upraised middle fingers don’t have feelings behind them. They’re just upset and fearful that a white male bully finally has to face some consequences, and what that means for their ability to abuse people.
Why do they want OUR empathy? They’ve spent the last four years jeering at us, turning their backs on us, treating Democrats as illegitimate, and governing as if the blue states don’t even exist. We don’t count, remember? We’re not fully equal humans in their eyes. Leftists get dismissed as NPCs. Incels think women are just robots programmed to respond to social media likes and attention from Chad. Why is it suddenly a thing now that we have inner emotions, which they are entitled to?
When they ask for empathy, they’re really asking us to perform weakness for them, so they can feel reassured that the status quo hasn’t really changed. They’re asking us, once again, to put aside our needs and center them. They’re the kicked-out abusive partner pleading at the door for one more chance.
Sorry, MAGA hats. It’s not on us to do the work of reconciliation with people who have spent the last several decades working tirelessly to impoverish, sicken, evict, subjugate, marginalize, disenfranchise and kill us. Millions of us will never trust or respect you again.
Re: The Four Seasons Mix-up
This is pretty funny (hope link works):
https://twitter.com/nanglish/status/1325242917519233024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1325242917519233024%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2020%2Fnov%2F08%2Fthe-other-four-seasons-trump-team-holds-press-conference-at-suburban-garden-centre
It doesn’t. I get a Twitter page with a video but it just goes into an endless loop of alternately buffering and saying “The media could not be played”. Network monitoring tools show that Firefox is not even receiving very much data while it’s allegedly buffering.
@Buttercup : hypocrisy I guess ?
The one I have to be on talking term with seem to insist the situation is different from 2016. Something among the line that they did it to save the world, so gloating accepted, and “we” did it to destroy the world, so we should not gloat on top of that.
Independantly of that, I also have the feeling a lot of trumpards have had repressed doubts and unconsciously feared it was all a scam. Their defeat reactivate thoses doubts and make it doubly painful. Most cope with that by doubling on trumpardism, because sunken cost fallacy etc etc. Maybe also because having a redeeming glimpse of clarity is too much too ask from them I guess.
@Dalillama
<blockquote>
<blockquote>Come up with one issue you can agree on.</blockquote>
There aren’t any. Not a single one.</blockquote>
Even if some small matter could be found, it’s rather undermined by the fact that they utterly hate me and everyone I care about, and will actively work to harm us.
I’m supposed to just ignore that?
Umm, no.
***
Okay, I can’t get the blockquotes to work right. Work it out.
@Cindy
Once again, can we fucking NOT? If that happened a hell of a lot of non-Trumpers would get sick and possibly die. You’re writing off a ton of people as collateral damage.
At some point I think I’m going to have to email David about you.
@Ohlmann
I do think there is some kind of sink cost fallacy at play, but I think it goes further than that. Scarily enough, a lot of Americans just seem to like authoritarianism and have bought into all the propaganda. This didn’t start with Trump.
@Nagflar : the love for authoritarism is real, and due to how authoritarism tend to present itself as a simple solution to complex problems. Hitting liberals, jews, and LGBT was supposed to make their life better somehow. Similar to how when they are little they hoped beating up bullies would make their life better.
The sunken cost fallacy intervene because despite four years of Trump, their life isn’t better, their designated enemies aren’t that worse off than four year ago, and their back-of-the-head doubt about Trump being a scam are validated ; but it’s still less painful and less resistance to ignore that and double down.
Almost all democratically-elected authoritarians are on some level scam artists, because they promise things that their methods cannot get. Trump is really more on the scam artist side compared to Putin or the leaders of China, because not only he make promises his methods can’t keep, but he don’t have the modicum of administrative and propaganda skill to make thing appear to work.
@Ohlmann
They have now internalized Trump as a part of their collective identity, so to turn back now would be to abandon that. They’d feel hollow, and they would rather keep worshipping their idol than accept reality.
@Naglfar
This is why MLK Jr. said he regarded the “moderates” as the biggest hurdle for overcoming racism, as opposed to the overt racists. Because liberals exclusive and deliberate purpose, for a while now, has been to siphon outrage and energy from grassroots movements and make sure it doesn’t translate into actual policies.
The most blatant example of this was with Obama, who walked into the White House with 59 senators, and wasted 8 years trying to get the democrats to hold hands and sing Kumbaya with the republicans. This attitude of “we’re moving forwards and not holding anyone accountable” was what made the downward slide towards fascism possible and the same can be said for no addressing the material needs of people.
When the economy starts collapsing and hurting everyone, a populist is going to get elected no matter what you say. So you have to choose between a leftist populist or a fascist. The democrats spent 8 years pretending to be incompetent at fighting off the republicans, despite the fact that they could’ve done away with the legislative filibuster and told Mitch McConnell to go fuck himself, but they didn’t because they knew what the game plan was.
And yet the minute actual candidates (Sanders and Warren) start discussing actual policies that could vastly improve the living conditions of millions, including conservatives, they set about demonizing them. The minute they become a threat, then the democrats coalesce like never before and actually show how fucking competent they are in fighting back.
I will never forget how Nancy Pelosi spent years not saying shit about Trump throwing kids into concentration camps, but the moment AOC brought up her Green New Deal she went out of her way to criticize her at home and abroad. And it was purely out of spite too, because she was literally abroad during a visit and she somehow managed to twist the questions reporters asked her just to mock AOC in no less than four occasions. Then she got back home and further ostracized her and the Squad, as they were getting death threats, which culminated in Trump seizing on this opportunity to tell them to go back where they came from.
Let’s also not forget on Pelosi actually abusing her power and black-listing companies who support progressives over “unity within the party”. Yet the minute an outsider runs to unseat incumbent progressives she was all-in in those races trying to unseat the Squad and everyone else, like the hypocrite she is. I really fucking hope she and Dianne Feinstein get kicked to the curb in 2022.
What a surprise, trumpards going full nazi as soon as they can.
@Diego
Chuck Schumer also needs to go. At the very least someone in the senate ought to challenge Schumer for the party leadership and someone in the house should try to take on Pelosi. I highly doubt that that will happen, though.
Today I heard someone say “I don’t care who won, I’m just glad the election’s over. I’m done.”
Wow, the privilege… dude, we almost lost our democracy and Trumpies were talking about executions. This is not the time to put your head in the sand!!
I mean, I’m also glad the election is over, I get that, but to not care who won this election?
Do not forgive Trump supporters, they have no interest in being forgiven. They do not want to repent, or admit they made mistakes, or reconcile with us. They’ve chosen not to be empathized with.
I don’t – and have never – and will never – sympathize with Dump supporters.
My 80 year old mother is a Fox News watcher. She texted me yesterday, something about software in Wisconsin changing votes for Trump, into votes for Biden. I asked where she heard this. Her answer – on Fox News, either from Lou Dobbs, or Tucker Carlson. I didn’t bother to try to convince her that this was bulls**t; I’m just disappointed in her. She’s not a stupid woman. She was the first person in her family to graduate from college, with honors, and was valedictorian of her high school class. I’m reasonably certain she doesn’t suffer from dementia. I just don’t understand how she can be so gullible. I suppose she believes what she wants to believe, like so many other people.
She also mentioned Hunter Biden’s laptops, and how MSNBC failed to report on this. Again, I kept silent. I’m not going to change her mind.
Like David, my first memory of politics is related to Nixon – I watched him on TV, getting into the helicopter after resigning. If anything, I took from it a belief that all politicians were hopelessly corrupt.
@Dormousing : your story is a sad reminder that not every Trump supporter is stupid or with dementia 😡
I believe it’s because in the end, it’s a cozier, simpler vision of life. And it’s hard (and painful for close relative) to try to pry people out of that cult.
@Ohlmann
In the end, it comes down to racism. People aren’t supporting Trump and watching Fox because it’s ‘simple’, they’re doing it because they’re really fucking racist. You can tell, by how people who aren’t really fucking racist don’t embrace racist propaganda.
@Dalillama : that’s not exactly at odds with what I say. Racism isn’t an essential part of a psyche, it’s a mean to an end, and racism is the way those people simplify their world. When trying to construct a worldview with good peoples and evil people, it often end in a ton of racism (and classism and sexism and all variations).
Also, remember that almost all people are vulnerable to propaganda, to a point. Right wing seem to use more of it, but I have seen plenty of left wing people parroting stupid things because propaganda said it to them.
In part, it’s because (litteraly) nobody have the time to properly follow every single information in the world, so we rely on other people to summarize that. Propaganda is a malevolent information summarizer that is nonetheless trusted. People that are lazy on that front are much more vulnerable, since they need less news source to be compromised, but everyone have at least some vulnerability.
I have seen that screenshot on twitter :
Except I can’t find the article. I tried to find it because the byline felt strange.
If someone find that article, or something corroborating that, I am interested. As is, I think it’s a manipulation. If it is true, it’s sad for the families of those people.