This is ancient, but still objectively correct. It also misses the point. Trump’s appeal to his base is not about being good or any attribute he has. It’s that he’s an avatar of hate that gives them murky permission to be up front with their own prejudice and moronic ideas. He’s made it a political position to be proudly uninformed, unapologetically racist, and irrationally intolerant about the lives of others that have zero actual impact on you. To hate immigrants, brown people, gays, electric cars, any talk of climate change, vaccines, democrats and democracy in general. It’s all white grievance, all the time. Why should we change anything? We’re not changing anything, we’re white america, and we’re the greatest because - reasons - and we don’t need to change anything. We don’t even need to have any ideas - you just have to hate The Other, and that’s enough for 46% of the biggest clueless losers in the country who honestly think government doesn’t do anything for them anyways, and thus vote against their own self interests, literally to their own personal destruction.
Also - for all the noice and bluster of this branding exercise that got WAY out of hand - he remains, ultimately, a fluke. He barely, barely, barely won in 2016 on the faintest of technical victories over a weak candidate with a bad strategy representing a two-term Democratic status quo position for a nation tired of politics as usual.
The same party almost never wins 3 terms in a row. He won not by being a good, virtuous person. He won by not being Hilary Clinton. And that’s ALL he won. Despite his constant claims of greatness, his party and the candidates he endorses have underperformed in every election since 2016. He was, and remains, a one-time fluke. Period. A cautionary tale about what happens with low voter turnout.
I would disagree that it misses the point - I agree with your assessment of trump, but I think “the point” the article is addressing is not why-do-trump-supporters-support-trump, but rather “why do journalists write as if trump is normal?”
There’s a fundamental break with common sense that the article is addressing. How many of those lines would, by themselves, have been a devastatingly accurate headline if it were in the News (not Opinion) section of NYT, WaPo, or even USA Today?
As an example:
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
More to the point - WHY aren’t news reporters able to state these plain and obvious facts?
My guess is it at least partly has to do with the vast majority of US media being beholden to viewership (advertising) and subscriptions. They are afraid of losing customers, so they bend over backwards not to piss them off.
This is ancient, but still objectively correct. It also misses the point. Trump’s appeal to his base is not about being good or any attribute he has. It’s that he’s an avatar of hate that gives them murky permission to be up front with their own prejudice and moronic ideas. He’s made it a political position to be proudly uninformed, unapologetically racist, and irrationally intolerant about the lives of others that have zero actual impact on you. To hate immigrants, brown people, gays, electric cars, any talk of climate change, vaccines, democrats and democracy in general. It’s all white grievance, all the time. Why should we change anything? We’re not changing anything, we’re white america, and we’re the greatest because - reasons - and we don’t need to change anything. We don’t even need to have any ideas - you just have to hate The Other, and that’s enough for 46% of the biggest clueless losers in the country who honestly think government doesn’t do anything for them anyways, and thus vote against their own self interests, literally to their own personal destruction.
Also - for all the noice and bluster of this branding exercise that got WAY out of hand - he remains, ultimately, a fluke. He barely, barely, barely won in 2016 on the faintest of technical victories over a weak candidate with a bad strategy representing a two-term Democratic status quo position for a nation tired of politics as usual.
The same party almost never wins 3 terms in a row. He won not by being a good, virtuous person. He won by not being Hilary Clinton. And that’s ALL he won. Despite his constant claims of greatness, his party and the candidates he endorses have underperformed in every election since 2016. He was, and remains, a one-time fluke. Period. A cautionary tale about what happens with low voter turnout.
I would disagree that it misses the point - I agree with your assessment of trump, but I think “the point” the article is addressing is not why-do-trump-supporters-support-trump, but rather “why do journalists write as if trump is normal?”
There’s a fundamental break with common sense that the article is addressing. How many of those lines would, by themselves, have been a devastatingly accurate headline if it were in the News (not Opinion) section of NYT, WaPo, or even USA Today?
As an example:
More to the point - WHY aren’t news reporters able to state these plain and obvious facts?
My guess is it at least partly has to do with the vast majority of US media being beholden to viewership (advertising) and subscriptions. They are afraid of losing customers, so they bend over backwards not to piss them off.
Well - yeah. That, and the owners are all republiQans.
It’s a description of Trump, nothing to do with his supporters.