The commenters below sum it up pretty nicely. As a recovering progressive with many progressive friends who fit the quintessential affluent liberal mold, married to a bright red conservative, I can tell you it has been a real struggle at times to actually listen really deeply to my husband and his orbit. I lived in Austin Tx for 27 years (the blueberry in the tomato soup as Rick Perry amusingly put it years ago) but have lived in small Texas sommunities for long stretches as well so I think I have earned the street cred here to comment. My observation is that there is an intolerant, sanctimonious, authoritarian streak in the progressive mindset that sets teeth on edge (I speak in general, there are individual exceptions of course). It is a scolding, critical and self-righteous spirit that disrespects any concerns conservatives have about many of the cultural issues of our day. It is so much more trouble to listen to people, engage with their concerns, accept they are where they are and be IN RELATIONSHIP with them and trust that will eventually win the day. And yet that is the only way real changes of heart are accomplished. Trump is where he is because the left agenda comes across as you WILL SUBMIT and a pox on your concerns you bigot. No one knows more than me how vexing Trump can be, and how unreal our current situation is. But conservatives especially do not take kindly to being told/forced to do things or disrespected, really most people don't like it. Someone who fights back with the relish Trump does has their vote. Basically it brings us where we are today. I know I know. To tolerate is to be complicit, that has been swallowed hook, line and sinker. But maybe that assumption is wrong and plays more on your insecurities about being a good person than it is about transforming folks. Love means taking people where they are. I suggest a reading by Thicht Nhat Hanh where he described a PTSDd ex soldier who came to Plum Village as an example. Also, Daryl Davis, black musician who has directly or indirectly converted as many as 200 KKK members to renounce that group. My marriage and coming around to see with my husband's eyes has been emotionally wearing and tearing, caused my relationships with my best friends to cool at times, but the learning about myself and about Love has been incomparably valuable. I have learned that maybe much more valuable to my evolution as a human has been less about being 'right' about issues and more about learning to love and respect. Slow work (which the modern mind really hates) but I'm convinced it's really the only way for all of us for the long haul.
Only people who do not know history are surprised by Trump’s success. The last century showed endless examples of having to choose between two evils. In the 1930s, who did you root for : Nazis or Communists? In World War 2, did you support Hitler or Stalin? I am not saying that Trump (or even Chavez) is in the same league as the great dictators. But for a lot of people, Biden and the left represent a true and profound danger. Some of MAGA people are true believers. But for many swing voters, the choice is between two bad candidates who represent two conflicting worldviews. And as chaotic as Trump is, they reject the ideology and practice of the “progressive” left so strongly that by default, they may vote for Trump.
Oh this is such bullshit. I couldn't even make it past the first paragraph without erupting, so I stopped. Trump's support doesn't defy sense in the slightest, at least not to most people. The opposing party has a practical corpse as their candidate for President, and were supposed to ignore that and go along our merry way? We know the President is running the country. He can't manage a fucking bicycle, teleprompter, or set of stairs. And lets not forget the colossal, historic boondoggles of the last, oh, 8-9 years courtesy of the Democratic party and their goons in the federal bureaucracy. Gee, I wonder where Covid came from? Illegally funded by Fauci, Collins, et al. and fumbled by Dazak and the ChiCom war machine. So, in terror of being outed as criminal incompetents, these very same tools lie some more, and and keep lying, doubling down, insisting on arbitrary and ineffective safety measures, ignoring ACTUAL science (those lib "we support science" placards in front yards are SO fucking precious), ruining careers and lives and driving society into and economic and psychological tailspin just so they can avoid blame. Since Trump was first elected, we have seen the left corrupt everything they touch, from public elections (good luck putting that back in the bottle), ton the administration of justice, public health, intelligence, education, defense . . . the list goes on and on, and somehow it escapes you? What fucking planet do you live on? Most people want little to nothing to do with the national policy battles, and are keen to go humbly about their lives, trying to earn a decent wage, live a good life and raise their family in a kind and loving faith, but you won't let them do even that. The left has to cram drag shows for children down their throats, clouding young minds with "gender identity" nonsense before they have sprouted fucking pubic hair and have no earthly idea what sex is. It doesn't defy sense in the slightest that people bristle at the lecturous insults of distant potentates who casually denigrate them as rubes and hicks while attempting to force-feed ridiculous alterations of reality on them, then scream bloody murder when reasonable objections are raised (e.g. trans men/boys in womens/girls sports). That bullshit will NEVER fly, because it's absurd on its face and we damn well know it. And yet you insist, and insult, and seek to silence any opposition through coercion and ACTUAL violence. Well, that worm is going to turn. The left, with their storm troopers in corporate America HR departments, academia, the press, the "non-profit" sector, etc. have made a fucking hash of everything they touch. And all they can do is scream "Hitler!" while earnestly carving away at our liberties for our own good. Because you clowns know better. Look at the court cases against Trump right now! They're a total joke - legal theories never seen before and never to be raised again after Trump. You are, of course, aware that the cases are all full collapse, and any verdict potentially against Trump in the NY farce of a felony prosecution will never withstand even cursory appellate scrutiny. But all the sharp legal eagles with impeccable credentials will insist on telling us the exact opposite right up until the point that a competent court, any competent court, shits all over them. But the left doesn't give a fuck. It can only see as far as the next election. It just boggles the mind that you can't understand how thoroughly you've squandered America's trust. People embrace Trump, even though he's often a vain buffoon, because he's looking at this charade from the same viewpoint we are, and to us this is no fucking joke. We'll take the nonsense so long as he shuts you down.
That is spot on. You sound like one of my dear neighbors. I completely get it. I do not agree with you but I absolutely understand what you are saying. Well said. Thank you.
I don't like Trump, have never voted for him, and never will. But anyone who finds his popularity incomprehensible is too out of touch to write about US politics.
In ordinary times, Trump would not be my first choice. But these are not ordinary times. And in the choice between Trump and Biden, I will pick Trump easily. I think I would still be uneasy with RFK, but if by some miracle he won against those two, more acceptable than Biden.
I'm not enthusiastic about my options, to understate it. But I am certainly not apocalyptic about Trump winning, and there are plenty of things I agree with him about. Furthermore I consider the preposterous lawfare against him worse and more antidemocratic than anything he has ever done.
"people living in an entirely different moral universe". In so many words, that's exactly what it is. I live in both worlds - born in the small-town Midwest, now living in big city New York - and those are two entirely different universes. I've tried to explain it to my city friends but they don't get it. Don't get me wrong. I'm not voting for Trump. But I understand why they are. At lunch awhile back, a liberal friend said "How can they vote for someone who's involved in so many lawsuits?" And I wanted to say, "You're thinking just like a left-wing lawyer." Which is how the left-wing thinks. And mid-America has an entirely different consciousness. There's more of them than there are of us.
You are absolutely correct I live during the week in lefty Pittsburgh and on the weekends in rural red PA. I will not vote for Trump, and in fact will work against him. But the resentment felt in the hearts of country people about the smarmy elite city people people is extraordinary. I heard last week a terrifying sentence: "It takes a devil to beat the Devil." That is why Trump's crimes barely register. It takes a devil to beat the elite progressive Devil who hates the police, hates men, hates babies, cannot say woman, hates God, hates Israel, hates hard work, hates merit, in a word... hates me too.
Thanks for your personal thoughts on this US political and social crisis. If you have not read John Gray’s The New Leviathans, (1st published in hardback Sept 2023-paperback due out later this year), you might find his ideas about this raises some thought provoking ideas.
Referring to the confused Liberal Democrat meritocracy’s inability to comprehend what is occurring he has said in an interview launching this book on YouTube in 2023: They cannot understand that what they and other liberals call populism is political blowback against the social disruption that their policies have produced. They can’t understand what they’ve done and populism (John Gray 2023). 🐈⬛
Yet Another text belittling the needs of half the county? Oh, ok. 🥱
Had so much effort not been put to crush Trump in the first place with those idiotic Russia-gate plots and Hunter laptop story hiding, we would have been done with Trump’s second term by now. And we would have moved on. But yay! The other party wanted their victory by all means. Oh, ok. You reap what you sow. No matter how you twist it, we have another four years of Trump ahead of us. It’s like that pesky elective course you can’t graduate without. So keep calm and carry on.
Americans love the underdog especially when he is one of the most sought after people by the media - when's the last time you saw a day without headlines about Trump? It makes perfect sense, that and the Jumping Jack Asses don't want to be blamed for the next Uber Depression.
This argument is dated and no longer persuasive. The shock generated by Trump has passed for open-minded people. They now look at the gamut of political stances and see that he is no longer off any scale. Biden and the progressive left are every bit as crazy and are so in a much less honest and more undemocratic way.
It makes perfect sense to vote for a very imperfect candidate when one candidate has allowed and encouraged between 8 and 10 million illegal immigrants to come into the country; has encouraged and allowed people to self deny the biological science of male and female; has encouraged and allowed the teaching of male/female blending to our most impressionable children as well as the physical and chemical mutilation of their bodies; has eroded the respect of the United States in his actions and foreign policy; has made no attempt to corral the the national debt; and its consequential inflation and in general continuously demeans minority groups by saying they require the hand of government because of their inability to be competent in education and industry. It makes perfect sense to vote for a candidate opposing the absurdity of these positions.
About half of america are fat, dim-witted people. Truly an extraordinary people. The young people rate themselves good at math and they are terrible. Yes it defies all sense. The left is soft on Hamas and the right is soft on Putin. It can be hard to watch, hard to here how senseless people are.
I'm surprised I'm not the first to mention this, but the Golden Retriever analogy, while making the right point, is nowhere near as powerful or hilarious as John Mulaney's still brilliant routine about Trump, "A Horse in the Hospital." I'm not sure if links will work here, but if this doesn't, the YouTube video pops up many versions of it with a simple Google Search. I recommend Mulaney's Netflix one. https://youtu.be/JhkZMxgPxXU?feature=shared
34 felonies. . . Everyone knows -everyone- that it takes 35 felonies to amount to anything. DJT slips the noose again! (I make ha ha joke). I have a difficult time fathoming that there are adults in America (adults!) who take this sham case seriously. The entire thing, From the original investigation, to the charges, to the trial itself were complete and total bullshit. The entire process was a lesson in how to corrupt public institutions. The Democrats have now fucked up/ruined two key public institutions: 1) administration of popular elections; AND 2) the court/criminal Justice system. No big deal, just linchpins of democracy, out the fucking window so you can maintain a senile nullity in the White House. Fine track record you’re building there. At some point, the left’s tactics will be turned on them/you, and oh how you’ll wail and scream and cry, and the response will be: tough shit, shoulda thought about that earlier. The only reason I dread a second Trump presidency is the absolute avalanche of bullshit we the public will Have to endure from the rainbow of idiots screaming on every channel
The problem is also that many people driven authoritarian values and dynamics often do not care if somebody is left-wing or right-wing. They just support someone who is feeding them with such values and behaviours.
The commenters below sum it up pretty nicely. As a recovering progressive with many progressive friends who fit the quintessential affluent liberal mold, married to a bright red conservative, I can tell you it has been a real struggle at times to actually listen really deeply to my husband and his orbit. I lived in Austin Tx for 27 years (the blueberry in the tomato soup as Rick Perry amusingly put it years ago) but have lived in small Texas sommunities for long stretches as well so I think I have earned the street cred here to comment. My observation is that there is an intolerant, sanctimonious, authoritarian streak in the progressive mindset that sets teeth on edge (I speak in general, there are individual exceptions of course). It is a scolding, critical and self-righteous spirit that disrespects any concerns conservatives have about many of the cultural issues of our day. It is so much more trouble to listen to people, engage with their concerns, accept they are where they are and be IN RELATIONSHIP with them and trust that will eventually win the day. And yet that is the only way real changes of heart are accomplished. Trump is where he is because the left agenda comes across as you WILL SUBMIT and a pox on your concerns you bigot. No one knows more than me how vexing Trump can be, and how unreal our current situation is. But conservatives especially do not take kindly to being told/forced to do things or disrespected, really most people don't like it. Someone who fights back with the relish Trump does has their vote. Basically it brings us where we are today. I know I know. To tolerate is to be complicit, that has been swallowed hook, line and sinker. But maybe that assumption is wrong and plays more on your insecurities about being a good person than it is about transforming folks. Love means taking people where they are. I suggest a reading by Thicht Nhat Hanh where he described a PTSDd ex soldier who came to Plum Village as an example. Also, Daryl Davis, black musician who has directly or indirectly converted as many as 200 KKK members to renounce that group. My marriage and coming around to see with my husband's eyes has been emotionally wearing and tearing, caused my relationships with my best friends to cool at times, but the learning about myself and about Love has been incomparably valuable. I have learned that maybe much more valuable to my evolution as a human has been less about being 'right' about issues and more about learning to love and respect. Slow work (which the modern mind really hates) but I'm convinced it's really the only way for all of us for the long haul.
Only people who do not know history are surprised by Trump’s success. The last century showed endless examples of having to choose between two evils. In the 1930s, who did you root for : Nazis or Communists? In World War 2, did you support Hitler or Stalin? I am not saying that Trump (or even Chavez) is in the same league as the great dictators. But for a lot of people, Biden and the left represent a true and profound danger. Some of MAGA people are true believers. But for many swing voters, the choice is between two bad candidates who represent two conflicting worldviews. And as chaotic as Trump is, they reject the ideology and practice of the “progressive” left so strongly that by default, they may vote for Trump.
Oh this is such bullshit. I couldn't even make it past the first paragraph without erupting, so I stopped. Trump's support doesn't defy sense in the slightest, at least not to most people. The opposing party has a practical corpse as their candidate for President, and were supposed to ignore that and go along our merry way? We know the President is running the country. He can't manage a fucking bicycle, teleprompter, or set of stairs. And lets not forget the colossal, historic boondoggles of the last, oh, 8-9 years courtesy of the Democratic party and their goons in the federal bureaucracy. Gee, I wonder where Covid came from? Illegally funded by Fauci, Collins, et al. and fumbled by Dazak and the ChiCom war machine. So, in terror of being outed as criminal incompetents, these very same tools lie some more, and and keep lying, doubling down, insisting on arbitrary and ineffective safety measures, ignoring ACTUAL science (those lib "we support science" placards in front yards are SO fucking precious), ruining careers and lives and driving society into and economic and psychological tailspin just so they can avoid blame. Since Trump was first elected, we have seen the left corrupt everything they touch, from public elections (good luck putting that back in the bottle), ton the administration of justice, public health, intelligence, education, defense . . . the list goes on and on, and somehow it escapes you? What fucking planet do you live on? Most people want little to nothing to do with the national policy battles, and are keen to go humbly about their lives, trying to earn a decent wage, live a good life and raise their family in a kind and loving faith, but you won't let them do even that. The left has to cram drag shows for children down their throats, clouding young minds with "gender identity" nonsense before they have sprouted fucking pubic hair and have no earthly idea what sex is. It doesn't defy sense in the slightest that people bristle at the lecturous insults of distant potentates who casually denigrate them as rubes and hicks while attempting to force-feed ridiculous alterations of reality on them, then scream bloody murder when reasonable objections are raised (e.g. trans men/boys in womens/girls sports). That bullshit will NEVER fly, because it's absurd on its face and we damn well know it. And yet you insist, and insult, and seek to silence any opposition through coercion and ACTUAL violence. Well, that worm is going to turn. The left, with their storm troopers in corporate America HR departments, academia, the press, the "non-profit" sector, etc. have made a fucking hash of everything they touch. And all they can do is scream "Hitler!" while earnestly carving away at our liberties for our own good. Because you clowns know better. Look at the court cases against Trump right now! They're a total joke - legal theories never seen before and never to be raised again after Trump. You are, of course, aware that the cases are all full collapse, and any verdict potentially against Trump in the NY farce of a felony prosecution will never withstand even cursory appellate scrutiny. But all the sharp legal eagles with impeccable credentials will insist on telling us the exact opposite right up until the point that a competent court, any competent court, shits all over them. But the left doesn't give a fuck. It can only see as far as the next election. It just boggles the mind that you can't understand how thoroughly you've squandered America's trust. People embrace Trump, even though he's often a vain buffoon, because he's looking at this charade from the same viewpoint we are, and to us this is no fucking joke. We'll take the nonsense so long as he shuts you down.
Well and very colorfully said.
That is spot on. You sound like one of my dear neighbors. I completely get it. I do not agree with you but I absolutely understand what you are saying. Well said. Thank you.
I don't like Trump, have never voted for him, and never will. But anyone who finds his popularity incomprehensible is too out of touch to write about US politics.
In ordinary times, Trump would not be my first choice. But these are not ordinary times. And in the choice between Trump and Biden, I will pick Trump easily. I think I would still be uneasy with RFK, but if by some miracle he won against those two, more acceptable than Biden.
I'm not enthusiastic about my options, to understate it. But I am certainly not apocalyptic about Trump winning, and there are plenty of things I agree with him about. Furthermore I consider the preposterous lawfare against him worse and more antidemocratic than anything he has ever done.
"people living in an entirely different moral universe". In so many words, that's exactly what it is. I live in both worlds - born in the small-town Midwest, now living in big city New York - and those are two entirely different universes. I've tried to explain it to my city friends but they don't get it. Don't get me wrong. I'm not voting for Trump. But I understand why they are. At lunch awhile back, a liberal friend said "How can they vote for someone who's involved in so many lawsuits?" And I wanted to say, "You're thinking just like a left-wing lawyer." Which is how the left-wing thinks. And mid-America has an entirely different consciousness. There's more of them than there are of us.
You are absolutely correct I live during the week in lefty Pittsburgh and on the weekends in rural red PA. I will not vote for Trump, and in fact will work against him. But the resentment felt in the hearts of country people about the smarmy elite city people people is extraordinary. I heard last week a terrifying sentence: "It takes a devil to beat the Devil." That is why Trump's crimes barely register. It takes a devil to beat the elite progressive Devil who hates the police, hates men, hates babies, cannot say woman, hates God, hates Israel, hates hard work, hates merit, in a word... hates me too.
And do you know what I'm afraid of? That the city elite have hurt people. The reaction, if it proceeds very far, could be hard to stop.
The city elite have hurt the hell out of the urban minority communities.
Thanks for your personal thoughts on this US political and social crisis. If you have not read John Gray’s The New Leviathans, (1st published in hardback Sept 2023-paperback due out later this year), you might find his ideas about this raises some thought provoking ideas.
Referring to the confused Liberal Democrat meritocracy’s inability to comprehend what is occurring he has said in an interview launching this book on YouTube in 2023: They cannot understand that what they and other liberals call populism is political blowback against the social disruption that their policies have produced. They can’t understand what they’ve done and populism (John Gray 2023). 🐈⬛
Ohhh the humanity!!!!🙄😂
Yet Another text belittling the needs of half the county? Oh, ok. 🥱
Had so much effort not been put to crush Trump in the first place with those idiotic Russia-gate plots and Hunter laptop story hiding, we would have been done with Trump’s second term by now. And we would have moved on. But yay! The other party wanted their victory by all means. Oh, ok. You reap what you sow. No matter how you twist it, we have another four years of Trump ahead of us. It’s like that pesky elective course you can’t graduate without. So keep calm and carry on.
Americans love the underdog especially when he is one of the most sought after people by the media - when's the last time you saw a day without headlines about Trump? It makes perfect sense, that and the Jumping Jack Asses don't want to be blamed for the next Uber Depression.
This argument is dated and no longer persuasive. The shock generated by Trump has passed for open-minded people. They now look at the gamut of political stances and see that he is no longer off any scale. Biden and the progressive left are every bit as crazy and are so in a much less honest and more undemocratic way.
It makes perfect sense to vote for a very imperfect candidate when one candidate has allowed and encouraged between 8 and 10 million illegal immigrants to come into the country; has encouraged and allowed people to self deny the biological science of male and female; has encouraged and allowed the teaching of male/female blending to our most impressionable children as well as the physical and chemical mutilation of their bodies; has eroded the respect of the United States in his actions and foreign policy; has made no attempt to corral the the national debt; and its consequential inflation and in general continuously demeans minority groups by saying they require the hand of government because of their inability to be competent in education and industry. It makes perfect sense to vote for a candidate opposing the absurdity of these positions.
About half of america are fat, dim-witted people. Truly an extraordinary people. The young people rate themselves good at math and they are terrible. Yes it defies all sense. The left is soft on Hamas and the right is soft on Putin. It can be hard to watch, hard to here how senseless people are.
What the hell is this?
I'm surprised I'm not the first to mention this, but the Golden Retriever analogy, while making the right point, is nowhere near as powerful or hilarious as John Mulaney's still brilliant routine about Trump, "A Horse in the Hospital." I'm not sure if links will work here, but if this doesn't, the YouTube video pops up many versions of it with a simple Google Search. I recommend Mulaney's Netflix one. https://youtu.be/JhkZMxgPxXU?feature=shared
34 felonies. . . Everyone knows -everyone- that it takes 35 felonies to amount to anything. DJT slips the noose again! (I make ha ha joke). I have a difficult time fathoming that there are adults in America (adults!) who take this sham case seriously. The entire thing, From the original investigation, to the charges, to the trial itself were complete and total bullshit. The entire process was a lesson in how to corrupt public institutions. The Democrats have now fucked up/ruined two key public institutions: 1) administration of popular elections; AND 2) the court/criminal Justice system. No big deal, just linchpins of democracy, out the fucking window so you can maintain a senile nullity in the White House. Fine track record you’re building there. At some point, the left’s tactics will be turned on them/you, and oh how you’ll wail and scream and cry, and the response will be: tough shit, shoulda thought about that earlier. The only reason I dread a second Trump presidency is the absolute avalanche of bullshit we the public will Have to endure from the rainbow of idiots screaming on every channel
AndEvery newsroom (with some
Notable exceptions
The problem is also that many people driven authoritarian values and dynamics often do not care if somebody is left-wing or right-wing. They just support someone who is feeding them with such values and behaviours.