The Donald Trump score card continues its incredibly long run, up to 3142 posts and counting. Yet the broader foundation explaining the success of his movement have yet to be fully explored. I hope this post can help to solve that problem. The MAGA movement is a populist movement. What does that mean? According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, populism is a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups: a "political program or movement that champions, or claims to champion, the common person, usually by favorable contrast with a real or perceived elite or establishment." Populism | History, Facts, & Examples. It might seem incongruous that such a movement would rally around a self-styled billionaire, but Trump was able to sense and exploit the pent up grievances of segments of the population that felt themselves left out by their government,and by politicians like Hillary Clinton. This thread will look at the components of populist thinking and the people behind the movement in an effort to understand the perspectives of approximately 30% of the population that makes up the MAGA and Stop the Steal Movement, and the populist conspiracy theories like Q-Anon that run rampant among its adherents on the internet.
I think many people are mystified by the MAGA cult's unwavering penchant for voting against their own economic interests, despite Reaganomic's evisceration of the American Middle Class, and not merely their ironclad resistance to facts and logic, but outright hostility to empiricism, but therein lies the problem. While rational people prefer to live in a fact-based reality, the MAGA cult doesn't; they appeal exclusively to feelings, not facts. The most compelling of these emotions, and the easiest to tweak, is also the most primitive; fear. Mexicans are rapists. LGBT's are groomers. Black and Brown people are out to replace Whites. Democrats are literally demonic, and will outlaw Christianity. This leads to their second strategy; conflating religion with politics. Now, such nonsensical racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and aggrieved White victimhood isn't merely petty bigotry, but an article of religious faith with the imprimatur of God himself; completely unassailable by logic and reason, which become enemies themselves. It doesn't matter how many facts, figures, citations and references you come up with, they will not hear you. You're talking facts; they only speak feelings, and you are an object of their fear; you're heretical, a threatening outsider of their cult, trying to interject a terrifying degree of cognitive dissonance, and are therefore evil, demonic, and Communist; the enemy. This is not mere hyperbole. One in five adults in the United States, equivalent to about 50 million people, believe that political violence is justified at least in some circumstances. Almost one in four of the respondents – equivalent to more than 60 million Americans – could conceive of violence being justified “to preserve an American way of life based on western European (White) traditions”. 3% or 7 million people – believe that political violence is usually or always justified. More than 12% said they would be willing to “threaten or intimidate a person”, and 10% to “injure a person”. 7.1% or 18 million people - said that they would be willing to kill a person to advance an important political goal. As much as I deplore the Balkanization of America, I don't see how to engage with people who completely eschew reason and consider you so threatening to their fragile paradigm that 60 million of them are willing to physically attack you.
One might compare the cave dweler to the populist mindset easily enough, certainly a form of "echo chamber" that seems to help keep that wagon rolling
Let me elaborate and try to answer my own question. Plato's analogy of the cave , as presented in his Republic, is actually a lead in to an elitist political theory, which might, at first blush, seem to be the very opposite of populism. We see reality as shadows on the wall of the cave, through a glass darkly. But one prisoner escapes into the sunlight and later returns and tries to teach the others about the nature of truth. This is the philosopher, who is the best ruler because he understands that the objects of the physical world are copies, imitations, of the ideal realm. The Republic should be ruled by guardians who are trained in philosophy: Philosopher kings. Socrates, Plato's hero in the story, explains that the soul consists of three parts: the rational, the appetitive, and the spirit. In the just human, there is a hierarchy in which reason is in control, the spirit executes the actions dictated by reason, and the appetites are subordinate to the others. Politically, this corresponds to philosopher-kings, soldiers and commoners/slaves. Plato was an admirer of the Spartan state, and his ideal republic most closely resembles fascism in our own time. On the surface, this looks like the opposite of populism. A good political scientist will tell you though that this conceptualization is fair game for exploitation by demagogues, like Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler and Trump--men who could convince the masses that they really understood them and embodied the "general will", entitling them to rule on behalf of "the people". The working class, more than other social classes, tends to be "authoritarian" at heart--at least that was the thesis of sociologist S.M. Lipset (1959)American Journal of Sociology, 24:482-502. The pros and cons of Lipset's thesis continunue to be debated among social scientists. Lipset and "Working-Class" Authoritarianism on JSTOR https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6765.1987.tb00884.x#:~:text=Almost thirty years ago Lipset published his well-known,classes, is predisposed to authoritarian and anti-democratic attitudes. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2266561
Trump famously said: "I love the poorly educated" Did Trump Say, 'I Love the Poorly Educated'?, and that was a rare occasion on which I'm sure he was telling the truth. In his book What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, Thomas Frank explores at length why Kansans seem consistently to be voting against their own self interest--the phenomenon Marxists call "false consciousness. (and by mentioning that, populists who might be reading this are probably saying "aha, I knew that Tish is a commie." (Not so, but that's the way they think.) thomas Frank what's th ematter with kansas - Yahoo Video Search Results , Frank put much of the blame on McGovern and Clinton "New Democrats" from for shifting from working class economic interests to cultural "wedge issues" in an effort to lure liberal yuppies. Republicans welcomed the shift, relying on the cultural conservatism of the working class and fears of the liberal social agenda on abortion, affirmative action, gays, Black Lives Matter, etc. Certainly Reagan deserves some of the credit, too, in weakening the power of organized labor. And globalization and immigration added economic issues to working class fears. When the Clintons embraced the Republican agenda on promoting NAFTA and other trade liberalization measures, and manufacturing jobs started to disappear in Middle America, the right wing agenda gained traction, even though it was Republican Big Business interests who were initially responsible for these developments.
The whining, weak, brittle, fragile, delicate, feeble, puny, victim mentality of the MAGA movement is one of the most transparently sad, snowflakey, and pitiful movements really in American history," he wrote. "The incessant whining followed by the usual deflection of some harsh attack that reasonable adults would eschew has really reached a boiling point in my tolerance of typical and normal political dialogue." "The MAGA movement has become an infectious disease of helplessness and victimhood unlike any I can remember. Donald Trump himself is a master victim, suing everyone, everything, yelling loudly about how he is a poor victim of the 'deep state,' Rinos, DOJ, FBI, China, Germany, Mars, the Sun and any other possible force of nature," he then added. "But his victim mentality has spread to the GOP at large, and it’s the most annoying and destructive force in the nation. Seriously. This infection has destroyed the GOP " - Former Republican and US Representative, Adam Kinzinger.
How can democracy in the US possibly work, when both parties are funded by the corporations and then controlled by the media. Poor Donald only had to mention an import tax on China and he had to go. Meanwhile, our new King went out to meet his subjects, but forgot to take his advisors and security escort along. He certainly takes after his grandmother who regularly got lost in London, then popped into one of our theatres for a cup of tea, while we called her car. LOL
The violence we are experiencing now has nothing to do with MAGA people. Current violent threats are associated with the war in the Holy Land.
