Sunday 13 November 2016

How I learned to stop worrying and love the Trump



This is a song for Now.

I can't tell you how many times I've cringed when I've seen the stuff about Trump supporters on the internet and everywhere else.

Almost everyone was wrongfooted. What was really happening became hidden. It became hidden because of the internet. Face to face, people just don't behave the same way towards each other.

If you're going to be called a moron because of your voting intentions, you're not going to bother mentioning them.Take a look at how Trump supporters have been portrayed in this election.

These are millions of ordinary folks. Getting sneered at and publicly humiliated.

By Liberals.

Liberals sneering at ordinary people.

Let's let that sink in for a moment. If you've spent the last few months  posting videos of Trump supporters as idiots, well, that's what you've been doing. Putting down and belittling a whole section of society. Change Trump Supporter to Jew or Black. See how that flies. I saw an online acquaintence of long standing post stuff that suggested that women that supported Trump shouldn't be allowed to breed. Seriously. But that extreme aside, the message has been both clear and relentless. Trump is beyond the pale. His supporters are rednecks.

Rednecks = farmers and farm laborours, by the way. - ordinary working people. They worked in the fields, and the sun would burn their necks.

And Trump came up on the Libertarian Left side of things. Pro choice. Democrat supporter, other stuff I don't have to hand right now. In many respects, he's far further left than Hilary Clinton. But one of the effects of the focus on Personality is to ignore and delegitimise the actual issues

It does a couple of other things too.

One, it hardens the stance, at least in part to say "Fuck you, you snob"  It puts people on the defensive.

Two, as I mentioned above, anyone that can't be bothered with the arguing and abuse will tend to keep their opinions to themselves, so that, by volume, it appears that most people will vote the other way. Same thing happened with Brexit. Leavers were put down as racist morons, and anyconcerns they had were totally ignored. They weren't voting leave because theywere concerned about the accountability of Lawmakers, for example. They were really evil retarded pond scum. So my facebook feed was full of stories of Leavers as being, well, basically Trump Supporters. Most of the people being pilloried couldn't be arsed arguing.

Nice work, Liberals. You blindsided yourselves. Twice.

What is Trump? Where do we go from here? Buggered if I know. He's a loose cannon. He's not the new Hitler, and is a damn sight more savoury than the religious right, who were also defeated a couple of days ago, if you hadn't noticed.

PS. The election, and re-election to the post of Leader of the Labour Party of a beardy weirdy leftie, despite the opposition of just about the entire establishment springs from the same wellhead. I really should go the bookies and put a tenner on Jeremy Corbyn being the next Prime Minister.

driving lessons in North Wirral? learn to drive in Hoylake? driving instructor in Birkenhead?

2 comments:

Pete said...

I have some thoughts in regard to your detailed analysis.

1. I feel you haven't fully linked the title to the blog post. How have you learned to love the Trump?

2. I would suggest (although I am not sure about this) that using your arguments (and it could be successfully argued either way) that Corbyn will lose a lot of the northern England vote which forms the core of Labour's political base, certainly in the House of Commons. This, sort of in effect, confirms your post but in the other direction, that people will claim to be voting Labour but will vote Conservative or UKIP in reality. His brand of socialism may only appeal in the capital.

3. Loosely related to your post, I felt distressed for the first 2 or 3 days after the American election. I am still not recovered to the point I can watch political news on the TV, certainly not interviews from Trump or his close aides. I did read something today in which the writer said non-Americans have now got 4 years of non-stop entertainment as opposed to a few weeks of Trump sulking. That made me look on the positive side.

Paul said...

1. I don't. I think he represents a dangerous schizm in world politics. I think the schizm is inevitable for a whole slew of reasons, but I'd have preferred it to have come from a different direction. The title of this post comes from the 1960's Kubrick film, Dr Strangelove. It's subtitle was "How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb"

2. I think Corbyn would garner support from some seemingly unlikely places. Think of anywhere that benefitted from EU membership but that voted leave, such as Cornwall and large parts of Wales for example. Back in the 1980's and for the couple of decades beyond, people bought into the centre right ethos. The radical Left were left fighting rearguard single issue battles. I feel this has run it's course, and that not all that many of those embeded within the mainstream realise just how potent and wide ranging the disillusionment and radicalisation is, although the events of the last couple of years are starting to register. So places like Essex might well see significant swings, both to Labour, and to right wing parties.

3. I refer you to point one. Trump surfed to power on a wave of disillusionment and anger. I think he will backtrack on musch of the populist rhetoris, but he still represents a shift towards a scary reactionary push towards the baser elements of human nature.