Tag: Trump supporters

This is the rhetorical trick most likely to cause our species’ extinction

AlterNet logoFor all the invective we throw and recycle at the MAGA cult, we have yet to put a finger on, let alone driven a stake through that cult’s mindless, heartlessness. Our invective is at most therapeutic for us with little effect on them.

They’re shape-shifters, masters of deflection, but it’s not a blur of various identities. They’re shape-togglers shuttling fluidly between two identities, prude and brat, pope and punk, saint and cynic, family-values and incel revolt, high-horse parent and petulant child, defenders of the status quo and cultural wrecking crew, upholders of moral propriety and anarchist dismantlers.

Yes, that’s just another example of the cult’s hypocrisy, but I think it’s the pivotal one, the mother of all of their hypocrisies. It’s how they declare us losers for not meeting their moral standards and losers for caring about moral standards. These shape-togglers reproach us for our political incorrectness and conversely for being PC. Continue reading.

We Have No More Excuses For Trump Voters

The past several days have offered a kaleidoscope of a Trump-addled America, a telling, if depressing, pastiche: Amy Cooper’s bigoted entitlement; the homicidal tactics of Minneapolis police officers; the knowing encouragement of the president, who has mounted his second campaign on the same foundation of rank prejudices and crude stereotypes as his first. It adds up to a portrait of a nation unwilling to retreat from its racist history, unable to chart a path toward a future that pays tribute to its more egalitarian founding creed.

President Donald J. Trump is merely a symptom, not a cause, not the sickness itself. During his first campaign, I worried less about his outrageous conduct and inflammatory rhetoric — he is, after all, just one malign actor — and more about the millions who danced to his music, rejoiced in his racist diatribes, sang in his chorus.

In 2016, I would not have accused every voter who cast a ballot for Trump of racism. Some were one-percenters bent on protecting their riches; some were lifelong Republicans leery of crossing party lines; some were Bernie Bros who couldn’t curb their misogyny and vote for Hillary Clinton. Still, there were many who eagerly followed after a man who defamed Mexicans, denounced Muslims and claimed that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Continue reading.

The Memo: Culture war hits coronavirus crisis

The Hill logoPresident Trump stoked the culture war on Friday with a series of fiery tweets calling for what he termed the liberation of three states, all of which have Democratic governors.

Trump was apparently backing protesters in Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia who have bridled against restrictions put in place in response to the coronavirus crisis.

His tweets were the latest — and starkest — example of how even the debate over the deadly virus is increasingly being strained by the centrifugal forces of a polarizing president and a polarized media. Continue reading.

Trump fans can’t admit he’s to blame for this crisis — so they’re launching nonsensical protests instead

AlterNet logokOn Wednesday, a crowd of right-wing nuts — complete with their oversized but underworked utility vehicles, Confederate flags, guns and other such overcompensation accoutrements — descended on the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, to whine about the temporary pause to dinners at Applebee’s and accidental brushfires at gender-reveal parties. The deep fear of emasculation driving the protest was not particularly subtle at this protest, as the crowd chanted “Lock her up” at Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who is accused of no other crime other than making deeply insecure men fuss about a woman in power.

The ostensible purpose of the protests was to pressure Whitmer to relax some of the restrictions on businesses and movement under the coronavirus lockdown. In reality, of course, this is happening because a bunch of Fox News-loving Trump supporters have been poisoned by propaganda that has convinced them the coronavirus is overblown or a hoax, all being spread by the libs to destroy Trump’s chances at re-election.

Well, that, and the fact that they’re a bunch of sexists who hate having a female governor, which goes a long way toward explaining why the Michigan protest was bigger than others in Ohio or North Carolina, whose governors are male. Continue reading.

Trump Has a Gut Feeling About What Covid-19 Means for 2020

New York Times logoIt’s not too soon to wonder whether he’s on to something.

Evidence of President Trump’s mishandling of the current Covid-19 emergency has been building steadily. Most recently, The Washington Post on April 4 (“The U.S. was beset by denial and dysfunction as the coronavirus raged”) and The Times on April 11 (“He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus”) have put together a carefully constructed case against the administration.

On April 13, Trump added fuel to the fire, declaring at his daily briefing, “When somebody’s president of the United States, the authority is total. And that’s the way it’s got to be. It’s total. It’s total.” Governors who have challenged his authority to order an end to social distancing and other preventive measures, “know that,” he added, and “they will agree to it.” Trump wasn’t done: “The authority of the president of the United States, having to do with the subject we’re talking about, is total.”

The notion that Trump’s provocative attitude will bring him down on Nov. 3 does not, however, take into account the resilience of his base and the animosity to elite liberalism that Trump has feasted on. Continue reading.

For Republicans, there is no more reliable source of accurate information than Trump: study

AlterNet logoWhen President Donald Trump last week praised two older drugs used to treat Malaria, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, as “game changers” in the fight against coronavirus, perhaps it was only a matter of time.

Trump, in fact, told Americans, “it’s not going to kill anybody.”

An Arizona man, as many now know, is dead and his wife seriously ill after ingesting a fish tank cleaner that contained the same active ingredient as the drug Trump promoted. Continue reading.

Here’s the data that shows Americans who rage against political correctness are the most xenophobic — and most likely to vote Trump

AlterNet logoAdmittedly, Trump’s initial references to “the Chinese Virus” earlier in March seemed rather ad-hoc. Though clearly xenophobic in context and implication, it seemed that Trump was casually parroting the language of other far-Right commentators like Charlie Kirk. Within the past week, however, Trump has ramped up his labeling campaign, often going out of his way to refer to COVID-19 as “the Chinese Virus” in Twitter storms and White House press briefings.

Two key strategies likely drive Trump’s efforts here. Both involve distracting Americans from his own administration’s failings at dealing with the coronavirus earlier on. The first is simply to blame China, laying responsibility for America’s situation solely at their feet. The fact that a Chinese propaganda director recently suggested the virus may have originated with American soldiers who brought it to China provided the perfect (and tacitly justifiable) motivation for Trump to remind the world forcefully and repeatedly where the virus originated.

The second factor also involves distraction from Trump’s failings, but one in which “China” is only incidental. They are merely a stand-in for all “dangerous outsiders.” By repeatedly and brazenly referring to “the Chinese Virus,” and provoking a media backlash against the xenophobic implications of his language, Trump wishes to remind his base who our internal threats are: politically correct liberals who care more about defending foreigners than they do the American people. Continue reading.

Yale psychiatrist explains why the coronavirus pandemic and Donald Trump’s irrational cult is a deadly combination

AlterNet logoSynergy is when two or more agents come together to create a reaction greater than any one of them could have achieved on their own. It can be good or bad, depending on the desired outcome.

The synergy between Donald Trump and the coronavirus pandemic is a disaster.

Writing at the Advocate, John Casey summarizes this deadly synergy: “As this crisis deteriorates, becomes unmanageable and inexplicably horrible, so will Trump’s behavior. A perfect storm that will unravel an unprepared, unrelatable, and unsympathetic president. A fairy tale turned into the horror of all horror stories.” Continue reading.

The coronavirus is conspiracy theory gold for Trump-supporting QAnon

AlterNet logoBy now, most of us have heard about QAnon, the group of conspiracy theorists that formed soon after Donald Trump was elected. For a refresher course, here’s how they were described by Travis View, the host of the QAnon Anonymous podcast, who has written about the group extensively for the Washington Post.

“QAnon is based upon the idea that there is a worldwide cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who rule the world, essentially, and they control everything,” View told Salon. “They control politicians, and they control the media. They control Hollywood, and they cover up their existence, essentially. And they would have continued ruling the world, were it not for the election of President Donald Trump.”

“Now, Donald Trump in this conspiracy theory knows all about this evil cabal’s wrongdoing. But one of the reasons that Donald Trump was elected was to put an end to them, basically. And now we would be ignorant of this behind-the-scenes battle of Donald Trump and the U.S. military — that everyone backs him and the evil cabal — were it not for ‘Q.’ And what ‘Q’ is — is basically a poster on 4chan, who later moved to 8chan, who reveals details about this secret behind-the-scenes battle, and also secrets about what the cabal is doing and also the mass sort of upcoming arrest events through these posts.”

Continue reading.

Is Donald Trump a Manly Man?

His followers seem to love his strength. But it wasn’t so long ago his act would have been seen as exactly the opposite.

The House impeachment and Senate trial of Donald Trump have offered good occasion to listen to and understand the minds of his defenders. Even people who dislike parts of his character or record invoke certain words again and again to describe the parts they do like.

In interviews and emails, these backers tell me they regard Trump as “strong.” His battles with adversaries reveal him as “tough.” What in a conventional light looks outrageous—the bragging, the insults, the defiance, the rule skirting, the shredding of familiar standards of how a president should act—in this more sympathetic light looks like charisma. It gives him the aura of “a winner.”

To put a fine point on it, his backers regard him as a real man—possessed of a virility that flows not in spite of his excesses but because of them. In these minds, Trump represents a certain ideal of male power in exaggerated form. Continue reading.