Reports from the heartland
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You’re your very own monster - exactly what led to Trump’s rise..
That statement saddens me deeply. As does calling people stupid because they voted for Trump.
Trump has always been for Trump, and he has been ruthlessly effective at getting what he wants, no matter what the cost is to others. It may well be true that there was discontent simmering among Americans, but Trump took that discontent and amplified it and pitted us against each other for his own gain for the last eight years or more. Some people got angry and others were appalled. But nearly the whole country fell for it and we've been fighting each other for years.
Trump is pure genius. And pure evil.
Think about what Jimmy Carter did with his life after he lost in 1980, and contrast that with what Trump has done with his since 2020. Speaks volumes about how one person can influence the world.
We need to find our inner Jimmy and leave Donald in the dust.
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Smerconish did a lengthy intro to his show today. Much to consider in what he says....8 min video...
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@wtg said in Reports from the heartland:
You’re your very own monster - exactly what led to Trump’s rise..
That statement saddens me deeply. As does calling people stupid because they voted for Trump.
Trump has always been for Trump, and he has been ruthlessly effective at getting what he wants, no matter what the cost is to others. It may well be true that there was discontent simmering among Americans, but Trump took that discontent and amplified it and pitted us against each other for his own gain for the last eight years or more. Some people got angry and others were appalled. But nearly the whole country fell for it and we've been fighting each other for years.
Trump is pure genius. And pure evil.
Think about what Jimmy Carter did with his life after he lost in 1980, and contrast that with what Trump has done with his since 2020. Speaks volumes about how one person can influence the world.
We need to find our inner Jimmy and leave Donald in the dust.
Think about how Dems continued to pursue and try to prosecute him. They were running downballot races on the promise to find something, anything, to charge him with. As I said, creating your own monster. Voters saw that and did not like it.
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Totally ridiculous, Mik. The man is a criminal and deserves to be prosecuted. No one is above the law. It wasn't "Dems," it was the law. The law didn't need to look for "anything" to charge him with. He committed these crimes. He is a monster, we didn't create him. The voters who think he was being persecuted are as deranged as he is.
Look, I have close friends, people I love, who believe in Trump and who voted for him. Their stupidity is strictly relegated to this one arena. They are good people, or they wouldn't be my friends. We have agreed to not discuss this, because we mean too much to each other to let politics destroy our friendship. But there is no question in my mind that when it comes to Trump, they have been brainwashed. They do not have a useful message to send to America. They are in thrall to a pit of lies. This is a case of mass hypnosis. And all of us are about to pay the price.
I am curious what these people will say when prices go even higher, because of Trump's tariffs. When they can't build houses or harvest crops because of Trump's deportation policy. When the insanely wealthy just get richer and richer, the voters just get poorer and poorer, and we no longer have clean water or clean air, and when they can't get health care any more. When their parents have to move in with them because there is no more Social Security. Or the elderly have to take the slave wage jobs the illegal immigrants are no longer there to take. What will Trump's voters say then?
Probably whatever idea Putin puts in their head.
I find it disgusting that you find anything to defend about their vote.
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Listening to the talking heads on tv, radio, podcasts, you'd think they'd ask one simple question: If the electorate went for Trump because the cost of living went up in the wake of Covid, what made voters think that Trump would make it any better? Really, at least Kamala Harris addressed the issues and had concrete plans to address inflation and housing scarcity. If these were really the issues that motivated the Trump vote, I'd really like the pundits to be asking this question: what exactly did Trump offer that led voters to believe that his policies would make them better off? Because as far as I can see, Trump's declared "policies" will only make their troubles far, far worse. And for voters to not see that indeed makes them stupid.
fear is the thief of dreams
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I'm sure you do. There's plenty of derangement to go around.
Again, the inability to respect or see value in anyone's perspective but one's own is precisely what created the opportunity for Trump to rise.
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@Mik sorry, I call BS. I have plenty of respect for and curiosity about people who don't think like I do. The time for that curiousity in the case of Trump is long over. The facts have been plain as day for a long time. The refusal of people to face those facts leads to only one obvious conclusion--they are either idiots or they are morally craven.
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@pique - I just saw your post in the other thread.
You can ignore what I've said here, as I have a much better understanding of your frame of reference and your experiences living in a very conservative state.I was going to delete the post, but I'll leave it for others to consider.
@pique said in Reports from the heartland:
If the electorate went for Trump because the cost of living went up in the wake of Covid, what made voters think that Trump would make it any better?
You are not those people and they are not you. You are looking at it from your @pique 's knowledge base and understanding of economics, not theirs.
Great example I heard just before the election...woman was talking about how much she disliked Trump but that she was going to vote for him. When asked why, she said "he's a businessman and he will run the country like a business. He'll help bring down prices." I think her analysis is deeply flawed because she's not taking into account a lot of bits of information about why we've had inflation, but I cannot expect her to think like me. If we met in person, I could try to offer some of those bits of information to re-frame and fill out the picture I think actually exists and to help her see things differently. I would also be open to learning something from her, perhaps about the financial challenges she is facing that are prompting her to vote for someone she expressed such a strong revulsion for. What I will not do is call someone like her stupid. People shut down when they are put down. Nothing is solved.
Example closer to home...
I do not have a musical background like many of you and am like a duck out of water during discussions of the subtleties of various pianos. I do not hear what you guys do when you play various pianos. I cannot imagine having to care for a piano almost as if I were caring for another person, selecting a home where it will fit and maintaining the perfect environment in order to keep it at its peak sound. I'm like "buy a digital, you don't have to tune it or baby it." I do not think you guys are crazy, and I know I am not stupid. We are simply different people, with varying skills and interests.
And so I try to view my fellow citizens similarly when it comes to political differences. I try to understand what they are thinking, and if I disagree with them, I try to meet them at whatever place they are to share my thinking with them to see if I can influence or persuade. And I try to learn from them and try to imagine walking in their shoes.
You really should take the 9 minutes and listen to Smerconish. He makes way more sense about this than I do.
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Thanks for giving me that grace, wtg. And I read your post anyway. Just FYI, I would never ever insult someone by calling them stupid to their face. It's what I think, and I'm sharing those thoughts here, but no one should construe that to mean that I disrespect people in person by calling them stupid. Or even in a place where they might see it. I've had hundreds of friendly conversations about politics across kitchen tables in conservative homes over many years. I always learn something, I always open myself to their perspective. I'm a trained reporter, and in many of those conversations I was doing my job by listening with openeness and curiosity to learn about a different perspective.
We are now well past all of that. The threat to the nation is dire. There's no room for that any more. I think the dems did listen. I think they did accommodate. I think Trump voters are in thrall to their churches and to overseas interference and to disinformation. This is a mass delusion. They haven't just voted against our interests, but against their own interests. Trying to understand them further is futile. I don't know what will break the spell, but something will eventually.
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@wtg said in Reports from the heartland:
Smerconish did a lengthy intro to his show today. Much to consider in what he says....8 min video...
Good piece. I think there is much truth in what he says. I watched Trump's barbershop piece. You could tell that is where he felt most comfortable, most himself, was with the guys there. I've seen it in other milieus as well.
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Maher was good too.
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I’ve been reading opinion pieces for the last several days. No one seems to have a clue what happened but I’ve come to my own conclusion.
Trump promised cheap groceries. Harris did not.
Everything else is noise.
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I don’t know about that. I don’t like the inflation but in my mind there was never any doubt that we’d need inflation to reduce the debt. I’ve been surprised it didn’t happen earlier.
There’s a spectrum of reasons, really too many to list.
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@Mik No one cares about the debt, especially not Trump voters. Don’t believe me? Just watch.
It’s the price of eggs that tipped the scales.
And fast food.
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Whatever the reason for the Dems loss, the DNC will never figure it out.
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Not if they are unwilling to look deeply. Pelosi blaming Biden is an indication they will not.
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It's true that people assess their lives by whether they can afford things, a little luxury, a new car or holiday. If not, they are ready to punish people in power.
Yet the USA has economic growth we Brits can only dream about; your inflation, your pay packets."It's hard to summon up the kind of empathy which explains why someone votes for Donald Trump. It's hard to conceive of how someone could hear him talk of eugenics, could watch him slip into violent fantasies, could see this representation of all the most selfish and childish instincts in the human personality and think:
yeah, I want more of that." -
I think @Mik ‘s point is important. We won’t get anywhere by looking down on our neighbors or making already alienated groups feel more alienated.
At the same time, many people did indeed vote against their own interests, and it’s really hard to deal with that. (Hence all the “Leopards Ate My Face” stuff)
@Steve-Miller said in Reports from the heartland:
I’ve been reading opinion pieces for the last several days. No one seems to have a clue what happened but I’ve come to my own conclusion.
Trump promised cheap groceries. Harris did not.
Everything else is noise.
I suspect this is more than half, but not 100% of what happened.
Trump didn’t win this election for just one reason.
I agree that there is a large contingent of Trump voters who are motivated by “the economy.” But there is also a not insignificant group who are truly motivated by the most hateful parts of Trump’s rhetoric. They are scared of the changes they see in America, they’re afraid that increasing diversity means there won’t be a place for them any more, and they respond to the hatemongering and say “yep, that’s it, that’s what I want.”
I think the reason Trump won is probably threefold: 1) because he was able to get the votes of both of those groups, the economy people and the hate/afraid people; 2) because Dems weren’t able to convince the economy people that Dems would actually be better for the economy, and 3) because Dems weren’t able to reach across the aisle to both groups and appeal to our mutual humanity, to make those connections.
Ok, fourfold: 4) because Biden didn’t drop out of the race much, much sooner so that the Dems could have had more time to move the needle on numbers 2 and 3.
Ok, fivefold: 5) the people who could not hold their noses and vote for Harris because of what's happening with Israel and Gaza, so they stayed home, or worse, they voted for Jill Stein.
I truly believe each of these factors played a role and addressing only one would not have had much impact on the end result. We would have had to address, to resolve, each of them.
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@AndyD said in Reports from the heartland:
"It's hard to summon up the kind of empathy which explains why someone votes for Donald Trump. It's hard to conceive of how someone could hear him talk of eugenics, could watch him slip into violent fantasies, could see this representation of all the most selfish and childish instincts in the human personality and think:
yeah, I want more of that."Andy, who said that? (If it’s in the thread and I missed it, apologies)
Anyway, I get this. For many of us, it’s very hard to have any empathy toward anyone who supports Trump because what we see first and foremost are these elements: the eugenics, the racism, the misogyny, the hate, the narcissism…
Somehow, many people, when they look at Trump, don’t see those things as primary, if they see them at all. Or, like those looking at the leopard, somehow, magically, think it doesn’t apply to them.
