Out of office but still batshit crazy and a powerful influence in the Republican Party.
I have had multiple discussions with Trump-supporting workers. One of them I know personally. He’s a very nice guy to meet in person, and we had several long political discussions. Others I’ve tried discussing with online. (These are workers, not rich snobs.) But for all of them, their method is to evade, make general claims and refuse to back it up, and say things that are outright untrue. Several of them claim that they don’t even like Trump and criticize him constantly to their friends. But yet they voted for him twice and in effect defend his policies. I’ve concluded that it’s fruitless trying to talk with them. Here’s a very clear example of their method:
Recently, two of them told me that CNN was saying that Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremacist. Among other news sources I watch CNN quite a bit. I told them that, and asked them where they’d seen CNN say that, or was it just something they had heard. The first person tried to ignore my question and, when I persisted, he first responded with a bunch of religious garbage and then when publicly challenged said that he didn’t have the time to go through all CNN to find it again. The second guy simply refused to even acknowledge the question.
I got curious, so I decided to do a little research myself. I did a google search “Did CNN call Rittenhouse white supremacist”. The only things I could find was first an interview with Biden during the election campaign where he raised that as a possibility. Strike one.
Then I came across this report of a Sean Hannity interview with Alan Dershowitz (defense lawyer for Trump during his first impeachment trial) in which Dershowitz implied that CNN had said that. I would be willing to bet anything that that’s the basis of these Trumpsters’ claim. That’s okay. We all make mistakes, but if they were honest they would have said something like: “Well, come to think of it, you have a point there. No, I didn’t actually hear it on CNN; I just saw that claim on a Sean Hannity interview. Thanks for correcting me.”
Of course, if they do admit to that their whole facade would begin to crumble because it’s all based on this sort of misinformation. That’s why, once the are challenged on such fairy tales, they have to add to it.
So they have to lie, evade, mislead and avoid. There is no way to have a serious discussion with such types. The only thing that will change them is a working class movement in the streets.
Categories: Trump, United States
The underlying reason for them to stay with Trump is tribal group think. That is why racism, hatred of immigrants, and others is essential. The only way to break through, is to ask them to check out things for themselves on some topics where the lies can be shown to them. Simply talking to them will not do it. THEY have to make the effort, not just some person they know.
Many (im)migrants from the southern hemisphere are fleeing from manmade-global-warming-caused chronic crop failures that are mostly caused by the northern hemisphere’s chronic fossil-fuel burning, which began with the Industrial Revolution. While some global refugee situations may not be climate-change related, many land- and water-based border-guard confrontations are nonetheless scary and unbecoming of self-professed Christian nations. It is as though the migrants are considered disposable life thus their suffering somehow being less-worthy.
There is an erroneous impression that new (im)migrants typically become financial/resource burdens on their new home nation. Many are rightfully desperate human beings, perhaps enough so to work very hard for basic food and shelter. And I’ve found they do want to work and not be a societal burden. Such laborers work very hard and should be treated humanely, including timely access to Covid-19 vaccination and proper work-related protections, but often enough are not.
Where I reside, I have noticed over decades the exceptionally strong work ethic practiced by migrants, especially in the produce harvesting sector. It’s typically back-busting work that almost all post-second-generation Westerners won’t tolerate for ourselves. Every time I observe such workers toiling, I feel a bit guilty: considering it purely on a moral/human(e) level, I see not why they should have to toil so for minimal pay and not also I.
While I don’t support domestic businesses exporting labor abroad at very low wages if there are unemployed nationals who want that work, I can imagine such laborers being much more productive than their born-and-reared-here counterparts. I’m not saying that a strong work ethic is a trait racially/genetically inherited by one generation from a preceding generation. Rather, I believe, it is an admirable culturally determined factor, though also in large part motivated by the said culture’s internal and surrounding economic and political conditions. I anticipate that if they (as citizens) resided here for a number of decades, their strong work ethics and higher-than-average productivity, unfortunately, likely would gradually diminish as these motivated laborers’ descendant generations’ young people become accustomed to the relatively easier Western way of work.
One can already witness this effect in many of them getting caught up in much of our overall liberal culture — attire, lingo, nightlife, as well as work. I’ve also found that ‘Canadian values’ assimilation often means the unfortunate acquisition of a distasteful yet strong sense of entitlement.