Heather Cox Richardson, in her Letter from an American this morning (subscribe here, for free) summarised Trump's appeal rather well:
White evangelicals heartily endorse a crook and a rapist apparently because they expect that he will put in place the world they envision, one controlled by white, patriarchal evangelical Christians.
Robert Reich suggests that it is the 30% left behind in the US Rustbelt and Midwest who support him simply because they have no one else who tries to appeal to them.
There is a lot of overlap in these groups, of course.
It does not mean that he isn't very dangerous.
The question is, can the Democrats persuade the rest to vote for an elderly, unpopular incumbent? On that the fate of US democracy hangs.
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Wouldn’t it be nice if Christian leaders were to remind these people what believing in christianity is supposed to be about – and it certainly isn’t about supporting rapists, thieves, liars. Truly they are deranged.
I don’t know if it’s terribly productive or helpful to call anyone deranged for the views they hold. Plenty of people I disagree with but I don’t think they’re deranged.
While I agree that calling them deranged isn’t particularly helpful, there is a serious point to be made about white evangelical christians. In general they fail to behave in the way their professed faith indicates they should. Full disclosure – I am an atheist, and have been since I was old enough to start asking questions about religion. That said, when you take the religious aspects away from the gospels, the fundamental philosophy of christianity is tolerance and love for all. Sadly that’s not the type of behaviour I associate with the vast majority of christians I’ve come across
The last is true of far too many, I agree…
“I don’t know if it’s terribly productive or helpful to call anyone deranged”
Fair enough.
So what would one call somebody that
politically supports a person found guilty of sexual assault in a court – and who continues to deny it?
politically supports somebody that instigated a quasi-insurrection against an election result that they claimed was corrupt?
politically supports a person that has been found guilty of fraud & which claims it is a political setup?
The pin-ball wizard? (blind deaf and dumb and plays pinball by smell?).
I’d suggest that at best they lack all political judgement, at worst they are unfit to have a vote.
Biden is throwing away whatever moral standing the West has.
I did some calculations. US WW2 population was about 130 million. War dead in just under four years c.450,000. About a third of one percent.
Gaza population 2.3 million. Dead 24,000 One percent of the total population -two thirds of whom are women and children -in less than four months. Injured about 2-3% of the total population.
Yet he would not allow the UN call for a ceasefire. Nor to allow the UN to take over the distribution of aid. Israelis check the in-going aid and often turn back lorries on the ground that the contents might be used by Hamas. The given reason is that they need to eliminate Hamas so they will be safe in the future. Starvation is widespread.
Hamas will not be eliminated. It is asking a lot of human nature for Gaza people to endure the destitution, traumatisation and destruction of their homes, to agree it was a legitimate response to the atrocities of Oct 7th. Resistance forces will rise again. Even professional analysts like those at Chatham House think elimination is not achievable.
France to its credit has brokered a deal -just last night-to increase the aid going in. Sunak does not seem bothered.
The Handmaid’s Tale is slowly becoming a reality.
Also, the Americans love Mavericks. Just look at the plethora of lone-hero movies and TV series that come out of the USA; Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry), even in the Guns of Navarone he was portrayed as a loner, Tom Cruise (Top Gun) in which his nickname was Maverick. Superman, Batman, Maverick the TV series, Arnold Schwartznegger (Terminator etc.), Robo Cop. I could go on. To many Americans I imagine Trump fits the lone American hero stereotype of one man against the ‘corrupt system’ and getting the ‘bad guys’ Forget reality, just live the fantasy and eat popcorn.
From the little bits I have heard from the other republican candidates, Trump sounds the least worst. That is rather shocking but not surprising.
It is no political contest really. Everyone knows Trump will be the nominee. But the show must go on because the media have to sell the debates to get ad revenue.
The trouble is that Santos and the other presidential candidates are just as bad but maybe not quite so crude. The Republican Party like the Tories here, is thoroughly tainted by racism and obsession with migrants. Jim Crow and the KKK are always lurking there in the background ready to menace the stability of US society..
Interestingly an entry poll of the voting intentions Iowa caucus attendees showed an astonishing 30% would not vote for trump if he were convicted in any of the four trials currently underway.
There is still hope!!
Biden is no better and arguably worse. He’s clearly senile and not really running the country – that’s left to the neocons, the security state and the corporatocracy. The fact that the US is likely facing another Trump/Biden runoff in 2024 is a sign that the US political system is broken. It has been taken over by the corporate donors who elected these clowns who owe their allegiance to Big Pharma, the military industrial complex, Wall Street and the Israel lobby. It’s why the US is engaged in forever wars and why the American people don’t have affordable health care, education, clean water, decent roads, etc.
I have on many occasions in life been asked to decide if a person has mental capacity
The criteria are both hard to define and easy to understand
Biden is not senile. He undoubtedly has capacity, and probably far more than you have
“The criteria are both hard to define…”
The criteria are clearly defined in the Mental Capacity Act 2005.
As you would know if you had any actual knowledge in the field.
If you knew any medical or mental health practitioners you would know how stupid your comment is
Biden may not be senile, he may have quite good mental capacity but I very much doubt he has physical stamina or the ability to keep on top of 24hour news agenda / social media world.
His judgements on international issues seems very poor- ie Afghanistan and his current 100% support of Israel and continued supply of weapons whilst calling for restraint. The 2 positions do not marry. And now bombing the Houthi. He is leading us into WW3.
The worrying thing is if Trump loses. An ITV documentary spoke to ‘armed militia’ who, shall we say, are ‘passionate’ about The Donald becoming the next president. I’m not sure they will take a loss all that well.
…and he bangs on about Sleepy Joe’s age, but he’s no spring chicken himself (age 77). Maybe they’ll both be dead by election time? Who knows.
I recall back when McCain ran for president, losing to Obama. He was old too and if he’d won and subsequently checked out we would have had President Sarah Palin. Which is alarming.
@davidn
Things are hardly better with Biden’s choice of Veep.
Whether Biden will run in 2024, the Republicans in the House are currently pushing to impeach Biden over Ukraine, Hunter Biden’s laptop and alleged corruption by Sleepy Joe and his son.
All of this may, or may not, be valid, but in my opinion I’d have the House impeach Genocide Joe over his shameful support for Netanyahu’s “Mad Meg” genocidal attack on Palestinians.
Further, I’d have the Senate vote to convict him, & have him removed from office. His behaviour over Israel’s murderous behaviour is both “a clear and present danger” to America’sinterests, and “a high crime and misdemeanour” in contradistinction to America’s alleged values (all shown up by the Gaza massacres as shamefully wanting, and blatant hypocrisy).
Genocide Joe has, IMO, broken his oath of office, and must go. I recognise, alas, that this would result in V-P Kamala “airhead” Harris becoming POTUS – a worrying prospect, and a tragedy as America’s first female POTUS.
It’s a pity Biden didn’t choose Elizabeth Warren as Veep. Better still, the woman who SHOULD be the USA’s first female POTUS, Jill Klein of the Greens
But we know all about that in the UK, having had Margaret “Mad Meg” Thatcher, the harrier of society, as our first female PM, instead of Barbara Castle!
There’s also the worry Trump wld flatten Harris in the GE, & Trump WILL become a dictator, if he wins again.
But Biden MUST go.
I have to disagree Andrew
The only possible replacement is Trump and he is much, much worse
The worst of it is is that Trump is a product of American democracy.
And it is the democracy bit that’s not working.
I ask myself what an earth is going on at times like this.
I mean, is the UK any better? Some voters would like to see Boris back because they ‘like him’. He was relatable it seems in some way.
Today, reading the Guardian (for free I might add) I came across this shocking and too sad for words article:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/17/bronson-battersby-two-year-old-boy-died-of-starvation-curled-up-next-to-dead-father
And then, looking at what was popular in the Guardian when I read it, this came top of the list:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/jan/17/ed-balls-kicks-susanna-reid-in-the-head-on-good-morning-britain
There are always cultural markers in societies that are breaking down and unwinding.
I’ve just presented you with one of them. Perhaps our epithet will be:
‘Here lieth the Trivia society
Whom spent too much time
On so little
And so little time
On what mattered.’
Richard,
Trump may be worse than Biden, but Trump will flatten Biden in a straight contest.
If he isn’t impeached, convicted and removed from office, then he should gracefully retire, and let thr Democrats chose a REAL opponent.
This may be of interest.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=dSJhgs-POtw&si=5DRabCOrhdheRUSC
I’m not the only one, you see.
Lee Siegel in New Statesman suggests a Trump victory is far from certain:
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2024/01/donald-trump-yesterdays-man-iowa (access via https://12ft.io)
“Trump’s creation of a mood, his stubborn power, lies in the fact that he is an entirely original experience, and an original experience, no matter its moral quality, is nearly impossible to resist, especially at this late stage of American ennui. Americans must be the most simultaneously stimulated and bored people in the world, and a Trump/Biden rematch, bearing all the qualities of a great sports rivalry, would cancel out its surreal “Groundhog Day” quality with the sense of excitement and suspense that always accompanies the sequel to a blockbuster entertainment. During his Town Hall, Trump said that he had settled on a running mate but that he couldn’t divulge the name of that person yet. I loathe Trump, and if he wins a second term I may well arrive on Britain’s shores the next day with my family asking for asylum; but the drama he enacts, a unifying conflict unfolding far above the fractures in American life, is irresistible.”
…
“For all that, if Trump is the nominee, which is not inevitable, the general election would be a difficult slog for him. His Maga base consists of about 35 million people, not nearly enough to get him elected, and at least a third of the Republican Party has soured on him. He may have been convicted of at least one of the felonies he is charged with by then, and still be in the process of being tried for the other three. Trump’s is not an ego made for pounding, and on the campaign trail and the debate stage, he would again lapse into whining, vindictiveness, self-absorbed rambling and ever stronger signs of mental instability. Even the 20th-century American journalist HL Mencken’s mocking figure of what he called the “boobus Americanus” is not going to stand for that. It’s boring; the mesmerisng current of charisma would congeal into the dried mucus of a wild child who refuses to wipe his nose.”
It’s a mistake to think that Trump support is confined to evangelicals and the disaffected working class.
https://theconversation.com/who-likes-donald-trump-lots-of-republicans-but-especially-hispanic-voters-plus-very-rural-and-very-conservative-people-211166
A quote, on how tyranny could be installed in the US:
To hope that the people may be cajoled into giving their sanctions to such institutions is still more chimerical. A people so enlightened and so diversified as the people of this Country can surely never be brought to it, but from convulsions and disorders, in consequence of the acts of popular demagogues.
The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. Tired at length of anarchy, or want of government, they may take shelter in the arms of monarchy for repose and security.
Those then, who resist a confirmation of public order, are the true Artificers of monarchy—not that this is the intention of the generality of them. Yet it would not be difficult to lay the finger upon some of their party who may justly be suspected. When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may “ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”
Alexander Hamilton – amongst a lot of discussion of the National Debt and other matters – at Objection XIV in this paper (1792): https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-12-02-0184-0002
I am not an expert on US evangelicals but it does seem extraordinary that Christians support a man whose entire character is perfectly defined by the seven Christian deadly sins, Pride, Greed, Wrath, Envy, Lust, Gluttony and Sloth.
Even weirder is his similarity to the common definition of the Anti-Christ as a false Messiah.
They seem to correspond to the definition of totalitarianism as being able to simultaneously hold two completely contradictory ideas in your head at the same time
Heather Cox Richardson and Robert Reich are both well worth reading on US affairs, on Substack for free, with centre-left perspectives.
I found this article of interest in regard to the inability for the legacy Fourth Estate to effectively report on, let alone expose through analysis, the populist white supremacist tropes in US politics.
Similar historically rooted structural restrictions are present in the UK media.
https://americanprospect.bluelena.io/index.php?action=social&chash=24e27b869b66e9e62724bd7725d5d9c1.2533&s=cfb2f47e60d6eb1c97a71029d6f9ef1f
Interesting. Thanks.
Listen to some of the people that have worked as editors for Rupert Murdoch and they often say the same three things of interest.
1 Murdoch (in tones of deep admiration) is a media genius.
2 He believes that most people are racist and misogynistic, particularly men, and he sets out to appeal to them. It doesn’t matter whether it is the Sun, the Times, The Wall Street Journal or Fox news, it is always the same message adapted for different audiences.
3 Unlike other traditional right-wing media who set out to appeal to the same audiences, no matter how extreme the circumstances, Murdoch never tells his audience that they are wrong. For example Fox News, the stolen Election fantasy, the Dominion pay-out but Fox keep peddling the same lies that his viewers want to hear.
Nobody in our supposedly honest and ethical media has ever found a way of countering Murdochism.
Thanks for this. I question Murdoch’s mass media & political ruling class allies continuing supremacy.
He is a placed British Empire Nepo baby. Parachuted at a young age into circles of political influence by his parents. He is undoubtedly clever, like a fox, so could easily see how to predate upon and manipulate a postwar Patriarchal status quo to his personal financial advantage. However, as is very obviously bring seen by his unfolding political legacy in the UK, US & AUS he is lacking in any emotional intelligence and chooses to surround himself with those who share both his thirst for power and indulgent toxic masculinity, like Donald Trump.
Their decades of abusing power is leading to global revulsion and rage which they can not possibly understand so they will not see the tide turning against their nasty minded media created political hegemony until it is too late to avoid being swept away by a social tsunami.
Polarised opinions abound.
Two facts to consider when digesting some of those opinions.
Biden has already beaten Chump once, fairly. No fraud. America may not be a perfect place to live for many folks, but Chump’s novelty is severely reduced for millions of Americans who gave him a shot in 2016. The American majority do not support many of his policies.
Biden may not know what to do about the murderous conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, actually nobody knows what to do, but anyone who thinks that Chump would have negotiated a less bloody result should recall Netanyahu’s words, telling Trump that he has been “the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House.”
The idea that the ‘Art of the Squeal’ fraudster would have saved Palestinian lives is quite ridiculous.
Mike Parr, I can’t directly reply to your comment
“So what would one call somebody that
politically supports a person found guilty of sexual assault in a court – and who continues to deny it?” – the site isn’t displaying a reply button (I suspect it’s just about the depth of nested comments somewhere in the site architecture).
What I will say is that a lack of political education and the ability to think critically, combined with the weight of right wing media in the USA, makes people who are frustrated with the world vote in ways that seem bizarre to others. What I would also say is that, for me at least, they’re no more off the wall than people in this country who continue to support neo liberal parties who clearly do not have their, or the countries, best interests at heart.
Ultimately, language matters. If we want to have any hope of changing the minds of these folk then calling them deranged isn’t helpful