The most abiding fact of Trumpism

Reader comment on: Trumpism May Outlast Trump

Submitted by Ayn Marx (United States), Aug 3, 2020 12:05

Your piece is well-reasoned, but—perhaps because you are constrained by a political correctness of the Right—fail to contend with the most abiding factor: the core Trump voters.

Now, oddly enough, I _am_ in the coastal elite, but I don't think they're stupid, or at least not more stupid than any random group of humans, including several of which I'm a member. I do think they've been grifted, and there are reasons for that that aren't going away, so they will continue to be grifted by Trump and his successors, both for those reasons and as a matter of not wishing to admit how badly they've been grifted. They are a force which, though not completely racist, certainly are comfortable with racism, and though not completely anti-science, are comfortable with that too. They trust what the man 'round the pub whom they know, or has conned them into thinking they know, says if he says it but loudly and truculently enough, and reminds them of themselves (regardless of his actual contempt for them). They embody the paranoid style in American politics, and they won't go away—especiallly if we can actually improve the delivery of health-care....

The most fanatical of them constitute far from a majority, but they will continue to be a base that threatens thoughtful politics liberal (in the modern sense), liberal (in the old sense), and conservative.

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