On Trumpism

 They have finally declared Biden the winner, and I wanted to take a moment to just appreciate that.

Breathe deep. Relax.

Tomorrow we'll still have the same problems. We're seeing over 100K new coronavirus cases a day. I'm sure there'll be some sort of backlash from Trump's supporters. Biden is not a perfect candidate, and the factors that have led to resentment of 'the establishment' are all still there. And Trump - well. He's never conceded when people think he should, and has a tendency to double down. I will not even try to predict how we will act, but Jan 20th is a long ways away.

But for now, for today, I just want to appreciate that there's an end in sight. I'm really rather sick of the constant stream of scandals and missteps that have dominated the news for four years, and I am looking forward to what I hope will be a very boring presidency. (Or as boring as you can be when you take over during a raging pandemic, with severe economic issues, and a nation so divided people have been joking about civil war.)

I also decided it was time to try jotting down my thoughts on why some people support Trump. I think of my uncles (conservatives, Christian, one if not both of whom listen to Rush Limbaugh), and my step-brother (from when Dad remarried about seven (?) years ago, so we didn't grow up together or anything. Blue-collar, rural Indiana... Trump supporter.) And the former coworkers and colleagues I'm facebook friends with. I understand why most people have cut out such people from their facebook feeds, but I feel doing so means you wind up in a echo chamber, and I wanted to hear the different opinions out there. Besides, you can't change minds if you don't have any sort of communication at all. Oh, and there's also some distant relatives from my Dad's side.

I think about the people I know, and I feel dismissing them all as 'uneducated, racist, and gullible' is... overly simplistic. You're definitely not going to be able to stop support for Trump, or another like him, if you start off thinking that. Partly because the people you're trying to persuade can tell you think poorly of them, so they're not going to listen. 

Many have already written them off (and vice versa), which is part of why we are living in a world with two completely different worldviews. Both of whom consider the other side to be delusional. 

For the 'uneducated' bit, quite a few of the Trump supporters don't have degrees, that's true. Though as I've mentioned before I don't think that has anything to do with intelligence. By the way, I might have a college degree... but I don't know diddly squat about fixing a car problem, or home repair, or construction. My new step-family does, and can be quite knowledgeable about that sort of thing. 

But even aside from that, my two uncles both have college degrees. They're engineers, STEM type people, and definitely not dumb. 

The 'racist' label... well. It's complicated. They're not overtly racist, none of them. At least I haven't ever heard any of them say something obvious. However...

I don't know about them, specifically, but I think about this study from a couple of years back. The study wanted to disentangle how much of white attitudes towards welfare had to do with belief in 'small government' and self-sufficiency, and how much was racism. So they asked people about their beliefs. But they randomly made sure some of the subjects were fed information on our growing minority population. The whole 'browning of America' that we get the occasional article on. 

And what they found was that participants who were told that we're growing more diverse wound up supporting welfare policies less. 

The problem with a study like this is that it doesn't really say what goes through people's minds. Heck, they probably didn't even think about it. It was probably not logic, nobody went and said "Wow, America has fewer and fewer white people. I don't think I want to support policies that are going to help my fellow Americans." (And I'm sure they immediately connected 'welfare' with the 'black welfare queens' of the Reagan era, even though the beneficiaries are still primarily white.)

This is what people mean when they talk about covert racism, or hidden racism. The people involved don't consider themselves racist, and will deny it quite loudly. But when given information about race, it influences what policies and public programs they support.

I have my own guesses about what's going on here, but it's not like I've done any sort of scientific study. No survey, either. I'm basing it off what I know about people in general, and my own experiences in our society.

First, I wanted to point out another way you see that subtle influence. It's related to what I said before, that when I hear people judging others it tends to get my back up. Consider fashion, and clothing. Style. Good suits with good quality cloth. Tailored neatly to your personal measurements. Designer handbags. Shoes...

Yes, they look nice. But what they really do is signal that you have money. That you can afford those designer clothes, afford to have someone tailor your clothing to you personally. And so everyone who is judging you off of what you wear, or your weight, or your haircut... is judging you on superficial crap. 

I'll take someone in sweatpants and t-shirts over someone in an Armani suit... if they're kind. (Smart, funny, and good-looking is nice too.) 

I'll take someone driving a beat up old car over someone driving a Lotus, or a Bugatti if they are caring and empathetic. (I suppose you could have someone driving a nice car who's also caring, empathetic, and kind. Studies show people grow more selfish the richer they are though, so the ones who manage it are something special.)

And if you're going to judge me for that crap - for what I wear, or drive, or how my hair is styled - that says something pretty bad about your own values and personality. (Politicians have to worry about that because they have to get elected, and a lot of people are judgy... which sucks. Because that's part of how we got Warren Harding, and it's part of why politicians in the age of television generally look better than average. The best candidate might be the ugliest person in the world, and they'd probably lose the election because people won't see past that. There's a kind of disturbing study that talks about how the tallest candidate wins elections, and it's sad to think who elect would be based on something so completely unrelated to competence and capability.)

So anyways... you see something similar when it comes to race. "Oh, I'm not racist. I just don't think they should be wearing those clothes. I don't need to see their underwear."

Or we pressure them to change their hair. Afros are too much, you see. 

I haven't seen the movie The Pursuit of Happyness, I probably ought to since I've mentioned before. From what I heard, though, it shows how a black man (played by Will Smith) succeeds in business... and part of what he had to do was act more like a white man. 

What parts are truly essential and universal to success, and what is required because if you don't perform white the judgy people will hold it against you? Does an afro really say absolutely anything about someone's competence and capability of doing the job? Would a mohawk?  Or undercut? 

What about tattoos? Do you really think someone is a better or worse lawyer if they have a visible tattoo?

I'll just leave that to sit for a bit. I brought it up more because it points out something else. It points out the ways we signal in group and out group. 

And I think the changing attitudes towards welfare are because many of us still put minorities in an 'out group'.

It's also because our nation has grown so large that we can label entire states 'out group'. 

'Why is my money being sent to the education department in Mississippi?' or 'Why should my tax dollars go to people in Caliornia?'

The funny thing is. Well.

The funny thing is we all love a sense of community, and that on the local level most of us believe in helping each other out. (Or maybe that's just my family and those like us. Since my grandparents are farmers, and farming communities tend to be like that. The whole tit-for-tat just turns into helping your neighbor, since you never know who might have a tractor break down and need a hand. You help them, next time they help you, and it's not even worth trying to keep score.)

Like, part of what makes modern society so alienating is that many of are missing that. It's lonely, and isolating, and men especially tend to die earlier because of it. 

Our federal government is, in some ways, too large to get that shared sense of community. For most of us, that is. And so welfare seems less like us helping out our neighbor and more like some outsider forcing us to give up money so that they can hand it over to a stranger. (FYI - during this pandemic my local community has a facebook group where people sometimes help each other out. I'm also on a mailing list, and every so often there's a request for someone to deliver food, or water, or pick up prescriptions for the homebound. Because in this time of crisis we want to come together and take care of each other. But people don't think that a federal welfare program can be pretty much the same thing. Some of that is because of how alienating and dehumanizing the bureaucracy behind it all is, and some of it is because we see Washington DC as an entirely different world. 😄)

To bring this back to Trumpism, then...

The world pretty much sucks right now. Or rather, my generation grew up hearing that social security would probably be gone by the time we were ready to retire. Climate change was out of control. We did what we were 'supposed to do' and went to college and took on student loans, and then found that college had grown significantly more expensive and the jobs we got when we left didn't pay nearly as well, so many of us were hampered by student loans... Which also meant they didn't have the resources to pay for a house, or do many other things that used to be markers of adulthood. (I have been a bit of an exception here, purely because of my military service and a bit of luck.)

The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, people are swamped in debt and can't afford to buy homes...

And then the boomers responsible for this mess call millennials spoiled and blame them for failing to launch. (I have to switch phrasing here because I'm actually Gen X, as much as these things matter in the first place, and some of this is related more to my older millenial brothers and the experiences they and their friends went through. Millennials, btw, who are starting to reach their 40s now.)

The older generation, well. They had the Civil Rights Movement and have done some good things, but they're also screwing us over, and we're the ones who are going to have to pick up the pieces.

It's hard enough for those who went to college, but it's also pretty hard for the ones who didn't. Who see the good paying jobs go away, whether it's because of automation or offshoring. Who struggle to have a good life, to raise their families and make ends meet. 

All of whom feel like the powers-that-be don't give a shit about changing. They make money by offshoring, they have no problems finding a good paying job. They don't have to worry that they're one car problem, or health problem, or stroke of bad luck away from bankruptcy. Politicians worry more about the big donors. The corporations, the oligarchs. And the media? The mainstream media walk in those same circles. They don't care about the average American, and when they come do a report in 'flyover country' it's almost like they're anthropologists narrating as they study some sort of backwards (another judgy thing) tribe. 

None of them actually work for the average American. Republican or Democrat. Nor journalists. (Though for some reason they actually think Fox News does? They'll call the people who still watch mainstream media and say you can't trust them, but then turn around and act like sheeple themselves. smh.)

Most of what they talk about in DC is obscure, and seems irrelevant. (I say seems, because quite a bit of it does actually trickle down to impact us... but it tends to be done in such a way that it's easy to confuse cause and effect. For example, I didn't learn until graduate school that Reagan's policies led to a growth in homeless people.) 

There's also an element of pride at work. After all, there is something to be said for earning your own way. For working with your hands. For creating, and being able to see the fruits of your labor.

People don't want charity. Or a handout. They want that good paying job where they can work hard, pay off their debts, and have enough for their hobbies or a nice vacation or something.

Except those good paying jobs are harder and harder to find, especially if you don't have a college degree. Family farms are more and more rare (I have some second cousins that still do, but most farms are now run by big business), coal mining jobs are going away. Factory jobs need fewer and fewer people, for the reasons I mentioned above.

And Trump...

Trump fed them what they wanted to hear. He promised he'd bring the jobs back. Promised he cared about the little guy.

Promised he'd 'drain the swamp', and get rid of all the corruption and big money that keeps our government from representing us, and turns it into something more like a foreign power.

I personally think he was full of hot air when he said this, partly because every time I looked into what actually happened he didn't follow through. But I understand why they wanted to believe it.

After all, people have the hardest time thinking clearly when something is what they hope is true (or are afraid is true.)

There's also Q, and some of the fantasies and delusions that seem to have seeped out even to people that I don't think follow Q.

This idea that Trump is some sort of white knight, a crusader for justice taking on the deep state. A fighter who will stop this inexorable slide into misery.

I don't feel I've covered everything, but I also don't feel like typing anything more. I'll summarize by saying - Trump, for better or worse, made them feel heard. Made them feel like he cared, and that he'd actually do something about all this.

I don't think he even came close to doing so, and those problems haven't gone away.