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Donald Trump - MAGAtwat news and discussion

Fucking media. They are largely to blame for him being anywhere near power, which they admitted to previously, and are now doing the same thing they were guilty of when he got in before. Bastards.

Those who control the media, rather than the media itself, it seems. The NYT in particular has been egregiously biased in its trump coverage and it's far from alone.

It's sickening that it's all just game-playing to them, as if this is some tv entertainment show.
 
Guardian piece on how the Harris 'threat to democracy' line isn't playing well with voters and how she needs to talk about working class needs. Sounds about right, though my version would be that the Dems should have done the groundwork to build a relationship with working class voters a long time ago. Only with that in place, should she move on to trump's threat to democracy. It feels a bit like Hilary, all over again.

Having said that, I'm slightly surprised the 'threat to democracy' line is playing so badly. Maybe voters have heard it all before and don't have any faith in their politicians full stop. That's healthy in itself, though trump has shaped that into a right wing populism where people just don't care about truth any more. It's just about loyalty to the leader and who can tell the most persuasive lies that somehow mesh with voters experiences of how shit life is. He doesn't have to con all the people all the time, just get enough working class voters in Pennsylvania to join traditional Republican voters. :(


That Guardian piece is so full of bullshit. If this 'working class voter' can't work out on all on its own that trump is the very antithesis of everything they hope that a presidential candidate will deliver for and to them, then they deserve whatever's coming to them. But no, let's not blame them for their lack, let's blame Harris for allegedly failing to connect with them.

Christ. The disparity between the media bar for Harris and that for trump is so disgustingly frightening.
 
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Many working class Americans feel ignored and overlooked by the whole political machine. And they’re not wrong. They see big infrastructure plans that have nothing to do with their county, big roads and developments that take traffic and jobs away from their area. Their local economy (be it coal, shrimp, corn, apples…) has been decimated by big corporations.

The whole of the UK can be fit into some states. The vastness of the USA means that many small local communities are almost invisible, and overlooked or ignored for the entire lifetime of several generations worth of people. They may each be small but their populations make up a large number of the electorate.

They measure their quality of life by the things that affect them immediately: their kids’ proms, the local football team, the price of groceries, whether they can afford the gas to get to work, or a second car so the wife can work. There may be a movie theatre nearby but no concert hall, no theatre. The mall in the local big town is considered a day out. There’s a scarcity that’s hard to understand for anyone who doesn’t live in these small places.

Any middle class people in the vicinity live in wide open spaces by choice and commute in to better paying jobs while those further down the pay scale struggle and strive and may not travel more than 20 or 30 miles in any direction their whole lives. No rich people live anywhere near.

Harris is alien to many people.

Trump speaks like they do, thinks like they do, and they feel seen by him.




To have any idea about what’s going on, you have to stop thinking like a person who has a decent education, reads books, knows about history and current affairs outside your own region, and has options. They’re not dumb, they’ve been ignored and overlooked and so they’ve turned inward.

The gap between what people assume about American voters and the reality seems to be getting wider.


I don’t share the surprise people are expressing about Trump’s success. I hate and fear it but I’m not surprised at all.
 
Many working class Americans feel ignored and overlooked by the whole political machine. And they’re not wrong. They see big infrastructure plans that have nothing to do with their county, big roads and developments that take traffic and jobs away from their area. Their local economy (be it coal, shrimp, corn, apples…) has been decimated by big corporations.

The whole of the UK can be fit into some states. The vastness of the USA means that many small local communities are almost invisible, and overlooked or ignored for the entire lifetime of several generations worth of people. They may each be small but their populations make up a large number of the electorate.

They measure their quality of life by the things that affect them immediately: their kids’ proms, the local football team, the price of groceries, whether they can afford the gas to get to work, or a second car so the wife can work. There may be a movie theatre nearby but no concert hall, no theatre. The mall in the local big town is considered a day out. There’s a scarcity that’s hard to understand for anyone who doesn’t live in these small places.

Any middle class people in the vicinity live in wide open spaces by choice and commute in to better paying jobs while those further down the pay scale struggle and strive and may not travel more than 20 or 30 miles in any direction their whole lives. No rich people live anywhere near.

Harris is alien to many people.





To have any idea about what’s going on, you have to stop thinking like a person who has a decent education, reads books, knows about history and current affairs outside your own region, and has options. They’re not dumb, they’ve been ignored and overlooked and so they’ve turned inward.

The gap between what people assume about American voters and the reality seems to be getting wider.


I don’t share the surprise people are expressing about Trump’s success. I hate and fear it but I’m not surprised at all.
 
A piece from the FT about why women be voting for Trump. 31 minutes long. Transcript in the sidebar for those who don’t want to watch.


 
Trump speaks like they do, thinks like they do, and they feel seen by him.

I'm sorry, story but I can't let this broadbrushing go unchecked. Can you point me to where trump in 2024 thinks like them, speaks like and to them and where they've indicated that they're been seen by him?

We need to qualify what 'working class Americans' you're talking about here.
 
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I’m sorry VivaE but I have to admit I’m basing this on personal conversations I’ve had with family and friends, and other people I either know personally or have met through those I already know, who live in small towns like those I describe in admittedly broad strokes. Also drawing my views from a range of interviews, TV shows and articles I’ve read over the years. I’m afraid I’m not able to provide chapter and verse or any hard source.


I’ll try to find some sources that say that people feel like Trump speaks for them and get back to you. But I suspect it’s going to be quite hard, given that the people I’m referring to don’t really get interviewed very often, if at all.



If we’re going to get into discussion of what working class America actually is I suspect we need to start a new thread.
 
I’m sorry VivaE but I have to admit I’m basing this on personal conversations I’ve had with family and friends, and other people I either know personally or have met through those I already know, who live in small towns like those I describe in admittedly broad strokes. Also drawing my views from a range of interviews, TV shows and articles I’ve read over the years. I’m afraid I’m not able to provide chapter and verse or any hard source.


I’ll try to find some sources that say that people feel like Trump speaks for them and get back to you. But I suspect it’s going to be quite hard, given that the people I’m referring to don’t really get interviewed very often, if at all.



If we’re going to get into discussion of what working class America actually is I suspect we need to start a new thread.

I’ve decided that I’m not going to trawl the internet looking for these sources. Nor am I going to go through my YouTube history and each video I’ve looked at to find the people who say something that illustrates my point.

This isn’t an essay assignment and it really doesn’t matter to me if you think I’m wrong.
 
I’ve decided that I’m not going to trawl the internet looking for these sources. Nor am I going to go through my YouTube history and each video I’ve looked at to find the people who say something that illustrates my point.

This isn’t an essay assignment and it really doesn’t matter to me if you think I’m wrong.
It’s alright, Katherine Cramer already did the work for you via a multi-year ethnographic study and wrote it up in a book. TL;DR: she agrees with what you said:


For those who don’t want to wade through an entire book, she also wrote a really good lay article about it:


As she says:

My intent was to explore the role of social identity in the way people interpret politics. What I found was resentment of an intensity and specificity that surprised me. The pervasiveness of resentment toward the cities and urban elites, as well as urban institutions like government and the media, was inescapable after several visits to these groups.
 
Thank you for that kabbes

The surprise and unintended findings she notes would seem to support my point that no one is paying attention to the people in her study. No one knows who they are, how they think and why. They’re largely invisible, and books and studies like this wont change that.

In another video I watched (can’t find it now. I thought it was in that FT video) people interviewed have been directly impacted by climate change. Their homes washed away by a hurricanes, their shrimp businesses have been ruined. The whole town has been pretty much decimated. They know climate change is real. They’re not conspiraloons, they’re not crazy MAGA cultists. And yet climate change is not their priority, and they plan to vote for Trump.

That might seem dumb to someone else, but in their community it’s the only thing that makes sense. If the concept of “future” has been ground out from under you over several generations, the only thing that matters is the present safety and security of you and your children. It becomes a taproot tenet.
 
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... and they just don't care about the lies :(

That’s different for different people.

The cultists don’t think it’s lies and/or lie to themselves to square the circle. The conspiracies get ever more loopy to justify the bullshit.

For non-cultists, the lies don’t outweigh the economy. In their experience, things were better under Trump. Gas was cheaper, their sales prices were better, their income was up. The lies aren’t important, they can be overlooked. They know people just like Trump in their community, went to school with them, do business with them etc so they know they’re not just cartoon characters; and on the whole, those are the ones who have gotten ahead and have big trucks and can go on hunting trips and take the kids to Six Flags. They’re mostly better people themselves so they know they wouldn’t behave that way, but they would very much like to have the advantages they experienced under Trump again. They don’t look further than their own county, so Korea and NATO etc aren’t what they’re voting on.

For some, their threshold for what’s acceptable has been stretched and stretched over time. Like someone in an abusive relationship with a narcissist who gaslights and grooms them and eventually coerces them into their own belief system.

That’s for starters.
 
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Guardian piece on how the Harris 'threat to democracy' line isn't playing well with voters and how she needs to talk about working class needs. Sounds about right, though my version would be that the Dems should have done the groundwork to build a relationship with working class voters a long time ago. Only with that in place, should she move on to trump's threat to democracy. It feels a bit like Hilary, all over again.

Having said that, I'm slightly surprised the 'threat to democracy' line is playing so badly. Maybe voters have heard it all before and don't have any faith in their politicians full stop. That's healthy in itself, though trump has shaped that into a right wing populism where people just don't care about truth any more. It's just about loyalty to the leader and who can tell the most persuasive lies that somehow mesh with voters experiences of how shit life is. He doesn't have to con all the people all the time, just get enough working class voters in Pennsylvania to join traditional Republican voters. :(

They seem to have taken that on board and are now playing clips of his dangerous speeches at their rallies. Don't know if it'll make any difference but they are now using trump's own words direct from the orange sphincter itself rather than their own take on them.
 
Giulliani reportedly doesn’t have a bean, so they won’t see any money anyway. Although strangely he was able to fly in for his arraignment on a private jet. Someone is throwing money at these cunts.

But he does have - or did have - a penthouse apartment in Manhattan and a Trump IOU for $2 million in legal fees. And a TV :D

In addition to the Trump campaign fees and the New York apartment, Giuliani must also turn over a collection of several watches, including ones given to him by European presidents after the September 11, 2001, attacks; a signed Joe DiMaggio jersey and other sports memorabilia; and a 1980 Mercedes once owned by the Hollywood star Lauren Bacall. Additionally, the judge ordered that Giuliani turn over his television, items of furniture and jewelry.

 
That Guardian piece is so full of bullshit. If this 'working class voter' can't work out on all on its own that trump is the very antithesis of everything they hope that a presidential candidate will deliver for and to them, then they deserve whatever's coming to them. But no, let's not blame them for their lack, let's blame Harris for allegedly failing to connect with them.

Christ. The disparity between the media bar for Harris and that for trump is so disgustingly frightening.
So, you think this is about stupidity? Right wing or populist electoral victories are about voter, particularly working class voter, stupidity? By that reckoning, the population was less stupid in, say, the Clinton years and the Obama victory years.
 
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