I will never forget my mom posting on Facebook that "if people don't stop trampling on our rights, they're going to force us into having a civil war." And she said this as a Trump supporter, intending it un-ironically.
I had two main questions.
1. Which rights did she perceive were being trampled?
2. How much civil warring she intended to do personally from her armchair while collecting her disability checks?
Of course the answer to #1 was some vague rambling about how she's not allowed to freely be a Christian in this country anymore. (Insert my exasperated eye roll in response here).
And then of course she took issue with my "meanness." I pointed out her entire identity as an aggrieved and "supposedly oppressed" Christian was fundamentally about losing the prospect of being free to bludgeon other people into submission and conformity to her own beliefs, and the core interest in that activity is inherently MEAN. That perhaps she shouldn't be so excited to dish it out, if she can't also take it.
They're definitely selling violence, and it's so god damned infuriating that so many Americans are so gullible.
I read yesterday that Anheuser Busch has donated big bucks to Republican causes. So the adoration of this sociopathic corporate entity is very much displaced.
This is a valuable essay and one that helped me understand MAGA better. I’ve always thought that part of their fury is that mainstream celebrity culture & the creative arts have no use for ultra-conservative MAGA rhetoric or stories, & thus, no representation of their “values” in popular culture. This essay helped me to frame that idea in a more cogent form. Now, they have a handful of Z-listers that profit off MAGA movement to call their own. Lee Greenwood & that banal “god bless the USA” is their official MAGA anthem & he makes a living off that one dreadful song. Otherwise, no one wants to be anywhere near these MEAN (I like your use of all caps here!), constantly peeved, hostile, & frightened people with an absence of tolerance in their propaganda-filled minds. (I won’t say hearts because some of these people are good people who happen to believe alternative facts just as KellyAnn promised on Day 2 of trump administration.
Anyway, I have subscribed to several writers on substack and find analysis like Jarod is doing here, more informative than the daily MSM, with a few exceptions.
I always understood & even agree with the sentiment that got Donnie elected; unfortunately, as far as “draining the swamp” goes, he was the worst possible choice & came along at what was likely the worst possible time. The bigots of the birther & Tea Party movements were pretty rabid after Obama’s 2 terms, & I think too many of us on the left underestimated Trump’s chances of winning in 2016. I’m glad I’m not alone in my fears for this country, but I wish we could figure out how to stop this descent into chaos
Right now I'm alternating between hopefulness and terror. Hopefulness that at least electorally, things are turning around (for example, see the recent Supreme Court election in Wisconsin) and terror at the violent fantasies now seemingly commonplace among right-wing folks that will certainly turn into actual violence (and already have).
I'm encouraged that Trump's call for BIG protests in response to his arrest has fizzled. Someone has pointed out the Trump got about 600,000 votes in New York City and yet only a handful seem to be willing to protest publicly on his behalf. That seems significant.
There is much to discuss in this article and I appreciated it all. Here is one idea (among the many good ones) that caught my eye: “anyone selling you a silver bullet explantation on anything going on in this weird, wild world we live in now is either lying to you or way in over their head.” It drives me crazy when people spout off “if only...” about a complex issue. I know I am in for a simplistic and probably mean speech about how everything would be OK if we all just thought the way the speaker does (or the Bible does). Just wanted to say this out loud to get it off my chest as it were.
We're all quite beyond the good lord's help, I'm certain of that. And by the way, you left out the "r" in the word "grift" — last word in second to last sentence. A "gift" all this is most certainly not.
I will never forget my mom posting on Facebook that "if people don't stop trampling on our rights, they're going to force us into having a civil war." And she said this as a Trump supporter, intending it un-ironically.
I had two main questions.
1. Which rights did she perceive were being trampled?
2. How much civil warring she intended to do personally from her armchair while collecting her disability checks?
Of course the answer to #1 was some vague rambling about how she's not allowed to freely be a Christian in this country anymore. (Insert my exasperated eye roll in response here).
And then of course she took issue with my "meanness." I pointed out her entire identity as an aggrieved and "supposedly oppressed" Christian was fundamentally about losing the prospect of being free to bludgeon other people into submission and conformity to her own beliefs, and the core interest in that activity is inherently MEAN. That perhaps she shouldn't be so excited to dish it out, if she can't also take it.
They're definitely selling violence, and it's so god damned infuriating that so many Americans are so gullible.
I read yesterday that Anheuser Busch has donated big bucks to Republican causes. So the adoration of this sociopathic corporate entity is very much displaced.
This is a valuable essay and one that helped me understand MAGA better. I’ve always thought that part of their fury is that mainstream celebrity culture & the creative arts have no use for ultra-conservative MAGA rhetoric or stories, & thus, no representation of their “values” in popular culture. This essay helped me to frame that idea in a more cogent form. Now, they have a handful of Z-listers that profit off MAGA movement to call their own. Lee Greenwood & that banal “god bless the USA” is their official MAGA anthem & he makes a living off that one dreadful song. Otherwise, no one wants to be anywhere near these MEAN (I like your use of all caps here!), constantly peeved, hostile, & frightened people with an absence of tolerance in their propaganda-filled minds. (I won’t say hearts because some of these people are good people who happen to believe alternative facts just as KellyAnn promised on Day 2 of trump administration.
Anyway, I have subscribed to several writers on substack and find analysis like Jarod is doing here, more informative than the daily MSM, with a few exceptions.
I always understood & even agree with the sentiment that got Donnie elected; unfortunately, as far as “draining the swamp” goes, he was the worst possible choice & came along at what was likely the worst possible time. The bigots of the birther & Tea Party movements were pretty rabid after Obama’s 2 terms, & I think too many of us on the left underestimated Trump’s chances of winning in 2016. I’m glad I’m not alone in my fears for this country, but I wish we could figure out how to stop this descent into chaos
Right now I'm alternating between hopefulness and terror. Hopefulness that at least electorally, things are turning around (for example, see the recent Supreme Court election in Wisconsin) and terror at the violent fantasies now seemingly commonplace among right-wing folks that will certainly turn into actual violence (and already have).
I'm encouraged that Trump's call for BIG protests in response to his arrest has fizzled. Someone has pointed out the Trump got about 600,000 votes in New York City and yet only a handful seem to be willing to protest publicly on his behalf. That seems significant.
This is a very solid essay, and it helped solidify some of my instincts on the subject. You're right; this is just marketing violence.
It's stochastic terrorism gone capitalist.
There is much to discuss in this article and I appreciated it all. Here is one idea (among the many good ones) that caught my eye: “anyone selling you a silver bullet explantation on anything going on in this weird, wild world we live in now is either lying to you or way in over their head.” It drives me crazy when people spout off “if only...” about a complex issue. I know I am in for a simplistic and probably mean speech about how everything would be OK if we all just thought the way the speaker does (or the Bible does). Just wanted to say this out loud to get it off my chest as it were.
I wonder if kiddie rock changed drinking habits, or if this is bs performance and nothing else.
Jarad, you do a great job reading your book for the Audible version. I used that quite a bit, though I had to speed it up to 125% or so.
We're all quite beyond the good lord's help, I'm certain of that. And by the way, you left out the "r" in the word "grift" — last word in second to last sentence. A "gift" all this is most certainly not.