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I've been thinking about why some people are terrified of Trump while others, like me, are more indifferent. I mostly tune out Trump news because I assume much of it involves scare tactics or misleading framing by his detractors. When my wife brings up concerns about his supposedly authoritarian actions, my general response is that if what he's doing is illegal, the governmental process will handle it - and if it's legal, then that's how the system is supposed to work. I have faith that our institutions have the checks and balances to deal with any presidential overreach appropriately.
This reminded me of a mirror situation during 2020-2021 with the BLM movement, where our positions were reversed. I was deeply concerned about social media mobs pressuring corporations, governments, and individuals to conform under threat of job loss, boycotts, and riots, while my wife thought these social pressures were justified and would naturally self-correct if they went too far. The key difference I see is that the government has built-in checks and balances designed to prevent abuse of power, while social movements and mob pressure operate without those same institutional restraints. It seems like we each trust different institutional mechanisms, but I can't help but think that formal governmental processes with built-in restraints are more reliable than grassroots social pressure that operates without those same safeguards. Furthermore, the media seems incentivized to amplify fear about Trump but not about grassroots social movements - Trump generates clicks and outrage regardless of which side you're on, while criticizing social movements risks alienating the platforms' own user base and advertiser-friendly demographics.
Eh fuck it.
Since there doesn’t seem to be any other people who are actually “terrified by Trump” answering (that is to say, leftists) aside from some light interjections by @Skibboleth, I suppose I ought to chime in and try to provide some actual responses, instead of just relying on admirable-but-inaccurate “steelmans” from more modal right-wingers who are at least trying to understand the screen the “other side” is watching
…Or worse, less-charitable right-wingers who neither understand the perspective of us Others nor want to understand, who instead just chalk it all up to pure TDS.
———
Honestly, though, you pretty much answer your own question in your opening paragraph;
My very first comment on this site -the whole reason I was inspired to create this account and bother screaming into the void here to begin with- has to do with the fact that, y’know, a lot of us TDS-rotted leftoids actually believe in the ‘scare tactics’ and ‘misinformation’ that the conventional wisdom around here holds to be mere anti-Trump propaganda.
Believe it or not, a lot of the time people actually do believe in what they say they do.
Trump is openly, proudly purging the government of anyone willing and able to disagree with him. I do not share your optimistic read on the situation. In other words,
Well I don’t.
The fact that the administration has, in the past few months, been hard at work trying to bypass, eliminate, and ignore those built-in restraints gives me a very different read on the situation.
However, it’s the fact that the Republican half of the government (and at least a third of the population) is either doing nothing to stop it, or even actively cheer it on, that really causes me to despair over the situation.
Nothing scares the left like the thought of the right doing politics to them the way they do it to the right. That's really the fear. That all these corrupt and undemocratic mechanisms the left uses to exploit their dominance in media, bureaucracy and academia to electoral effect might be used against them.
Charge the leading presidential candidate with a hundred felonies over some bullshit? Hope your mortgage applications were all in order!
"Onoes, muh norms and civility!"
I don't like Trump much, but my dearest hope is that he does exactly everything the left has done to him by the time he's out of office. Two wrongs don't make a right, but they do make it fair, and that's as close as politics gets to "right".
Well, at least you’re honest.
In the spirit of fairness, let the spiral continue towards civil war, I guess.
Adopting the exact same tactics as your side is a "spiral toward civil war"? What was it when your people were doing it?
Now that the other side has learned, now it's a spiral?
There's nothing you think the left should do to de-escalate? No off-ramps you see? The entire elite superstructure of our nation and the world just has zero accountability? No amends that could be made? No compromise?
Doesn't sound like it's my spiral. But I am waiting at the bottom for the rest of you.
Bullshit. I don’t really care if the mods ding me for ‘incivility’, or whatever- this is so wildly in opposition to the reality I’m familiar with that I can only conclude that one of us has a wildly distorted recollection of the past warped by echo-chambered propaganda.
Of course, neither of us are going to own up to that, so I guess we’re just going to disagree and keep living in our own bespoke realities.
On a related note-
I genuinely do not believe that there is anything the left could do short of total, 100% concession to every single rightist demand under the sun (and mass ritualistic suicide probably wouldn’t hurt) that wouldn’t then immediately lead to right-leaning culture warriors immediately finding some other issue to then blame the evil leftoids for. Chris Rufo (and Yarvin, and Dread Jim, and whatever other deranged grievance-collector currently featured on TheMotte today) and his ilk will always be able to find another scapegoat.
So, you live in a different reality to me, your side is incapable of even token compromise, and you think three internet edgelords are the marginal Republican voter?
You don't need to convince Yarvin of anything. You need to convince fifty thousand midwesterners. But because you don't think some blogger who has been banned from most internet forums would accept it, you don't think it's even worth attempting.
But please, for the love of god, don't take my word for anything. You stay so angry at (who was it again?) :checks notes: Curtis Yarvin that you can't support politicians who maybe could see their way to enforcing basic public safety. Maybe someone who lies and pays a little lip service to having a border? Even Obama did that! Maybe accept people in the party who don't support gay marriage? You know, like Obama! Maybe someone who would write some legislation to crack down on a nationwide crime wave like Joe Biden and sign it like Bill Clinton?
There's just nothing to be done! Those wacky Republicans just won't accept anything!
Sure seems that way!
Things I Didn’t Say Count: 1
“My side” isn’t incapable by many miles, but I admit I am increasingly skeptical of the value of token compromise in this era of polarization- and that sentiment is increasingly spreading, and probably for good reason. I believe political triangulation as the key to electoral success is definitely on its way out.
Things I Didn’t Say Count: 2
Certainly not the marginal Republican voter… but I do think the radical fringe currently in the driver’s seat of the GOP are shifting ever-closer to said edgelord’s viewpoints. I can always hope that the GOP regains some modicum of sanity before the Overton Window of the ‘general right’ shifts too far, but admittedly I’m not holding my breath.
Correct.
Things I Didn’t Say Count: 3
I do believe it’s pointless and not worth the effort to try and reach out to the non-trivial portion of those midwesterners who dyed-in-the-wool partisan, they’re a lost cause. The rest can probably be reached with appropriate (and, critically, appropriately targeted messaging), though that’s not going to an easy task, and I’m deeply pessimistic that the Democratic Party (or any single party, for that matter) will be able to thread that needle. Outrage-farming and negative partisanship are probably the future, I fear.
I know you don’t believe this (‘alternate realities’ strike again), but the public is already safe. It could and should be safer, but I don’t think you and I are going to agree on what the best pathways to that goal are. Especially if the word ‘Bukele’ pops up anywhere in that discussion.
I fundamentally disagree with a lot of the ideas around the border, but we did, in fact, have someone who paid a little lip service to the border.
His name was Joe Biden.
It notably didn’t work out so great for him. Turns out that when your political opponents are working over time to signal-boost (not to mention help create) a ‘problem’, lip service alone isn’t enough unless you’re willing to loudly, blatantly lie and try to match your opponents noise making with your own. Also probably the future, I fear, if Newsom’s new PR efforts are anything to go by.
Fortunately, that ship has already sailed, and homosexual acceptance seems here to stay, despite efforts by conservative influencers to roll back acceptance among Republicans.
Unfortunately, that particular battle being
wonsettled enough lead directly towards the trans panic as the current wedge hysteria, but alas.Legislation, such as…?
Please, be specific.
Pretty much, yeah.
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