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This is an interesting take. I've stopped trying to understand the why, since it never made much sense to me in the first place. Furthermore, I don't think I do need to explain why he's hated in order to take it as a given, and use that hatred as the basis for explaining behavior.
While I can't answer why, I have some theories. First, he's a genuine outsider that has resisted cooption. Second, he's personally repugnant due to manners and demeanor. Third, he's politically repugnant, and his pet issues (immigration, mostly) mark him as low-status or otherwise 'other.' Fourth, he's a genuine threat to the status quo (similar to #1) is ways that triggers reactions from those inside the system (deep state, anyone?). Fifth, the normal demonization of Republicans, but enhanced due to #2.
Of these, I learn towards #4. I think some people are afraid of him, afraid of his appeal, afraid of the way he acts and speaks, and their fear easily turns towards hatred and hyperbole.
I don't have a good reason why he's so hated. Trump Derangement Syndrome was coined for a reason, and I think it explains plenty even when it itself is unexplained.
He was hated, and persecuted, before he contested the 2020 election. He was already impeached once and the entirety of the bureaucratic class was opposed to him by the time he walked in the door. It was this antipathy that caused the groups described in the famous Time article to collectively 'fortify' the election in advance. So I think this causation is backwards.
"Hatred for Trump is a significant motivating factor in these prosecutions" is I think an almost trivially true statement. The question is whether the hatred is justified and leading to socially desirable outcomes. Hatred for rapists is a major factor in why rape is criminally prosecuted, that doesn't make it illegitimate or inappropriate to prosecute rapists.
I would say a combination of your second, third, and fifth explanation, combined with the fact that many of Trump's detractors legitimately believe he has violated democratic norms. Putting aside whether he has or hasn't, I do think they sincerely believe this and are motivated by it.
There are many pre-2016 election examples of behavior that one could believe in good faith violates democratic norms. For example, calling on Russia to release one's opponent's hacked emails and threatening to "lock up" one's electoral opponent.
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It’s worth noting that Clinton crazies were very much a thing, there was a definite bush derangement syndrome, and a decent percentage of the country literally believed Obama was born in another country.
Trump derangement syndrome is an escalation, but the blue tribe thought the Obama-Kenya conspiracy theories were a huge escalation and didn’t really distinguish between the randos who said it and the GOP higher ups who explicitly disavowed it. If Rubio had won the 2016 election we may well have been seeing the same level of derangement, admittedly with less ammo.
The "randos who said it" included Donald Trump - who became a GOP higher up when he was nominated for President. Both Trump's popularity with the anti-establishment right and his extreme unpopularity with the pro-establishment left (and large parts of the pro-establishment right) start here. When Obama published his birth certificate, Trump claimed the credit for making him do it. Per Wikipedia, Trump didn't publicly acknowledge that was a US citizen until September 2016 - i.e. after fighting the Republican primary as an ambiguously-repentant birther.
Falsely claiming that a major party candidate is ineligible is an attack on American democracy. The GOP primary electorate nominated Trump despite (definitely) or because of (probably) his willingness to do it anyway. Trump's base within the GOP is people who think that Democrats always cheat, that they get away with it because the GOP establishment are cucks, and that Republicans should cheat back harder. This is more obvious post-Jan 6 than it was then, but Trump's opponents brought receipts in 2016.
Fundamentally, the scary thing about Trump is that he behaves as if American elections are kayfabe on top of an underlying system of raw power politics, and his supporters love him for it. If American elections really are kayfabe, this makes him someone who breaks kayfabe and gets away with it, which any wrestling promoter knows can destroy the franchise. If you think that American elections are not in fact kayfabe, then he is the worst threat to American democracy since elections really were rigged in 1960's Illinois. In either case, he needs to be stopped.
Oh come on, tone down the drama. Such claims existed long before. Exhibit 1: https://www.sethkaller.com/item/1415-23425-Claims-that-First-Republican-Presidential-Candidate-is-Foreign-Born-&-Ineligible&from=12
That's 1856. Somehow, the American Democracy (R) (TM) has survived this attack, which can't be called the worse since Pearl Harbor or the Civil War only because it predates both.
So, he behaves as if what significant part of his electorate believes and observes is true - is true? What a scoundrel! The norm for a candidate is to pretend he cares about his electorate, and then once elected, wear a nice tuxedo or dress, show up at gala receptions, get the appropriate pork allocations from taxpayer's money and otherwise not rock the boat.
Now you're starting to get it. This franchise is no longer serving the people that are supposedly their clients (an apt metaphor, because most entertainment franchises, such as ones of Hollywood, also moved on from serving the people to serving a tiny sliver of increasingly bizarre elite critics) - so it's time to break some things.
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This is begging the question. The only way to determine the truth of the claim is to make the challenge. McCain's eligibility was challenged, falsely as it turns out, and Democracy seemed to survive.
Obama published a certified copy of his birth certificate, authenticated by the State of Hawaii, in 2008. Trump was pushing birtherism in 2011-2, when "falsely" is appropriate.
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It's pretty strange to see so much discussion here about why liberals hate Trump - a lot of "sore loser" theory - without Democrats or progressives pushing back on why they think he's particularly norm-breaking.
It actually makes me worry about the skew of this site and if we left a lot of left-wingers back on Reddit.
It's not just that "Trump wasn't supposed to win". He violated a lot of norms - not just red and blue norms like unconditional support for the nominee - starting with not releasing his taxes and escalating to things like playing footsie with not acknowledging the outcome of the election.
THIS was the particular red rag that was theoretically avoidable by a generic GOP candidate (as opposed to being anti-immigration - or rather: anti-some immigration)
There is obviously a thing where liberals (this can be of the left AND right variety - especially if you look at Europe) conflate their particular politics with democracy and freedom as such - which is how things like populism, Brexit, being anti-immigrant all end up being marked as "dangerous" or threats to freedom - but, in this case, Trump tied the connection himself.
We don't even need to look at the lib reaction - look at some of Tucker's leaked texts from the Dominion case if you think this reaction is purely lib derangement at a "blue collar billionaire".
There aren't very many Democrats or progressives on this forum and I'd hazard to guess most of them view trying to push back to be a waste of time - most of these arguments have been re-litigated dozens of times since Trump's presidency and the assumptions gap has been found to be unbridgeable.
This is likely true. But as a progressive Democrat myself, I wonder how many people here are like me in that I don't particularly want to push back but rather read and learn. It's pretty easy to see countless arguments that Donald Trump is a particularly norm-breaking POTUS practically everywhere I look, but it's harder to see arguments of the "sore loser" theory, especially any good or strong versions of those arguments. A large part of my motivation in reading posts in this forum is to see such things in the hopes that they actually challenge my biased perspective on various CW issues including Donald Trump, in the hopes that I can form a more accurate view of them.
For this particular issue, what I'd most prefer to see is a progressive Democrat make a case for the "sore loser" theory and a MAGA Republican make a case for the "Trump was a particularly norm-breaking POTUS in a way that was genuinely dangerous to democracy" theory, not out of charity but out of genuine, heartfelt belief. Because those are the arguments that I would find the most credible and most valuable for triangulating the actual truth of the matter. Unfortunately, such people don't seem to be particularly available, and so I want to see the strongest version of the theory I personally find distasteful or wrong on a visceral level, which is the "sore loser" theory.
I am a progressive Democrat myself, and I feel similar to you in terms of reading and learning. I myself have very little interest in “pushing back”; I find it would be absolute waste of time, and likely why you won’t find the discourse you are looking for. In my opinion, the value of a forum like this is that it allows progressives, at least such as myself, to observe a rich diversity of right-winged thinking to identify the more insidious and subtle dogwhistles indicating the traits of a conservative, so one may steer clear of them in IRL interactions.
Wow, this would have felt vaguely intimidating a few years ago, but now it's just funny. You guys really are losing your juju.
Is this type of discourse approved by the mods?
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In my younger years, I would have thought that this sort of intentional closing off to other perspectives was definitionally antithetical to progressivism, but I must admit that my own cynicism about the supposed tenets of progressivism has grown in the past decade or so. I personally try to hew to the tenets of progressivism and expose myself to such conservatives in IRL interactions as much as I can (which, to be fair, is very low due to the physical location in which I reside, where IRL conservatives are about as common as a zebra/unicorn hybrid), but I do understand now that different progressives understand progressivism differently from me.
As I understand it, progressivism cannot exist alongside conservatism, because all of the progress done by the former will always be challenged by the latter. I think I have been open to those perspectives for a majority of my life and once possessed them myself, but when I realized I was at the point where I was sadly conceding that my future husband would inevitably cheat on me, or at least want to cheat, because I would get older and his nature would have him seek younger women with better childbearing hips, I figured I didn't need to be open to that kind of stuff anymore.
Anecdotally as well, where you find conservatives a rare breed where you live, the opposite is true for me. It is rare for me to find a progressive here.
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While I find the sentiment of maximizing the purity of your social bubble somewhat loathsome, in this instance I would be entirely content providing you as much assistance on this front as I could. I even think that I could do this in good conscience, given that your stated premise is to
The rules I have, personally, for total removal of an individual from my life before I even know them have been invoked a few times in my life, but not often enough that I feel the need to nervously genuflect towards the Paradox of Tolerance when I do.
That said your somewhat duplicitous presence would lead to my wondering whether your [statistically likely presence somewhere along the chain of decision-makers in the hiring/firing process, for instance] motives in this are entirely pure, or at least not intended to cause real, actual harm to real, actual people while offline. Could you please tell me if the stakes being there was a consideration to you, when you wrote this comment?
Would you consider asking yourself as well, if coding "right-wing" to danger or at least avoidance isn't just coding class-signals (your presumed outgroup) as political?
I sincerely don’t know what “coding class signals as political” means, otherwise I would answer that question.
I believe you are asking, “Would I not hire someone if I knew they were conservative?” To answer that, I would, yes. I believe conservative ideology is incredibly abusive to both the believer and those associated with them. My evidence for this belief is partially anecdotal; every single conservative I have ever known in my life (to include myself at one point) my mother and father, my brothers, my grandparents, my boss, my coworkers, my boyfriend’s sisters, brothers and parents, and his friends hurt themselves and others around them as the expectations social conservatism puts on them clashes with their wants and desires and causes untold amounts of emotional discomfort, immaturity and agitation. I have my own objective evidence as well, but that would be too long to list for this response.
I personally trust the judgement of someone who believes in social conservatism to be so significantly impaired that yes, if somewhere down the line I were to find two applicants were equally qualified but one attended their college’s Turning Point club and the other did not, I would find the former to be a potential emotional, physical and ethical danger to my employees. I would worry they would say hurtful things to their coworkers, disrespect the authority of their supervisors and use workplace equipment incorrectly.
If you are asking me if I would hurt a conservative in real life when you say “real harm”, no. I believe social conservatism was partially born from poor emotional regulation being met with hostility and pain, and responding with more pain is not constructive.
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That's a rather cynical way of viewing things, but you do you. So long as you can be sure not to consider any other perspectives, and most importantly to "steer clear of them in 'in real life' interactions". Something, something, "ATM machine".
I feel it is unfortunate you find it cynical, as I find it to be rather optimistic. I am quite sure I have considered other perspectives, and have found them, in charitable terms, to be utterly fruitless. I believe my overall peace increased and my confusion decreased when I stopped giving my time to conversations which I found ultimately proved unconstructive. As a result, I like to think my capacity for mercy and forgiveness increased with my overall contentment, and where my previous necessary interactions with conservatives was, I’d say, entirely hostile, now I believe it is far more constructive when viewed from a lens of what I consider to be compassion. But I find I can only retain such compassion in the company of conservatives IRL by restricting my company with them to absolutely minimum - sans my one guilty pleasure of commenting on here.
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I didn’t want to litigate all the reasons I think he’s a defector, a criminal, and personally disagreeable. Partly because it’s very clear that the OP starts from different axioms. Partly because I wanted to talk about what happens after someone is convinced that he’s a personal enemy.
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Why? What's so worrying about it?
Also, how do you maintain your faith in democracy in the light of all the madness we could observe over the last 10 years?
Because I don't want to be in an echo chamber - which splinter-sites of witches like this can be. It felt like the original motte was skeptical of a lot of woke points (since naturally wokes had a billion subreddits to hang around out) but you still got a pushback and back and forth. It is concerning if we've lost a lot of those people in the move.
Here we have a question of "why was Trump - the most polarizing figure in recent memory - hated?" and most of the answers seem to flow in one direction, as if it's obvious.
It's quite possible I'm just wrong and it is obvious. But it's concerning that something so divisive seems to swing in one direction.
EDIT: And yes, the fact that it's cutting against me may play a role. It's natural to not want to be outnumbered.
Easy: I don't.
I think most of the main points are still present. Perhaps in a more autistic neutral way.
The big difference is on Reddit you would have one conservative and one leftist debate for 30 replies on whether Trump was serious or joking when he said Russia should release Clinton emails. Intent will never be settled. The big difference would be fighting over tone with depending on who you’re speaking with a greater emphasis on when Trump did x,y,z and it was really bad. Then a reply leftist did x,y,z on these occasions.
You would probably get some reply on HRC being the chosen one. I’ve never actually seen a leftist give that opinion but seems to pop up on right coded places.
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But it makes it all the more important to not be so worried. By being here and arguing against us, you're playing an important role in not making this place an echo chamber. Thank you for your service!
Damn.
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On reddit the participation of progressives largely felt like folks dropping by to sneer on themotte for a few comments rather than actual engagement. It felt as if a good number of them wouldn't have minded if themotte got hit by the banhammer.
That said, preaching to the choir on themotte while feeling nice doesn't give you much. But I do not have any ideas for how to improve upon that. People like places that echo their views back at them and enforce the ideological conformity for their worldview. For this use case reddit is strictly better especially if your views are aligned with the current zeitgeist.
A lot of people on themotte may want to convince progressives that their positions are not logically consistent and patently unfair. But progressives have no incentive to engage with you to be convinced or to try to convince you. Their views are already mainstream and platformed by institutions.
It’s difficult to be convinced you’re logically inconsistent and unfair when the people trying to convince you are, in your own view, being exactly that.
Why would I want to debate with facts in a forum that seemed to genuinely approve of the generalized declaration: “Men are funnier than women.” being justified with with the anecdote, “Because the men in my life make me laugh more than the women.” instead of, I don’t know, “Because here is a study that concluded that estrogen affects the part of the brain that creates brevity which is the leading trait for successful comedians, please look at the data and tell me if you disagree with their methods of testing.”?
I can empathize that it's not a nice experience to face positions that you feel are an attack on your person or deeply held beliefs.
I pretty much feel the same in every corner of the internet. To give an example that should hopefully be at some distance from the American Culture War, I definitely do not enjoy people claiming that India being colonised by the British empire was good for us and civilized us unwashed barbarians. It is not fun to be spoken down to by Americans who believe my lived experience of living in my country holds no weight. Nor do I enjoy reading about what Americans say behind our backs about the Indian expats in the Software industry.
But as much as I would love to give objective statistics to prove people wrong, I doubt I will ever be able to satisfy those who disagree.
Now on whether "Men are funnier than women", it is a poorly supported argument since the only thing going for it is anecdata. But given the dumpster fire that is the reproducibility in Sociology, anecdata is probably the best you will get. Besides, how many people even base their social know-how on studies over anecdata from folks they know or can relate to?
Also is it that the argument is poorly supported that bugs you, or is it because you feel that it puts down women?
Would it feel any less offensive if someone gave "objective" proof for this?
It wouldn't be any less painful for me even if someone threw objective proof at my face by ripping open a portal to a parallel universe where India never went through successive stages of colonization and is still a cesspit of suffering.
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