To all the people wondering why Trump has been elected, the answer is very simple and has been true in all countries that have had elections. When a large section of the voting public is chronically missing out on the benefits of what they're told is a "growing economy", only to observe continued "unfair" extremes of wealth distribution, they become disenchanted with the system that has generated this situation. By definition almost, they become very willing prey for any demagogue that threatens to upend the system, turn over the money-changers tables. It's irrelevant whether the demagogue's policies will work or not. It's irrelevant whether the demagogue is provably lying or not. It's all about repressed anger being unleashed and finding a target. Even if the target is not the cause of their misery. And so every latent form of bigotry finds expression and is easily exploited by the demagogue.
It's worth re-reading Goebells primarily because his understanding of this psychology is what made Nazi demagoguery so devastatingly successful. Any attempt by a party to attack the demagogue without directly addressing the elephant in the room (the growing class of working poor) is not only destined to fail, but destined to fail badly. If I hate you - really hate you - I don't mind copping a few painful blows if it means I get to see you bludgeoned to near death. Vengeance is an incredibly powerful motivator. People trying to lump all of Trump's supporters as Nazi's are making a grave mistake and refusing to see the forest for the trees. Just as most Germans in WWII were not Nazis yet supported Hitler, so too with Trump. Latinos, blacks, gays and women all voted for Trump. Don't assume they're all stupid. When I hate you, I'm happy to burn in hell if you're there with me.
Of course, this is a simple generalisation and there are lots of "sub-reasons" (the bro-vote, the foot-gun Democrat advertising - "he doesn't have to know!", etc). If the Democrats had chosen Bernie Sanders as their candidate back in 2016, they would've had eight years in power. It's no coincidence that Bernie had a lot of support from those that otherwise voted Trump. They felt that he was real and was really concerned about them and would really do something to assuage their pain. Now? Now they're just mad - "enough is enough".
However, anger is not sustainable for too long and all demagogues eventually come undone because once the heat of anger is gone and you look around and realise things are worse than ever - well, that's when things can REALLY get dangerous.
Hmm, as someone from Europe I've never heard labeling of trump's supporters as nazis, that's quite a strong claim I haven't seen much evidence of.
Not that you are not correct in many aspects, but wasn't inequality sort of part of whole US setup and 'american dream'? Back to good ol' days when poor were poor and a largely invisible part of society.
For an european eye US is setup on inequality by principle, which does a lot of good and bad. When looking at resilience and strength of economy that Europe can never ever dream of reaching, I'd say bigger good trumps (eh) those evils but I have only very limited view. In Europe even big success is mild compared to how far in US things can grow into. Complex topic this is.
It has literally been a thing for years now. Since he lost the 2020 election he has ramped up his rhetoric and surrounded himself with people that are causing the comparison to be made.
I'm from Europe too. There was a republican rally at the Madison Square Garden a few weeks back, and there were a lot of comparisons with the nazis, with people in social media calling them nazis and so on. This article [1] for example mentions "Several prominent Democrats have drawn comparisons between Trump's Madison Square Garden rally this weekend to a 1939 Nazi event held there.". I don't know if the comparisons were justified or not, because I haven't even read the article, just wanted to add it as reference since I remembered that happening and comments calling republicans nazis on places like reddit.
I completely agree and I've been slowly coming to this same conclusion. To this, I will add:
The Democratic party has left a lot of people behind and their only choice is to turn to the other party, in the hope they will help. Yes, it's not logical given the facts on the ground, the other party likely won't help them, but the other party is saying they will help. And that's the important thing.
Why did the Democrats leave people behind? It's the perception of "wokeness" and the feeling men have of being marginalized. A lot of men feel emasculated by the state and direction of our culture. And those men who feel this way are not college educated, so they are looked down upon and they mainly have service sector jobs. In other words, they are being left behind in the great economy they see everyone talking about. The jobs that created the middle class (manufacturing jobs of the last century) have moved elsewhere, and they feel they can no longer support their families in the way their parents did.
A lot of us here are not feeling that pain. I don't. But I see it out there and there are a lot of them. Trump won by a larger margin than he did in 2016.
Think about this: the Democrats avoided primaries in the last 3 election cycles. That told a lot of people: we don't give a fuck about you.
Others have said it here, but I'll repeat it. If Bernie Sanders had been the nominee in 2016, we would have likely had 8 years of Bernie and no Trump. Bernie Sanders was the only candidate in 2016 that resonated with the pain people were feeling, and those people who voted for Trump would have (mostly) voted for Sanders.
It's a good question (I don't like that you were downvoted). I've heard repeatedly that young men feel they cannot take care of their family. They can't afford a house, primarily. But there are other things. Men go to college at a much lower rate than women. Because of that, those men make less than their female counterparts (who went to college). This "the man makes less" is another part of the emasculation, when you add it to all the other things. And one of those things is the dating apps, which for many men is a terrible experience.
Thanks for the answer. I won't lie, I was half-expecting this to be something about trans issues, but I'm pleasantly surprised.
> young men feel they cannot take care of their family. They can't afford a house, primarily.
I don't think this is particularly gender-exclusive, but absolutely one of the largest problems the younger generations face. How are we going to raise a family, buy a house - hell, just live a decently comfortable life?
> Men go to college at a much lower rate than women. Because of that, those men make less than their female counterparts (who went to college).
Men feeling threatened by women who make more than them or are smarter than them seems like something that needs to be worked on individually rather than socially.
> And one of those things is the dating apps, which for many men is a terrible experience.
Well, dating apps were a terrible idea from the get-go, but hasn't dating always been a nightmare for most men for most of history? I don't disagree that there's aspects of using dating apps that could cause some self-esteem issues (for both genders, I will add again) but wouldn't that also apply to dating 20-30 years ago?
> Men feeling threatened by women who make more than them or are smarter than them seems like something that needs to be worked on individually rather than socially.
I get where you're coming from, but I think there’s more to it than just individual insecurities. Society as a whole still pushes the idea that men should be the breadwinners, so when they fail at that their worth (in their eyes as well as society's) just plummets.
Even though people say that the idea of the male breadwinner is outdated, these expectations are still baked into how we think about success and relationships.
Great point, The fact that there are a ton of people who wanted Sanders and who flipped to Trump should have given Dem leadership a clue. People want real change, whether its a Liberal or a Republican they don't care, they are done with mainstream politicians who promise to keep things the same.
I was referring to Goebbels’ own words regarding the application of propaganda and its efficacy when you understand the psychology of the masses as a collective entity (quite distinct from the psychology of the individual). He was a prolific writer (I believe his diaries measured 40 volumes!).
Ah, thank you for the clarification, I'm interested in reading up.
Your description reminds me a lot of a book called "The Hidden Persuaders" by Vance Packard, which I recommend as a distinctly uncomfortable read in the same vein.
I get this line of reasoning, but the US economy is thriving, unemployment is low and wages are growing rapidly at the low end too.
Nazi ideology doesn't work well as a comparison in my opinion, because Weimar Germany was crippled by reparations, hyperinflation, mass unemployment, an acute world economic crisis and traumatized from a devastating war.
The US is nowhere close to any of that, it's doing pretty well all in all.
There are a number of people who feel they're doing pretty shittily right now, no matter what people's metrics say, and "no you're not" is not a particularly constructive response.
I'm not an economist, I have no detailed explanation to offer for this disconnect, but I personally know a number of people outside of tech who are not fiscally irresponsible, but are struggling to reliably keep food on the table without consuming their savings - most frequently because they have some health condition that necessitates costly things, and their pay at work has not kept pace as cost of living increases have happened.
So I have little trouble believing people in similar straits could vote for someone who made bigger swings about "I know you're hurting".
Well, it's also the effect of Fox News, right wing radio, and right wing leaning podcasts which convince people to focus on issues which can be leveraged for political gain. There are lots of problems, but right wing voters are convinced to stew about a relatively small subset of the totality. And regarding those problems they also are only ever presented with a subset of available rationales and solutions.
This also simplifies things for them. Instead of the myriad of real problems in the world, conservatives can concentrate on only a few, all of which have simple rationales and simple solutions.
The US economy is not thriving for a very large swathe of the population. The extreme disparities in wealth, the non-reporting of under-employment (as opposed to unemployment) all skew statistics.
> I get this line of reasoning, but the US economy is thriving, unemployment is low and wages are growing rapidly at the low end too.
Many make this mistake. The stock market is thriving. Some people are thriving. Many people are not. They are stuck in low wage service jobs. It’s not about unemployment.
There was a global pandemic. We are in a recovery. The U.S. is doing far better than Europe in our recovery. We are basically most of the way back, and people will start to feel better next year. Trump will benefit despite having done nothing.
I agree he will benefit from some people doing better, but there are structural things which have been brewing for years. Yes, houses became much less affordable during the pandemic, and rents soared then, too, but that won't be fixed any time soon. The fact that men go to college at a much lower rate and the non-college jobs suck, that won't be fixed quickly either. There is a movement to on-shore manufacturing again, but that will take decades.
In general, Trump will benefit from the recovery of the last several years. It's unfortunate that many people don't understand how this stuff works.
It's worth re-reading Goebells primarily because his understanding of this psychology is what made Nazi demagoguery so devastatingly successful. Any attempt by a party to attack the demagogue without directly addressing the elephant in the room (the growing class of working poor) is not only destined to fail, but destined to fail badly. If I hate you - really hate you - I don't mind copping a few painful blows if it means I get to see you bludgeoned to near death. Vengeance is an incredibly powerful motivator. People trying to lump all of Trump's supporters as Nazi's are making a grave mistake and refusing to see the forest for the trees. Just as most Germans in WWII were not Nazis yet supported Hitler, so too with Trump. Latinos, blacks, gays and women all voted for Trump. Don't assume they're all stupid. When I hate you, I'm happy to burn in hell if you're there with me.
Of course, this is a simple generalisation and there are lots of "sub-reasons" (the bro-vote, the foot-gun Democrat advertising - "he doesn't have to know!", etc). If the Democrats had chosen Bernie Sanders as their candidate back in 2016, they would've had eight years in power. It's no coincidence that Bernie had a lot of support from those that otherwise voted Trump. They felt that he was real and was really concerned about them and would really do something to assuage their pain. Now? Now they're just mad - "enough is enough".
However, anger is not sustainable for too long and all demagogues eventually come undone because once the heat of anger is gone and you look around and realise things are worse than ever - well, that's when things can REALLY get dangerous.