Everyone is always afraid to say why people like Trump or Marie Le Pen have some level of popularity and it’s just that there’s a lot of people in the world who believe in racism. You end up with these goofy ass explanations for Trump where it’s NAFTA or shit and it’s like no you know what it is
“Oh Trump is a conman, he’s pulling the wool over peoples eyes” Yeah to some degree, but the main core reason he was President and might well be President again is a lot of people fucking love being racist
And it fucking sucks because I’d love to believe in the idea that if everyone voted and had their say we’d have good enlightened leaders and I don’t know. I don’t know looking at the history of our country why that would necessarily be the case.
“People feel left behind!”
Yes absolutely! We should have universal income or strengthen unions or have free college or increase the minimum wage or do a bunch of domestic projects
“Actually instead of that let me show you this security camera footage of a migrant chasing a blonde woman”
I have the opposite read: Trump, Le Pen, et al. happen when times are relatively good. When people are well off. When many don’t care about a functional government because they got theirs. Sprinkle in a threat of the status quo flipping and they’ll go fash
I don’t think it’s the individual thinking they can chuck the state. It’s more that the very wealthy are capitalizing on various weaknesses of state capacity. People still need the state but they see the weaknesses and it’s easy to manipulate them. This is why Trump is always promising to do stuff.
