The young, right-wing white men convo is interesting. When I was graduating college (in the 00’s) there was seemingly not much correlation among people I knew between success and political leanings.
Since then, almost every white guy who has struggled with adulthood seems to have drifted to the right, and even staunch republicans/libertarians (a big thing in the 00’s) who have been successful have moved away from it.
It’s like the party of personal responsibility found their cheat code in “scapegoat others” and it opened up a new universe of rationalization for privileged dudes who fail despite their privilege.
alwayshasbeen.jpg to some degree, I know, but the narrative has shifted away from dogwhistle stuff like “welfare queens are a drag on society” to more “your failures are due to godless woke commie corporations giving minorities all the jobs.” Resonates on a more personal level.
So much this. About to head to the in-laws for Christmas and the struggling 30s/40s failsons have definitely veered hard right in the last 6-10 years or so. SJW/wokeness and bad hombres flooding into the country (they live 2 miles from the Canadian border, lol) will be the primary topics of conversation. Their bootstrapping didn’t work, so obv it isn’t because they are kind of dim and lazy, but because their birthright to privilege has been stolen. Beyond sad.
I’m thankful not to have any immediate family members be Trumpers. I could probably deal with it as long as they weren’t the type to make Trumpism their whole identity like some have. There’s at least one parent in my school who has replaced their whole wardrobe with “Let’s go Brandon” shirts. That would probably be a deal breaker.
The other couple my wife and I spent years hanging out with turned. We pretty much never talked politics but they at least said they voted for Obama. Once she started posting Trump stuff on her facebook 10 times a day that was game over.
Me too. Wife has no immediate family Trumpers but has some aunts & uncles who are. She never really liked them pre-Trump, so interactions were minimal anyway. Trumpiness just validated her priors.
My favorite is an aunt who is afraid of her granddaughter going to a college that is too “woke”. Which is pretty much all of them. While super-Trumpy they are also not religious, so even they think something like Liberty is too much.
I think the key question in American politics moving forward is whether the ten million paint huffing imbeciles that completely ignored politics pre-Trump retreat to bumblefuck USA Wal Marts or keep voting when it’s Daddy D on the ballot instead.
If I had to guess I would say they’re all in. People are driven to action when they have a sense of purpose. Donnie Dumb Dumb capitalized on the huge empty hole at the center of their lives and gave them something they can really sink their teeth into - pure hate. That’s a tough addiction to shake.
True but it remains to be seen if someone can channel it. Obviously someone like Mittens can’t (and probably doesn’t want to). Can Ronnie do it? Probably, but not a lock.
I think that this is largely attributed to social media. In the early 2000s if you were a disaffected “failure to launch” mid 20s white dude, it was pretty hard to find enough like minded people to work yourself into a frenzy and go marching off with Tiki torches chanting “the Jews will not replace us”. Nowadays anyone who opens a YouTube account gets a steady diet of Jordan Peterson and a person with no critical thinking skills is a goner.
It’s pretty typical cult behavior. If you were an awkward weirdo straight white dude 20 years ago, the constant rejection by women would more often than not lead you to adjust your social behavior until you were basically acceptable. I’m a 45 year old nerd so I know guys like that! The people I used to play D&D with in junior high eventually fumbled around awkwardly into their 20s and most of them go straightened out by some woman, lol. Nowadays if you start off with hive mind collective online cult of hate and misogyny, the rejection by women will lead you back into the arms of your woman hating cult more often then it will lead to any introspection or adjustment.
Unfortunately the way to activate these people is escalation. And there is no shortage of faux populist power hungry conservative guys that will try. It’s dangerous. The same way that Donnie Dumb Dumb kept “crossing uncrossable lines” with his racism and misogyny and “good people on both sides” stuff, power in the US is hanging there to be grabbed by someone that is willing to cross the next lines, and all the next lines are violence.
