Him thinking that the people at those rallies were poor white people is completely absurd. Trump rallies are anime conventions for old white people. They’re expensive, time-consuming and allow people to cosplay as the American flag.
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Just because these nimrods look poor to people like the author doesn’t mean they actually are poor. We’ve been over this, F-150s are like $65k.
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But surely if they had money they would choose a lifestyle identical to my affluent lifestyle. That’s just common sense.
Anyway, I couldn’t make it through that article, which is complete and utter shit. Just another diner piece that justifies Trump supporting pieces of shit using the same tired tropes: the game is rigged against them and they know it (economic anxiety!) and smart people are too mean to them.
Fuck that. It is and always has been the racism. It’s that simple. The pathological need of the media to avoid just calling racist white people assholes has spawned an entire genre of absolving Trump voters. Enough.
Maybe dumb people deserve to have smart people being mean to them.
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I don’t really disagree, but I do think it’s even worse than the racism, it’s a catastrophic feedback loop of racism → scolding → opportunistic fascists poking their lizard brains → deeper panicky racism, and on and on the wheel goes until the democracy fails or these people are simply crushed by the weight of democracy.
Edit: Naturally the scolding is justified, but if you don’t protect against the opportunistic fascists with strong institutions then the scolding is self defeating. That’s the problem - people are not wrong to be mean to dumb racists, but people have been very, very wrong about the need to maintain resilient and well run institutions. Exhibit 101 is journalism as an institution, allowing journalism to descend from The Fourth Estate seriousness to “Is this the Onion?” absurdity was kind of a mistake in retrospect.
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My brother in law is a local freight driver, dumb as a pile of rocks, lives in a town more than an hour from a real city, probably makes $60k, and yet has a new F-150 or equivalent every year and pays $500+ a month or whatever on it IDK. Point is its not hard for any dipshit american to have a “good” new truck all the time as long as they can hold down a job in a ridiculously rich country that has a lot of revolving credit. I’m sure he’s net worth poor as fuck.
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Making 60k means you aren’t poor
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Especially not if you live out in Bumblefuck, OH.
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eh? Depends on his nut and net worth right? Again this guys net worth is nothing, no equity in his shitty house, pays a shit ton for his car and other nonsense. If you spend everything you take in and take on debt, you’re poor.
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Didn’t we have this argument with wil back in the day? If you’re spending lots of money on fancy trucks and AR-15 accessories, you’re still not poor, even if you’ve badly mismanaged your finances.
The main point is, the real “forgotten Americans” living in rural poverty aren’t driving shiny new trucks off to Trump rallies.
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Oh good, we’re going to debate who is TRULY Rich and who is TRULY Poor. This time we’ll settle it for sure!
BUT GUYS BUT GUYS $100,000 IN MANHATTAN ISNT EVEN THAT MUCH I AM VERY SMART!
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Maybe, but I’m sure my BIL puts himself in that category, justified or not, since he “struggles” every month to pay for the shitty, shitty decisions he’s made. Can almost guarantee if you go to a former guy rally and walk around the parking lot you won’t see many jalopies.
Isn’t the simple statistic that the median Trump voter income was 70k in 2016?
Although we still haven’t got a lot of reliable voting data from 2020 yet, I do believe they picked up a ton of poor whites with conspiracy theories and racism that didn’t really give a fuck about voting before.
Sorry if I’m opening old wounds or something but again this guy thinks he’s the depressed downtrodden real American for sure.
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This is all of a piece. The people making terrible short term consumerism choices are prime targets for the “its not your fault its the immigrants” fascists.
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My theory is that Trump picked up a lot of single-issue anti-mask voters who don’t normally vote and it will be interesting to see how many of them stick around in future elections.
Sure, but the bulk of the Trump base are upper-middle class white guys cosplaying as rural poor by buying giant trucks and assault rifles that cost $1,600+. The whole “forgotten man” thing has always been a farce.
Oh 100% agree, it’s always been about the culture war and not economic anxiety. Even the new broke people they picked up aren’t voting because of economics, it’s conspiracy, racism, and the culture war/white grievance.
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I hear what your saying, I think the nit picky point that arises when we use casual language like this is that the bulk of Trump’s voters AND the bulk of Uncle Joe’s voters are BOTH below upper class because of simple demographics. The BUT ACTUALLY technically correct (the best kind of correct!) statements are all relative, i.e. Donnie Dumb Dumb has proportionally more support from higher earners.
I think the general point still stands that the fervent Donnie Dumb Dumb base includes way more well off dipshits than these Redneck Safari pieces let on.
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