The Grand Illusion
As I cited earlier, a recent Gallup poll found that while 85% of respondents reported that they were doing well, only 17% of those same respondents thought the United States was doing well. This apparent irrationality permeates the entire electorate, but especially the Trump supporters.
Donald Trump has declared bankruptcy something like six times, been found guilty of 34 counts of business fraud, been found guilty of tax fraud, increased the national debt by $8.4 trillion (compared to $4.3 trillion for Biden), stiffed contractors who worked for him, and fired people who worked for him on a whim, yet almost half of the United States thinks he’ll do better with the economy than a woman who has risen from nothing to Vice President… and never declared bankruptcy.
Trump has called the 1,800 Marines killed at Belleau Woods in WWI “suckers,” stated that the Presidential Medal of Freedom was better than the Congressional Medal of Honor because most of the Medal of Honor winners got killed, declared that Senator John McCain, after 5 ½ years of being tortured, “was not a war hero” because “I like people who weren’t captured,” and avoided military service during the Vietnam era through deferments and “bone spurs.” He later stated that “Only suckers went to Vietnam.” He impugned many of the high-ranking officers who served under him when he was president and declared that “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had, people who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.” He even said that if the election didn’t turn out the way he wanted, he’d use the military to set things right (apparently forgetting that on election day, he wouldn’t be in charge of the U.S. military forces).
Yet far too many people are willing to elect Trump as Commander-in-Chief, conveniently ignoring his long history of belittling the military, from the lowest-ranking soldiers and sailors to the most senior officers, and his total lack of understanding of military capability and culture.
SO WHY DO SO MANY AMERICANS SUPPORT THIS IRRATIONALITY?
Because technology and globalization have destroyed the comparatively higher-paying semi-skilled jobs of the 1950s and 1960s, and American industry can’t afford those pay rates for semi-skilled work in a global economy, and nothing will change that.
Because, for every bright and capable woman who gets a high-paying job, too many Americans believe there’s a man who doesn’t (ignoring the fact that he’s less capable).
Because, for every minority who struggles and succeeds, they believe there’s some white male who likely doesn’t.
For every woman who wants control of her body, there’s a man who doesn’t want her to have that control.
For these reasons, and quite a few others, a significant segment of U.S. society wants to destroy or drastically cut back the current system, and they see (consciously or unconsciously) Trump as the way to do it. But Project 2025 is effectively a blueprint for restoring white wealthy corporate dominance, not for restoring a past that never was.
Trump won’t totally destroy the system; he’ll only make it less fair, less fiscally sound, more fragile, and far more accommodating to the rich and powerful… and, in the process, increase the hate, anger, and polarization while blaming everyone else for doing so.
But his supporters don’t care… and won’t or can’t listen to facts or logic. In the spirit of the old movie Network, they’re mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore, even as they try to burn down the nation around them.
I think the fundamental reason isn’t anything to do with trump. It’s to do with the artificial two party system entrenched in US politics. Over 40% of the population will vote for their tribal group, regardless of who is in charge. They’ll never vote for the other team. Only 10-20% of voters ever change, and the key voters are the 1% in a handful of states. The rest don’t matter.
Trump is the Republican candidate, he gets the vote. Because no matter what happens it’s better than a Democrat getting in again. Because every Republican voter can point at an example of something terrible a democrat did and use that as justification. And vice versa.
A plague on both their houses.
“Let that party [the Jeffersonian Republicans] set up a broomstick, and call it a true son of Liberty, a Democrat, or give it any other epithet that will suit their purpose, and it will command their votes in toto!”
– George Washington
People want the economy of the 1950s back, as you said. But even aside from globalization and technology, there’s the simple fact that the US was the only industrialized country not to get its industry damaged or destroyed by WWII.
So, sure, having the whole planet for a market, with no real competition, that was fun while it lasted. But it’s over.
And electing a boneheaded buffoon won’t bring it back.
“… SO WHY DO SO MANY AMERICANS SUPPORT THIS IRRATIONALITY? …”
People may engage in irrational thinking to justify blaming others. Maybe the answer is in this analysis of why humans “blame”?
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3837204/#:~:text=It%20is%20less%20often%20remarked,they%20do%20not%20deserve%20it.
Abstract: I clarify some ambiguities in blame-talk and argue that blame’s potential for irrationality and propensity to sting vitiates accounts of blame that identify it with consciously accessible, personal-level judgements or beliefs. Drawing on the cognitive psychology of emotion and appraisal theory, I develop an account of blame that accommodates these features. I suggest that blame consists in a range of hostile, negative first-order emotions, towards which the blamer has a specific, accompanying second-order attitude, namely, a feeling of entitlement – a feeling that these hostile, negative first-order emotions are what the blamed object deserves.
Warning: – Philosophy mixed with Psychology of the type often used by Attorneys to deal with the concept of “Intent”!
I was reading a number of pithy aphorisms from the conservative / libertarian 1920’s columnist H.L. Mencken, many of which resonate even more with the events of today than they did with his own times:
o “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
o “The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.”
o “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
o “The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.”
o “On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”