When one is going through a first-hand learning experience about fascism (e.g. GQP era America as opposed to learning from historical accounts about say Nazi-ism), IMO the first step is getting past "I can't believe they're being so hypocritical about xyz', then one understands that fascists enjoy the power imbalance of "rules for thee, not for me" (aka. hypocrisy is a virtue/feature), but there's a facet of fascism that's been playing out for a while now that I haven't completely got my head around, e.g.:
The actor and director might be as well known for his film work as for his racist and antisemitic rants.
www.vanityfair.com
Putting the obvious out of the way, being that Trump supporters cannot be unaware of the fact that most of the sentences that come out of Trump's mouth these days are not coherent, nor has he shown any sign of being intelligent his entire life, I'm wondering how best to explain the phenomenon.
My wife suggested that it's just projection, but my feeling is that those who project tend to want to earnestly and openly argue their case whereas Trump supporters usually want to do the opposite, it's a talking point to blurt out and then run in the opposite direction.
One thing it makes me think of is the 'power of lying' scene out of 'Sin City' but I fail to see what his supporters get out of it:
Maybe what they think they get out of it is rather like how some people feel like they need to vote for who's going to win and so therefore by extension they too are winning?
I've never read "
The Emperor's New Clothes" but reading the summary on wiki makes me think of that, but again I'm not seeing for myself the connection between feeling the need to participate in a lie because I guess it would require one's peers to be doing the same thing. Arguing a point in a logical argument was a normal thing for me to grow up with in my family so I haven't much felt the need to shut up to fit in, but also I've never lived in America.
Thoughts?
I am apprehensive about visiting my brother in Nevada for Turkey Day, but we've so far avoided speaking much on the topics of concern. He tried to tell me two weeks ago that Trump went to Harvard, but he's been supporting the criminal since 2015. How do you identify a "low-information" voter? Various ways, if you can understand what I just described.
Today, I went to lunch with a friend. Forgot my hearing aids, and the restaurant seemed empty. I was explaining my views, and I"d always had a loud voice anyway. Two Trumpers, on leaving, implied they were offended. I won't go into to detail as to what I said, but suffice that I couldn't believe people were all worried about inflation and other issues when they might elect a lifetime criminal.
Perhaps that's something Trump has in common with Stalin (former bank-robber) and Hitler (served time, I think, for the Beer-Hall Putsch).
One of the points I was making to my friend: They live in an echo-chamber which deliberately distorts news and limits access to facts. One of the two parties leaving -- a woman -- tired to tell me I'm "not getting the full story in news, because Trump never said he supported 'Project 2025'". I restrained myself from shouting, but said "OF course not. The man is a consummate liar, but those around him wrote the book."
My brother just says "you can call me a fascist or a racist . . . but I don't care . . . "
Was it Mark Twain who said "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes."?
The Trump supporters may often react to the label "fascist" by making the comparison with Nazi Germany a matter of death camps and other crimes. Many people are ill-informed or even ignorant.
But it often involves an alignment of industries (think IG Farben in Germany), or an upper-tier social class (whereas they often deny the existence of "classes"), or a disgruntled population of fancifully aggrieved individuals. The underlying principle is to ignore the Truth and revel in Lies.
Generally, you cannot effectively tell ignorant people that they're ignorant, unless you have a simple basis of Truth -- as if I were to call my brother's attention to the fact that he'd supported Trump for 8 years and didn't seem to know much about him. And generally -- I concluded this definition myself -- an ignorant person who refuses to admit he's ignorant is just stupid, and -- of course -- you cannot easily inform some person that he's stupid and get him to accept it as likely or factual.
As a former teacher of high-school and then college students, I had enough experience to evaluate Trump on the basis of the coherence of his delivery and the type of delivery he makes. More often than otherwise, he "speaks from the hip", making impromptu statements. There is no organization. He uses his celebrity experience to say what pleases his audience. He is not very articulate, using language that appeals to people with limited understanding of their own language or civil language in general. But when he speaks from a teleprompter, he's a dead giveaway: his delivery is punctuated by pauses and deep-inhalation. It indicates someone with a lower level of reading skill. That is, reading from the teleprompter gives him some stress, thus the breathing and pauses. So I estimate that he reads at the 9th or 10th grade level. This would explain his less-than-stellar college career at an institution that received large donations from Fred Trump Sr.
So it stands to reason that supporters of a fascist ignoramus like Trump would not attach any importance at all to his 94 indictments and 34 convictions in terms of "Rule of Law" and accountability. They will always step up to deny Trump's fascism. His sociopathy? They think that this aspect -- hand-in-hand with narcissistic disorder -- is some inconsequential jargon and attempt to smear their Fuhrer. It shows again an unwillingness and cognitive level of incomprehension -- therefore -- indifference.
MY theory is that they hate the America in which they live, in which they've grown up. They've invented reasons to whine and gripe. This isn't the "Greatest Generation" of my departed Mother's era -- people who were willing to work together and follow the duly-elected leadership and especially -- to make sacrifices, to get drafted and maybe killed, to accept rationed gasoline and the limitations coming out of the Great Depression.
American can't be "Great Again" with this sort of voting public, and it certainly cannot be "Great Again" to elect a leader who frightens Ukraine and a good part of Easter Europe.
Here, we're just preaching to the choir. I'm glad those two Chuckleheads at the restaurant overheard me having a discussion with my dentist -- an intelligent person. I'm glad I made them upset enough to cause them to leave the premises. I'm unhappy that my friend was there to be embarrassed a bit by their remarks, or just feel uncomfortable because I had a loud voice or forgot my hearing aids.
Anyway, we can call Trump supporters' approach to things "hypocritical", but I call it delusional.
At this point, I care less about policy or the alarming plan of Project 2025. Trump is deranged, possibly showing signs of dementia now, and he's a serious criminal. His supporters just can't wrap their heads around the document thefts as serious compromise to National Security, and they think the Insurrection was just a group of people touring the Capitol.
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