IMO Trump will go down as exposing that human nature is still generally far more tribal and savage and unethical than I think many assumed, at least when conditions were raised in countries into the 1st world conditions.


I do not, for one minute believe that most of the people who would push Trump to deity level, or see him as an avatar of a deity, believe that. What I think happens is people backwards rationalize, in an 'ends justify the means' way that having Democrats and in particular Liberals run society is so bad and evil that it must be stopped at any cost and from their they accept that only a despot or tyrant would be willing to do the things necessary (over throw laws, jail and kill innocents who oppose) and as such they will support a tyrant as long as they believe most of his most heinous actions will be directed at those they oppose and they on balance, will get most of the benefits from the tyrant.









Of course it is possible that this man above and many like him are so blind and deceived but I think far better what I say above describes their journey.

Sadly i think there is no bigger single cohort of people anyone could raise other than to support a tyrant. I do not believe Jesus returning or any Gandi type character could rise such support and willingness to defy the law to bring about a 'better' world. I think human nature is such that the biggest cohorts in humanity will only rise up to support the worst amongst us which are tyrrants who will give them power at any cost.

Agree or disagree?

Does anyone think society is more comprised of the 'better angel' types

And no one should think this is relegated to a segment of outlier crazies.

We know that more than 100 US R-Congress people given just the thinnest veneer of an excuse where absolutely willing to destroy US democracy and overthrow the gov't to keep Trump in power.


All they needed was to be provided a framework, any framework, that they could point at as legitimizing their actions and in this case it was known fake Electors and a belief that 'as long as e all act, we can push this through'.

Find an excuse and a Tyrant and they gladly lined up behind him.

Realistically Trump hasn't exposed anything that wasn't already known. History is pretty long at this point so we know a lot.

I almost never say these words, but I agree with Lucky on this. OP just Cliff Clavining it up again. "RIP Rotten Tomatoes forums" - Geroge Carlin and Sgt. Schultz

IMO this says more about you than Trump or human nature or society.

I think what is knew is that I think many may have thought 1st world conditions achieved would civilize those more savage aspects towards the better, lest all that was gained, would be lost to despots.

Most of the history you speak to was either in far more war like evolving cultures or third world conditions.


It now seems to me that the push back from despotism only exists if you have people ascending to power who create a framework where thinking or stating any such thing will draw great disregard for the person. That society needs 'better angels' in that regard as society itself does NOT in fact embrace that but they can be PUSHED BACK from it, when Leaders basically shame them into it by laying out a framework that would label it as 'BAD" and anyone pushing it as also bad.

I think was is new that we have learned is that with almost no effort and just one tyrant willing to lead the charge the biggest segment in society will gladly jump on in zeal to push society into despotism.

Nothing.

But hopefully it has made people think bit more deeply about how dangerous polarisation is to democracy and what a bad mistake it is to rely on a centuries old piece of paper intrepreted by 'wise men'

That should read "we could know a lot" but otherwise I think that the point is correct.

What Trump reminded people of that the old authorities all knew was the danger that a demagogue poses to a democratic society, even a seemingly stable and prosperous one.

This also the best defense for something that has become more and more derided by supposed experts for centuries now, the preservation of aristocratic traditions within a society. E.g. respect for hierarchy, restraint, refined manners, etc.

To be fair to Cuepee, one of the narratives (it's sort of a meta narrative) is that everything was going just fine and we almost had utopia, and then Trump came along and stirred up a bunch of racism and other problems and became a huge threat to "democracy", and there have I'm sure been many articles in places like The Atlantic in the same vein as the OP.

Trump was always good for clickbait material, and if he did one thing that did change the landscape it would be how he ran a national campaign in 2016 and how he got an unprecedented amount of free coverage in it. His 2016 campaign is one that should certainly be studied in that way. Otherwise he did now show anything new to the human condition. World got lucky that he was so incompetent and stupid, so I guess that can be taken as a warning, though people rarely learn from their mistakes. Derps still tried to party in 2020 and 2022 like it was 2016. Hopefully they will do that in 2024.

For me it showed that the momentum in cultural / political revolutions and counter-revolutions have become absolutely massive. You can be as reasoned and factual as you want, you're getting mowed down if you try to stand in their way.

As political phenomena, these things are completely impervious to argument or fact. Those things only exist insofar as the participants in these movements are actually willing to use them or concede them.

Yes, as political debaters, most of us here probably knew that the relationship between fact, ideology and rhetoric has always been fraught. But come on... did people here really think that a president would sit in front of a national audience with a weather-map corrected by sharpie in order to pretend he did not previously make an error when referring to hurricane predictions? That literally millions of supporters would not even blink? That a sizeable portion of them would even go to great lengths to argue why he was not wrong?

I think it is more important than ever for ideology to be individual and introspective, not tied to a movement, group or person. Perhaps that is a fluffy and naive ideal in the time of 2-minute news cycles and social media mobs, but I think it is the only one that can get us out of this mess.

Crazy thing is they would have been fine with the sharpie thing even if he was wearing a tan suit.

I don't know if bringing up history as an example of people being deranged by appealing maniacs is a good take; something along the lines of "it has happened before". 80 years ago the standard for morality in first world countries was way lower than today's: you can't compare people blindly following someone in the present day to people doing it almost a century ago.
I don't think it's hyperbolic to say Trump is probably one of the most nefarious political figures in the history of the USA. To my knowledge he's the first American president who didn't commit to a peaceful transfer of power, that alone is orders of magnitude worse than most of the things a president can do to undermine democracy.

the only issue i would push back on is that i believe people in 1st world societies, like the US, would not, IMO, have believed a demagogue like Trump could rile enough people from their cozy upper middle class lives to really pose a threat.

The idea 'people start having too much to lose to push for anarchy or a dictator when the status quo is serving them so well'.

I think what you say people understood theoretically but if you made them bet if a Trump like figure, using words only could inspire a real effort towards insurrection and over throwing democracy, when few people will drive a couple extra blocks to save a few dollars on groceries, I think the smart money was all betting against it. Especially those hopping on private jets to overthrow the government.

I stand by my view that Trump exposed to us that Human nature is still far more susceptible to this type of thing, even in times of 1st world comfort.


Perhaps there is a cycle to this. Poor downtrodden, 3rd world countries are very prone. Emerging nations in their build up phase (the US for most of 1900's) are too focused on 'getting mine' are less prone. Maturing 1st world nations where people are getting too cozy and fat with not enough real challenges in life start to become more prone to it again???

Good post.

The more I think about the last point in my last post, the more I think there is probably a strong correlation. Nothing ground breaking as the 'rise and fall of nations' is long studied and there is a strong correlation to mature successful nations eating themselves once comfort is achieved and outward enemies pose no real perceived threats.

Could a Trump like figure have done anything similar in the 1950's as most people were just focused on building their MC wealth and the gov't had its list of outside enemies? I think probably not. I think Trump like figures emerge out of decay or decadence but not so much in the period in between.


I am curious if your historical eye would agree with that or if you can see examples in the past that show that as off base??

I still think Trump just picked the right time as so many in the middle class and lower class feel both parties abandoned them. I think this started with the passage of NAFTA . I think it still exists and they are not wrong either

I was watching Smerconish this morning and his viewer poll was "Will Trump rebound politically from his latest setbacks" 87% said no

Trump was definitely riding the sentiment of 'change' which Obama, Trudeau and a slate of super Young new Prime Ministers and top politicians rode to success in Europe on.


People on both sides were increasing tired of being forced into the same vote over and over which was a 'Lesser of Two evils', where they did not like or generally respect either side of the voting ledger. You had large numbers of people who just were not finding the motivation to get up and vote and a big percent holding their nose to vote.

Trump, like Obama, and these young European PM's rode in promising to swing the power back to the people, and since they were mostly outsiders with thin actual records they were able to get the voters to believe them, or at least make a 'hope' based vote.


By Trumps run for the second term he lost any belief that he was 'for the people' but he still maintained a big part of that original vote who preferred a nihilist approach of 'burn the whole crooked system down' to a return to the 'Lesser of Two evil' system. They lost obviously as record amounts of people were riled to again rise up to vote for the lesser evil, recognizing Trump was such an evil, he might actually destroy the future of the country.

I will predict and bet that as soon as we go back to more standard 'Lesser of two evil elections", where it is the typical threat of simply the right giving more money to the Rich and Corporations, we will see Dem voter turnout plummet. I think a DeSantis/Biden battle, should it happen, will demonstrate just that as Dems will not be able to find the energy for that old type fight anymore.

Part of the issue with discussions like this is that most narratives about Trump are complete bullshit.

People still buy into this idea that Trump was some outsider wannabe fascist dictator, instead of him being exactly the ruling class that he was purportedly against.

A lot definitely has gone into maintaining that narrative-- Russiagate, impeachment, January 6th etc. But it was all for a purpose, which was pretty much to destroy the left-- which they've done.

Conservatives think that the left runs things, but what Trump achieved (and what is basically genius about the idea), is that he got those who might be inclined to go left, to get fully behind this proxy war with Russia, with supporting institutions like the CIA and FBI, to get behind online censorship, to get behind an increased focus on race, support for mainstream media,-- and basically everything that the right (the actual right not the cultural right) supports. It's working out quite well.

I do not know if the word 'most' is accurate there but certainly 'some' are.



he was definitely this.



He undenyable became this when he realized he was going to lose.

He was definitely part of the ruling class but unlike most others in the ruling class he was willing to risk breaking all sorts of laws to gain Putin like power in the US. So you cannot call him 'exactly the ruling class'.



all factual proven and justified.


I think it is more simple than that. The Right knows the best way to loot the Country's wealth is whip up culture wars and flame wars to incite polarizing passions so few people focus on the coming Bills that will continue to push wealth up, and target gutting SS, Medicare, etc.

If Trump did not pose a legit Putin like fascist threat, which would be harmful to the Elite' earning potential as Trump established an Oligarch class, who all are in fealty to him, they would gladly allow him whipping up the country to civil war, so they, the elite, could loot the treasury.

People don’t like politicians

I think there have been plenty of examples of a corrupt person getting elected, then manipulating the population through lies and fear-mongering to build a minority, but rabid support base that was willing to ignore laws in order to keep him power. One who over time discredits all the existing institutions and media to erode the publics faith in them and to justify consolidating power with him.

What I think Trump did was make people see that this phenomenon was no longer simply a possibility in poorer, underdeveloped countries with no long-established tradition of democracy. As unthinkable as it once was, people realize now that it can happen in the US as well, and that our institutional safeguards against it happening are not as strong or solid as they were believed to be. We came very close to having our democracy overthrown, much closer than anyone thought was possible. IMO Trump got people to realize that the unthinkable was now a very real possibility.

Nah.

You first have to have a democracy for it be overthrown. Overthrowing democracies is something that the US does to other countries.

Why do you think we don't have a democracy?

Because we live in an oligarchy and you can't have both simultaneously.

It's not to say that we don't have competing factions within the oligarchy. Those are Goldman and Citi.