I have used this analogy for the failing of the progressive movement to gain political traction and I think it fits your analysis as well.
Imagine two groups, the blues and the reds, who are sorting shapes each with red and blue dots on them. The blue group will only accept a shape that has absolutely no red dots. At first they exclude shapes with large or multiple red dots that are easy to see. However, after excluding those, they notice that some of the shapes they accepted have small red dots or just a couple of red dots. So those shapes gets excluded too. Eventually, the blues put shapes under a microscope to make sure that even those with red dots that are invisible to the naked eye get excluded.
The red group will accept any shape with a red dot, even if it has blue dots. At first most of the shapes they accept will have few blue dots. Over time, the shapes with both blue and red dots, having been excluded from the blue group will wander over to the red group and find themselves accepted.
Clearly the number of shapes in the red group is going to outnumber the shapes in the blue group. This is the result of the identity politics on the left with its insistence on ideological purity. It's great for self-righteousness but not great for winning an election.
I’ve read most of the replies here. After JA’s there’s a severe drop in thoughtful and introspective commentary. It makes it very clear to me why the 2024 election turned out the way it did.
I also think many intellectual elites misunderstood Trump because they spent more time psychoanalyzing him and his supporters than actually doing the difficult work of listening to them and taking their concerns seriously without judgment. In other words, the approach was too academic, too fixated on understanding “the other,” and too lacking in empathy.
This is absolutely true, but this year's miss by the intelligentsia is even more inexplicable, as this is the same mistake they made about Trump in 2016.
Why should anyone take vaccine skeptics' concerns, for example, seriously and without judgment?
What are the moral grounds for having empathy for those whose strongly held beliefs put the US population at risk of an increase in preventable diseases and the hospitalizations that go with them?
"Why should anyone take vaccine skeptics' concerns, for example, seriously"
Unfortunately, they will be taken MORE seriously next time. I was and am a believer in vaccines, including the Covid vaccines, and took mine per recommendations. But it is a FACT that very important people in the government lied to us about at least a few important things regarding Covid, most notably their insistence that the vaccine would stop the spread. As an aging Boomer, I have no regrets having taken the vaccine, but some young men might have reason to question their choice to take the jab. And because of their lies, Fauci & Co. have done damage to the reputation of government scientists that will take years, even generations, to repair.
No one “lied”. We lived through a world historical pandemic with a constantly mutating virus for which few were prepared. It’s easy in hindsight to say which decisions were better and which ones were worse but in the “fog of war” people mostly just made the best decisions they could at the time. Even Trump, who funded Operation Warp Speed, occasionally made a good decision.
Medical science can take years, even decades to really get a grasp on optimal diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Instead of seeing the entirety of the medical, public health and government Covid response as a failure I see it mostly as a pretty good given the inherent challenges that were presented.
Yes, Fauci lied. That's why he needs a pardon from Biden. The CDC acted more like the marketing department of some industry, rather than an impartial purveyor of unbiased information. CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, etc lied their asses off continually.
I live my life by the scientific method: What do I know for a fact; what do I think is likely; what do I believe although I can confirm nothing? I do this, while I see others unquestioningly accept whatever bullshit is thrown their way by whatever self-assured moron is the current "expert du jour."
We were lied to. A lot. And those who weren't deliberately lying, were so incredibly incompetent that they might as well have been lying.
Jason, I understand what you're saying, and in regards to the biggest piece of misinformation of the Covid mess (that the vaccine provided protection against transmission), I am willing to accept that what you're saying may apply. I guess the reason I am so quick to pin the word "LIE" is because, on at least one matter (the efficacy of masking) Fauci has admitted, point blank, that he lied. And so that undermines his credibility. Also, his denial that he knew we were funding gain-of-function research under questioning from Senator Paul just no longer holds up.
Yes, I’m more inclined to be charitable during a very complex period. And you know, there’s a responsibility for people to get their information from a variety of sources even though you’d hope that the most credentialed would be the most reliable. I’d also add that there’s a huge incentive for political actors to whip up a frenzy against their opponents and we seem to be in an era where there’s no limit to the accusations that get concocted for that purpose ex. pizzagate.
a) you don't believe they gave out information that proved to be incorrect, or
b) because you believe they did not know what they were saying was incorrect (and thus could not be said to be "lying", which assumes intent)?
If it's the latter, I suppose you might have a point because I cannot claim to be omniscient, and I should be more careful with my words. But if it's the former, that you believe no misinformation was given out, then I don't know what to say.
I also acknowledge that a) and b) are not the only possibilities, and I'm open to hearing alternative explanations.
Because truth is more of an amorphous concept than you seem to be conceding, and because some of those skeptics got some things right (like Jay Bhattacharya). Similarly, we shouldn't not listen to some progressives because they spread misinformation about nuclear power or gender affirming care (like John Oliver). We should meet people where they are and try to persuade them, just as we should be open to persuasion on the beliefs of ours that may not track the truth so well.
I have yet to hear what the plan is for storing nuclear waste safely. That, and not Three Mile Island, is the show stopper unless there's a breakthrough.
"I have yet to hear what the plan is for storing nuclear waste safely."
I was a small-time anti-nuclear power activist in the 1970s, years before Three Mile Island, and this was absolutely the most important issue in my opinion.
In the intervening years I have learned more. Now without a doubt waste has been handled irresponsibly (the Hanford site that I cited 50 years ago REMAINS an inexcusable source of contamination even today). But the biggest obstacle to safely storing nuclear waste is irrational fear. The Yucca Mountain site would absolutely meet all rational objections to the storage of waste, ESPECIALLY given the fact that a far more dangerous threat (climate change) awaits a solution. All energy sources come with risks, including the mining for solar panel ingredients (and the pollution that will come with disposing of said panels), fiberglass from wind turbines at sea may injure wildlife or the people who ingest broken pieces, and so on. But we recognize that the risks posed by solar and wind are minimal compared to what we get from them. Well, nuclear is a much better source of steady energy than either of those, and waste buried beneath the earth is far less likely to be a problem than the damage to the environment caused by mining lithium and cobalt. I've abandoned my fear of nuclear power, which, despite two major accidents in the Western world (TMI and Fukushima) have never killed anyone. More people have died while servicing wind turbines by falling off of them.
Obviously Chernobyl is the turd in the punchbowl. But its dangers were identified by western nuclear engineers years before the accident happened and we tried to warn them. I am confident that nuclear power in the West is safe as long as we keep their feet to the fire.
I don't expect this to convince you, Ollie; I'm just laying out how my position has evolved. I certainly empathize with your objection, but I've disembarked from that train.
My how you underestimate Trump LLP's attention to corruption and opportunities, personal opportunities for raking off Public Interest allocations and Biden's budgeting. Here's some of Trump LLP (Limited Liability Partners') 2016-2020 investigative paper trail:
"President Trump’s legacy of corruption, four years and 3,700 conflicts of interest later
January 15, 2021
Updated
April 14, 2021...."
Here's more of academically and non-profit investigative journalism documented and ready for litigation that got crowded off his vast docket of long current record of felonious indictments and record Executive In Chief convictions. Not to mention crowded out of sound-bite broadcast journalist which is where most U.S. citizens and voters get their share of democracy's pre-requisite: information. As in an informed citizenry:
Essay collection edited by CU Boulder anthropologists explores expanded notions of corruption in the Trump era
"Corruption in the political arena has commonly, if narrowly, been understood as exploitation of political, social or economic power for illicit financial gain, including bribery, extortion, influence peddling, graft and embezzlement."
“Contemporary tales of corruption in the United States have most often centered on how the wealthy exploit corporate power and tax regimes or how powerful politicians use their offices to retain power and secure private monetary rewards,” write University of Colorado Boulder scholars Donna M. Goldstein and Kristen Drybread, editors of a new anthology, Corruption and Illiberal Politics in the Trump Era (Routledge)."
"But Goldstein, professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Drybread, a long-time lecturer in anthropology, present an array of 15 essays that expand notions of corruption to include a wide array of political abuses of power, from illiberalism to the obliteration of norms, stacking courts, repression of opponents, police brutality, persistent racial inequities and a “corrosion of character” that prizes “avarice, individualism and short-term gain above collective well-being, and the future.”
“We’re trying to apply a taboo word, in many ways a strange word for some academics,” says Goldstein. “People in our volume redefine and expand the definition and try to overturn various background ideas about what corruption is.”
I won't lay on any more docs, this is just a sample of what is available in the record next time you find yourself in company of other Trump backers and voters discussing for a change the Public Interest and how it was served under Trump LLP and LLC compared with how HIS PRIVATE INTERESTS were served.
Thank heavens for publications like this. A voice of moderation and analysis freed from biased agenda pushing. Sometimes those of us with deep doubts about the continuation of democracy and our future in a world of polarization, need someone who sees the flaws in both the Left and the populist Trumpian right.
Continuation of democracy? Yes--I agree this is the most important thing. I cannot understand or accept how someone who believes in the continuation of democracy would tolerate or give any credence to a movement that lied about and active worked to overturn the results of a free and fair election. Is that part of populism too?
Trump should have been convicted by the Senate in 2021 and barred from office. But he wasn't. What I am slowly coming to realize is that most people of the political center (which is where I place myself) do not consider Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election results to be dispositive. I could NEVER vote for Trump because of what he did in the months following that election, and voted for Harris in 2024 despite the fact that I believe she is an idiot who participated in a coverup of Biden's inability to perform his duties. But MOST people on the center voted, I believe, with the 2020 election as the 9th or 10th most important issue on their list. I personally think the Left's social agenda, including transitioning of young girls, is what cost them the election, even more than the economy (despite what people told pollsters).
By my lights, the explanation is simple and powerful: Political scientists and the Democratic party obsessed about the man and failed to focus on the appeal of his positions. And those positions resonate deeply with the Libertarian mindset that really is at the base of a majority of American's most fundamental beliefs. Trump stole the middle from under the Democrats noses, and political scientists failed even to notice.
but poly sci prof's are just one voice, the Dems as a party should have prevented senile Joe Biden from running again. Trump would have been irrelevant if Dem upper management had gotten their shit together and dumped Biden, no PS prof needed, right?
I must disagree. I don't think Trump supporters are aspirational at all. If they were, they would already be working in the jobs that they resent and living in the cities that they believe are overrun with demons. I think a much better explanation for Trump is something Friedrich Nietzsche called “ressentiment.” Ressentiment is the feeling of powerlessness and resentment that society’s disgruntled “losers” feel toward the perceived “winners” – convenient and often imaginary scapegoats. I am no Nietzsche scholar (does anyone really get him?), but I believe that ressentiment today is a pervasive force in American politics on both sides of the political divide. Everyone feels aggrieved, and many – especially on the right – are convinced that their birthright has been stolen from them by sinister “elites.” It is a supreme irony that this was a central theme of J. D. Vance’s bestseller “Hillbilly Elegy.” Oh, and also, the Democrats had a terrible candidate and a pathetic platform. For more see https://charles72f.substack.com/p/why-kamela-lost-in-nine-simple-charts
I agree with you that Nietzsche's slave morality (from which ressentiment draws) can be seen in left and right, but I'd argue it's actually more a tool of the left these days. Nietzsche explicitly hated socialism in that it seemingly contradicted his notion of the Overman, an intellectually evolved, independent being--ideas like anti racism are obvious attempts to "equalize" society based on claims of victimhood. Although Trump is far from being an Overman (Daddy issues much?), he's probably closer than any top democrats: he does whatever the hell he wants and says what he wants.
Most top democrats, on the other hand, kowtow to their chosen interest groups and recite their land acknowledgments while (in at least many cases) being primarily interested in cultural and political power. It's dishonest. I'm no Nietzsche scholar either, but I thought his idea of slave morality involved couching one's morality in an apparent concern for the victims while being driven by power oneself. Master moralists, on the other hand, are honest in that they tell you they want power, they go after it, and are unapologetic about it.
Thanks for this. I pretty much agree. The radical woke left is thoroughly despicable and a danger to the Republic, although they have never attempted the violent overthrow of a free and fair election. I disagree that most Democrats kowtow to the woke left. Chris Murphy, Josh Schapiro, John Warner, my representative Chrissie Houlahan, and lots of others are pretty independent minded. All Republicans, however, are slaves to MAGA (except maybe Lisa Murkowski.) My big fear is that MAGA is just a front for evangelical theocracy. The 2025 plan points that way. Now THAT'S something Neitzsche would have deplored
Have you considered asking a Trump voter what he or she thinks? I think you have a better chance of getting closer to the truth then merely imagining what your Other is thinking.
I know plenty of Trump voters, some, alas, in my own family. Maybe it's just confirmation bias at work, but none of them makes me doubt the validity of what I wrote above. In particular, the irrational hatred of immigrants and the imaginary deep state (never mind that one of them spent a career in the defense department and now receives a generous pension from the deep state).
As a teacher of many immigrant children, my chief fear of Trump has always been deportation. If Trump can steer MAGa toward aspiration, resentment becomes less of a factor, doesn’t it? If he has lots he’s trying to accomplish other than scapegoating immigrants, that gives him cover to use “common sense” and deport criminals, while leaving hard-working, aspirational but undocumented, immigrants alone. Maybe
The aspiration can dilute the resentment and appeal to MAGA’s better angels.
From your keyboard to God's ears. I agree that his deportation threats are mostly a scare tactic. Trump is such a psychopathic sadist that he doesn't understand (or care) about the effect his threats have on hard working, good hearted people who just want a better life for themselves and their children.
I think you have done a good job capturing the moment.
When the emperor, our betters and overlords of both parties, forget that the people will always retain the ability to change emperors, strange things happen. Trump is a product of that over reach and has the potential to create a populist dynasty that will last until the new emperor forgets the lesson that got him possession of the purple.
The primary weakness of populism is that it has no foundational narrative, only a sense that things are not right. It is the task of the new emperor to translate that discontent into policies built on some solid ground. That last part may be the most difficult, pragmatism will not stand the test of time.
Excellent analysis, Yascha, particularly about Trump and co.'s understanding of people's needs and aspirations, e.g. of the Hispanics for Trump. What you left out is that Trump, I think, doesn't intend to do anything substantial to address these needs; or, if he does, what his group have proposed is unlikely to work, make the majority better off. With all due respect, I think you give too little attention to Trump's actual goals of money and personal fame; and, it appears of setting up a family dynasty in collaboration with a certain group of tech billionaires.
Thank you, Harold! This is all true. I try to focus on saying things that are new and add something to the conversation. Many people (including me) have made all of these points for many years to no avail; but though I personally don’t have another piece enumerating all of Trump’s well-known flaws in me, I do agree that they bear repeating.
Thanks for your reply. It's reassuring that you've not missed any of these points, and I do see the point of talking about 'what's new' in the evolving spectacle. Something like the early part of the 20th century, I expect, with its Palmer raids, and deportations, and the presence of vigilante actions like the burning of Rosewood, Fla.
and the same was believed of Harris, imo. The slight majority believed the country would go further to the left if she was elected & her promises made towards attracting those to the middle or those promises of home down-payments, etc., etc, were known to be empty promises...
I have no crystal ball (altho for Halloween I did dress as a gypsy w/ a crystal ball w/ the yr 2028 in it, looking towards the future, seeing a more sane election year), so I have no clue how the next 4 yrs will go, but my hope is that people will/can hope for the best. Support our country. Is that possible?
Trump is no great populist strategist as depicted here. He needed to win to stay out of jail, to create more money-making opportunities for himself, and to satisfy his narcissistic ago which which thrills at the thought "I'm the most powerful man in the world, and everyone has to acknowledge me as such and fear me"
So as the accomplished panderer that he is, he told every group what its members wanted to hear, And the suckers fell for it and voted for him. Thanking his new supporters in minority groups was just more insincerity. He will soon forget about them as he turns his attention to working on enriching himself and his new billionaire cronies, playing golf, etc.
I have read and listened to so much analysis now. There are many factors that contributed to Harris losing. But Trump would not have won without the inflation issue. He has acknowledged as much himself. Two different major exit polls (sorry I can't recall the responsible organizations, I think AP was one) found this to be the case. So many people who voted for him, including some of his new supporters among young black men, said that while in many ways they disliked Trump, they had more money in their wallets at the end of the week when he was president than they did under Biden. Trump repeatedly promised to bring prices down. None of these supporters bothered to ask any questions about HOW he would accomplish this or how he would deliver on his other promises , which often conflicted with each other.
your identification: "And the suckers fell for it" - let's emphasize the description of SUCKERS, did a lot to sway people, those idiot SUCKERS, to the right side. Those SUCKERS heard what the lefties were saying about them & decided they didn't like it. So those SUCKERS decided to go vote for the right.
I'm not a a leftie. And my characterization of these folks as suckers is an after-the-fact characterization. I specifically said that no one bothered to ask why we had inflation in the first place or how Trump proposed to hep them. They fell for his lies and empty promises. In my book, uncritical acceptance of wild promises makes you a sucker.
Interesting piece. What makes Trump so remarkable is that he is all the things they say he is - authoritarian, racist, pathologically narcissistic and transactional, dishonest, etc. - and yet, if you’re a person of any background or race who just wants to be self-sufficient he offers a more compelling vision, despite those things. That’s why I think the American left can’t get it bearings. They don’t see how Americans can make that calculation, but they have confused the abstract for the concrete.
For a lot of people, especially those who see themselves as self-made or self-reliant, Trump's being a fraudster - or worse - is a secondary issue. His libertarian streak on issues closer to home makes him preferable to the left, which wants to regulate the pocketbook, speech, identity, guns, etc. To be clear, I think this is shortsighted, but you can understand why many voters are going to default to caring more about issues that directly impact them over more abstract institutional and ethical questions.
This analysis makes the same mistakes the Democrats do -- the gaze of race. The over-shouting of "populism" is also old and tired.
This should help: it's about restoration of the Original America: freedom, individualism, small watchkeeper government, property (especially earnings and income.)
It is an utter rejection of the welfare state, the Administrative State, the deep state, the Progressive Project, fiat currency, planned inflation, deficit spending, open borders, hatred of and punitive taxation.regulation of capitalism, Cultural Marxism. And boys in girls' locker rooms.
Most of those who voted for Trump liked that he has said he will protect Social Security and Medicare, in contrast to what other Republican politicians have advocated for in past decades. Working class and middle class voters know that old age ss benefits are going to be crucial for them.
SS and Medicare can be reduced in cost without reducing benefits. The king of this razor-sharp productivity is Elon Musk. His famous motto? "The best part is no part."
seriously John D. , your last point cuts across so many demographics! My husband and I lean libertarian. We were at some dyed in the wool socialist friend's for dinner over the weekend, and the point everyone at the table agreed on? There are only 2 genders and screw they/them!
Restoring "original America" would be a reckless way of running a complex advanced post-industrial pluralistic democratic society as large as ours in which so many people are so disadvantaged. Who is going to protect the public from the rampant harmful unmitigated externalities that would characterize a society run on libertarian principles?
The restoration of capitalistic venture and productivity will diminish the number of "disadvantaged" Americans, and flush out those who have become professional victims. History has shown that political collectivism only produces equality of poverty. America has voted to dispense with it.
Yascha, this is an refreshing and stimulating perspective I agree with. Most important is to look at Trump as the symptom and not as the cause, i.e. the analysis why he won the popular vote this time has been neglected by a large part of the intellectual elites. To “blame” Trump’s success primarily on Musk/X, fake news, uneducated voters etc is close to silly.
do a bit of research & check out who paid for the Dems running the last many many years. They just might not have been as out in the open as this time around w/ Trump.
I spent years taking many of their concerns, which are legion, seriously. For my pains I got the incoherence of Jan. 6.
MAGA rides a very familiar wave among modern movements that arise and grow online. That is, they are far better at saying “no!” & spreading fear than they are at building up something programmatic and positive.
Exactly, the best job in the world is running for president when you and your family are already billionaires. For most people they can’t just take off 4 years to run for president but Trump doesn’t have anything better to do. And running for president you have no responsibilities and nothing is your fault and you can just complain the entire time when you don’t have to run a primary.
Trump won in 2016 because gasoline prices were too low and so a few cities in the Rust Belt that supplied fracking equipment had an economic slowdown while overall we were adding jobs. In 2024 Trump won because gasoline prices were too high in 2022. So gasoline prices aren’t high but people still thought gasoline prices were high. And America is by far the biggest oil and gas producer so high energy prices aren’t necessarily a bad thing for America like in 2008. Bottom line—when you can win by manipulating either side of an issue it means your party is better as messaging than the other party.
A great read, but I think any post-analysis makes no sense with Trump. He works like a mindless machine-learning algorithm: he says many things, checks what has worked, then makes a small step in that direction, and repeats. He does this cycle every day again and again, and makes his way through the crowds. There is no grand plan in there. The optimization goal: money, power, popular admiration.
The fact he went from promoting the booster to boos at his rallies to appointing RFK jr supports your comment. Republicans need leaders that will stand up to their voters when they want to slaughter innocent Muslims or reject a safe and effective vaccine…be careful what you wish for! The problem with the GOP is the voters…not the leaders.
It’s not the economy, stupid. It’s the identity. Identity politics and groups on the left are common and easy to identify, but Trump voters felt marginalized as well. They even felt punished for their privilege (which they never felt.) I asked my son why young men voted for Trump and he said ”Trump voters feel their identity is celebrated under trumpism.” Yeah. So that.
To put it another way, the Democrats aren't 'left' anymore. The US left is vestigial; the voices one hears are, instead, about identity politics, injustices, often real, but suffered by only 1% of the population. The young men voting for Trump will feel their white identities affirmed, but as in the old south, the poor remain that way; hungry but snug or smug about their identity.
White identities?? I'll ask you a similar question I asked another commenter that also seems to enjoy projecting an imaginary racist mindset on his Other. How many Trump voters have you actually talked to?
Yes, ‘whiteness’ issues are just one factor, though a big one, in Trump's 'populist' appeal. Hispanic males, for example may like his macho image and apparent cultural conservatism, not to mention his seeming ‘care’ about border and economic issues. Many Latinos, of course, don’t identify as white: Rubio supports Trump, not to speak of Enrique Tarrio, Proud Boy, just released from prison
Americas Society website had this to say from poll data:
//However, Trump’s share of the Latino vote is a major improvement from his first presidential campaign in 2016 where he only captured 28 percent of the bloc’s votes and in 2020 when he captured 32 percent.
Of course, the Latino vote is large and diverse—spanning backgrounds, geography, and socioeconomics. Still, Trump made gains across the board. Of particular note, Trump won 47 percent of votes among Latino men, according to AP projections. He also produced double digit gains in majority--Hispanic counties along the Mexico border in Texas and in Southern Florida. //
I think the diagnosis runs deeper. Democrats have filtered to be book smart without practical experience inventing, making, building, growing or fixing any real things. But instead of admitting it and surrounding themselves with the people having these skills, they created a defensive perimeter and lied to themselves that they either did not need it, or that they were good enough without it. Consequently they sucked at getting real things done. The voters see it now.
I’m sticking with my present best guess- he manipulates the frightened with lies. Confine him to reality and the truth, and he would have lost. Revisit his campaign speeches, and count the lies. As President Obama asked several times, without a response- When did that become ok?
Great off-handed dismissal of the valid comcerns of well over half the country. The prejudiced view that they are stupid and easily frightened and manipulated is why your tribe lost and will continue to lose.
I have used this analogy for the failing of the progressive movement to gain political traction and I think it fits your analysis as well.
Imagine two groups, the blues and the reds, who are sorting shapes each with red and blue dots on them. The blue group will only accept a shape that has absolutely no red dots. At first they exclude shapes with large or multiple red dots that are easy to see. However, after excluding those, they notice that some of the shapes they accepted have small red dots or just a couple of red dots. So those shapes gets excluded too. Eventually, the blues put shapes under a microscope to make sure that even those with red dots that are invisible to the naked eye get excluded.
The red group will accept any shape with a red dot, even if it has blue dots. At first most of the shapes they accept will have few blue dots. Over time, the shapes with both blue and red dots, having been excluded from the blue group will wander over to the red group and find themselves accepted.
Clearly the number of shapes in the red group is going to outnumber the shapes in the blue group. This is the result of the identity politics on the left with its insistence on ideological purity. It's great for self-righteousness but not great for winning an election.
Excellent point
Good description! Did you notice Donald Trump wore a PURPLE tie today???
I was too stoned to notice.... not!
I’ve read most of the replies here. After JA’s there’s a severe drop in thoughtful and introspective commentary. It makes it very clear to me why the 2024 election turned out the way it did.
I also think many intellectual elites misunderstood Trump because they spent more time psychoanalyzing him and his supporters than actually doing the difficult work of listening to them and taking their concerns seriously without judgment. In other words, the approach was too academic, too fixated on understanding “the other,” and too lacking in empathy.
I should have read this comment first because mine is largely duplicative. Well said.
This is absolutely true, but this year's miss by the intelligentsia is even more inexplicable, as this is the same mistake they made about Trump in 2016.
Why should anyone take vaccine skeptics' concerns, for example, seriously and without judgment?
What are the moral grounds for having empathy for those whose strongly held beliefs put the US population at risk of an increase in preventable diseases and the hospitalizations that go with them?
"Why should anyone take vaccine skeptics' concerns, for example, seriously"
Unfortunately, they will be taken MORE seriously next time. I was and am a believer in vaccines, including the Covid vaccines, and took mine per recommendations. But it is a FACT that very important people in the government lied to us about at least a few important things regarding Covid, most notably their insistence that the vaccine would stop the spread. As an aging Boomer, I have no regrets having taken the vaccine, but some young men might have reason to question their choice to take the jab. And because of their lies, Fauci & Co. have done damage to the reputation of government scientists that will take years, even generations, to repair.
No one “lied”. We lived through a world historical pandemic with a constantly mutating virus for which few were prepared. It’s easy in hindsight to say which decisions were better and which ones were worse but in the “fog of war” people mostly just made the best decisions they could at the time. Even Trump, who funded Operation Warp Speed, occasionally made a good decision.
Medical science can take years, even decades to really get a grasp on optimal diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Instead of seeing the entirety of the medical, public health and government Covid response as a failure I see it mostly as a pretty good given the inherent challenges that were presented.
Yes, Fauci lied. That's why he needs a pardon from Biden. The CDC acted more like the marketing department of some industry, rather than an impartial purveyor of unbiased information. CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, etc lied their asses off continually.
I live my life by the scientific method: What do I know for a fact; what do I think is likely; what do I believe although I can confirm nothing? I do this, while I see others unquestioningly accept whatever bullshit is thrown their way by whatever self-assured moron is the current "expert du jour."
We were lied to. A lot. And those who weren't deliberately lying, were so incredibly incompetent that they might as well have been lying.
Jason, I understand what you're saying, and in regards to the biggest piece of misinformation of the Covid mess (that the vaccine provided protection against transmission), I am willing to accept that what you're saying may apply. I guess the reason I am so quick to pin the word "LIE" is because, on at least one matter (the efficacy of masking) Fauci has admitted, point blank, that he lied. And so that undermines his credibility. Also, his denial that he knew we were funding gain-of-function research under questioning from Senator Paul just no longer holds up.
Yes, I’m more inclined to be charitable during a very complex period. And you know, there’s a responsibility for people to get their information from a variety of sources even though you’d hope that the most credentialed would be the most reliable. I’d also add that there’s a huge incentive for political actors to whip up a frenzy against their opponents and we seem to be in an era where there’s no limit to the accusations that get concocted for that purpose ex. pizzagate.
You lost me at "it is a FACT."
Is it because
a) you don't believe they gave out information that proved to be incorrect, or
b) because you believe they did not know what they were saying was incorrect (and thus could not be said to be "lying", which assumes intent)?
If it's the latter, I suppose you might have a point because I cannot claim to be omniscient, and I should be more careful with my words. But if it's the former, that you believe no misinformation was given out, then I don't know what to say.
I also acknowledge that a) and b) are not the only possibilities, and I'm open to hearing alternative explanations.
Because truth is more of an amorphous concept than you seem to be conceding, and because some of those skeptics got some things right (like Jay Bhattacharya). Similarly, we shouldn't not listen to some progressives because they spread misinformation about nuclear power or gender affirming care (like John Oliver). We should meet people where they are and try to persuade them, just as we should be open to persuasion on the beliefs of ours that may not track the truth so well.
I have yet to hear what the plan is for storing nuclear waste safely. That, and not Three Mile Island, is the show stopper unless there's a breakthrough.
"I have yet to hear what the plan is for storing nuclear waste safely."
I was a small-time anti-nuclear power activist in the 1970s, years before Three Mile Island, and this was absolutely the most important issue in my opinion.
In the intervening years I have learned more. Now without a doubt waste has been handled irresponsibly (the Hanford site that I cited 50 years ago REMAINS an inexcusable source of contamination even today). But the biggest obstacle to safely storing nuclear waste is irrational fear. The Yucca Mountain site would absolutely meet all rational objections to the storage of waste, ESPECIALLY given the fact that a far more dangerous threat (climate change) awaits a solution. All energy sources come with risks, including the mining for solar panel ingredients (and the pollution that will come with disposing of said panels), fiberglass from wind turbines at sea may injure wildlife or the people who ingest broken pieces, and so on. But we recognize that the risks posed by solar and wind are minimal compared to what we get from them. Well, nuclear is a much better source of steady energy than either of those, and waste buried beneath the earth is far less likely to be a problem than the damage to the environment caused by mining lithium and cobalt. I've abandoned my fear of nuclear power, which, despite two major accidents in the Western world (TMI and Fukushima) have never killed anyone. More people have died while servicing wind turbines by falling off of them.
Obviously Chernobyl is the turd in the punchbowl. But its dangers were identified by western nuclear engineers years before the accident happened and we tried to warn them. I am confident that nuclear power in the West is safe as long as we keep their feet to the fire.
I don't expect this to convince you, Ollie; I'm just laying out how my position has evolved. I certainly empathize with your objection, but I've disembarked from that train.
Very well said and dispositively right.
well said.
My how you underestimate Trump LLP's attention to corruption and opportunities, personal opportunities for raking off Public Interest allocations and Biden's budgeting. Here's some of Trump LLP (Limited Liability Partners') 2016-2020 investigative paper trail:
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/president-trump-legacy-corruption-3700-conflicts-interest/
Reports
Corruption
"President Trump’s legacy of corruption, four years and 3,700 conflicts of interest later
January 15, 2021
Updated
April 14, 2021...."
Here's more of academically and non-profit investigative journalism documented and ready for litigation that got crowded off his vast docket of long current record of felonious indictments and record Executive In Chief convictions. Not to mention crowded out of sound-bite broadcast journalist which is where most U.S. citizens and voters get their share of democracy's pre-requisite: information. As in an informed citizenry:
https://www.colorado.edu/asmagazine/2022/10/06/fifteen-scholars-weigh-trump-corruption
" Published:10/6/202210/6/2022
• By
Clay Bonnyman Evans
Essay collection edited by CU Boulder anthropologists explores expanded notions of corruption in the Trump era
"Corruption in the political arena has commonly, if narrowly, been understood as exploitation of political, social or economic power for illicit financial gain, including bribery, extortion, influence peddling, graft and embezzlement."
“Contemporary tales of corruption in the United States have most often centered on how the wealthy exploit corporate power and tax regimes or how powerful politicians use their offices to retain power and secure private monetary rewards,” write University of Colorado Boulder scholars Donna M. Goldstein and Kristen Drybread, editors of a new anthology, Corruption and Illiberal Politics in the Trump Era (Routledge)."
"But Goldstein, professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Drybread, a long-time lecturer in anthropology, present an array of 15 essays that expand notions of corruption to include a wide array of political abuses of power, from illiberalism to the obliteration of norms, stacking courts, repression of opponents, police brutality, persistent racial inequities and a “corrosion of character” that prizes “avarice, individualism and short-term gain above collective well-being, and the future.”
“We’re trying to apply a taboo word, in many ways a strange word for some academics,” says Goldstein. “People in our volume redefine and expand the definition and try to overturn various background ideas about what corruption is.”
I won't lay on any more docs, this is just a sample of what is available in the record next time you find yourself in company of other Trump backers and voters discussing for a change the Public Interest and how it was served under Trump LLP and LLC compared with how HIS PRIVATE INTERESTS were served.
Tio Mitchito
Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of ATONEment Seekers)
Media Discussion List\Looksee
Thank heavens for publications like this. A voice of moderation and analysis freed from biased agenda pushing. Sometimes those of us with deep doubts about the continuation of democracy and our future in a world of polarization, need someone who sees the flaws in both the Left and the populist Trumpian right.
🙏
Continuation of democracy? Yes--I agree this is the most important thing. I cannot understand or accept how someone who believes in the continuation of democracy would tolerate or give any credence to a movement that lied about and active worked to overturn the results of a free and fair election. Is that part of populism too?
Trump should have been convicted by the Senate in 2021 and barred from office. But he wasn't. What I am slowly coming to realize is that most people of the political center (which is where I place myself) do not consider Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election results to be dispositive. I could NEVER vote for Trump because of what he did in the months following that election, and voted for Harris in 2024 despite the fact that I believe she is an idiot who participated in a coverup of Biden's inability to perform his duties. But MOST people on the center voted, I believe, with the 2020 election as the 9th or 10th most important issue on their list. I personally think the Left's social agenda, including transitioning of young girls, is what cost them the election, even more than the economy (despite what people told pollsters).
The law needs to be changed
I'm sorry, Ken, but I spoke of a number of issues in my comment, so I'm unsure of what law you are speaking of.
By my lights, the explanation is simple and powerful: Political scientists and the Democratic party obsessed about the man and failed to focus on the appeal of his positions. And those positions resonate deeply with the Libertarian mindset that really is at the base of a majority of American's most fundamental beliefs. Trump stole the middle from under the Democrats noses, and political scientists failed even to notice.
but poly sci prof's are just one voice, the Dems as a party should have prevented senile Joe Biden from running again. Trump would have been irrelevant if Dem upper management had gotten their shit together and dumped Biden, no PS prof needed, right?
💯
Trump didn’t steal the middle. The democrats handed it to him on a silver platter with a bow on top. Prove me wrong.
I must disagree. I don't think Trump supporters are aspirational at all. If they were, they would already be working in the jobs that they resent and living in the cities that they believe are overrun with demons. I think a much better explanation for Trump is something Friedrich Nietzsche called “ressentiment.” Ressentiment is the feeling of powerlessness and resentment that society’s disgruntled “losers” feel toward the perceived “winners” – convenient and often imaginary scapegoats. I am no Nietzsche scholar (does anyone really get him?), but I believe that ressentiment today is a pervasive force in American politics on both sides of the political divide. Everyone feels aggrieved, and many – especially on the right – are convinced that their birthright has been stolen from them by sinister “elites.” It is a supreme irony that this was a central theme of J. D. Vance’s bestseller “Hillbilly Elegy.” Oh, and also, the Democrats had a terrible candidate and a pathetic platform. For more see https://charles72f.substack.com/p/why-kamela-lost-in-nine-simple-charts
Seems to me that both your insight and Yascha's can coexist.
I agree with you that Nietzsche's slave morality (from which ressentiment draws) can be seen in left and right, but I'd argue it's actually more a tool of the left these days. Nietzsche explicitly hated socialism in that it seemingly contradicted his notion of the Overman, an intellectually evolved, independent being--ideas like anti racism are obvious attempts to "equalize" society based on claims of victimhood. Although Trump is far from being an Overman (Daddy issues much?), he's probably closer than any top democrats: he does whatever the hell he wants and says what he wants.
Most top democrats, on the other hand, kowtow to their chosen interest groups and recite their land acknowledgments while (in at least many cases) being primarily interested in cultural and political power. It's dishonest. I'm no Nietzsche scholar either, but I thought his idea of slave morality involved couching one's morality in an apparent concern for the victims while being driven by power oneself. Master moralists, on the other hand, are honest in that they tell you they want power, they go after it, and are unapologetic about it.
Thanks for this. I pretty much agree. The radical woke left is thoroughly despicable and a danger to the Republic, although they have never attempted the violent overthrow of a free and fair election. I disagree that most Democrats kowtow to the woke left. Chris Murphy, Josh Schapiro, John Warner, my representative Chrissie Houlahan, and lots of others are pretty independent minded. All Republicans, however, are slaves to MAGA (except maybe Lisa Murkowski.) My big fear is that MAGA is just a front for evangelical theocracy. The 2025 plan points that way. Now THAT'S something Neitzsche would have deplored
Have you considered asking a Trump voter what he or she thinks? I think you have a better chance of getting closer to the truth then merely imagining what your Other is thinking.
I know plenty of Trump voters, some, alas, in my own family. Maybe it's just confirmation bias at work, but none of them makes me doubt the validity of what I wrote above. In particular, the irrational hatred of immigrants and the imaginary deep state (never mind that one of them spent a career in the defense department and now receives a generous pension from the deep state).
A fair point, but people sometimes do not voice what they are thinking inside.
As a teacher of many immigrant children, my chief fear of Trump has always been deportation. If Trump can steer MAGa toward aspiration, resentment becomes less of a factor, doesn’t it? If he has lots he’s trying to accomplish other than scapegoating immigrants, that gives him cover to use “common sense” and deport criminals, while leaving hard-working, aspirational but undocumented, immigrants alone. Maybe
The aspiration can dilute the resentment and appeal to MAGA’s better angels.
From your keyboard to God's ears. I agree that his deportation threats are mostly a scare tactic. Trump is such a psychopathic sadist that he doesn't understand (or care) about the effect his threats have on hard working, good hearted people who just want a better life for themselves and their children.
I think you have done a good job capturing the moment.
When the emperor, our betters and overlords of both parties, forget that the people will always retain the ability to change emperors, strange things happen. Trump is a product of that over reach and has the potential to create a populist dynasty that will last until the new emperor forgets the lesson that got him possession of the purple.
The primary weakness of populism is that it has no foundational narrative, only a sense that things are not right. It is the task of the new emperor to translate that discontent into policies built on some solid ground. That last part may be the most difficult, pragmatism will not stand the test of time.
Excellent analysis, Yascha, particularly about Trump and co.'s understanding of people's needs and aspirations, e.g. of the Hispanics for Trump. What you left out is that Trump, I think, doesn't intend to do anything substantial to address these needs; or, if he does, what his group have proposed is unlikely to work, make the majority better off. With all due respect, I think you give too little attention to Trump's actual goals of money and personal fame; and, it appears of setting up a family dynasty in collaboration with a certain group of tech billionaires.
Thank you, Harold! This is all true. I try to focus on saying things that are new and add something to the conversation. Many people (including me) have made all of these points for many years to no avail; but though I personally don’t have another piece enumerating all of Trump’s well-known flaws in me, I do agree that they bear repeating.
Thanks for your reply. It's reassuring that you've not missed any of these points, and I do see the point of talking about 'what's new' in the evolving spectacle. Something like the early part of the 20th century, I expect, with its Palmer raids, and deportations, and the presence of vigilante actions like the burning of Rosewood, Fla.
and the same was believed of Harris, imo. The slight majority believed the country would go further to the left if she was elected & her promises made towards attracting those to the middle or those promises of home down-payments, etc., etc, were known to be empty promises...
I have no crystal ball (altho for Halloween I did dress as a gypsy w/ a crystal ball w/ the yr 2028 in it, looking towards the future, seeing a more sane election year), so I have no clue how the next 4 yrs will go, but my hope is that people will/can hope for the best. Support our country. Is that possible?
Trump is no great populist strategist as depicted here. He needed to win to stay out of jail, to create more money-making opportunities for himself, and to satisfy his narcissistic ago which which thrills at the thought "I'm the most powerful man in the world, and everyone has to acknowledge me as such and fear me"
So as the accomplished panderer that he is, he told every group what its members wanted to hear, And the suckers fell for it and voted for him. Thanking his new supporters in minority groups was just more insincerity. He will soon forget about them as he turns his attention to working on enriching himself and his new billionaire cronies, playing golf, etc.
I have read and listened to so much analysis now. There are many factors that contributed to Harris losing. But Trump would not have won without the inflation issue. He has acknowledged as much himself. Two different major exit polls (sorry I can't recall the responsible organizations, I think AP was one) found this to be the case. So many people who voted for him, including some of his new supporters among young black men, said that while in many ways they disliked Trump, they had more money in their wallets at the end of the week when he was president than they did under Biden. Trump repeatedly promised to bring prices down. None of these supporters bothered to ask any questions about HOW he would accomplish this or how he would deliver on his other promises , which often conflicted with each other.
your identification: "And the suckers fell for it" - let's emphasize the description of SUCKERS, did a lot to sway people, those idiot SUCKERS, to the right side. Those SUCKERS heard what the lefties were saying about them & decided they didn't like it. So those SUCKERS decided to go vote for the right.
I'm not a a leftie. And my characterization of these folks as suckers is an after-the-fact characterization. I specifically said that no one bothered to ask why we had inflation in the first place or how Trump proposed to hep them. They fell for his lies and empty promises. In my book, uncritical acceptance of wild promises makes you a sucker.
That's it, inflation was a killer and probably why he maid gains among younger voters, Latinos and Blacks.
Interesting piece. What makes Trump so remarkable is that he is all the things they say he is - authoritarian, racist, pathologically narcissistic and transactional, dishonest, etc. - and yet, if you’re a person of any background or race who just wants to be self-sufficient he offers a more compelling vision, despite those things. That’s why I think the American left can’t get it bearings. They don’t see how Americans can make that calculation, but they have confused the abstract for the concrete.
Trump offers a more compelling vision? Trump is fraudster and anyone who believes he cares about other people and their futures is fooling himself.
For a lot of people, especially those who see themselves as self-made or self-reliant, Trump's being a fraudster - or worse - is a secondary issue. His libertarian streak on issues closer to home makes him preferable to the left, which wants to regulate the pocketbook, speech, identity, guns, etc. To be clear, I think this is shortsighted, but you can understand why many voters are going to default to caring more about issues that directly impact them over more abstract institutional and ethical questions.
This analysis makes the same mistakes the Democrats do -- the gaze of race. The over-shouting of "populism" is also old and tired.
This should help: it's about restoration of the Original America: freedom, individualism, small watchkeeper government, property (especially earnings and income.)
It is an utter rejection of the welfare state, the Administrative State, the deep state, the Progressive Project, fiat currency, planned inflation, deficit spending, open borders, hatred of and punitive taxation.regulation of capitalism, Cultural Marxism. And boys in girls' locker rooms.
Most of those who voted for Trump liked that he has said he will protect Social Security and Medicare, in contrast to what other Republican politicians have advocated for in past decades. Working class and middle class voters know that old age ss benefits are going to be crucial for them.
SS and Medicare can be reduced in cost without reducing benefits. The king of this razor-sharp productivity is Elon Musk. His famous motto? "The best part is no part."
With Musk I’m not sure which SS is being referred to now.
Haha!
Brilliant. A whip-smart rejoinder.
General comment: now that Donald Trump is not eligible for reelection, it appears that TDS is already mutating to MDS.
Musk Derangement Syndrome.
OK, you follow Musk right over the cliff. I'll stay right where I am.
seriously John D. , your last point cuts across so many demographics! My husband and I lean libertarian. We were at some dyed in the wool socialist friend's for dinner over the weekend, and the point everyone at the table agreed on? There are only 2 genders and screw they/them!
Restoring "original America" would be a reckless way of running a complex advanced post-industrial pluralistic democratic society as large as ours in which so many people are so disadvantaged. Who is going to protect the public from the rampant harmful unmitigated externalities that would characterize a society run on libertarian principles?
The restoration of capitalistic venture and productivity will diminish the number of "disadvantaged" Americans, and flush out those who have become professional victims. History has shown that political collectivism only produces equality of poverty. America has voted to dispense with it.
Yascha, this is an refreshing and stimulating perspective I agree with. Most important is to look at Trump as the symptom and not as the cause, i.e. the analysis why he won the popular vote this time has been neglected by a large part of the intellectual elites. To “blame” Trump’s success primarily on Musk/X, fake news, uneducated voters etc is close to silly.
Maybe it isn't populism. Maybe it was an old-fashioned con, paid for by billionaires.
I know this interpretation does not require a lot of heavy political theory, but spend a minute with it.
do a bit of research & check out who paid for the Dems running the last many many years. They just might not have been as out in the open as this time around w/ Trump.
Not sure "both sides" changes my point.
Also: "Do your research" has been a sanctimonious and tedious cliche of the online "thinkers" for too long.
Neither does it require that we take the MAGA mob's concerns seriously and without judgment. That's the best thing about that interpretation.
I spent years taking many of their concerns, which are legion, seriously. For my pains I got the incoherence of Jan. 6.
MAGA rides a very familiar wave among modern movements that arise and grow online. That is, they are far better at saying “no!” & spreading fear than they are at building up something programmatic and positive.
Exactly, the best job in the world is running for president when you and your family are already billionaires. For most people they can’t just take off 4 years to run for president but Trump doesn’t have anything better to do. And running for president you have no responsibilities and nothing is your fault and you can just complain the entire time when you don’t have to run a primary.
Trump won in 2016 because gasoline prices were too low and so a few cities in the Rust Belt that supplied fracking equipment had an economic slowdown while overall we were adding jobs. In 2024 Trump won because gasoline prices were too high in 2022. So gasoline prices aren’t high but people still thought gasoline prices were high. And America is by far the biggest oil and gas producer so high energy prices aren’t necessarily a bad thing for America like in 2008. Bottom line—when you can win by manipulating either side of an issue it means your party is better as messaging than the other party.
A great read, but I think any post-analysis makes no sense with Trump. He works like a mindless machine-learning algorithm: he says many things, checks what has worked, then makes a small step in that direction, and repeats. He does this cycle every day again and again, and makes his way through the crowds. There is no grand plan in there. The optimization goal: money, power, popular admiration.
The fact he went from promoting the booster to boos at his rallies to appointing RFK jr supports your comment. Republicans need leaders that will stand up to their voters when they want to slaughter innocent Muslims or reject a safe and effective vaccine…be careful what you wish for! The problem with the GOP is the voters…not the leaders.
It’s not the economy, stupid. It’s the identity. Identity politics and groups on the left are common and easy to identify, but Trump voters felt marginalized as well. They even felt punished for their privilege (which they never felt.) I asked my son why young men voted for Trump and he said ”Trump voters feel their identity is celebrated under trumpism.” Yeah. So that.
To put it another way, the Democrats aren't 'left' anymore. The US left is vestigial; the voices one hears are, instead, about identity politics, injustices, often real, but suffered by only 1% of the population. The young men voting for Trump will feel their white identities affirmed, but as in the old south, the poor remain that way; hungry but snug or smug about their identity.
White identities?? I'll ask you a similar question I asked another commenter that also seems to enjoy projecting an imaginary racist mindset on his Other. How many Trump voters have you actually talked to?
Yes, ‘whiteness’ issues are just one factor, though a big one, in Trump's 'populist' appeal. Hispanic males, for example may like his macho image and apparent cultural conservatism, not to mention his seeming ‘care’ about border and economic issues. Many Latinos, of course, don’t identify as white: Rubio supports Trump, not to speak of Enrique Tarrio, Proud Boy, just released from prison
Americas Society website had this to say from poll data:
//However, Trump’s share of the Latino vote is a major improvement from his first presidential campaign in 2016 where he only captured 28 percent of the bloc’s votes and in 2020 when he captured 32 percent.
Of course, the Latino vote is large and diverse—spanning backgrounds, geography, and socioeconomics. Still, Trump made gains across the board. Of particular note, Trump won 47 percent of votes among Latino men, according to AP projections. He also produced double digit gains in majority--Hispanic counties along the Mexico border in Texas and in Southern Florida. //
https://www.as-coa.org/articles/how-latinos-voted-2024-us-presidential-election
I think the diagnosis runs deeper. Democrats have filtered to be book smart without practical experience inventing, making, building, growing or fixing any real things. But instead of admitting it and surrounding themselves with the people having these skills, they created a defensive perimeter and lied to themselves that they either did not need it, or that they were good enough without it. Consequently they sucked at getting real things done. The voters see it now.
I’m sticking with my present best guess- he manipulates the frightened with lies. Confine him to reality and the truth, and he would have lost. Revisit his campaign speeches, and count the lies. As President Obama asked several times, without a response- When did that become ok?
Great off-handed dismissal of the valid comcerns of well over half the country. The prejudiced view that they are stupid and easily frightened and manipulated is why your tribe lost and will continue to lose.
Their concerns are valid. I think he capitalizes on them, and lies while doing it.
This is spot on. The frightened and resentful.
Recommend Rainmaker by Bruce.