The MAGA cult explained

So basically Democrats are more evil because you disagree with views you perceive they hold.

I’m not a big fan of the word evil - because it has a POV. Republicans by and large are in thrall with Donald Trump. Some actually like him, and others fake like they like him. I’m not sure how you conclude that such a group is more moral.

Hitler and people supported him viewed their opponents as immoral and evil.

 

So no one should own and drive a truck other than for work purposes? Is that your point (as well as the authors')?

 

Yeah, one of many things that people shouldn't have unless they have a good reason. I know Americans love their freedom to consume without care but there is a price to that, and the rest of the world pays for it.

 

Some people may be "in thrall" with Trump, but that also could suffer from the critique you put forward as coming from a certain POV. For hypothetical purposes, lets grant the possibility that you are right about this. I'll even be so generous to grant you that every single person who voted for Trump in the primary is "in thrall" with him. Going off of that, if we were to put an upper limit on the proportion of Republican leaning voters who are "in thrall" with Trump we are talking about 50% IMO. I arrived at that number by looking at the earliest primaries before the other Republican primary candidates dropped out. That is about the percentage that voted for Trump when the Republican primary races were wide open. So a little over half of the Republican voting base would prefer Trump as their first choice. I think the number "in thrall" with DJT is well below 50% because that is the percentage that preferred him as their first choice. Those "in thrall" with him are a subset of that 50% IMO. I still think that is a sizeable percentage, but we talking about a subset of 25% of the US population IMO. Maybe 15% would be my estimate.

Nonetheless, I think there is a tendency in human nature to look down on "the sinners," and say "Well, thank goodness I am not like those sinners." Historically, we have seen this sort of thing in politics. You mentioned Hitler as an example, and you mentioned that Hitler viewed his opponents as immoral and evil. Communism was one of the groups Hitler and the fascists considered to be evil. Would you not consider Joseph Stalin to be an evil person? I think we all should be able to recognize that Stalin, Lenin, and Marx were evil. The fact that Hitler recognized such people as evil does not bring that into question or refute it.

Communists were extremely anti-fascist, and fascists were extremely anti-communist. Their hatred for one another blinded both groups to the evil within their own ranks. That is the point where I would challenge you. Retreating from calling anything evil because both fascists and communists called things evil would be a step in the wrong direction for both communists and fascists. Such a retreat actually enables evil to advance with less resistance because we downplay its existence. That is like being at war with an enemy and not even acknowledging that the enemy exists. Has a country ever won a war against an enemy without even acknowledging its existence? No, I don't think so. History is probably full of examples of countries that lost wars because they failed to square up the enemy and acknowledge them for who they truly are. Learn the lesson of the Trojan Horse. If you bring the enemy into your city as an object of adoration, then you will fall to that enemy.

The biggest lesson of history from the 1900s is not that evil is a POV. The lesson to be learned from the 1900s is that if evil is not recognized for what it truly is then people will become enthralled by it. They will bow down and worship that evil as a false idol. Then that false idol will consume them, enslave them, and it will take everything from them. Eventually, it will destroy them. That is what happened in the 1900s.

Where I would disagree with your comparison of Trump to Hitler is this:

Hilter : Fascism :: Trump : ???

Trump is a man. He has a well documented history of sexual infidelity. Hitler was a man who also had a well documented history of sexual infidelity. Bill Clinton also had a history of sexual infidelity. However, Hitler was the banner carrier for fascism and everything that came with it: eugenics, antisemitism, etc. He arrested pastors and did not believe in religious freedom.

Do you actually believe that a holocaust is going to break out if Trump becomes POTUS? Do you think Trump is going to round up minorities and send them to incinerators and gas chambers? Do you think Trump is going to start a campaign of Arian world conquest if he becomes POTUS? Do you think Trump is going to arrest pastors who disagree with him? Do you think Trump is going to round up all of the fire arms from society so no one can resist his plan to subjugate everyone to his evil fascist plot to take over the world? If Trump is Hitler then you are saying Trump is going to do things comparable to that. I agree with critiques of his character. He is prideful. He is arrogant. He's got a huge ego. He immaturely lashes out at people who have criticized him. He's got a history of sexual infidelity. None of that, however, puts him anywhere near being in the same league as someone like Hitler.

From a policy perspective he wanted to build a wall, and he wants to deport law breakers who did not immigrate here legally. He appointed supreme court justices who struck down Rowe vs. Wade. The valid criticisms I have seen are he "separated children from their parents" and he "put kids in cages." But these criticisms amount to differences over immigration policy and how to deal with the trafficking of children over the border. I can see both sides of an issue like that. There is certainly a moral concern there, but that does not make Trump Hitler. It simply does not. Rounding up all illegal immigrants and deporting them from the country is also a thorny issue. There are two sides to that as an issue, but that is simply upholding the law.

And FWIW, Trump had an opportunity at the beginning of his term to prosecute Hillary for her illegal email server, and he chose not to do so. So, this is a guy who had every opportunity to go after one of his political opponents and he did not. Obama also was caught on a hot mic saying to the Russians that he would relax missile defense if they gave him room leading up to the next election. Trump did not prosecute Obama after he was caught bartering our national security for political favors from the Russians. However, Trump asked too many questions surrounding the Bidens and their business dealings in Ukraine, and the Democrats slapped him with the Steele Dossier and the Russian collusion hoax. So, I don't see a lot of evidence that Trump is the kind of person to simply go after people because they are political opponents. I do think Trump would go after someone who tried to frame him. And this is what the Democrats are afraid of IMO.

 

I’d say about 1/3 of republicans are in thrall with Trump, another 1/3 like him, a lot. Maybe 1/6 begrudgingly support him and 1/6 are never Trumpers.

I tend to look at evil is from a vantage point. Hat we consider evil somebody else may call righteous. I look at characteristics and behaviors. Leaders we tend to call evil are typically psychologically different - they may be sociopaths, even occasionally psychopaths. Often Narcissists. Crowds of people under the right circumstances will follow such people, at least to the point that the “leader” gains enough power that he has control and can control all the levers, and then he is there for a long time.

I don’t think Trump is like Hitler, and I don’t think that was the point of my comparison at all.

Trump is a narcissist, and a con man. He is not principled at all and really doesn’t have political positions. With Trump it is all about feeding his ego and himself. If Trump thought he could get to the same place with Democrats, he totally would.

What makes Trump dangerous he is completely willing to tear down our democracy, our institutions and our norms in order to make himself look better, and clearly enough people follow him in a cult like fashion that much damage can be inflicted.

Bill Clinton certainly had some sociopathic and narcissistic tendencies but he was a political person and really did have goals he wanted to achieve and generally wanted to help people, in his own way, but that didn’t keep him from engaging in inappropriate personal behavior.

 

Agree with you here; Hitler comparisons aren't helpful except for when he's parroting Nazi talking points, but I don't think it's going to come to that. In terms of his actual policies and judicial picks, Trump is (for better or worse) inside the mainstream of Republican thinking. He apparently picked names out of the FedSoc hat and let McConnell do the rest on SCOTUS, for example. Trump's disdain for our institutions and willingness to put his personal goals over the country is another matter IMO. Ben Shapiro previously said he would vote for Trump in 2020 because while Trump was bad for the country, Ben didn't think Trump could do any additional damage in a second term. I thought that was an astounding rationalization, particularly given that we're talking about a job as powerful as the Commander in Chief. The amount of havoc and damage he could do a second term both at home and abroad is pretty wide open, and we're talking about someone who had a fake university for goodness sake.

 

Using your logic, you probably shouldn't have a computer unless it is for work of course. Between the power to run it and the band width you are using just for your pleasure is entirely a waste. But you know those Americans like their freedom no matter what it costs someone else!!

 

Well if your "work" is bitcoin mining, you shouldnt have a computer for that either. Ultimately if something does more harm than good, I dont see the benefits of people being allowed to use something without restriction. Having a society is kinda nice, and any useful conception of freedom extends to its enjoyment not being harmful of others. There are so many things you cant consume anymore, but I'm sure someone years ago was like "they need their DDT for their farms!"

 

Do you drive? Do you need to drive, or could you ride a bike? Do you live in a house that is more than a bedroom and kitchen? We can go on all day with the excesses that we all have. You just think mine are worse than yours when you don't even know what mine are!

 

Haven’t yet read Rural White Rage - though it’s in my queue- so I can’t compare but I’m reading a book with a somewhat similar treatise - The Undertow; Scenes From a Slow Civil War. The author Jeff Sharlet has this collection of essays and reporting from the time he spent with J6ers, trump rally people, Ashli Babbit fans, and Christian Nationalists and similarly aggrieved people. He has a perhaps lighter touch and some empathy. Not finished but good enough so far to recommend.

 

We could do that, pretty much everything is a policy choice, whether we are talking about building codes or accommodating private jets and yachts. More people would probably ride bikes if there wasnt a decent chance you'd get plowed by a semi or someone speeding through your neighborhood on your way to work or the park. I've seen people go batshit over proposals to put in bike lanes in our area at community meetings. You cant even get around on some of the sidewalks here if you are a person in wheelchair or scooter, because its not built for that. People's lifestyles are built around choices made for us a long time ago, but that isnt some birthright. No one likes to be inconvenienced, but at some point there is always a reckoning. The longer we pretend there is no harm in some of the choices we've made, the worse that reckoning will be when it comes, but I guess we can all just hope to die before then so its not us that is inconvenienced.

 

I would complement you on using the term we! And I recognize some of my choices for connivence or just preference may not be yours and the same the other way.

 

My Hitler remark had to do with the commentary on evil - many Germans thought what he was doing was righteous.

I don’t like some of Trumps policies and his judicial picks but that isn’t the reason I despise him. I don’t like him because he intentionally stokes division and hatred, and is doing his best to tear down the institutions that make the US what it is. He does it only for short term self serving purposes.

 

For all the harms it did there is a case that DDT would save a lot of lives in places like Africa.

 

Kinda making my point here, someone can/will always make a case that poison is actually good. Nuclear weapons create jobs, wont someone think of the people who need their world-ending weapon making jobs, etc.

 

Such nice people

 

When I read that line the first thing that came to mind was the way racism had been pushed underground, but came roaring back to public spaces over the last 8 years or so.

 

I would agree but I think it goes back to before Trump. I think there was absolutely some racist comments being made of Obama, but on the same hand, you couldn't disagree or criticize Obama without being branded a racist. I think that we as a society have labeled way too many things as racist and have devalued the term from the definition to anyone that disagrees with certain policies or statements must be racist.

 

Exactly. Even when I was certain trump would lose in 2016 (obviously mistaken) I thought his legacy would be empowering racism and basic nastiness to come back out of the closet.