this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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No, but fascists are troll (and worse. Much worse). And yes, trump and his cult are fascists
as much as i hate trump we should hate the sin and not the sinner
lots of trump supporters could easily be leftists
Not if they support anything he or his political party or cult have done in the past few years!
...what the fuck? The guy who's got a record of felonies he's in court for, and has been absolutely the most fascist piece of shit to happen to America could easily have leftists supporters? The guy who lost "bigly" in the popular vote and created the most partisan and polarized political voters possible? This is Q Anon level of reality.
If there is a leftist in the "lots of trump supporters", they are by definition, not a leftist.
zizek talks about this a lot. who are trump's most loyal fans? sure, there are the harvard educated elitists who like that he lowers taxes on the rich and the business magnates and whatnot. but the bulk of it in terms of absolute numbers is the redneck poor people
why do they support trump? because their jobs were lost to outsourcing, their wages aren't going up so housing is more expensive, their towns are slowly rotting away. they see these things and feel a (in my opinion, justified) anger towards the establishment.
someone like Trump and the GOP in general comes around, blames the gays and immigrants and tells them they will fight for them. we all know it's a lie and that they are voting against their interests - but the MAGA propaganda has gotten to them first
these same triggers (stagnant wages, anger towards the establishment/elites, erosion of infrastructure, inaccessible healthcare) also causes people to become leftists
these people could have easily flipped one way or the other and the only different is propaganda. we need to reach out to these people and convince them that the left has viable solutions for their problems. if you're interested, i can find a zizek bit where he talks about this but I've seen it myself talking to a lot of trump-supporting conservatives.
some of them are racist bigots and whatnot, but others are just really ignorant old folk who genuinely want the best for most people and have been misled by propaganda
Except the difference is: leftists have empathy. Sympathy. They care for their fellow human whom they haven't met. They are called "progressives" for a reason. Right wing is being regressive, to hurt people not like you. It's about cruelty specifically.
You're talking about moderates that don't give a shit. I'm talking about the actual term leftists.
Irony abounds...