Sorry, this turned into a much longer rant than I planned…
I think the MAGA meme played a large part in this as well.
During the Obama years we made a lot of social progress that benefited in large part people who didn’t fall into the white (mostly male) population. Changes in technology as well as broad acceptance of climate change effected the economy and manufacturing jobs. Also corporations moving factories out of the US caused a lot of good paying blue collar jobs to disappear. These changes benefited the 1% but did nothing for the lower and middle classes.
So, we have life getting harder for the white man who not unreasonably feels that this is just wrong. At the same time whitey sees a lot of hype about groups and issues he doesn’t approve of getting rights/approval/funding. (LGBTQ rights/Black president empowering people of color/Woman running for president/Climate Change recognized/etc) It doesn’t feel like the government is doing anything thing for him because there aren’t new special programs aimed at him. He doesn’t realize he’s benefiting from the hundreds of years of the system being set up for him by all the whitey’s that came before him. He mistakenly feels like all the social improvements for others are causing his life/rights to decline. What whitey doesn’t realize is that life isn’t just getting harder for him. It’s getting harder for the bottom 90%.
Then along comes this flamboyant jackass running for president who is willing to say spout a lot off the things whitey has been afraid to say out loud. (Especially for the last 8 years.) He’s crazy! He’s Funny! Whitey used to watch him on TV! We can find naked pictures of his hot wife on the internet! A large part of his message is “I’m going to turn back the clock to when things were great!” (For whitey) “I’m going to screw all these damn government types and roll back these environmental/financial regulations so we business heroes can do what we’ve wanted to do all along! Create good paying jobs for Whitey!”
So they elect the dipstick. Then having Whitey in the White House and Congress empowers them to start chipping away at all the things they have been bothered by for years. The nutjobs are running rampant trying to roll back society while the big thieves (drumpfs/GOP/big business) are lining their wallets as fast as they can.
I’m not even convinced he ever wanted to be president. I think he started his run with the idea that he wouldn’t win but would amass a lot of money in donations. Then after bowing out of the election he planned to just pocket the remaining funds. It was going to be a win-win. He’d be in the spotlight, He’d get to keep a lot of money and it would all be short term allowing him to go back to his normal life. Then he started winning. He LOVES to win. All the winning made him think he could win it all. Did he start to believe his own MAGA hype? Is his erratic behavior due to not really having any interest or viewpoint outside of his business interests? As part of gaining support from various groups he is trying to follow up on his promises to them. Does he actually agree with these things? Eh, hard to say but since all the nutjobs came along for the ride they’re the ones shaping his current world.
Oh, and before “you people” (you know who you are) get all worked up at my use of the term “whitey” you should know I’m a 49 yr old white male who voted for Berni in the primary and Hillary in November. So kiss my butt haters!
