This explains Trumpism and MAGA (1 Viewer)

[bird]

I found this on DemocraticUnderground. It is a bit of a long read but well worth it because it comes closest, imo, of explaining Trump, Trumpism and MAGA.

The Agonizing Work of Art That Helps Explain Trump’s America - WhoWhatWhy

What can “Adolescence” tell us about our country?

whowhatwhy.org

We are swimming in a sea of deliberate cruelty. Everything done by Trump and MAGA is based upon cruelty. It has been said that cruelty is the point. What the link does is, imo, critical. It points to the one question that must be answered. That question is WHY.

 

[Dragon]

Lately, I find myself musing over how we became so divided—and why strongmen have suddenly become not just tolerated, but celebrated by so many. Figures like Trump, Poilievre, and others on the far right seem to offer a kind of certainty, a strict set of rules that simplify the chaos, even if those rules end up harming the very people who follow them.


What’s strange is that I don’t think there’s one clear answer to how we got here. It feels like a convergence of many things. Humans are social creatures, and the isolation during COVID fractured something essential in our shared fabric. But even before that, something was already shifting. Traditional family structures were evolving, roles were becoming less defined, and for some, that felt deeply destabilizing—like the old rulebook had been tossed out and no one handed them a new one.


In that vacuum, authoritarian voices like Trump offer an appealing clarity: "Here are the rules. Follow them and you’ll be safe." It’s seductive, especially when people feel adrift. But the irony is that this kind of control often strips away personal freedom and stifles growth.


Still, despite the rise of these strongmen, I’m heartened by the growing opposition. More and more people are waking up, questioning the narratives, organizing, and pushing back. That gives me hope—that maybe we’re at the end of one cycle and the beginning of another, more compassionate and inclusive one.

 

[bird]

Lately, I find myself musing over how we became so divided—and why strongmen have suddenly become not just tolerated, but celebrated by so many. Figures like Trump, Poilievre, and others on the far right seem to offer a kind of certainty, a strict set of rules that simplify the chaos, even if those rules end up harming the very people who follow them.


What’s strange is that I don’t think there’s one clear answer to how we got here. It feels like a convergence of many things. Humans are social creatures, and the isolation during COVID fractured something essential in our shared fabric. But even before that, something was already shifting. Traditional family structures were evolving, roles were becoming less defined, and for some, that felt deeply destabilizing—like the old rulebook had been tossed out and no one handed them a new one.


In that vacuum, authoritarian voices like Trump offer an appealing clarity: "Here are the rules. Follow them and you’ll be safe." It’s seductive, especially when people feel adrift. But the irony is that this kind of control often strips away personal freedom and stifles growth.


Still, despite the rise of these strongmen, I’m heartened by the growing opposition. More and more people are waking up, questioning the narratives, organizing, and pushing back. That gives me hope—that maybe we’re at the end of one cycle and the beginning of another, more compassionate and inclusive one.

The opposition is growing but so is the extreme right.

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/25/nx-s1-5371718/pronatalist-birth-rate-musk-natal-conference

I have little faith which, perhaps, is my problem. Democracy is sliding because charlatans offer simplistic, emotionally centered agitprop. Racism as the link mentions is being used as a virtue. I fear that the U.S. is at a point that the 2026 elections and the 2028 elections, should they actually happen, will become a referendum on democracy.

I find it interesting that social issues have been disparaged by the right while the right focuses on them via radicalized religionist and misogynistic “influencers”.

All politics is identity. All politics is social issues. Political economy is social by its very nature and definition. Until the left actually understands this in their bones and develops responses that are directly, intellectually, and emotionally coordinated in such a way as to destroy the right I think things are likely to get worse.

And they may not get better. The U.S. is on the verge of becoming a backwater. The West is too. The rise of extremist eugenics which is basically what the right has become will destroy humanity.

 

[Dragon]

The opposition is growing but so is the extreme right.

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/25/nx-s1-5371718/pronatalist-birth-rate-musk-natal-conference

I have little faith which, perhaps, is my problem. Democracy is sliding because charlatans offer simplistic, emotionally centered agitprop. Racism as the link mentions is being used as a virtue. I fear that the U.S. is at a point that the 2026 elections and the 2028 elections, should they actually happen, will become a referendum on democracy.

I find it interesting that social issues have been disparaged by the right while the right focuses on them via radicalized religionist and misogynistic “influencers”.

All politics is identity. All politics is social issues. Political economy is social by its very nature and definition. Until the left actually understands this in their bones and develops responses that are directly, intellectually, and emotionally coordinated in such a way as to destroy the right I think things are likely to get worse.

And they may not get better. The U.S. is on the verge of becoming a backwater. The West is too. The rise of extremist eugenics which is basically what the right has become will destroy humanity.

Pro-natalism is often a hallmark of authoritarian regimes—just look at the rhetoric coming out of the U.S., Russia, or China. It’s rooted in control: of bodies, of family structures, of futures. In contrast, much of Europe has moved beyond rigid gender roles, and policies like paid paternity leave have played a huge part in that evolution.

I've seen it firsthand. Several of my male colleagues took paternity leave and came back fundamentally changed. Not just as parents, but as people. Once they've experienced that kind of deep involvement in their children’s early lives, they never want to miss it again. It shifts how they see parenting, partnership, and the outdated norms they may have grown up with.

One of the most striking examples was a male project manager I worked with. After his first paternity leave, he started posting pictures of himself baking rolls with his kids on our company’s internal social channel. And he wasn’t alone—suddenly, the image of fatherhood became more visible, more hands-on, more human. That’s the kind of quiet revolution policy can spark—one that authoritarian systems fear, because it empowers individuals to redefine what strength, care, and masculinity look like.

 

[Dragon]

A very good article on Rage and Rage Baiting. I've observed this behaviour more and more often during the last few years - even here at times with some now absent posters.

Usually the main arena where we see rage spill out and spill over is the online world. Poisonous figures in the so-called manosphere, like Andrew Tate, have made their own army, fuelled by misogyny, out of alienated and frustrated young men. Alongside the manosphere, “rage-baiting” has become a dominant feature of online life. A genre of content has emerged inspired by and defined by rage – videos and posts intended to rile up the reader or the viewer, to invoke outrage purely for traffic, engagement, revenue, and attention. Rage-baiting is increasingly a calling card of the online right, who use it to inject irony into statements that would otherwise be blatantly racist, homophobic, transphobic or classist. “You can’t get angry,” this mentality says. “I was only joking. If you get angry, you lose.” The result is that we’re all more guarded and more adversarial, online and off.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/ragebait-anger-internet-b2738116.html

 

[bird]

A very good article on Rage and Rage Baiting. I've observed this behaviour more and more often during the last few years - even here at times with some now absent posters.




https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/ragebait-anger-internet-b2738116.html

The comments were telling.

Re: the so-called manosphere and a related sort of fellow traveler womanosphere I think exposes something I have thought about and perhaps posted on this board. That is the idea of the evolution of the brain in general but the psyche in particular.

The brain/mind/psyche do not evolve at the same pace nor do they come close to evolving at the pace which technology has grown. Humans respond to external changes differently. The issue of immigration is an example. Homogeneous societies that are seeing immigration by those who look and act differently especially in social customs such as dress will break apart because of a large variance in responses. Some will respond with open acceptance, some with a shoulder shrug, some with discomfort and some with outright anger. The mind may know that immigrants do not pose a threat but the psyche will not. Otherness, imo, comes from the development of self-awareness meaning that once during evolution each human was part of a group, usually familial, and their actions, both good and bad, were seen as normal and a part of the group “animal”. The realization over time of being aware that each human is both unique and forever alone locked in by the fact that it is impossible to know anything about other humans beyond what our senses tell us caused responses to change and other groups to see threats around every corner. That was fine when humans were little more than apes. It is very dangerous now.

Now we have problems that are unsolvable by one person or one group. The need to cooperate has always been there but it was limited to in-group. That is no longer the case. The political economy that humans have created is one that is openly uncooperative. Thus it is unnatural to being human. The key there is complicated versus complex. Complicated is seeing a problem and understand that the problem can be solved by a series of steps, sometimes few, sometimes many, with the end result of the problem being resolved. Complex is entirely different. Complexity reveals results of steps taken may not move toward resolution of the problem. I have thought about a psychological sort of Newtonian law. For every action there is a reaction the direction and magnitude of which cannot be accurately predicted.

More to come later…

 

[Dragon]

The comments were telling.

Re: the so-called manosphere and a related sort of fellow traveler womanosphere I think exposes something I have thought about and perhaps posted on this board. That is the idea of the evolution of the brain in general but the psyche in particular.

The brain/mind/psyche do not evolve at the same pace nor do they come close to evolving at the pace which technology has grown. Humans respond to external changes differently. The issue of immigration is an example. Homogeneous societies that are seeing immigration by those who look and act differently especially in social customs such as dress will break apart because of a large variance in responses. Some will respond with open acceptance, some with a shoulder shrug, some with discomfort and some with outright anger. The mind may know that immigrants do not pose a threat but the psyche will not. Otherness, imo, comes from the development of self-awareness meaning that once during evolution each human was part of a group, usually familial, and their actions, both good and bad, were seen as normal and a part of the group “animal”. The realization over time of being aware that each human is both unique and forever alone locked in by the fact that it is impossible to know anything about other humans beyond what our senses tell us caused responses to change and other groups to see threats around every corner. That was fine when humans were little more than apes. It is very dangerous now.

Now we have problems that are unsolvable by one person or one group. The need to cooperate has always been there but it was limited to in-group. That is no longer the case. The political economy that humans have created is one that is openly uncooperative. Thus it is unnatural to being human. The key there is complicated versus complex. Complicated is seeing a problem and understand that the problem can be solved by a series of steps, sometimes few, sometimes many, with the end result of the problem being resolved. Complex is entirely different. Complexity reveals results of steps taken may not move toward resolution of the problem. I have thought about a psychological sort of Newtonian law. For every action there is a reaction the direction and magnitude of which cannot be accurately predicted.

More to come later…

Good points @bird

I've often wondered why the United States, despite having such a diverse population, seems so vulnerable to deep social fractures.
Perhaps part of the reason is that many Americans have never actually left the country. For many, the only exposure to other cultures comes through interactions with immigrants already living within U.S. borders — experiences that can be limited, fragmented, and shaped by stereotypes rather than genuine understanding.

In Denmark, we tend to be more open and accepting toward people from different backgrounds. But that openness isn’t accidental — it’s a result of constant exposure. Within a day's drive from our borders, you can encounter more than twenty different nations. Diversity isn't an abstract idea; it’s part of daily life.

One of the great rites of passage for young Europeans over the last fifty years has been Interrail travel — a simple, affordable train pass that lets you explore Europe for a month. Rail travel forces you into real interactions: you're often seated in groups of four or six, sharing a small space for ten hours or more. Conversations happen naturally. Meals are shared. Friendships are formed.

I’ve shared a box of Bosch chocolates with a group of Georgians (from the nation, not the U.S. state) on a slow train between Belgrade and Vienna. I learned the art of viniculture from a Hungarian farmer I met walking a dusty road to a lakeside campsite near Lake Balaton.
Those moments didn't just teach me facts about different places — they made the people real to me.

When you meet people face-to-face — when you hear their stories, laugh over bad coffee, share a meal, or sit quietly watching the countryside roll by — it becomes almost impossible to reduce them to an enemy or a stereotype.

Travel like that doesn’t just expand your world.
It roots a kind of empathy that fear and division can never easily erase.
And when that everyday connection to other human lives is missing, it’s not surprising that suspicion, fear, and division can take hold so easily.