Trump is openly saying that he's going to be a dictator. Trump is the Republican election pick. If you vote Republican, you vote for Trump, you're a shit bag faschie voting for fascism. Full stop.
All of his supporters in 2016 were also bad people. They saw the "grab them by the pussy" tape, they saw him make fun of a disabled person, and thought he was still a worthy candidate for their vote.
When I actually talk with Trump supporters, it's very clear to me that many don't actually support trump. Or, at least, not the trump we see. It's usually a case of leading a busy life and making the mistake of trusting a news org to tell you the truth of the matter when you have five minutes to catch up. And if you pick one that supports trump ...well you see where this goes. It is admittedly clear that people don't understand the gravity of the situation—but as a result, the 'crime' is usually ignorance, not maliciousness. As always, the fact that this is a 'political' topic muddies the water, and no one understands what the other side actually wants. We do agree on most things, it's just silly tribalism that makes us call a large portion of the population a "piece of shit".
There are always those outliers that are genuinely evil, but I do believe they're outliers.
From what I see, Trump is indicative of a growing trend, generally by conservatives to bring religion and their beliefs into government.
Trump is more absolutist and authoritarian than many other political candidates that I have seen.
To my best understanding of the current climate of the people who support him, they want more authoritarian control over what other people do. Partly in an effort to make themselves more comfortable in their own social interactions with others. So their assumptions of things like, women have curves, and men wear pants and have beards, and men like women and women like men, etc, are always correct, despite the fact that reality disagrees with them.
They're always on the lookout for any way for them to improve their socio-economic standing as well, with the basic concept of more for me, less for everyone else.
I believe that to them, Trump is a means to an end. Less for everyone else, more for them. More of their rules, and values, imposed on others, whether others want it or not.
Take for example, gay marriage. IMO, it's just marriage, eg. Two people who love eachother pledging their intention to continue to love and support eachother. My view is starkly contrasted by their view of "marriage is between a man and a woman before God!" (Or similar). Something something, the sanctity of marriage.... Blah blah. Nobody seems to care about divorce rates though the writings they're imposing on others pretty clearly state that marriage before God is a joining of souls in permanent matrimony and cannot and will not be broken. Ever. But I digress. Since they're opposed to gay marriage, they don't want it to be allowed, though it's clearly discrimination. Arguing about "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" and whatnot. The authoritarian, bull headed, my way out the highway mindset of someone like Trump, can actually achieve such goals. He's absolutist. Whether he believes in the prohibition of gay marriage or not.
On a personal note, I hope all the LGBTQ+ people get all the same rights to be as happy or as miserable as the cis/straight people. You're all fabulous and I love you all as brothers/sisters/siblings (for the gender ambiguous). I personally will continue to support you and fight along side all of you for equality.
Circling back to the point, this viewpoint can be copied and pasted on a number of issues that the right may not feel that they are properly represented on. Another good example is abortion; but that has mostly played out with the whole roe v. Wade thing, so I won't go into more detail there, despite the fact that I have a lot of things to say about it.
I think that demonstrates the point. They don't value him for what/who he is, they value him more for what he can do for them... To accomplish their goals and impose their ideals on everyone else. His ethical deficiencies and disregard for anyone's opinion, well-being, and opinion, are desirable features for them.
They're pushing for oppression of anyone who is different from them, trying to move up their capitalist ladder of success. Trump is just the latest tool that they're trying to use to accomplish that goal.
Trump is charismatic because he's a narcissist. Not in spite of it, but because there's a direct causal link.
This plays into a host of factors for the afflicted, including poor self esteem, familiarity with (and abuse from) other narcissists, and a whole lot more. This is very, very bad news because it suggests that a huge swath of the country is coping with some degree of mental health problems. The current system is pretty good at handling full-blown disorders, but anything less gets a pass or maybe is held at bay with minimal intervention. The bad part is that folks are predisposed to overt manipulation like we've seen in the last two presidential elections, because of it.
Edit: Usually I like posting things like this along with a solution, rather than just alarming people. In this case, I feel the need to post the core problem at hand, so that maybe people can see what they're actually up against, and focus their efforts in the right place. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the right answer is here, but I'm willing to talk to anyone about it. Thanks for reading.
Even in 2016 it was obvious what kind of person he was. His "good" supporters claimed that being President would change him for the better. We all knew then that they were wrong. We all know now that they were lying.
He was a fascist from the day he descended that golden escalator. 'Mexico is sending rapists' was in his opening event. That was June, 2015. By the nomination he'd called to murder the families of our enemies and ban a religion at the border.
By the start of 2020 he'd been impeached for extorting a foreign country to interfere in our election. By that election he'd tried dismantling the Post Office to prevent mail-in votes. The mob sent to threaten every other elected official in the entire federal govermnet was only the culmination of an ongoing coup.
I get that people are super emotional about the upcoming election, i am too. But this kind of emotion, and the feelings i see posted on this thread have no use to anyone.
Why do we hate the people who are easily fooled rather than the people who are doing the fooling?
Will openly hating them and showing superperiority to them make them change or just make us feel better?
How long and how loudly will "left wing" voices need to be (voices like this tweet i mean), how open will their distaste for right wing (citizens) have to be, before we on the left start wondering whether the party we believe in has the "moral superiority"it claims to?
I am starting to feel like you could just switch a few words around and then the shit we believe about them and the shit they believe about is identical, in a fun house mirror kinda way