Trigger warning. This is an unvarnished discussion of Deplorable culture. You have been warned.
I have a sense of how Deplorables think, since I have walked among them. The Deplorable culture is enigmatic to most educated and genteel people. Some of this will be new to you. I’m here to tell you, as an anthropologist, that it is much worse than you probably think.
I remember once having my stroller-age son with me while hanging out with a garage full of Deplorables celebrating one of their 60th birthdays. The conversation was almost entirely about wife swapping and similar themes. I had to put the kid outside on the driveway so he would not become polluted, and stayed around only long enough to verify that this was really happening. The Access Hollywood tape was a replay of a constant ongoing conversation among Deplorables (both sexes). If you were surprised by it, you are living in a bubble. A nice bubble, do stay there, you’ll be happier. But still, a bubble. This is how Deplorables talk. And think.
I’ve had enough conversations with deplorables to know that they are often (but not always) driven by racism. It is not difficult to understand Deplorable policy thinking (to the extent that it is thinking, which it mostly is not) if you know that all of the Democratic Party policy objectives of the 8 years prior to the electoral college mistake known as the “Trump Presidency” were objectives that existed under a black president. Therefore they are dirty, tainted, smudged by the blackness of his monkey skin, all kootied-up by the N*gger, not to mention all wrong. The only good policy is the opposite of his black policy no matter what that is. White is right. That is something you probably knew. You probably hate hearing the thoughts, and I sort of apologize for jamming them into your face. But while what you were already thinking, already knew, is correct, it is not sharp or true enough. The truth is disgusting.
A less known, but critical, aspect of Deplorable culture is how strength works. It is sometimes earned, sometimes given by external forces, and it defines legitimacy. It is OK to claim ownership of one’s own strengths, or to attribute them to Mother or to God, or in some cases Dog (especially a good hunting dog). But it is not OK to attribute any but one causality to lack of strength, or to weakness. That, in Deplorable culture, is entirely the fault of the individual. That is probably something you didn’t know.
So there’s this guy and his girlfriend, probably fiance, climbing a mountain. They are using ropes and other technical gear, and it is a challenging climb. They are both experts. She is above him, by tens of feet. Suddenly, she loses her hold, and falls. Her body strikes the rock face at several locations, bouncing off like an out of control rag doll, finally to rest some 15 feet below him, unconscious. Rescue squads including helicopters are required to bring her out and to the hospital. She survives, but he can never look at her again without seeing weakness. Their relationship ends because of that.
That is a horrible story, but a true one, and one that demonstrates a human frailty: Sometimes we see failure in another person where all they did was obey the rules of gravity, or cancer, or ice on the road. This seems counter-intuitive but it really does happen. It is usually hidden by cultural trappings. The person who told me that story (the boyfriend himself) was just being brutally honest.
Deplorables do this same thing other humans do, but they codify it in their culture and they foreground it in their aggressions. Donald Trump doesn’t like people who get captured. He doesn’t like soldiers who get wounded. Or drafted. Or tricked into serving by some patriotic sense that is, to him, an emotional state of being, normally reserved for chumps and cucks.
If you get this, now you can understand the Deplorable (=Republican) flauting of logical, normal, required, science-based precautions against spreading Covid-19 infection. Getting sick is a sign of personal weakness. Doing things to not get sick is personal weakness. They complained about freedom when asked to wear a mask. It is not about freedom, or at least, freedom as you think of it. It is about freedom to not appear weak.
Well, today, right now, Trump is weak because he has Covid. Indeed, somebody is probably having their way with his wife, back home, because he must also be a cuck, because he is so weak. The guy who once owned a line of suit jackets and ties has no tie and only one suit jacket. The only way he can make friends is to drive around the block in his car waving at people like some little kid or a dog.
Trump-loving Deplorables are not going to run out and vote for Biden because their beloved demigod turns out to be a [imagine the word that must go here]. But they won’t vote for him. When Trump got Covid he lost at least two electoral state wins. That was the end of the election right there.
You might think Trump getting Covid hurts him politically because it underlies the folly of science denialism, or proves that Democrats were right all align about wearing masks, and stuff like that. Nope. That is a fabrication of logic, which rules your liberal mind. To a Deplorable, science is still a lie, mask wearing is still a violation of basic rights, and Covid is still a hoax. Trump is not worth voting for because he is a weak loser with only one jacket, no tie, and somebody is fucking his wife as we speak.
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And yet so many on twitter are convinced he is faking covid to distract from the debate debacle and Melania’s christmas tape and the other, endless scandals and outrages. Excellent post though – I agree his appeal lies in authoritarianism (strength, supposedly) and especially racism. (ps it’s flouting not flauting and all along not all align. you’re welcome lol)
One reason I don’t think he’s faking it is because of the way it was initially reported. Had certain reporters not done certain things, we would not have found out about this outbreak until, maybe, today or tomorrow (eventually it would have to come out). But yeah, it seems like the kind of thing he would fake if it would help him. (But I’d argue it would backfire!)
Greg:
Thank you for that educational glimpse into your thinking and for sharing your opinion of why not to vote for Trump.
RickA, my post is neither a glimpse into my thinking nor a recommendation of whom to vote for. It is a glimpse into the culture of deplorables and a suggestion that many will stay hope because their leader turns out to be weak.
I know that I’m going to be asked to do a lot of handholding through this post. I may or may not accommodate. But we’ll start with this.
Fair enough. Perhaps I read the last sentence wrong.
It is a summary of the beliefs and actions of people like you ricka.
hahaha this is hilarious! How. To. Spin. https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1313147203934916611?s=20
Accurate analysis of how Trump supporters are going to respond to Trump getting covid19.
Trump has now demonstrated that he is a loser, by getting infected with covid19.
Whether it was loser-things that Trump did, or God removing His Protection from Trump, doesn’t really matter.
Trump has demonstrated that he is a loser, and only other losers will vote for him.
Winners won’t vote for Trump because if they do, some of Trump’s loser cooties will rub off on them if they do.
…‘glimpse into your thinking and for sharing your opinion why not to vote for Trump’.
RickA had me on the floor with that one. There are a million reasons not to vote for the orange stain. How about starting with the fact that he is a lying, malignant, pathological narcissist and go from there. His profound ignorance about the world and even his own country. His inability to show compassion or humility. His refusal to condemn white supremicists, fascists and conspiracy theory-spinning lunatics out of fear of alienting his base. His abominable handling of the coronavirus pandemic. His kleptocratic administration with corporate lobbyists heading almost evey federal agency. His abominable performance at last week’s Presidential debate, a low point among thousands of low points for Trump. His habit of spewing infantile insults at people and places.
Yup, The list goes on and on and on.
Don’t forget his ordering fema to steal supplies states purchased to fight covid, his lies about the non-existent “china ban”, dismantling of protections put in place to deal with situations like this, assault on voting by ordering slowdowns in the postal service, and being a front person for the russian propaganda support he received. Embracing white supremacists and racists was just frosting on the right-wing cake.
He long ago joined LBJ, Nixon, and Reagan in the list of worst people to ever serve as president.
The enemies of the Right are at the same time, very, very strong—and very, very weak.
Trump has once again demon-strated his crazy disregard for the fate of other Americans.
Medics condemn Trump’s ‘dangerous’ Covid comments
Anybody who votes for this lunatic has the sickness described in ‘The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies’ by Susan Jacoby, Amazon uk link for updated 2018 edition.
I read with great sympathy the words of Steve Schmidt on Twitter. Schmidt is a 29-year Republican who has renounced his support of the Party because of Trump. His words resonate. Trump’s campaign is coming apart at the seams. His wretched debate performance. His White House lawn gathering without any Covid-19 precautions that has become a super spreader event. His attempt to portray himself as the invincible warrior despite receiving care that few Americans can afford while Trump is dodging taxes. The stunt where he risked the health of his secret service agents by doing the stupid drive-by. His return to the White House where he stood wobbling, clearly ill, before delivering a nauseating screed telling people not to be afraid of a deadly virus that has infected 7 million Americans and killed 210,000 of them.
The nightmare is almost over. RickA knows it too. The cult is coming to an end and even his base are not numerous enough to deliver the malignant narcissist back to the White House. Just a month to go and sanity can prevail again.
The White House could be a den of criminal activity.
Two sides of DC: those threatened by Covid are unimpressed by Trump’s bravado
Is that the sound of shredders we hear in the background?
A little information for you if you hear that one of the right wing terrorist groups trump supports and urges to “watch voters” says they will follow his lead in your locality. (Hint: this private militias are not only dangerous they are illegal in every state.)
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/our-work/addressing-the-rise-of-unlawful-private-paramilitaries/state-fact-sheets
Gee, even the Department of Homeland Security acknowledges that the folks trump and rickA support are the prime threat here in the US. The headline:
The article
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/06/politics/white-supremacists-anarchists-dhs-homeland-threat-assessment/index.html?__twitter_impression=true
The report;
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/2020_10_06_homeland-threat-assessment.pdf
There is a good bit of info on the “very good people” trump and his base support here.
https://first-vigil.com/
“And yet so many on twitter are convinced he is faking covid to distract from the debate debacle and Melania’s christmas tape and the other, endless scandals and outrages.”
I think he has COVID. But I do think he is faking being sick from COVID. It turns out a large fraction of the global population can be infected without becoming sick from the virus. I have seen epidemiologists opine the percentage may be as high as 80%.
The fact that his doctor is a DO ( typically much less aligned with standard conservative and proper medical SOP) who has repeatedly obfuscated his condition tells us his entire hospital stay was choreographed theater. After his positive test result was leaked, his only option was to conquer the virus like a true warrior. This is what we see him proclaim- he was tested by God and passed the test. Redeemed. First act when back – stopping negotiations on virus recovery funding. A Presidential strongman who can interfere with Congressional meetings with a single bound, er tweet.
The only symptoms reported are vague. He had a reduced blood sat. You can get a pulsimeter sat reading to plummet just by holding your breath. You can have a fever spike from receiving an experimental drug cocktail. They threw every drug they could muster at him and yet won’t give his medical history. Bizarre? Yes. True to the theater script – you bet.
And look at his “recovery”. Immediate. Total. Not the typical arc of this disease if you are truly sick from it. Look at his “sickness” – way too early after initial infection. But perfectly consistent with someone not actually ill from the virus. And odds are good that is precisely the population to which he – and most of us – belong.
Those involved in the plot described here are some that Trump stirs up with his rhetoric.
How the alleged plot to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor unravelled
Those involved in this plot are unlikely to be the only group planning similar. This is what happens when a conscienceless man-child who has never been presented with boundaries is allowed to become POTUS. The sickness that has been developing in the US since the foundation of the nation has concentrated in a dangerous demagogue the result could be nothing less than the break up of the US. Another civil war or even another revolution – things are now that highly charged. Pantomime in the Whitehouse serves to make matters worse.
Is RickA really still comfortable with aligning himself with those that would destroy the US. The big winners, as NATO fragments and the UK breaks up over the madness that is Brexit, are the Chinese and Vladimir Putin, notice how much he smiles of late, sardonic smile maybe but still potent. RickA a tool of Putin, who would have thunk it?
The evidence of right wing influence and russian influence keeps growing. The Wall Street Journal (surprise, but these aren’t the fascists who staff the editorial page there) have an article showing how rickA’s favorite sources, real clear politics, newsmax, daily caller, the blaze, national review, and more, have been mouthpieces for the russian propaganda groups that meddled in the 2016 election: rt (russian times), with the help of an intermediate company.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-russia-today-skirts-high-tech-blockade-to-reach-u-s-readers-11602078094?st=guq54bei4sugjrl
FBI and MI State Police have also said some of the clowns in this plan have communicated with and expressed support for the “boogaloo boys”, another white supremacist terrorist group.
These “militias” are illegal in every state. You would hope that they are treated by law enforcement the same way every other armed gang devoted to violence is treated. We’ll have to see.
It’s an anarchist group that is against government and police. They are motivated by BLM and antifa as by Trump.
Lucky the FBI caught them before you guys could get the police defunded.
My question is, when they went to arrest them, did they have Joe Biden’s recommended psychologists on hand?
One would hope so dean, however as has been pointed out armed gangs have infiltrated the ranks of law enforcement.
Meanwhile Trump adds yet more fuel to his bonfire of the vanities by throwing further insults in the direction of those losers, the fallen veterans and their families:
Donald Trump suggests veterans’ families could have given him Covid
No Donald, it is your own erratic behaviour that was the cause of you catching Covid-19. TBH his rapid recovery casts doubt on him actually having Covid-19, but maybe rapid interventions of the type not available to the hoi polloi prevented the worst scenarios.
“It’s an anarchist group that is against government and police. They are motivated by BLM and antifa as by Trump.”
Yes, they are motivated, as are you and rickA, by racism and the lie that BLM and antifa, are “terrorist groups” when they are simply ideologies. People who believe in the ideas behind BLM and antifa do, however, recognize that racism, white supremacy, bigotry — the things you, rickA, and trump’s core in general all support, are bad things.
“Lucky the FBI caught them before you guys could get the police defunded.”
Why am I not surprised that
a) You have no idea what the “defund police” idea is
b) Despite your ignorance you spout messages implying that it means eliminating police. Your dishonesty spreads over everything doesn’t it?
c) You are trying in your general message to tie Biden to the notion when he’s said he doesn’t support it.
“My question is, when they went to arrest them, did they have Joe Biden’s recommended psychologists on hand?”
Christ, you are really an asshole in your misrepresenting things.
It’s scary enough that you admitted you have no problem endangering kids by not requiring them to wear masks (and we still don’t know what kind of blithering asshole would trust kids to your care in the first place). It’s worse to realize that the type of filth you spew in these comments is being pushed on the kids in your “care”.
They’re not required to wear masks, nor socially distance. The person most at risk is me, and I just don’t think they’re capable of spreading. Even if they were older, there is plenty of ventilation.
Discussions of BLM, police and Joe Biden haven’t come up in my curriculum.
Strange that you would think I would bring up these things. Is this what you do in your classes?
Again, your lack of concern for your students, based on your ignorance, is astounding.
Gotta say: I don’t believe you about your lack of political indoctrination of them. That’s purely a probability statement: nothing you’ve said in the past has been true, so any reasonable classifier would place your recent statement in the “bull****” bin.
And no, we don’t have political discussions in the statistics or modeling courses. They do have to suffer through my nearly bottomless bag of puns, but that’s about it.
True, but: they apparently have these “very good people” (trump’s view of these groups) recorded discussing plans to blow up one or more bridges as a distraction from the kidnapping and having other members of “militias” arrayed to execute the police and first responders who arrived. That type of direct threat probably won’t be taken well.
Also — notice that mikeN is not at all dismayed by the plans of his fellow trump supporters: he is upset that they’ve been caught and could well be punished.
Trump is committing political suicide which could also take down the Republican party although there are Republicans, two here, who refuse to see this.
The stripper in this story is the Emperor, his acolytes still think he is booted and suited but in reality what we see is not a pretty sight. I suspect Melania wears a mask too, over her eyes.
Covid-19 has unmasked the true nature of Donald Trump and Trumpism
Although for those of a rational disposition it did not need Covid to show us the truth.
Michigan has morons like mikeN and rickA serving in law enforcement. They ass clowns should be out of a job, but we’re stick with them.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/michigan-sheriff-suggests-men-charged-with-governor-s-attempted-kidnapping-could-have-been-planning-a-citizen-s-arrest-instead/ar-BB19Sfql
Very good article here.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02800-9
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/11/fauci-says-comments-in-trump-ad-used-without-permission.html
Proud Boys and other fascist groups activities have been tracked.
The data scientist exposing US white supremacists: ‘This is how you fight Nazis’