Sort of a follow-up on the previous post. Georgia has handed down over 10 indictments, not only to Trump but to his posse of enablers. Glee has erupted in many quarters, as well as continued bewilderment over how certain people can still support him. We keep assuming, we who are pleased to see the system finally working, that eventually the corruption inhering to these folks will become so obvious that supporters will fall away, will, in fact, “wake up” to the fact that this was grossly illegal, illegitimate, and inimical to our country. Some have. More perhaps than reports show. But a significant number of people are still encouraging him and applauding January 6th.
I frankly do not see why this is hard to understand. It doesn’t matter that what he did was probably illegal (I say “probably” because here we have this little thing about innocence till proved guilty, so I’ll adhere to the principle for now, despite my convictions) because that was the whole point anyway. They believe, if I’m reading them right, that the system that holds what he did to be wrong is itself corrupt and illegitimate, so finding him guilty per its standards will, for them, prove nothing. It will be another talking point for them to remonstrate against the system.
Those of us who do not see any benefit in abandoning a system which, despite its flaws, has managed to sustain most of us for over 250 years are scratching our heads at these armchair revolutionaries (which I believe many if not most of them to be) who are convinced that he was about to bring about the changes they so eagerly await and that now he is being pounded by the very system that he sought to overturn on their behalf.
They Believe, in other words, that Trump was the leader of a populist revolt that would, in the much overused and vacuous phrase, take their country back.
I’ve been wondering for decades—back from who? From what?
When they bring out their lists, if they do, it becomes fairly clear that what they seek is a return to some golden age of white supremacy, low or no taxation, and pure christian values. That this is a fantasy matters little because it is the fantasy they have come to embrace with the fervor of a reformed smoker lecturing others about the evils of tobacco and vaping. Most of the rest of us see this as psychotic because, despite the problems and the flaws (and there are many), the path we’ve been on seems a pretty good one. With hiccups along the way, we’ve been moving toward equity and justice and shedding the dross of past privilege. We’ve been participating in building a world that is fairer and better. It might even happen someday. It’s taking too damn long, sure, but the alternative being offered by the Right is largely what we’ve been trying to leave behind.
And that is what his supporters want, a return to…
Fill in your own blank. My point is, stop trying to parse their convictions according to standards you embrace. For the time being there’s no rapprochement. They do not want women to have autonomy or minorities to have equal power to them or even have a safety net if along with it comes support for people they hate. I don’t have to assume this, they’ve pretty much said it out loud, often and repeatedly. We—you and I who do not think that way—keep defaulting to a reasonable person model that suggests they will see through him at some point.
Well. It’s not Trump they need to see through. It’s themselves.