Twitter thread: Trump, the ACA, and Sadopopulism

[EveHammond13]

I think it is hard for good people to understand bad people. It is hard for good people to believe how devious and concertedly evil bad people are. We need to dive deeper than "trump just wants to win" ""GOP just wants to win at all costs." There is a such a deep depraved evil behind it that we need to understand. We need to understand the true nature of the poison they are injecting into this country. I think this twitter thread does that.


This thread was written by Teri Kanefield:

Author, lawyer (U.C. Berkeley). I tweet about the law, books, politics, and history. All my threads are here as blog entries: http://terikanefield-blog.com

BEGIN THREAD:

The Trump administration is backing the full elimination of the Affordable Care Act:
@JoyAnnReid, maybe it isn’t spite. Maybe it's what Yale prof. @TimothyDSnyder calls Sadopopulism.
"What the heck is that?" you ask? . . .


1/ Snyder talks about sadopopulism here:

…

Sadopopulism explains how oligarchy—those who seek to have both power and wealth—stay in power. It works like this: Sadopopulist leaders enact policies designed to inflict suffering on the people . . .


2/ Policies such as tax cuts for the rich and eliminating health insurance for millions of Americans creates an abundance of suffering. The leader directs that suffering into anger at the "enemies" (immigrants, minorities, migrants seeking asylum, Democrats, etc."


3/ If the GOP repeals Obamacare, 21 million Americans could lose health insurance👇
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/health/obamacare-trump-health.html …
Think how many families this will hurt. When families can't afford the medical bills, they'll be thrown into poverty. Loved ones will die unnecessarily.


4/ Trump then channels all that suffering into anger at immigrants, minorities, and the Democrats who champion their rights. See how clever this is? Trump enacts legislation that (1) makes him richer, (2) hurts his constituents and (3) keeps his base enraged.


5/ When the people are suffering, he consoles them by promising that he is hurting their enemies.
He's the strongman protecting them from minorities who are displacing them and beggars at the gates who want to take what they have.


6/ NYT reporter Maggie Haggerman explained that Trump’s base “thrills at his fights with the establishment, seeing him as warrior against self-satisfied elites who look down on many Americans.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/22/us/politics/trump-two-years.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage …



7/ What Snyder is suggesting there is that the repeal of Obamacare isn't spite.
The repeal of Obamacare part of a larger pattern of policies and legislation specifically designed to inflict suffering on the very people who put Trump into office.


8/ Just before the 2016 midterm elections, Trump tweeted this:

Link to tweet

… Now that it's clear the Trump administration is working to repeal all parts of the ACA, you might expect his base to dislike discovering that he lied to them.
Nope. They don't mind at all!


9/ Here's the part that is just as bizarre as the effectiveness of sadopopopulism: Trump’s base loves it when he lies.
Scholars Hahl, Kim, and Sivan, in “The Authentic Appeal of the Lying Demagogue” explain why Trump’s base loves it when he lies.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122417749632 …


10/ The authors explain that those who want to destroy the political establishment enthusiastically embrace a “lying demagogue” because they know that the lies are destructive and they want to be destructive.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122417749632 …


11/ The reason: They believe the establishment puts the needs of others ahead them, the “real Americans."
The best explanation for why Trump’s supporters not only accept but actually cheer his lies comes from Hannah Arendt’s the Origins of Totalitarianism.


12/ When a demagogue’s followers learn that he has lied, “instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”
H/t @jenmercieca


13/ If Trump’s supporters believe that this👇 lie tricked people into voting Republican, they’ll cheer the lie.

Link to tweet

…
They will cheer—even though many of them will suffer when Trump makes it harder for them to get health care.


14/ They cheer as Trump and his inner circle enrich themselves at their expense.
They cheer the strongman who hurts them and who lies to them because they think he's "protecting them" and hurting their enemies more.
There you have it, folks: Sadopopulism.


I'm adding this for the people who are saying that Sadopopulism=fascism.
Nope. There's solid evidence that the Nazis redistributed much of their plunder to the German people. 20th century fascists thus differ from the 21st century variety . . .


. . . in key ways. Modern oligarchs want to be billionaires AND powerful. https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Beneficiaries-Plunder-Racial-Welfare/dp/0805087265 …
I often apply "fascism" to what we're seeing today, but there are distinctions between 20th and 21st century fascists.
The concept of Sadopopulism captures the distinction.


----------------------------------------------------------------------
If you haven't read On Tyranny by Tim Snyder, Yale professor, get it and read it. It's a mini book and full of plain, concise straight-talk about the signs of tyranny unfolding around us. Includes some suggested responses.

[EveHammond13]

1. they thrill at the fact he is "hurting their enemies more" - what vile garbage people trumpers are.

[loyalsister]

4. Wow

I find it disturbing that I have heard that very sentiment from people who oppose him directed at Trump supporters. Makes me wonder where the roots are, and I think AOC is correct in her assessment that is deeper than Trump. I think giving it too much attention has toxic potential. Like Rod Serling's Maple Street where neighbors turned against each other out of suspicion.
How do we avoid the spreading, I wonder.

[ck4829]

23. How do we avoid it? The question of the century.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. That's very disturbing, and probably true as to many Trumpers.

Some MAGAt with a treatable medical condition but no insurance to buy it with takes comfort during his final days from knowing that those people can't get health care either.

[EveHammond13]

3. these people are damaged, sick, mentally diseased, evil

[ck4829]

22. Disturbing and true, I remember seeing an article where someone said just that

"I may be dying of cancer but at least the black people aren't taking my welfare anymore."

[tblue37]

5. K&R for visibility. nt

[appal_jack]

6. Important! K&R

This excellent narrative sheds powerful light upon the differences between a true and compassionate populism that all Democrats should embrace, and the ugly and fascistic sadopopulism of Trump & co.

Big k&r,

-app

[moondust]

7. With some degree of Stockholm Syndrome.

Will they ever wake up?

[EveHammond13]

8. yes. that is why I say it is so hard to understand the minds of truly bad people

it reminds me of the scene from Xmen where Magneto put poison into Dr. X's machine. When we try to look into where they are coming from --- their poison gets into our minds. And we resist understanding.

[Yavin4]

9. They are awake. They know what they're doing.

Listen to Chris Hayes' podcast about Dying of Whiteness. He talked to a mental health professional's study how not extending the ACA to different states leads to a lowering of life expectancies. Some people are okay with this as they see it as a greater cause to protect their "Whiteness".

IOW, they would rather die than for other groups to get equal care and treatment. It's just that deep.

[EveHammond13]

13. this is exactly the point we need to come to terms with and deal with

[ck4829]

24. I don't know

[smirkymonkey]

10. What was the incident only recently when the MAGAt shouted out

"But they're hurting the wrong people!" As if the governments role was actually to administer pain to SOMEBODY, just not them. They are really sick individuals. They are too stupid to realize how they are being manipulated.

[BigmanPigman]

11. I learned that psychologists say he is a sadist a few months ago.

One of the doctors who signed Duty To Warn said this as well as being a narcissistic sociopath which we already were aware of. He loves to hurt people and always has. Look at the victims of Puerto Rico's hurricane, the CA fires, the ACA, victims of shootings and violence that he inspired, etc. He is a sick and twisted muther.

[BamaRefugee]

12. If they can figure out a way to make health care available ONLY TO WHITE FOLKS, even the MAGAts will

be ALL IN on Medicare for all!

There is a racial component to EVERY SINGLE THING in MAGAWORLD.

[EveHammond13]

15. what that MAGAts don't realize is that if they ever succeeded in getting rid of all

the people they hate and expelling them all from America

then the top of the pecking order would start pecking on them.

If your name isn't Jared or Ivanka -- you will eventually be a target. The trump tyrants will find a way to cull them all from the herd for one reason or another.

For example, the Saudi Princes thought they were untouchable. In the upper elite circle. Next thing you know, they are being held as MBS's prisoners and sleeping on the floor of the Hilton.

[ck4829]

21. Yep

[alwaysinasnit]

14. K&R for visibility

[LiberalLovinLug]

16. This is what the MSM news SHOULD be doing stories on!

But they won't.

They have too much invested in the two-party horse race concept. Where both parties are bad sometimes, and good sometimes. And its a matter of framing the narrative as the two parties being different sides of the same coin. One no worse than the other. Now Trump may be singled out as some kind of rude anomaly, but for them, it has nothing to do with the ongoing strategy of making sure one party doesn't get too low in the polls, or too high.

[stuffmatters]

18. It's up to every Democratic candidate & pundit to relentlessly call it Trump's Sadopopulism

Especially any time one of the MSM stooges tries to call Trump a populist. It is disgusting the MSM let Populism (formerly used to describe noble Democratics like George McGovern & Tom Harkin) be hijacked and perverted to describe Trump's Me & Mine First Only
agenda.

[ck4829]

25. Indeed

[stuffmatters]

17. Such an excellent article & resources on Trump (and GOP,Koch etc) agenda of Sadopopulism .

I'd add maybe Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine for more on their economic,historic long game.

[EveHammond13]

19. yes. we need to be more open-eyed about how deliberate and how evil their manipulations are.

[ck4829]

20. K&R

[Demovictory9]

26. evil Trump