Something it took me a long time to fully appreciate

[Tom Rinaldo]

In order for a society, ours for example, to not totally go off the rails it isn't so much necessary that most people firmly believe in the right things for the right reasons. It is necessary that most people pay at least lip service to the right things, out of fear of negative personal repercussions if they don't. Those negative repercussions can be big like the possibility of being imprisoned, they can be middling like the possibility of losing an election, or they can be relatively small, like the fear of community scorn, but it is the fear of some level of backlash that keeps a lot of people from openly acting deplorably.

That's what kept a lot of racists closeted. That's what led many with authoritarian instincts to vow fidelity to democratic principles. They believed that most of those around them opposed their personal views, or at least they suspected that most might disdain their views should they become known, so they were cautious about how they tried to advance them, if they even tried to at all. That gave the breathing space needed for our society to evolve in positive ways over the last 70 or so years, to slowly become more inclusive from one generation to the next.

Trump blew all of that to hell. It can't be overestimated the amount of damage that's been done by having an openly authoritarian bigot hold the office of the presidency. Trump has empowered hate in America, he's shown that openly appealing to feral fears can be richly rewarded with success. More to the current point though, he has shown, so far at least, that you can get away with all of that. Regardless of whether Trump regains the White House, Trumpism will remain a dangerous and potent force in America if Trump himself is not finally held accountable for the harm he has caused in his life time. Whatever chaos we as a nation might face if Trump ever goes on trial for his crimes, it will be ten times worse if he doesn't.

[markie]

1. ...

[alwaysinasnit]

2. K&R Excellent post.

[PatSeg]

3. Well said

[Raven]

4. Amen!

[Karadeniz]

5. Yes! As I wrote many moons ago, way too many people simply don't have strong enough soul energy

within themselves to combat the selfishness of the brain's ego function. When that happens, the brain can be influenced by society's values. That dike has now been breeched by all media forms that create a society for ego driven selfishness: freedom at the expense of equality, intolerant attitudes and laws against anyone and anything that doesn't conform to their personal preferences, might over right, leaders who confirm their prejudices. As long as this supportive ego driven society exists, it doesn't look good for a society reflecting belief in truth, equality and justice to wield influence.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

6. You have very clearly stated the truth! Thank you, my dear Tom Rinaldo. ♥

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. Thank you CaliforniaPeggy

[EarlG]

7. I think perhaps the Internet blew it to hell

Trump was just the first politician to capitalize on it.

I think you’re spot on about the fear of accountability keeping people from being their worst selves.

They believed that most of those around them opposed their personal views, or at least they suspected that most might disdain their views should they become known, so they were cautious about how they tried to advance them, if they even tried to at all.

This is what the Internet has changed: whereas in the past a person might not speak their worst beliefs out loud for fear that they’d be shunned, now they can quickly and easily find vast communities of others who have the same horrible beliefs. They no longer feel alone, their bigotry is reinforced, they feel more comfortable about broadcasting it to the world.

Trump is the first US politician in the Internet era to be debased and immoral enough to lean into this phenomenon in order to gain power.

[Tom Rinaldo]

12. Yes, anonymity with amplification is a potent brew, strength in imagined numbers

The internet also tends to empower the obsessed who either don't have or are uninterested in living a reasonably balanced life, the ones who find meaning in falling down rabbit holes...

I suppose it was inevitable that politicians would arise to exploit what you describe, it is tragic that a polished unscrupulous TV showman was among the first, but I suppose that too could have been predicted. The bottom line remains, until this phenomena is clearly countered with real life repercussions, it will continue to gather steam until is is.

[Novara]

16. Don't forget the media's role in prioritizing sensationalism over journalistic ethics

If they never treated him as a sensationalist OMG LOOK WHAT HE SAID joke we wouldn't be where we are.

Even here people post the OMG GUESS WHAT SO AND SO SAID threads. They all get put into trash immediately. I refuse to feed the hysteria of sensationalism. Unfortunately, the media chases it. People here chase it.

I dunno, if a Dem candidate came down an escalator calling immigrants rapists would the media have chased him as if the candidacy was all fun and games? Or would they have immediately called out his racism?

[Earth-shine]

50. +1 Through the internet, they are able to find each other and organize. nt

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

8. Spot on.

[gulliver]

9. True, but it wasn't just Trump

Legacy and social media played a big role. Everyone feels like they're being threatened, and everyone is right. We all need to chill.

[wnylib]

37. Battle lines being drawn,

Nobody's right if everyone's wrong.

[usaf-vet]

10. GITMO! excise the cancer and remove it from the living body.

[Mozeltov Cocktail]

11. Thank you, that eloquently and succinctly...

... summed up what is going on right now. Hillary pointed this out with her "basket of deplorables" and now now we have what you have so cleverly defined.

[Novara]

13. Once again, Hillary was right

"It can't be overestimated the amount of damage that's been done by having an openly authoritarian bigot hold the office of the presidency."

Does anybody think that we'd be seeing the sheer number of death threats to Dems, Rs who don't toe the line, librarians, LGBTQ people, teachers, election officials, secretaries of state, judges, etc. if that orange motherfucker never was president?

I don't.

[Tom Rinaldo]

15. Violent intimidation has been working for them

A lot of at least semi-reasonable people have scrambled to get out of the way to make room for far right crazies out of literal fear for their own lives and the lives of their loved ones. It costs nothing to issue anonymous death threats if doing so doesn't result in serious prosecutions. Trump boasted years ago that he had all of the "tough guys" backing him.

[Novara]

18. Remember when death threats were shocking?

It's really astonishing how far we've fallen in such a short time.

[lambchopp59]

17. The RWNJ side of my family

were always prone to acerbic tongue, constantly looking for troublemaking situations to jump right into. We could never simply have a good time together playing a game without at least one of their bunch ruining the fun, usually creating an injurious situation, were in perpetual "punishment" from elders. This was on summer visits to g'pa's place in Misery. (oh, er... Missouri) I enjoyed the grandparents, but just became wary, introverted and stayed away from the "kids", all a few years older than myself, and I was always glad to get back home. Once the g'parents passed on, no occasion to visit. But I decided decades later to take a motocycle tour through that territory and see some of that family.
I regretted that decision.
They were all hooked on Fox News and embroiled in bombastic screaming matches within their family units. Not one had matured one iota. Facebook ties were severed after November 2008 after requests to cease with blatantly racist anti-Obama posts.
Deplorable all. I'm embarrassed to admit any relation to them.

[mountain grammy]

29. We got em too..

with their big "Pray for America" sign in their yard and hate in their hearts.

[Boomerproud]

31. Your feelings about them as a child turned out to correct.

Smart to remove yourself from them.

[sop]

19. Public opprobium no longer works in our society because Trump normalized the indefensible.

I hope a long prison sentence will help re-establish some norms in this country.

[KPN]

20. I agree. I would add though that the underlying current that enabled tapping into and using the

dark forces of hatred and fear was the unbridled greed and celebration of wealth precipitated by deregulated capitalism. We can thank Ronald Reagan for that.

[Tom Rinaldo]

21. It used to be that the working class knew that they were the working class, and...

by and large those from at least the middle middle class down were suspicious of and resistant to the power exercised by the super wealthy in America. Reagan and his media allies ushered in the era of average Americans identifying with and even hero worshiping the super rich. That sure as hell hasn't helped.

[elleng]

22. Yes, correct as usual, Tom.

Trump has empowered hate in America.

[Tom Rinaldo]

26. Thanks elleng

We agree again

[elleng]

42. as usual.

[Wounded Bear]

23. Indeed! nt

[Ferrets are Cool]

24. K and R

[ymetca]

25. All that displaced anger

in America's Heartland, aka "flyover country", channeled by Big Oil and Big White Jesus into hating those even worse off than you think you are.

I'm dumbfounded by how many of those insurrectionists were living quite comfortable lives, at least compared to mine anyway.

Punching down like that, on minorities and the multitudes less fortunate than you, evidences some sort of re-triggered childhood trauma, mental or physical abuse, or at least repression of fuller self-actualization, exploited by flat-out brainwashing by unscrupulous media manipulation.

The party of so-called "family values" is the epitome of family dysfunction. All that hatred and self-loathing is bubbling up from somewhere.

We all know "it's the system that done that to you", and replacing players in that corrupt system with "virtue signaling tokens" of pretend diversity is not solving the problem.

[mountain grammy]

27. Completely agree!

Trump empowered hate! I just never believed how much there is.

[70sEraVet]

28. Back to the 'Which-came-first' thing

The racist, or the racist con-artist.

[Tommymac]

30. K&R for Truth. nt

[CanonRay]

32. Truth

[mrsadm]

33. Could not agree more!

[Skittles]

34. thank you

I think Obama's election caused a lot of racists to emerge from under their rocks, but it is Trump who makes them feel proud and emboldened by their racism.

[wnylib]

40. Yes. Reagan catered to a White backlash

against civil rights gains of the 60s and 70s.

Trump catered to the outrage of those same people that a Black man had become president - for two terms.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

35. Beautifully said. +100

[Wild blueberry]

36. Very thoughtful post

When the Internet became universal, it bothered me that comments and posts could be anonymous. If one had to stand by one's public words, there could be some personal moderation. We are seeing the fruit of that rotten bush.
By the way, my name is Catherine Parker. I stand by my words.
Your last sentence, "Whatever chaos we as a nation might face if Trump ever goes on trial for his crimes, it will be ten times worse if he doesnt." I'd up that to a million times worse.
Thank you for your eloquent observations.

[LuckyCharms]

38. You have expressed what I have been unable to put into words.

Outstanding post.

[cilla4progress]

39. I agree completely.

What I call it is shunning.

Those feral instincts - and those who act on them - must be shunned. It is/was a common practice in other (non-"western&quot cultures. Kick the sociopaths and anarchists off the island.

As Lincoln alluded, we all have better angels, and "worser" angels. Loser45 and his cult-following speak to our worser ones....

Of course, with the climate collapse, maybe society's institutions will be irrelevant? Or maybe, more critical than ever.

All I know is Mother Nature always has the last laugh.

Here is that beautiful Lincoln quote:

"We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

We never learn...

[2naSalit]

41. Amen!

[Samrob]

43. Yes. The behavior that gets rewarded, gets repeated.

It will be a "reward" if Trump and his minions do not go to jail! Period!

[Jade Fox]

44. Thank you, thank you, thank you

I've been having very similar thoughts for awhile now. You articulated this beautifully.

In addition to empowering hate, racism, and fascism, Trump has also empowered a general....call it asshole-ism, in our society.

You see this public asshole-ism everywhere now: On planes, in restaurants, with anti-maskers, anywhere people decide, using Trump-think, that they are being victimized. Trump has given them the permission to ignore any sort of social decorum, and just cut loose! After all, Trump openly bragged he "grabbed women by the pussy" and still got elected President of the United States!

It seems to me like we used to have some standards for acceptable public behavior, but Trumpism has put an end to that.

[Tom Rinaldo]

46. Yep. i wish he would just go away

But he won't.

[Tom Rinaldo]

48. I thoght that might be where you were heading...

At this point I don't think us talking, or not talking, about him makes a critical difference. It was different in 2016 when his first campaign was still gathering altitude and the media kept pumping him oxygen, but it's past that point now, imo. He can't be ignored into irrelevance, it's not just about him anymore, it's more about what he helped set in motion.

[soldierant]

49. You know, you are exactly right, and you said it well.

Now can you explain that to all the atheists and agnostics who "don't need to have religion to be good" - which is grast, I salute them, but it's so dismissive of people who do get help from their faith to be good people - and there are many that do, and do it well, along with those who do it very badly. If people need faith and fear in order to aperate with a moral spine, it really is not helpful to try to take that away from them.

[flying rabbit]

51. Yep. You have dialed in the problem.

Now what? We need to figure out how to rise above this.

[DFW]

52. "Ten times worse"--indeed, and it won't be mere chaos

Like a cancer detected early, timely treatment may be painful and unpleasant, but no treatment at all will ultimately be fatal.

[Sympthsical]

53. It wasn't Trump. It was the Internet.

Trump was the result of the problem - not the cause. We already knew the problem was there, because President Obama's tenure was saturated in it.

Before social media and the internet, if you had an extreme view or a socially unacceptable view, you largely kept it to yourself for fear of repercussions - just as you outlined above. You never know what people think, and attaching your name and in-person presence to a view came with risks. You never knew if that stranger at the party agreed with you, so you just didn't bring it up.

However, people got online. They were able to join communities where hundreds or thousands of others shared their views. They disappeared into bubbles where not only did people share their attitudes, but push back against those opinions and attitudes was actively disallowed.

Trump was 20 years of that pot of water coming to a boil. There are steam jets of insanity in all directions now. It was allowed to fester and multiply and grow and spread.

One common thing I see stated about the increased partisanship in the country is, "It all started with the stolen election." However, what else was happening in 2000? The Internet was reaching a critical point. When I was still a kid in the mid-90s, it was still a little unusual if you had the internet. And pretty cool. By 2000, most middle class people had it. And once broadband took off, we were off to the races. Bush is just a correlation to what was happening under the surface - that wasn't the cause.

We're not immune to this stuff. We have our own ideological corners of this where there are things we are and are not allowed to say, spaces where any kind of disagreement or push back on an issue is unwelcome and actively censored. Happens everywhere all the time. I think it's weird when our side denies it or fails to notice it or just doesn't care about it. But it's a thing. I think there are some issues we're in blatant danger about, because we have been talking to ourselves and reinforcing each other on things without a care that the rest of the world is not even slightly on board with us. I think we're on the cusp of a major FAFO moment in some areas and in total denial it's coming. Can't even conceive of it.

Because the Internet is not there for truth or information. It's largely used as social and political signalling and mutual reassurance that we're right, everyone else is wrong, and we need to do partisan battle over it everywhere at all times.

If someone's a racist, and they're getting constant reassurance that it's ok if not outright awesome to be racist, it will spread. Not only will it spread, but people will have confidence in having those thoughts and beliefs.

We're seeing this now. I don't know how any of it is a surprise. I noticed this shit ages ago. By 2010, I had a pretty good grasp that social media were just going to make everything a lot worse.

So far, so correct.

[SouthernDem4ever]

54. very true

When I was growing up we had a major newspaper and three television stations not including PBS. Radio stations had protocols to follow. They all showed restraint when it came to weird militia racists types. You just didn't hear about them unless it was some fringe group getting arrested for breaking the law- which was always their MO. They were not treated as legitimate political sources. Today, you have fux nooze, OAN and Newsmax and right-wing hate radio proudly spewing hate propaganda on their behalf - not even counting the internet.

[yardwork]

57. The problem is Fox News and hate radio. It's mainstream and accessible.

It's on all the time in millions of homes and businesses.

[yardwork]

56. Researchers have found that this isn't all that true.

I used to think this too, but researchers have found that people aren't as siloed on the internet as we might think. In fact, thanks to the internet, people are actually exposed to more points of view rather than fewer. Most of us don't stay in only one extreme corner of the internet and wallow in extremism. The extremism that the vast majority of Americans imbibe is on their kitchen TVs and truck radios - it's Fox News and the talk shows on the radio. My in laws aren't hanging out on Reddit. They're listening to Hannity and Tucker over dinner.

[Sympthsical]

62. I'd like to see these studies

Because my experience and direct observation is very, very, very opposite.

[yardwork]

65. Here's one that discusses the complexities.

There's some hope here, I think. Honestly, if we could get rid of Fox News it would improve the situation immensely. Watching Fox News has made some of my relatives miserable, mean people.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/we-know-less-about-social-media-than-we-think/amp

[SouthernDem4ever]

70. that's all hate TV has to offer

miserable and mean.

[Sympthsical]

71. That's a really, really good article

Thank you for sharing it.

[yardwork]

72. You're welcome!

[yardwork]

55. I blame Fox "News" and hate radio for spreading lies and encouraging fear. I blame the GOP.

I think Republicans made a pact with the devil when they decided to use lies and propaganda to stay in power. They've convinced half the U.S. population of things that are simply not true. Chaos has followed. Trump is a manifestation and he won't be the last.

[bucolic_frolic]

58. But success and sadism feels so powerful to them!

Order relies on benefits, power, some level of fear or consequences, and control. Everyone's had private grievances forever. Something you don't like. That didn't mean you wanted to, or thought, you could force everyone else to do what you wanted. Trumpism sure changed that. Not sure where we're headed. I'd bet it's a good 40 years of muddling through this before it burns out in irrelevance. If we're lucky.

[NullTuples]

59. I fear that by placing it all on Trump's shoulders we're letting the cause slip into the night

Trump was a useful idiot, to borrow the phrase. The GOP had been building this up since they merged with the Tea Party and the American Christian Dominionists years before. Since they embraced the racists during the Bush Jr & Obama years. McConnell had been working his schemes on the courts, Congress and state legislatures since 2010. They had no good reason to choose Trump as their candidate other than he fit so neatly into their plans and efforts.

[Tom Rinaldo]

60. Of course Trump did not start this. But by becoming POTUS, regardless of how he got there...

...he conferred an aura of legitimacy onto the hateful and dangerous views that he espouses. I was focused on the RESULT in this OP rather than the CAUSE. Now that Trump has become a former and possibly future American President, it becomes of great importance whether or not he personally is ever held fully accountable for his own personal behavior. Call him a poster child for hate if you wish, though of course he is worse than merely that. If Trump continues to prosper after everything he has done, it green lights his type of behavior, by him or anyone else, on a massive scale with severe adverse consequences, for both our republic and our society.

[NullTuples]

63. Thank you, for the expanded explanation, I appreciate your point(s) better now.

[Grins]

61. It began with Reagan....

Took root with Atwater and Bush.
Bloomed under Rove and Bush 2.
Became an invasive and deadly vine under Trump.

[heckles65]

64. An excellent several paragraphs!!

I have reposted it in full on my blog and FB page. And I don't repost very much.

[paulkienitz]

66. Even worse than open bigotry is that he normalized open refusal to accept election losses.

[OneGrassRoot]

67. VERY well said. n/t

[SpankMe]

68. This is very, very well stated.

I have had the same exact thoughts for years, but have been unable to express them as clearly as this. Thanks.

[Evolve Dammit]

69. Saw it beginning in 2015. swastikas and pro-Trump graffiti on local playgrounds.

the orange one masterfully destroyed each opponent by the deriding nicknames and allowing the rabid base to feel entitled to vent their aggrieved rage. The cult is now running the party. if we lose the House, it may be running us headlong into a very dark time.