Crunchy MAGA: The New Right of the 2020s.

[Anonymous]

I would love to be as confident as a Republican in an election year.

[Anonymous]

yes, it's the wellness culture to alt right pipeline that so many of these people fell into. Now a lot of them are backing RFK

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As for the vaccine, you’re darn right that was a tipping point. Some of us don’t want government telling us what to do with our bodies. It’s weird how that’s completely understood when it comes to abortion but not when it comes to vaccines. Biden lied to us and said the vaccines were necessary to reduce deadliness of COVID and its spread and more people caught COVID and died of COVID during his administration than during the Trump administration

The only people who had mandated shots were federal employees and military. Everyone else was optional. No one told you what you could or could not do where the COVID shot was concerned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The democrats misread the tea leaves in 2016. They pushed Bernie out because “it was Hilary’s turn”, but they didn’t understand the restlessness that existed and that the country was itching for a populist candidate.

Biden was the calm after the chaos after the Trump presidency, but no one expected him to have a second term. He screwed up by picking Harris as VP because she’s a weak lead at the top of the ticket. He shouldn’t be running this year, but there’s no suitable replacement that’s ready.

The general public is being fleeced by corporate interests. They want someone outside the mainstream. I wish it had been Bernie, but it’s not, it’s Trump. We’re living in Idiocracy in real life.

Bernie isn't a democrat. He should have run as an independent or joined the party. I am not sure why you think a whole political party should have cleared the path for someone who wasn't and isn't a member.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She sounds very much like some of my Calif. and Illinois friends.

What they all see is that globalization under Clinton/Obama has hurt our working class which includes themselves. One is a black truck driver, some are into reiki, crystals, etc.

They also don’t like the far left demented ideology that there is no such thing as gender, among many things.

I dislike the far left disrespect of conservatives who make up half of the US, and disrespect of traditional families including parents who choose to stay at home to raise their own kids.

The left doesn't despise people who want to stay home and raise their kids. They try to make it so people can get healthcare, so their kids have a shot at a decent education and can get a college degree if they want it, to have a living wage so one person can work while the other stays home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As for the vaccine, you’re darn right that was a tipping point. Some of us don’t want government telling us what to do with our bodies. It’s weird how that’s completely understood when it comes to abortion but not when it comes to vaccines. Biden lied to us and said the vaccines were necessary to reduce deadliness of COVID and its spread and more people caught COVID and died of COVID during his administration than during the Trump administration

The only people who had mandated shots were federal employees and military. Everyone else was optional. No one told you what you could or could not do where the COVID shot was concerned.

That’s not really true. Many employers had vaccine requirements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like your friend has lots in common with disillusioned Democrats like myself. We are far left progressive but are tired of the failures and empty promises of the Dem Party .

Much like the Reagan Democrats, the Trump Democrats are real. We are here and we are anti war and pro American labor not for cheap illegal migrant exploitation/labor or outsourcing . Donald Trump is a one man walking and talking labor Union and anti war activist for America and that’s just enough for some of us progressives to make him better than Biden or Hillary

This is totally correct. Democrats didn’t realize how much of their voting bloc was filled with racist white working class nativists, until Trump came along and stole all of them.

And now they are all republicans and people like you and the OP's friend are...voting for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The democrats misread the tea leaves in 2016. They pushed Bernie out because “it was Hilary’s turn”, but they didn’t understand the restlessness that existed and that the country was itching for a populist candidate.

Biden was the calm after the chaos after the Trump presidency, but no one expected him to have a second term. He screwed up by picking Harris as VP because she’s a weak lead at the top of the ticket. He shouldn’t be running this year, but there’s no suitable replacement that’s ready.

The general public is being fleeced by corporate interests. They want someone outside the mainstream. I wish it had been Bernie, but it’s not, it’s Trump. We’re living in Idiocracy in real life.

If Trump is against “corporate interests” then why did Elon Musk endorse him?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This will be a long post, bear with me if you feel like it.

Let me begin by telling you about my high school best friend. (FWIW: We are still best friends)

She lives in an exurban, coastal town in a blue state. She is mostly vegetarian, was a vegan for a time. Buys all her food from a local organic farmers market, gets eggs from her neighbor's free range chickens. Has an organic vegetable garden. She uses a compost bucket, meticulously sorts through what can be composted, recycled, reused, tossed out. Her late father built the house she and her family (husband, elderly mother) live in, and they installed their own solar panels. During her walks on the beach, she always picks up litter, including the tiniest piece of plastic she might come across. She once stopped her walk to attempt to help free an injured dragonfly caught in some seaweed.
She collects cultures for fermented foods like saurkraut, makes her own kombucha. Her mother gathers herbs and such, sourcing the best natural health remedies to their knowledge. As a side gig (she's a high school literature teacher), she does massage therapy. She practices yoga, avoids products with too many artificial ingredients, prefers to cover up in the sun rather than use sunscreen because of its ingredients. Never uses any plastic bottles.

Anyways... 5-10 years ago, you might assume by these left, liberal-coded aesthetics, she would be somewhat of a progressive Democrat.
In fact, she is a Trump supporter, and pretty far right politically.

This decade, I have notice something bizarre that I am only beginning to understand: the connections between the MAGA right and the granola, hippie, back-to-nature cohort. So much of it still doesn't make sense: If you love nature, the environment, health, animals so much, why would you vote for the political party that wants to destroy so much of it?

Some attribute this phenomenon to horseshoe theory... look no farther than a sizeable collection of Bernie supporters that have turned into far-right MAGA influences: Tulsi Gabbard, Jimmy Dore, Jackson Hinkle, the Red Scare podcast to name a few.

My friend has never really fit into that category though. She's been right-leaning apolitical her whole life. The common thread is being anti-government. Think Laura Ingalls Wilder-type libertarian. I can live off the land, I don't need the government to tell me what to do. I can do it myself.
At the same time, people like my high school friend have a similar distaste for the influence of large corporations as they do to Big Government. She would often criticize the omnipresence of marketing, advertising, brand names everywhere, plus technology addiction. But she wouldn't go far as to denounce capitalism - her father was a small business owner. She viewed things from the perspective that small businesses could and should handle things on their own, that large corporations AND government regulation were always getting in the way. Plus, she always had a view that poor people aren't "owed" anything. If you can't afford to live in her upscale beach community, then too bad, don't expect government subsidized housing or any other kind of handout. But voluntary generosity and kindness are virtues.

It's obvious why this aesthetic shift... "crunchy granola hippie Yoga moms" shifted from vagely leftwing to MAGA in 2020: Covid and vaccines. My friend believes in natural remedies first and has never been vaccinated, at least not for covid or the annual flu. And she, like others, have never forgiven Democratic-run governments for what they believe is severe overreach during the early stages of the pandemic. I don't need to explain this further.

2020 was the tipping point for many people like my friend and others, including some that may have been vaguely left-leaning, if not all-out Bernie supporters, to become all in on MAGA, rightwing populism.
Conservative, right, and MAGA are "counterculture."
Democrat, liberal, and especially, Biden are mainstream, corporate, corrupt, and value only obedience and submission. They are now "The Man."

Of course I can poke a bazillion holes in this narrative, but that doesn't matter. This is what they believe. And it's so frustrating, because there are a ton of issues that I would actually agree with them on. Take my friend for instance: we agree that people and corporations pollute too much, that animals should be cared for, that microplastics are a problem, that we fund too much war, that people are too addicted to technology. But the counter-"Narrative" narrative is that the Democrats now represent the toxic, elite marriage of Big Government, Big Tech, Hollywood, the Military-Industrial Complex, and everything that's bad, and that the simple, wholesome people living off the land are what The Left wants to stomp out.

I live in a wealthy rural area that is adjacent to exurban area. I know tons of people like this. They present as DEI/liberal hippies but are foaming at the mouth anti-government MAGA.

Covid didn’t change them - Covid radicalized them and made it ok for them to be more visible and outspoken. They’re mostly “RFK curious” but go with MAGA because it is what their dad, husband, church people are doing.

The fact that they have “church people” makes it clear that these are not the same sort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As for the vaccine, you’re darn right that was a tipping point. Some of us don’t want government telling us what to do with our bodies. It’s weird how that’s completely understood when it comes to abortion but not when it comes to vaccines. Biden lied to us and said the vaccines were necessary to reduce deadliness of COVID and its spread and more people caught COVID and died of COVID during his administration than during the Trump administration

The vaccines did reduce the deadliness of COVID and reduce its spread you nitwit.

Did not reduce spread. Pfizer never tested whether they prevented transmission.

Reduced transmission and impact, absolutely. No one ever claimed it would prevent transmission...that isn't what vaccines do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread already confirms what I have suspected for a long time. Bernie and Trump supporters are the same people. They hate what America is and want it to be something else and they don’t care what it becomes as long as it screws the establishment.

America was not piloted by an unaccountable administrative state being flooded with millions of people from incompatible cultures until relatively recently. I love America and I want to turn the ship around before it is lost forever.

???? The southern border has been an issue since Reagan was president. On several instances, there was a chance at a legislative fix and at every turn, the GOP spurned it, including this spring.

[Anonymous]

I know people like this too. One of my friends might be a little surprised how much she misses government if it stops working, given her personal situation, which I won't get into.

The Democrats completely sold out back in 1992. Ross Perot has been proven right, as goofy as the man was.

But really, the USA couldn't possibly maintain the 50s and 60s economic position, which was because of the resolution of WWII. We won. Big time. So did the USSR, but they took so much more damage and economic communism kinda sucks.

However, the Democrats sold out and created this neoliberal mess. So here we are. It's just too late.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like your friend has lots in common with disillusioned Democrats like myself. We are far left progressive but are tired of the failures and empty promises of the Dem Party .

Much like the Reagan Democrats, the Trump Democrats are real. We are here and we are anti war and pro American labor not for cheap illegal migrant exploitation/labor or outsourcing . Donald Trump is a one man walking and talking labor Union and anti war activist for America and that’s just enough for some of us progressives to make him better than Biden or Hillary

This is totally correct. Democrats didn’t realize how much of their voting bloc was filled with racist white working class nativists, until Trump came along and stole all of them.

It’s racist to say illegal immigration is wrong and companies should hire poor Americans for factory jobs first ? Do you know how many black and white Americans were hired by the hundreds of factories that had Ice raids during Trumps admin? Amazingly, Tysons Food and others were miraculously able to hire Americans suddenly for jobs.

The Dems call these places flyover states and Obama and Hillary said factory jobs no longer even exist. Look at how cruel and condescending that type of dismissive attitude is toward the poor and it’s shocking it’s coming from the Democrat Party. The so called party of labor . You wonder why these people love Trump? He doesn’t fly over those states . He stops at every single one, including the inner cities and meets and greets people . When’s the last time the limousine liberals did that?

You’re going to be shocked in November because Trump will even more of the electorate than in 2020 and 2016 and more of all the minority votes as well (Latino, black, Asian, Muslim, Jewish ).

All the handwringing about Trump being Hitler 2.0 and a racist isn’t working

So you are admitting that the illegal immigration crisis was fueled by GOP owned corporations hiring said illegal immigrants. Do you see the fallacy of your logic?

Add to it, how many manufacturing jobs have been created under the GOP since 1988? How many by the Dems?

(hint, it is about 20:1 ratio in favor of those jobs being created under Dem administrations)

[Anonymous]

Bernie bros forgetting that Bernie endorsed Biden, not Trump.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She sounds very much like some of my Calif. and Illinois friends.

What they all see is that globalization under Clinton/Obama has hurt our working class which includes themselves. One is a black truck driver, some are into reiki, crystals, etc.

They also don’t like the far left demented ideology that there is no such thing as gender, among many things.

I dislike the far left disrespect of conservatives who make up half of the US, and disrespect of traditional families including parents who choose to stay at home to raise their own kids.

um.. which party supports paid family leave?