Reply to Serious question for MAGA - how do you not see the rise of authoritarian oligarchy?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Do you believe this isn’t possible? Or do you just not care because you are fooled into believing it will some how benefit you?[/quote]

I’m not MAGA. I was one of the Democrats on here begging Democrats to look up (of course nobody did) and who knew Trump would beat Biden, let alone Harris. I think I’m one of the few Democrats posting here that regularly listens to Rogan, Kirk, etc. I’m a Democrat because I am pro-labor, pro-working class (people the Democrats used to care about), but feel alienated from this current identity-focused iteration of the party. Of course I voted for Harris because Trump is a traitor, but I have no love for the current Democrats.

Here is what you don’t understand. The deep red MAGA believe we were in an authoritarian oligarchy under the Democrats. They believe that Democrats used the pandemic to destroy small businesses with their closure and shut-down orders, and to consolidate power into the hands of powerful Democrat donors. They do not believe they receive any benefit whatsoever from government agencies, mostly seeing them as arms of the oligarchy that destroyed small businesses and the education of their children during the pandemic. And these feelings run long and deep: most of them view the pandemic business and school closures as targeted extensions of what Democrats did with NAFTA.

They also view the DEI and identity-focus of current Democrats as explicitly anti-working class. The language of DEI is inexplicable and a clear class marker — no one who isn’t part of the wealthy oligarch class uses incomprehensible terms like “lived experience” in daily conversation — and they feel that it is used by the oligarchs in charge to weaken and isolate them.

So, from the point of view of MAGA, there isn’t a change. That’s what all the hyperventilating out-of-touch posters in DCUM do not understand: the MAGA think we’re already in an authoritarian oligarchy. So, if we are already in one, it might as well be run by someone who doesn’t convey how much he hates them like the Democrats do. [/quote]

Do you have cites on any of these claims, including how the GOP is more pro-working class? In fact, can you provide an example of one policy drafted, passed, and implemented by the GOP over the last 125 years that has been for the benefit of working families?

FWIW, we are in the top 5% net worth in this country and I do not know a single person in our social groups who uses the term “lived experience.” Ever.

You may benefit from a little more reading on what constitutes oligarchs because what you are discussing here misses the mark by a wide margin.[/quote]

Sigh. DCUM elites are so slow sometimes.

No, of course Republicans don’t help the working class. And few MAGA voters believe they do, so Democrats like the PP just sound like they are slow and condescending to the MAGA. You can spare the lectures.

MAGA believe we were already in an authoritarian oligarchy that doesn’t care about the working class under Biden. Therefore, if we were already in an authoritarian oligarchy that doesn’t care about the working class, you might as well pick the head of the authoritarian oligarchy to be the guy who doesn’t telegraph over and over how much he hates you.

To break it down further, this is what MAGA believe:

Biden and the Democrats are authoritarian oligarchs who also have a personal hatred for working class people. They look down on working class people, including their food, their religion, and their sports.

Trump and the MAGA Republicans are authoritarian oligarchs who don’t care about working class people. But they don’t mind having a beer with working class people and are happy to sit and watch the WWE together.

From the MAGA point of view, who will you pick? The authoritarian oligarch who hates you for who you are or the one who doesn’t?

[/quote]

I struggle to see how someone (not you but the mindset you are describing) comes to the conclusion that these are equivalent levels of authoritarianism. Biden didn’t kick out media pool members, lie about an election, threaten those who investigated him, or threaten the borders of allies. Nor is it credible that pro union, pro social services Biden “hates” the working class. People who believe in any of that were indoctrinated by certain media oligarchs who have much to gain with Trump’s positions. The solution so many proposed was better education to develop functioning critical reasoning, but, big surprise, now the prize of our educational landscape—colleges and universities— are being defunded and threatened.  [/quote]

PP here. You are still looking at it from the perspective of a wealthy liberal Democrat. It is easy, and conveniently removes any culpability, to simply blame Fox News and other media for working class MAGA.

Just to be clear, to a certain extent I agree with you. I believe there is indoctrination going on via Fox News (though also with MSNBC). But indoctrination only works because working class people look at the struggles of their daily lives and see few positives from Democrats. In other words, the media narrative just reinforces what they already know to be true. To show you what I mean, let’s look at a few of the issues you raise, where you don’t understand how MAGA could possibly regard Biden as an authoritarian oligarch on the scale of Trump.

Borders of allies? What does that matter to the working class that will disproportionately suffer in military conflict, which appeared to be quite happily supported by Biden and Harris? Harris thought it was a good idea to campaign with Liz Cheney, and Trump was absolutely correct she is a chicken hawk. I remain shocked to this day that someone thought a Liz Cheney endorsement was a good idea to win over middle and lower class swing state voters; talk about out of touch! These voters likely all know someone who was executed in Cheney’s meat grinders, something that liberal Democrats telegraphed very clearly that they did not care about. And going specifically to borders, as far as a lot of these folks are concerned, other countries have been openly threatening the borders of the US for years with permission from the Democrats, bringing in labor that directly undercuts working class salaries. So why not fight back?

Removal of media pool members? There is too much water under the bridge with social media companies for that to be compelling. The Biden administration pressured social media companies to remove speech, much of which came from members of the working class. MAGA voters don’t believe media was free under Biden, so why on earth should Trump act differently? A lot of working class MAGA members had posts about Covid restrictions that were hurting them removed by the big social media companies, or had their accounts blocked. Forget the press pool, their experience is that Biden himself censored them directly. Who cares about some elitist journalists in DC when Uncle Charlie can’t post about how he’s losing his job because of Covid policies?

Pro-union, pro-labor Biden? How, exactly? The same Biden that denied inflation was going on? What Democrats don’t understand is that there is a big gap these days between union rank and file, and union leadership, and enormous resentment in the unions about ineffectual, possibly grifting union leadership. Biden was pro-union-leadership, not pro-union-member. This is a distinction that most Democratic partisans don’t understand but it is a significant distinction politically.

To be clear, I agree with you in general politically. I think Trump is an authoritarian disaster that I think the country will be lucky to survive. But all this liberal Democrat hand-wringing about MAGA is far off base, or more specifically it removes any culpability from Democrats. 
[/quote]

I think we are even closer than you surmise, but I disagree on some key points.

For context, I am not a Democrat. I was a Republican until 2020 when I switched to no party affiliation. My favorite president in my adult life is probably Reagan, though I absolutely believe he made many serious mistakes. I prefer a mixed government and continue to be open to voting for Republicans, but have found that increasingly hard since 2016. I taught my kids about media bias charts and encourage them to read from across the political spectrum to understand issues fully and arrive at their own conclusions.

So I am very much a centrist. But declaring oneself a centrist is a lazy cop out if used as license to over-ascribe false equivalencies.

I will attempt to respond to your main counterpoints, noting it isn’t always clear to me where you are paraphrasing arguments you think I haven’t heard vs expressing your own.

Sure, there was censorship during Biden’s term. But that wasn’t mandated by Biden. The Supreme Court even ruled the type of communication between Biden’s administration and social media  companies was unlikely to influence them. In reality the censorship was the result of those companies riding a leftist wave for their own profit. They censored cause they thought it would drive advertiser revenue. Which for a time it did. Now the same jokers are sitting in the front row at Trump’s second inauguration, because they see being in his good graces as key to continued profit. None of that is at all the same as Trump deciding which media outlets have access to White House briefings. Granting Real America’s Voice access over the Associated Press is blatant political manipulation of the media decreed by our highest office. That is not equivalent at all to some intern at Facebook deleting anti vax posts to appease advertisers. We need more unbiased (or minimally biased?) reporters on the front lines. We don’t benefit from MTG’s boyfriend reporter making stunt comments that mock an allied wartime president, a moment that absolutely contributed to the ensuing spiral imo.

Our working class and everyone else very much have more to fear when NATO is undermined. I’m sympathetic to the issues with allowing cheap illegal labor, but that’s not on par with dismantling NATO, which is a real possibility if we are talking about seizing ally territories “one way or another” against their will. NATO is the single biggest reason we’ve avoided a third world war so far. A third world war would impact the working class and everyone else almost infinitely more than illegal farm workers. NATO actually got stronger under Biden. I agree he botched immigration control.

As for unions, historians roundly consider Biden one of the most pro labor presidents of the past 80 years.  He made it easier to join, easier to negotiate, and was even the first to picket with them. He did have difficulty explaining how the runaway inflation was a vestige of all the cheap money during the Covid years (starting with Trump) and how it was connected to the low unemployment rate that he still managed.

But if your thesis is “The Democrats are partly to blame for this,” I agree.  Mostly because they didn’t convince Biden to step aside before the primary. But they fumbled many other places too, from waiting too long to address the border crisis to overdoing wokeism.

Those Dem screw ups were not as grave as what we see now, but, yes absolutely the Dems need to pick their battles more carefully and learn to listen better to those not in their base. And mainstream media companies need to stop insulting voters on the right, however hard that may be, as it just drives that audience to the types of echo chambers that made this possible. Too often newscasters on both sides are content to feed the rage rather than offer balanced takes. They  need some serious self-reflection. Too often I would listen to a mainstream reporter and think “how can the person who needs to hear this actually have an open mind about it with all the hyperbole and condescending tone?” [/quote]

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