The night Trump was elected an incredulous friend of mine wondered what his base would do when they realized he was full of crap and would not be ushering in any American revivals. I answered simply they would blame whoever Fox/AM told them to. But now we see it’s more ominous than that: his wretched core is actually subsuming their economic well being to the broader resentment he and Rush foment hourly. That is, it’s ok if your promises of economic resurgence were a crock so long as you continue whitening America and keeping us safe.
Everywhere now the damaging effects of Trump “keeping his promises” are beginning to dawn on his supporters. Landscapers are getting hit hard because H2-B guest workers are no longer available from south of the border and drug-free whites appear uninterested in $12/hour opportunities to work outdoors. Soybean farmers, fully dependent on Chinese markets, are waiting for the other shoe to drop as China ponders retaliating to Trump trade provocations. Auto workers in Ohio are worried about layoffs because sales of the compacts they build are depressed, a direct result of Trump Administration attacks on air quality regulations. Home builders are behind schedule because, in an economy with 3.9% unemployment, they can’t find young red blooded Americans interested in $17/hour jobs. The list goes on and on… restaurants without kitchen help; hotels without maid service; crops without harvesters, crabs without crab pickers!
Interdependence is kicking ass and confirming just how vapid and self-destructive the Trump campaign talking points were. But his base doesn’t seem to care. Many don’t appear cognizant of the hardship coming their way, believing “fake news” tweets instead of the overdraft notices in the mail. But many who do comprehend the policy-result link appear prepared to subordinate prosperity to the piece of mind they get knowing their grievance empath is at the helm. Resentment, it appears, provides a salve to losing the family farm.
There is absolutely nothing to suggest Trumpenomics, a hybrid of the worst of the GOP (supply-side/trickle-down)and the Democrats (protectionism) will lead to anything but recession or worse. Already, the “signature” accomplishment has ballooned the deficit over a $trillion and promised mountainous debt service payments, even as moronic destruction of established pacts and provoking trade wars ensures inflation and high interest rates. And who will suffer worst, aside from the poor and destitute, who always bear the brunt of tanked economies? Trump’s base, collegeless whites.
How they react to calamity brought to them solely by their champion will provide a glimpse of the fight we may be in for. Aside from the fantasy of Mueller slaying Trump with indictments and money trails, dissidents have banked on his base taking him to task once they realized the joke was on them. That is looking less and less likely, as Tucker solemnly warns about human caravans heading to the border, and Hannity rallies his zombies to be prepared for civil war if Trump is impeached.
Trump will spend the run up to election 18’ holding forth for his nihilists several times a week. Anybody familiar with the shtick knows that white grievance and MS-13, as well as labeling vital institutions as traitorous because they, well… exist, take a lion’s share of the recital. It’s not hard to imagine, as the economy begins to buckle, that Trump will add more ethno-nationalist red meat and redefine how they are all MAGAing together.
The degree it works will mirror the broader threat Trump and the Fox/AM beast responsible for his ascent represent. If flyover farmers look past needless destruction of foreign markets as long as they feel the culture war is being won, then rhyme or reason, already in very short supply, has been fully replaced by collective visceral grievance by 40% of the electorate. That guarantees a burgeoning political class of Trumpies, which in turn hastens the GOP’s demise and makes reviving our system that much more difficult. “It’s the economy stupid” may very well be giving way to “speak English in my country!” And that sucks in any language. BC
Nic piece BC. How do we open the minds of the hermetically sealed, intolerant and inflexible Fox/AM minds and pump reason into the discourse? We need to penetrate all those tinfoil hats.
Hard to compete with The Five, Big Man. It’s like a Bond film, only Murdoch is a lot more unsightly than Johnathon Price. BC
Nice piece BC. How do we open the minds of the hermetically sealed, intolerant and inflexible Fox/AM minds and pump reason into the discourse? We need to penetrate all those tinfoil hats.