Article in question from CBC
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/adam-gopnik-anti-elitism-antisemitism-anti-urbanism-1.7458841
Trying to make sense of the current political storm, this article helped me.
I keep coming back to the question: what’s the end goals/motivations of Trump supporters? They know he wants to break the government and, yet, thinks it’s worthwhile. Why? Motivation will be multifaceted and we read all kind of proposition from dementia to dark gothic MAGA (as a plot from billionaires to each be king of their own techno-feudal city state). I don’t want to be naive but don’t want to be fear mongering either. Any agenda is enabled by the population and sufficient support.
This article’s take on anti-elitism as a rejection from the uneducated mass of educated immigrants because they perceive them as competition and as being responsible for their failure to achieve success… it leaves me a bit depressed because it takes effort to open up to any difference (immigrants, sexual orientation… ) and the mass of average (poorly) educated population doesn’t have the ressources to make this effort. And then the division in our population can be exploited by dangerous individuals for further pain.
How do we fight this now (and frankly forever because this weakness is intrinsic to this world, for every generation)?
He is literally a foreign asset. He is a deeply flawed, weak-minded individual who openly worships foreign dictators. His behaviour is AT BEST a pathological need to get the approval of these authoritarians, but I truly think that in addition to that which we can plainly see, he is being influenced by foreign states.
You might be right, but I wonder if it’s simpler than that. I think he just wants payback on every person ever who embarrassed or angered him. So he’s burning it all to the ground in order to hurt the people who voted against him…whatever makes Dems most angry is what he wants to do. In that sense, he’s easily manipulated by his inner circle of grifters and foreign strongmen that he idolizes.