A well worded argument, but it doesn’t seem to check out in my opinion. Trumpers seem to like the following people the most: Murdoch, Trump, Elon Musk, and Koch bros.

They hate some elites like Bill Gates, so its not all billionaire-worship, but they swear allegiance to plenty of New York real-estate elite types and/or Tech-bro Billionaire types, and/or Media Tycoons.

Its not the elitism (or lack thereof) that attracts people to Trump. Trump is as billionaire, New York real-estate, Media Mogul as anyone else, possibly the richest President ever. That’s not what they hate.

What Trump offers them is assurances that its someone else’s fault. Trump makes cute nicknames for political opponents and manages to get arguments down to a single sentence or even single word. Its about simplicity in discussion and argument more so than anything else.

Simple arguments that are wrong to any thinking person of course. But simple arguments that tickle people’s ego are the key to gaining a large flux of followers. And as someone else points out: you can’t outsimplify arguments better than Trump, because Trump has no moral qualms about lying to make his simple statements simpler than any argument you can make. Secondly, your simple arguments (though possibly true) serve to tear down someone else’s ego, rather than build up their ego.

Given the choice between a simple lie (that happens to improve someone’s ego) and simple (or simplified) truths that are far more complex and that damage the ego, the simple lie will be taken every time.

Anyone got the non-paywalled version. I keep forgetting to bookmark the 12whatever website.

EDIT: Here we go

People like Trump because he’s a populist for their type of people. He also says the quiet part outloud, validating their fears of being supplanted as the majority in charge.

Selfishness, Validation, and Racism.

At least he recognizes class distinction. He didn’t give any solutions other than “do better.” Just whiny elitism doing performance activism. Here’s the solution: Overthrow capitalism. If that’s too difficult for the author, then he should stop pretending to care.

Downvoting for paywall.

disagree with the arc of the piece (it reduces american diversity of thought to outright silly levels), but the points made are approachable enough to chew over and reassemble into different, somewhat coherent worldviews

worth a read, if only for a particular perspective.

edit: word