A Confederacy of Toddlers

You’re on to something there.

In 2016, Trump first had to defeat the Republican establishment. Then he won the election.

In 2020, he nearly won again. In 2024, he won the election again.

He is like no politician before him. He is boorish, childish, uncouth, and boastful.

But it’s the fact that he opposes the sneering, snotty media/political establishment that gets him votes. People are tired of lies being constantly pushed upon them by condescending pretty people. Another snarky article from The Atlantic only feeds the monster.

> People are tired of lies being constantly pushed upon them by condescending pretty people

And it seems all they always wanted were lies being constantly pushed upon them by despicable petty authoritarians.

> People are tired of lies being constantly pushed upon them by condescending pretty people.

Please describe these supposed lies.

> Another snarky article from The Atlantic only feeds the monster.

Yep, The Atlantic is a daily must-read for the MAGA cult. Then they watch The Daily Show.

But he and his culture exemplify "sneering", "snotty", "lies", "condescending", and "snarky" much more strongly than mainstream media ever has. That's practically his entire platform. I don't feel like my saying that is even really an insult to him - i.e. I think he embraces those qualities pretty openly.

> But it’s the fact that he opposes the sneering, snotty

Calling people "Crooked Hillary", "Sleepy Joe", and Gavin "Newscum" isn't sneering and snotty?

That’s literally his appeal. Perceptually, he’s the first person to run on the Republican ticket that shot back. More realistically, he’s a caricature of the way the right feels the media and political class treat them.

Obviously there is some gap between perception and reality - but those same groups reacted so strongly to him that they became a caricature of themselves.

He’s popular on the right because he’s so unpopular on the left.

>he’s the first person to run on the Republican ticket that shot back

It's hard to believe anybody believes this. I understand both sides always feel like the other side is always "worse" by essentially any metric, but first? The first Republican candidate to mock democrats or be shitty? You mean the most extreme, surely.

Also, "shot back" implies something comparable. Again - I don't really believe anybody thinks what Trump culture does is comparable to what either Republicans or Democrats have done to each other for decades.

If you mean it asymmetrically - as in the president "shooting back" not at the other presidents, but at the media and constituency of the opposite party, then in that context it makes even less sense. It was always the case that the media and online shitposters waged petty war against each other, while the presidents made rare jokes that were more diplomatic (on average...). It was always a gradient going up the chain - the people at the bottom saying the worst things, then the media in second place, then elected officials, then the president. But Republicans were always varyingly more extreme at all levels of that hierarchy. There was never a layer where the Democrats were shit-talking the Republicans in a way that the Republicans didn't match or exceed. So it doesn't make semantic sense to say that Trump "shot back" - what Trump did was pull the worst of those bottom bits straight up into the presidency, and all layers in between. The Democrats are "shooting back" by reactively getting more shit-talky at higher levels. Of course, that's not the right thing to do, but it's understandable, and they still don't come anywhere near Trumpism, qualitatively or quantitatively.

This is my point, though - and to be clear, I’m not saying I agree with the position, only that it is my understanding. This truly does seem to be the general perception based on my observations.

If you're having trouble 'seeing from the other side', just substitute "toddler" for "communist", and "poisoned for years by memes and disinformation" with "infected by the woke mind virus".

If I characterised your voting behaviour being due to "Trump derangement syndrome", would that be a "lie"?

That relies on the common fallacy that both sides of any given political binary are "the same" by default - i.e. that if you believe anything about Republicans, and you don't believe the same thing about Democrats, or vice versa, that you are a hypocrite almost automatically. But of course you need to state some kind of opinion or argument that X is the same as Y - it's not true by default.

If a Democrat (or Republican) did the things Trump does, I would expect and understand for people to accuse that Democrat (or Republican) of acting like a toddler, or whatever. That doesn't mean you should or that it's a good thing, but it's understandable and not hypocritical.

> People are tired of lies being constantly pushed upon them by condescending pretty people

Now they have way more lies pushed upon them by condescending ugly people