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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Yet such fantasies are now the common currency of politics on the American right. Remember the days when pundits solemnly declared that Trumpism was caused by economic anxiety? Well, despite a booming economy, there’s still plenty of justified anxiety out there, reflecting many people’s real struggles: America is still a nation riddled with inequality, insecurity and injustice. But the anxiety driving MAGA isn’t driven by reality. It is, instead, driven by dystopian visions unrelated to real experience.
That is, at this point, Republican political strategy depends largely on frightening voters who are personally doing relatively well not just according to official statistics but also by their own accounts, by telling them that terrible things are happening to other people.
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Four years ago I asked my brother if he was doing better than he was four years before that. This was an asshole question. I knew he had been fired at the beginning of the trump administration and hadn’t had a job for all that time. It’s usually an asshole question because everyone’s situation is different and it’s not always the president, but I was at least expecting him to say no. He said yes though. Three years of living in our mother’s house. I knew he was getting training for work, but he had no income and at that moment his situation was quantifiably worse. He didn’t get hired until biden, and while biden’s policy may not be the reason, he’s had more employment than he ever did under trump. I know if I ask him if he’s doing better than he was under trump he will say no.