I remember when Trump first won, the American-centered part of the web I would occasionally stop by seemed completely infiltrated with MAGA trolls. You had this feeling people thought it was edgy and fun - the worst kind of cultural moment seemed to be happening.

This time around I’m not so much on mainstream social media. And when I do check them out, it seems hard to understand what the vibe is as most content is AI or from professional content creators.

The closest thing I see to Trump supporters these days seems to be the enablers who endlessly repeat how they won’t vote for Harris for some dumb reason or another - they simply cannot vote for a black woman president because it’s not progressive enough, and all that jazz. But I don’t ever see Trump supporters.

Of course they exist still. I have just chose social media platforms strategically to avoid toxic people.

So I’m wondering if the same enthusiasm for Trump that seemed to be boiling online in 2016 is still there today, and if this election only feels different because I’m self-selected into saner platforms. Or if it is really different this time around.

I get that it’s an incredibly difficult question to answer, but I would love perspectives from people who have kept up an active use of mainstream social media, or otherwise have some insights I lack.

  • rsuri@lemmy.world
    19·
    2 months ago

    So as I understand it, overarching priorities of Trump supporters are:

    1. ending sex trafficking
    2. stop making the poor poorer and
    3. fighting election fraud

    So they’re excited about a guy who:

    1. By his own admission/bragging, had a 15 year long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
    2. Passed the largest corporate tax cut in history, and plans to eliminate income tax which is paid at a higher rate by high income individuals, replacing it with tariffs that fall disproportionately on the poor.
    3. Made numerous fraudulent claims and tried to submit a fraudulent slate of electors after the last election in an attempt to subvert the will of the voters.