I now wish I had given more attention to psychology in college. If I had, I might be better able to understand what our people are getting out of President Trump’s open grab at power. What do his supporters get out of arresting five hundred people at a Hyundai plant in Georgia? Say their visas were too narrow for the work they were doing. So what? What do people get out of dismantling public health? I, for the life of me (pun intended), cannot see the reward. Putting aside the obvious rush to abolish social and political rights, the escalating use of military force as a tool of domestic federal power, what are the forty-odd percent of the people who support these actions getting out of it?
The received wisdom (at least on the left) is that all this is designed to restore white power. The battle at Roarke’s Drift in South Africa comes to mind. One hundred fifty British troops held off between three and four thousand Zulu warriors. The British lost 17 men and the Zulus lost as many as 600. Obviously, white guys are better than brown guys. If this is so, white guys should be in charge, or so the argument goes. All the factors that make this nonsense (a bad idea, bringing a spear to a gun fight) can be ignored.
I am trying to understand the emotional need for white supremacy, if, in fact, white supremacy is driving the support for President Trump’s actions. He has said, “I can do anything I want. I am the President of the United States,” and John Roberts and his friends have essentially said, “You’re right,” and they are standing by as he has begun his war on brown people.
I see threat. Trump supporters do not. I see great economic risk. They do not. I see the public being made vulnerable to preventable disease. They do not.
I find myself wondering, “What am I missing?” Social media algorithms show me what I want to see. Maybe there is information the internet is keeping from me? I cannot imagine what it would be. Is there an actual intelligent rationale for their beliefs and attitudes I am blind to? All the data say not; they will say the data are false. What is their reward?
Bill Gillmore
Columbus
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