I find some Marxist-ish ideology always wants to blame these things on the material conditions, wealth. My personal network is a sea of trump worshipers (quite literally, like my cousins say a prayer for trump at every dinner since 2016), and I think the analysis that this is a wealth thing is wrong.
Everyone has pet theories. Mine is that a section US society, urban coastal highly educated elites, coalesced around one set of ideas (I’m not exactly sure why, but probably in part because this group is less religious and very urban) and formed a very powerful ideological block that wasn’t in the US pre 1980s. This Trump thing is a reaction of the people who don’t fit into this political block (religious, less educated, rural, culturally not urban) against them.
It’s fundamentally identity politics, not some material conditions thing. People have a hard time believing this, because some people think the world is all about money, and ideas and identity mean nothing to people, but I really think the money-only view of human politics is flat wrong.
I say this because of my personal network of family, friends, and acquaintances from my hometown. When I try to gently get to the bottom of it, what I really find is a deep deep hatred for the coastal elites. They feel belittled and marginalized, not monetarily but culturally. They feel no one from those backgrounds has any right to tell them what to do. They feel that a coastal expert has no right to contradict their feelings on a topic, because that expert is not “one of them”, not because that expert is wealthy.
The network I have does not feel this way because they are economically struggling. Europeans often imply this is the case, but in my experience after 40 years in America, it is just not. Many of the people you see wearing maga hats and waving maga flags at rallies have mansions, 5 trucks, a vacation home in Hawaii, etc. my extended family and network has plenty of money. But they feel anyone who is an educated, coastal liberal is out to destroy them. They feel so completely culturally and identity wise different from the coastal elites, that they bristle under the thought that someone with an “education” could know more about something than them.
I think Republicans gained power in the last few years because of the economy, and Trump gained control of the republicans because of identity. This isn’t going away by “solving” the wealth gap.
You're exacly describing material forces. The various positions individuals adopted toward identity politics did not grow out of a vacuum. Their place of birth, the environments they were raised in, their socio-economic classes... Everything shaped them to make the choice they made last november. The profund discontent that was exploited by the GOP last election stems from ever-increasing socio-economical disparities among the population. This can and has been measured.
On a side note, funny that this group that supposedly defines themselves by their opposition to coastal elites rallied themselves behind... Trump, a prime representative of the east coast elite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist_cultural_analysis
> But they feel anyone who is an educated, coastal liberal is out to destroy them.
The reverse of this was the prevailing attitude among many democrats. The approach of lots of people was "we won the culture war, everyone who doesn't agree with us will get cancelled and suffer, deal with it". When you hung out in online circles, and more importantly in offices of famous American companies, the general vibe was "if your friend doesn't have left political views, you shouldn't be friends with them". So it's not like the idea was born in republican circles, the only new thing is democrats finding themselves on the losing side of the culture war.
What you’re describing is only true to the extent that “be respectful to other, “don’t force me to follow your religion”, or “don’t pressure your subordinates for sex” are “left political views”. The myth of widespread cancellation has been heavily marketed but when you look at the handful of people who suffered any real consequences they came down to trying to force bigotry or sexual activities on unwilling participants.
> The myth of widespread cancellation has been heavily marketed but when you look at the handful of people who suffered any real consequences they came down to trying to force bigotry or sexual activities on unwilling participants.
Doesn't matter. The public perception was that you could get cancelled for having an opinion, and that's enough to radicalize a lot of people. Not to mention that the general "left" did nothing to ensure people they won't get cancelled.
It does matter, because it changes the concern from a real phenomenon to the right-wing lying for political gain. In the latter case, you can’t win by playing their game because the rules change whenever they want, with a multi-billion dollar media machine to reinforce the message.
> In the latter case, you can’t win by playing their game
We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas
A less hasty reading suggests alternatives.