Dear Liberal America: You Are Being Trolled
Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash
July 12 2020
If Medium is any judge, the liberal-progressive class in American politics is daring to dream. There is a mood, a vibe, that seems to have set in. Trump has lost it. The tide is finally turning. The punt on the safe old white man — despite the faint-to-pungent whiffs of racism, creepiness and mental decline that accompany him — was worth it. Despite the utter shit-show of unprecedented curve-balls that was the first half of 2020, it seems increasingly incomprehensible that anything could happen in its second half to halt this Sleepy Joe-mentum.
Maybe. What right would an amateur American political tragic from the other side of the world have to burst this bubble? Let me try, anyway. Call this a necessary if likely unappreciated reality check to this increasingly cheery groupthink. Call this an act of love from someone who is seeing his own loved ones falling into this trap.
Let’s start with the ‘Rona. A lot of people are certain that Trump’s handling of COVID-19 is a deal breaker. How could people possibly overlook the utter shambolic nature of America’s response to what only a racist or a conspiracy theorist would call the China-virus? I mean, there was even that time he told people to inject bleach (gentle reminder: he didn’t).
Now, this is going to sound harsh, but there is an equation here that you need to understand with the emotion removed. While a lot of people have died, more than a lot of people didn’t. In fact a hell of a lot of people were barely affected in any tangible sense by the virus itself. They were affected, however, by its response — by the lockdowns.
I’m not sure if you fully appreciate how pissed they were about this, when you ordered them to stay at home (unless it was to protest), to close their businesses (unless it was a big business), to even stop going to the beach. Given your beaches aren’t shit compared to Australia, even I don’t get the anger on this one.
But you do realise how much your country loves the economy, yeh? And FREEDOM? And that you have taken both of these away from them, for a virus that — albeit after looking terrifying to start with — was recently estimated by the Centre for Disease Control to have a fatality per infection rate of 0.26%? A rate effectively within social distanced distance of the ‘flu? And now, adding insult to lack of any physical injury, you are mandating them to wear that ultimate symbol of perceived oppression that is the face mask.
But there is still the racism. Surely, Americans will no longer tolerate the Orange Man’s dog whistling or straight-out-in-the-open white nationalist pandering.
The Black Lives Matter movement, the protests, even the riots: it was a sign that people had finally had enough. That the collateral damage was worth it, that it was just that: collateral. Nothing that might have actually been so fierce, chaotic and destructive in many areas to have created a blowback against the movement by otherwise sympathetic citizens: that in net terms may have actually reinforced many of the prejudices that were being protested against. Damage that actually resulted in black people destroying black businesses, and quite possible creating almost overnight a new generation of black conservatives?
You might have seen CHAZ/CHOP, and thought it was a bold, hopeful and promising glimpse at a better utopian future. You might have not quite seen the mocking and ridicule that it engendered in a large proportion of your population — not to mention the utter horror of the anarchy and lawlessness that it promised, whether fairly or unfairly, that is now being confirmed by the mass takedown of monuments and statues (not to mention the fail-safe conservative trigger of flag burning). Not just of White Confederates, but also and inexplicably of actual black people like Frederick Douglass?
Have Liberals in America forgotten how much nationalism, heritage and the red white and fucking blue are ingrained in their nation’s psyche? How much you as a collective glorify law and order, have given passive consent to the formation of an often-brutal police state?
Do you really think they are ready for this? That this is the time, and in this way?
Because this is what you are holding on to. A collective willing of your nation to come to its senses and see the world the way you do, basically by force.
Well, that and the polls.
So let’s talk about the polls. We know what happened in 2016. It’s not worth re-hashing.
I’m not going to talk about the technical aspects of the polls: what might have changed in terms of question design, population sampling and administration methods that will make them more representative of the sentiment of the general public than last time. I’m not qualified to talk about that. What I am more qualified to talk about — thanks to unadvised deep dives into MAGA thinking that I doubt many others have the complexion for — is the psychology of Trump supporters.
I want to conduct with you a thought experiment on the real life scenario of polling these Americans.
There are two defining qualities of Trump’s supporter base that are crucial here, both of which they reflect from their leader: an utter hatred of the mainstream media, and a gleeful love for the art of trolling.
So, let’s play it out. A Trump supporter is contacted by a mainstream media outlet (yes, that includes Fox) asking them to participate in an opinion poll on how they will be voting in November. The obvious conclusion you might make is that they will jump at the chance to show their support for dear leader.
But really? This is where you might want to check your humility and consider that these people may not be as stupid as you assume they are.
What seems equally likely to me is that they will refuse to participate in the system they so fiercely denounce, thus leaving our poor pollster to continue on his/her way until they find enough willing participants to meet their largely arbitrary minimum sample size.
Actually, what seems even more likely to me is that they will participate: and, with a gleeful smirk on their face, shamelessly lie about their voting intentions to said pollster.
And this is where I would like to ask you perhaps the most important question: how well do you really think you understand Trump supporters? Because I’m almost positive, given what I have been reading from liberals of late, that I understand them better than you.
Look, I even watched his whole Tulsa rally. Yep, start to finish — you are welcome. I had to get an idea for myself. Sure the crowd was smaller than expected, but focusing on this misses the point: given the hostile social climate of viruses and occasionally violent protests, attendance was always going to fall below the typically boastful predictions of the Trump team. Under such conditions, the better indicator would seem to be how many people watched it virtually, which was well into the millions.
Actually, the better gauge is to just watch the people who were there, as they react to his rambling yet inexplicably endearing monologues. They love him. Unashamedly, and unabashedly. They hang on every word.
Don’t try and tell me there is that kind of love from any right-minded progressive for Joe Biden. By this stage, it seems like Trump supporters find more enjoyment in Biden being the Democratic nominee than his own supporters.
Who on Biden’s campaign team seriously thought this was a good idea?
You might have found it hilarious that the Tulsa event was apparently trolled by TikTok teenagers who en masse registered for tickets with no intention of attending — despite the fact this has no tangible impact on the process of actually obtaining tickets, which are allocated on a first come, first served basis at the door. Because the joke really is on you: Trump supporters find it hilarious that you think you are winning this war.
Seriously: do you really think you are going to out-troll the trolls? If anything, it just emboldened them more. And they were already cocky enough. I see no signs that they are concerned about the reports that are starting to fill mainstream media outlets about his implosion. They are either blissfully unaware or utterly dismissive of anything that appears in these rags.
Which is why, even though I have no proof to support this suspicion, I would suspect that his team is deliberately putting these messages out into the mainstream media for them to be lapped up by compliant journos and in turn a compliant public.
And this is what you have to realise: you are the ones being trolled right now. The more you buy into what I am almost sure is a false narrative about the unravelling of Trump and his support within the GOP, the more likely it is that a wavering progressive voter may think it is safe to let themselves off the moral hook and sit this one out.
Or, even worse, to vote for the blatantly obvious MAGA Trojan Horse that is Kanye West. May Yeezus have mercy on any progressive who falls for that trap.