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Take a careful look at what Trump is telling his loyal followers: you are LOVED and you are SPECIAL. If you feel left behind, lost, forgotten, under-appreciated, and replaced (cf. C'ville), it's no surprise that this grift is appealing. You feel seen, recognized, valued... /1
and part of something meaningful. Although this may be the basis of most all terrorist recruitment strategies, it's an obvious analysis of the prescription(s) for the illness that has befallen the republic. These are not Delta Force insurgents.../2
they're people caught in a delusional belief system b/c it provides a meaningful way to understand a world that is repeatedly shitting on them, and their leader knowingly foments this discontent with the appeal of deep connection to a cause.../3
If we have any hope of getting out of this mess long-term, we need a system that actually improves education, taxes the rich to decrease inequality, addresses the opioid crisis, provides jobs that have a REAL LIVING WAGE, and gives people access to health and childcare.../4
Basically, we need a system that creates a new middle class so people who can feel connected to a society that works for them. Thatcher and Reagan were wrong-- society exists, but if we gut all the protections society can reasonably afford, the consequences are severe, and.../5
well, the rest is as it in the opening of Guns N' Roses Civil War (borrowed from Cool Hand Luke), "Some men you just can't reach. So, you get what we had here, last week. Which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it." /6
I am not a political scientist, but I've spent the last two decades studying social connections, and when Trump tells his people YOU ARE LOVED and YOU ARE SPECIAL, I am chilled to the bone; he's giving them what they want... no, actually: What they desperately need. END
