I listened the book "Lucky Loser" (Craig/Buettner) a few months back. It's a well-researched timeline of how the Trump fortune was made, and to be really kind, how monumentally terrible DJT is at business on a fundamental level. The shady deals and repulsive ethics are not exceptions but the status quo. The only reason he's in the situation he's in is because the guy who created Survivor saw an opportunity. Now the whole world is paying the price.
I listened because I thought it would be funny, but the shitty behaviour and unapologetic corruption is just so naked that it actually left me feeling pretty upset for all of the obvious reasons.
I'd say that I don't understand how anyone can be charmed by this con artist, but the truth is that I have simply lost a ton of faith in the "average" person.
> I'd say that I don't understand how anyone can be charmed by this con artist, but the truth is that I have simply lost a ton of faith in the "average" person.
From what I am hearing, he seems to have appealed on culture war issues. On economic issues, it was assumed that Biden had been doing something bad and Trump would end it, but they didn't much care past that.
There is still a halo of "Democrats are bad at the economy" dating from the 1970s and rooted in the New Deal.
There is immense anger at the democrats. There's never any actual evidence for why though.
Because nobody likes admitting the why: The democrats are hated because of the Civil Rights Act, and how the feds enforced it in the south.
It is not a coincidence that states that tried to ignore the Civil Rights Act have been strong Republican voters ever since.
Democrat hatred is based in tyranny. The "tyranny" of being forced to treat black people as equals.
Yeah, the New Deal. That terrible disaster that turned America into a temporary economic powerhouse until their kids decided no further investment was necessary to keep the good times rolling.
Enjoy your bridges.