I've had trouble understanding Nietzsche's idea of ressentiment, even though I occasionally throw the word around, but like, it's these people, right?
Everything they are saying?
What I find most striking is that to a one these people seem to have absolutely no idea why anything happens.
They talk about traditional Christian values and vote for Donald "Grab 'Em By The Pussy" Trump.
They talk about how America should help others, but not if it puts our interests at risk, but the shuttering of USAID doesn't come up.
They talk about how ICE shouldn't profile, and don't talk about the Supreme Court case dealing with exactly that.
They talk about the price of groceries but not the Tariffs.
They talk about the cost of health care and the government shut down but never bring up the ACA subsidies.
I'm not so much accusing them of hypocrisy, so much as, as near as I can tell they don't even think of these as being related ideas.
You can really see it in the ambivalence about Hitler, where of course everything he actually did was a disaster, but isn't such a strong force of personality appealing?
Or the ambivalence on Nick Fuentes which is combined with a sort of hand-wringing worry about the extreme polarization of American politics.
What they seem to primarily want from a politician is somebody who will allow them to protect their own self-image against outside threats; when they say that America should be willing to help others but keep Americans as the top priority, that's not a specific policy they want; they're largely indifferent to what the President actually does in terms of foreign aid an alliances.
Instead what they seem to want to do is protect their own self-image as compassionate people who are merely worried about some of the unintended consequences of excess compassion.
And they get that not by realizing those values in the real world, but more from voting for someone who promises to reinforce that view of themselves and marginalize the voices that would criticize them.
The sense that they are dissolved into a great project is more important to them then the actual nature of the project.
turnnoffyourmind
titsay
ellievsbear
gracieabrams
