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‘Nearly half of the voters have seen Trump in all of his splendor—his infantile tirades, his disastrous and lethal policies, his contempt for democracy in all its forms—and they decided that they wanted more of it.’

[B]y picking him again, those voters are showing that they are just like him: angry, spoiled, racially resentful, aggrieved, and willing to die rather than ever admit that they were wrong… The politics of cultural resentment, the obsessions of white anxiety, are so intense that his voters are determined not only to preserve minority rule but to leave a dangerous sociopath in the Oval Office. Even the candidacy of a man who was both a political centrist and a decent human being could not overcome this sullen commitment to authoritarianism.

Margaret Soltan, November 5, 2020 11:42AM
Posted in: Genius of the Carpathians

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5 Responses to “‘Nearly half of the voters have seen Trump in all of his splendor—his infantile tirades, his disastrous and lethal policies, his contempt for democracy in all its forms—and they decided that they wanted more of it.’”

  1. superdestroyer Says:

    They voted for Trump, who is lazy, to keep Democrats who are not lazy out of power. In the world of negative partisanship, keeping the others out of power has become the most important.

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:

    superdestroyer: This may be one important motivation – total hatred of government in any form.

  3. charlie Says:

    Tulsi Gabbard said a few years ago the DNC has to be cleansed, or eliminated, if the Democratic Party has any chance of surviving. As a Dem for nearly all my adult life, I have to agree. As Chris Hedges points out time and again, the DNC abandoned workers, the poor, the environment, the elderly, so as to be more suitable supplicant for donor money. The result is a updated version of Tammany Hall overseeing the majority political party. Progressives can no longer blame DJT for DJTing the nation. Build a better party to get better candidates…

  4. Stephen Karlson Says:

    UD, have you considered that it’s not so much total hatred of government as it is frustration with what High Modern Authoritarianism has made of government? People treated as so many hamsters to be nudged with a regulation here, a favorable tax, there, or as collectivities with ascriptive categories, such as “the” Latinos or “the” LGBTQ+, rather than as individuals receptive to more or less of the bundle the political class is offering? While that political class keeps bidding up house prices in Bethesda.

    Charlie’s advice applies to both parties. I heard at least one Republican court intellectual musing about having to be more competitive in New England, and the infighting in the Dem’s House caucus is spec-tac-u-lar!

    Time to head outside and enjoy the early fall weather.

  5. charlie Says:

    Here in the North West, Repug campaign tactics depicted Dems as the party of socialist communists that don’t believe in guns or god. Ads for the Repug challenger of the long time Oregon senator carried images of hysterical AOC and Bernie, as if these two were KGB agents, inciting Antifa to burn down orphanages. This was the kind of idiocy seen during the 50’s Cold War hysteria. If, in fact, Repugs increase their Congressional tally, and maintain the WH, I doubt we’ll see an emergence of a Repug intellect. As John Candy said in “Splash” “I stick with what works.”

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UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
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George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
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It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
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Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
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University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
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