The only thing I've found that explains their insanity.

[Trueblue Texan]

[link:https://eand.co/why-the-working-class-is-turning-to-fascism-e4548784e7de|

[NewHendoLib]

1. terrifying.

[Ocelot II]

2. This article is way off the mark.

The primary indicator of whether a voter supported trump turned out to be racism, not income. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/economic-anxiety-didnt-make-people-vote-trump-racism-did/ Low-income voters supported Biden more than Trump. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1184428/presidential-election-exit-polls-share-votes-income-us/

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

6. 👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽 THIS!

[kairos12]

7. Yep.

A Democratic President has not won the white vote since LBJ. Carter came the closest in 1976 with 48%.

Chump won the white vote at essentially every level of measurement from income to education level.

[Trueblue Texan]

16. Racism was the primary tool...

...used to recruit, but poverty was the root of the anger that made them easy targets to be recruited.

[Caliman73]

21. Agreed. There is an interplay between poverty and racial/ethnic/gender problems.

It isn't simple as one thing setting everything off.

The racism exists in this country. It is baked into society, just like Anti-Semitism was prevalent all over Europe for centuries before Hitler came to power. It was just sitting there during the Black Death, during the Pogroms in Russia, during any difficult period, just sitting there waiting to be stirred up.

When people feel that their lives are out of control, they are ripe to be told who to blame. It is made easier when the pre-existing condition is just sitting there. Racism, xenophobia, and sexism are always reliable tools to use to fool the poor White man that his problems are being caused by Black people, immigrants, feminists, LGBTQ people etc... rather than the wealthiest people who actually have to power to affect their lives.

[lame54]

27. Somehow Asians Blacks and Latinos are not the working class

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. In the U.S., it's much more about racism than "working class."

Articles like this completely erase the non-white working class in this country. It's a poor analysis.

The working class in America is badly, badly fractured — and by and large, it votes increasingly conservative.

The *white* working class may vote increasingly conservative. He got it right in the first part of the sentence but doesn't spell it out, and that confuses the issue for Democrats and anyone trying to build solidarity within the working class.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. Also, being a fascist is not a mental illness, and conflating the two is ableist.

[Boxerfan]

5. AM Radio propaganda

If they don't cover that they have entirely failed.

And certain working class are subjected to it at workplaces-willingly or not.

[Midnight Writer]

13. I'm to this day amazed at the influence around here of crazed Talk Radio.

It dominates rural markets and it is everywhere. I hear people everyday quoting Rush or Hannity or any number of other Hate Radio cranks.

[Caliman73]

23. Why are you amazed?

If all you hear, all day long, from people you begin to trust and form para-social relationships with; are messages about how feminists, liberals, socialists, immigrants, etc... are bad, you will begin to believe it.

Think about how much time people spend in their car. Then they go to the market or some other place and Fox News is on. They go home and turn on Fox News or maybe even further to the right.

Right wingers did an effective job purchasing media outlets after markets were deregulated. Murdoch took an early financial hit to ensure that Fox was standard on all basic cable packages while CNN and MSNBC were bumped to the higher paying tiers, limiting their initial reach.

Conservatives do not see their media holdings necessarily as profit making vehicles, they see them as a way to spread their propaganda for their true purpose, influencing legislation and election outcomes. They invest several million dollars a year, maybe even write off their losses, but they get billions in tax breaks and they control politics with a much smaller percentage of the population that is highly motivated and active.

[Midnight Writer]

24. I'm amazed that liberal powers have ceded this influential tool to the crank conservatives.

There are no liberal or even moderate voices in this sphere.

The most important thing in these small town/rural markets is conformity, the desire to fit in and belong with the limited pool of neighbors, families, co-workers. When there is only one voice of influence, and it drones on and on 24/7, spreading outright lies and disinformation, is it any wonder that Democrats have lost the rural voters?

Small markets have outsized representation (read power) in our government, and I believe instead of avoiding contact with small town folks, we should court them, reach out to them, educate them, present our vision, and ask for their votes.

[Trueblue Texan]

28. This sounds logical...

...but I have given up reaching out to the small town or any other Luddites. If they are still Trump supporters at this point, they can bake in hell for all I care. They are beyond hope. Let's build our coalition by demonstrating what can be done in competent government.

[keithsw]

8. I don't agree

Of course some of what the story says could be true, But I have said since day one of Trump, people voted for him because he says the racist shit they can't or are afraid to say

[I_UndergroundPanther]

10. Saying racist shit

That racists are too shy to say is encouraging hate.
Trump set up social scapegoats.

[Trueblue Texan]

29. Well, I agree with you...

...but I also think that seeing themselves as "victims" of those "other" people (other races) consolidates their support for tyrants like Trump. They become a part of something that they hope will help them climb out of their shithole situations. Of course, there are plenty wealthy and up and climbing Rethugs who are happy to use these plebes as stepping stones to consolidate more money and power for themselves. They use the common enemy (other races and/or sex, gender identity) to fuel the fires of resentment and victimhood. How could they otherwise be such loyal sycophants? I do believe there are some that are protecting their own interests and Kompromat from exposure, but that doesn't explain the millions who continue to support Trump, regardless of his obvious crimes and incompetencies.

[The Magistrate]

9. He Needs, Sir, To Put 'White' In Front Of 'Working Class'

A couple of small points.

It is hard to take statements that we are recapitulating 'in eerie detail' the progress of Weimar Germany when he clearly has no idea what led to the two separate waves of economic distress that crippled it. Inability to pay debts had little to do with it. The first wave, the hyperinflation of the early twenties, was result of a deliberate debasement of the currency intended to make payment worthless. This did result in a great easing of pressure for reparations and, with an accompanying influx of foreign loans, the late twenties were prosperous. This was brought to an end by the world-wide depression kicked off late in 1929, its effects being exacerbated in Germany by the withdrawl of the foreign capital that had fueled the recovery from the inflation. Which, again, had nothing in particular to do with inability to settle debts, let alone debts from the Great War, but was simply the usual reflexive reaction of lenders in uncertain times.

In the examples of who votes 'for fascism', he presents people who are really petit bourgeoise. The owner of a fishing boat or a farm is not a wage laborer, and his mention of professionals facing poor prospects is practically a definition of that class. It is true that small-holders, and persons of some education who cannot make a living off it, generally do support authoritarian governance in a pinch, for they identify up, not down, and according feel (quite mistakenly) their own interests align with the great magnates, rather than with wage workers. For the disgruntled aspiring professional, there is the added attraction of imagining they will find success in an authoritarian order they help create, once the enemy de jour has been turfed out of the positions they believe ought to have been theirs. In the 'wingnut welfare' circuit, as well as in staff selections by Republicans in office, this can be seen clearly. But again, this has nothing whatever to do with working people, with people who are paid a wage for their labor.

One thing that has fallen out of awareness is that fascism in the early twentieth century was in many ways a modernizing force, which accounts for much of its genuine popularity at the time. While this was cast in a restorationist light, a call to reclaim former glories of some golden age, its actual program involved industrialization on a grand scale. The countries where fascism took root earliest in Europe were either places with backward economies, or in which society had been ruined by catastrophic casualties in the Great War. Italy, to which both conditions applied, took the step first.

[dalton99a]

11. +1

[StarfishSaver]

14. I was just getting ready to say that

But, as usual, you said it first and much more eloquently.

[FakeNoose]

12. Post WWI Germany had a lot of problems

... but their greatest fear, the one that led to Hitler taking over, was the fear of communism. Fear of the Russian communist threat that was already permeating Eastern Europe.

Hitler may or may not have been smart, but he knew how to get the backing of the wealthy upper class by assuring them that a communist revolution would never happen in Germany. Wealthy business owners knew that they'd lose everything, including their lives, if communists were to come in and take over. So that's how he got the backing, and the Nazi symbols, the antisemitism, the militarism, and everything else came from the need to drive out the communist threat.

In retrospect, the German working class people were never given a say in the matter. It's what the wealthy one-per-centers wanted, just like always.

[StarfishSaver]

15. Why do people keep pretending this is a "working class" issue? It's about race, plain and simple

If it weren't, black and brown working-class folk would be aligned with these people and wealthy and upper middle-class white people would not.

The common denominator for the support of Trump and modern-day fascism is whiteness. That seems to make people uncomfortable, so they keep trying to slice and dice it into something else. But that doesn't change what it is.
.

[Ocelot II]

17. That fact was established after the 2016 election.

The primary motivation for voting for Trump was racism, not poverty. There is a stereotype of a Trump voter as resembling an extra from Deliverance, or at best some white guy in a small town in the midwest or the south who's pissed off because he lost his job when the factory closed. Many people fitting those stereotypes did vote for Trump, but it wasn't because they were poor; it was because they were racist. LBJ nailed it: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." Anyhow, research following the 2016 election revealed that most Trump voters weren't poor in the first place, but the media had us believe that because they persisted in heading out to those small towns and farms to interview those stereotypes - and thereby reinforce them. They didn't bother to interview the affluent Trump voters in big cities (or any Clinton/Biden voters anywhere), so we were led to believe all the Trump voters were poor white people who were motivated by economics. That myth persists, and we'd better wake up to the fact that it is a myth.

[StarfishSaver]

18. Not a single lie anywhere in your post

You are dead on.

I think one of the reasons this has persisted is that many white people just have trouble believing or admitting that their white friends, family, co-workers and neighbors are in any way racist. After all, aside from voting for Trump, "she/he is a really sweet person" - as if the fact that they support a white supremacist whom other white supremacists absolutely revere shouldn't be factored into the assessment of these people's character. They go to the mat defending them, making up excuses for them and accusing those of us who see them for what they are of being unfair to them.

it's a tribal thing on steroids.

[Ocelot II]

19. The odd thing is that at some level, even people who hold racist attitudes

understand at some level that racism is bad - so they insist they aren't racist at all and become quite indignant at any suggestion that they might be. This seems to be especially true of GOP politicians. If they aren't burning crosses or using the N-word in public or going all Karen because some Black person is birdwatching in the park, they must not have a racist bone in their bodies, right? Only those avowed white supremacists belonging to fringe groups like the neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville and a few actual KKK members might be sort of racist, but certainly not nice, respectable folks who just want to have safe neighborhoods and not give taxpayers' money to those other people who don't deserve it, but that's not racism, right?

This, I think, is why racism is so entrenched - people who don't think they're racist but who vote for racist people and policies anyhow.

[StarfishSaver]

20. Most racist people I know don't think they're racist

They truly believe their views are based on fact, not bigotry.

So they insist the police were justified in shooting that unarmed black guy and believe their view is based not on any racism on their part but because Black men really DO pose a greater threat.

They hired the white guy over the Black woman because they were more comfortable with the white guy and think he'll fit in better to the office culture than the Black woman will.

They would prefer the Black family not buy the house down the street because everyone knows Black people don't as good care of their property as white people and they'll make the neighborhood property values go down.

They are sure none of this is racist. Just facts.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

22. Yep. A lot of white people have convinced themselves that if they're not actually burning a cross

in someone's yard, they're blameless when it comes to racism.

[StarfishSaver]

25. And while they think that even called racist is the worst thing ever

They are quick to swing the label at anyone who has the nerve to suggest there not the second coming of MLK.

[Hortensis]

26. Interesting but far too simplistic. And: "working classes" are NOT turning to fascism.

Outrageous insult to working people, aka PEOPLE.

I remember a preeminent expert's shockingly basic advice to people worried that "it" could be happening in their nation: Look for MEAN PEOPLE.

Isn't that what we're seeing?

Economic issues are only one igniting factor, none of which loose fascistic passions in people who just don't have them in them.

Those drawn to fascism are very conservative and become extreme. Fascism is an extreme RW ideology. Isn't what we're seeing happening only on the RIGHT, not only in some economic classes? (Notably, liberalism is completely incompatible with and inimical to fascism.)

Those drawn to fascism also tend to be authoritarian by nature, craving strong leaders who will order their lives in return for their loyalty and obedience.

Authoritarians crave a strongly authoritarian society to belong to, one that forces conformity or worse on all those they feel don't belong. Persecution of select groups is characteristic of fascistic societies.

Authoritarians come in all colors but must have sufficient numbers to take over and be able to smite the rest.

Women are a special select group to be subjugated to men instead of eliminated. This isn't hit hard these days among female authoritarians, of course.

I remember Robert Reich pointing to failed expectations as bigger than any economic reverses American men have experienced. Not being able to afford to eat out as often as before does not explain it.

Here's another another big inciting factor to go along with the increased fears and angers generated by the Great Recession also of 2008, both factors relating to that failed expectations that have been growing over the past 40 years. Don't miss the empowered woman also.