The Cruelty Is the Point - President Trump and his supporters find community by rejoicing

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

in the suffering of those they hate and fear.

The cruelty of the Trump administration’s policies, and the ritual rhetorical flaying of his targets before his supporters, are intimately connected. As Lili Loofbourow wrote of the Kavanaugh incident in Slate, adolescent male cruelty toward women is a bonding mechanism, a vehicle for intimacy through contempt. The white men in the lynching photos are smiling not merely because of what they have done, but because they have done it together.
....
Taking joy in that suffering is more human than most would like to admit. Somewhere on the wide spectrum between adolescent teasing and the smiling white men in the lynching photographs are the Trump supporters whose community is built by rejoicing in the anguish of those they see as unlike them, who have found in their shared cruelty an answer to the loneliness and atomization of modern life.
....
Only the president and his allies, his supporters, and their anointed are entitled to the rights and protections of the law, and if necessary, immunity from it. The rest of us are entitled only to cruelty, by their whim. This is how the powerful have ever kept the powerless divided and in their place, and enriched themselves in the process.
....
Trump’s only true skill is the con; his only fundamental belief is that the United States is the birthright of straight, white, Christian men, and his only real, authentic pleasure is in cruelty. It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds his most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists, and treasonous white men who empathize with any of those who would steal their birthright. The president’s ability to execute that cruelty through word and deed makes them euphoric. It makes them feel good, it makes them feel proud, it makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united. And as long as he makes them feel that way, they will let him get away with anything, no matter what it costs them.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/?fbclid=IwAR3I-66QcZeT82gcYKgToAkTl7ok4wIbYoWI_BrDTlYAsDz25WdKU8Idexk

[PandoraAwakened]

1. Wow...I think that pretty much wraps it all up in a nutshell. n/t

[hostalover]

2. Scary stuff.

[dalton99a]

3. One of the best articles on the evil asshole and his followers

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. It is an excellent and terrifying insight into the mindset of Trump followers.

He's right on. These people would rather act against their own interests if it hurts the people they collectively hate.

[Hortensis]

5. One of the world's experts on countries that go extremist,

giving lay advice, said to watch out for mean people. So easy to see exactly what he meant. Mean people are now in America's face. Unfortunately, courtesy of the 2016 electoral disaster, they are currently America's face.

VOTE. The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing.

[Dulcinea]

6. I've said all along...

...that Trump makes his supporters feel powerful. They have no power, & live vicariously through him.