Thread by @lionel_trolling

half-baked theory that voters dislike ideological appeals because they dont understand them and also they creep them out; party intellectuals turn some discontent into an entire worldview, i.e. "anti-wokeness"

voters might express agreement with much of its specifics in surveys, but then do not like it when its served back to them in a totalizing package. then the party is like "why isn't this working! you want this!"

on the left you can see the same thing happening where in surveys voters say they want a number of progressive positions like higher taxes for the rich or better healthcare, and then progressive candidates struggle

trump is effective because he doesn't really understand or express well the ideological articulations of the views he represents, he was good at communicating a number of inchoate, instinctive grievances

likewise, while Bernie never shied from identifying himself as a socialist, most voters were responding to his populist and anti-system rhetoric, not his ideological bonafides

there's kind of an always existing middle class discontent which every political party's brains think they know the real cause of, or try to shape it for their own ends, but it's recalcitrant, sullen but also mercurial

of course, strictly speaking, it's not that these commonsensical positions are not ideological, they are deeply ideological in the sense that they represent governing notions of society, but they appear not to be "isms," just feelings about things

if you look at the recent successful presidential candidates, Biden, Trump, Obama—all of them presented themselves as pragmatic and not particularly ideological. Trump is a kind of dark, fascist vitalistic pragmatism of the will: "I alone can fix it" etc

What Trump has in the fascist equation that DeSantis lacks is that he represents the anti-political urge of it, "put this guy in charge, he will take care of it, enough of this squabbling lying politicians." DeSantis listens to his ideological advisors

Trump knows that people just wanna hear that politicians and the media are stupid and corrupt and he will break their bones

DeSantis's appeal "I will do a good job at implementing policies, I am an effective administrator" is a bit too PMC, if you will. Trump's appeal is "I am the providential vessel of your retribution for all your frustrations and grievances." A bit meatier.

The main political innovation of fascism was that they realized that myths, images, spectacles and emotion were more important than programs and policies. It's not that politics did not include all those things before, but the fascists made it the very center of politics

It's sort of funny that these right-wing intellectuals look at Trump and his crowds and go "ah the electorate clearly is looking for Catholic social doctrine now." Just use your eyes, they are looking for Trump, that's it. They want Trump to beat up people they don't like.

The interpretation of Trump is so easy. He just almsot verbatim says "I will beat up the people we don't like" and the crowd goes "yayyyy!" and then all these serious pundits are like, "Hmm, what is the real meaning of this?"