A small business owner who voted for Donald Trump recently posted a video on TikTok, pleading for help as crushing tariffs on China threatened to bankrupt his operation, which imports alloy wheels. His call for support, however, drew little sympathy from some fellow Americans.
“Votes have consequences,” he was told, with many comments from Twitter/X users relishing the notion that another MAGA voter was suffering because of their political choice. The backlash prompted a second video from the man, in which he dropped several F-bombs while criticizing the apparent heartlessness of those celebrating his hardship.
Because they don’t accept that they were wrong. They don’t regret their decision because they now realise that it was wrong of them to try and push this on other people. They regret their decision because they realise that they have to suffer the consequences as well.
If a candidate came along that said that they would only punish “the wrong people” this lot would jump at them. They are not people who have learnt their lesson.
People take considerable time and effort to come to the conclusion that their entire world view was wrong. A lot of them get their need for community met by the right wing. If we on the left just ridicule and act aggressively towards people demonstrating any amount of second thoughts or doubt in their worldview, choosing to humiliate them rather than using it as an opportunity to broaden their doubts and set them on a bath to deradicalization, we are failing in our role. We are telling them to stay in their lane, because they will find no community, sympathy or compassion outside of their hateful spaces.
Because they always end all of these rants about how unfair it all is with. But I’d still vote for trump.
It’s not like they are genuinely reaching out trying to be better people. They admit no fault they admit no wrongdoing they just want everybody else to make it not be happening for them. They are not little kids they don’t get to pretend that their own decisions have no bearing on reality.
Again, people aren’t going to magically reach that point. “Oh, I lost everything, despite following all of my values. I guess this must be the consequences of my values being wrong” is not a thing that happens in real life. It takes someone to be sympathetic and compassionate, so they feel safe to be vulnerable, so they can unlearn their negative world view.
People don’t change all at once, generally. You don’t go from supporting trump to disavowing imperialism over night. It’s a slow, invisible process, and it can be stopped entirely or disrupted by entering a scenario where the individual feels threatened or isolated.
I am not saying we all just need to link hands and sing kum ba ya. All I’m saying is have some compassion for people who are, most likely, poorer, less well educated and got manipulated, brainwashed, and gaslighted their entire lives into supporting fascism, especially when those people are obviously suffering.