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Oldandintheway's avatar

This isn’t just true for Israel, it’s true for every difficult problem, such a global warming, immigration, and the huge gap in wealth and power all around the world. We can see from the current Republican Party that following extremists, especially foolish and incompetent ones, leads to chaos and total dysfunction. Trump and Netanyahu are both frauds and narcissists who never had the ability to deliver on their promises. Netanyahu promised peace and security, but delivered weakness. I still don’t know what Trump promised, except to make himself king. That’s why the Republicans can’t decide on anything. They can’t agree about what they want to accomplish. They each have a crazy pet peeve: ban books, delete history, oppose gay people, fight for fetuses, destroy the armed forces, cut social security, take money from the poor and give to the rich. They have some idea that the vast majority of Americans are against all of those things so they respond by blowing up the government.

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JF's avatar

As income inequality rises, so too does white grievance. It seems relevant to the various points of societal turmoil you describe.

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R Mercer's avatar

The more horrible your situation is (and the more powerless you see yourself as being able to change it) the more likely you are to divert (or be diverted) into cultural issues that you feel strongly about that you believe yo CAN change.

And the people currently benefitting n the power structure are glad to facilitate that as long as it doesn't look like it will hurt them.

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Bluchek Mark's avatar

Also, it is far easier for any given “we” to say what “we” are against than what “we”want, because it only makes sense to be against things as they are (or can be parodied that way). It is easy and profitable to specify grievances, and it requires no responsibility for imagining or articulating what “we” would do differently (see: Obamacare). It is impossible to govern if government itself is “the problem” underlying every grievance.

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JF's avatar

Powerless people are easily manipulated. In the case of Trump and his cult, he had to carefully nurture their feelings of powerlessness, because in reality their lives are pretty fine, relatively speaking.

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JMFK's avatar

Rush Limbaugh and Faux News working on behalf of Republican billionaires had that ball rolling decades ago. They stimulated resentments against the "others" and the "elites" so they could hoodwink citizens to vote against their own economic interests. Trump was the first to realize that their resentments could be turned against the very people who had instigated and nurtured them in the 1st place.

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TW Falcon's avatar

"Trump was the first to realize that their resentments could be turned against the very people who had instigated and nurtured them in the 1st place."

Bingo!

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