Re: the cruelty is the point: "One of Trump’s political innovations was to realize that his followers wanted cruelty...they had various subsets of Americans whom they hated. What they wanted was a strongman who would target these othered peoples and hurt them."
I respectfully refer you to Crystal Minton, Florida resident who, feeling the…
Re: the cruelty is the point: "One of Trump’s political innovations was to realize that his followers wanted cruelty...they had various subsets of Americans whom they hated. What they wanted was a strongman who would target these othered peoples and hurt them."
I respectfully refer you to Crystal Minton, Florida resident who, feeling the practical effects of the government shutdown in 2019, made the following complaint, live and on the TV: "...but he isn't hurting the people he's supposed to be hurting."
Cruel people view life as a zero-sum game. Should they be discommoded or disadvantaged in any regard, "someone" must pay dearly for that affront. Should "someone" be too powerful for them to pursue and punish, cruelty must be satisfied nevertheless, hence The Other, Them, Enemies of the People, etc. What's truly awful, though, is once these people taste performative cruelty--or more especially, normative cruelty--they quickly develop an appetite for it that cannot be satisfied merely by "hurting the people he's supposed to be hurting." No, their hunger for cruelty grows so immense, it can only be sated by the food of cruel gods everywhere, i.e. human sacrifice.
While I don't think Cruel America is quite there yet, we can't say Crystal Minton didn't give Not-Cruel America a big ol' heads-up.
Re: the cruelty is the point: "One of Trump’s political innovations was to realize that his followers wanted cruelty...they had various subsets of Americans whom they hated. What they wanted was a strongman who would target these othered peoples and hurt them."
I respectfully refer you to Crystal Minton, Florida resident who, feeling the practical effects of the government shutdown in 2019, made the following complaint, live and on the TV: "...but he isn't hurting the people he's supposed to be hurting."
Cruel people view life as a zero-sum game. Should they be discommoded or disadvantaged in any regard, "someone" must pay dearly for that affront. Should "someone" be too powerful for them to pursue and punish, cruelty must be satisfied nevertheless, hence The Other, Them, Enemies of the People, etc. What's truly awful, though, is once these people taste performative cruelty--or more especially, normative cruelty--they quickly develop an appetite for it that cannot be satisfied merely by "hurting the people he's supposed to be hurting." No, their hunger for cruelty grows so immense, it can only be sated by the food of cruel gods everywhere, i.e. human sacrifice.
While I don't think Cruel America is quite there yet, we can't say Crystal Minton didn't give Not-Cruel America a big ol' heads-up.