The MAGA Disconnect
They're angry and yet having a good time.
In his NYT column “The Rage and Joy of MAGA America,” David French puts describes something that I’ve sensed but never quite been able to put my finger on before now. It’s worth reading in full but here’s a taste:
Or go to a Southeastern Conference football game. The “Let’s Go Brandon” (or sometimes, just “[expletive] Joe Biden”) chant that arises from the student section isn’t delivered with clenched fists and furious anger, but rather through smiles and laughs. The frat bros are having a great time. The consistent message from Trumpland of all ages is something like this: “They’re the worst, and we’re awesome. Let’s party, and let’s fight.”
Why do none of your arguments against Trump penetrate this mind-set? The Trumpists have an easy answer: You’re horrible, and no one should listen to horrible people. Why were Trumpists so vulnerable to insane stolen-election theories? Because they know that you’re horrible and that horrible people are capable of anything, including stealing an election.
At the same time, their own joy and camaraderie insulate them against external critiques that focus on their anger and cruelty. Such charges ring hollow to Trump supporters, who can see firsthand the internal friendliness and good cheer that they experience when they get together with one another. They don’t feel angry — at least not most of the time. They are good, likable people who’ve just been provoked by a distant and alien “left” that many of them have never meaningfully encountered firsthand.
Indeed, while countless gallons of ink have been spilled analyzing the MAGA movement’s rage, far too little has been spilled discussing its joy.
Once you understand both dynamics, however, so much about the present moment makes clearer sense, including the dynamics of the Republican primary. Ron DeSantis, for example, channels all the rage of Trumpism and none of the joy.
[…]
If you’re deemed to be one of those people who is trying to “destroy our country and our family,” then you don’t see joy, only fury.
Trump’s fans, by contrast, don’t understand the effects of that fury because they mainly experience the joy. For them, the MAGA community is kind and welcoming. For them, supporting Trump is fun. Moreover, the MAGA movement is heavily clustered in the South, and Southerners see themselves as the nicest people in America. It feels false to them to be called “mean” or “cruel.” Cruel? No chance. In their minds, they’re the same people they’ve always been — it’s just that they finally understand how bad you are. And by “you,” again, they often mean the caricatures of people they’ve never met.
For those not familiar with him, French has had an interesting career: Harvard-trained lawyer for conservative causes, Army Reserve judge advocate with an Iraq War deployment, National Review staff writer, and devout anti-Trumper. Like me, he was a longtime Republican who thought Trump anathema to everything the party ostensibly stood from the moment he came down the elevator. Unlike me, French is deeply religious (of the evangelical variety) and therefore had a much harder time simply voting for the Democratic nominee.
Both of us have more exposure to ordinary Trump voters than the average OTB commenter. In my case, it’s mostly through my Facebook connection to high school classmates and those with whom I served in the Army 30-plus years ago. In his case, he still lives among them in suburban Nashville.
His column captures a disconnect I’ve never really been able to explain: how people who I know to be fundamentally decent could continue to support a man so vile. I think he’s right: they just don’t see it that way. I’ve identified the fear and anger—they see their very way of life as under attack by some hazily defined Other—but have not really connected it to the camaraderie that being part of a movement that said Other hates so much inspires.
This frame better explains the Let’s Go Brandon phenomenon and its endurance. While I view it as hateful vulgarity that those folks would have been ashamed of not all that long ago, they experience it as a fun bonding experience akin to “Go to hell, Ole Miss!” or “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, hey, goodbye.”
French’s explanation for DeSantis’ failure to catch on on the campaign trail makes sense, too. To us, he’s a more efficient, competent version of Trump. If the cruelty is indeed the point, then DeSantis should be soaring. But the rage without the joy just isn’t selling.
That’s good to hear. When my relatives and I are rounded up and put into camps for the crime of being Jews — or intellectuals or Democrats or city-dwellers — at least the great Americans running the extermination factories will be having fun while they’re doing it. Kind of makes destroying this great democracy all worth it.
As most know, I live in Texas. In a middle-upper middle class suburb. My wife and I have life long friends who are Trumpers. Just this past week, spent time at a pool party with our friends. There are times you just have to ignore the comments. Like “can I say white?”. Or some rant about how Popovich has ruined their basketball watching. And thank God Pride month is over.
And don’t start them on Bud Light.
I find myself having a growing resentment that this is a one way conversation. Because responding never results in a positive way. So what is the answer, everybody go their own way? That is a net loss.
This is a great angle, and I am surprised it has not been explored more.
The two or three people I know personally who still, somehow, support Trump are (outside of that) decent and good men (all men) with quite liberal wives (another situation I can’t get my head around).
The “joy” you describe feels very much like what goes on at an evangelical church when everyone gets singing together and you feel something that simply must be God.
Of course, we know human anatomy, psychology, and sociology well enough these days to know what’s happening when groups bond like this, and empty-headed politicians have long ago figured out how to “Tent Revival” their stump speeches to produce the same effect.
One of the biggest problems with the idea of Democracy is that the most persuasive person/idea wins – not necessarily the best one.
I don’t have a remedy for that.
The Nuremberg rally goers also looked like they were having fun.
@Scott:
I have had this experience as well. It is rather frustrating.
@Tony W:
Or, as James and French allude: it is like rooting for your football team. And when rooting for your team it is allowable to “hate” the other team. And I will say that Americans in general, and southeasterners in particular, can get more than carried away on this count.
The problem is that sports ultimately doesn’t matter, but politics really, really does.
@Tony W: BTW, I was not suggesting the religious analogy was wrong. I think the sports thing is just of the same piece.
I get it … look at all these Nazi death camp workers just blowing off some steam and having fun.
I mean who could resist hanging out with these fun loving people?
@gVOR10:
I’m not sure how serious this observation was meant to be, but you’re absolutely right – in a very non-facetious manner.
They were having fun. Maybe “fun” isn’t entirely the right word, but there was at least camaraderie based on an us-versus-them feeling, on hope even. Hope for a better future, as well as hope for justified revenge.
Because of that, I’m not sure how revealing French’s observation really is.
I would be very surprised if charismatic leadership/cults of personality can even exist without instilling some sort of joy in their followers.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I’m not entirely sure. Not even the most die-hard Browns fan believes that their side was the best NFL team of the past decade.
There is also a far-reaching denial of reality (or perhaps closing of the mind) that doesn’t really fit with the sports analogy.
@wr:
WR wins the day.
This is all obvious, right. The south, despite the SEC patent, did not invent fun at sporting events. Southerners tend to reiterate the obvious as an apology for cruelty. They’ve been doing this since slavery. People are nice and decent everywhere, not just in an antebellum mansion.
Trump has definitely played the guy thing–i.e. the man who provides the jokes and is the center of attention while the woman does the housework, churchwork, and childcare. David French is the same thing—he plays up being decent and reasonable but forbid his wife to talk to men when he was in Iraq. These people live in fragile worlds which they need to spin endlessly to control, and it leaves them open to cult leaders like Trump.
It’s often been observed that politics has become a matter of different modes of entertainment. Republicans are largely a postmodern party. (After French, dual meaning of “party” there.)
There is an element of hope in French’s analysis. No one seems to have been able to successfully copy Trump’s appeal. Trump will eventually go away one way or another. When he does, maybe this will burn itself out. Meanwhile, I think Biden’s doing the right thing, basically writing the MAGA off as un-gettable.
This is all part and parcel of the MAGA movement being about pure emotion. Whether that emotion is anger or joy – it’s all emotion, and that’s why it so enduring. You cannot penetrate emotions with facts. I presume most MAGAts can read – but the well laid out and clearly presented factual evidence in the MaL Documents Indictment matters not one whit to someone who is enthralled with Donnie’s disturbing dance moves.
@Tony W:’s tent revival comment is absolutely on point.
I think the most interesting thing in this post is the DeSantis angle. For sure, there is no joy to be had in that particular Mudville.
@drj: In the spirit of post-modernism, I meant that comment as both wry and deadly serious.
@Daryl:
French notes that for Trump and the MAGA the enemy is a vague other. DeSantis wants to make it the guys who very efficiently replaced my roof and Disney and your kid’s third grade teacher. Trump doesn’t believe anything he says. DeSantis is a true believer. Not funny.
@Tony W:
“Decent and good men” is the tricky part here. The wife thing is very similar to a racist who’s got a Black BFF or bigot who loves their gay son – that one person is different in their minds and a category altogether separate from the Other. My own father was rather sexist when I was young (“too many women in college thinking they’re smart” “women shouldn’t take jobs from men and stay home!”) but was 100% behind me personally (“my little girl’s so smart, she’s gonna be a doctor!!” “honey you can be anything you put your mind to”). I was not a girl or female or woman but HIS darling daughter. Your friends’ liberal wives likely benefit from the same blind spot – loved wife takes precedence over liberal or woman. That’s how you get “one of the good ones” or “I have a Black friend” examples that get trotted out when their beliefs are questioned
Being good or decent is subjective as hell. How many perfectly pleasant folks support terrible causes or do terrible things? A LOT because we rationalize away the terrible with “but they’re cool 90% of the time!” It’s how human society’s survived for so long. Supporting Trump is very much like supporting a football team except they’re also fine with the consequences of their support. They don’t just like Trump, they like MAGA and all it’s trappings because it appeals to something dark in them. He tickles their inner fascist /racist/ hater that they know isn’t acceptable and gave them a safe space to vent it all out. Do they want a fascist America? Not necessarily but they like the thrill of talking about it, envisioning it – the game of it all and the chance they could win. Glory in the wild fantasy of it all and then trudge back to life where the wife is – the loved one who’d be screwed if your team truly won in the country that would become unidentifiable and unworkable due to their goals without connecting the two at all.
@Daryl: Yay!
Yes and they proved it time and again during 246 years of slavery.
This is the way tribalism works. And yes, most of the MAGA people I know have a great time sharing memes and making fun of the “losers” on the left.
@Scott: I would bring Bud light, but I’m an asshole.
@Scott: Man, I feel that. My sister hangs out with some friends from high school who are Trumpers. It can make things difficult. I haven’t had to deal with it as much, but I’ve given thought to how I might respond, but I don’t have a good answer.
Except, as regards trans people. I have a dog in this hunt. My daughter is awesome and I love her, and I am not afraid to say so. I can appreciate some discomfort with the, uh, phenomenon – I had discomfort. I do not appreciate other statements.
@gVOR10:
DeSantis wants to hurt people. Clearly, unequivocally cause visible lasting harm and it’s freaking his base out to learn they’re on the list. He’s not just hurting the right people and it’s obviously on purpose.
The whole thing with killing permanent alimony in a state full of retirees? MAGA women are furious because let’s be real here, they’re the ones this is targeting. They’re most likely to be SAHM and less college educated (historically and currently) and thus most likely to have alimony granted. How many grandmas in the Villages just learned they need to get a job for the first time ever at 70+? DeSantis just pissed off a large group of supporters for no benefit. What, that’s gonna attract men on the fence about him that they can now leave their wives easier? Anyone this pleases is already conservative as hell
Farmers are hating because he’s costing them money. Businesses are starting to hate because he’s costing them money and actively targeting businesses based on personal grudges. Homeowners and companies are grumbling because insurance is soaring and he’s done nothing. He’s running a fiefdom and the serfs playacting at lordings are figuring out they’ll always be serfs to him. Trump just ran around in the fields partying with them and never did anything meaningful; DeSantis is burning down the crops and demanding they bend the knee
@Rick DeMent:
I don’t want to post a link, but google “lynching postcards” or “lynching photographs” for an example closer to home. You’ll find deeply disturbing images.
As I think people are pointing out, this really isn’t new. I guess if people didnt know this it was good of French to point it out. People in the South really are nice, except when they arent. If you aint one of them too bad for you. In the military we always had the guys who were racist as hell when the black guys weren’t around but chummy when they were. When asked it was “they are different, the good ones.” The ones they knew were different and the ones they didnt know were all bad. They just knew that somehow. Same with the homophobic crew. “Oh, Larry is gay? I didnt know that, but he’s OK. Those other gays (not the actual word used) can go to hell.”
The only real difference, maybe where French might have some insight, is the enthusiasm with which they have taken up hating people with whom they disagree. How it has become a bonding event for them. In the past the idea that gays and trans people were icky was more of an individual or small group thing. Now they have rallies and celebrations around it. It gives them purpose.
Steve
@drj:
Sure it does. Raiders Tuck Rule Game. That same year, Kurt Warner and other Rams players still occasionally hint that they think they got cheated out of the championship. Rhetorical asterisks on Patriots Super Bowl wins.
The performative asterisk started in 1961 when sportswriter Dick Young suggested an asterisk in response to baseball commissioner Ford Frick’s (hell of name that guy had) argument that Roger Maris’s record should be distinguished from Babe Ruth’s if Maris took more than 154 games to break the single season home run record.
During the steroid era, sportswriters used it to, let’s be honest, deny that McGwire and Sosa deserved recognition of breaking their records. And again when Barry Bonds broke single season and career records.
I’ve seen asterisks used on both Trump and Biden. I suppose you could quibble with how far-reaching the denial of sports records really is. But those players really hit all those home runs. The Patriots really did reach the Super Bowl in half the seasons in an 18 year span, winning a third of the total championships in that period. Yet people still find ways to indicate that they don’t recognize those achievements. Just as some people refuse to recognize the reality that Biden won.
Haven’t read your piece yet, just reacting to to the sub-head.
My pre-emptory read is that certain types of people are happy and fulfilled because they are angry and riled up at an other that bothers them. Some folks get satisfaction from hate. I don’t get it, myself. Own the libs is a lifestyle for some folks.
My mother used to call me up after a heady dose of Fox News rabble rousing to rail at me at how angry and disappointed she was that I didn’t vote for her preferred party and how stupid I was for doing so. She once accused me of “drinking the kool-aid”.
She would purposely try to bait and antagonize me, and it infuriated her when I refused to respond and rise to the bait. I had purposely reached out to her after decades of non-communication, gave her my phone number, my address. Maybe I should have left well enough alone, I knew what I was likely getting myself into, signing myself up for. I did it anyway. It went as well as I suspected – quite poorly.
She enjoyed giving me her hate. It gave her pleasure. Immense pleasure. She was owning the libs! Woo hoo! Adrenaline rush for her disturbed brain.
I had to tell her hard that I did appreciate or want political give and take with her at all. I felt raw antagonism and just derision and hatred from her. I never brought fraught topics up, ever, but she did every fucking time.
I told her flat out to not broach that topic. That enraged her immensely! I told her straight up that I did not not want to talk politics with her at all and would hang up on her if she did so. I was very assertive and very clear.
“Don’t do this or I will hang up. Do you hear that? Are we clear?”
Over the next few months I had to hang up on her more often than not. It wasn’t arbitrary – I would warn her when she was delving into territory I did not want engage with. Told her to stop. Please. If you continue on this topic I will hang up on you. Please stop. She continued. I hung up. (That pissed her off intensely and she left my the nastiest, shittiest voice mails. Alec Baldwin is a piker, a wannabe compared to my mom.)
I never responded in kind. I sort of enjoyed the raw vituperation and utter scorn from her. It brought me back to my childhood. I knew what I signed up for. She was clearly now and had been bi-polar / manic depressive going back to the period when she was purportedly my primary care giver (not a mental health pro, but my informed layman’s take and understanding).
She would “subtly” try to broach: “So what do you think about Elizabeth Warren?” To which I just responded “Mom, please stop. Not going there.”
I truly believe Fox News is toxic and directly contributes to family and friend disaffiliation. It actively encourages / emboldens people to be aggressively nasty and ill-mannered to others in their lives who disagree / vote differently. I think Fox News is a pox on America and to friend and and family relations.
My mother basically hated me. I kinda hated her, sometimes, maybe mostly. Actually, when we were just gabbing about whatever she was insightful and wicked smart. I enjoyed those interactions a lot. Outside of motherhood she was an interesting person until she she got infected by Fox News induced paranoia and sociopathy and then became insufferably annoying. One track focused.
When she died she left me her entire estate in her will.
@Jay L Gischer: The old rule is that you don’t talk about politics or religion. However, today, everything is all about politics or religion so there is nothing much left to talk about.
Hey, look on the bright side. Unlike the Germans running the extermination factories in the 1930s and 1940s, your fantasy camps won’t have been “conceived, built and often administered by Ph.Ds.” Or perhaps you prefer your holocausts to be the product of 70 years of teachings by the professors.
@gVOR10:
“Strength Through Joy”
This angle was actually important to the Nazis.
They developed large recreational resorts on the Baltic Coast and elsewhere.
@drj:
The fervor of the typical SEC fan (especially schools like Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Florida) is truly something very deep. Understand: I am from Texas, grew up (and remain) a diehard Cowboys’ fan, and nothing I ever experienced in Texas (not HS, not college, not the pros) rivals the truly deep and remarkable emotional connection that SEC fans have. And it often has zero to do with ever having gone to school at a given university.
Hate parties always seem like so much fun for the bullies who pick on the few and the weak among us. Hopefully, these folks will soon fall under the arc of justice and and experience the shame they deserve.
@Steven L. Taylor: Having said that I think that the general sports analogy works well outside the south. It is as simple as my team v. your team, with the only truly consistent truth about the teams is the there names (and probably their uniforms, more or less).
@JKB: WTF are you on about?
@Scott:
There’s a sort of “emotional chicken” thst goes on where the one person believes they’re entitled to an effortless relationship, and it’s always on the other party to deescalte things to protect the emotional bond, because the squishy liberals ultimately always seem to care more about the relationship than the MAGA person does.
@Steven L. Taylor:
WTF is he ever about?
@Steven L. Taylor:
New Englanders have an extremely deep connection to Boston sports. But Massholes haven’t become a political tribe rallying behind Ben Affleck and Dunkin Donuts, and the kids who grew up living and dying Boston sports have somehow managed to reconcile that with other parts of life, unless you’re Dave Portnoy or Bill Simmons.
I was once driving through Alabama with my brother, both of us hungover after a Mardi Gras. And we came across a radio station. Two guys, ranting vehemently about liberals and politics and so on. Took us about five minutes in our stupor to figure out they were talking about HS Football.
You don’t get this in the Northeast, not exactly at that level. But it’s not as if there are not deep connections in the Northeast (or anywhere). It’s something different.
@JKB:
When you write something that results in rational people scratching their heads and wondering WTF you’re on about, you might want to consider the possibility that your train has gone off the rails.
The commentary at OTB is always superior, but this thread is especially interesting and thought-provoking.
The capacity of MAGAs to deny objective reality is, to me, their most striking trait. January 6? Didn’t happen. It was a few peaceful patriots strolling reverently through the Capitol. All that video we saw of the mob screeching “hang Mike Pence” and threatening to put a bullet in Nancy Pelosi’s brain? All faked…two weeks later.
I saw it on my screen the day it happened, while it was happening.
Of course the MAGAts are happy, that’s not a surprise. They’re nasty little people who’ve been given license to be loudly, publicly nasty little people.
@Modulo Myself: Bostonians have Boston to be proud of. And the Pilgrims, Walden Pond, Lexington and Concord, MIT, Mass General, John Adams, John Kennedy, …
Alabama has the Crimson Tide. And Troy University.
@Steven L. Taylor:
In sports* it’s sort of a pretend hate. You didn’t see Cincinnati fans celebrate that Damar Hamlin nearly died on the field, after all. And no one on either side is happy when a player gets hurt.
*Maybe not in soccer, where there have been real and very violent street fights between groups of rival fans, which result in real injuries and even some deaths.
@Scott and Steven L. Taylor:
As a cisgen middle age white guy, I believe what we are experiencing here is the feeling of the “microaggression” we hear so much about but are never otherwise required to experience.
@Joe:
There’s an implicit assertion of dominance in it: as the superior, I’m free to deliberately provoke you, but as the inferior you are expected to silently and cheerfully endure it. If you don’t, you’re the one who will face social consequences, because insubordination is a far worse offense to the social order
@Steven L. Taylor:
The sports analogy works very well in places like the UK where football fans can have a great time beating the crap out of each other.
@Stormy Dragon: Hmm. The feeling I always get isn’t about inferiority or superiority, but rather immaturity versus maturity. Their inability to master their impulses always comes across (to me, anyway) as immaturity
@Andy:
In the UK, football hooligans are a very distinct minority even of football fans, let alone of the entire population.
One problem with the sports analogy is that 90% of the most extreme, reality-denying fans are all rooting for the same team.
@MarkedMan:
Well-balanced adults generally don’t have the urge to demonstrate superiority. Those who couldn’t move beyond playground bullshit, however…
@Stormy Dragon: I think it is sometimes dominance, but sometimes cluelessness that anyone might not see the world they way they see it or agree or accept their implicit biases.
A few weeks ago the NYT Mag had an article on Serbia the relationship of political leaders, gangsters and football hooligans.
Yeah, sports fanaticism without context isn’t really any different than religious fanaticism or political cultism, that all three exist in today’s south is interesting.
As French notes…
… the whole MAGA phenomenon relies on the sorting into siloes. Drag Queen Story hour is only pernicious if you are allowed the caricature of “groomer” when the reality is “storyteller with a love for theatrics.” The ideological sorting is willful, so it won’t be overcome but rather weakened. But, I’m convinced that exposure to the authentic Other is where salvation lies.
I am also frustrated by the one way conversation with Trumpists. I’m no better at responding in a way that leads to a positive result. But, I’ve found some satisfaction responding to a “Thank God Pride Month is over” with the simple question, “What have I ever done to you?” I don’t try to convince. I merely point out that since I’m an ally, I’m therefore an Other to them. There is some risk – they may decide they hate me too – but sometimes it gives them pause and that’s not nothing.
Sports analogies are great. Alabama versus Auburn have a real rivalry going. And then someone unstable takes it too far and poisons Auburn’s trees.
Politics are the same, MAGAs hate the libs. And then Trump puts Obama’s address out and someone unstable takes it too far, looking for the house with a van full of weapons and ammo.
@JKB: Dude, we all get that you never finished high school, and that your desperate sense of inadequacy drives you to trash everyone with an education. At this point, it’s not even trolling anymore, it’s just kind of sad.
Steve M. over at NoMoreMisterNiceBlog has an interesting take on French’s column, saying that MAGAs seem happy because the things they are enraged about- like trans people existing, wokeness, CRT- are things that don’t really affect or hurt them.
They aren’t being oppressed or injured in any way, they aren’t having any liberties stripped away. No one is forcing them to get abortions or dress in drag.
All their rage is at other people being allowed to live freely and their joy is in imagining a world in which that doesn’t happen.
ETA:
I’ve asked conservatives several times to give me a hypothetical “Worst Case” scenario of a world where liberalism is triumphant.
What’s interesting is that they confirm my statement above. Their scary world of liberalism either contains bizarre implausible things like FEMA re-education camps, or just much more plausible things like free government funded abortion on demand.
@Kathy:
This is what I immediately thought of too. Lynchings were often festive, joyous, events replete with barbecues and souvenirs. And the clueless joy and callous glee of the white supremacist murderers is right there on photo: there they are, a crowd triumphantly laughing and smiling for the canara, as the dead (sometimes charred and mutilated) black body swings in the tree above and behind them.
Like the gleeful attendees of Trump’s updated Nazi rallies, some of those people had black friends, black nannies, antiracist spouses. But decent and good? Well, bad people are not incapable of being charming nor of compartmentalizing their hate.
@Scott: How ’bout dem Cards?
@gVOR10:
I’m loath to criticize a state to which our genial hosts hold so many personal connections, but electing Tommy Tuberville as a senator because he was a college football coach???? That’s a qualification–no, the qualification–for the job?
I couldn’t tell you who the coaches are at Harvard, Boston College, UMass, Boston University, Tufts, or any other place. And I’m damn sure very few other people in these parts could as well.
This just would not happen outside the southeast.
@Steven L. Taylor: He’s been sniffin’ glue again.
@CSK:
Deleted. Repetition.
I have seen those lynching pictures from the days of yore with people smiling and having a good time. People engaged in repulsive conduct often rationalize it by diminishing its impact while laughing and cracking that one would really think the worst of them. It’s strictly a psychological reaction and I would not make more of it than that. Basically mass psychosis lead by psychopaths.
Mob mentality and mobs can form anywhere but the Deep South is unique in that raising and inciting mobs has been an essential part of organized governance for centuries. A false arrest, a jail cell left open and a quiet word to the boys in white sheets and the uppity person of color or odd religion, or the union organizer, or other troublesome person would be conveniently dispatched by a mob whose members would never be held to account.
@CSK:
OK, maybe the sports analogy does work after all, but it’s not really symmetrically applicable is all I’m saying.
Does make me wonder if Bear Bryant would have been an improvement over George Wallace…
@CSK:
You had to mention Tommy Tuberville again. Have I mentioned before what a POS he is?
https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-politics-of-omnibus-bills/#comment-2808715
@drj: @Scott:
I think if Alabamians could do so, they’d have Tommy Tuberville and Nick Saban as their senators. I once read an article in which a female fan of the Crimson Tide was quoted as saying that “Nick Saban may not be God, but he’s second.”
This mentality utterly confounds me.
@CSK: @CSK: @drj: While I take the larger point, electing sports figures to high office is fairly commonplace across the land and has been for quite some time.
Bill Bradley got elected to the Senate from New York repeatedly starting in 1979 based almost exclusively on his basketball career— which only ended two years earlier.
Jack Kemp got elected to Congress, also from New York, in 1971—two years after his football career ended.
Tom Osbourne is the closest Tuberville analog—the longtime head coach at Nebraska parlayed that into three terms in Congress but failed to win the governorship.
Hell, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura got elected governor of California and Minnesota, respectively.
When I was university aged I didn’t have the time to be too political. I had classes and studying / reading at least two jobs. I had to go out with my friends and blow off steam and be and act stupid in varying degrees of intoxication. When you are that age, that stuff is nigh necessary socialization. For me, had I not, I would be an angrier person and a lot less socialized. I’m weird enough already naturally, I needed dumb college drunken shenanigans to make me semi “normal”.
I admired the people who were overtly political. Kinda resented them a little bit. I felt like them, read the same stuff they did, kinda was them to an extent, but I had to always go off to one of my jobs. When a lot of folks get really political I had to, needed to, work a crappy job to pay rent for a shitty apartment in a shitty neighborhood, buy cheap food. When I was in a relationship I had to make time for my girlfriend and carve out a nice date night. Little normal stuff like that matters a lot. It isn’t even the little stuff, that’s the big stuff. Small pleasures and indulgences snatched from chaotic normality are golden opportunities.
I didn’t have the time to engage with politics hard. Maybe the energy. If it meant a lot to me I would have found a way. I didn’t. I’m very civically minded – I vote every election, but voting is my upper limit, I don’t want volunteer, like, at all. I will vote for your policies, but I’m not going to knock on some random persons door to sell the party pitch. That’s not going to happen ever.
I saw kids my age heavily into politics as what we would now call privileged, and, possibly a bit entitled. Plus most 20 year old kids lack the nuance and subtly to judge the room appropriately and loudly declare their abeisance to the last hard-core thing they read. A lot of them just came off as preachy and dour and off-putting. It’s Friday afternoon club, have a beer, and be normal. Shut the fuck up for an hour and have fun. You need this, believe me on this and just go with it. You will become a rounder, better person by letting go for a bit.
Politics wasn’t organic to them, it was a badge. I know I’m for post-capitalism because I know very well what is and feels like to be homeless, or very poor and barely housed. You need a few extra shifts to pay for electricity and water utilities, that’s the reality you’re in. That sucks, but you have it covered for now. I can sleep tomorrow hopefully.
I, rightly or wrongly, often thought political kids were too privileged.
One day, senior year, I was hustling to a job interview for Honeywell or 3M, doesn’t matter, I did not get an offer anyway, but the political folks were having a “die-in” (it was the 80s; die-ins were a thing) directly in front of the student center on the sidewalk to maximally impede foot traffic for big effect. I stepped over everyone and said “Hi” to everybody I knew by name which was just about everyone. I had an appointment. For a “real” job. I stepped over a very good friend and had a super-quick chat. She said she wished she had thought of sunscreen, which I thought was pretty adorable and relatable.
Didn’t land either job. How would my life be different had I landed a job that day? 3M or Honeywell me might be quite different.
@James Joyner: Very fair. Not to mention tons of other “unqualified” people – actors, comedians, performers, etc. College sports coaches outside of the South are less likely to be household names, but a political party running a household name for office is a pretty common thing.
@DK:
The souvenirs often being parts of the lynched person’s body.
@James Joyner: @MarkedMan:
But were Bill Bradley etc. described as second only to God? That seems a little excessive to me.
@James Joyner:
Would be unfair to leave out Reagan…
@drj: Reagan wasn’t a professional athlete, though. But, yeah, as @MarkedMan notes, lots of other non-athlete celebrities turned their fame into political careers. Sonny Bono and even Fred “Gopher” Gandy and Ben “Cooter” Jones. (It’s true, though, that Schwarzenegger and Ventura had celebrity beyond their athletic careers from the movies.)
@gVOR10: And the Lost Luggage Facility. And NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. And the US Space and Rocket Center. And a whole lot of world class pits (and other caves).
@CSK: 2 words: Jim Jordan.
@James Joyner: As a Seahawks fan I have to mention Steve Largent as well.
@wr:
I’m hoping that while they shove my body into the oven, they burn their hand at least.
Maybe the brightly colored poisonous caterpillars have it figured out — be really unpleasant to eat and harsh the predators buzz.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Deleted. I misunderstood your comment.
@Andy:
@drj:
The interesting thing in the UK is that rugby, which is a far more violent game, has never had any problem with crowd violence.
Also, come to think of it, I’ve rarely heard of football (soccer) fans being stupid enough to pick a fight with rugby fans. LOL.
It’s probably just that UK football has a following that has a rather different social profile. More stroppy youths, in short.
Thinking about it, the in-game-violence is probably beside the point; cricket crowds are not known for brawling either, LOL
@gVOR10: Don’t forget the Birmingham Stallions. 2 USFL championships in a row. And they even play the games in Birmingham. Woo-hee!
@JohnSF:
When there was a football game during the time I lived in Edinburgh, we were warned to avoid certain areas of the city. Especially when it was Celtic vs Rangers. Catholic vs Protestant.
What career path is appropriate for serving in an elected office?
IMO, it’s not so much what one did beforehand, but how much one knows about politics, policy, the law, and governance. And also what one does after being elected. Some people learn that they need after their election, and do reasonably well. Others don’t even after more than one term in office.
@Kathy:
Well, being a crooked real estate developer and a reality show host clearly didn’t prepare Trump.
@CSK:
I think I said previously Benito is the first person in the world to hold a job for four years, and yet still lack the experience and skills needed to hold it.
@JohnSF:
Isn’t there an old joke about rugby being a game played by ruffians for an audience of gentlemen and soccer being a game of gentlemen playing for an audience of ruffians?
@Kathy:
Remember when Trump said he would sign a clean bill and Nancy Pelosi whooped for joy? Someone had to intervene very hurriedly and muzzle Trump. He clearly didn’t know what the hell a clean bill is.
@Raoul:
Depends on the person. Some who celebrated lyjchings were strictly having mob violence psychological reactions, others really were just vicious, feral trash who saw blacks as subhuman.
When Rush Limbaugh held radio segments gleefully celebrating gays dying of AIDS, he wasn’t having a psychological reaction. It wasn’t that deep. He was just being a vile, amoral bigot.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar as they say.
As I sign off for the weekend, I leave with this:
A liberal redneck explains the right-wing obsession with transgendered people.
It’s somewhat insightful.
Edit: Changed a term to be better.
@Kathy:
For executive positions: starting small (city or town councilman) and gaining experience as you work your way up. For legislative positions: same as above OR acting as a lawyer in highly technical specialty. (It is difficult to draft good laws.)
@James Joyner:
The saying goes “Football is a gentleman’s game played by ruffians, and rugby is a ruffian’s game played by gentlemen.”
Meaning that rugby was historically played at public schools (very exclusive and expensive; think Eton and, of course, Rugby) where budding “gentlemen” went, while the working class (the “ruffians”) had to make do with ordinary football.
I don’t know the precise reason behind it. I assume that working class children weren’t thought to be able to control their temper and maintain discipline like one would expect of proper gentlemen. Or poorly fed working class kids simply couldn’t be expected to take the physical abuse (we’re in the 19th century here).
Regardless, rugby and football are still very different cultural environments – at least in the UK.
@CSK:
Of course he does. It’s a $100 from a stack that was run through dry-cleaning to remove Russian mob fingerprints. he has the cleanest bills, manypeoplesaythat.
@MarkedMan:
There’s law and there’s policy. A law may be well crafted and still be terrible policy.
I agree people should start political careers from the bottom rungs, the better to understand the structures and processes involved. In reality, how likely is that?
@Scott:
I agree, but I lost the resentment when I found silence the best way to “argue” with it. The awkwardness seems to prompt more serious thought in most than anything I have yet found to say. They seek feedback, positive or negative…either way they process it as confirmation so it doesn’t matter. But without that many seem to have to ponder, or at least re-ponder, WTF they are talking about. Hopefully, they at least ponder if they are getting carried away.
@James Joyner:
Almost: the original, as I heard it, was “rugby is a game for hooligans, played by gentlemen; football is a game for gentlemen, played by hooligans”
There is a LOT of UK class and social division related to the games.
Would need a book to explain it; as you get into the English rugby = middle class vs Wales rugby = working class; and the Rugby Union vs Rugby League thing.
It’s …. complicated.
🙂
@drj:
Depends a bit on locality; in South Wales, south Lancashire, Northern Ireland, some other localities, rugby was the working class game.
And rugby was also the game of the grammar schools; which were generally very much non-aristocratic, and took great pleasure in stuffing the public schools seven ways to Sunday in competitions.
It’s … complicated. 😉
Cricket, of course, is classless. Except when it’s not.
@CSK: ‘S ok.
I fail to see the difference.
@MarkedMan:I recall a couple decades ago reading an article about what great presidents had in common. The annual meeting of historians, I forget what they call their association, made their usual ranking of presidents. Then they looked at what many the ones at the top had in common. IIRC they settled on two things. One was what you suggest, they had a career in politics starting locally, where they learned to get stuff done by letting everyone have a piece of the pie. The second was that they had a serious interest in history. This gave them perspective.
@Kathy:
My preferred, my S tier, pre-executive job experience would be something like a city planner or a civil engineer. Obama was an easy shoe-in for me because he made his bones by being a community organizer. I want folks who do the hard, detailed work of making life better for everyone regardless of creed, color, orientation, lifestyle. Some clever person made this commonly used route system better, faster, safer, more accessible. Those are the skills and values I prize most highly. Efficient utility available to all. That’s the person I trust more than any other.
Plus, those roles pay fairly modest wages. I want a person in charge who isn’t rich. And certainly no one who is generationally rich. People born with a silver spoon in their mouth are probably the least likely to do well. They have no perspective and, as a rule, are idiots. See GW Bush and Trump.
George HW Bush is a good counter-example. Not someone I would ever vote for ever, but a solid guy. I would prefer he had done some things differently, but in the whole he did okay. Righted the ship post Reagan. It’s not that he was uber-competent, but he was semi so. Low key. I want to gently steer a steady into placid, peaceful waters. For a nepotism kid he did pretty okay in my book.
I just can’t get past how atrociously terrible how Trump did his job. Why did people riot for him? Why did people try to queer the electoral system for this obvious narcissistic shit-heel who obviously lost.
Yes, Republicans, please go all in on your Trump worship. Doing so means so many current and future voters will never listen to your message ever again.
Apparently, reactionary voters are easily bamboozled by bullshit. Trump is easily the worst President I’ve ever seen by leaps and bounds. What were they thinking?
It embarrasses me deeply as a citizen that Donald Trump won the Presidency. He did win, fair and square, not by much, but he legitimatly won..
With international friends I had to try to explain it to them. I couldn’t. Trump makes GW Bush war criminal 43 look like Eisenhower, for fucks sakes.
Ralph Wiggum would have been a better president. They choo-choo choosed me? Andy Dick on crack and crank would have been better!
In my experience living in very red areas I found that a lot of the MAGA supporters would switch to rage in an instant if you said one of a few trigger words. Just the other day in a game discord people were commenting on the high temperatures and all it took was someone saying carbon for the MAGA rage to unleash. What’s funny is the dude wasn’t even saying what the MAGA idiot thought…
SO yeah they appear joyful and fun as long as you’re one of them but if you dare say a single trigger word the rage will fly forth. Super ironic considering how those same people mock lefties for being triggered. Combine that tendency with their sincere held beliefs that only they know the real truth of everything…..
@Steven L. Taylor: Politics turned into team sport for the right some decades ago. I saw all the similarities between the behaviour of cowboy fans and the MAGA people. If you’re the out group aka the other team you’re worse than filth.