How would you describe what the protesters and rioters are for and what they are against?
A CNN reporter was debating with protesters about the election not being stolen. A better use of time would have been asking protesters about the issues they care about.
Amid the chanting of “USA USA” and followers’ gushing praise about how Trump “loves America,” it’d be useful to have asked indepth questions about how Trump’s followers regard the cultural, economic, and political elements that comprise or would comprise US national greatness.
It’d be useful to ask about how Trump’s policies and behavior have enhanced or detracted from such greatness.
What actually does MAGA mean in terms of policies?
As our infrastructure ages here in the US, as our students’ scores in STEM and reading decline compared to other nations, as we bog down in conspiracy theories and climate change denial and election conspiracies— China’s political, economic, and cultural power increases.
I don’t dislike or fear Asian folk, but looking at China’s development is a useful study in contrasts concerning our own country.
I’d like to discuss actual political, economic, cultural and ecological issues with the MAGA believers and other conservatives.
I can’t imagine how their faith in Trump could withstand them engaging a process of critically examining his and the Republican Party’s policies.
A few talks with Trump supporters lead to them bringing up the corruption of the Democratic Party whereby I generally agree with them. Then the task is to suggest that Trump and Republicans are similarly corrupt in their fealty to US transnational corporations that fund their campaigns, lobby them, and staff their regulatory agencies.
Once stimulated toward critical thought a Trump supporter can recognize that there are two wings of the same corporate duopoly.
A huge omission of the MAGA narrative is that US transnational corporations have gutted our nation’s infrastructure, depressed wages, looted pensions, deskilled our industrial workforce, and created the conditions whereby China has amassed wealth and economic power. Amid that reality, Trump’s tariffs and trade war with China are a joke. Meanwhile Germany and other EU nations as well as Australia and New Zealand and Japan…etc are building their ties to China, as Trump even refers to US allies as “foes” regarding trade. If he were serious about MAGA he’d have invested in public education instead of putting a billionaire con artist as head of Dept of Ed, Betsy Devos.
Trump’s narrative builds on the messaging the political right has been pushing for many years: liberal elites hate America and are intent on destroying our country, taking your guns and freedom, confiscating your hard-earned wealth in order to give special treatment to undeserving immigrants and black people.
It’s divide-and-conquer, using racism as a tool whereby the ruling class manipulates the working and middle classes and the poor, preventing multiracial solidarity with enough strength-of-numbers to hold the ruling class to account
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