How Trump Happened - From Someone Who Lived With His Base

Loads of threads about the situation in the US at the minute, and I know we've got a couple of US-based Reds on here (@SFOTyke etc) but wasn't sure if we had any in Republican heartlands so I wanted to try and explain the Trump phenomenon based on my experience living in rural Georgia - Bible Belt territory.

People seriously underestimate how brainwashed many Deep South Republicans are. And I don't necessarily mean because they have right-wing opinions, I mean they actually have huge holes in their basic education. This is important because it's deliberate.

I've spent a year in the Deep South in a few stints, living under the same roof as these people. In that time I've been asked:

• Do you have cars in England?
• Do you vote in England?
• Where is England?
• Do you speak English in England?

I want you to know they aren't all thick. Their brains are just as capable of processing information as anyone else's; they're just never given it and they're actively discouraged from finding out themselves.

Republicans (and often Democrats too) give being American cult-like status. They're told every day on TV, radio and print media that the US is the greatest country in the world and all other countries bow down to them. Because they're told it from birth, almost all of them believe it (talking strictly about the Deep South here). They have to take a damn pledge to a flag every day before school. People cringe at dictatorships that do that.

Their education system is broken. Deliberately. Republican stronghold states keep education off the agenda because they benefit more from populism (which education diminishes) and religion (likewise).

My wife never even stepped foot in a school, and this is very accepted and quite normal down there. Her home education consisted of bible, creationism, and right wing propaganda. I'm not exaggerating. And even if she had gone to school, things like creationism are still taught on the local curriculum: it's all very anti-science. Many counties outright refuse to follow federal and state laws re. things like education and abortion if they don't agree with them, and don't get punished for it.

They are taught nothing of politics, finances, world history, geography etc. It's just maths, basic English and Christianity for most kids. This enforces a certain belief structure incredibly strongly, to the point of cognitive dissonance when presented with conflicting evidence.

The ruling class of the South encourage this state of affairs because it keeps the plebs in line. Socialism is such a dirty word that they compete with one another to hate it the most. Yet, they don't even understand what it is. I made a point to them that if the UK's NHS is socialism and therefore evil, then they'd better start paying privately for their fire service & police every time they're needed too.

They will genuinely believe things like FOX News are neutral and balanced. I challenge you to watch an hour of Fox News show 'The Five' - a common favourite amongst them, and not have your jaw drop to the floor in disbelief.

It's also a racist place. I don't care what anyone says. It is. My wife's father was black, and her mother is white. When they married, her grandmother disowned her mother (her own daughter) for marrying a black man. Half the family turned their backs. And when I was held up for a few hours for (reasonable) further immigration questioning in Atlanta, my wife's stepfather said "How dare they, black men, question you - an Anglo Saxon male like that? Disgusting."

Try and draw a picture in your mind of who these people are and what they believe in. I saw people like them everywhere I went. Confederate flags galore.

Then in 2008 the Democrats went and successfully elected Obama - an African American. To the people I'm talking about, this was disgusting and terrifying in equal measure. They were never even prepared to give him a chance. And what's more, they couldn't even accept it was possible for other parts of the country to have voted him in. It must have been voter fraud, or he lied to them in some way, or maybe he wasn't even born in the US. Something had to be wrong. It was so against their belief system they became rabid.

And then they needed to 'rectify' the 'problem' by going as far to the right as humanly possible - to 'reverse the damage'. Which is where Trump came in. He was the 'common man' who understood 'real people' and would save them from this terrifying black communist.

All bell'ooks of course.

Again, this all stems from broken education and a broken culture. They are misinformed, subjugated and in all honesty I think they are victims in a way. They are being absolutely played by a group of powerful people who eat the buffet and throw them scraps. It's a classic case of the ruling class avoiding a class war by flipping it into a race war. Divide and rule.

When my wife came here she said this must be how North Koreans feel when they enter South Korea for the first time. Having their eyes opened to the bullsh*t they grew up believing in.

And with guns, well, the gun lobby literally writes the gun laws. The lobby knows how the people work and how to manipulate them. Just follow the money and you'll see exactly where America's gun problems come from.

 

Over 20 years ago now: I was in Florida with work and I stopped in a "Gas station" to fill up with petrol. The cashier could tell that "I wasn't from these parts" so she asked me where I was from. I said I'm from England. Oh she said, that little island off the coast of Australia?

I just walked away, I didn't know what to say...

 

Good read and Interesting insight Gravy. How did you end up there and how did you meet the missus. ?

 

I met her online 8 years ago, only ended up there to spend time getting to know her family etc. Also while we were waiting for UK immigration clearance

 

Very good read but depressing at the same time.

 

In the mid 80’s we went to live just outside Orlando for nearly 18 months. It’s fair to say the experience left me with a less than complimentary view of Americans

 

I know, I was only there a few weeks every year or so with work. Very insular and very insecure people. I was offered a job with the US company that was contracted to do the work for us. I quickly turned down the offer, the grass isn't always greener as they say...

 

I worked in America for a year and was trying to book a flight to New Zealand once. The girl in the travel office said 'which state is New Zealand in?'.

I told someone else I was from the UK and she said do you ever leave the island to go shopping? Got the impression she thought England was about 5 miles wide and we had to nip over to France or somewhere to get the groceries.

Scary place sometimes with their lack of awareness/education. Think only about 5% of Americans have passports so they're not well travelled

 

And we're fed ******** everyday about Russia, China etc, I've even stopped watching the news and buying a daily paper, big media is and has been for donkeys years the latter day bible's and koran's, fear inducing behemoths that has and will again, create war, poverty and misery as long as we continue to allow them to prosper and flourish. The American public are really an hall of mirror image of every race on earth.

 

Cracking first hand analysis a great read and explains alot. Now wait for the inevitable responses telling you that what you experienced is wrong. That you went to America with a bias view of them and that you are racist towards your own race or something backwards like that.

 

When I told someone in the USA I was from England, they asked if I came by train.

 

Great piece.

Don’t get me on Fox’s Tucker Carlson. A hate promoting mouth-breather of particularly low intelligence.

I don’t think Trump will get in but stranger things have happened. He will however, at some point, go to jail.
He’s a charlatan, a crook, a liar and many more ugly traits besides.

 

He is a particularly odious individual, but somehow he gets through to them. It's ridiculous to watch

 

Having spent a couple of weeks following Lynyrd Skynyrd round Florida back in 2003 during the 2nd Gulf War I can confirm that there’s certain communities in the USA whose ignorance of world affairs and general geography defy belief . Having said that I was in California about 10yrs ago and most of the people we talked to seemed reasonably knowledgeable

 

California, other than the most rural areas, is very Democrat and generally progressive. They're a lot closer to us than they are communities in the rural Deep South

 

Fair points well taken.

I suppose my observations are less how he managed the logistics of winning the election, and more about how he has energised his base in such a concerning way.

 

In 1980 I was in Dallas and a taxi driver says
"Hey you're English, what part of England are you from?"
I didn't think he'd have heard of Barnsley and at the time I was working in Cambridge so I said "Cambridge."
He said "Whereabouts is that?"
"About 60 miles north of London." says I.
He says "Is that near Paris?"
"Paris is in France".
"Paris, France, London, England, you know I always thought they were in the same country."

At this point I gave up.

On a train home from Cambridge an American girl I was chatting with said "You have a different accent, where are you from?".
"The north of England" I says
"Scotland?".

 

Here is evidence of how screwed up the US is.

Not only is 54urlacher a former NFL player but 180,000 people have liked this picture.

180,000 people want to release a white supremacist murderer who shot 2 protesters in cold blood with an assault weapon.

Utterly Bonkers.