What Trumper are really about.... my best guess.
We have seen Trumpers support their chosen leader through controversies that would melted steel. Nothing seems to shake their support of him. Even when he withdraws from positions that they professed to be "reasons" why they support him and he hangs them out to dry - they still swear support for him.This has baffled most observers and I feel a points to a ridiculously simple but frightening conclusions about Trumpers.
A lot of people feel Trumpers are single issue types. That might be accurate but the single issue though is not racism or misogyny or economics - but it is entitlement culture.
One of the drawbacks of being such an incredibly rich and powerful nation is that we suffer from the greatest sense of entitlement among large fractions of our population.
Perhaps the dramatic way to see this is that we have an entire generation of boomers that paid about 15% of their annual income for something like 40 years (max). Assuming that their income and Social Security + Medicare amounts grew at roughly 5% per year on average - the total amount of money stashed away in the social security + medicare fund for each individual is about equal to about a year or so their current annual income.
Assuming that their expenses comes down by a factor of four from when they were earning (unlikely given how many are juggling multiple mortgages and poor health but lets assume that is feasible somehow) - they have at most 4 years of expenses that can be supported through Social Security and Medicare.
Given most boomers are living almost 20 years beyond their retirement. There is absolutely no way to get that 4 years worth of SS+MC funds to stretch out for 5x the amount of time. A majority of boomers will tell you that this is money they paid into and money they are owed - which is correct - but only for about 3-4 years - not more. You will never get anyone from that generation to ever admit they didn't set enough aside for retirement. [Apparently PolitiFact looked at this a decade or so ago].
This is what happens when you have a large chunk of the population that is overwhelmed by a sense of entitlement.
One of the worst aspects of entitlement culture is the notion that you can get away with doing extremely stupid things - that either there will be no consequences or the consequences will be acceptable (because you thought about it for like 4 secs).
I believe Trumpers subscribe to this entitlement culture more than most others. They are most disturbed by its erosion by the winds of reality.
Everyone knows that toxic ideas of misogyny and racism are bad for society.
Everyone knows that supporting a narcissistic authoritarian leads to social and economic ruin. Everyone knows that inhaling politcal propaganda from a shithole like Fox News or Breitbart. Everyone knows that excessive tribalism is bad for politics and for your nation's economy.
But because these people so blinded by their sense of entitlement - they are pushing hard on all those things.
The core calculation is that "I will not be personally held to account" or "Even if I am held to account, I won't really be affected by the price".
That is what IMHO is going on - pure entitlement.
I don't think Trumpers grasp the reality of the Social Security and Medicare fund - they don't grasp that despite all the false promises of Trump and the GOP - the fund will run out. And when it does - Boomers will be reliant on the Millenials and Gen Xers for their survival. Given how they have behaved - that life support will come at an extremely high cost to the ego.
posted by maverick @ 8:55 AM
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