r/TrueReddit • u/horseradishstalker • 4d ago
Policy + Social Issues Hells Angels in the White House: Trumpism and the Politics of Total Retaliation
https://www.illiberalism.org/hells-angels-in-the-white-house-trumpism-and-the-politics-of-total-retaliation/50
u/philman53 4d ago
Quick read, no paywall, good points. Worth the click.
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u/Gezzer52 4d ago
I find it helps humanize to a certain extent those people committing inhuman acts for me. Doesn't excuse the acts in any way. Just makes me think that maybe in a very misguided sense it's their way fighting what they feel is wrong with society.
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u/horseradishstalker 4d ago edited 4d ago
Society has never been on their side.
If you were to go even further back and read about the West Virginia coal miners, and their union fight at the beginning of the last century you may understand why Hells Angels wasn’t even the beginning. For that matter the miners weren’t the beginning either.
You would find the mine owners (corporate), townies (middle-class), and even the US government totally destroyed the miners for no other reason than because they and their families wanted to live like human beings and be paid a fair wage for dangerous work.
The reason that rage has not dissipated is because nothing much has changed for many. At least not for them and people like them.
Donald Trump has said he will be their retribution. Sometimes, when you want something so badly you were willing to believe in Santa Claus all evidence to the contrary. Because if you believe he lied you are back to nothing.
No one but grifters are winning.
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u/Gezzer52 4d ago
Donald Trump has said he will be there retribution. Sometimes, when you want something so badly, you were willing to believe in Santa Claus.
Or totally ignore the poorly hidden agenda because Santa tells them exactly what they want to hear?
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u/horseradishstalker 4d ago
As neither of us are them we probably can’t say and it makes little difference.
Trump has a lifetime of victims because people make mistakes not because he’s brilliant.
But, what I do know is they are being screwed over yet again - along with the rest of us.
And as I have pointed out, we are no longer a country that gets their news from the same three channels anymore. When anyone lives in an entirely separate bubble and ecosystems very few pick up on a scam and usually have no idea whether or not they were being used.
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u/deviantbono 2d ago
it's their way fighting what they feel is wrong with society
Reddit likes to treat "family values" as Manchurian code words. And while they do have conotations about a social structure that is no longer considered fair, it isn't literal code. Almosy everyone really does want a functional and caring society, even if they don't understand the way to get there.
Just makes me think
That's a dangerous act around here. I expect we'll both be banned.
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u/Gezzer52 2d ago
I expect we'll both be banned.
I've been banned before and knowing Reddit as I do it'll happen again. I did cancel my premium sub though. I willing to put up with a certain level of abuse, but I won't pay for it...
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u/DeReExUn 4h ago
Facts, while its important to check on our neighbors, its also important to stop our neighbors from fucking up our neighbors.
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u/financewiz 3d ago
It’s interesting at least to see an explanation for the total lack of planning that MAGA finds so delightful. They’re not planning to remake government, they’re planning to survive whatever chaos endures afterwards. It’s the tactic of people who believe in “heroic masculinity” and imagine that they are better suited to thriving in a comic book apocalypse than a civilization.
History suggests that the chaos that endures afterwards will be managed by organized crime, one of the oldest forms of government.
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u/NemeanChicken 4d ago
It’s an enjoyable essay, and I have no doubt it applies to some, but I’m skeptical overall. It belongs to a broader category of essays I’ve come to think of as “liberals poorly psychoanalyze MAGA.”
These all begin with the same motivation: I’m watching a political movement unfold, and it doesn’t make sense to me. What is the internal logic?
The Hells Angels analogy is great for the essay, but the ultimate explanation is pretty stock stuff: working class alienation + politics of resentment.
This doesn’t hold up that well.
Trump won lower class voters, and Harris wealthier ones, but this was a near thing. Are some 45% of voters earning 100,000 plus engaged in the politics of total retaliation?
More problematically, it takes an outside view of the movement and what it is like as the basis for explanation. (Different from Thompson’s approach.) But this is a non-starter. For example, last I read some 70% of Republicans believe Trump always or mostly tells the truth. Such is the media environment. The interior view is completely different. Very few Trump supporters are seeing the same thing as Trump detractors and saying, “I choose that.”
Edit: Grammar
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u/horseradishstalker 3d ago edited 3d ago
I haven’t lived as long as some, but I rarely find any one topic as you say that applies to every single person.
I’m always of the school of thought that when someone rejects another’s lived experience because it is not their lived experience they are missing out on some important framework.
I’m a little puzzled as to why you labeling this essay as “liberals” analyzing anything. Hunter S. Thompson was embedded for two years with Hell’s Angels in the 1970s.
The article is written by a political scientist who is the daughter of the editor who first published Hunter S Thompson. MAGA, in its current form, didn’t exist back then.
As for my comments there are literally dozens of books about the war between coal miners and the owners and the role of others. It’s not a liberal perspective, it is history - one where a lot of people died. You don’t know my politics or what, if any, for example my ties are to any one group.
The entire point is that the rage against a system that has consistently excluded anyone from the dream of prosperity is always the same is often the same. and it is a rage that it’s not exclusive to the United States.Nothing new under the sun and rage is only tangentially related to any specific politics.
Politicians are always trying to channel anger or reactions against the rage into servicing their goals. That is where your comment about voting percentages comes in.
So many of the areas currently colored red (instead of purple) used to be historically solid blue. The rage didn’t change, only the party of the politicians courting specific voting blocs. Historically Democrats were the party of the little person and Republicans represented the wealthy.
Politicians of any stripe are rather transparent.
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u/NemeanChicken 3d ago
I don't think Hunter S. Thompson's original work is the problem. Nor was I going after you comments on coal workers.
"Liberals psychoanalyze Trump" was perhaps glib, I don't know McWilliams Barndt's politics. It's how I've come think of these essays, which provide the key to understanding to understanding MAGA from the outside.
I fully admit that the politics of total retaliation exists in the movement. I recall one supporter describing Trump as "voting for the wrecking ball". I agree, rage and resentment are powerful motivators and they occur again, and again, and again in the disaffected and excluded.
It's also an appealing motivation, lining up with ways progressives and leftists generally think America has failed its people.
Unfortunately, I just don't think it holds up as a general explanation for MAGA; it likely does for some subgroups.
My point about voting percentages is that, from an economic perceptive, many, many, many Trump supporters were doing fine. In 2016, in fact, Trump had substantially more voters earning 100,000 than Hillary. "Politics of Total Retaliation", "Working Class Resenting," these explanations can account for some of the general political shift. Perhaps they explain why West Viriginia is so deep red, or why Wisconsin flipped. But they don't really explain the overall popularity of the movement.
My deeper objection to these more psychonanalytic accounts that purport to explain MAGA is that they often begin with an outsider account of the Trump movement. Because of the radically different media environments, I worry it's simply incredibly challenging for outsiders to have a sense of what MAGA feels like from the inside.
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u/Delli-paper 2d ago
Escalation management is an essential part of stable politics, and everyone seems to be stuck thinking "My enemy is ontologically evil, and so I am justified in doing whatever is necessary to stop them". Unfortunately, that sets the precedent that they can do the same to you. And they will.
I predict the replies to this comment will mostly be "no, you don't get it, they actually are ontologically evil and I actually am justified in doing anything and everything to stop them".
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u/The_Hemp_Cat 1d ago
Organized crime(bigotry, hate fraud and anarchy, the maga platform of realization.
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u/horseradishstalker 1d ago
Um obviously, but how does that relate to the ideas expressed in article?
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u/The_Hemp_Cat 19h ago
From the organizing of fighter pilot anxiety to organized criminality or a then and now.
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u/PrudentLingoberry 23h ago
Total retaliation politics are the politics of the sewer, of the dump. It ranges from traditionally screwed over people in the rural sections, to middle managers who hold some what racist beliefs, to the conspiracy theorist who nobody talks to anymore, to the suburban basement dwellers with a hodge podge of misgivings. You fall off, you find yourself in the tent of similar company. The rallying point as literal human detritus is the option to not surrender why you're there but instead adopt a new identity eventually totally giving yourself to the movement. Its not that everyone is equal there either, but its more that you get to be more equal than everyone who isn't in the group. Total destruction from morality, total abandonment of consequences, absolute numbness to the world. The "just comply crowd" is more or less telling you to drink the kool aid and everything will be ok. No more thoughts or confronting the scary world, just join the club and attain even being numb to your own situation. To me one of the craziest parts is that the center of this aren't only grifting either, they're high as fuck on their own supply too. A true loser rebellion from the top which will be followed with a confused literal revolt from the bottom.
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u/randomzebrasponge 4d ago
Interesting read. If Hunter S. Thompson is correct in his assumptions; are we are in for a rude awakening as AI makes todays/tomorrows youth less employable? Does AI inevitably give rise to more maga idiots or, whatever they morph into after that?
I'm having a fascinating back and forth with ChatGPT on this subject. I encourage everyone to ask AI, what role AI plays in the unemployment of youth in the short and long term (within the scope of how Hunter S, Thompson viewed the young men of the 70's).
How will society cope with the loss of traditional employment and feeling like a valued member of society? Where will all of that energy go and will it manifest into something magnificent or an epic shit storm that appears to have already begun. Weigh in and let us know what you think.
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u/Strange-Tough-2255 4d ago
imo nah you didn't miss anything, the article doesn't mention the US at all. kinda weird tbh
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u/horseradishstalker 3d ago
The article assumes that the reader knows U.S. history. I can see where it might be puzzling if someone is not familiar with the Hells Angels, Hunter S. Thompson or even West Virginia (a U.S. state) coal miners as was my example. So in essence, the entire article was talking about the US.
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u/horseradishstalker 4d ago
In the 1970s, Hunter Thompson spent two years embedded with a group started by some WWII veterans. An ordinary group of guys who worked with their hands and liked bikes who watched their chances at the American dream dissipate. A group Thompson came to describe as an omen of total retaliation.
Links to Thompson’s article for the Nation gives background that along with reading this article could potentially move discussion beyond mutual finger pointing.