My fellow countrymen have disappointed me.

My fellow countrymen have disappointed me.
by Cash (2024-01-15 18:50:05)
Edited on 2024-01-15 18:51:57

In reply to: It's very disheartening. posted by Revue Party

Many have demonstrated a capacity to be led to dark places, and I struggle to find a durable line that would be "too far" for the quarter of Americans who are all in for MAGA. I use the word durable because a sizable number of them found sudden moral clarity in the afternoon and evening of January 6, 2021, only to see it evaporate within a week.

But Trump earns more of my ire than his acolytes. Painful as it is, Trump is an extraordinary leader, and it is inescapable that a large portion of the citizenry is susceptible to charismatic persuasion. For the minority of MAGA world who are bomb-throwers and bigots and monsters, Trump has given them license to let it all hang out. But for the much larger segment of (right-leaning) society that is animated by fear of the other - the woke, the progressive, whatever bogeyman other leaders like Hannity and Carlson have thrust in their faces nightly - he has led these malleable folks in dark directions. He is amoral and supremely gifted at stoking passions.

There will eventually come a time when he is gone and it is unlikely that there will be another capable of continuing this grift at this level. My hope is that someone with moral leadership can emerge on the right to recapture the everyman who has been led so astray, but I may be naive. I am certain, however, that I will not forget what my fellow countrymen are capable of, and how essential it is that their passions be directed by a moral leader. The trick will be attracting such a person to public life.

I wish I were more hopeful, regardless of the outcome in November.

Cash