In 2019, after 30 years living in Chicago, where the Democrats have an iron grip on the electorate, I moved to SouthWest Florida, where MAGA runs wild and the Democrats can't even field a real Democrat to run against Ron DeSantis for governor (cf. Charlie Crist).
This shift in my immediate political environment has been jarring, honestly, and I'm actually surprised I'm still here despite strong instincts to head back North. (That's another story for another time.)
But moving here has had the unintended (and initially unwelcome) effect of exposing me to the overwhelmingly White, and overwhelmingly Male, base of the GOP, and this exposure has allowed me to get a much better sense of what motivates these people to villify Democrats and to actually venerate a convicted cretin like Donald Trump.
One of the things I do pretty often here in Sarasota is I have become a regular at a couple downtown bars' Happy Hours. Fortunately, I can walk downtown, where there's a quite respectable group of restaurants and bars--much better than you'd expect from a small city like Sarasota, which has not only an interesting, financially successful citizenry (mostly from away, as they say in Maine), but also a lot of passers-through.
So I get to meet these financially successful citizens and their passing-through ilk regularly. And even though almost every bartender has banned political conversations at their bars, you can get a pretty good sense of someone's beliefs and values from a more general chat about life, work, and aspirations in general.
And what I've learned is quite interesting, especially in light of the current political environment in the US and in Florida.
Almost without exception, the White Males I chat with in Sarasota *hate* Democrats, *despise* the Democratically-led cities and states of the North, and *love* DeSantis and this income-tax-free "paradise." These strong beliefs motivate many of these men to move here from wherever they are from, bringing with them their hard-earned wealth and their extremely dystopian ideas about the "Hell Holes" up North like Chicago.
When I tell them I miss Chicago, I get the most interesting and vehement reactions, such as the nearly universal view that Chicago is (still!) the murder capital of the world and that the Democratic Machine is absolutely evil and completely un-democratic.
Facts be damned in these conversations: the beliefs I encounter are totally baked in, even--especially!-among people who actually lived at one time in Chicago or in similar cities North and West of the Mason-Dixon line. These beliefs provide almost certain proof that most of these men are consumers/products of FoxNews and are not-so-secret believers in tired old racial and gender stereotypes, not to mention Trump's "American Carnage" storyline.
What I hear from these men about Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Gavin Newsom, Chuck Schumer, and many others, is a true caricature: a classic projection of every fear and every disgust that they were raised on, or acquired sometime during their mostly very financially-successful lives.
A sample: Joe Biden is the worst form of "bought-and-paid-for politician" in the history of the world. Kamala Harris got where she is by sleeping with every powerful man she could, and can't utter a coherent thought. Immigrants are mostly criminals and terrorists, or are lazy shifters in search of government handouts. People like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are communists or fascists (or both?) who hate America and want to create a nanny state that eliminates free enterprise and independent thought. Northern governors like J.B. Pritzker and Gretchen Whitmer want legalized marijuana so their states' populations become addicted and easily manipulated. Academics are all elitist Marxists who think their book learning trumps common sense and everyday experience. (Okay, maybe that last one has some truth to it.)
While many of the men I talk to are truly experts in their respective occupations and seem to truly love their families, the analytical or empathetic approach they take to their work or personal lives seems to go out the window once the conversation edges toward the political.
What's going on?
I really don't know the answer. I'm baffled by all of this. Is it the fluorine in the water? Is it COVID vaccines? Is it the result of Bill Gates' devious design of Microsoft Windows? Is it the work of the Trilateral Commission or the attendees at Davos? Is it creeping federal control of schooling in the U.S.?
Seriously, what explains the apparent takeover of (a large sector of) the political world by right-wing groupthink?
I welcome your thoughts.
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