Backlash brews against Trump as voters reject assumption people 'enjoy suffering'

“Daily Blast” podcaster Greg Sargent spoke with The American Prospect senior writer Paul Waldman about the backlash brewing among American voters against MAGA and Trump-style cruelty.

Sabrina Carpenter recently condemned the White House for using her song in a video of people getting arrested, pinned to the ground and handcuffed, which Carpenter called “evil and disgusting.” The White House replied with a statement blasting Carter for defending “these sick monsters” and suggested she “must be stupid, or is it slow?”

“It’s intentionally juvenile,” said Waldman, who added that administration spokespeople had “abandoned” principles of earlier administrations by handing out responses that basically say: “Your mom.”

“Their attitude is ‘no, we’re just going to be like the worst 4chan troll because we think that’s funny and we think people will respond to it and like it and our base will like it when we’re being abusive to people. And when it comes to people like immigrants — that we’re being literally sadistic to them — that we want people to enjoy their suffering,’” Waldman said.

But Americans appear to be turning on the childish sadism, said Sargent.

“You could … argue that they’re losing the war over social media spectacle because all the polls are showing very clearly that there’s widespread revulsion and rejection of the mass deportations,” Sargent said. “Trump has completely thrown away whatever advantage he had on the broader immigration issue. Thank you, [White House advisor] Stephen Miller, for doing that. [Trump] has really wrecked his standing on the issue with all these deportation raids and so forth. And I think they almost weren’t prepared for it in one critical sense, which is funny because they sort of pose as very savvy in terms of social media and the cultural stuff.”

All over the country, ICE is becoming a pariah agency, said Sargent. “People are taking out their phones, filming these things,” suggesting that the Trump administration is losing the “spectacle wars” they started by filming agents abusing children and family members.

“I think maybe they are,” said Waldman. “The theory at the heart of what the administration is doing and what Trump’s entire career is based on is that we should all be our worst selves, that our kind of darkest impulses should be the ones that reign. We should be the most bigoted, the most corrupt, the most angry and hateful — that that’s our truest self is our worst self.”

“And if you look at who is in this administration, it is a collection of the worst people from top to bottom,” Waldman continued. “And the implicit argument is that we should all be that way. And we should cheer when people get brutalized. And we should laugh when we see the corruption because everybody is corrupt and everybody is sadistic, and that’s who we ought to be,” said Waldman. “But the truth is that that’s not who most people want to be.”

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