'I thought voters could see the obvious': Expert offers 'bitter truth' about Trump supporters

14 January

Supporters of Donald Trump gather outside a polling station on Election Day in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., November 5, 2024.

Donald Trump's second presidency is less than a week away, and on Monday, January 20, he will return to the White House with Republicans in control of both branches of Congress. Moreover, Republicans control many state legislatures, and the GOP still has a 6-3 supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court.

In an article published on January 14, Salon's Chauncey DeVega takes a blunt, candid look at what may lie ahead with the second Trump Administration and interviews a "range of experts." And some of them are quite pessimistic.

Political strategist/podcast host Cheri Jacobus told DeVega, "Since Election Day, we've seen our institutions that we already knew were floundering, now openly selling out to the coming fascism and the authoritarian Trump regime, with MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski groveling their way down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring and beg for mercy and with ABC News and George Stephanopoulos settling a defamation case brought by Trump. The case was extremely winnable for ABC News, yet they groveled their way to Trump to beg for mercy — and, of course — access."

Jacobus continued, "Trump and his administration and agents and other enablers will crash the Biden economy — one of the best in decades — to 'rebuild' it again — except they will only keep the first half of the promise. There will be no rebuilding. There will only be mass looting of our tax dollars, greasing of palms, favors to help the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the destruction of the middle class, further ensuring we cannot fight back."

SUNY Fredonia sociology professor Randolph Hohle predicts that Trump's second administration will be "four long years."

Fredonia told DeVega, "I don't think we will see good policy for a while. Even if it's just hyperbole, Trump's obsession with immigration and the border is not a productive economic policy and doesn't do anything for working people. Allowing the Big Tech robber barons to dictate a regulatory environment over AI, quantum computing, and energy won't be good for the country."

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) education professor Peter McLaren argues that Trump's opponents have good reason to be feeling "fear, anger, and despair."

McLaren, who is originally from Canada, told DeVega, "Surely, I thought, voters could see the obvious: Trump was a fascist. But then, like a lightning bolt, it struck me — most Americans simply didn't care. The realization was crushing — a bitter truth about the apathy of my adopted country."

Dr. Justin Frank, a former psychiatry professor at the George Washington University Medical Center, urges Americans to take care if their mental health during Trump's second term.

"If we devolve into the nightmare that Trump's return to power will mean for the country," Frank told DeVega, "we must try to keep a larger perspective. This means maintaining our relationships with friends and family and the larger community. We should strive to find those happy times amidst what will be so much darkness and pain."

Chauncey DeVega's full article for Salon is available at this link.

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