I will add again, a lot of the post-election analysis is that Trump’s constant airing of grievance and victimhood carried a lot of votes from those who feel left behind. But now Trump himself is the Government, and ‘fixing it’, as he promises to so, will be considerably more difficult than whining about it, especially if your over-riding priorities are tax cuts for the wealthy and vengeance on your enemies. When it comes to policy execution, Trump V1.0 was scandalously inept in the face of an actual problem, namely, a global pandemic. Let’s see how he manages the expectations that have been put on him.

Apparently he's going to let Elon Musk fix it. This should be interesting.

Be afraid.

Well that's what big pharma says. But they just want to sell you their expensive chemotherapy...

On a more serious note, I do think it's interesting that Trump, a person who so far as I can tell has zero principles and very limited interests beyond his immediate gratification, has ended up at the front of such a change.

During his first term I had assumed the party was going to grudgingly tow the line to get what they could out of his presidency, then dump him when he lost reelection. After J6 I was certain he was finished for about a week, until the dominoes started falling.

Yet here we are, with a GOP that in large parts remade itself in Trumps image. And it somehow worked, too. Is there some deep wisdom in this? It feels like there should be, but that's probably just looking for images in the clouds.

It feels like there should be, but that's probably just looking for images in the clouds. — Echarmion

I've said a number of times, and many others also, Trump is a demagogue. See the Wiki entry on same:

A demagogue (/ˈdɛməɡɒɡ/; from Greek δημαγωγός, a popular leader, a leader of a mob, from δῆμος, people, populace, the commons + ἀγωγός leading, leader),[1] or rabble-rouser,[2][3] is a political leader in a democracy who gains popularity by arousing the common people against elites, especially through oratory that whips up the passions of crowds, appealing to emotion by scapegoating out-groups, exaggerating dangers to stoke fears, lying for emotional effect, or other rhetoric that tends to drown out reasoned deliberation and encourage fanatical popularity.[4] Demagogues overturn established norms of political conduct, or promise or threaten to do so.[5]: 32–38 

Historian Reinhard Luthin defined demagogue as "a politician skilled in oratory, flattery and invective; evasive in discussing vital issues; promising everything to everybody; appealing to the passions rather than the reason of the public; and arousing racial, religious, and class prejudices—a man whose lust for power without recourse to principle leads him to seek to become a master of the masses. He has for centuries practiced his profession of 'man of the people'.

Those unhindered by facts start with a tremendous advantage if they succeed in persuading the mob to believe them.

Be afraid. — Wayfarer

Be afraid? This was a photoshopped joke post on Twitter/X captioned, "Let that sink in." Musk was a [left-leaning independent] just three years ago. Now he has been demonized for political reasons, and many have been taken in by the propaganda.

The first time Musk voted Republican was 2022. (Business Insider) He opposed Trump in 2016 and in 2022. He has given political donations to both sides.

Trump is a demagogue — Wayfarer

Sure. He just doesn't seem like a particularly good one. His speeches may stoke hatred and fears, but they're also meandering and sloppy.

Putin has the military machismo and an air of quiet danger. Hitler had his ideological zeal and his harangues.

Trump just seems to bring so little to the table. Maybe that's his strength, because it makes him seem genuine? Plenty of strongmen seem to have started out as relative nobodys. Putin was considered mostly a blank page when he was made Yeltsin's heir apparent.

Or am I falling for part of the con by buying the appearance of an unfocused, bumbling fool?

Be afraid? This was a photoshopped joke post on Twitter/X captioned, "Let that sink in." Musk was a Democrat just three years ago. Now he has been demonized for political reasons, and many have been taken in by the propaganda. — Leontiskos

Demonised? Hardly. He's deliberately turned himself into a Trump style caricature, picking fights with foreign governments on Twitter, spreading bizarre claims and just generally sounding off on everything and nothing.

He's not being demonised, he's playing the "make the libs mad" strategy at maximum intensity.

generally sounding off on everything and nothing. — Echarmion

He's been doing that for a long time. Why has everything changed all of the sudden?

Musk himself posted it. It's a photoshopped copy of the image he posted when he took over Twitter. If you haven't been following, Musk has morphed from a Tony Stark-esque brilliant businessman/scientist to almost a caricature of a right wing culture warrior. When he took over Twitter, he fired nearly all moderators and content supervisors and re-instated thousands of accounts that had been banned for hatespeech. Trump has suggested Musk will be put in charge of some kind of efficiency initiative which will target 'wasteful bureaucracy', which I think sounds extremely ominous. (After all it's reckoned that his stake in Twitter has devalued by 80% or something since he bought it, not that it matters to him.) He is an ideologue with very many irons in the fire, and I think, someone to be highly wary of. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/22/tech/elon-musk-government-efficiency/index.html

Trump is a demagogue
— Wayfarer

Sure. He just doesn't seem like a particularly good one. — Echarmion

He's a devastatingly effective demagogue. After all, he's gone from orchestrating a plot to overthrow Presidential succession, to being re-elected, in four years.

Musk himself posted it. — Wayfarer

I know. Have you ever listened to Musk himself? There is lots of video interview footage available online. I think he recently did a long interview with Joe Rogan. It's worth taking advantage of an age where we can get it from the horse's mouth, and we don't have to take CNN's word for everything. Musk is eclectic, and has always been. I don't think he has changed much over the years.

Have you ever listened to Musk himself? — Leontiskos

I was an admirer until he took over Twitter. I'm still in awe of Space X and its reversible rockets. But he's since said and done a lot of things which have very much undermined that admiration. I'm listening to and reading a great deal of informational content, but I don't plan to add his to my list.

- Rogan is a bit of a goon, but I do agree with the premise behind his long interviews. "If you want to understand who Elon Musk is, watch this 2-3 hour, unedited interview." That personalization is very helpful, and to have that contextualizing device available should be a great boon to society. A long, unedited interview is one of the least fakable portraits conceivable.

• November 4, 2024 Rogan-Musk chat
• June 27, 2024 Rogan-Musk chat
• February, 2021* Rogan-Musk chat
• May 7, 2020 Rogan-Musk chat
• September 6, 2018 Rogan-Musk chat

...So that's about 13 hours of unedited Elon Musk over the span of six years, on Rogan's podcast alone. Obviously you're not going to watch all of that, but it's not hard to compare Elon before and after his Twitter acquisition in 2022. It's not hard to get a very clear picture of who Musk is if one wants to do so.

If so, how susceptible do you think they would be to more leftist populist rhetoric? — bert1

In the US it's difficult to say as it's been a very long time since the US has seen genuinely leftist parties being popular.

The big transformation that has happened both in the UK, USA and in Europe is that the leftist parties (social democrats, labour etc) have been losing their voters to populist movement. This basically shows that they haven't answered to a segment of their voters. For example in the UK you had your own populist movement (Brexit) which was taken up with both a populist party (UKIP) and a wing of the conservative party. In his election win years ago the Brexiteer Boris Johnson admitted that he had gotten traditional labour votes, which just showed this drift. But then the conservatives and Boris fumbled it up and these voters went back to Labour.

Yes. We're in weird times. I haven't quite put the puzzle pieces together to understand what it means. I've considered the possibility that there's been a lot more lead in the drinking water than anyone realized. — frank

"Weird times" is an indicator that there is a genuine possibility of things getting really worse. I remember a letter written by my great grandfather to his brother in 1916. He had been walking with the local priest and discussed the political situation. The priest couldn't simply understand what collective insanity had taken over people in 1905 where my great grandfather had responded that those times could indeed come back. In two years Finland was in bloody a civil war.

For the educated and informed people the observation of "insanity taking over people" is an alarm bell, the canary in the coal mine dying. That means many people don't think the traditional politics (of the moderates) isn't working and drastic changes are needed.