Category: Existentialism

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The Case for Trumpism

As one of the many confused participants of the American democracy, I never quite understood how Trump was ever allowed to exist. Sure, I understand humanity’s history is rife with political leaders who embody despotism, but even with our collectively short memory, the names are not forgotten, nor do they fail to invoke derision: Mao, Castro, Mussolini, and of course Hitler.

So when Trump entered the political scene, who very openly possessed similar personality traits, I thought (incorrectly) that he simply just couldn’t be. How did he happen?

To seek an answer, I dug around on American political affiliations and voting habits, and was delighted to find a deeper analysis beyond “left” and “right”. It also helped bring me some personal closure to my own non-affiliated voting preferences, categorizing myself nicely as…

(The Pew study I’m referencing, as summarized by NPR, can be found here: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/09/1053929419/feel-like-you-dont-fit-in-either-political-party-heres-why

In the article is also a link to the quiz, but I’ll post here for convenience: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/quiz/political-typology/)

Here’s what that says about me, according to the Pew study:

  • 18% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents
  • the youngest and among the least religious and politically active of the Republican-leaning groups
  • most don’t identify as “conservative” politically, but are conservative economically, on issues of race and in that they prefer smaller government
  • more moderate than other Republicans on immigration, abortion, same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization
  • lean toward the GOP but are not enamored with it; almost two-thirds would like Trump to not remain a national figure, and, in fact, a quarter identifies with Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents
  • the only GOP-oriented group to say President Biden definitely or probably legitimately received the most votes in the 2020 election, and only about 4 in 10 believe the results of the 2022 elections “really matter”

I’d say that’s fairly close to what I expected: a slightly right-leaning independent. (Though my father often accuses me of being some ultra-right Republican loyalist. I guess, in comparison to his own political views, that’s how he would see me in comparison.)

More importantly, it means I can be swayed and do not vote out of a political ideology, nor do I worship an individual candidate. So for the main point of this post, this means that of all the conservative categories that would unquestioningly vote for Trump, I would be the one who might or might not. In theory, I wouldn’t be locked in by association. Why is this important? Because when adding the population percentages for each political category, even if the Republican candidate had all votes from the Ambivalent Right, he would still only have 40% of the popular vote. That may be enough, given that some of the Stressed Sideliners in the middle might vote for him, and with the electoral college ultimately making the final vote (which of course doesn’t require popular majority). But you can’t lose many of the Ambivalent Right with a margin that small. It’s a group that has to be swayed, and wasn’t swayed enough in the 2020 election, but was formerly swayed in 2016. I’m the group that makes the determination.

So what would it take to sway someone like myself who’s in this category? Let’s look at Trump as the individual.

In all of Trump’s monologues he juxtaposes questionable figures next to facts, presumably to give the illusion of association. It’s pseudo data, the inaccuracies of which quickly rule them out as having any grounds in reality.

Okay, so he can’t provide believable figures. What does he say he stands for then? Generally, everything that’s a soundbite for the right. But for the Ambivalent Right, that’s not necessarily a list of everything we want. In fact, much of it is not what we want. Therefore, it comes down to a comparison of candidates, and which one aligns better with personal political policy beliefs.

But there’s also a more basic human element to consider. Aside from being Republican, Trump’s primary “appeal” has been the “Fuck you!” attitude. I’ll explain why this is important, but first – a quick history lesson on feminism and American policy changes:

The Rift

During the second world war women were wholesale brought into the workforce for the war effort and gained a new financial independence.

No-fault divorce became available, famously in the form of its poster child: Reno, NV.

Women gained sexual freedom with contraceptive availability. Marriage and the nuclear family were no longer prerequisites to a woman’s sexual satisfaction.

The Equal Pay act went into effect which, in theory, mandated equal pay for women and equal availability of all job types.

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act was enacted and then women could obtain credit individually, further gaining financial independence.

This is obviously a very compressed timeline, but the point is that in the span of ~30 years, women became, at least on paper, the equals of men and guaranteed all the rights and privileges thereof.

The Pandering

But then things got nasty. With this demographic now financially established and making their own decisions, it only followed naturally that media, advertising, and policies shifted to earn their previously unexploited patronage.

Peaking in the 1990s, based on my own experiences anyway, media and advertisements adopted the script of husband = idiot/wife = knows everything. The world of men was now being taught that they couldn’t function independently themselves and needed women, while women didn’t need men.

More empirically, college enrollment and graduation rates shifted to become overwhelmingly dominated by women (I challenge you to dig into these discussions and avoid a flame war).

Companies and governments started employing varying policies on mandating female percentages of board members and executive positions.

Incarcerations rates of men became approximately 10X that of women.

80% of custodial divorcees are now women.

The Pushback

This is, admittedly, just a small portion of the recent gender narrative and lacks much of depth of study required to truly vet its anthropological implications. But a cursory glace would show that:

  • Women gained financial freedom
  • Women gained sexual freedom
  • Women gained freedom from needing men
  • Society started pandering to women and sidelining the needs of men
  • Society started preferring women over men in certain circumstances

The Contemporary Themes

  1. Women are told that they’re superior to men but still need preferential treatment to achieve their potential
  2. Men are starting to feel disadvantaged to women and resent being abandoned by society

So How is This Related to Trumpism?

Here’s my theory. As stated before, only 1 of the 4 conservative groups is not pro-Trump. This group must have voted for Trump or he would not have been elected. But they don’t like Trump. Nor do they like most of the far-right that he represents. They like moderate-right, which is what Obama was, which is why Obama was elected. But they had to have voted for Trump or he wouldn’t have had sufficient votes. What happened?

This is where we return to the “Fuck you!” human element.

No moderate conservative would disagree with sexual egalitarianism being a bad thing. But the resultant pandering to women and subsequent steady disenfranchisement of men created…feelings. And unchecked feelings can cause bad decisions. Like Trump. It became personal. One too many conversations with a Progressive Left – one too many condescending comments from the elitist left – one too many accusations of privilege, when the workforce had just dug itself out of the Great Recession and employment opportunities were finally starting to improve, by a judgy and leftist younger population less impacted by the economic climate.

Trump was an opportunity to teach the far left a lesson. It was “Fuck you!”

My theory is that large numbers of right-leaning moderate men finally had enough. The irritation with the left overcame their rational political side and emotional decisions overcame reason. And this what when the political opponent in the election was a far-left liberal woman, the very personification of the elitist and condescending left!

I’m not saying that I voted or will vote for Trump, but on some level, I do understand his appeal. And that’s a very strange thing for me, an Ambivalent Right, to admit.

–Simon

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The Swarth of the Lie

It’s hard to make a pithy rhyme off that, but I’m trying to poke some fun at the redneck-right and their attempts to appropriate Independence Day. A communal holiday celebrated via explosive displays which, in theory, should be the quintessential melting pot of our national diverse cultures, is instead interrupted by white trash in Silveradoes and F-150s, adorned in home-made signs profoundly and profusely pontificating perversely on the perceived injustices of whichever Democratic politician has sparked their ire at that particular moment, all while ignorantly violating the flag code while they tow a Chinese-made Old Glory from their trailer hitch in the dark and rain.

Prior to home ownership, Liz and I lived in Kettering. I consider it to be generally working class, and until recently it resonated with our lifestyle. And even after moving to Centerville, Kettering seemed more welcoming. Their public service personnel, city events, and general means of living felt ubiquitously middle class. But recently, it’s become more hostile. Through either our own increasing economic means which disconnect us, or Covid’s impact on the broader community, it now feels…trashy. Maybe “dilapidated” is a better word, but I’m not obligated to be particularly magnanimous towards unpleasant people on my own blog.

Anyway – between that and the post-Covid lackluster fireworks trend, the kid losing interest in family outings, and the city deciding to develop the little hill we always parked on for the event – we stopped going.

Then Liz reserved a table at Centerville High School, directly adjacent to where the city hosts their own fireworks, along with a number of food trucks. And aside from the standard menagerie of douchebag teenagers that would be expected at a school-hosted event, the populous was remarkedly less trashy. Also buying a table helped. Yes – money grants privilege (and creates a redneck paywall).

I like money. It lets me avoid people I don’t like.

And our proximity to the fireworks themselves restored for a moment that small bit of magic we all used to feel as little kids. So much so, in fact, that I snapped nary a photo. But I did manage two to mark the event:

More purchased privilege: a Korean-style corndog. There was no breading. It was coated in mozzarella cheese and queso dip, then rolled in crushed spicy Cheetos. I did not finish this abomination, but I could afford it!
A candid shot. The kid was busy messing around with attaching her glowsticks in her desired configuration instead of watching the fireworks.

The pettiness in me will gloat at this change in circumstances. The aforementioned white trash who try to claim the holiday as their own and take the opportunity to shun those who they deem as lesser Americans are in this case themselves excluded due to a fundamental American value: The American Dream. They’re priced out of the community and the events it holds.

It turns out that we’re the true Americans, (along with the plethora of Indians and Asians present at the event with us who also figured out how to succeed in the American economy). And I didn’t even need to make a poster to feel self-righteous.

Happy 4th!

–Simon

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Finger of God

There was a scene in The Ten Commandments that freaked me out as a kid. And I still think it’s delightfully creepy. It’s that last plague when the fog slowly infiltrates through the streets of Goshen and kills all first-borns, beginning with that spectral hand in the sky.

I think the creep factor was so perfectly visceral because for the first time in a series of unpleasant events, it gave a glimpse of God’s physical being, rather than just symbolic terror. My primitive human mind responds quicker to tugs on my evolutionary coding: monsters are amalgams of all the scary parts of animals that used to eat us. That’s what a dragon is. And the dragon exists in some form across all cultures. We fear things that appear to posses the ability to destroy our physical forms. And, I would say, rightfully so.

Anyway, as I was fogging for mosquitos, the lack of wind and barometric pressure created a similar experience. It was a cool picture.

It didn’t kill me, as I’m not a first-born. But I sure hope it killed more than the first-born mosquito from each clutch!

–Simon

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Modern Car Feedback and Reckless Driving

The standard human driver is just…bad. There’s unintentional bad (not a day goes by that the local news doesn’t report that some old fuck drove into a building!) There’s negligent bad (always cellphone-related.) And of course there’s always been asshole bad (the college kids are starting to show up for the summer.)

I fully admit, too, that my driving edges into the unsafe, but only when I’m driving my wife’s vehicle. It’s easy to drive, but I think it’s too easy, and this presents a problem. In it, I speed much more and give less thought to smooth velocity changes. It’s not intentional.

So recently, as I was driving my 2003 Honda Accord home, stopped at a stop sign, then turned left towards an oncoming and very new-looking KIA Pinchoff or whatever, whose driver communicated their objection to my maneuver with a long series of horn blasts, I had a moment of self-reflection and pondered the state of modern driving.

This isn’t you

Well, first I yelled “Fuck you!” and flashed the birdie, as is the only proper response. Then I admit that I felt a little sheepish…at first. I’ll take blame for an honest mistake, but then I considered that the KIA had been moving so fast that it wasn’t there when I first checked. In the time between when I looked in that direction (for a second time after looking to the right), and then shifted my gaze back towards my front, it had cleared the bend in the road and closed the 50 yard distance to the intersection I had since creeped into – a feat not possible at 25mph, which is why speed limits exist. (They’re not just there to be annoying. It’s a calculated velocity which, when followed, is the fastest one should be driving in order to avoid losing control of the vehicle or hitting someone else on the road who wouldn’t have been able to react in time. Going faster increases the risk. Of course we all push the boundaries, but a residential street that winds around probably isn’t the best place to play Dominic Toretto. (Also not when you bought a lame-ass KIA Pinchoff).)

Anyway, between this encounter and my own self-reflection on my different driving styles between the two vehicles I drive, I’ve come to a conclusion: Modern vehicles encourage bad driving by making driving too easy and seemingly less dangerous. And it comes down to vehicular feedback. Modern vehicles overly disconnect the driver from the act of driving. Here’s some examples:

  • My car uses older hydraulic-assisted power steering. It requires more effort to turn the wheel than the Ascent, and so feels like a heavier machine in comparison. This nudges me to treat it as bigger, more dangerous, and unwieldy when it’s objectively less so compared to the Ascent. The Ascent uses drive-by-wire electric motors to transfer user input to the steering system, and takes very little effort. Consequently, I’m tricked into believing the Ascent is lighter and more sporty than it really is, and it doesn’t transfer the feel of the road conditions to my hands, and so my steering becomes more aggressive. (It also necessitates a much smaller steering wheel, so in further mockery of Mr. Pinchoff above, you can’t possible feel saturated with testosterone when also maneuvering your Pinchoff with a bagel.)
  • My car uses an antilock breaking system. When I lose traction, this kicks in and provides me tactile and audible feedback, which is somewhat unnerving especially when at high speed. This prompts me to drive slower and more cautiously in adverse weather conditions. The Ascent uses all-wheel-drive electronic breaking stabilization. If I lose traction, this system automatically adjusts breaking and torque for each wheel. There’s very little chance of spinning out. In fact, I don’t know if I ever really have lost traction when driving it. And so, the complete lack of feedback gives me no prompt to drive more cautiously. (I think the dashboard makes a small ding, maybe?)
  • My car uses a classic automatic transmission. When I tax the engine, the shift points and their timing in my acceleration give me a clear indication of how much torque, and therefore how much tire grip, I’m experiencing. The Ascent uses a constant variable transmission which lacks definitive gears, so apart from the tachometer, I don’t feel the engine strain. Ergo, I’ll less inclined to let off the gas with the Ascent since I don’t know that I might be compromising the engine and vehicle control.

In short, my Accord gives me a very visceral driving experience, and through this greater connectedness, I have a greater respect for its power and, more importantly, a heightened fear of what might go wrong if I get too aggressive.

The Ascent gives me very little of this feedback. Much of the time, I only really feel the size and weight of the vehicle when trying to stop it from a high speed.

THIS is you

My conclusion is that maybe people aren’t intentionally driving worse, but instead it just seems that way because they’ve lost a material connection to the danger associated with piloting a motor vehicle, as a result of vehicle design seeking to enhance comfort and ease of use. Modern vehicles disconnect us from the potential consequences of driving.

But ultimately, no amount of safety feature enhancements will prevent all forms of the ultimate tactile driving experience: when your driving brings you to a sudden and complete standstill–violently. If there’s any PSA I’ll preach here at the end of my post, it’s just to remember that however disconnected you become from your driving experience, your body is still traveling at velocities that far exceed anything that evolution ever designed you for.

…And Toretto isn’t actually real. You can’t drive down the side of a dam, out-racing its collapse and ensuing tidal wave. Especially not in a KIA Pinchoff. (Also you’re a douche.)

–Simon

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Solitude (or, Leave Me Alone!)

I’ve always possessed a rather high tolerance for solitude. And often, I’ve been mislabeled as “antisocial” as a result. But time gives one opportunity to self-reflect, and I have since concluded that this accusation is unfair. I’m not antisocial. Rather, I possess a lack of tolerance to associate with people who don’t contribute to my happiness, well-being, or personal/professional goals. It’s not being self-centered, it’s being pragmatic; and it’s a natural progression into the latter stages of life (I’m middle-aged now I hear!)

It’s probably a very late realization, for I was raised to be the people-pleaser. Parental upbringing, an oppressive educational system, a social system that rewarded agreeableness, and the supremely draconian punishments for upsetting customers in service jobs (the only jobs available to a 16-30 year old) – all contributed to the “be nice and indulge everyone” philosophy that dictated my social interactions throughout my formative years. As a result, this “antisocialness” was instead a tendency to avoid all people, because I was conditioned to have to like all people, and lacked the backbone to be more selective.

Now I’ve realized that I don’t have to do that. And it started with this:

If people obey the fuzzy ropes at public venues, then a chain should accomplish the same. My apologies to USPS and any package couriers. I try to remember to take this down if one of you is coming that day.

Granted solicitors are the most aggravating of the lot. When I checked back on surveillance footage and saw the same guy from 2018 who comes back every year to try to sell me a bug-spraying service, my patience hit an end.

Salesmanship
More Solicitors

Add to that a stereotype Republican boomer neighbor with a litany of conspiracy theories (government is spraying the atmosphere with COVID vaccines, Michelle Obama has a penis…you get the idea), street missionaries trying to get me to join their church, and political activists asking how I plan to vote; and while not true “solicitors”, I’m hoping the chain will send a message.

So far so good, though I haven’t captured anyone on camera yet to draw a correlation.

More importantly, the symbolic gesture has finally emboldened me to become more self-serving! I view this as a good thing. Being a doormat only leads to a life of quiet desperation. That was the lesson that George Bailey should have learned.

Here’s some examples:

  • I hung up on someone! I had to disable blocking unknown callers for a time during that HVAC adventure, and I got another call asking for Dustin Werner. When I said they had the wrong number they proceeded to ask if I knew him, and I just hung up and blocked the number instead. Damn was that liberating!
  • I send my new doctor a letter outlining his incompetent staff (4 weeks and I still don’t have my medical records available). I never “broke up” with a physician before.
  • I stopped engaging with my sister over pointless and hostile “discussions”. Actually, I do feel a little bad about this one, but it’s the similarly politically-charged points as the aforementioned neighbor, albeit not totally unhinged and far left instead of right and dripping with pseudo-intellectualism (the world’s entering environmental collapse, you planted the wrong tree, you interpreted that book/movie wrong, The Patriarchy and men are all overly-confident know-it-alls (why would you even have this as a conversational point when calling your own brother?) I still talk to her in chats though.

This almost sounds like a bad motivational speech, but if you don’t add any value to my life then I’m not going to talk to you!

I mean, within reason of course. I’m not a psychopath. I’ll still help people and do nice things for family, but I won’t tolerate them thinking I owe them my time.

–Simon