How Trump is benefiting from the limits of our memory.
  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    4·
    6 months ago

    That’s the most sinister part of the chaos that Trump brews, honestly, is the deep apathy and antipathy towards politics that seems pervasive in society. Everyone was already tired by capitalism, but post-COVID the grind and the demand has spun ever higher while Trump keeps orchestrating chaos from, well, not even the fucking shadows but more like the toilet at Mar-a-Lago.

    It breaks a lot of people, and its fair, they’re just scraping by, worrying about their own. They have their own serious problems, medical issues, sorrow, loss, you name it, people are suffering. It’s validly hard for anyone to find the time for it and they become disconnected and disoriented.

    It’s fucking maddening that it works. It feels like humanity never actually left the dark ages.

    Anyway, quality Mother Jones article, good breakdown on why a lot of people’s memory of the past seems to forget the worst excesses. Explains a lot about the Bush administration, too, really.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      I remember reading something like that years ago … that there are some historians who think that we haven’t left the dark ages yet. In everything else with technology and information we’ve progressed but we still think and act the same way we have for the past 2000 years.

      And the more I read about the subject over the years the more I realized that as human animals, our modern species have only been around for about 50,000 years. In all that time, we’ve only ever been fearful, short sighted, frightened creatures that wanted everything as quickly and as much as possible all the time. We couldn’t do it before but now we can.

      In that 50,000 year timeline we’re only on the very tip of history … it’s going to take us millennia to change.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
    2·
    6 months ago

    One of the biggest things I remember about his presidency was the fucking embarrassment. Other countries were mocking us and for good reason.

    • HWK_290@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      6 months ago

      I recently rewatched the video of the UN assembly laughing to his face. Insanity that he’s still respected as any kind of statesman

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      That’s not unusual for Americans, though. Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon… Americans have been putting up turds to the Oval Office since President Kennedy’s term abruptly ended.

      • btaf45@lemmy.world
        1·
        6 months ago

        That’s not unusual for Americans, though. Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon

        All of those guys were way more respected than Trump. And of the rest, all of the others not Bush jr were way more respected than Bush jr.

        The current period IS very unusual for how badly our reputation has fallen. Although you could also say America’s reputation around the world was unusually high from 1945-2000.

      • quicklime@lemm.ee
        0·
        6 months ago

        Turns out Kennedy too was more of a turd than most people suspected at the time. Not in the same league with your list, but still a real mess once you know enough about him.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          Turd on turd violence. But it did seem like Kennedy was ready to fix Truman’s mistake in kicking off the Cold War.

          And then…

  • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
    2·
    6 months ago

    This is such a condescending form of analysis that totally misses the mark. It’s basically just, “Trump was bad, but some people still like him. Why? Must be because they’re just too dumb to remember things.” There’s no actual evidence that people have forgotten any of the stuff they mention, it’s purely just that.

    To attribute the issue to memory would imply that there was widespread agreement while he was in office that he was bad, which has faded over time. But Trump’s approval rating for most of his time in office hovered around 40%, similar to Biden’s. So what’s actually happening is not that people were on the same page about Trump being bad when the events of his presidency were fresh in their minds, but rather, that his supporters never agreed with/cared about the things the article is saying in the first place. Framing it around memory is nonsense.

  • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
    2·
    6 months ago

    Heck, between the media, The Donald on Reddit and the whole pandemic, people were rightfully getting burned out on everything. I don’t really have any active memories between march 2020 and early 2023. That whole time period feels like a big blur. And that’s just me as a European. I can imagine it’s way worse for people in the US…

  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
    1·
    6 months ago

    Many people are kind of stupid. Not ignorant. But like, incapable or unwilling to evaluate what’s a good source and what’s nonsense. Also incapable of drawing plausible conclusions even when given good sources. It’s all emotional. It’s how you can have stuff like “the outgroup have all the money and power, but they’re also poor and taking all our welfare” at the same time. Feels truthy. Anti-vaxxers get the high of bonding with their anti-vax friends and feeling like they’re part of the in-group.

    There’s not really an answer. Invest in public education for 100 years, maybe. But we’re going always going to have authoritarians shitting life up for everyone.

  • Omgboom@lemmy.zip
    1·
    6 months ago

    I recently got back from visiting my in-laws in rural Tennessee. All the bad things that happened during the Trump presidency happened under Biden to them.

  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    I just assumed that they forget the horrid shit because of some twisted confirmation bias.

    Everyone keeps pointing it out, and they keep telling themselves about the “good” things he’s done. Reinforcing their own confirmation bias.

    I first heard about this phenomenon in “how to win friends and influence people”… It’s a book, crazy, right? It’s about human nature, and how arguing with someone often results in them arguing for their point, further entrenching them in their opinion. While they don’t convince you with their arguments, they convince themselves and that makes arguing with someone a difficult thing to do, and “win” at (by convincing the opposing person of your viewpoint).

    The fact is, the more we argue with them about Trump, the more they have to argue for him being someone that’s going to “make America great again”, and the further they get entrenched into that viewpoint.

    The sooner more people realize that this is a viscous cycle of mental violence and simply decide not to continue, the better. Obviously that’s hard to do when you are faced with the very real possibility of him being reelected, and essentially bringing back the Nazi party with him…

    Idk what’s the right thing to do, but clearly, nobody is going to change the minds of the deranged “MAGA” crowd anytime soon.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
      1·
      6 months ago

      and they keep telling themselves about the “good” things he’s done.

      Thing is that they view a lot of the shitty things he did as good.

      So when I see someone pose that we’ve forgotten the bad stuff, I don’t think that’s the case for a lot of people. They view some portion of the bad as good.