The poor aren’t necessarily ignorant, or easily manipulated, or exploitable. But revolutionary movements do not arise from the masses. The leadership is usually aristocratic, those of education and ability who have been passed over by their own class, or forced out by economic or social forces. They are the second sons, the dispossessed, the ones who didn’t inherit. The soldiers come from the middle class, who are convinced of their own moral righteousness, work ethic, family values and piety, patriotism and racial or ethnic superiority.

And don’t dismiss the poor as too demoralised and disorganised, it’s not necessarily so. You can be demoralised but still have a fighting spirit, it’s how many people manage to survive all the shit that life throws at them.

The poor are NOT the underclass, that’s bloody offensive.

In this conversation, Walsh warns that liberals and progressives still do not understand the depth of loyalty and power that Donald Trump has over the Republican Party. He shares what it was like to be inside TrumpWorld at the highest levels and explains how and why Trump’s coup attempt and the Jan. 6 insurrection have become normalized — if not outright embraced — by Trump’s followers

Trump voters, Walsh warns, are willing to destroy American society to get their way — and their opponents must take that threat more seriously if democracy is to survive.

https://www.salon.com/2022/02/11/joe-walsh-on-what-the-left-doesnt-get-trumpworld-would-happily-this-country-down/

It is the class directly above them, the class that realizes they could fall back even further, the class that has aspirations to being middle or upper-class that is most susceptible. They ape the ethos and mores of the elite and have been convinced that they have a chance of permanently improving their lot, of becoming elite themselves. This makes them vulnerable to manipulation. They will gladly join their oppressors if it means they can share in some of the spoils. Consequently, they refuse to fully recognize their oppressors for what they are. They prefer to blame the helpless, instead.

Do not blame the poor, fascism is the dictatorship of the middle class.

I can see that, but when you are the lowest of the low yourself, what do you do? Those people have little, if any, chance of improving their lot.

They exist in a system that doesn’t care about them, they are the unwanted. They can try and keep floating in a world that doesn’t care but most likely they will sink without trace. And nobody will notice.

Or they can try to fleece others.

Many years ago, when I was a student, I worked at a blue collar shop in Florida as an engineering technician. The state authorities had just arrested a man who was running a Ponzi home marketing scheme that had swindled thousands of people out of millions of dollars. You may have heard of this, it was the “Dare to be Great” pyramid scam. Some people had gone into debt, quit their jobs and mortgaged their homes to buy into this racket, and had lost everything, left with garages full of cheap merchandise they couldn’t give away.

I was astonished that my co-workers (working-class types just like me) were delighted how this guy had “gotten away with it”. Rather than feel outrage at how folks just like them had been victimized, they thought it was clever, cool, and that his marks were stupid sheep that deserved to be sheared. It was pretty clear they wished they had pulled off a swindle like this, and they fantasized how THEY would have been smart enough to cover their tracks and avoid getting caught.

Again, its a psychological archetype I have determined may be at the heart of fascism; a victim of a system that has exploited him, but rather than feeling anger at being robbed, or shame at how easily they had been conned, they instead wish to join that system and exploit others just like themselves. Perhaps it is the only way they can overlook how systematically and totally they have been oppressed themselves, by simply fantasizing how they could do it to someone else. Someone lower than themselves, someone who deserves to be fleeced.

Johnny Reb joins the Confederacy to fight for the freedom to own his own slaves–someday. What can men do against such reckless hate?

NO. “Fascism” is precisely the right term for this social dynamic. Don’t even think about allowing them to convince you that you have not identified them correctly and described them accurately. They don’t like being called Fascist for the same reason they don’t like being called racist.
Fascism may originate from unscrupulous elitists, but it cannot function without the active collaboration and participation of its own victims. It convinces the oppressed that it is those below them in caste or class that have stolen their future and bled them of their labor. We’ve all seen this movie before, but too many of us have forgotten how it turns out.

They actually like criminals, sometimes even after they get shook down.

But this is not just Fascism (a term I don’t care for in this instance, we need something new) this is religious fascism. And they believe they are using him for their ends. They know he is a buffoon.

And it certainly can’t survive a political party that knows he’s a fascist, but doesn’t really care because he can get them another tax cut, and “regulatory reform”.

We’re fucked. And maybe we deserve it.

But we’ve always known he was a crook. His eating notes was documented in a tell all from a staffer years ago. And his routine destruction of documents as a “businessman” has also been discussed before he became POTUS.

There are also now the “Burn Bags.” Note that the law indicates that anyone one who burns presidential documents commits a felony. TFG didn’t put them in bags, the staff did. They should be indicted ASAP. OR the poor janitor that threw them into a furnace. Sorry, dude. You can plead, we’ll see what we can do.

All these people were committing crimes – and they had to know.

But nobody cares. He shot those documents on 5th Ave and didn’t lose a vote.

He destroyed the translator notes after meeting with Putin in Helsinki.

The flushing, now that’s new. Disturbing and funny at the same time. As everyone is saying, remember how he complained that modern toilets took too many flushes? Now that paper could have been just the wrappers from filet o’ fish sandwiches that he forgot to unwrap. Or he sat on the toilet, read the paper, and used it for some clean up.

Okay, I’m being gross. But this is gross. He even took the infamous hurricane map and displayed it at his tacky club.

And there is a huge gap in the call logs on 1-6. Burner phone?

Violation of the records act. Destruction of evidence. Obstruction of justice. Conspiracy to commit all three. Blackmail? Is there a file labeled “Lindsey Graham?” Treason? Something his son-in-law can trade to pay off debt.

Nobody can be really surprised by any of this.

The sixth amendment calls for the accused to have a swift and speedy trial. Yes, please.