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Survey: Trump voters sought protection from democracy itself — the heart of their choice. {Raw Story 5 July}
https://www.rawstory.com/abundance-democrats/
Perhaps for the entire history of this nation, it hath always been taken as an article of faith that the American people, whatever their given ideological bent, would forever live and die at the altar of democracy. In 21st century #Murica, however, it turns out democracy is not very popular anymore. To his perverse credit — though I hate using the word ‘credit’ even in a perverse context — Donald Trump saw this before anyone else, and capitalised. A decade later, there is almost no incentive for the GOP to be anything but an illiberal, far-right populist party, whilst at the same time a wave of illiberal hard-leftists stands poised to take over the Democratic Party. So, on both extremes — and the decided majority of Americans have drifted toward the extremes now, just look around — democracy is no longer enjoying great support with the rank-and-file. If somebody had shown me how this would play out twenty-five years ago, when democracy was still held as sacrosanct, I would have been stunned. In retrospect, it all makes sense: no matter how we advance technologically or otherwise, human beings by nature remain tribalistic creatures.
FTA: Lofgren then explained the study found 14 out of 21 participants responded negatively to a fundamental American value. He quoted a Wyoming woman named Sarah as telling researchers, "I don’t like the word democracy.”
"Let that sink in," the Salon writer urged. "It’s what many of us expected, but it’s still surprising to see it in print, given the almost phobic avoidance by major media, academia and think tanks of any discussion of whether Americans actually believe in the nation’s unofficial civic religion of democracy. It may also explain why ordinary, non-elite conservatives are untroubled by Donald Trump’s assertions that he would be “dictator on day one” or that he intended to 'terminate' parts of the Constitution. On the contrary, that’s what they want."
The study, Lofgren argued, found that what such Americans would prefer is protection of the beliefs they perceive as under attack by democracy itself.
🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈
