This is the moment that Donald Trump threatens an ABC reporter after they asked about free speech. Speaking with ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl on Tuesday (16 September), the president appeared to become annoyed after the reporter asked him about Pam Bondi’s crackdown on “hate speech”. “A lot of your allies say hate speech is free speech,” Mr Karl said, to which Mr Trump responded: “She’d probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. It’s hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart.” After slamming ABC, the president claimed that he “wants everything to be fair” and placed blame with the “radical left who have done tremendous damage to the country”.
Part of it is that they genuinely don’t watch or care. They just learned they like trump and will continue to say so. Never forget just how many people didn’t even know Biden wasn’t fucking running last year. There has been a massive culture (on Both Sides) of “don’t watch the news for your mental health” that just puts people in isolation chambers where they occasionally hear something.
And the other aspect? He is them. Boomers are increasingly senile every single year and he is a boomer ass boomer. But also? Just look around on social media or in stream chats and so forth. A LOT of people sound like they speak English as a Second Language… until you realize they are making references to nickelodean shows and may even have comments or posts outright saying they are a native. They just are fucking illiterate (and this applies from boomers on down but is just a major crisis for genz/alpha because they might have a chance).
Also odds on someone thinking they are “witty” for saying this is “TLDR”? Because… think about the implications of “you talk too much” as an insult.
And that isn’t just their illiteracy. We mostly tend to skew middle/upper-middle/upper class around here. Spend some time actually communicating with “support staff” (e.g. custodial) or even talking to someone at a supermarket or fast food joint. The “Gen Z Stare” is definitely a thing but it isn’t just Gen Z and it is very much people who do not know how to communicate or articulate a thought literally locking up. THAT is trump.
I remember back when the problem was that people glazed Jed Bartlet and it had to be explained to them that real human beings don’t have script writers to make every single word they say deeply beautiful and intellectual. Now? People would hunt Martin Sheen down for daring to make them feel inadequate.
I agree with you on most of that. As someone that’s spent the majority of their life broke, I will stick up for the lower class and say that many of the folks I’ve worked with in menial roles were aware of the world and able to express themselves and interact socially at a level that MAGAts just aren’t able to. I don’t think social status has anything to do with it. MAGA prides itself in rejection of anything bordering on intellectual, across the board.
Its less about class and more about socioeconomics. Kids get out what they put in (and parents go a long way towards teaching kids to get what they can out of school… which is why each generation has more and more developmental issues). But it is a lot easier to learn when you aren’t spending your entire day bouncing between being scared for your life to just trying to keep your heads down as an overworked and underpaid teacher needs to babysit the kids who desperately need more help but can’t get it because public school in “the ghetto”.