Collective Narcissists

Nancy Le Tourneau has a nice summary of the psychology of Trumpism and really the entire Republican Party. It's been called "grievance politics" and that is accurate up to a point. As Le Tourneau notes, it is the fear that's the real driver of these politics in America and elsewhere.

I belong to a Facebook group in my rather conservative hometown. It is...quite the experience. You get a lot of "kids these days are out of control" and "bring back the Indian mascot" and "crime is everywhere." Sure, you also get the "nice" conservative small town stuff like buying local and thanking a neighbor who helped someone move. The most engaged posts are those that deal with this constant state of fear that A) the country is changing from the one that they are most comfortable with and B) American Carnage. 

When Trump gave his inaugural address, it was routinely marveled over by those of us in the reality-based community. But Trump's vision of an American falling apart at the seams, with blood running in streams through the streets of our cities and people as destitute as if it had been 1932 was both designed for and emblematic of Rightist media. Trump marinated in that world and spoke its language naturally.

It is also clearly a conscious strategy on the Right to depict America as descending into a Mad Max hellhole. Fox is always screeching about something stupid - migrant caravans! Ebola! Socialism! - and they are losing market share to the even shriller screechers at OANN and NewsMax. 

Here's the problem for Biden and Democrats: Thing are measurably improving. With an improved economy and pent-up demand, we are seeing inflation (which of course, Fox and Company are beating the shit out of). This inflation should peter out over the winter, as gas prices fall, ports clear and the labor market stabilizes. 

The real issue remains Covid. It sucks. I don't like wearing a mask, but I do, because I'm not a selfish prick. I don't like the impact it has on our teaching and coaching, and we are fairly free of restrictions. But a winter surge is likely coming. Whether it impacts our school specifically, we are going to see another surge, because winter drives people indoors. Yglesias the other day spoke about how poor a job the CDC has done in public messaging. I agree, but that's more important over the next four to five months. We will get a surge, but it is VERY unlikely to be a deadly surge, given both the vaccination rates and the availability of oral anti-virals to treat the ill. 

If Covid becomes an annoyance by May, I think that gives Biden and Democrats enough time to point to genuine good news. It's always risky to claim things are good when they are not. Right now, just enough is not good to make those claims ring hollow, but we are still capable of setting things right with enough time to have an impact on the mid-terms. 

But if Covid spirals out of control, we are fucked.