I know a surprisingly large amount of MAGA/Trump adjacent fans because of my type of work.
They’re all single dudes. Maybe divorced. Maybe never went on a date.
There’s Joe Rogan involved.
After a few beers, they all will unprompted share their views on Jews, blacks, trans, lesbians, or some other racist shit then back off and pretend it’s just a joke.
Tell them anything involving empathy “Sorry your dog died” is met with silence or coldness.
They all don’t give a shit about anybody else besides themselves. And often see themselves as the victim. “Oh Trans person was brutally beaten? Yeah it’s a violent world like one time some guy threatened me gotta stay strapped.”
They may not like Trump’s antics. But to them, the Democrats aren’t helping THEM. Remember that lack of empathy?
They may not like Trump’s antics. But to them, the Democrats aren’t helping THEM. Remember that lack of empathy?
Thats the main one though. Truth is there are a lot of working class white Americans with no representation. Working class minorities tend to band together to weather the worst of it, and are maybe somewhat represented by candidates who come from minority backgrounds. But the working class whites? All they have is the orange clump and a sea of sick media posts from a deranged billionaire telling them that immigrants are the cause of all their woes.
And from a historical context, its not the least bit suprising. A demographic of young men with dwindling prospects, crumbling social support structures and animosity towards the establishment, if only we had seen this before…
The government will work for the betterment of ALL, or else you get the fashists again…
They may not like Trump’s antics. But to them, the Democrats aren’t helping THEM. Remember that lack of empathy?
Unless they make 6 figures that point is true though. Not that Trump is going to help them either. But at least he pretends to care about them, whereas the Democrats outright said that their life reality of rising prices and stagnating wages is fake because the stock market is making new record bubble numbers.
It’s hard to stay empathetic about homeless when you deal with the worst of them on a daily basis. I worked in parks and my team was constantly getting attacked and cleaning up their urine and feces, blood and needles. There were people offering them access to services every week and the worst ones always refuse. Most people who work in parks are kind introverted people who love plants, and want people to enjoy green space . just seeing my team get punched in the face or their arm broken made it really hard to feel any empathy towards homeless. I really had to work at it.
I mean most people don’t have empathy for the opposite political party, imagine trying to empathize with someone who shits on your desk every day.
Some of them are obviously mentally ill, a few are just down on their luck, but also some of them are violent criminals who carry weapons. It was pretty typical to find some that had open warrants for arrest in other states.
I was an inspector for a health department and was directly involved with efforts engaging the sanitary conditions of homeless encampments. I coordinated with the parks departments, transportation departments, etc in responses.
The thing is homelessness subjects people to the violent criminals people blame homelessness on.
That said: I am not going to touch the organizational culture that sends its staff out into situations where they’d provoke being attacked. If there is any question of safety concerns I blame the employer, public or private, that subjects field staff to such dangers without necessary precautions. It seems rather backwards to then redirect blame in such a manner.
I totally agree with you-. It’s one of the reasons why I quit - I just couldn’t make things safer or change the attitude of leadership.
I spent a ton of time trying to get the police to help protect my team. Or to get leadership to redirect the police. The police answer was, they didn’t want to enter the parks because it was too dangerous for police because there were plants and trees that made it harder to see danger. Yet They still expected the lowest paid workers to go there and work. I had a day when they basically ignored one of my employees who was getting racist threats as he was picking up trash and accused him of wasting police resources - this was the kindest hardest working 65 year old guy, who wouldn’t have called the police unless he was truly scared for his life.
I basically realized one of my team would have to be killed for anything to really change. Unfortunately it almost happened to another team that handled janitorial services- guy got stabbed. They did start a special team to deal with encampments after that, but there was still no changes in the issues at the parks.
I know a surprisingly large amount of MAGA/Trump adjacent fans because of my type of work.
Thats the main one though. Truth is there are a lot of working class white Americans with no representation. Working class minorities tend to band together to weather the worst of it, and are maybe somewhat represented by candidates who come from minority backgrounds. But the working class whites? All they have is the orange clump and a sea of sick media posts from a deranged billionaire telling them that immigrants are the cause of all their woes.
And from a historical context, its not the least bit suprising. A demographic of young men with dwindling prospects, crumbling social support structures and animosity towards the establishment, if only we had seen this before…
The government will work for the betterment of ALL, or else you get the fashists again…
Unless they make 6 figures that point is true though. Not that Trump is going to help them either. But at least he pretends to care about them, whereas the Democrats outright said that their life reality of rising prices and stagnating wages is fake because the stock market is making new record bubble numbers.
At this point, it’s gotta be in the high six-figures with the decades of unending price gouging.
Depends where you live I guess, but low 6 figs in SF might get you a parking spot so you can live out of your car in peace
I worked in local government for nearly a decade and through covid. A lot of cops and former cops in elected positions. This mostly check out.
I would add they overwhelmingly believed homeless people deserved it and/or were subhuman.
It’s hard to stay empathetic about homeless when you deal with the worst of them on a daily basis. I worked in parks and my team was constantly getting attacked and cleaning up their urine and feces, blood and needles. There were people offering them access to services every week and the worst ones always refuse. Most people who work in parks are kind introverted people who love plants, and want people to enjoy green space . just seeing my team get punched in the face or their arm broken made it really hard to feel any empathy towards homeless. I really had to work at it.
I mean most people don’t have empathy for the opposite political party, imagine trying to empathize with someone who shits on your desk every day.
Some of them are obviously mentally ill, a few are just down on their luck, but also some of them are violent criminals who carry weapons. It was pretty typical to find some that had open warrants for arrest in other states.
I was an inspector for a health department and was directly involved with efforts engaging the sanitary conditions of homeless encampments. I coordinated with the parks departments, transportation departments, etc in responses.
The thing is homelessness subjects people to the violent criminals people blame homelessness on.
That said: I am not going to touch the organizational culture that sends its staff out into situations where they’d provoke being attacked. If there is any question of safety concerns I blame the employer, public or private, that subjects field staff to such dangers without necessary precautions. It seems rather backwards to then redirect blame in such a manner.
I totally agree with you-. It’s one of the reasons why I quit - I just couldn’t make things safer or change the attitude of leadership.
I spent a ton of time trying to get the police to help protect my team. Or to get leadership to redirect the police. The police answer was, they didn’t want to enter the parks because it was too dangerous for police because there were plants and trees that made it harder to see danger. Yet They still expected the lowest paid workers to go there and work. I had a day when they basically ignored one of my employees who was getting racist threats as he was picking up trash and accused him of wasting police resources - this was the kindest hardest working 65 year old guy, who wouldn’t have called the police unless he was truly scared for his life.
I basically realized one of my team would have to be killed for anything to really change. Unfortunately it almost happened to another team that handled janitorial services- guy got stabbed. They did start a special team to deal with encampments after that, but there was still no changes in the issues at the parks.
This is indicative of why homelessness continues to get worse: action isn’t taken until literal violence: completing the self-fulfilling prophecy
Just wanna say I appreciated reading about this perspective.