A friend forwarded to me the commentary below, which I printed here verbatim.
The question remains for me then: In order to hate liberals, you have to know how to recognize one. What is a liberal, versus, for the sake of argument, a conservative? Or a non-liberal?
I consider myself fairly conservative, but I am usually labeled a liberal. I don’t own a single firearm. Does that make me a liberal? I do not believe in corruption in government. Does that make me a liberal?
I wonder if there is a definition.
The question was posed, “Why do people continue supporting Trump no matter what he does?” A lady named Bev answered it this way:
“You all don’t get it. I live in Trump country, in the Ozarks in southern Missouri, one of the last places where the KKK still has a relatively strong established presence. They don’t give a shit what he does. He’s just something to rally around and hate liberals, that’s it, period.
He absolutely realizes that and plays it up. They love it. He knows they love it.
The fact that people act like it’s anything other than that proves to them that liberals are idiots, all the more reason for high fives all around.
If you keep getting caught up in “why do they not realize this problem” and “how can they still back Trump after this scandal,” then you do not understand what the underlying motivating factor of his support is. It’s fuck liberals, that’s pretty much it.
Have you noticed he can do pretty much anything imaginable, and they’ll explain some way that rationalizes it that makes zero logical sense?
Because they’re not even keeping track of any coherent narrative, it’s irrelevant. Fuck liberals is the only relevant thing.
Trust me; I know firsthand what I’m talking about.
That’s why they just laugh at it all because you all don’t even realize they truly don’t give a fuck about whatever the conversation is about.
It’s just a side mission story that doesn’t matter anyway.
That’s all just trivial details – the economy, health care, whatever.
Fuck liberals.
Look at the issue with not wearing the masks.
I can tell you what that’s about. It’s about exposing fear. They’re playing chicken with nature, and whoever flinches just moved down their internal pecking order, one step closer to being a liberal.
You’ve got to understand the one core value that they hold above all others is hatred for what they consider weakness because that’s what they believe strength is, hatred of weakness.
And I mean passionate, sadistic hatred.
And I’m not exaggerating. Believe me.
Sadistic, passionate hatred, and that’s what proves they’re strong, their passionate hatred for weakness.
Sometimes they will lump vulnerability in with weakness.
They do that because people tend to start humbling themselves when they’re in some compromising or overwhelming circumstance, and to them, that’s an obvious sign of weakness.
Kindness = weakness. Honesty = weakness.
Compromise = weakness.
They consider their very existence to be superior in every way to anyone who doesn’t hate weakness as much as they do.
They consider liberals to be weak people that are inferior, almost a different species, and the fact that liberals are so weak is why they have to unite in large numbers, which they find disgusting, but it’s that disgust that is a true expression of their natural superiority.
Go ahead and try to have a logical, rational conversation with them. Just keep in mind what I said here and be forewarned.”
Your friend lives around very nasty people. I find the comment provocative. But it is much too simple. The American world is not defined by only two groups, sadistic haters and compassionate liberals. Instead, the friend repeats the simplistic outlook of the group criticized. 62,984,828 voted for Trump in 2016. They are not all or even primarily sadistic haters, in my humble and therefore liberal opinion. Though I would not be surprised that some of them are, and some of the more outspoken. But there are strength loving haters in all parties.
That is an unfortunate but cogent observation of the nature of Trump supporters. It should be, I suppose, less surprising than it is. It is alarming at this moment in human history when we need to embrace science and the scientific method the most that a size-able portion of the population has rejected it and embraced stupidity. I take small solace in the fact that I am fortunate enough not to be one of these types of people and with any luck in a little more than a month this will be over for the US. I don’t hold out much hope though.
Bev describes a culture from southern Missouri. I know Trump supporters in Nebraska who don’t fit this description.
As an aside, a journalist from our Sydney Morning Herald is doing a piece on ex-pats who are dual citizens of the US and Australia. She hopes to interview at least one voter from each state. So far she has 40 states covered and only one voter who supports Trump . He’s from Georgia and his wife supports Biden.