I met a woman from Chicago yesterday who is concerned that the nation’s third-largest city is experiencing increasing frequent and severe tornadoes, causing deaths and inflicting huge amounts of property damage.
She seemed despondent, sadly resigned to the fact that the United States is actively backing out of any efforts it was previously making to mitigate climate change.
The following is simply raw speculation on my part. I’ll be interested in your comments.
There are musical styles that align themselves with left- and right-wing politics, though none of these, with the possible exception of one, has 100% of its audience–more on this below.
Here are a few musical genres, where they seem to be pro- or anti-Trump and why:
Classical. Largely but not exclusively anti-Trump. Classical appeals to the mind and the emotions that surround the perception of beauty, and people who are strong in these areas are generally anti-Trump. There are exceptions, in that there are plenty of billionaires and weirdo intellectuals, e.g., the “objectivists” of Ayn Rand fame many of whom adore classical music.
Country. Pro-Trump. Most of it appeals to people whose most nuanced thinking concerns getting drunk and laid in the back of their pick-up truck.
HipHop: Pro-Trump. The opposite of classical, this is music that appeals to the genitalia as opposed to the mind.
Rock. Mixed bag. Heavy metal probably favors Trump; fans of prog-rock bands like Yes and Pink Floyd have too much going on in their minds and hearts to be Trump supporters.
Folk: Mostly anti-Trump. Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan fans aren’t big on stupidity and fascism. I’m sure there are exceptions.
Reggae: Distinctly anti-Trump. Black folks’ songs of love, peace, weed, and escape from slavery aren’t going to resonate with the hate of the White supremacists.
The Grateful Dead. I’ll leave you with this. If you can find me a single Dead Head Trumper, I’ll be astounded. Now, I know that essentially no one sits on the fence about the Dead; they have their detractors. But there is essentially zero intersection of Dead Heads and those who favor war, corruption, hate, greed, and ignorance.
Religion tends to make statements that fly in the teeth of science, but even the most ardent believers in God may have trouble with the meme here.
How are genders assigned? Well, ask yourself why men have nipples.
It’s because gender isn’t assigned at conception, so all embryos have nipples. About six weeks after conception, the flow of chromosomes through our bodies (the “chromosomal bath”) triggers hormonal changes that differentiate male and female anatomy.
Later, developmental issues render some of us into what are homosexuals, now, more broadly, are referred to as LGBTQ.
Not sure Goad has a role in all this. Could be wrong.
Until I was about 40, what Milton Friedman said at left made perfect sense to me.
That’s when I realized that free market capitalism is destroying the environment, and that without government regulation, our planet would soon be in flames.
Remarkably, there are many people, especially those in Big Oil, who understand climate change but think that wildfires, superstorms, desertification, ocean acidification and massive losses of biodiversity are an acceptable price to pay if it will transport them millionaires to billionaires.
It’s possible that Americans are so angry that the Trump administration has ruined their country and its democracy that paid advertising for Republican candidates is having no effect on them.
We can only hope.
Obviously, the endorsement of a much-despised president didn’t help, but what chance did this election-denying moron actually have in a sophisticated state like Minnesota?
I would be shocked to learn that more than a tiny fraction of 1% of American voters consider themselves Marxists.
The typical progressive in the U.S. hopes to see this country refashion itself in the manner of the social democracies that are sprinkled all around the globe.
Glenn Close is what Donald Trump would call a “woke celebrity.” Yet what he’s deliberately ignoring is that he has virtually zero support from the entertainment industry.
Sure, you can find an occasional Clint Eastwood or James Woods. But for every one of them, you’ll find perhaps a dozen intelligent and kind people like Close who deeply resents Trump’s attempts to steal democracy from the American people and the rest of the civilized world.
I’m no expert on political demographics, but is strikes me that someone like, say Jodie Foster, who could read at age three and graduated from Yale magna cum laude, probably sees life differently from the MAGA base of carrot farmers.
Today’s America admires the rich, and we have no problem if our leaders are sociopathic rapists.
All they really need to do in order to retain our adoration is to continue to punish people with brown skin and give tax breaks to their fellow billionaires.
Quality education, healthcare, protecting our environment, and affordability are all issues for communists and woke sissies.
One good thing about having Trump in the White House is that he doesn’t have enough sense to hide what a terrible person he is.
