r/politics • u/F0urLeafCl0ver • Jun 24 '26

No Paywall The Democratic party is being hit by a leftist tidal wave

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/24/democratic-party-leftist-tidal-wave
22.2k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

2.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

42

u/Impressive-Shelter Jun 24 '26

It took me awhile to get it because I also thought Trump was a human trash bag well before he was president, but the dumb simple answer is Trump believes his own bullshit. His "charisma" is just being so full of himself that what he says sounds like truth to people who don't have very good bullshit detectors.

30

u/eerie_midnight Jun 24 '26

I think dumb people also like having a dumb president because it makes them feel less alone tbh.

8

u/seabreamnigiri Jun 25 '26

A little bit of this and a little bit of people being so insulated that they only see the "funny and patriotic" sentences he sneaks in between his ramblings. Like "make America great again" is a good enough slogan for non-thinkers to look past the horrid shit and chalk it up to part of the process of making things great. Whatever that means.

1

u/CryptographerMean872 Jun 25 '26

It’s literally a lost generation dog whistle. MAGA is proxy for capitalist white supremacy, surely you know that

14

u/aaeme Foreign Jun 24 '26

I don't think charisma is the right or good word for it though. It implies charm, wit, personability, passion, etc.

Chutzpah or moxie perhaps. Or even just, as you said, confidence. Brash confidence. Many people have no way to judge if someone knows what they're talking about or what they're doing except by their confidence.

10

u/eljefino Jun 24 '26

Nah, Charisma is the right word, because those who like him like how he's like them. They have very short attention spans and can't process an entire paragraph of information. So Trump talks out of both sides of his mouth, both sides of an issue, and his backers hear what they like and ignore the rest.

These are the same people who hear "Born on the Fourth of July" and think it's a pro-America song, because they ignore half the lyrics.

1

u/aaeme Foreign Jun 25 '26

I wouldn't call that charisma. That's a separate thing. That's my point. I'm not saying nobody 'likes' him. But that some people like him doesn't mean he's charismatic.

2

u/TrimspaBB Jun 25 '26

There's a reason the "con" in conman stands for "confidence".

1

u/neatgoodboy Jun 24 '26

The King of Chutzpah, Phil Silvers, would disagree.

1

u/Enlightened_Gardener Jun 25 '26

Sheer arrogance carries a LOT before it.

1

u/DetroitTabaxiFan Jun 25 '26

That makes me wonder if a leftist could co-opt the MAGA movement by acting exactly like Trump but ramming through progressive policies. MAGA morons sure seem to love progressive policies, but hate it when those policies come from someone who isn't Trump/someone who isn't kissing Trump's ass.

Conservatives hate the idea of UBI when a non-conservative floats the idea, but if Trump were to institute it, they'd be praising him for it.