The "CNN sucks" crowd gravitates to unreality

I saw a new one the other day: "CNN sucks." On a pickup of course. Donald Trump has of course raged at CNN, the cable news channel that has tried to occupy a position in between MSNBC (with supposedly a progressive view) and Fox (the insane right wing nutjob view). The idea is to try to push CNN a little more to the right. To scare them away from what really is happening with the Trump phenomenon, something we are all just trying to survive now.
So, what's with the pickup truck with the blunt bumper sticker - classy language too, eh? Mere fealty to Trump, the would-be autocrat president. Trump might even make it to that pedestal. Republicans refuse to rein him in and will not do so, it appears, unless their position in Congress really seems endangered. Anyone who spoke out against Hitler in Germany in the 1930s risked getting killed. Might such a fear begin to sprout here in the U.S.?
The public pushed back some with how the Democratic Party fared, positively, in the mid-terms. But the Democrats are far from realizing any decisive pushback power. North Dakotans rejected Heidi Heitkamp, a most sensible representative of the people, in favor of a guy who seemed to be branded Trump. You would think the Trump loyalists would feel foolish and embarrassed, kow-towing as they do to a prominent leader, not wanting to show their own independent judgment. You would think their manhood would seem at stake if nothing else. But they plunge forward with their pickup-driving supporters. "CNN sucks" and "Hillary for prison" and "another deplorable for Trump."
I wake up in the morning praying for the Dow Jones to drop another thousand points, if that's what it takes to bring us all to our senses. Bill Maher has articulated hope for a big economic downturn, for this reason. We have become so mesmerized by the stock market, completely contradicting what I was taught when I was young: "The stock market is risky."
 
What is the underpinning?
I have to ponder the "CNN sucks" crowd to try to understand what really motivates them. Is it just anti-intellectualism, a dose of which comes along every few years? Remember the John Birch Society? I remember a Morris veterinarian who was involved with that. I invited him to join me in my Don's Cafe booth when the place got crowded. Nothing personal.
I'd venture that the "CNN sucks" crowd, or "Hillary for prison," seeks a detachment from reality. These people see government populated by a well-educated class of people who purport to know best, like regarding climate change. Everyone hates taxes. But can we be sure the celebrated "tax cuts" from the current regime in D.C. will really be in the interests of the common folks? Aren't the cuts set up to cause some short-term satisfaction that will give way to reality later? (I'd say "sugar high" but that has been over-used.) Won't the long-term satisfaction really be felt only by the most well-heeled?
Isn't this how Republicans always operate? And isn't Trump cynically pulling strings, knowing that if he just dispenses lots of populist bluster, he will have a lot of the common folks eating from his hand - the "CNN sucks" people.

From the land of Ted Cruz

The "Trump base" which is becoming an absolute boil on our society, has an imaginary world on their minds, an imaginary world where we needn't defer to people with a college education, to bureaucrats seeking to impose policy. "Hillary for prison?" There are aspects of Hillary that grate on me, like standing by Bill in spite of his trysts. But if I vote for her, it's not because I expect some personal affinity with her. I will never meet Hillary Clinton. I would vote for her because she would generally support Democratic Party policies, if anything toward the political center. She would be striving to improve and fix "Obamacare," which like all major government efforts has fits and starts.
It is true that government isn't as efficient as the private sector. But we need government. We need government to do things, like guarantee health care, that the private sector cannot fully accomplish. If I resent Hillary Clinton about anything, it's about the way she treated Bernie Sanders in the primaries. I resented Al Gore for how he treated Bill Bradley.
When I think of the Trump crowd and their dream world, a world with no regulations and no "experts," I'm reminded of a strain of country music. It's a strain that paints a picture of impoverished people. A world where guys enjoy their fishing pole at the local stream, going after "channel cat," and have crumpled up beer cans on the ground around them. They live in a semi-shack along a dirt road. They visit a dive bar regularly. Problem is, many fans of this genre of music would actually prefer a comfortable suburban home.
So, it's a yearning for a set of values that kind of floats in the ether for these people. Never to be realized.
Never has the virulent strain of anti-intellectualism taken hold so strongly as now. Leon Panetta may have been right when he said our current state of affairs reflects the very decline of America. How will it all go down? How much tragedy might ensue? I mean, when Heidi Heitkamp is no longer good enough to satisfy us?
  
Addendum: In my "dive bar" reference I was going to note that such guys wear a flannel shirt with holes in the elbows. I admit I have such a shirt myself.
  
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com