Wednesday, June 2, 2021

On Medium: The Menace and Conundrum of Trumpian Trolling

Read on about the resentment, gaslighting, and hypernormality in the tribal GOP.

2 comments:

  1. Your essay would seem to suggest that the best response to Republicans is to either ignore or ridicule them like any other troll. Trolls & gaslighters thrive on negative attention, so if we refuse to take them & their words seriously, they ought to give up in frustration. That would mean the impeachment attempts by the Democrats were misguided -- playing right into Trump's plan to humiliate his opponents. It seems to have worked considering that he emerged from those trials stronger than ever.

    I want to personally thank you for this article. Though I'm not much bothered by Trump anymore, I'm just beginning to realize that I've endured a lot of gaslighting in my life by people I mistook to be misguided but sincere & genuinely concerned with my welfare. I wish that I had the EQ to have seen trolls for what there were way back in my teens. Thanks.

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    Replies
    1. I've written a follow-up article which will come out in a week or two that adds some more nuance to the troll thesis. Trumpism can be interpreted as a protest vote or practical joke. In that case, the way to defeat the trolls would have been to wipe the floor with Trump in the 2020 election, to prove that the American system doesn't deserve to be protested or satirized. The Democrats were too weak and inept to do so.

      I wrote an earlier article on Trumpian trolls, from 2020:

      https://medium.com/discourse/trump-trolling-and-the-re-wilding-of-the-american-failed-state-55852970d001?source=friends_link&sk=50252a912174a6a98edae438339b562c

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