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Russian avos' and American politics (2016)
Russian avos' and American politics, part two (2019)
Russia's performance in Ukraine: Is avos' to blame? (2022)
The Fox network's Bret Baier, interviewing U.S. presidential candidate Kamala Harris, questions her about her strong criticisms of rival candidate Donald Trump:
Why, if he's as bad as you say, that half the country is now supporting this person who could be the 47th president of the United States? Why is that happening?
Good question! Many of us who see Trump's candidacy as something close to an extinction-level danger to the USA's democracy are asking ourselves the same thing.
(We may not agree that his support throughout the whole electorate is actually 50%, but we are astounded by the undoubted tens of millions supporting him in the face of his constant lies, cruelty, blatant exploitation of gullible Christians, and inability to communicate actual ideas.)
David Gerlach, a retired Episcopal priest, has one suggestion. He says that people don't necessarily love Trump because of Trump's personality or policies, and goes on to ask:
... So what can it be? And the place that it leads me to is, is it simply because he gives people permission to be awful?—to look down upon those who are "less than" in some people's eyes....
Permission to be awful. Is it that simple?
I got a clue from a conversation I had back in 2020 with a Russian immigrant in Portland, Oregon. He was planning to vote for Trump in the November 2020 election because, in his view, Trump was good for business. As I talked further with him about his experiences as an entrepreneur during Trump's term, I understood that it wasn't just about profits. My conversation partner loved the permission he felt from Trump to be aggressive, to cut corners, to sabotage the competition, to dislike regulations and despise political correctness. It's not exactly that he wanted to be "awful"; he just wanted to keep pursuing wealth on his new hunting grounds and felt that, in this desire, Trump was a kindred spirit.
Here are some articles from 2021 that may still help explain Trump's popularity among recent Russian immigrants: Anastassiya Gliadkovskaya, "Us and them: how Soviet-era thinking divided immigrants over Trump." Elizaveta Gaufman, "Socialist trauma and American politics: why many Russians vote Republican."
Trump has support among my own relatives. One wrote to me, "I'm still voting for Trump /Vance due to Trumps last stint as president and the results of debates. That is what my gut tells me." This preference for "gut" over dispassionate analysis, and over the conventional wisdom of the perceived elites who normally run things may be a common thread among those Russian immigrants and disaffected members who've turned to Trump.
In my original avos' post, Natalia Antonova drew on David Frum to help explain this alienation:
Perhaps one of the most telling lines about Trump supporters was recently published by conservative writer David Frum, who quoted this line from his discussions with fellow Republicans who are set to vote for Trump: "You believe in institutions because they work for you… But our people don’t believe in institutions any more."
People who have lost faith in institutions have lost faith in institutional change. This makes them especially vulnerable to promises made by firebrand demagogues. And it places them further beyond the reach of facts or logic.
But maybe this is overcomplicated. I think some of those attracted to Trump never had faith in institutions. They may never have asked themselves, "What would it take for me to trust the Congress, elections, government in general, or civil society?" Now Trump tells them that it's all a swamp, and his cult choir shares a powerful insight with them: just as they suspected, nothing is trustworthy but Trump alone. Go with your gut and support the man who elevates his own instinct above all that so-called "information."
Some of Trump's most committed supporters believe that his triumph will surely be theirs as well. Others may simply believe that, as Trump tells them, things are such a catastrophic mess that they really have nothing to lose. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," or in other words, pure avos'. In most cases, neither facts nor mockery will break open this allegiance to the one who legitimizes mistrust of that swamp. I can only advise holding up a Gospel vision of genuine hope, one that envisions universal blessing rather than tribal triumphs, over the fake hope and momentary thrill of avos'.
James K.A. Smith finds wisdom from Augustine in an election year.
Perhaps a fifth-century African doctor of the church can help us engage with the constructive relationship between Christianity and liberal democracy as we attempt to survive this election year. Augustine of Hippo’s sprawling masterpiece The City of God, written in the early 400s, has enduring relevance for us today. I believe that its wisdom can teach us to inhabit the fractious, polarized time in which we live.
...
Augustine counsels a kind of holy impatience. On the one hand, we pray and labor for a world that looks more like the just, flourishing kingdom we long for. The waiting of Christian eschatology is not the same as what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the tranquilizing drug of gradualism,” which uses waiting as a code for enshrining the status quo. On the other hand, even a properly prophetic desire and hunger must avoid the hubris of thinking we could socially engineer our way out of the world’s brokenness by our own ingenuity. As Immanuel Kant would put it centuries after Augustine: all of our human political constructions are built with the crooked timber of human beings.
Heather Cox Richardson: Mark Milley, Eric Hoffer, ... and Donald Trump.
In a pivotal U.S. election season, what are Friends called to do? You're invited to an online conversation on "Friends Witness and Action for Our Democracy," scheduled for October 30 at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time, with Emily Provance and Diane Randall.
Qassam Muaddi's Palestine letter: the fresh face of the Nakba, and Palestine at the heart of a new world.
A segment on Democracy Now's devoted to Israeli and Palestinian peace activists. (This clip was recommended by one of the participants in the weekly online meeting for prayer for peace, organized by the European and Middle East Section of Friends World Committee for Consultation. Please join us!)
Mehdi Hasan challenges us: if Israel's leaders hate the United Nations so much, both in words and in actions, should Israel be allowed to remain a member?
Facing the mixed agendas of cross-cultural outreach: When the evangelistic tables are turned.
Kitty, Daisy and Lewis in Japan.
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