Are Right-Wingers Basically Just Lonely Old Guys?

A Facebook friend expressed the opinion that many of Trump's fanatical supporters are lonely old white men with no friends, no support group. I think he may be on to something, and I think it may apply to more than just Trump's hard-core base.

I just spoke to my brother today. Yesterday I'd left him a voicemail saying it was about time for "our monthly time to disagree about... everything." My brother is not part of Trump's hard-core base; he belongs to the part of Trump's support that hates him, but still supports him because they hate Democrats much more (that group probably also include many Republican Senators and Congresspeople). My brother's a libertarian loonie who believes in worldwide conspiracies of Evil being run by Hillary, Soros, Israel and The Media.

So I screamed at him for a half hour or so on the phone, telling him repeatedly that he has his head up his ass and doesn't know shit about politics, history or culture, then he said he had to go and I told him I loved him and to take care, and sorry about the yelling.

And most likely, in November we'll do it again.

Actually we don't disagree about absolutely everything. He's a scientist and doesn't deny that humans cause global warming and need to stop it. I repeatedly make a point of acknowledging that he is well-informed about science, technology, engineering and math, highly educated in those areas. He agrees with me that Trump is both an idiot and a career criminal. We both hate Elon Musk, although probably not for identical reasons.

Anyway, if my friend is on to something here, if there's a basic link between right-wing lunacy and loneliness, maybe we all should be calling our crazy right-wing relatives more often, and hugging them more and reminding them more often that we love them even though their heads are completely up their asses.

Maybe even scream at them a little bit less, although I'm not totally sure about that part. That would be asking a lot.

"Libertarianism, Therefore, Is The Representation Of Property In Government -- "

" -- the right which it demands is the right for money to rule. In this respect libertarianism is the new aristocracy. Its substance is the same as that of the old aristocracy, only its name and slogans have changed. The libertarian money-aristocracy, the worship of mammon, wants to rule in the name of 'freedom' and to repress the powerless, that is: those without property. The old absolutism was at least honest, and ruled in the name of power and said openly: 'l'etat c'est moi!' ['I make the law.'] The libertarian money-aristocracy, on the other hand, formally recognizes the people's rights and says that it wants a government of laws, and that the representation of the people is the ultimate purpose of the state. Nevertheless, it claims to be the law of the people and the people's representative."

("Der Liberalismus ist also die Vertretung des Besitzes in der Herrschaft; das Recht, welches er verlangt, ist die Herrschaft des Geldes. In dieser Beziehung ist der Liberalismus die neue Aristokratie; ihr Inhalt ist derselbe mit der alten Aristokratie, nur ihr Name ist geaendert und ihr Panier. Die liberale Geldaristokratie, der Mammonismus will unter dem Firma der „Freiheit" herrschen und die Machtlosen, d. h. die Besitzlosen unterdruecken; der alte Absolutismus war wenigstens ehrlich, er herrschte auch unter der Devise der Gewalt und sagte offen: l'etat c'est moi! die Volksrechte habe ich. Die liberale Geldaristokratie aber erkennt die Rechte des Volkes, ein Recht des Rechtstaates, an, will nach ihren Worten den wahren Rechtsstaat herstellen, indem sie die Volksvertretung als den ureigentlichen Zweck des Staates hinstellt, sagt aber nichtdestoweinger, dass sie selbst die Volksvertretung, das Recht des Volkes, sei.")

What's that, a manifesto written after the 2007-2008 worldwide financial crisis and the huge bailouts of financial firms? No, it's older than that. 1930's Great Depression socialism? Nope. It was written in 1846 by Ernst Dronke, one of the original Commies, a German who occasionally rubbed shoulders with Karl Marx, and who like Marx spent the last several decades of his life in exile in England. Some of this original Commie stuff really holds up, really stays fresh, unfortunately. Unfortunately, because the goals of people like Dronke and Marx are not much closer to being realized than they were in the 1840's.

Maybe they're at least becoming more comprehensible to more people. In the light of long and ever longer experience of the problems they describe.