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Comment by nprz | Hacker News Reader

As Chomsky[0] I think rightly points out, the suffering and grievances of trump supporters is real, but unfortunately they are unable to correctly identify the cause of their suffering. Evidence seems to support this as deaths of despair have been climbing over the past few decades[1]. This is something I rarely see mentioned in left news outlets, instead we are told trump supporters are only motivated by racial hatred.

[0] https://youtu.be/lJ84xM8YPpw?t=271

[1] https://i.imgur.com/ceAwn59_d.webp?maxwidth=1520&fidelity=gr...

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There were doctors, lawyers and owners of IT companies in the group that broke into the Capitol. I find it hard to believe they were driven to terrorism by despair and not entitlement.

Not everyone in the crowd had the same motivations, obviously, as with any crowd. I suspect a significant percentage were decent people who for for various reasons (likely rooted in the suffering your parent mentions) had come to inhabit Trump's alternative facts universe, and truly believed they were doing what was necessary to uphold democracy. I also suspect a significant percentage were various white supremacists, authoritarians and anarchists. Most of them were/are deluded too, but that's orthogonal to the human decency dimension.

Yes, very few people are motivated BY racial hatred, far more can be motivated TO racial hatred.

Too bad they vote for the party making it worse, though seems what they really want is coup. That won't end well and in good policies.

Explaining everything by race is also a dead end.

It's real in some cases, but for many it isn't. Many of my friends are decently well off, own a home, with good jobs and support Trump. These people support him because they don't like paying taxes, immigration, BLM, wokeism, etc.

I am sympathetic to those who have been impacted economically. But, many of those who are despairing do end up blaming "outsiders" for their problems.

I never ever heard anyone say that their grievances aren't real and that they are only motivated by racial hatred. I distinctly remember after Trump won the first election that all the talk on the left was about disenfranchised voters in mid-America vs coastal elites. I'm sure you remember that too. That does not backup your assertion in fact it refutes it. That they are all also racists is a different topic.

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