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On Fear and Trump's takeover of DC
Aug. 12th, 2025 07:51 amOn the occasion of Trump's takeover of Washington DC policing (which is, like much of what Trump does, over-promised and under-delivered) I have thoughts.
I live in the Chicago suburbs, and during a visit to my parents in downstate and rural Illinois, I was told in all seriousness by a MAGA-ite that I needed a bulletproof vest to go back home. MAGA-ites are scared shitless. To them, every homeless person is waiting to jump up and shiv them, every rowdy teenager walking down the street is a mugger, and anybody just hanging out in public is a gang lookout or worse.
They operate by anecdote not data. If their sister's friend's hairdresser told a story (or posted on Facebook), that's gospel. Facts and statistics are not. (In general, "common sense" trumps fact, where "common sense" is defined as "that which confirms my biases.")
They mostly watch the local TV news, and for every shooting, rather than noting that it's in the same neighborhood as the last five such incidents, they say "those people are just shooting everybody everywhere."
Trump is a very pure incarnation of these traits. He's personally scared, unable to determine between anecdote and data, and an avid consumer of TV news, where "if it bleeds it leads."
I live in the Chicago suburbs, and during a visit to my parents in downstate and rural Illinois, I was told in all seriousness by a MAGA-ite that I needed a bulletproof vest to go back home. MAGA-ites are scared shitless. To them, every homeless person is waiting to jump up and shiv them, every rowdy teenager walking down the street is a mugger, and anybody just hanging out in public is a gang lookout or worse.
They operate by anecdote not data. If their sister's friend's hairdresser told a story (or posted on Facebook), that's gospel. Facts and statistics are not. (In general, "common sense" trumps fact, where "common sense" is defined as "that which confirms my biases.")
They mostly watch the local TV news, and for every shooting, rather than noting that it's in the same neighborhood as the last five such incidents, they say "those people are just shooting everybody everywhere."
Trump is a very pure incarnation of these traits. He's personally scared, unable to determine between anecdote and data, and an avid consumer of TV news, where "if it bleeds it leads."
