The people being played aren’t the Trump supporters. They know they’re fascists, Trump is doing what they want. The people being played are the moderates who believe that Trump supporters are merely stupid.
You’re giving way too much credit to the intelligence of the typical red state rural voter. They don’t know they’re fascist, they just like the convervative nationalist promises coming from the big man who tells them that their misfortune is the fault of the people even less fortunate than themselves.
It would be a mistake to assume the admin or an educated Trump supporter is merely stupid, though.
They’ll certainly argue with you about whether or not they’re “fascist”. But they do like fascist policy, and approve of both the pardons and the boat strikes. They’re playing word games with you. It’s not adequately explained by stupidity.
It’s actually pretty easily explainable as stupidity.
They don’t actually know what being fascist entails, nor do they care to learn. They are told by conservative mouthpieces and their ilk that it means “Nazi” and they accept that as the definition.
They vehemently disagree with the idea that they’re Nazis because the general belief is that Nazis are evil, and they don’t think they’re evil like the Nazis, and therefore aren’t fascist. Even if some of them could see the parallels between their conservative nationalist beliefs and the Nazis, they would still argue they aren’t and justify it with any excuse they could find. Human egos are self-preservationist, and it’s in our nature for one to avoid viewing themselves as something they consider repulsive.
Uneducated/undereducated people who voted for him aren’t cunning. They’re just maliciously stupid, willfully ignorant, and easy to emotionally manipulate. That doesn’t mean they’re benign; in large numbers such as those enough to influence the outcome vote, they are an actual threat.
Beyond the stupid ones I mentioned above, there are the ones that willfully embrace fascism. The ones who wear “Nazi” like a badge of honor and take pride in their nationalist views. For them, I agree with you that they shouldn’t be underestimated as merely stupid.
That’s a very young picture of Trump.
He uh… doesn’t look like that any more.
“Very young” is overstating it.
