<anger>

Maybe it looks to you as if those who voted for Trump believed they were acting _against_ authoritarians, but I've lived among them.

I was still living in their midst when they tarred and feathered the Dixie Chicks (as they were then) for having the audacity to say GWB's Iraq Adventure might not be the most wonderful thing since sliced mayonnaise. (could we say they "cancelled" the Chicks?)

Then they claimed to be voting for DJT (a public figure whose bully bona fides go back at least 4 decades, eg https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6131533-trumpdeathpe... ) on an "isolationist" platform.

But now they're cheering Operation Southern Spear as if it were a homecoming game, as they did for GHB's Iraq. My local paper even had https://x.com/KatieMiller/status/2007541679293944266 (sorry for the X link) in it this morning.

They may say they're voting on a mind-your-own-business-principle, but whenever you look at what they do, they've consistently been voting on a leader-principle.

</anger>

Q. How do you describe a principled authoritarian follower?

A. "The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind"

  Inner Party  Pigs
  Outer Party  Dogs
  Proles       the Equal animals

How you might recognise an inner party-goer? In the case of the US, I think long-tenured legislators were part of it during my tour, but in DJT's time I'd guess they, alongside silicon valley owners of various social graphs, are to be found among the interchangeables*.

Certainly casual Trump-watching is even less useful than the old days of Kremlin-watching; his inner circle changes so often (cue Bueno de Mesquita & Smith) that it's a good thing we have the web now — the airbrush artists probably would've organised and gone on strike if they'd had to keep up.

(I guess I should give DJT his due: I had thought the two party system was a structural problem, yet he's delivered an existence proof that it is indeed possible to do something about it)

* should someone send all 535 members of congress a copy of the snakebite article? It's not going to be me; that's their problem.