I’ve been asking myself this since Trump’s first term. Trump’s best policy is going to be a tax cut, the reason why I say that is because it that it let people keep more of their money for those few years (Maybe I’ll treat this sentence as a filter for reactionaries). Every other policy trump has done has been harmful or agnostic to his base (bombing an Iranian general isn’t going to make Americans lives better). For the past decade they just blindly defended trump and stayed loyal for seemingly no reason.

I’ve been loyal to people just to have the relationship end because one or both of us just moved on in physical and emotional sense. I feel like I shouldn’t have been loyal just excited to see them.

Seems that loyalty is more of a detriment, it can make your ignore faults in people and do reflexive and reactionary things. Like a tenous alliance seems more practical than loyalty.

I’m seeing if someone can advocate for loyalty in and of itself or if the merits loyalty is context based.

  • Brave Little Hitachi Wand@feddit.ukEnglish
    7·
    3 days ago

    There are ethos of loyalty; to family, to country, to friends and ideals. Those can be each coherent bases on which to approach a decision.

    What Trump and his followers engage in is a different animal down to its DNA. He is some flavour of dark triad narcissist with markedly malignant, sociopathic tendencies. For a certain kind of personality, the authoritarian follower personality type (see the free online works of Dr. Bob Altemeyer for more on them) he slots neatly into an emotional need for certitude and feelings of violence towards outgroups.

    For them, loyalty is not a value or ethos. It is an emotional reaction to uncertainty or negative feelings. They do not introspect. They do not interrogate their own beliefs. Whatever they tell you in response to your question will not cohere in the way a good education would train to you expect. They do not have beliefs, as such.

    I’m explaining this because you’re clearly confused about it. There’s a genuine disconnect between how you view and value ideas and how Trump’s followers seem to do the same task. You will never comprehend them until you study authoritarian followers.