I never heard of any of these things.

I don’t think people voting for Trump are sticking it to the man. I think they either adore him or see him as a means to get some of their political goals.

The only people sticking it are people who purposely don’t vote because neither candidate is close enough to what they want, but they are otherwise very politically engaged.

For some, maybe. Based on the amount of people who cite “owning the libs” as a factor in their support for Trump, I think some degree of defiant trolling helped Trump win in 2016. That may apply less this year.

My guess is that there probably is a negligible percentage of people who actually looked at Trump and deliberately voted for the obvious “national joke”. Let’s hope they’ve learned their lesson.

I do, at least to some extent. It may not initially (i.e., in 2016) have been a true “stick it to them” intention but rather a lack of seriousness of purpose that might have come out of long seasons in which we thought we were pretty much exempt from home-grown crises.

There may also have been a Brexit-like preoccupation with delivering a message, not thinking it could really win: sort of like the old joke about the dog chasing the car—what will he do if he catches it?

As I was growing up, both Democratic and Republican parties had a left, center or “moderate,” and right, and the common wisdom was that there wasn’t a lot of difference between the parties. Things didn’t change that much from president to president. We thought we were pretty stable, and we trusted our institutions, not realizing how much of their strength lay in custom and tradition rather than the force of law.

The shock of Kennedy’s assassination staggered the nation, but it didn’t actually produce a different kind of election or a different kind of president. Even the Nixon renegades still knew where the lines were, even as they crossed them, and tried to hide the crossing of them. Flagrant violation would not have been tolerated.

We in the U.S. have always prized our rebellious history. It moves us in emotional terms, not rational, and it’s so pervasive that in almost any context it’s the rule-breaker who garners the admiration. We were founded on revolution, and our heroes have mostly been seen in David-and-Goliath terms—especially the fictional ones, whom we have sometimes forgotten to see as fictional. Endless movies celebrate the lone guy who goes up against the system, whether it’s Bruce Willis taking on massive enterprises or that one kid who winks and grins behind the principal’s back. Anyone who asserts authority in the name of the law is almost certain to become a target.

It seems or seemed safe because those institutions and structures were strong enough to withstand a few quakes. We could make some noise, effect some changes, without actually destroying the foundations we depended on.

I think that defiance of systems and authorities is practically a kneejerk response among people who have absorbed more of the superficial American culture than of, let’s say, world history and political philosophy. It’s somehow always cool to be the rebel, and if you’re not, you’ll be called a prude, square, and worse, and you will feel sharply the displeasure of the group. The social pressure is not only great but ambiguous, in that the nonconformists want everyone to conform to their nonconformity.

In an individualist rather than collectivist society, self-assertion can become a sickness. I think that’s where we are now. The pendulum does not stop for long at moderation.

Here you go, @JLeslie.

@Jeruba Great answer! I so identify with your description and thoughts on the matter.

Thanks for the link.

Funner the second time round.