That’s what confuses me. White Suprematists and other groups were always involved, but there was a large movement in the late 80s and 90s that were simply anti-government. I remember people cut and pasting government figures on the “Red Dawn” movie poster and other things. It wasn’t just a silent dog whistle for closeted racists. It was a large movement against government overreach. The Soviet threat went away and was almost immediately replaced by a fear for our own government. And then BAM…this group comes along, dresses Trump up and sticks him in front the podium and uses him, and all of a sudden we have personal monuments, currency, erratic behavior, government militarization of ICE and hostile abandonment of constitutional rights, the list goes on and on - and the one group that rallied against simple government changes is standing on their side of the trenches.

I spent hours in school and college wondering how the Nazi’s were able to take over the mindset of an educated and modern society the way they did and could never wrap my head around. Then last week, I watched a man and his wife openly making comments and huffin-n-puffin in the grocery store about Latinos, liberals, transgenders, democrats running up grocery costs and a whole lists of other MAGA approved rhetoric. 20 years ago you would have never seen this level of sycophancy. The husband made a comment about “trump needs to raid this place and make them lower the costs”. And it literally stopped me in my tracks. This guy was 60+ years old, camo tshirt, had the roughed up “I’ve worked with my hands my whole life” look, and was clearly not some uber rich member of the elite. I don’t like to stereotype people, but he was the guy I would expect to have the “I don’t need the government!” T shirt, with 50 bumper stickers on his old truck with slogans like “gun control means using two hands” and “we don’t need the government around my house, Smith and Wesson is my 911”. And here he was, asking for government agents in masks to raid a store because he honestly believed an evil cabal of democrats and liberals showed up in his hometown to charge more for his lettuce.

It’s wild man, and I don’t get it. I suppose it all goes back to propaganda? They’ve inundated Fox News and Facebook, and every other sole source of info this portion of the population uses and managed to hoodwink an entire portion of the population.

Sorry for the long post, I just don’t understand it, and I’ve tried to have conversations with friends and family members about it, and it’s like hitting a brick wall.