It’s counterproductive to tie current populist movements to a single cause. They’ve attracted a lot of people who have different motivations.

Some of them are legit racists and antisemites. They deserve to be called out.

But there are a bunch of people who are suffering from the cost of living crisis. They can’t afford what they think they deserve (given what their parents had and their educational attainment) and they’re angry. These are the people that voted for Obama and Trump. They’re the ones who voted for Trudeau and will vote for Poilievre.

In Canada, this group includes people who can no longer afford decent housing and can’t find a family doctor.

These are legit concerns that political elites aren’t addressing. Trudeau’s collapse in popularity was (at least partially) because he didn’t seem to acknowledge the problems.

As progressives, I think we do ourselves a massive disservice when we fail to acknowledge and address these concerns.

I understand anti-elitism as being anti-intellectual, like all of the other “anti” groups. There is no logic and reason involved because there is no logic and reason in hate.

The problems are a lack of education, and extreme propaganda. The only reason people like Trump exist is because the majority is ignorant. Which is true regardless of the populist in front of you.

Pierre Poilievre is a perfect example of how we as Canadians are very close to making the same mistakes the US did, and we desperately need to educate our people better before that happens.

To me, MAGA is a collection of different motivations that all aligned behind one person whose defining feature is that he would do anything if someone pressed hard enough and in the right way. That’s it. It’s only a matter of time when the requests conflict, and it showed itself a bit when Trump was making decisions re:governmental firings/layoffs and retracting them.

If a bunch cited anti-elitism, that’s those bunch’s motivation, and not necessarily Trump supporters at large. From what I’ve read so far, it might not be anti-elitism that they’re after either but a different kind of elitism: one that puts them “on top”, whatever that looks like. It’s not equality or overall improved living conditions they’re after. They’ve accepted and keep beating others into accepting “life is unfair; deal with it”. They just don’t want it to be unfair to them - only others - not realizing there was another solution all along: working on making life fairer for everyone. Unfortunately, that would be a nod to socialism, with which only Sanders and some of the millennial Democrats were comfortable.

I don’t know if the rise of anti-education happened as a response to rising disparity and access, kind of like “if you don’t want me, then I don’t want you”. What I do know is that making quality education publicly inaccessible contributed. That their health insurance is tied to their job also means that their access to medical assistance is a trade-off, and workplace politics can always pull the rug. In short, they’re trapped by privatization of the resources that would’ve allowed them to survive and thrive more freely. “Trump” gave them digestible targets (e.g. it’s bioterrorism, it’s Fauci, it’s Big Pharma, it’s affirmative action, it’s DEI, it’s the establishment, it’s the Democrats… it’s not him, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s “they/them”) and “promised” them that the sources of their problems are going to disappear and they’ll get rich and happy and the booboo is gone for good, so that’s what they latched onto. What the other MAGA subgroups with their different motives are doing may be secondary for now since they don’t seem at odds yet. Maybe they don’t realize that not everyone can get rich, because if they did then the baseline of poverty would just be redefined. Or, considering how anti minimum-wage hikes some people can be, maybe they do realize not everyone can be rich, and what they’re seeking is to ensure that they’re relatively wealthy? Assuage a need for dominance/superiority?

So I’m of the opinion that hierarchies cemented through SES and sequestering access to basic needs were driving forces to anti-elitism and the sentiments that come with it. A worldview that uses SES as an assessment of whether people should be degraded is right up there as well. And this, unfortunately, only applies to the Trump supporters who are genuinely in it for anti-elitism, and not those who are using “anti-elitism” as a disguise to stoke the fire and be shielded by a raging group… which is yet another subgroup of MAGA it seems that’s leveraging the concept of collective/communal responsibility.

Isn’t the obvious answer to, “Why?” that he is trying to end the era of American global dominance? He comes right out and tells us that on his hat when you consider everything he says is either a projection or a lie.