The institutions Americans take for granted — and which work in the background as they pursue their daily lives — would be hurled into the foreground and dominate society in a second Trump administration, asserts journalist and political pundit Anand Giridharadas in a speech that sparked rage among the MAGA faithful.
Giridharadas, who has authored four books including The True American, says that Americans rely on systems and institutions — from the justice system to national security to the work of the FDA and financial industry regulators — that they have the luxury not to think much about. These institutions run in the background much like the electric grid, which few people pay any mind to until it breaks.
Americans are freed from everyday concerns about these institutions, Giridharadas contends, largely because, whatever their flaws, they work. This is unlike the situation in illiberal nation-states like Somalia and other places where institutional ineptitude and rampant corruption cause daily pain to citizens, making their lives miserable and dominated by politics.
This!!! A thousand times THIS!!!
pic.twitter.com/e2Lr4Su491
— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) October 17, 2024
Processes that Americans take for granted, and which Giridharadas asserts would be undermined in a second Trump administration, are what frees them to start a business, go to school, or otherwise pursue their dreams.
With Project 2025 as subtext, Giridharadas says that what the GOP is “proposing is not just an abstraction of fascism. It is a kind of political project where politics would eat your dreams, eat your plans.”
The comments on this post, both by MAGA adherents and those in agreement with Giiridharadas, revealed lives that are — by their own admission — already in many ways consumed by politics.
Ignoring the large number of dismissive and angry comments primarily concerned with Giridharadas’s hair and physical appearance, a look at the MAGA comments on this post expose and exemplify many of the key elements of the MAGA world view and the rancor that the GOP has tapped into — and in many cases fueled.
Below is a small sampling of many similar angry reactions, beginning with pro-life activist Kristan Hawkins, who expresses a left-behind feeling on economic progress — targeting the Biden-Harris administration despite record job creation, stock market highs, and wage increases that have surpassed inflation.
“politics would eat your dreams, your plans, and I don’t think most Americans want that.”
If you ask most lower and middle class Americans, they would tell you that politics has been doing this for the last 3.5 years.
— Kristan Hawkins (@KristanHawkins) October 17, 2024
Isn’t this exactly what has been happening? I mean, people are being jailed for praying in front of abortion clinics. And that is of course ignoring the political persecution of Trump and members of his team
— Todd Lilly (@toddlilly) October 17, 2024
The feeling of being persecuted is also strong in the movement. The above “persecution” claim claims Donald Trump and “his team” are the victims. The persecution claim below is more personal, one which Giridharadas might say should be measured against the truly life-threatening privations a Somalian or a resident in a true autocracy experiences.
I wouldn’t be persecuted and I would be able to gas up my car AND eat more than one meal per day.
— Beastlie_t (@BeastlieT) October 17, 2024
Yet it is also easy to find those who align with Giridharadas, as below. The X platform has noticeably elevates rightwing comments, so the ratio of acceptance versus refutation of Giridharadas’s assertion is hard to to measure. (And even harder to measure is how the online responses might correlate with electoral power.)
Notably, the comments aligning with Giridharadas’s view tend to address the content of his ideas without commenting on his physical appearance, another commonly seen difference between the two sides.
Americans should travel more . . . with enough travel through different regions you get to recognize how ‘developed’ countries are developed via the interconnected institutions that provide the context for their lives
the net of the connections is both the strength and fragility
— Pufalayam (the only actual Pufalayam) (@pufalayam) October 17, 2024
I recently went through not one but two hurricanes. It was unpleasant but I knew I could rely on my government to assist if the worst happened. I was lucky but it struck me that in a Somalia, Ukraine, Lebanon, there would only be chaos. That’s TFG.
— Susie Milian (@MilianSusie) October 17, 2024
Perhaps the single most cogent, eloquent, powerful assessment of the kind of men Trump and Vance are, and what is at stake in this election as a result
— ErgoVoila (@ergovoila) October 18, 2024