The interviewees all had rationales that most of us progressives would call crazy but that they themselves thought of as extremely sensible. They all forgave Trump — or even lionized him — for things we progressives find inexcusable. Yet none of the interviewees are people most of us would think of as bad people. They’re average Americans. They’re not monolithic in their personal profiles and lifestyles, either, but come from 7 distinct archetypical categories the authors define. We progressives would probably like all of them if we met them, but we’d also feel as if we are unlike them. They all persist in supporting Trump, for example, and they all completely set aside the media criticisms of him.
Check out New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow's recent column, "A Blue Wave of Moral Restoration." Mr. Blow says "Donald Trump’s approval rating is rising." Yet he hopes we'll believe what I think he's being too optimistic about:
As a CNN analysis last month said: “ ... the Republican Party is in trouble heading into the midterm elections. If past trends hold, it is possible Democrats could see a double-digit swing in the average House district in 2018 compared with past elections.”
I see this as (pardon the armchair science) an instance of (political) "bifurcation," where bifurcation is a characteristic pattern that emerges in studies of "chaos theory." Such systemic bifurcations and splittings-apart, if they continue, can be precursors to chaos proper. Systems that are in chaos proper are prone to the "butterfly effect," in which microscopic perturbations lead to large-scale, unpredictable outcomes — as in "a butterfly beating its wings in Brazil can produce a tornado in Kansas."
That’s why I think Mr. Blow is too optimistic. Our politics is close enough to chaos that the outcomes of our coming elections may depend on the moods of butterflies ...
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