"Trump would not have risen to power if these people weren't willing to do what these people did."

[MomInTheCrowd]

Title is a quote from Dr. Jonathan Metzl in an interview on John Fugelsang's podcast last Friday, 03/01/24 called "Weekend Interviews". Absolutely worth the time to listen to how Dr. Metzl explains his research. Start at 34:00.

[link:http://www.johnfugelsang.com/podcast|

Dr. Metzl is the author of a book called "Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland". Paperback – May 12, 2020

The hardcover came out before Covid (paperback has new afterword to address this). The author had worked for over 10 years to suss out why good white folks in the Heartland vote against their best interests. It is to maintain their white power over the real or imagined "other", despite DIRECT EVIDENCE that it is KILLING THEM. They are good with taking one for the team, with being martyrs for the politicians to maintain their status at the top of the sh*t heap they are creating, by knowingly dying for an ideology.

Surprisingly, despite and it's not limited to caucasians, the tradeoff was "give me your life and I will give you power".

Description of the book:
"In election after election, conservative white Americans have embraced politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as physician Jonathan M. Metzl shows in Dying of Whiteness, the policies that result actually place white Americans at ever-greater risk of sickness and death. Interviewing a range of everyday Americans, Metzl examines how racial resentment has fueled pro-gun laws in Missouri, resistance to the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee, and cuts to schools and social services in Kansas. He shows these policies' costs: increasing deaths by gun suicide, falling life expectancies, and rising dropout rates.

Now updated with a new afterword, Dying of Whiteness demonstrates how much white America would benefit by emphasizing cooperation rather than chasing false promises of supremacy."