Yes, Biden Supporters Are Less Intense Than Trump Cultists: That's Actually a Very Good Thing
During the 2020 presidential campaign, Trump cultists liked to share memes juxtaposing images of sleepy, lonely, medium energy Joe Biden campaigning from his basement with Trump rallies where the now disgraced, twice-impeached ex-president was worshiped like a God by a vast army of amped-up admirers.
The implication was clear: obviously someone who inspires nothing but white-hot emotions, positive and negative, like Donald Trump is more popular and powerful than a politician who engenders lukewarm feelings like Biden.
Context is everything. Biden wasn’t holding huge rallies because there’s a pandemic going on and big events promised to be super-spreaders. But even in a world without COVID-19 it’s doubtful Biden would preside over massive rallies because that’s not his style.
Since Biden was inaugurated, I’ve noticed a lot of Conservative memes taunting that Liberals and Democrats must have all left Facebook because they’re not filling their daily feed with effusive praise of all the amazing things Biden is doing.
The implication is once again that Biden, a figure who does not inspire religious displays of loyalty and devotion must obviously have lost, and lost big, to Trump, an incendiary figure whose whole shtick entails antagonizing anyone and everyone who upsets him, whether they’re in his party or not.
Here’s the thing: Joe Biden is a politician. He’s not a cult leader. I voted for him because I hate Donald Trump, primarily, but also because even though Biden is more conservative than I’d like I share many of his beliefs regarding the big issues of the day. I did not vote for Joe Biden because I see him as a messianic figure literally sent by God to return a fallen nation to its white, Christian, heterosexual roots, which is how the QAnon folks see Trump.
The Democratic Party is a political party. For the last five years the Republican Party has been a cult. There’s no such thing as a half-assed cult. By definition cultists believe in something so intensely and pathologically that that belief defines them as a person.
Trump cultists consequently define themselves through a love of Trump so intense and all-important that they’re willing to risk losing jobs and friends and social status and the respect of the community for Trump’s sake.
It’s not that Joe Biden doesn’t inspire any excitement in his supporters but rather that he inspires an appropriate level of excitement and enthusiasm in the people who voted for him.
For example I am happy with many of the choices and decisions Biden has made since taking office, particularly with the big 1.9 trillion dollar COVID relief package. That’s an appropriate level of excitement and enthusiasm: I voted for the man to do pretty much what he’s been doing so far.
Folks who feel so strongly about the terrible injustice of a sacred landslide election victory being so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long that they dress up like cavemen and storm the capitol in defense of Donald Trump’s ego, on the other hand, are illustrating what I would definitely describe as an entirely excessive level of excitement and enthusiasm.
Biden supporters are much less passionate and insane about their guy than the folks on the other side. That’s actually a very good thing, despite what Trump true believers might have you believe.
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