I think you’re right, save for one: getting a rise out of folks who have different political views.
The brick through the window is an intriguing thought but rather against the law. Maybe I’ll post flyers around town listing the various reasons we shouldn’t throw a brick through their window. Reverse psychology! Maybe someone will fall for it and I won’t have to go to jail.
You’re not really supposed to wrap around you like a cloak, wear it as a bandanna or fling it around like you’ve just joined the flag team but… heh, rules are for liberals not patriotic GOP members.
Yeah, this was pointed out in one of the articles that picked it up (maybe Newsweek?) Today when I saw the new flag, I think the American flag was positioned properly above the two Trump flags so I think they got that message. I’ll have to double check tomorrow.
They didn’t just embrace it, it lies at the very core of the Trump voter’s behaviour. “TRUMP: Making Liberals Cry” is the perfect summary of why people like this support Trump. Because it’s the main reason they voted for him.
It wasn’t because of racism, economic anxiety, evangelism, disconnect with globalism, or whatever other reason has been trotted out. Those reasons played a part sure, but they’re all secondary to the primary reason which is “Trump hurts the liberals”.
This is the platform Trump ran on. He was going to drain the swamp (which in the minds of his base means targeting liberals), he was going (or tried) to tear down everything that terrible liberal Obama did (ACA). He straight up insulted his opponents (Crooked Hillary), which was a good thing to his base because it showed his willingness to hurt the enemy tribe.
It’s tribalism in its purest poisonous form: anything that attacks/harms the other tribe is good because it means you’re winning. Those people with their flags? They literally believe that their lives are improved because Trump makes liberals cry. It’s simplistic to the extreme, but that’s why it’s so appealing to them. No need to think about anything, and if Trump does something that is against their supposed core values… well, that’s only secondary as long as he keeps hurting the enemy tribe.
Every single bit of behaviour you’ve seen from Trump’s base can be perfectly explained with this. The evangelists holding their nose on Trumps infidelity, the rurals ignoring the tax increases and near destruction of programs they actually rely on. It’s all for the same reason:
Trump hurting the enemy == winning. It’s the epitome of cutting off the nose to spite the face.
That’s why “racism”, “lying”, “cruelty”, however correct those descriptions might be, doesn’t move the needle at all. Seeing Trump with TP stuck to his shoe, however, might move the needle.
I had never heard of The Laughing Cow until just yesterday, when it came up as part of a trivia question in You Don’t Know Jack. Why couldn’t you have posted this 24 hours earlier?