There’s a fascinating online discussion going on that you’ve probably never heard of if you’re trapped in the liberal tribal media enclosure.

Author of the Mega-Viral Thread on MAGA Voters, Explains His Thinking. The writer, a podcast host whose real name is Darryl Cooper, set out to explain the mindset that has led so many Trump supporters to believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent and, more generally, to lose faith and trust in most U.S. institutions of authority. The writer especially calls out our corporate media, who he says are incapable of understanding let alone accurately describing the views of a group of people they view with little more than unmitigated contempt, condescension and scorn. He also believes it is imperative that people understand the actual reality of what is motivating so many Trump voters in their views, perceptions and beliefs — regardless of whether each particular belief is accurate or not.

I know what you’re thinking but you really need to understand this perspective if there’s any hope of reconciliation, or worst case scenario–avoiding a civil war.

What’s amazed me about all that has transpired since the election of Donald Trump is the way in which the narratives and actions of the political and media elite have transformed liberals into fervent Cold warriors, while conservatives have gone the reverse, becoming suspicious of American exceptionalism. What’s even more fascinating is that Russia-gate, which I have written so much about, seems to have been the galvanizing event.

Cooper claims that “many of them deny it now, but a lot of 2016 Trump voters were worried during the early stages of the Russia collusion investigation. True, the evidence seemed thin, and the very idea that the US and allied security apparatus would allow Trump to take office if they really thought he might be under Russian blackmail seemed a bit preposterous on its face. But to many conservatives in 2016 and early 2017, it seemed equally preposterous that the institutions they trusted, and even the ones they didn’t, would go all-in on a story if there wasn’t at least something to it. Imagine the consequences for these institutions if it turned out there was nothing to it”

After there was nothing to it conservatives, and yours truly, waited in vain for some sort of reckoning from our elite political and media. When everyone moved on like nothing untoward happened there was some serious soul searching by conservatives. As Cooper says, “this is where people whose political identities have for decades been largely defined by a naive belief in what they learned in civics class began to see the outline of a Regime that crossed not only partisan, but all institutional boundaries. They’d been taught that America didn’t have Regimes, but what else was this thing they’d seen step out from the shadows to unite against their interloper president?”

What’s darkly humorous is that the neoconservative foreign policy elite couldn’t have scripted a better ad campaign to convince liberals that the empire is A-OK. But in the process of attempting to depose Trump the deep state emerged from the shadows long enough for conservatives to grasp the danger of having an unaccountable, secret government.

Here’s where Cooper makes the connection. “It’s hard to describe to people on the Left, who are used to thinking of American government as a conspiracy and are weaned on stories about Watergate, COINTELPRO, and Saddam’s WMD, how shocking and disillusioning this was for people who encouraged their sons and daughters to go fight for their country when George W. Bush declared war on Iraq.”

Again, this whole thread is pretty amazing and I strongly urge liberals to read the whole thing. I’m no fan of the Donald or Republicans in general but what really got me was the reaction of liberals to the election of Trump. The shock and horror made them impervious to logic, historical perspective or common sense. They acted like Hillary was the personification of goodness while Trump was literally the devil. I mean, what the fuck! Were they unaware of US foreign policy while Clinton was Secretary of State? Was I the only one who saw the video of Hillary exulting–“We came, we saw, he died”–upon learning of Gaddafi being sodomized. Going further, were liberals completely oblivious to the conditions in America that enabled a hustler like Trump to even get within striking distance to the presidency? The late capitalist dystopia where untold thousands of people die every single year as a result of an exploitative status quo which makes them sick and impoverished, and is made possible solely because of a highly advanced propaganda campaign by the plutocratic class.

Yet the Democratic party spent zero time in rhetrospective, immediately pivoting to Russia-gate. And for liberals, it got downright embarrassing. Because it was Trump they immediately embraced the worst of the deep state actors–John Brennan of the CIA and James Clapper of the NSA. They built a fucking shrine for Robert Mueller of the FBI. The fucking FBI! The lack of historical reference boggled my mind. The FBI is the US’s political police, who’ve spent decades going after progressives, but bygones, now that they’re after Trump. Or something.

Ultimately Trump’s empire apostasy had zero effect. Conservatives, who see Trump as a deep state warrior need to admit that the deep state ran rings around him, perhaps because he appointed deep state swamp creatures into his administration. These creatures spent their time merrily sabotaging any and all efforts to end America’s wars and curtail its regime change shenanigans.

Not to give myself too much credit but I’m not as susceptible to the tribal dynamics because I’ve learned to tune out the tribal narratives and instead follow the money, the weapons and resources, and observe the actions of our feral elite. In the meantime my goal is to try to bridge the red/blue divide.

Call me purple.

The question I ask every day is how do we try to build the solidarities that we need to have, to change the society in the ways that make it better for everybody who lives in it when we live in this tribal hall of mirrors where partisan bickering is given more prominence than the reality of the American empire? An empire where Americans no longer possess political power and where corporate rule has replaced constitutional republicanism.

Here’s where Cooper says conservatives are after all of this. “I encourage people on the Left to recognize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in front of them. You’re not going to agree with the conservatives on everything. But if in 2004 I had told you that the majority of the GOP voter base would soon be seeing the folly of the Iraq War, becoming skeptical of state surveillance, and beginning to see the need for action to help the poor and working classes, you’d have told me such a thing would transform the country. Take the opportunity. These people are not demons, and they are ready to listen in a way they haven’t in a long, long time.”

Perhaps history is starting again, which means nothing is fixed and there are no guarantees.

To save our republic we will need to work together. There can be no team red or team blue. We all need to be purple.