The GOP can't leave MAGA — "Americans must electorally mercy-kill the Republican Party"
An ex-MAGA activist warns "no civic savior is coming" as Donald Trump's cognitive decline becomes undeniable
What if Donald Trump defeats President Biden and takes control of the White House in 2025? He has already announced his plans to become the country’s first dictator, and to launch a reign of terror and revenge against his so-called enemies. As detailed in documents such as Project 2025, Agenda 47, and elsewhere, the infrastructure is being created right now to put Trump's neofascist plans to end multiracial pluralistic democracy in effect on “day one." The so-called resistance will not have the courtesy of ramping up or mobilizing to stop Dictator Trump’s onslaught. It will be a “shock and awe” campaign visited upon the American people.
Dictator Trump’s reign of terror will be made even worse by the fact that as shown during recent speeches, interviews, and at other events he appears to be encountering severe difficulties in cognition, language, and memory.
In a series of recent conversations with me here at Salon, Dr. John Gartner, a prominent psychologist and contributor to the bestselling book "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President," has issued this warning: “Not enough people are sounding the alarm, that based on his behavior, and in my opinion, Donald Trump is dangerously demented. In fact, we are seeing the opposite among too many in the news media, the political leaders and among the public. There is also this focus on Biden's gaffes or other things that are well within the normal limits of aging. By comparison, Trump appears to be showing gross signs of dementia. This is a tale of two brains. Biden's brain is aging. Trump's brain is dementing.”
Again for the chuds and shills in the back:
And let's be honest, Trump has shown signs of dementia since the beginning of his first term. It was obvious when hearing his communication when he was younger.
Trump is now worse than Reagan 2nd term: not only is he demented, he and his people simply can't hide it at all.
Trump thinks he doesn’t need to hide it, and he’s too much of a narcissist to let anyone home anything about him.
Person, woman, man, camera, TV.
He passed the test! He can remember words he remembered!
Not that any test was given in that moment, but facts don't matter when you have Alternative Facts!™
What's terrifying about MAGA isn't Trump, it's who comes next.
A second term for Trump will be terrible, but it'll end fairly quickly as I don't think he's going to live another 10 years.
However, if you take a look at the "Next generation" they are all copying trumpism but just making it a bit more crazy. Vivek is the poster child for this behavior. They are finding more and more than just abandoning pretext and saying the quiet part outloud doesn't lose elections.
The only way to stop this is having the GOP lose over and over and over again. After Biden's presidency the GOP cannot see power for at least another decade otherwise it will just snowball into more extreme craziness (it may do that anyways as the insane base will keep moderates out of office).
Trump has also stated he wants to be a dictator on day 1. This plus all of the other anti-democratic stances of the Republicans has me convinced that if Republicans win in 2024, there isn't going to be another real election in the US. It'll either be so corrupt, abbreviated or "managed" that it's effectively Russia, or there will be an "emergency" that delays a national election indefinitely.
And then when we stop following the laws and the election is cancelled, we'll see if the second amendment actually matters.
2nd amendment won't matter unless a very specific thing happens: the entire government and executive branches, namely the military, collapses. It really depends on what the military does and enforces domestically. Whatever government the greater military props up wins and nothing individual citizens do can compete with that.
If everything collapses, famine will be the prime mover. And if you're not part of a roving band of armed looters or an entrenched armed community, you're screwed.
Cults of personality tend to die when the leader at the center goes away (by jail or death or something else). There are exceptions, but it's what tends to happen.
You can see this in the lackluster performance of down ballot candidates who get Trump endorsements. The cult wants Trump, the singular man. They don't turn out to put his lackeys into power. Some of them still win because they're in safe red districts, but they don't win as hard as they should.
It's a lesson Caesar's Legion in Fallout New Vegas taught us. A cult built around a charismatic leader often collapses into infighting when the leader dies. They follow the man, not his ideals. It may not happen right away, but it will given enough time. The followers will start to disagree on small things, some will be scooped up by some other charismatic grifter. In the end the movement fractures.
Not disagreeing with you necessarily, but I just love how you used a fictional example to learn from, which could be total bullshit since fiction is just that, made up.
The same thing happened with Alexander the Great.
What? Which ones?
I'm actually drawing blanks. Perhaps it's survivorship bias but to me it seems like most cults of personality stick around if there's no force actively shutting them down, generally with violence.
Nazi germany, for example, didn't end because hitler died. It ended because the allies and the soviet union occupied germany for decades squelching any Nazi sentiment. Ditto for Japan with the Hirohito (who himself was in a long line of royals that still continues just with muted power). You can look at mormonism where the founder was killed by a mob, that's still very much alive. Or Scientology where the leader had a heart attack. Heck, even the moonies are still around.
Without a heavy societal push, cults of personality very often linger.
Oneida Cult. It dispersed almost immediately when the founder was arrested, and all that remains is the silverware manufacturer. Quite a few other examples in upstate New York in the 19th century, which was a very popular place to start weird new religious movements. There were tons of them, but you only hear about a handful that survived--Mormons, 7th Day Adventists, and Jehovah's Witnesses are about it.
Nazis did fight right up to the point where Hitler died. He was the one pushing them to fight until every man, woman, and child in Germany was dead. Hitler died on April 30, and the official surrender happened on May 2. Nobody was actually interested in continuing to let Germany burn.
So yes, it's a matter of survivorship bias. You know the counter examples because they stayed around, but they're exceptions.
They may linger, but they never have the power they used to. If they do, they have to rebuild from scratch, which is more or less what Trump does with white supremacists.
I guess this is what generally concerns me about trump. I don't think he'll be replaced while he's alive. However, the apparatus that made him a god amoung racists is still in place and hasn't substantially been changed since he left office.
What's frightening to me is it just takes the rightwing grifters to rally on another god king to ultimately start this problem anew. We have an entire "media" ecosystem that's now learned that fascism is actually kind of cool.
The only hope, it seems to me, is that his supporters tend to be old people that will end up dying around the same time he does.
I'll also say that I don't think the study of cults (or more accurately to the terminology of the field, high control organizations and the BITE model) are very well developed. They're focused on identifying them, and helping individuals leave and reacclimate to the larger society. There's very little research on how high control organizations end, why the cults of personality that survived in the long run managed to do so, or tactics that could be used to dissolve them on a greater scale.
Here's the thing, I'm not sure I'd totally classify Trumpism as a high control org. It certainly has aspects of it, but it probably more closely resembles the hippy movement of the 60s (from which many cults did spring). The only real core belief is how awesome trump is. Beyond that it's a bunch of fringe and frayed beliefs based whatever that individual might believe.
For example, I have black in-laws that are also trump supporters (yeah.. I know) who are convinced that Trump isn't racist AND that trump has this secret plan that would have made all black people fabulously wealthy, Had Joe biden not stolen the election. It was something that was always on the cusp of happening were it not for "the deep state".
I don't think this is a mainstream trump belief but I now have to wonder how many trumpist have these sorts of special whacky beliefs untethered from the reality of who trump is.
But then there's another phenomena that seems somewhat unique to trump which is, when he says something they do not like it's "He didn't say that. Oh, he did say that? Well he didn't mean that, it was just something he said for X reason". That is, they don't actually care about what Trump says or does, they care about what he represents. Trump can't really command his followers super effectively because half the time they are going to think he's "just being trump". This is also where it's scary because a number of his followers want violence and I don't think trump could stop them if they started down that path.
As a former Jehovah's Witness myself, I can see parallels here. There are often things believed by rank and file members that don't match up with what people at the top are saying.
For example, if you were to ask regular JWs what the doctrine says about the Big Bang theory, you would get an answer consistent with most fundamentalists Christians--that is, throwing it in the same bucket as evolution. However, I've also gone over the actual published material on the subject, and it's not actually obvious what the official stance is. Much of what has been written in official material is along the lines of "the Big Bang shows that science agrees that the universe has a beginning, just like Genesis says". It never quite comes right out and approves it, but it never strongly denies it, either. It's a major contrast from evolution, where the official stance is quite clear.
They seem to be fully aware that the rank and file think one thing, but the official doctrine in place is something else. I find that even many former members are surprised to learn this.
I bring this up to say that you might be seeing a similar thing among your relatives. There are all sorts of crazy Trump beliefs that derive from nothing the man has actually done or said. People will imprint their own thoughts and hopes into places where there is otherwise a vacuum of things the cult tells you to think.
Oh hey, I'm exmormon myself! Isn't it fun how these high demand religions drive you into researching what makes cults in the first place :D
We sort of have an analogy within mormonism though it's a bit different. For mormons, the issue is almost the opposite, rather than no ever having an official stance on things mormonism has had official stances on just about everything but then it's slowly walked them back and distanced itself from the wacky belief. However, that means that the rank and file still remember, hold onto, and retell things that the org itself would rather go away. For example, blacks and the priesthood. Mormons would much rather the doctrine and leaders weren't so explicit about the "curse of Cain".
Similarly, mormonism has gone everywhere from denying evolution to even denying astronomy (They used to literally believe that the sun was Heaven, the moon lesser heaven, and the stars even lesser heaven). That's actually why mormons were some of the first moon landing conspiracy theorists.
We do have some off track beliefs with little to no teachings, but mormons are a lot quicker to try and tamp down and eliminate those. For example, heavenly mother.
The end result is you do still have people teaching weird non-doctrinal (or previously doctrinal) while the church tries to back away and kill them off.
I know this is a bit of a sidetrack, but are you still in contact with anyone that's a JW and are they all Trumpers? Trumpism took mormons by storm, they are some of the most dedicated adherents to it. I'm wondering if the same thing happened with other high demand religions.
I don't have any particular contact with JWs. My impression is that the rules against contacting ex members among the Latter Day Saints is much weaker than JWs, who have a strong prohibition against it.
That said, JWs in general are supposed to be politically neutral, which means not voting and not explicitly taking sides. Now, during my time in, I heard plenty of people express opinions that would tend to land one direction or another, and I had similar opinions myself. Most of the ones I heard actually tended more towards the Democratic party than Republicans, but that might be because I grew up in a city and people absorb the opinions of other people around them.
Most ex JWs go either towards Democrats or much further to the left.
Your impression is correct. I knew it was bad for exJW but hoping it wasn't still pretty universally bad.
Sorry to hear you had to go through that. I can't imagine how big of a mindfuck that would be coupled with the mindfuck of "everything I was taught was a lie". Just the latter was one of the worst experience of my life.
I hope you are in a much better place now.
Thanks! It's been over a decade now and I have new friends.
Latter-day Saints have absolutely no prohibition against interacting with former members of the Church. Unfortunately, many former members leave under difficult circumstances and distance themselves from their friends who remain in the Church. We would love nothing more than to stay in contact with them and still be friends.
Many former mormons, like myself, are distanced by their "friends" as soon as they leave. It's a two way street and all the responsibility isn't on a single party.
Often times that "friendship" is contingent on church attendance and belief.
Have you ever asked a former member why they left? What did they say?
Plenty of us despise him, though, and one of the highest leaders of the Church has donated to the Democratic party in the past.
Oh wow, I need to update my mental facts here.
https://www.americansurveycenter.org/newsletter/trumps-problem-with-mormon-voters-is-getting-worse/
Early demographics for Mormons was something like 70% approval which had them as one of the most trumpy demographics. However, it looks like that approval has taken a significant nose dive. With a majority now disfavoring him.
If I can ask. Did you previously support Trump? If so, what changed to make you despise him? Also, in the up coming election what are you planning on doing (assuming both Biden and Trump are the nominees, which seems obvious at this point).
I have known anti trump Mormons, but my understanding is they were the minority (apparently not).
I have never supported Trump. I was serving my mission in 2016 when he was elected and I couldn't find a polling place to vote, and I sort of had a favorable impression of him at first just because my family are big Trump supporters. However, many of his policies and his hateful rhetoric are impossible to square with my religious beliefs, which I consider to be mostly centrist. I think most Latter-day Saints are in a similar boat. We are serious about our religion and aren't going to support a political leader who goes against many of our most deeply-held moral doctrines.
The most important thing we believe are the commandments given by Jesus Christ in Matthew 22:36-40. These are summarized as "love God with all your being" and "love everyone around you as well as you love yourself". I can't see how it could be possible to support Trump and sincerely believe in those commandments at the same time.
For me, however, the final straw was when Trump started speculating on live television about injecting light into people to fight the Covid virus. It was utter loony talk and I was completely disgusted. January 6th didn't surprise me at all (Trump was laying the groundwork for it a year in advance) and at that point I almost registered as a Democrat. Now that Trump has taken control of the Republican party I'm definitely registering as a Democrat before November.
Scientology is a religion, was always meant to be a religion. Trump isn't going down that angle. Ironically, he's too much of a narcissist to have the self inflection enough to become a religious leader.
With something like Trump, who else in the party is going to take up the banner? DeSantis? He got completely fucking disgraced this last year attempting that. Haley? She's a sociopath and nobody really likes her on either side. Trumps children? They're about as charismatic as a wet sock.
He has no legacy. He's it. It's the weakpoint of serial narcissists. Their empire collapses when they do, because they're too insanely jealous to share any secrets or power with anyone else.
Can't stop the power sharing once you are dead.
I've no clue who 2.0 will be. Could be someone not on the stage at the moment, could be someone like Jim Jordan or Matt Gaetz. There's lots of options to be sorted out after Trump dies.
I view it sort of like the situation with the major rightwing propagandists. When Rush Limbaugh died, that wasn't the end of rightwing propaganda, there were already new shitheads in the rafters like Tucker Carlson that'd eaten up the space.
With Tucker off the air, there's now Jessie Waters (or whatever) doing his part. Before that there was bill oriely.
Trump might not be setting up a dynasty but that's not really what I'm concerned about, I'm concerned about him setting up fascism that's willing to glom onto the next leader like it glomed on to him.
This is asking a lot imo. You’re asking everyone to be vigilant and I think the last 10 years have proven that a significant proportion of the voter population cannot be relied on to be vigilant, because they’re content in being myopic.
That seems to be the weak point of a republic. I just watched a video essay on YouTube about the politics of Star Wars and how the Republic fell to the Empire and I think the guy made a lot of good points and it included a call to action in our elections. I think Star Wars is known to have taken from the fall of the Roman Republic and there’s more recent examples of the death of a democracy in the Weimar Republic in Germany.
With the two real life examples, all it took was a prolonged period of decay (from inside and outside factors) to lead to the Roman Autocratic Empire and Nazi Germany. I’d argue the US was on this relative path before with the America First party that rose to oppose FDR in the 1930’s. All it may take is another bad world event to push people into being content with a populist autocrat like Trump.
I’m still hopeful, but we should all take the lessons of the past into account when deciding how to move forward.
Not to mention that the resistance is immensely fractured. I'm still not sure that we've seen an event heinous enough to galvanize the opposition past ideological boundaries. For many, stopping Trump is not yet enough to delay their potential political gains. Populism rides on the strongest human emotions, the easiest and vaguest enemies, and the simplest (wrong) answers. It's going to take a united effort, the sort that was brought about by the geopolitical situation in the FDR era, or I worry that we fail.
The "resistance" is clustering themselves into smaller and smaller areas and because of our shitty representative apportionment they lose political power when moving to populated places.
If we want to fix this we need to convince people that the amenities in cities aren't going to survive when the federal government mainly represents empty land and thinks those amenities are from Satan.
I'm not exactly going to fault persecuted people for fleeing their homes. It's not always about "amenities" as much as it is safety and belonging. I'm not against the idea that this dilutes our political power in our system, but I'm also not sure that it's the front I'm going to choose to fight on.
Absolutely. There are definitely people who need to leave in order to be safe.
But when I talk to people who don’t have that problem about living in flyover country their first response is “There’s nothing to do out there.”
Guess this one just hit close to home since I am one of the aforementioned runners. I do think that if someone is in the position to be able to contribute their vote in an area where it will make more impact, they should do so. I guess I just also understand not wanting to dictate so much of your life for a minor bump in a political cause, imperative as it might be. It's a hard situation all around.
TBF, the only thing that matters is if he lives another 4 years. 8 if he loses this election.
The implication is that if Trump wins, he won't be leaving in 4 years. He won't be leaving until death. Because that's what dictators do.
But doesn't that just mean they will go back to not saying the quiet part out loud? Doubt they will actually change and have someone decent as a candidate anytime soon.
Exactly. Conservatives do not change. They just change how loud they are about their bigotry.
Republican party doesnt need a mercy kill.
It needs a legitimate, in depth, non-partisian federal criminal investigation and convictions against every one in the party that has betrayed their office and sold America out to foreign powers... Or have fucked kids.
Which, unfortunately for them, seems to be a significant chunk of them.
Start with all the ones that I've been balls deep on Putin.
No.
No mercy.
Make it an example.
Let them be electorally crucified. Make voting GOP as reviled as voting for the KKK.
Is it not? I've already felt that way, but having the comparison is a good point.
In a way, voting for the KKK is smarter. At least then you'd be part of the in-group you're voting for.
God, I wish.
I don't see why they deserve any mercy.
Because not all sheep deserve to be slaughtered. There's a lot of people who vote out of fear because they don't know any better. It's the Republican party that needs to be done away with.
I think it's important to clarify here that "the Republican Party" (see also: "the GOP") refers to the party leaders and political figures. It doesn't (usually) refer to the voters, although you might hear "Republican consituency" or "Republican voters", or even "Republicans". But "the Republican Party" is generally agreed to mean the leaders, or the organization that presents them as leaders. I think you agree with that point because you seem to be making the same clarification in your last sentence. My comment, and the article headline, are referring to this group.
I think I agree with you that the sheep don't need to be slaughtered, although they are going to need some very tough medicine.
The people who led them to this point? No mercy.
exactly.
Whether we like to believe it or not, no one is the villan of their own story. I won't deny that the Republican party courts the worst of the worst types of scumbags around us, but their propaganda machine gets so many people in so many different ways.
They managed to get my otherwise amazing gay cousin to vote for Trump by his displeasure with the Israel/Palestine conflict (this was well before the current genocide) The media he was consuming framed everything in terms of Democrat support so he was lead to believe the Republicans have the "compassionate" resolution. He votes against his own well being because of propaganda... :(
The Republican Party simply represents the voters, they’d get no votes without that.
So no, they don’t deserve mercy. The average conservative voter is the very reason we have this problem to begin with.
Politicians need someone to represent. They found it in America’s racists and nationalists.
Yes, but part of the Republican strategy is to distort the truth or history using lies. They may have found what they want or need in America’s racists and nationalists, but not until they pumped them full of misinformation first.
Bollocks. Anyone who still supports Trump after 6 January 2021 knows exactly what they are signing up for.
Never ceases to amaze me how often I see this canard:
So Dems, who are never elected to represent those poor, forgotten souls in the rust belt or former coal mining towns, and therefore are not in a position to actually do anything to help them, are somehow culpable for those folks, what, voting against their interests?
Fuck off with this both sides enlightened centrist bullshit. Folks in Virginia and Alabama voted for right wingers who fucked them over, then those people successfully channeled the resulting anger and resentment at the "establishment".
It's the political consequences of starve the beast politics.
Which Republican said "The era of big Government is over!" right before dismantling or slashing the bulk of federal safety net programs? Which Republican took office on anti-corruption messaging, then immediately turned around and let criminal bankers who decimated the US economy off the hook?
The Republican party is a psychotic cesspool, but Democrats have plenty to answer for too. The rust belt in-particular was dominated by Democrats until Bill Clinton made the conscious choice to turn against the unions that had put him in office.
Trump is literarlly elected because Hilary's campaign elevated him in their piped piper strategy to make Republiacan candidate more extreme so more people vote for her. https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/
Cool, so Hillary and the DNC were such incredible political masterminds that they single-handedly brainwashed GOP supporters into nominating Trump. And all the voters then picked him because, I assume, the DNC also tricked them into tacking toward fascism through, I guess, sheer force of political will.
Truly amazing.
Or course, it makes sense. Certainly when I think of the DNC and the Dems more broadly, I think of an incredibly effective organization with an all-powerful and unstoppable mind control apparatus demonstrating unparalleled powers to manipulate an unwitting electorate in order to achieve their nefarious goals.
And the GOP and their voters? Obviously simply sheep, following the lead of their Democratic puppet masters.
I'd call it a left-wing conspiracy theory, but if there's anything I know about the Dems, it's that they're such incredible strategic politicians that this can't be anything but the stone cold truth. Right?
Certainly that explains why, after the 2016 election, all those poor GOP voters woke up, confused and hung over, and realized what they'd done while under the spell of those nefarious Democrats, and why in subsequent years they rejected Trump wholeheartedly and certainly never goose stepped right along behind him.
I think it's less "sophisticated mind control apparatus" and more
"Lol this guy is truly an insane charicature no rational person would want, let's make sure we go up against him! Yeah, lol, nominate this clown you guys."
...And they weren't counting on just how "popular" a conspiracy-spouting walking meme of a madman would become to an easily-mobilized, highly emotional, constant-threat-perceiving, under-educated, news-cycle-obsessed slice of the population.
Y'know like when the CIA installs international dictators who are "friendly to our interests" and it completely backfires when they get off the leash.
So let me make sure I understand:
Step 1: DNC highlights the right-wing nutjobs in the GOP as a way to scare the undecides into voting for them. "Look at those nutjobs!" they say. "Aren't they fucking nutty? Who would vote for someone that nutty? Not you. Because that would be really dumb, right?"
Step 2: GOP primary voters decide "Well shit, those nutjobs? Those are my kinda nutjobs!" and nominate Trump.
Step 3: In the general, all those GOP voters then vote for the nutjob.
And thus I am to conclude: Hillary and the DNC helped create the MAGA brownshirts.
Yeah. That makes sense.
It's kinda like how, if I tell a toddler not to put paperclips in wall outlets, and then they do it and electrocute themselves, then really it's my fault because I pointed it out in the first place.
No, the rich corporations funded both and told them to support each other. It is not just a conspiracy theory, there are cryptographicaly signed emails about this, for which journalists when to jail for publishing. There are public records of major donors funding both sides. They are all puppets that play in theater of politics to pretend to be enemies while working for the same employer doing the same thing and getting votes by pretending they are against each other.
Why would anyone nominate Biden? Couldn't find a weaker candidate. It's like putting a sleeping toddler in as goalkeeper and be annoyed that a one footed senior might score a goal.
In case you forget 2014-2016, Biden was immensely popular. He was seen as empathetic and with a sense of humor prior to Obama leaving office (remember all of the Biden/Obama bromance memes?) He was the most primed for the job in the public's eyes.
I mean if you wanted relatable and empathetic with a stable track record we could have had Bernie but his own party had to pull the rug on him. =\
Americans have been electorally mercy killing the GOP for forty years, they invented moving the goalposts in response.
There may still be a less electoral way to mercy kill the GOP.
Feeling incredibly happy every time a cockroach dies of old age, because I'm pretty sure this means I'm beating them.
Unfortunately, the folks with the highest proclivity to try and run a rival's campaign bus off the road aren't in the liberal party.
They have been killing them with the popular vote. The GOP wins the electoral votes often actually.
It is refreshing to see someone who has left MAGA and realises the full potential danger that Trump and the GOP pose.
don't make me hope ;_;
i have been dreaming of this,
pleading for this.
but i never dared to consider it might actually happen
i can't afford enough copium to sustain it
Sadly seems to be a small minority though.
This is another framing suggesting that the Republican party was a legitimate party until Trump, they have been the party of racists since, at least, Nixon and the implementation of the southern strategy.
Trump isn't the root of the evil of the party, the party has been evil for 60 or so years, trump is the logical conclusion.
Calling it a mercy killing erases all the evil done for so long. The party doesn't need a mercy killing, it needs to be held accountable for the evil it has done for decades.
There is no more Republican party, it is MAGA now. People who don't fall in line behind Trump are retiring and leaving office.
No, there is a Republican party. It's MAGA and a large number of voters who vote R regardless of name.
So many Republican voters simply don't care.
Source: I worked as an election poll worker. The number of people who asked me, "Who are the Republicans?" on ballots where there is no party would shock you.
Trumpism is not going to be defeated by voting at this point. Pelosi: "US needs a 'strong' Republican Party." Dems are fine with the good cop, bad cop dynamic.
In this case she may have been making an indirect swipe at Republicans in general, saying that the party isn’t strong.
Yeah, that's the way I read, especially given all the republican infighting.
The country genuinely does need a competitive second party.
Everyone blames Democrats for the lack of choice in candidates, while the other guys are nominating a twice impeached, adjudicated rapist and insurrection supporter with ninety one criminal indictments and multiple pending civil suits.
I haven't had a candidate come out of the GOP worthy of consideration in my entire lifetime. At one point, they were the party of not only Lincoln but folks like Eisenhower.
It needs an electoral system that makes third parties viable.
You know it's bad when "BuT hE hAsN't bEeN cOnViCtEd YeT!" is somehow a defense for supporting this guy.
Like, c'mon that nonsense wouldn't fly pertaining to your daughter's new boyfriend, why the heck would you let it excuse somebody running a crumbling world superpower?!
You've now been made a moderator of Lemmy's conservative community. That's exactly what they spout constantly...
Trump is here because dems wanted an easier candidate to run against. https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/
2016 was 8 years ago, and I think it's rather weird and conspiratorial to blame Hillary for Trump in the first place. She might've had a preferred opponent but she certainly didn't control the GOP. She barely controlled the DNC. She had a hard fought primary with Bernie who wasn't even a member of the party, and had a relatively low national profile before the election.
This points at exactly what I'm talking about above. To hear you tell it, Democrats are somehow the only people with agency in the entire political landscape.
Politicians have no real agency, it is the rich that control the entire political landscape. They liked Hilary and Trump, and they told them to support elevate each other so that no matter who wins, they get their way. They do this in every election, same major donors fund both sides.
Democrats and Republicans are just puppets that pretend they are against each other, but in reality they are on the same side working for the same employers and getting votes by bashing each other.
So you had a long think on this response and decided that your take that Hillary was responsible for Trump was too nuanced? 😆
There are material differences between Democrats and Republicans and acting like there aren't serves nobody (except perhaps Republicans).
Trump is a democrat funded candidate in republican party. They both work for the same people and same interests.
You're an idiot
Sounds like he's well qualified to be the first king of the USA. He's got everything. A ridiculous family tree, he's loony, he's corrupt, he's bankrupt. All hail king Trump the first!
King Donald I. They use first names for kings
Yeah, it would be the first king in the Trump dynasty. Blech.
Republicans are at best corporate shit slingers and at worst fascists and pedophiles. Why do they deserve anything resembling mercy?
I think plotting the execution is a bit premature given how they're winning all the judicial races.
It is a saying...
And in the end almost everyone deserves mercy.
The republican party is not a person though. Theres no need to be merciful to a ideaology, especially one that aspires to become fascism.
Bless your heart.
He misspelled politicians.
This subject does not seem to be receiving the warranted attention it deserves
Fitting. American democracy began with Mad King George III and will end with Mad King Trump I.
Wait a minute, if we get rid of the Republican Party, wouldn't a two party system become a one party system? So if Trump is elected, end of democracy, if Republican party is destroyed, also end of democracy? Is there no way out? End of democracy either way?
No more than the death of the whigs. A dead Republican Party creates a vacuum for either the democrats to split or a third party to ascend
I bet that will work about as well as trickle down economics.
Nah, the US-system is mathematically locked in a two-party system, it absolutely demolishes the chance for a third party but doesn't tolerate a single party either. Though it might take 8 - 12 years for the (former) republican vote to congeal around a new point of possible agreement.
Yeah, I don't think this article makes sense. I don't think Republican party will die until we change elections into ranked choice voting or direct democracy.
We’ve had party changes and party restructures before. It’s not unheard of. There is the third option of the republicans needing to restructure and hide for a while like they did after the new deal.
So in the mean time, before this restructure, if it happens at all, there would be a period where one party would have unlimited power? Sounds like very risky, if it gets to that point, they can use that power to stay in power forever. I think we need ranked choice voting before we get rid of republicans or some sort of direct democracy.
I fully agree with tanked choice, and want to pressure politicians towards it. Hell I’ve been parliament curious lately. But I also understand the difference between realistic and unrealistic worries. The democrats are a catch all party with less cohesion than would be necessary for a tyrannical single party. And it’s not unlimited power, there are usually a few independents in congress. If the republicans collapse we’ll either have a replacement party within like an election or two or we’ll have a lot of independents very quickly.
I’m not saying that a single party isn’t bad. My home state is so gerrymandered that republicans brazenly defy the will of the citizens. Like we added abortion to our constitution and legalized marijuana by ballot initiative and the republicans in charge promptly considered banning abortion anyways and have been fighting over how best to gut the marijuana legislation we voted on since. But there’s a huge difference between gerrymandering and other means by which a single party holds control and a major party collapsing because it’s become so toxic it can no longer win
honestly I wouldn't risk it to wait for an election or two. Once you have complete power you can use it to stay in power, gut everyone from the party that is not on your side. It is such a big risk to have a one party system, even for a short while, that risking your vote now for the third party is actually lower.
Okay? Your prediction is based on what exactly? You're pitching a hypothetical outcome to a hypothetical situation. We're in the factual shallow end here.
I'm not a political scientist but I watched Hamilton one time, and I think what would happen is the parties start to move around. Right now both parties are unfortunately right leaning.
Democrats, by European standards, are middle-right, while Republicans are
chaotic evilfar right. Maybe the parties start moving closer to the left?I hope so, sounds very risky to get rid of Republican party first and then wait in a one party system until something changes. I am afraid that once you have someone with complete power, they will use it to stay in power forever.
The two party system isn't the rule as much as it is a symptom of our winner-takes-all voting system. In the event that the Republican party loses significant support from voters, the Democratic party would surely split into two polar factions.
In countries with one party systems they also have winner-takes-all voting system. I think that without two parties at least, one party will take over complete power and use it to stay in power forever.
The Democrats because what they already are: the right wing corporatist party, and hopefully leftists actually form a coalition and a party
The real fix is to get rid of the electoral college. Only then will the will of the people be felt.
Yes, but it's more than that. The electoral college only affects the presidency. We also need ranked choice voting. The first-past-the-post system assures the dominance of two parties, which can play the voters off each other to do whatever the donor/capitalist class wants. Mandatory voting and fully publicly financed elections would also be huge wins.
Maybe this is me being overly optimistic, but ideally if the Republican party ends, the power vacuum left behind would be filled by multiple parties, who would be more motivated to do things like implement ranked choice voting, abolish the electoral college, fix gerrymandered districts, etc. So we'd end up with a multiple party system. Maybe. Hopefully.
Ranked choice has to precede a pluralistic system. We've had similar upheavals before, a long time ago (one presaged the civil war), but as long as we have first-past-the-post, it will always settle into two-party lock-in. But, and this is the good news, after the civil war, we had the second founding - a massive overhaul of the Constitution, for the better. If, in the aftermath of the death of the Republican party, we get another chance at that, (hopefully without all the killing), maybe we can enact ranked choice, eliminate the electoral college, ban gerrymandering, establish mandatory voting, add an enforced "none of the above" option to ballots, expand the Supreme Court, uncap the House of Reps limit, eliminate the senatorial land-vote in favor of proportional representation, get fully publicly funded elections, and and and am I asking too much? I just want a real democracy.
Extremely optimistic.
The two party system currently is holding hostage debates/funding/media. Even social media is in on it. Which is why a third party has always struggled. Not because they didn't have good ideas, but because they were shut out of the room.
The two-party system is a system, and systems can be changed. If the Republican party finally implodes, just as when the Whigs did, it will be an amazing opportunity for progress. We need to be ready to move.
Yeah I don't disagree with you. But for what it's worth, I think there's a chance that we could end up with a multi-party system if the Republican party dissolves. If the Democratic party disappears, I think it's a whole other story.
We need to enact schrodinger's vote. Put the Democrats and Republicans in a box and never check on them again. Are they dead or alive? Walking fossils are kind of both. 🤔
There are plenty of other parties.
Even if the Republican party disappears I guarentee liberals will tell you voting for a party like the greens or cpusa would be a wasted vote. It's the only strategy they have other than not being republicans.
Oh, I don't know about that one. The job of the press corp is to report, not to speculate. This is one of the problems we have now, there's far too much opinion and speculation in the "news" media. I have to use quotes for news because what most Americans choose to observe as the news today is a shell of what it once was. The call should be for less speculation and more unbiased reporting and interviews for both sides.
Incidentally, since I was a kid, I've always thought the news and government leaders have failed to educate the people about policy and intents. This seems to be where speculative and opinion based journalism have taken seat.
Agreed. Because (again) "the news" doesn't so much care about their responsibility as the fourth pillar of democracy but about their responsibility to advertisers and share holders. Trump and fear have always been the Big Stories that generate ad revenue.
I mean, he is the incumbent president. Does anyone even know who's running against him in a primary? No. because the media isn't reporting that (enough).
I'm honestly a little more distraught about what the press has become than four more years of Trump. It's in large part because of the press and media outlets pretending to be news that we have Trump in the first place.
Although, I do blame The Public's lack of interest and attention more so. People just don't care to watch actual news. They only care about headlines and short video clips and thriving in their echo chambers. So, as much as I'd love more federal funding for non-profit journalism, that's not going to overcome our disinterest in real unbiased reporting and interviewing.
I think the future of this country is very, very dismal. The polarization of politics can only get worse as we hand over all our Power of The People to social media and content makers and (eventually) AI – unless we adopt Ranked Choice Voting. RCV could very well reduce the polarization and extremism on both sides of the aisle while (eventually) cultivating a congress that works together to enact legislation making this country more representative of The People. As would public funding of all elections and regulating the power of special interest groups in DC.
We have intentional propaganda for political power (Fox/Newsmax) and we have propaganda for monetary gain (literally every single major media corporation) then there are a handful of outliers like NPR/PBS that not too many people pay attention to.
Actually, I felt hit over the head watching PBS Newshour after Katie Britt's objectively bizarre SOTU response. Here's a link to the recorded live stream timestamped immediately after Britt's address (~2:11:00)(you're welcome) https://www.youtube.com/live/nFMuU4uCFh0?si=70umbfLmLbqojLRj&t=7851
They responded like grown ass adults and (for the most part) on the content and relevance of her address. I don't know how they were able to hold it together with such professionalism. I think part of it is that they have a spectrum of political leanings there who still have respect for one another. They're there to report on the event and offer broad context to the story without getting in the weeds and bickering for ratings.
Ms swift just needs to drop the hammer.
I have been saying this for awhile. They need to be forced into a restructure like they did in the past. Remember the whig party? No I don't either but its in the history books as should be the only place for the GOP.
If we seek out ways to 'kill' that 'political party' I urge we give no mercy, no quarter, and we finish the damn job.
And by "finish the job" we of course mean going all the way: Unscrewing the pommel and ending them rightly.
https://www.keithfarrell.net/blog/2017/08/end-rightly-translation-error/
Although I find the meme hilarious, this makes perfect sense. That's something I assumed as well. The pommel was likely weighted and heavy, and the shock of it coming at you and the sudden ear-ringing "CLANG" of it bouncing off your helmet was probably just wtf-disorienting enough to allow your opponent into your blind spot or deadly proximity. Ouch.
I've practiced something similar in martial arts, where you throw your hands wildly toward the face for a half second and take advantage of the blinking flinch for a sweep or grab.
Thanks for sharing!
Maybe if people understood electoral design and consensus mechanism we could have something other than the worst possible options in each party. Election mechanisms that promote popularity instead of acceptability is what got us here. The truth is the system doesn't work. When can people just start saying that openly?
Are any motherfuckers protesting in the lobby if the NYTimes LA Times, Chicago Tribune, or anywhere else that has been cushioning and softballing this shithead?
I don't think we get enough credit just how much we've fought back the Republican assholes. Our system gives them a huge edge and we're still winning. It's the equivalent of fighting somone with your hands tied behind your back and still giving them an ass whooping.
Until and unless we have a way to artificially enhance intelligence - or find some other way to push human nature forward - we will likely always be stuck with some significant minority of the deplorables. The trick is to not give them any power or say whatsoever, though.
You will choose between two senile candidates. One a psychopath wannabe dictator, the other one a genocide enabler. I am not jealous.
Sorry to challenge your worldview, but they are both genocide enablers. Arguably one of them already directly committed one by not taking the pandemic seriously. Not all 1 mil+ covid deaths are on his hands but many, many of them are.
I agree with you that they are both genocide enablers but calling the pandemic a genocide doesn't quite work. It didn't wipe an entire group of people off of the planet or out of an area. But yes, anyone who supports Israel right now is a genocide enabler, literally, and unfortunately both qualify, and so does almost all of congress.
If the system only gives you genocide enablers as an option it's time to stop believing in that system.
Thank you for saying this. Yes. It was a mass casualty event perpetrated by willful incompetence of the highest degree, but it was an indiscriminate killer, not a targeted attack on a certain subset of human beings.
I notice people, especially fellow left-leaners, throwing the term "genocide" around like it just means "kills a bunch of people in some country or something." It's a strongly-worded appeal to emotion, and the heinousness of such a crime loses its meaning when it isn't specific.
By all means lets accuse these politicians of the crimes they commit, but we lose credibility when we ignore literacy in exchange for drumming up fervor.
If the system only gives you genocide enablers as an option it’s time to stop believing in that system.
Why should this challenge my worldview? I literally called him a psychopath. I just despice both of them.
"One of them is a genocide enabler". The wording of A is this, B is that, asserts contrast and not a shared characteristic. Just a friendly reminder that both of them are genocide enablers.
Trump didn't have the chance yet. But yes, I agree that he is an aspiring genocide enabler. Doesn't change my views about Biden, though.
Sorry, you didn't shatter any worldviews today, but we had a nice chatter about semantics.
Israel has been plotting genocide for quite a while and anyone who has kept a bead on Israel knows that. If you supported them even before the immediately recent actions you are still a genocide enabler. So it's still both.
I too, prefer my politicians bland.
Ok, maybe a little paprika.
Trump does look like a well spiced bird that's been under a heat lamp for about 40 years.
Biden looks like a bland bird that's been left to boil in a pot for 10.
Trump will also enable the genocide and remove all aid to Ukraine to give to Israel too.
As long as it all cycles back to the defense contractors the real people in power in washington would let him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD6kvDHbIYY
Quite possible.
He's already said as much. So I'd imagine it's more incipient than possible
I like Donald Trump and I'm voting for him in 2024.
Am I allowed to say that here?
I have to ask, why? Why would you support someone so transparently anti-democracy, possibly one of the most dangerous enemies of the United States in a long time, the leader of our very own home grown Beer Hall Putsch? Why would you give him a second chance to overthrow the democratic government of our country?
Because they align with every thing you just said he's going to do?
They won't respond, they have thrown their hand grenade and they're off to the next comment section.
https://lemmy.world/comment/8342141
Why did you link me to a comment by a six hour old account with five comments?
I have no intention of drive-by comments. I'm here.
What got your last account banned?
On Lemmy? This is my first and only account.
On /r/politics I'd expect to get banned for such a comment, hence my first question.
No one has ever gotten banned on r/politics for saying they like Trump, that's just a myth conversatives like to tell each other.
It's like how they like freedom and small governments.
On Lemmy you can check the public modlogs and see the other people banning people for wrongthought is the conservative community and .ml.
The mainstream media "fake news" has created a caricature out of Trump. They have taken what he has said out of context, taken soundbites, and not accurately reported what he's said and done. Therefore, it is no surprise to me that you, and many, feel the way you do. I'd be on your side if I believed the caricature version.
Look, I've talked to enough people to realize that we have more in common than not. And what's dividing us are the filters. I listen to Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, and Joe Rogan. Others (speaking in generalities, not specifically you) may read and listen to MSNBC, Salon, The Atlantic, The Rolling Stones, etc. Fair to say these two categories are not even reporting the same basic information, let alone opinion on the matter.
May I suggest listening and going to these sources that don't agree with you (or you even find very offensive), and see what they have to say. That's why I'm here. I want to connect with people, and see what people I don't necessarily agree with are saying. I don't care what you believe or where you came from.
I realize I didn't exactly answer the question you asked, but if you really are interested in what I think (and I'm no one special) reply and I'd be happy to talk to you.
I don't need any talking heads, "fake news" or otherwise, to tell me what my own eyes and ears saw and heard in the months between election night and January 6th (and in the years since, my conviction has only been strengthened honestly)
Donald Trump is easily the largest threat to American democracy in the 150 years since the civil war, because he's tricking millions and millions of people into not believing in the democratic process itself, and is responsible for the first time in our country's entire history that the peaceful transfer of power (ie, a candidate gracefully losing, which is a core component of a stable democracy) was threatened
I don't give a shit about his policies, his clips, his soundbites, whatever other things you think are being used to unfairly paint him in a bad light, this fact alone makes him wholly unfit to be the leader of the free world
Yes. But don’t be surprised.
Out of curiosity, given that the author of the posted article formerly agreed with you, what do you make of his views now?