He’s not the disease, he’s only a symptom of something we’re otherwise able to ignore.
There are vast oceans of his supporters who love him because he “tells it like it is”, ie he helps them speak more openly about their own bigotry.
Trump going away will only give us someone else, and honestly, they’ll probably be moderately competent.
Trump is a godsend, because he is so absolutely, perfectly stupid and incompetent, a real operator would be devastating. Use this opportunity to gain resistance to their form of plague before it’s too late.
Yeah, the US had the disease pretty bad when it was young. And, it’s laid dormant in the nervous system for years. Some stress and poor health habits have allowed it to rise to the surface.
It won’t ever go away entirely but better habits and self-care can keep it away indefinitely.
They might be moderately more competent, but they likely won’t have his charisma and cultural cache. A lot of more competent fascists have tried to steal his thunder, and they’ve all ended up either kissing his ring (Vance) or flaming out spectacularly (DeSantis).
All those more “competent” fascists are simply trying to position themselves for the inevitable post-Trump GOP. God will eventually exercise His Ultimate Veto on Donald Trump. When that happens, the GOP will appear to be divided into folks who double down on Trumpism (like Vance), and folks who are just as evil but will use Trump’s absence as a fig leaf to pretend the party has changed (like DeSantis)
This division won’t be real at all. It will all be performative, like the Kayfabe in Pro Wrestling, or the factions in Survivor. It will still be racism and Fascism all the way down. But the GOP Reality Show will still need to pretend there is a choice that they can rally the team around.
I think you underestimate how much these people all hate each other. Trump fealty is the only thing keeping them together. And it still sometimes surfaces. Laura Loomer’s recent Twitter spat with Marjorie Taylor-Greene where Loomer threatened to release compromising information on Taylor-Greene is a good example.
They may fall in line eventually, but not until after most of them have destroyed each other. Maybe that will lead to another demagogue like Trump, but in the mean time, they’ll all be out for each other’s blood in some amazing factionalism.
It is how cults of personality tend to work. That person dies, and they fall apart. There’s splinters that cause problems for decades to come, yes, but they have to rebuild their whole political power from scratch.
For every cult of personality that you’ve heard of that sustained themselves in the long run after their leader’s death (like Scientology), there’s a hundred more you haven’t that faded away. For example, the Oneida Community. The leader, John Humphrey Noyes, fled the United States following an arrest warrant for statutory rape in 1879, and the group basically dissolved after that. The only thing left is the silverware company.
The thing about fascists is that there’s a certain skill for unifying them. I don’t know if anyone but trump in American politics has this skill because they were divided before him. There was the setup phase, the tea party, militia movement, etc where normies were being radicalized more and more towards the right. But until trump they lacked a rallying point.
No, there are other things keeping them together, like “starve the beast” tax cuts, racism, and Fascism. They want to make sure that the “others” are sufficiently put in their place.
There may be some collateral damage along the way. Loomer is especially dangerous because she is unaccountable to voters, so is able to do things that a politician looking for votes cannot. But I don’t think the occasional slap fight will derail the overall mission of the party to entrench themselves as the ruling class, in spite of their dwindling numbers.
You have any idea how easy it is to spend your whole day screaming about how “the liberals and immigrants are all out to exterminate white people, and we’re the only ones willing to say it out loud!”?
He’s not savvy, he’s just so spoiled he has no filter, they’ll build another one out of spare parts.
We had Glenn Beck before this, we’ll have another soon after.
Generational Adaptive Networks work by testing something until it fails, then making a change to see if it gets better or worse, they’ll do the exact same, find a Trump, a rich, obnoxious guy, Musk isn’t busy, and just build an image around him where he’s suddenly a devout Baptist who is staunchly pro-life and never secretly paid for dozens of his interns to get abortions.
Trump’s strength was his transparency, he was clearly the opposite of everything the Bible belt claim to believe in, he’s the 7 deadly sins made manifest by a bad writer. The missing ingredient that always tripped up everyone else: Shame. The next generation
This isn’t the end, this isn’t even the beginning of the end, but this is the end of the beginning.
His “charisma” only appeals to a certain subset of Americans. Sure, he has fanatical support in much of the Republican base, but he has low overall favorability ratings and turns off a lot of moderate voters.
I am actually glad it’s Trump and not another Republican who’s on the ticket. I think he’s easier to beat. I am more scared of what happens when smoother, more coherent Republicans begin campaigning on the same platform without the chaos and cringe of Trump.
You’re making a mistake.
He’s not the disease, he’s only a symptom of something we’re otherwise able to ignore.
There are vast oceans of his supporters who love him because he “tells it like it is”, ie he helps them speak more openly about their own bigotry.
Trump going away will only give us someone else, and honestly, they’ll probably be moderately competent.
Trump is a godsend, because he is so absolutely, perfectly stupid and incompetent, a real operator would be devastating. Use this opportunity to gain resistance to their form of plague before it’s too late.
He’s shingles.
Yeah, the US had the disease pretty bad when it was young. And, it’s laid dormant in the nervous system for years. Some stress and poor health habits have allowed it to rise to the surface.
It won’t ever go away entirely but better habits and self-care can keep it away indefinitely.
Caveat: you can’t blame people who get shingles for being sick.
Stress is often a trigger for instance, that’s usually caused by other people.
I mean, aren’t there vaccines now…?
Yes, but they are far from 100% effective.
Ah, OK. I thought at least when innoculated as a child they were extremely (99.9+%) effective, and assumed it was similar as an adult.
Looking it up, I see I was wrong. It’s pretty good, but WAY lower than I thought.
That’s it, with the caveat that people usually don’t die of shingles.
Not usually. But, untreated shingles can lead to complications that can kill you (infections, stroke, meningitis, encephalitis, etc.).
Yeah that’s what we got, post-civil war shingles.
They might be moderately more competent, but they likely won’t have his charisma and cultural cache. A lot of more competent fascists have tried to steal his thunder, and they’ve all ended up either kissing his ring (Vance) or flaming out spectacularly (DeSantis).
All those more “competent” fascists are simply trying to position themselves for the inevitable post-Trump GOP. God will eventually exercise His Ultimate Veto on Donald Trump. When that happens, the GOP will appear to be divided into folks who double down on Trumpism (like Vance), and folks who are just as evil but will use Trump’s absence as a fig leaf to pretend the party has changed (like DeSantis)
This division won’t be real at all. It will all be performative, like the Kayfabe in Pro Wrestling, or the factions in Survivor. It will still be racism and Fascism all the way down. But the GOP Reality Show will still need to pretend there is a choice that they can rally the team around.
I think you underestimate how much these people all hate each other. Trump fealty is the only thing keeping them together. And it still sometimes surfaces. Laura Loomer’s recent Twitter spat with Marjorie Taylor-Greene where Loomer threatened to release compromising information on Taylor-Greene is a good example.
I don’t know. I mean, they definitely hate each other, but there is also nothing Republicans do better than falling in line when it matters.
They may fall in line eventually, but not until after most of them have destroyed each other. Maybe that will lead to another demagogue like Trump, but in the mean time, they’ll all be out for each other’s blood in some amazing factionalism.
I wish I shared your optimism.
It is how cults of personality tend to work. That person dies, and they fall apart. There’s splinters that cause problems for decades to come, yes, but they have to rebuild their whole political power from scratch.
For every cult of personality that you’ve heard of that sustained themselves in the long run after their leader’s death (like Scientology), there’s a hundred more you haven’t that faded away. For example, the Oneida Community. The leader, John Humphrey Noyes, fled the United States following an arrest warrant for statutory rape in 1879, and the group basically dissolved after that. The only thing left is the silverware company.
The thing about fascists is that there’s a certain skill for unifying them. I don’t know if anyone but trump in American politics has this skill because they were divided before him. There was the setup phase, the tea party, militia movement, etc where normies were being radicalized more and more towards the right. But until trump they lacked a rallying point.
No, there are other things keeping them together, like “starve the beast” tax cuts, racism, and Fascism. They want to make sure that the “others” are sufficiently put in their place.
There may be some collateral damage along the way. Loomer is especially dangerous because she is unaccountable to voters, so is able to do things that a politician looking for votes cannot. But I don’t think the occasional slap fight will derail the overall mission of the party to entrench themselves as the ruling class, in spite of their dwindling numbers.
Jesus.
He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!!!
You have any idea how easy it is to spend your whole day screaming about how “the liberals and immigrants are all out to exterminate white people, and we’re the only ones willing to say it out loud!”?
He’s not savvy, he’s just so spoiled he has no filter, they’ll build another one out of spare parts.
We had Glenn Beck before this, we’ll have another soon after.
Generational Adaptive Networks work by testing something until it fails, then making a change to see if it gets better or worse, they’ll do the exact same, find a Trump, a rich, obnoxious guy, Musk isn’t busy, and just build an image around him where he’s suddenly a devout Baptist who is staunchly pro-life and never secretly paid for dozens of his interns to get abortions.
Trump’s strength was his transparency, he was clearly the opposite of everything the Bible belt claim to believe in, he’s the 7 deadly sins made manifest by a bad writer. The missing ingredient that always tripped up everyone else: Shame. The next generation
This isn’t the end, this isn’t even the beginning of the end, but this is the end of the beginning.
Some of them genuinely think he’s the messiah though.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60246687-president-donald-j-trump-the-son-of-man---the-christ
He’s a worthless serial rapist pedo fraudster.
He is their personal messiah.
His “charisma” only appeals to a certain subset of Americans. Sure, he has fanatical support in much of the Republican base, but he has low overall favorability ratings and turns off a lot of moderate voters.
I am actually glad it’s Trump and not another Republican who’s on the ticket. I think he’s easier to beat. I am more scared of what happens when smoother, more coherent Republicans begin campaigning on the same platform without the chaos and cringe of Trump.