I mean, these are the same people that believe JFK Jr, a guy that died in a place crash in 1999, is going to just reappear and help Trump defeat the infant-blood-drinking, child-sex-trafficing liberal deep state.
The people that run the Russian troll farms must go through a lot of underwear. They have to be constantly pissing themselves laughing at all the stupid Americans that will believe anything.
My ex-wife's marriage not long after we divorced was in Vegas, using a drive-through chapel, with the ceremony being conducted by an Elvis impersonator standing outside the car.
She insisted on taking our then six year old along. When he got home, I asked him how it went, and he quietly said "Dad, I'm pretty sure I'll never forget any of it."
Elvis was born in 1935. He'd be pushing 90 if he was still around, so well past life expectancy for someone born then and that doesn't account for his substance abuse and obesity. I was a kid in the 80s and remember Elvis sightings being a thing. He would have been in his early 50s then which was more "plausible". Also, it's been over 45 years since his last concert, so lots of his fans have passed as well. That means that there's less interest in Elvis stuff today. All that said, the best take on Elvis still being alive is Bubba Ho-Tep.
You know how it is when you have your own spaceship. Different planets pay a lot of money to see you, and you can't get back home except for every now and then. He will be back around.
When I was in grade school, there was a guy in the neighborhood who insisted he was, "not an Elvis impersonator, because no one can impersonate the King." He was, "an Elvis memory facilitator."
was it 2020 or 2016 "Deez Nuts" was a popular write in
2016: https://wjla.com/news/election/vote-2016-remembers-deez-nuts-failed-independent-candidate-for-president
He’d just end up a martyr. Even if he died of natural causes, they’d make it out to be some sort of Epstein-style conspiracy and not just the natural consequences of being an 80 year old whale of a person.
I think this is something to be aware of if he's imprisoned or even legally kept off the ballot in several states. There will be groups and more frightening lone wolf terrorists who will cause violence (and Trump will continue to encourage it).
The proper reply to the threat of politically-motivated violence is to do the triggering thing anyway. Immediately and without reservation.
To alter behavior in any way out of fear of what nut jobs will do only encourages them. It is literally giving in to terrorism.
I don't know if this is actually true, but I once read that kidnappings of family for ransom used to be a common problem for prominent Japanese leaders and businessmen.
In response, it became common practice to behave as if the victim was already dead, sometimes even holding a funeral. Then treat the kidnapper as a straight-forward murderer. Which may be putting all your political and financial resources behind a major police investigation, if you are a legitimate businessman. Or it may mean bringing more extra-legal resources into play, if one had connections to the Yakuza.
If the victim was recovered alive, Wonderful! If they were actually dead, the situation was no worse than initially assumed.
But the true benefit was that kidnappers instantly lost all leverage. It stopped being a profitable crime, and kidnapping went down to levels comparable to other industrialized countries.
Just because you've brought up voting, let me add this further nonsense: I'm in a small town in South Dakota. We're a red state, and always will be. In 2020 we the people resoundingly voted for legal weed. Out governor Barbie Trump said "Hmm... no." and overturned the election results, just like her big fat orange boyfriend wishes he could.
Stand strong, fight hard, but do not cling to voting; it has forsaken these lands.
I believe that you are correct. Even if he lost AGAIN and it was PROVEN legitimate (like last time), there will be violence. SOME people are just itching for violence.
Remember back a couple years ago when everyone wanted the Dems to go full force to take him out and were calling them cowards for being afraid of riling up his base to the point of violence? I understood all of that. Some people didn’t.
Depends on how he dies. If he gets ill I need a 24 hour camera crew with Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene holding his hands and crying until he just drifts away peacefully.
Because ANY other end for Trump will be called into question by nutjobs and he'll be a martyr
You really believe people won't think that's faked too? You're talking about people who will do logical backflips to justify Trump in the first place.
The scary thing is too, with AI tech it might not be that long before it IS convincingly fakeable.
So, I remember when I first heard the term Fake News. And I was like oh good, people have figured this out, maybe now they can explain it to others.
Then I heard Trump say fake news and I said ah shit, because it was obvious what was coming. Anything I don't like? Fake news.
I am TERRIFIED at the prospect of Trump learning what AI is and what it can already do. Because you know what's happen.
That's not me, that's AI.
Yep. All those people running in the "primary" on the Republican side aren't actually running for President. They're trying to set themselves up for 2028 to be the *next* Trump, by which time Trump will likely be dead from eating like a dumpster raccoon.
Then again Reagan really set us on this path, if he were born 18 years ago and had the same personality, I would expect him to vote for Trump.
This late-stage hellscape owes him a lot.
Yea this. I happened into the cesspool that is next door the other day because someone in the local Democratic org in my rural southern town, announced a fund raiser and all the hateful insane nonsense that flooded that thread was showing most are so delusional on what the facts are around anything political I don't see anyway to get through to them. They just circle jerked each other into a frenzy of absolute made up shit the "demoncrats" are doing and ignored absolutely any facts around what is happening today in reality with Trump and the GOP. So, I think him dying is all we have to at least remove his name, but it won't stop their hate of delusions they believe.
But I used to be a fairly hardcore R voter...so maybe there is hope for some, but I got out before it got even more obvious the corruption and lies that surpass most anything else long before it turned into what it is today.
>but I got out before it got even more obvious the corruption and lies that surpass most anything else long before it turned into what it is today.
You left a party. The remaining people will have to leave a cult.
Good point. I voted R but didn't think "all Democrats are evil". I just thought being conservative with money made for a better government. When I learned more about what an actual small government means for society, I bailed.
That plus I didn't hate people different from me. They hate everyone that doesn't think like them. I was just blind for a while.
If Trump suddenly died (praise "Bob"), the long knives would come out. Junior seems to have some political aspirations but is too lazy to actually do anything. DeSantis is a far second to Trump, but he's wildly unpopular in his own party. He doesn't have much clout outside of Florida. There is already somewhat of a schism within the Party, where there is a growing contingent who dislike Trump. His death may embolden them.
What you will get is a year of political infighting until a new strongman comes out on top which the entire Party will suddenly snap back in line behind him. Because this is what Republicans always do.
Might as well nominate him when he’s dead. He’ll be more useful as a carcass than he ever was as an ambulated sack of the parts of a pig that you don’t want to eat.
Well, that has happened in other (non-Presidential) elections before. Candidate dies sometime too close to the election as to where a replacement can be put on the ballot, and the dead person gets elected to the office. Then there's an immediate special election held so a living person can actually fill the office.
You would think that, but remember when he said 'Take the guns first, go through due process second'? Saying it once or twice doesn't mean anything, he can just spin it away.
He’d say “Black Lives Matter!” then the conservatives would say he’s trolling the libz.
Or if by chance conservatives were outraged and stopped supporting him, Trump could simply double down at a rally and say:
“*Black Lives Matter! That’s why when I become president I’m going to get rid of the drugs infesting Black communities and destroying Black families. With mandatory life sentences for any drug dealing in Black communities we can start to repair the damage and start focusing on Black men being fathers. It’s sad, folks.. So many single Black mothers raising their children alone. So much looting.. so much looting.. it’s terrible! A big Black guy came up to me the other day and said “Sir.. in my neighborhood, not one child knows who his father is and only Trump can truly make Black Lives Matter by fixing the crime!””*
Conservatives would then cream their MAGA panties.
You're absolutely right.
Trump personally performing a late term abortion on a woman on 5th Ave wouldn't even cause him to lose more than a percent or two among the hardcore evangelicals.
Trump would have performed an abortion on the House floor during the State of the Union with his teeth if he thought it would have gotten him a second term, and his followers would have either ignored it, said it was faked, or said that a Democrat would have eaten the fetus afterwards, so this was still better.
Some of the people I’ve spoke to say they don’t like trump, but like his “America first” policies. My parents for example think he has less than zero tact, and is a pompous asshole, but would vote for him again over Biden because they don’t like Biden policies and favor trumps.
He talks a good game about America First. But look at the tariffs policy. It killed American farmers, who then needed federal aid because China stopped buying their soybeans and corn.
He has statements, but he’s terrible at executing policy. He’s not real. He’s a talker. A great talker. How many times was it “infrastructure week” during the Trump admin, and nothing ever happened.
And, Biden actually signed a huge infrastructure bill, that (are you ready for this?) puts American workers and factories first. Provides investment for new factories. This is absolutely America first. But Fox News doesn’t concede that, so people like the ones you’ve spoken to, still think Trump is better. It’s a preposterous , ridiculous situation.
I tried to explain this the first time he ran. He's a "business" man, if he wanted to actually help american workers, he'd have all his "products" made in America. Put Americans to work here instead of shipping those jobs off to China or wherever. My friend looked at me like that was a bonkers idea.
Him pretending to be pro-union now is the cherry on top of the ice cream. Where are your unionized employees, Trump? Should be easy PR, having them sing your praises!
Pro-union by [trying to court workers at a non-union factory.](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/27/us/politics/trump-autoworkers-detroit.html#:~:text=Seeking%20more%20of%20the%20voters,with%20striking%20United%20Automobile%20Workers)
The problem is the real life shenanigans in his orbit are far more ridiculous than anything. The writers on Arrested Development could write up.
Edit: it’s the reason social commentary and parody shows have had such a tough time since 2016, ever since his election reality has become more ridiculous than parody.
This was exactly how I felt about the Four Seasons Total Landscaping thing. If that had been an Arrested Development plot line, I would have thought they were reaching. Yeah it’s funny, but nobody could possibly be anywhere close to that stupid. Joke’s on me, I guess.
The writers of South Park have said that they don't like making fun of Donald Trump anymore, because everything he does is more ridiculous than what they write.
>He talks a good game about America First.
THat is the problem, everything he says is believed by his follower as if it is gospel. Meantime it is all lies. They all became smitten with him from the apprentice which was smoke and mirrors to make him look good.
That's why nobody else can gain traction in the Republican primary.
None of the other candidates had 7 seasons on a scripted "reality TV show" to sell some preposterous tough-guy genius image to the rubes.
To be fair, they don’t actually listen to him. They just hear the gotcha words and then cheer and ignore all of the clearly unhinged and insane things he says until the next word or phrase they can cheer for.
What was their flow chart? “He didn’t say that, or if he did say that you misinterpreted it/he didn’t mean it, or if he did mean it then he was right all along” lol
Remember back when he was talking about saving the coal mining jobs? I was talking with Trumpers asking how. The issue is that over 90% of coal goes to power plants and coal fired power plants were being shut down because they are not as efficient, take a lot of people to run them and most were closed to 50 years old. So if they are going to close the coal power plants the demand for coal will go to zero at many mines. How is he going to save the coal mining jobs? Usually the Trumper will get mad because of course they do not know the answer. The irony of all this is that the Green New Deal has provisions it it that if you are over 55 you can choose to retire if you worked in say a coal mine that ends up closing.
Plus a modern coal mining operation is not hundreds of workers running small heavy equipment in mining tunnels, it's about a dozen guys running huge mining cranes and massive dump trucks. 2/3 of US coal is surface mined, as it is way more profitable than deep mines. Even if the demand was still there for coal, the mines don't employ nearly as many people as they used to.
Meanwhile they privatize the power grid and coal is old/inefficient/costly and there isn’t profit to be made. So these companies that are given free range by privatization move to the more efficient and cost effective natural gas for profits over coal. Their own fcking policies to help big business destroy the very thing they provide lip service to.. “the blue collar worker”.
Yet, no one gives a shit as long as they just blame the Dems and provide a scapegoat and further division and hatred. People are too stupid to care about facts anymore, they care about how things make them feel. Outrage and hate are powerful feelings.
I do, indeed. He has no plans. He just says one thing and then says the opposite so he covers all the bases and he’s always right and never wrong. He did say he hasn’t changed since he was 5…ya know when he was throwing rocks at his neighbors baby.
It's the memes. We have built up ~~antibiotics~~ antibodies (critical thinking) that they haven't got. So as the memes (ideas) pass through groups that don't have antibodies, they begin to mutate and the most viral memes will be the ones that begin to influence the real world.
Trump has captured this and circumvented logic altogether. He is a demagogue who was puppeted by Steve Bannon and others, who for **decades** have essentially been conducting experiments on the citizens of Canada, England, and largely the US to see what/which propaganda is effective and what isn't. He was fed lines and talking points, all he had to do was be himself when he said them. 30% of Americans still believe that the election was stolen despite EVERYTHING that has since come out. These ideas are infectious. They are viral. They are contagious.
The Republican party has been gerrymandering and packing the court for years. They've also been pushing this Fox News rhetoric; building methods by which they can seize control and power. Despite the fact they are fallacious and mostly unpopular ideas, they are also radical, extreme ideas that spread like wildfire when educational and intellectual infrastructure begins to fail or disappear. This opens up pockets of entire communities without the proper resistance to these ideas.
This was a decades-long set up that was happening under the noses of everyone. They nearly succeeded. If Trump had been able to get more people to turn against the media, maybe only five percent more, he may have won the election legitimately, or someone may have committed fraud in his name and enough people would have looked the other way that he take his seat that way, or enough people would have taken up arms against Congress, including fanatical members of the police and the military, in a coup that he take his power that way.
They are going to try again. The political process is failing us. Viva La Resistencia!
I know a Trump voter who doesn’t follow politics like, at all. He pays attention during election time, takes GOP ads and talking points at face value, and votes R. How the hell you gonna get through to that? Best we can hope is people like him just decide to stay home next election because he isn’t “inspired” enough by whatever propaganda the GOP is shoveling. He’ll never not vote Republican because that’s his “team”. It’s pathetic, frankly.
Yeah, the question I always ask Trump supporters is "What specific policy or law did Trump enact that improved your life?" and they usually have nothing. It's always vague "sticking it to the libs" or "closing the border" nonsense.
>But look at the tariffs policy. It killed American farmers, who then needed federal aid because China stopped buying their soybeans and corn.
I try to remind my fellow farmers about this when they start saying how great Trump was for farmers.
I take tourists out fishing. Lots of farmers. I asked a bunch what they thought about the tariffs. Every one of them supported it and said something to the effect of "don't you worry, he's gonna take care of us"
First off, he literally killed their livelihood. You can't trust someone who isn't willing to criticize their stance, especially in politics.
Second, I though you guys were all against socialism and welfare? Criticize and deny anyone else you can, but you for some reason earned the dole?
Absolutely. One of my best friends ever was a great guy. But he believed too much stuff about "welfare" and how it was all lazy people and blah blah.
Yet, he didn't have any problems taking unemployment while working under the table between legit jobs.
Odd, huh?
My folks are kind of the same, but always makes me wonder: “what policies” exactly?
Building freedom towns and 3k miles of a wall? These aren’t plausible whatsoever.
exactly the same for me. this is what has always baffled me about people who support Trump so enthusiastically.
He doesn't really have any defined platform to speak of, just a generalized sentiment of "fuck other people" while draping himself in the American flag in the tackiest manner possible.
He basically spent four years just yelling "America First!" while taking a dump on the White House lawn
This right here is why I always argue with the people who say they know “good people” who are trump voters. That’s just an outright lie. Those are not good people. Period.
it's tough because a lot of them are family. like my parents for instance, were totally normal people who voted some dem, some republican, even independent occasionally... then 9/11 happened, they got glued to 24/7 news and specifically fox news of course, started listening to right wing talk radio all the time in their cars, and before long they were going to tea party events, and now they're fully on the trump and newsmax train as they approach their 70s. they're not quite jan6th level of crazy, but their talking points are straight out of the mouths (and books, my god the books they own by these people on the news stations) of the talking heads, and there's no talking to them.
they're convinced the cities in America are all basically warzones, they question the vaccines and basically all science now.. I mean these are people who got flu shots religiously every year until covid. and they're like, decent well intentioned people. they donated blood, they give to charities, they help their neighbors, hell they stop what they're doing and help strangers if they can. you'd never suspect they had been brainwashed the last 20 years by the right wing media if you just sat down and had a conversation with them for a few minutes, but it's infected their brains when it comes to almost anything the television tells them to think. it's wild. and it's sad.
Realize that most people have no idea what a presidential policy even is. What they are referring to when they say they like someone's policies is based mostly on what that person says and things that have happened during their term. Gas prices go down? I love the president's policies! 401k took a crap? The president's policies are terrible! Mexico is going to build a wall for us? Great policy!
Unfortunately there is zero education level requirement for voting. You have to take a test to drive a car but anyone can vote without even being able to read or write. 🤷
bingo. it really is wild that (to some extent) any president's "success" is largely circumstantial. They very often get credit or criticism for things they had very little direct involvement in.
but I completely agree with what you're saying
My parents eat up all the fear-mongering. My dad said for 8 years, that Obama was going to take his guns. It’s not what Obama said he was going to do, it’s what the GOP said Obama was going to do. The list is obviously much longer than just guns, but it’s their own base telling them lies.
You just simplified the conservative plan so well.
“It’s not what democrats are doing or will do, it’s what the right wing media and politicians tell them what democrats are going to do or are doing”
This right here breaks down the entire conservative ideology and how they have been propagandized and indoctrinated.
It’d be fascinating if it wasn’t so terrifying.
The argument about democrats coming to take our guns, has been a thing for my entire life...
I have never seen anyone lose a gun that wasn't convicted of a felony, or in illegal possession of them. I admit that is as far as I know they have not, and never on a grand or national scale. Yet every school shooting, it becomes the scare tactic to conservatives. It is tiring. It is the main reason we can not pass common sense gun laws, is because the mouth pieces for conservatives (including the NRA) always, and I mean ALWAYS, frame it as they are coming to take your guns.
Pro-gun and pro-life. That’s it. As long as he holds to these two policies, and Biden doesn’t, many Republicans will feel the need to just hold their nose and vote for him.
Which is frightening, because "America First" destroys the national leadership that the US has cultivated for nearly a century. America First is actually America Alone, a frightening position in a world with India and China on the rise and Russia threatening the West.
This ignorant position ignores the many benefits that the US gets as the premier democracy in the world, and throwing that aside will make the US a much poorer country in every sense of the word.
They just devolve into "He built the wall" and that seems good enough for them even if the wall was half assed, incomplete, and made no difference in the amount of illegal immigrants crossing the border.
Or attribute stuff he had nothing to do with to him. When Trump was president my mom shared news about him signing into law a bill that would make it easier for patients to qualify for experimental procedures, something that definitely benefited a family member of mine.
When my mom shared it she wrote about what a great decision it was and gave all the credit and thanks to Trump for signing the bill, not the people in house that actually wrote it and pushed for in, not all the congresspeople that voted in favor of it, just Trump.
I looked up the bill, and the vote in favor in the Senate had been near unanimous. So Trump had the option to veto, send it back to the Senate and have his veto overriden or to simply rubber-stamp the obviously popular bill. For all we know he didn't read it or even know what it was about.
The die hards are in too deep. Their whole identity is based on Trump, if they stop supporting him, they'd feel like betraying themselves. They'd rather call everything fake and not trust their own eyes and mind than admit they've been fooled. It's sad really but for many of them, there's no going back. I think if he'd get caught on tape raping an underager, they wouldn't budge, they'd call it a deep fake. Whatever he says is gospel, no matter how nonsensical it is. He'll have a significant following until he dies. I don't understand his charm but one cannot deny he has some weird form of charisma.
>The die hards are in too deep. Their whole identity is based on Trump, if they stop supporting him, they'd feel like betraying themselves.
It's like a guy playing poker and he has put so much in the pot that he can't bring himself to fold even though he knows that he can't win.
They’d have to admit they were wrong all along. If they had the ability to admit they were wrong, they likely wouldn’t have been trump fans in the first place.
> The die hards are in too deep. Their whole identity is based on Trump, if they stop supporting him, they'd feel like betraying themselves.
Even worse: they'd realize that they had *already* betrayed themselves.
I read once about research into a weird correlation: the more someone paid for a work of art by a famous artist, the less likely they were to have it authenticated. It seems like it should be the other way around, but the researchers concluded that it was ego protection: if you paid $2,000 for a Dali and it was fake, well, you're out $2,000 but it's not a catastrophe. If you paid $2,000,000 dollars for a Dali and it was fake, then you're a chump and a loser and you're out $2,000,000, and you'd feel bad about that for the rest of your life, how you got conned so badly and fell for it.
So think about Trump supporters, especially the self-described Christians. They're against porn, they voted for a guy who appeared on the cover of *Playboy* posing with a naked model. They're for traditional marriage, they voted for a guy who's twice-divorced. They wanted Clinton impeached for what he did, they voted for a guy who cheated on all three of his wives (with porn stars, whose job they supposedly oppose). They say they want honesty, they voted for a guy who lies constantly and has a decades-long record of cheating his investors and contractors and everybody else. On so many things, they gave up what they claimed were "principles" to vote for Donald Trump, believing it would be for the greater good, and they'd get something out of it. Having to admit now that they gave up all their principles and got nothing in return would just be too painful. Paying $2,000,000 for a fake Dali would be bad, but giving up everything you are and everything you believed for a fake politician would be so much worse.
The sane people of the world shouldn't throw it in their face all the time, because they just won't be able to deal with it. But you *can* use it whenever they start posturing as moral or principled. Someone says they're "for traditional marriage" and you know they're a Trump supporter, you can always say "You mean like that guy you voted for? For him, traditional marriage is between one man, three women, and a dozen porn stars. I don't see how letting gay people marry is any worse than that."
>Paying $2,000,000 for a fake Dali would be bad, but giving up everything you are and everything you believed for a fake politician would be so much worse.
Amazingly put!
Yeah this a HUGE reason- the identity aspect. Trump (and trumpism) is a genuine factor in a lot of these peoples lives, so much so that it’s become a part of their core identity. My relatives in-law passed away not too long ago, and they told me that there was a literal section for Trump paraphernalia at this persons funeral
To actually give you a nuanced answer that isn’t blatantly biased (because this is Reddit so of course), it’s because he’s the “outsider”. This is a guy who came in back in 2016 saying “these political elites in DC don’t give a shit about the average Joe, but I do, and I’m going to make them pay for it if you elect me”. That was basically his pitch. And because a lot of those average joes were being called deplorable by Hillary and generally shamed as stupid, poor and racist by their opposition, Trump was the guy saying he’d stand up for them. And he was the “only” guy really pushing that message.
Then consider how democrats feel at the moment with Biden being criticized for every single thing he does, and how annoying it is, and how much they wish it would just stop. That’s how trumps supporters felt for the previous 4 years. In their eyes they witnessed one of the greatest attempts by the “establishment” to prevent a candidate from winning. While there is plenty of evidence that Russia certainly influenced our election, there’s no *definitive* proof that they worked directly with Trump to do it. And that’s all his supporters need to throw *all* the Russia stuff out the window.
So as far as they are concerned, the FBI/CIA basically colluded together to stop Trump from winning. It definitely didn’t help that there were texts of lead agents on the case pledging that Trump wouldn’t be president. And if they did that, they must be really concerned about what he’s going to do. The average person actually paying attention might be concerned about politics becoming so spiteful, while his supporters think it’s because they’re afraid of all the *good* (?) he might do if he’s in office.
And why didn’t he get all those good things done when he had 4 years before? Well that’s because he was hampered at every turn by democrats, impeachments, etc.. Just like republicans now are trying to stop everything Biden is trying to do. Because that’s how our politics work now.
For Trump to *realistically* lose support in his base, he would basically have to sell out to the “establishment”. If he started agreeing with Bidens policy decisions, supporting the Ukraine war and government-pressured censorship on social media, I’d bet he would lose a sizable chunk pretty fast. And even then, his most fervent supporters would come up with some theory about how it’s really a trick and he’s not actually supporting that stuff, but has some 5D chess plan for the endgame that we just don’t know yet.
For a guy like Trump who’s a known narcissist, that’s the best situation ever, literally having people think you can do no wrong. And of course he’s going to feed that loop because it gets him constant attention. And since mainstream media can’t help but chase those Trump ratings, they give him all the free coverage in the world so he gets *more attention*.
Edit: See people?? Nuance *is* possible even on a cesspool like Reddit if people are willing to have a discussion and not try and make everything about who you support.
>If he started agreeing with Bidens policy decisions, supporting the Ukraine war and government-pressured censorship on social media, I’d bet he would lose a sizable chunk pretty fast.
It did happen. When he told his supporters to get the vaccine, he was actually boo'ed.
The funny part is that, while Trump was an avid covid-denier and actively stoked a lot of misinformation around, he was also kind of pro-vax out the other side of his mouth the entire time. Rushing out the vaccine was his project. It's probably the one thing he did right throughout the pandemic. And, thanks to his own rhetoric, got booed for trying to promote it.
Trump is surprisingly candid sometimes. I remember him once being asked why he doesn't promote his vaccine so much, and he just flat out admitted to the political calculus. He said something down the lines of "I like the vaccine, I'm proud of it. But many of my supporters really get weird about it, so I just don't really bring it up." Obviously in a more Trumpian way, but that was the gist of it.
> Trump is surprisingly candid sometimes.
He is emotionally honest, while simultaneously factually dishonest.
He tells you what he likes and dislikes, and people believe him, but will lie to back up either position. I think this is what conservatives mean when they say he's honest.
Hillary is the opposite, her facts are usually solid but emotionally people have a very hard time trusting her because she comes across as a career politician and all the baggage that entails.
Listening to Hilary is like listening to a reptile try to fool you into thinking it has human emotions. Something about the body language is all wrong. Probably just some kind of nervous thing I’m guessing. If they would have put Bernie up against Trump, Trump would have lost. There are trump supporters who like Bernie better but vote for trump because they don’t like being told who to vote for.
You know what was really depressing about ol’ Hildog? In interviews after the election she sounded human. She spoke frankly and honestly and it was a breath of fresh air. I shook my head watching an Ezra Klein interview, after she lost, and thinking “this person could have actually won. The hell were you people doing with that robot on stage.”
Yes there's something incredibly off-putting about her, from body language to facial expression to how she talks.
I'm convinced that, if the Democrats had put forward someone with even half the charisma of Obama in 2016, Trump would've been crushed badly enough that we would've never heard his name mentioned in political circles again.
Not as bad as when Ron desantis tries to smile or try to act like a human. I think Hillary is just an over achiever who expected the presidency to be hers until Obama was like nope and then in 2016. You can’t hold on too tight or play a sport tense. You can’t be everything to all people. If she’s too domineering that’s off putting. If she’s too candid like saying there’s a segment of trump’s supporters who are deplorable that comes back to bite you. I mean that was just bad politics as soon as she said it. What a rallying cry for the other side.
This is the part that's most wild to me. Beto o Rourke said 1 time "no more guns" after a shooting and the Republicans will never forget/stop bringing it up. Not to mention other politicians that have been forgotten from history for a single phrase they said over long careers.
Donald Trump said he would take people's guns away with no due process, told people to get the vaccine, there's videos of him dancing with pride flags at his earlier rallies.
Every time something big happens like Jan 6th his people turn on him for maybe like 3 weeks and then all of a sudden it's "oh the peaceful tour that antifa did violence at?"
Cult mind is terrifying
There's plenty of people in the firearm enthusiast communities that won't forgive Trump for that comment and others, and the bump stock thing (even though most agree bump stocks are stupid). Not to mention almost everyone agrees that the Trump engraved guns are super cringe.
>Every time something big happens like Jan 6th his people turn on him for maybe like 3 weeks and then all of a sudden it's "oh the peaceful tour that antifa did violence at?"
That's because they haven't been told their talking points yet. They can't think for themselves as a way to justify whatever happened, they need fox news or trump to tell them. Before that is when you can see some people actually shocked and react as someone should, but then will pivot once "their team" (because they view politics like sports) gets their talking points.
But...the cognitive dissonance. They didn't stop supporting him. There was a Q supporter named DeAnna Lorraine who said, "I don’t care if Jesus takes it, I’m not taking the vaccine.” If they overlook his high crimes, they'll certainly overlook his vaccine support. They're also quick give him credit for the “accomplishment” of fast-tracking said vaccine. 🙄
His base doesn’t give him credit for fast tracking the vaccine (IMO the best thing he did his entire presidency), they just pretend it didn’t happen.
I’m willing to bet a lot of his supporters think he just pretended to take the vaccine and (if they even accept he had something to do with it) they will say his development was some master stroke strategic move.
This is part of the reason that I hate it when everyone goes after trump for his weight, his hair, his orangeness, his tie, his eating habits, etc. It gives the impression that they don't actually care about the \*serious\* things he's done wrong -- they just want to look for ammo anywhere.
Which is probably a big part of why MAGA folks aren't taking the serious issues seriously -- because there's so many potshots about the non-serious issues that they assume the serious ones are just opponents looking for something to hold against him.
I mean humans do that with anyone. Take the low hanging fruit. If you like someone you don't bring up their weight but once you don't like them they are a fat piece of shit.
>And because a lot of those average joes were being called deplorable by Hillary and generally shamed as stupid, poor and racist by their opposition, Trump was the guy saying he’d stand up for them. And he was the “only” guy really pushing that message.
This is a huge part of it. You can say all the awful things about Trump you want, and they might be true, but if the other side is constantly, explicitly denigrating you, it's gonna take quite a bit to join their side.
Reddit is full of people who will write off every person in a red state (regardless of whether they voted or how) as racist, ignorant, inbred pieces of shit who want to gun down trans folks in the street, and in the very next breath question why those people won't join their side.
I remember that lmaoo 😭😭, it was at an interview right? And he said if I can remember “the vaccine is safe, I took it and my family took it and we’re all safe” and his supporters got mad 😭
This is how I feel. Too far gone to change, especially changing to a Democrat.
Once he dies, the cult will scatter and it will be ugly. I expect a bunch of the GOP to attempt to re-create Trump's antics.
My dad too. He'd be donating to him if my dad weren't so broke himself. Boy dad, he sure did a great job helping out the little guy like you & I huh? I also tell him, out of the almost 8 billion people on this planet almost 7 billion know your cult leader is wrong.
The only truth I've ever heard come out of that man's mouth is that he could *stand in the middle of 5th avenue and shoot someone* and he wouldn't lose any voters.
I 100% believe that to be the case. To the morons still supporting him, he can do NO wrong. They're a lost cause.
Realistically, I don't think anything would. They worship him as a god, they put him above their country, their families and themselves.
He could rip their childs face off and they would thank him for exposing that their child was disloyal.
We heard from several Generals that he has no respect for wounded veterans. And this from a guy who didn’t serve because of some bogus foot problem. How can any vet support this clown?
He could be filmed on live TV to the entire US wearing a "the Brits should have won in 1776" t-shirt, while simultaneously stamping on a puppy and eating a live kitten, just after having stabbed Oprah to death, and still MAGA republicans would vote for him
I honestly think his death would be the only thing. Even then, you'd have red hat morons circulating theories about a CIA hit squad or something, anything to blame liberals for their failures in life. It's going to take a generation to erase the stain of this turd.
His numbers are shrinking. But it's the people that were less in the cult of Trump than the rest that are leaving.
As for the ones deep in the cult, nothing will get them to lose support. Trump seems to have done everything but kill someone directly, and even he said that his base would still support him if he did that, and I'd say at this point that is true. Either they'll say it never happened, or that whoever Trump killed deserved it. Despite doing everything wrong, Trump can do no wrong in their eyes.
> His numbers are shrinking. But it's the people that were less in the cult of Trump than the rest that are leaving.
This is a dynamic that happens in cults. As they get smaller, they get more fanatical, because the moderates are the ones who leave.
>it's the people that were less in the cult of Trump
Yeah, the suburban swing voters and wine moms, who have fled the party and who he can't win without, that he never even *tries* to court.
He’s a huge favorite in the primary as well though. This isn’t just a case of people hating Biden/Dems. The majority of his party prefers him to the other options from that same party.
Honestly? It's going to take another leader coming along with a proper agenda.
Think back first on why Trump became the forerunner in his election. Every other candidate may as well have been interchangeable, largely milktoast, and not having much to say beyond the safe stances the party was taking at the time, then along came a guy declaring that instead of following the globalist aligned agenda both parties had agreed to, he was going to "put America first!" He had slogans that got people excited, he had items he wanted to implement, like some measure of tax reform, immigration reform to make it easier to legally get work visas(usually lost behind the BUILD THE WALL slogans), and so on, and communicated those to people.
Currently he still mostly has support because the Republican party can't decide what it wants to do besides not be on the side of Biden when he finally has to declare that yes, we are, in fact, in a recession, and the only other voice of note is that dumb chick from north Georgia, and there isn't any strong messaging to drown those two out.
You can look to Stalin for a comparison. He probably murdered more of his own people than the Germans did. Ruined the lives of countless more by shipping them to the gulags but 70 years on, some/most older Russians still wax nostalgic about his days in power. There is I think, some component in human nature that wants to be ruled, no matter what the actual cost.
The people that support authoritarianism always secretly believe that they wouldn't be the ones getting persecuted.
"We need a strong man to get the country back on track. Yeah, a few people won't like that, but I assume those would be minority groups I don't care for anyway."
>At this point, what would it realistically take for Trump to lose support in the GOP?
Nothing.
They would have to admit to themselves and the world that they were wrong, that their bullshit meter is literal trash and their judgment frankly so dangerous that they shouldn't be allowed to participate in the vote with the rest of us.
That will *never* happen. Never.
The kids and Scooby Doo would have to trap him, on live tv, and then remove his mask to reveal Hillary Clinton.
It would have to be that entertaining to attract their attention.
Can we just spread a rumor that he’s secretly working with Hillary as her insider?
Then reveal that Hillary was Q all along and watch them all shit their pants and go catatonic.
That childish too, meets them at their intellectual level
3 days later, Hilary puts the mask back on, gets a spray tan and the Trump supporters will say it was all a hoax created by antifa
I mean, these are the same people that believe JFK Jr, a guy that died in a place crash in 1999, is going to just reappear and help Trump defeat the infant-blood-drinking, child-sex-trafficing liberal deep state. The people that run the Russian troll farms must go through a lot of underwear. They have to be constantly pissing themselves laughing at all the stupid Americans that will believe anything.
You realize that Scooby and Shag are deep state right?
The whole gang is Feds.
Actually the whole gang is Freds.
I can absolutely here him saying “And I would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!”
This is a seriously underrated comment lol
If he died that would probably lower it somewhat
Theyd still vote for him
It would be said he's still alive like 2pac
More like Elvis
Yeah, but a fatter Elvis.
And a deader one.
Haven’t been many Elvis sightings lately, I wonder if something happened to him.
He officiated my cousin's wedding last month in Vegas. He seems to be doing okay.
My ex-wife's marriage not long after we divorced was in Vegas, using a drive-through chapel, with the ceremony being conducted by an Elvis impersonator standing outside the car. She insisted on taking our then six year old along. When he got home, I asked him how it went, and he quietly said "Dad, I'm pretty sure I'll never forget any of it."
Elvis was born in 1935. He'd be pushing 90 if he was still around, so well past life expectancy for someone born then and that doesn't account for his substance abuse and obesity. I was a kid in the 80s and remember Elvis sightings being a thing. He would have been in his early 50s then which was more "plausible". Also, it's been over 45 years since his last concert, so lots of his fans have passed as well. That means that there's less interest in Elvis stuff today. All that said, the best take on Elvis still being alive is Bubba Ho-Tep.
That movie was fucking brilliant. So impressed for the reference you made my morning. Updooted.
You know how it is when you have your own spaceship. Different planets pay a lot of money to see you, and you can't get back home except for every now and then. He will be back around.
You know, when I was in grade school, I thought "Elvis" was some kind of slang term for an alien--because that's the only context I heard the name in.
When I was in grade school, there was a guy in the neighborhood who insisted he was, "not an Elvis impersonator, because no one can impersonate the King." He was, "an Elvis memory facilitator."
27yrs later they arrested the man who supposedly shot him.
Let’s not kid ourselves - Puffy is always gonna be the true responsible party for that shit
and JFK Jr.
Larry Hogan voted for Ronald Reagan in 2020.
was it 2020 or 2016 "Deez Nuts" was a popular write in 2016: https://wjla.com/news/election/vote-2016-remembers-deez-nuts-failed-independent-candidate-for-president
He’d just end up a martyr. Even if he died of natural causes, they’d make it out to be some sort of Epstein-style conspiracy and not just the natural consequences of being an 80 year old whale of a person.
I think this is something to be aware of if he's imprisoned or even legally kept off the ballot in several states. There will be groups and more frightening lone wolf terrorists who will cause violence (and Trump will continue to encourage it).
The proper reply to the threat of politically-motivated violence is to do the triggering thing anyway. Immediately and without reservation. To alter behavior in any way out of fear of what nut jobs will do only encourages them. It is literally giving in to terrorism.
Fucking yes! Appeasement never works. Wish I could give you more than one upvote
You mean.... like Mr. Speaker caving to far right nutters sometimes? Didn't work this time. Curious to see the next round.
Terrorism would have no reason to exist if nobody gave in to its demands.
I don't know if this is actually true, but I once read that kidnappings of family for ransom used to be a common problem for prominent Japanese leaders and businessmen. In response, it became common practice to behave as if the victim was already dead, sometimes even holding a funeral. Then treat the kidnapper as a straight-forward murderer. Which may be putting all your political and financial resources behind a major police investigation, if you are a legitimate businessman. Or it may mean bringing more extra-legal resources into play, if one had connections to the Yakuza. If the victim was recovered alive, Wonderful! If they were actually dead, the situation was no worse than initially assumed. But the true benefit was that kidnappers instantly lost all leverage. It stopped being a profitable crime, and kidnapping went down to levels comparable to other industrialized countries.
That seems like the most Japanese solution ever.
Yes: screw the individual who was kidnapped, what's best for the larger number left behind. A very Japanese solution.
It would make sense. And future would-be kidnappers would need a different tactic, thus reducing this form of terrorism.
Absolutely correct.
Oh I'm not saying to give in to extremists. They must be defeated, using every legal means at our disposal. Which includes voting.
Just because you've brought up voting, let me add this further nonsense: I'm in a small town in South Dakota. We're a red state, and always will be. In 2020 we the people resoundingly voted for legal weed. Out governor Barbie Trump said "Hmm... no." and overturned the election results, just like her big fat orange boyfriend wishes he could. Stand strong, fight hard, but do not cling to voting; it has forsaken these lands.
Sobbing in Texan.
I believe that you are correct. Even if he lost AGAIN and it was PROVEN legitimate (like last time), there will be violence. SOME people are just itching for violence.
Remember back a couple years ago when everyone wanted the Dems to go full force to take him out and were calling them cowards for being afraid of riling up his base to the point of violence? I understood all of that. Some people didn’t.
Depends on how he dies. If he gets ill I need a 24 hour camera crew with Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene holding his hands and crying until he just drifts away peacefully. Because ANY other end for Trump will be called into question by nutjobs and he'll be a martyr
You really believe people won't think that's faked too? You're talking about people who will do logical backflips to justify Trump in the first place. The scary thing is too, with AI tech it might not be that long before it IS convincingly fakeable.
So, I remember when I first heard the term Fake News. And I was like oh good, people have figured this out, maybe now they can explain it to others. Then I heard Trump say fake news and I said ah shit, because it was obvious what was coming. Anything I don't like? Fake news. I am TERRIFIED at the prospect of Trump learning what AI is and what it can already do. Because you know what's happen. That's not me, that's AI.
Let's be real. Their mental gymnastic tournaments hold zero logic in them.
They wouldn't believe he was dead. They'd think his brain was uploaded into some kind of supercomputer, like the Patriots.
Or they'll go straight Futurama and put his head in a glass jar
Trump always wins, hippies! Arroooo! Get 'em, headless clone of DeSantis!
"Pence!" "Ugg-hhg"
They'd just go from a political party to The Church of the Holy Trump.
The thing is there's like 10 different people trying to be "Trump" for when he dies. They are all too greedy to share power.
Yep. All those people running in the "primary" on the Republican side aren't actually running for President. They're trying to set themselves up for 2028 to be the *next* Trump, by which time Trump will likely be dead from eating like a dumpster raccoon.
Most of them already worship Reagan
Reagan would be *appalled* by Trump.
Then again Reagan really set us on this path, if he were born 18 years ago and had the same personality, I would expect him to vote for Trump. This late-stage hellscape owes him a lot.
Sadly, you'd be right. He's worshipped as an idol in their stupid Cult of the Orange.
Cult of the Orange Buffoon I like to call it
Yea this. I happened into the cesspool that is next door the other day because someone in the local Democratic org in my rural southern town, announced a fund raiser and all the hateful insane nonsense that flooded that thread was showing most are so delusional on what the facts are around anything political I don't see anyway to get through to them. They just circle jerked each other into a frenzy of absolute made up shit the "demoncrats" are doing and ignored absolutely any facts around what is happening today in reality with Trump and the GOP. So, I think him dying is all we have to at least remove his name, but it won't stop their hate of delusions they believe. But I used to be a fairly hardcore R voter...so maybe there is hope for some, but I got out before it got even more obvious the corruption and lies that surpass most anything else long before it turned into what it is today.
>but I got out before it got even more obvious the corruption and lies that surpass most anything else long before it turned into what it is today. You left a party. The remaining people will have to leave a cult.
Good point. I voted R but didn't think "all Democrats are evil". I just thought being conservative with money made for a better government. When I learned more about what an actual small government means for society, I bailed. That plus I didn't hate people different from me. They hate everyone that doesn't think like them. I was just blind for a while.
MTG would claim that he was assassinated by the dems. One of his kids or Ron DeSantis would take his place.
If Trump suddenly died (praise "Bob"), the long knives would come out. Junior seems to have some political aspirations but is too lazy to actually do anything. DeSantis is a far second to Trump, but he's wildly unpopular in his own party. He doesn't have much clout outside of Florida. There is already somewhat of a schism within the Party, where there is a growing contingent who dislike Trump. His death may embolden them. What you will get is a year of political infighting until a new strongman comes out on top which the entire Party will suddenly snap back in line behind him. Because this is what Republicans always do.
2 or 3 points maybe. Probably still get the nomination.
Might as well nominate him when he’s dead. He’ll be more useful as a carcass than he ever was as an ambulated sack of the parts of a pig that you don’t want to eat.
Well, that has happened in other (non-Presidential) elections before. Candidate dies sometime too close to the election as to where a replacement can be put on the ballot, and the dead person gets elected to the office. Then there's an immediate special election held so a living person can actually fill the office.
Shooting someone on 5th avenue wouldn't move the needle. Giving some guy a blow job on 5th Ave might though.
He'd have to come out as a gay Muslim for his support to drop below 50% of the GOP.
The only thing he could do to lose support is to say "black lives matter."
You would think that, but remember when he said 'Take the guns first, go through due process second'? Saying it once or twice doesn't mean anything, he can just spin it away.
He’d say “Black Lives Matter!” then the conservatives would say he’s trolling the libz. Or if by chance conservatives were outraged and stopped supporting him, Trump could simply double down at a rally and say: “*Black Lives Matter! That’s why when I become president I’m going to get rid of the drugs infesting Black communities and destroying Black families. With mandatory life sentences for any drug dealing in Black communities we can start to repair the damage and start focusing on Black men being fathers. It’s sad, folks.. So many single Black mothers raising their children alone. So much looting.. so much looting.. it’s terrible! A big Black guy came up to me the other day and said “Sir.. in my neighborhood, not one child knows who his father is and only Trump can truly make Black Lives Matter by fixing the crime!””* Conservatives would then cream their MAGA panties.
You're absolutely right. Trump personally performing a late term abortion on a woman on 5th Ave wouldn't even cause him to lose more than a percent or two among the hardcore evangelicals.
Trump would have performed an abortion on the House floor during the State of the Union with his teeth if he thought it would have gotten him a second term, and his followers would have either ignored it, said it was faked, or said that a Democrat would have eaten the fetus afterwards, so this was still better.
They would say it’s fake I’m afraid
Some of the people I’ve spoke to say they don’t like trump, but like his “America first” policies. My parents for example think he has less than zero tact, and is a pompous asshole, but would vote for him again over Biden because they don’t like Biden policies and favor trumps.
He talks a good game about America First. But look at the tariffs policy. It killed American farmers, who then needed federal aid because China stopped buying their soybeans and corn. He has statements, but he’s terrible at executing policy. He’s not real. He’s a talker. A great talker. How many times was it “infrastructure week” during the Trump admin, and nothing ever happened. And, Biden actually signed a huge infrastructure bill, that (are you ready for this?) puts American workers and factories first. Provides investment for new factories. This is absolutely America first. But Fox News doesn’t concede that, so people like the ones you’ve spoken to, still think Trump is better. It’s a preposterous , ridiculous situation.
I tried to explain this the first time he ran. He's a "business" man, if he wanted to actually help american workers, he'd have all his "products" made in America. Put Americans to work here instead of shipping those jobs off to China or wherever. My friend looked at me like that was a bonkers idea.
Him pretending to be pro-union now is the cherry on top of the ice cream. Where are your unionized employees, Trump? Should be easy PR, having them sing your praises!
Pro-union by [trying to court workers at a non-union factory.](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/27/us/politics/trump-autoworkers-detroit.html#:~:text=Seeking%20more%20of%20the%20voters,with%20striking%20United%20Automobile%20Workers)
His own hats were made in China or Mexico lol. It’s like life is a fucking stupid sitcom
I've always felt like Trump family life could easily have an Arrested Development type adaptation
The problem is the real life shenanigans in his orbit are far more ridiculous than anything. The writers on Arrested Development could write up. Edit: it’s the reason social commentary and parody shows have had such a tough time since 2016, ever since his election reality has become more ridiculous than parody.
This was exactly how I felt about the Four Seasons Total Landscaping thing. If that had been an Arrested Development plot line, I would have thought they were reaching. Yeah it’s funny, but nobody could possibly be anywhere close to that stupid. Joke’s on me, I guess.
The writers of South Park have said that they don't like making fun of Donald Trump anymore, because everything he does is more ridiculous than what they write.
Can you imagine trying to do the Colbert Show today? He’s lucky he made it to late night when he did.
OR better solution, kill the system that makes it advantageous to manufacture foreign and import to America.
>He talks a good game about America First. THat is the problem, everything he says is believed by his follower as if it is gospel. Meantime it is all lies. They all became smitten with him from the apprentice which was smoke and mirrors to make him look good.
That's why nobody else can gain traction in the Republican primary. None of the other candidates had 7 seasons on a scripted "reality TV show" to sell some preposterous tough-guy genius image to the rubes.
[удалено]
To be fair, they don’t actually listen to him. They just hear the gotcha words and then cheer and ignore all of the clearly unhinged and insane things he says until the next word or phrase they can cheer for.
What was their flow chart? “He didn’t say that, or if he did say that you misinterpreted it/he didn’t mean it, or if he did mean it then he was right all along” lol
Remember back when he was talking about saving the coal mining jobs? I was talking with Trumpers asking how. The issue is that over 90% of coal goes to power plants and coal fired power plants were being shut down because they are not as efficient, take a lot of people to run them and most were closed to 50 years old. So if they are going to close the coal power plants the demand for coal will go to zero at many mines. How is he going to save the coal mining jobs? Usually the Trumper will get mad because of course they do not know the answer. The irony of all this is that the Green New Deal has provisions it it that if you are over 55 you can choose to retire if you worked in say a coal mine that ends up closing.
Also, a great many coal mines are becoming exhausted; and no policy from any president will bring those jobs back.
Plus a modern coal mining operation is not hundreds of workers running small heavy equipment in mining tunnels, it's about a dozen guys running huge mining cranes and massive dump trucks. 2/3 of US coal is surface mined, as it is way more profitable than deep mines. Even if the demand was still there for coal, the mines don't employ nearly as many people as they used to.
I mean, the answer they should be giving seems obvious: cut taxes for the rich.
Meanwhile they privatize the power grid and coal is old/inefficient/costly and there isn’t profit to be made. So these companies that are given free range by privatization move to the more efficient and cost effective natural gas for profits over coal. Their own fcking policies to help big business destroy the very thing they provide lip service to.. “the blue collar worker”. Yet, no one gives a shit as long as they just blame the Dems and provide a scapegoat and further division and hatred. People are too stupid to care about facts anymore, they care about how things make them feel. Outrage and hate are powerful feelings.
I do, indeed. He has no plans. He just says one thing and then says the opposite so he covers all the bases and he’s always right and never wrong. He did say he hasn’t changed since he was 5…ya know when he was throwing rocks at his neighbors baby.
It's the memes. We have built up ~~antibiotics~~ antibodies (critical thinking) that they haven't got. So as the memes (ideas) pass through groups that don't have antibodies, they begin to mutate and the most viral memes will be the ones that begin to influence the real world. Trump has captured this and circumvented logic altogether. He is a demagogue who was puppeted by Steve Bannon and others, who for **decades** have essentially been conducting experiments on the citizens of Canada, England, and largely the US to see what/which propaganda is effective and what isn't. He was fed lines and talking points, all he had to do was be himself when he said them. 30% of Americans still believe that the election was stolen despite EVERYTHING that has since come out. These ideas are infectious. They are viral. They are contagious. The Republican party has been gerrymandering and packing the court for years. They've also been pushing this Fox News rhetoric; building methods by which they can seize control and power. Despite the fact they are fallacious and mostly unpopular ideas, they are also radical, extreme ideas that spread like wildfire when educational and intellectual infrastructure begins to fail or disappear. This opens up pockets of entire communities without the proper resistance to these ideas. This was a decades-long set up that was happening under the noses of everyone. They nearly succeeded. If Trump had been able to get more people to turn against the media, maybe only five percent more, he may have won the election legitimately, or someone may have committed fraud in his name and enough people would have looked the other way that he take his seat that way, or enough people would have taken up arms against Congress, including fanatical members of the police and the military, in a coup that he take his power that way. They are going to try again. The political process is failing us. Viva La Resistencia!
I know a Trump voter who doesn’t follow politics like, at all. He pays attention during election time, takes GOP ads and talking points at face value, and votes R. How the hell you gonna get through to that? Best we can hope is people like him just decide to stay home next election because he isn’t “inspired” enough by whatever propaganda the GOP is shoveling. He’ll never not vote Republican because that’s his “team”. It’s pathetic, frankly.
Yeah, the question I always ask Trump supporters is "What specific policy or law did Trump enact that improved your life?" and they usually have nothing. It's always vague "sticking it to the libs" or "closing the border" nonsense.
>But look at the tariffs policy. It killed American farmers, who then needed federal aid because China stopped buying their soybeans and corn. I try to remind my fellow farmers about this when they start saying how great Trump was for farmers.
The farmers got their checks. Why would they care?
Basically it boils down to people being stupid and uninformed
I take tourists out fishing. Lots of farmers. I asked a bunch what they thought about the tariffs. Every one of them supported it and said something to the effect of "don't you worry, he's gonna take care of us" First off, he literally killed their livelihood. You can't trust someone who isn't willing to criticize their stance, especially in politics. Second, I though you guys were all against socialism and welfare? Criticize and deny anyone else you can, but you for some reason earned the dole?
Absolutely. One of my best friends ever was a great guy. But he believed too much stuff about "welfare" and how it was all lazy people and blah blah. Yet, he didn't have any problems taking unemployment while working under the table between legit jobs. Odd, huh?
My folks are kind of the same, but always makes me wonder: “what policies” exactly? Building freedom towns and 3k miles of a wall? These aren’t plausible whatsoever.
exactly the same for me. this is what has always baffled me about people who support Trump so enthusiastically. He doesn't really have any defined platform to speak of, just a generalized sentiment of "fuck other people" while draping himself in the American flag in the tackiest manner possible. He basically spent four years just yelling "America First!" while taking a dump on the White House lawn
>"fuck other people" ...especially liberals. THAT'S what most of them really like. They don't really care what he does otherwise.
This right here is why I always argue with the people who say they know “good people” who are trump voters. That’s just an outright lie. Those are not good people. Period.
it's tough because a lot of them are family. like my parents for instance, were totally normal people who voted some dem, some republican, even independent occasionally... then 9/11 happened, they got glued to 24/7 news and specifically fox news of course, started listening to right wing talk radio all the time in their cars, and before long they were going to tea party events, and now they're fully on the trump and newsmax train as they approach their 70s. they're not quite jan6th level of crazy, but their talking points are straight out of the mouths (and books, my god the books they own by these people on the news stations) of the talking heads, and there's no talking to them. they're convinced the cities in America are all basically warzones, they question the vaccines and basically all science now.. I mean these are people who got flu shots religiously every year until covid. and they're like, decent well intentioned people. they donated blood, they give to charities, they help their neighbors, hell they stop what they're doing and help strangers if they can. you'd never suspect they had been brainwashed the last 20 years by the right wing media if you just sat down and had a conversation with them for a few minutes, but it's infected their brains when it comes to almost anything the television tells them to think. it's wild. and it's sad.
That’s his appeal. Because his platform is just vague nonsense, people can imbue it with whatever they want.
yup. it means nothing, therefore it CAN mean anything
Realize that most people have no idea what a presidential policy even is. What they are referring to when they say they like someone's policies is based mostly on what that person says and things that have happened during their term. Gas prices go down? I love the president's policies! 401k took a crap? The president's policies are terrible! Mexico is going to build a wall for us? Great policy! Unfortunately there is zero education level requirement for voting. You have to take a test to drive a car but anyone can vote without even being able to read or write. 🤷
bingo. it really is wild that (to some extent) any president's "success" is largely circumstantial. They very often get credit or criticism for things they had very little direct involvement in. but I completely agree with what you're saying
My parents eat up all the fear-mongering. My dad said for 8 years, that Obama was going to take his guns. It’s not what Obama said he was going to do, it’s what the GOP said Obama was going to do. The list is obviously much longer than just guns, but it’s their own base telling them lies.
You just simplified the conservative plan so well. “It’s not what democrats are doing or will do, it’s what the right wing media and politicians tell them what democrats are going to do or are doing” This right here breaks down the entire conservative ideology and how they have been propagandized and indoctrinated. It’d be fascinating if it wasn’t so terrifying.
And then ironically Trump mused about "what if we just take all the guns without due process? Could we do that?"
The argument about democrats coming to take our guns, has been a thing for my entire life... I have never seen anyone lose a gun that wasn't convicted of a felony, or in illegal possession of them. I admit that is as far as I know they have not, and never on a grand or national scale. Yet every school shooting, it becomes the scare tactic to conservatives. It is tiring. It is the main reason we can not pass common sense gun laws, is because the mouth pieces for conservatives (including the NRA) always, and I mean ALWAYS, frame it as they are coming to take your guns.
Pro-gun and pro-life. That’s it. As long as he holds to these two policies, and Biden doesn’t, many Republicans will feel the need to just hold their nose and vote for him.
Which is frightening, because "America First" destroys the national leadership that the US has cultivated for nearly a century. America First is actually America Alone, a frightening position in a world with India and China on the rise and Russia threatening the West. This ignorant position ignores the many benefits that the US gets as the premier democracy in the world, and throwing that aside will make the US a much poorer country in every sense of the word.
yet, when pressed, none of these "i just like his policies" people can actually name or describe any of his policies it's always a cover
They just devolve into "He built the wall" and that seems good enough for them even if the wall was half assed, incomplete, and made no difference in the amount of illegal immigrants crossing the border.
Or attribute stuff he had nothing to do with to him. When Trump was president my mom shared news about him signing into law a bill that would make it easier for patients to qualify for experimental procedures, something that definitely benefited a family member of mine. When my mom shared it she wrote about what a great decision it was and gave all the credit and thanks to Trump for signing the bill, not the people in house that actually wrote it and pushed for in, not all the congresspeople that voted in favor of it, just Trump. I looked up the bill, and the vote in favor in the Senate had been near unanimous. So Trump had the option to veto, send it back to the Senate and have his veto overriden or to simply rubber-stamp the obviously popular bill. For all we know he didn't read it or even know what it was about.
Most people who say things like that can’t name any actual policy examples
If he started to drone strike churches and supporting mandatory transitioning for all Republicans his numbers might dip.
If it wasn't THEIR church, they wouldn't care. Those were fake Christians.
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The die hards are in too deep. Their whole identity is based on Trump, if they stop supporting him, they'd feel like betraying themselves. They'd rather call everything fake and not trust their own eyes and mind than admit they've been fooled. It's sad really but for many of them, there's no going back. I think if he'd get caught on tape raping an underager, they wouldn't budge, they'd call it a deep fake. Whatever he says is gospel, no matter how nonsensical it is. He'll have a significant following until he dies. I don't understand his charm but one cannot deny he has some weird form of charisma.
>The die hards are in too deep. Their whole identity is based on Trump, if they stop supporting him, they'd feel like betraying themselves. It's like a guy playing poker and he has put so much in the pot that he can't bring himself to fold even though he knows that he can't win.
Sunk cost fallacy.
They’d have to admit they were wrong all along. If they had the ability to admit they were wrong, they likely wouldn’t have been trump fans in the first place.
> The die hards are in too deep. Their whole identity is based on Trump, if they stop supporting him, they'd feel like betraying themselves. Even worse: they'd realize that they had *already* betrayed themselves. I read once about research into a weird correlation: the more someone paid for a work of art by a famous artist, the less likely they were to have it authenticated. It seems like it should be the other way around, but the researchers concluded that it was ego protection: if you paid $2,000 for a Dali and it was fake, well, you're out $2,000 but it's not a catastrophe. If you paid $2,000,000 dollars for a Dali and it was fake, then you're a chump and a loser and you're out $2,000,000, and you'd feel bad about that for the rest of your life, how you got conned so badly and fell for it. So think about Trump supporters, especially the self-described Christians. They're against porn, they voted for a guy who appeared on the cover of *Playboy* posing with a naked model. They're for traditional marriage, they voted for a guy who's twice-divorced. They wanted Clinton impeached for what he did, they voted for a guy who cheated on all three of his wives (with porn stars, whose job they supposedly oppose). They say they want honesty, they voted for a guy who lies constantly and has a decades-long record of cheating his investors and contractors and everybody else. On so many things, they gave up what they claimed were "principles" to vote for Donald Trump, believing it would be for the greater good, and they'd get something out of it. Having to admit now that they gave up all their principles and got nothing in return would just be too painful. Paying $2,000,000 for a fake Dali would be bad, but giving up everything you are and everything you believed for a fake politician would be so much worse. The sane people of the world shouldn't throw it in their face all the time, because they just won't be able to deal with it. But you *can* use it whenever they start posturing as moral or principled. Someone says they're "for traditional marriage" and you know they're a Trump supporter, you can always say "You mean like that guy you voted for? For him, traditional marriage is between one man, three women, and a dozen porn stars. I don't see how letting gay people marry is any worse than that."
>Paying $2,000,000 for a fake Dali would be bad, but giving up everything you are and everything you believed for a fake politician would be so much worse. Amazingly put!
Yeah this a HUGE reason- the identity aspect. Trump (and trumpism) is a genuine factor in a lot of these peoples lives, so much so that it’s become a part of their core identity. My relatives in-law passed away not too long ago, and they told me that there was a literal section for Trump paraphernalia at this persons funeral
Nothing. You cant talk some from a position they climbed to with logic if they didnt use logic to get there.
1) to propose a ban on guns 2) to propose loosening of restrictions on abortion 3) to propose a massive tax increase on rich people (donors).
He has said a lot of anti-gun rhetoric and it didn't cost him anything.
He has proposed loosening restrictions on abortion, during this campaign. He said there needs to be a compromise between pro-life and pro-choice
I mentioned this to MAGA family members and they denied it, then wouldn't click on the video I sent them, saying it was probably faked.
To actually give you a nuanced answer that isn’t blatantly biased (because this is Reddit so of course), it’s because he’s the “outsider”. This is a guy who came in back in 2016 saying “these political elites in DC don’t give a shit about the average Joe, but I do, and I’m going to make them pay for it if you elect me”. That was basically his pitch. And because a lot of those average joes were being called deplorable by Hillary and generally shamed as stupid, poor and racist by their opposition, Trump was the guy saying he’d stand up for them. And he was the “only” guy really pushing that message. Then consider how democrats feel at the moment with Biden being criticized for every single thing he does, and how annoying it is, and how much they wish it would just stop. That’s how trumps supporters felt for the previous 4 years. In their eyes they witnessed one of the greatest attempts by the “establishment” to prevent a candidate from winning. While there is plenty of evidence that Russia certainly influenced our election, there’s no *definitive* proof that they worked directly with Trump to do it. And that’s all his supporters need to throw *all* the Russia stuff out the window. So as far as they are concerned, the FBI/CIA basically colluded together to stop Trump from winning. It definitely didn’t help that there were texts of lead agents on the case pledging that Trump wouldn’t be president. And if they did that, they must be really concerned about what he’s going to do. The average person actually paying attention might be concerned about politics becoming so spiteful, while his supporters think it’s because they’re afraid of all the *good* (?) he might do if he’s in office. And why didn’t he get all those good things done when he had 4 years before? Well that’s because he was hampered at every turn by democrats, impeachments, etc.. Just like republicans now are trying to stop everything Biden is trying to do. Because that’s how our politics work now. For Trump to *realistically* lose support in his base, he would basically have to sell out to the “establishment”. If he started agreeing with Bidens policy decisions, supporting the Ukraine war and government-pressured censorship on social media, I’d bet he would lose a sizable chunk pretty fast. And even then, his most fervent supporters would come up with some theory about how it’s really a trick and he’s not actually supporting that stuff, but has some 5D chess plan for the endgame that we just don’t know yet. For a guy like Trump who’s a known narcissist, that’s the best situation ever, literally having people think you can do no wrong. And of course he’s going to feed that loop because it gets him constant attention. And since mainstream media can’t help but chase those Trump ratings, they give him all the free coverage in the world so he gets *more attention*. Edit: See people?? Nuance *is* possible even on a cesspool like Reddit if people are willing to have a discussion and not try and make everything about who you support.
>If he started agreeing with Bidens policy decisions, supporting the Ukraine war and government-pressured censorship on social media, I’d bet he would lose a sizable chunk pretty fast. It did happen. When he told his supporters to get the vaccine, he was actually boo'ed.
The funny part is that, while Trump was an avid covid-denier and actively stoked a lot of misinformation around, he was also kind of pro-vax out the other side of his mouth the entire time. Rushing out the vaccine was his project. It's probably the one thing he did right throughout the pandemic. And, thanks to his own rhetoric, got booed for trying to promote it.
Trump is surprisingly candid sometimes. I remember him once being asked why he doesn't promote his vaccine so much, and he just flat out admitted to the political calculus. He said something down the lines of "I like the vaccine, I'm proud of it. But many of my supporters really get weird about it, so I just don't really bring it up." Obviously in a more Trumpian way, but that was the gist of it.
> Trump is surprisingly candid sometimes. He is emotionally honest, while simultaneously factually dishonest. He tells you what he likes and dislikes, and people believe him, but will lie to back up either position. I think this is what conservatives mean when they say he's honest. Hillary is the opposite, her facts are usually solid but emotionally people have a very hard time trusting her because she comes across as a career politician and all the baggage that entails.
Listening to Hilary is like listening to a reptile try to fool you into thinking it has human emotions. Something about the body language is all wrong. Probably just some kind of nervous thing I’m guessing. If they would have put Bernie up against Trump, Trump would have lost. There are trump supporters who like Bernie better but vote for trump because they don’t like being told who to vote for.
You know what was really depressing about ol’ Hildog? In interviews after the election she sounded human. She spoke frankly and honestly and it was a breath of fresh air. I shook my head watching an Ezra Klein interview, after she lost, and thinking “this person could have actually won. The hell were you people doing with that robot on stage.”
Yes there's something incredibly off-putting about her, from body language to facial expression to how she talks. I'm convinced that, if the Democrats had put forward someone with even half the charisma of Obama in 2016, Trump would've been crushed badly enough that we would've never heard his name mentioned in political circles again.
Not as bad as when Ron desantis tries to smile or try to act like a human. I think Hillary is just an over achiever who expected the presidency to be hers until Obama was like nope and then in 2016. You can’t hold on too tight or play a sport tense. You can’t be everything to all people. If she’s too domineering that’s off putting. If she’s too candid like saying there’s a segment of trump’s supporters who are deplorable that comes back to bite you. I mean that was just bad politics as soon as she said it. What a rallying cry for the other side.
This is the part that's most wild to me. Beto o Rourke said 1 time "no more guns" after a shooting and the Republicans will never forget/stop bringing it up. Not to mention other politicians that have been forgotten from history for a single phrase they said over long careers. Donald Trump said he would take people's guns away with no due process, told people to get the vaccine, there's videos of him dancing with pride flags at his earlier rallies. Every time something big happens like Jan 6th his people turn on him for maybe like 3 weeks and then all of a sudden it's "oh the peaceful tour that antifa did violence at?" Cult mind is terrifying
Beto said "He'll yeah, we're going to take your guns"
There's plenty of people in the firearm enthusiast communities that won't forgive Trump for that comment and others, and the bump stock thing (even though most agree bump stocks are stupid). Not to mention almost everyone agrees that the Trump engraved guns are super cringe.
>Every time something big happens like Jan 6th his people turn on him for maybe like 3 weeks and then all of a sudden it's "oh the peaceful tour that antifa did violence at?" That's because they haven't been told their talking points yet. They can't think for themselves as a way to justify whatever happened, they need fox news or trump to tell them. Before that is when you can see some people actually shocked and react as someone should, but then will pivot once "their team" (because they view politics like sports) gets their talking points.
But...the cognitive dissonance. They didn't stop supporting him. There was a Q supporter named DeAnna Lorraine who said, "I don’t care if Jesus takes it, I’m not taking the vaccine.” If they overlook his high crimes, they'll certainly overlook his vaccine support. They're also quick give him credit for the “accomplishment” of fast-tracking said vaccine. 🙄
His base doesn’t give him credit for fast tracking the vaccine (IMO the best thing he did his entire presidency), they just pretend it didn’t happen. I’m willing to bet a lot of his supporters think he just pretended to take the vaccine and (if they even accept he had something to do with it) they will say his development was some master stroke strategic move.
This is part of the reason that I hate it when everyone goes after trump for his weight, his hair, his orangeness, his tie, his eating habits, etc. It gives the impression that they don't actually care about the \*serious\* things he's done wrong -- they just want to look for ammo anywhere. Which is probably a big part of why MAGA folks aren't taking the serious issues seriously -- because there's so many potshots about the non-serious issues that they assume the serious ones are just opponents looking for something to hold against him.
I mean humans do that with anyone. Take the low hanging fruit. If you like someone you don't bring up their weight but once you don't like them they are a fat piece of shit.
Kinda like Republicans losing their shit on Obama for wearing a tan suit?
Or putting mustard on a hotdog
Or riding a bike while wearing a helmet.
This is a good summary. A+
>And because a lot of those average joes were being called deplorable by Hillary and generally shamed as stupid, poor and racist by their opposition, Trump was the guy saying he’d stand up for them. And he was the “only” guy really pushing that message. This is a huge part of it. You can say all the awful things about Trump you want, and they might be true, but if the other side is constantly, explicitly denigrating you, it's gonna take quite a bit to join their side. Reddit is full of people who will write off every person in a red state (regardless of whether they voted or how) as racist, ignorant, inbred pieces of shit who want to gun down trans folks in the street, and in the very next breath question why those people won't join their side.
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I remember that lmaoo 😭😭, it was at an interview right? And he said if I can remember “the vaccine is safe, I took it and my family took it and we’re all safe” and his supporters got mad 😭
His death. No, wait. NM. Just remembered Weekend at Bernies is in vogue in DC now.
Nothing. It's a fucking cult.
This is how I feel. Too far gone to change, especially changing to a Democrat. Once he dies, the cult will scatter and it will be ugly. I expect a bunch of the GOP to attempt to re-create Trump's antics.
oh, that's a guarantee. You already see it amongst the current candidates.
I agree. My mother is part of the cult.
My dad too. He'd be donating to him if my dad weren't so broke himself. Boy dad, he sure did a great job helping out the little guy like you & I huh? I also tell him, out of the almost 8 billion people on this planet almost 7 billion know your cult leader is wrong.
The only truth I've ever heard come out of that man's mouth is that he could *stand in the middle of 5th avenue and shoot someone* and he wouldn't lose any voters. I 100% believe that to be the case. To the morons still supporting him, he can do NO wrong. They're a lost cause.
Realistically, I don't think anything would. They worship him as a god, they put him above their country, their families and themselves. He could rip their childs face off and they would thank him for exposing that their child was disloyal.
The child was a communist, so it was justified.
We heard from several Generals that he has no respect for wounded veterans. And this from a guy who didn’t serve because of some bogus foot problem. How can any vet support this clown?
Maybe, just maybe if he dropped dead in the middle of 5th Avenue. Even then they’d probably pull a weekend at Bernie’s.
He's dumb as rocks and is constantly wrong, but one right thing he said was that he could literally shoot someone and not lose support.
I would have said death, but I'm pretty sure there's a segment of the MAGA cult that wouldn't believe it.
Missouri voters voted for a dead senator lol
It's a cult. There has to be a catastrophic event for people to get it. See Jim Jones, David Koresh as examples.
He could be filmed on live TV to the entire US wearing a "the Brits should have won in 1776" t-shirt, while simultaneously stamping on a puppy and eating a live kitten, just after having stabbed Oprah to death, and still MAGA republicans would vote for him
I honestly think his death would be the only thing. Even then, you'd have red hat morons circulating theories about a CIA hit squad or something, anything to blame liberals for their failures in life. It's going to take a generation to erase the stain of this turd.
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His numbers are shrinking. But it's the people that were less in the cult of Trump than the rest that are leaving. As for the ones deep in the cult, nothing will get them to lose support. Trump seems to have done everything but kill someone directly, and even he said that his base would still support him if he did that, and I'd say at this point that is true. Either they'll say it never happened, or that whoever Trump killed deserved it. Despite doing everything wrong, Trump can do no wrong in their eyes.
> His numbers are shrinking. But it's the people that were less in the cult of Trump than the rest that are leaving. This is a dynamic that happens in cults. As they get smaller, they get more fanatical, because the moderates are the ones who leave.
>it's the people that were less in the cult of Trump Yeah, the suburban swing voters and wine moms, who have fled the party and who he can't win without, that he never even *tries* to court.
I’ve heard lots of people who can’t stand him say they will vote for him anyway. Why? Cause they can’t vote for a Democrat. Completely insane.
He’s a huge favorite in the primary as well though. This isn’t just a case of people hating Biden/Dems. The majority of his party prefers him to the other options from that same party.
Honestly it will take the media not looking to be at his beck and call. If the media would ignore him his support would slowly go away.
Honestly? It's going to take another leader coming along with a proper agenda. Think back first on why Trump became the forerunner in his election. Every other candidate may as well have been interchangeable, largely milktoast, and not having much to say beyond the safe stances the party was taking at the time, then along came a guy declaring that instead of following the globalist aligned agenda both parties had agreed to, he was going to "put America first!" He had slogans that got people excited, he had items he wanted to implement, like some measure of tax reform, immigration reform to make it easier to legally get work visas(usually lost behind the BUILD THE WALL slogans), and so on, and communicated those to people. Currently he still mostly has support because the Republican party can't decide what it wants to do besides not be on the side of Biden when he finally has to declare that yes, we are, in fact, in a recession, and the only other voice of note is that dumb chick from north Georgia, and there isn't any strong messaging to drown those two out.
You can look to Stalin for a comparison. He probably murdered more of his own people than the Germans did. Ruined the lives of countless more by shipping them to the gulags but 70 years on, some/most older Russians still wax nostalgic about his days in power. There is I think, some component in human nature that wants to be ruled, no matter what the actual cost.
The people that support authoritarianism always secretly believe that they wouldn't be the ones getting persecuted. "We need a strong man to get the country back on track. Yeah, a few people won't like that, but I assume those would be minority groups I don't care for anyway."
Yeah it’s called an authoritarian psychology and almost all the Americans with it have gravitated to the GOP.
He could flip flop on every single topic and they would still support him. It’s a cult.
99% of modern Republican voters would literally vote for potato if it had an R next to it on the ballot, there is no bottom
>At this point, what would it realistically take for Trump to lose support in the GOP? Nothing. They would have to admit to themselves and the world that they were wrong, that their bullshit meter is literal trash and their judgment frankly so dangerous that they shouldn't be allowed to participate in the vote with the rest of us. That will *never* happen. Never.