It’s been getting harder and harder over the last few years for me to keep a pulse on conservative viewpoints; partly because the places I get my information keep getting more polarized and conservatives are running off to god knows where; partly because paywalls and the enshittification of the internet are making it hard to find anything; and partly because the proliferation of better AI powered bots make me doubt anything I do find.
However, I do believe there’s a growing believe among conservatives that goes like this: Trump’s first term was great! Best president ever! And his second term, that started out great too! But now he’s his own worst enemy. I can dig up more sources but Google will yield plenty of similar opinion pieces. The main culprits here seem to be the ICE surge in Minneapolis (welcomed and justified but ultimately viewed as counterproductive in execution, choice of word there intentional), the Epstein files, the slush fund and grifts (for those who actually know about it), and of course, Iran.
The hope I refer to in the title is the hope that conservative reflect on what exactly is different between his two terms, the answer being 1) P2025, and 2) Trump making loyalty to Trump the #1 consideration in all staffing decisions. In his first term, despite surrounding himself with awful people, Trump was nevertheless checked by various adults. His second term has no such adults, and so the Stephen Millers and Pete Hegseths are free to ruin everything without oversight. Admitting this would mean that nobody actually like the Trump aspect of Trump’s first term either, because what they like about it is that it wasn’t very Trumpy.
Anyway, I have to keep reminding myself that the alternative to Trump’s second term, at least according to conservatives, isn’t anything remotely close to anti-Trumpism. It’s just Trump’s second term with better PR, the sort of political correctness that the right has always despised despite being absolutely relying on to keep the wagons circled.
From what I can see, conservatives think Trump has betrayed Trumpism, as odd as it sounds. Similar to what you said, they want Trumpism, but pure Trumpism. The Marjorie-Taylor-Greene type MAGA folks are furious that Trump said he’d get America out of dumb foreign wars, and instead has gotten American into a terrible war with Iran, gotten inflation worse rather than better, gotten the national debt skyrocketing instead of tamed, done lots of things that benefit China rather than the USA, etc. They think Trumpism is wonderful and are furious he “went off the rails.”
Another big scandal brewing in a report on the NYT about Trump capitalizing on his position to enrich himself, his family, and his fellow grifters. This one is about a tungsten mine in Khazakhstan. I suppose it’s too much to hope that the current limp-dicks in Congress will investigate. None of this seems to bother his voter base much as long as he keeps shipping those durn immygrants out.
Congress will not investigate, this grift will drop off the front page in a day, and the 40% who support Trump will never hear about it. If by chance they do, it will be dismissed as “lefttard propaganda”
That’s an interesting way to put it. When Trump dies, the ensuing power struggle will see people doing everything they can to distance themselves from Trump (without speaking any ill words about him) while doubling down on Trumpism.
This. His true believers have held their noses and continued to vote for him no matter what. They are hypocrites about being hypocrites.
There are no true conservatives left in the Republican party, they have all either sold out or made compromises to stay politically active and in power.
Trump’s value to conservatives in office only extends as far as the next election, in November. After that - barring some blatantly unconstitutional power grab - he’s a lame duck.
Right now, Trump is doing conservatives no favors. Consider his recent refusal to sign a bipartisan housing bill - Trump only cares about himself, and won’t lift a finger to give them any semblance of a win.
So I’m not surprised if conservatives in office start to distance themselves from Trump. As has been obvious for years, he’s poison for anybody who seeks to ride his coattails.
Oh absolutely! Though I reside in a statistically blue metro area, I suffer dozens of his true believers every day. It’s not hard to know who is who since they all behave as spouting loudmouthed walking trolls. Anyway:
Through speaking with them or overhearing them speaking among themselves I have noted a souring, though not just recently. This takes two forms, as I’ve heard no different ( much less true contrition for having been snookered )
The by now well catalogued “I’m getting the worst of it…I didn’t think the leopards would eat MY face!” variety
That his brashness, unfiltered impropriety is impolitic to the point of being a liability to the harmonious humming along of the plutocratic christo-fascist industrial complex.
Trump is no Conservative. He doesn’t even know what the word means. He didn’t know how to spell dumb. That describes him pretty well.
He is the Me, Me, Me party. And somehow his idiot supporters think they will get a piece of the pie. Bad news is coming their way. But, they will blame it on anyone but Trump and themselves.
I figured this would represent a large number of MAGA voters when the movement finally collapses. They might say he had dementia or plead infirmity due to age, but they’ll continue to ignore the obvious evidence demonstrating Trump never had a plan for the United States that was good for his supporters. The most I’ve been able to wring out of Trump supporters in recent months was a weak, “The tarriffs aren’t going the way we’d hoped they’d go.” Though I avoid talking politics with MAGA for the most part.
Pretty much this. We’ll see lots of commentary, articles and books from Trump sycophants and grovelers about the many doubts they had about the administration’s corruption and incompetence, and how hard they tried to keep things together so that the woke/socialist/Communist/envirofreak/trans-for-everyone forces wouldn’t take over, and how important it is to keep the Trumpian legacy alive in their competent hands.
A strong Democratic showing in November (which I doubt will meet optimistic expectations) will encourage some Republicans to abandon the sinking ship to various degrees, but as long as Trump is alive and his cult votes in primaries, a significant revolt is highly unlikely.
I think Trump will retire after the midterms. Rubio seems to be more popular with voters than Vance and Rubio also has some appeal to moderate democrats. I don’t think Trump is too worried about his popularity at this point.
My understanding is the most recent polls show Trump’s approval among republicans is still around 81%. Down from maybe 90% last year, but still quite high.
If you really, really wanted to see Trump’s approval ratings shrink, you’d have to find a way to make him promote egalitarianism. Trump’s base view him as the great white hope fighting back against multiculturalism and egalitarianism, and maintaining a social hierarchy where native born, white christian patriarchs are on top and everyone else is a second class citizen (immigrants, POC, other faiths, women, alternative lifestyles, etc).
If Trump comes out in favor of reparations towards black people, or BLM, or gun ownership for black people, or mass immigration of muslims and Africans, or affirmative action for women in positions of power, etc then his approval ratings among republicans will tank.
Short of that he is pretty much guaranteed a 60-80% basement approval among republicans.
Due to his NPD, the only thing Trump truly cares about is protecting his fragile ego with money and praise. So I disagree with this.
I think Trump would rather burn the entire republican party down than peacefully hand over power to the next generation of GOP leaders.
They elected him a second time. Trump wins. He is above the law, will never face justice, made more corrupt money as president than he ever made before, and conservatives would elect him again if they could.
Our town had its big yearly parade yesterday. Both parties had an entry, with lots of signs and t-shirts and waving from local politicians. Interestingly, the Republicans float had no Trump signs or mugshots or MAGA hats. Did I just see distancing from Trump in real time?
OTOH, the Democratic (actually DFL, this is Minnesota) candidate for governor led their delegation: Amy Klobuchar.
I think I have to agree. It’s also worth remembering that this is a person who sicced a mob on the capital, putting many of his own people at physical risk. And those same people mostly let it slide. Pretty amazing, and a big part of why I don’t pretend to understand these people at all or attempt to predict their future behavior.
Fundamentally I agree with the “that’s all, folks” conclusion, I don’t think we’re ever going to get our country back. But I can provide more conservative opinion pieces that demonstrate a “souring” (note the gerund, as opposed to the past tense “soured”) in addition to the poll numbers. And I think the poll numbers are high because people still generally support the imaginary Trump that they want to have (and maybe think they had at one point) instead of the dementia-addled narcissist who is now on full display.
So yeah, I think they’re souring, but I also think a lot of people on the right are waiting for him to die so they can move past the optics of Trump and get back to the hypothetical of Trump, even though there is no difference between the two.
And then, as someone upthread said, they will pretend like they were always concerned about Trump’s behavior, while still exalting him as the greatest president of all time.
