All I know is that Trump is the most convincing candidate for anti-Christ I’ve seen in my lifetime. Wasn’t deceiving people into false worship supposed to be one of his traits?
For GOP leaders, Trump has shown them the way to attract a devoted demographic that they have sought but been unable to consistently maintain for the last quarter century. He’s doing the things that Newt Gingrich, et al have been grooming party leaders to accept for decades. They’re getting everything they were promised, even if it means abandoning all of the principles most of them were only feigning at embracing anyway. And of course, those who are still standing for some kind of principle are being censured and ostracized, and nobody wants to get sent to the cornfield. “It’s a real good thing…and tomorrow’s going to be a real good day!”
For Trump enthusiasts, The Orange One is giving them love and approbation without all of the harping on “personal responsibility” for the financial, occupational, and social problems that they face, unlike the neocons who, having gotten support for the wars they wanted to fight have essentially abandoned their base to their own fate:
Jimmy Dell: I think you’ll find that if what you’ve done for them is as valuable as you say it is, if they are indebted to you morally but not legally, my experience is they will give you nothing, and they will begin to act cruelly to you.
Joe Ross: Why?
Jimmy Dell: To suppress their guilt.
Donald Trump is the Fake Bronze-Tanned Prophet, preaching how success and wealth would be theirs if not for all of the dirty rapist immigrants and Commie-pinko liberals sucking at the teat of the welfare state. Never mind that none of this is remotely true; it sounds like something they want to believe, and they are therefore willing to buy musical instruments and uniforms from a traveling salesman even though he can’t play or sing himself. Of course they love him back, and I’m sure each and every one of them believe that while he might pull one over on someone else, he’ll never withdraw his love for them. They all believe themselves to be Ivanka, not Tiffany.
No sucker ever thinks that they are the mark. If they were, they wouldn’t be a sucker.
Stranger
It amazes me that after seeing Pence spend over 4 years licking every inch of Donald’s boots and then being set up for an actual lynch mob , that Republicans still worship the very ground that he walks on.
Did the irony escape them about setting out a golden calf for worship? Or do they seriously not know about Biblical history? Or even to have seen The Ten Commandments movie?
So yes, the message is indeed “kiss my ass or else”. Unless of course you find yourself kneeling on the other side of him.
And he just pointed those followers at specific Republicans, those who voted to impeach him
- pretty hard not to hear him reading a hit list when he did that… Chances are good at least one of those Republicans will be murdered in the name of Trump soon. I don’t think Republicans realize that they’re in just as much, or maybe more, danger than Democrats. It will be interesting to see if that murder changes their attitude. I’m not convinced it will, but I do think that’s the only thing that might shift them.
Because Pence made a mistake. He stuck to some obscure principle (i.e. betrayed Trump) instead of doing the right thing (i.e. what Trump wanted him to do). They all believe they’d have done the right thing were they in Pence’s shoes.
The Republican party is now the Trump party - the cancer has taken-over the whole body. If traditional, sane Conservatives (you know, the small government, lower taxes kind) want to have a home, they’re gonna have to start their own political party. The GOP is Trump’s now.
My thoughts exactly, “just kneel before me while I unzip my pants.” Come on, Repugs, you know you want to,
If you really want a transcript of his speech, rather than a summary, you can find one here:
heres another view
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-unleashes-new-threat-to-american-democracy-at-cpac/ar-BB1e6co3?ocid=SK2DDHP&li=BBnb7Kz
I believe there are two groups supporting Trump. Really dumb rural guys who actually believe the stolen election lie, and elected officials who want to be re-elected by the above dumb guys.
I don’t see anyway to turn either group around.
They generally don’t.
It’s worth bearing in mind that humans have throughout civilised history mostly been ruled by dictators. They call them “royalty” when they have become dictators by inheritance but it’s the same thing. And the dictators are typically supported for one reason or another by a very substantial chunk of the population.
I think humans are drawn to the simplicity of the “guy who is in charge” model of government.
I think the rural voters love Trump because he says the quiet part out loud, hes an open and shameless white nationalist which the GOP loves because now they don’t have to pretend.
You start out in 1954 by saying, Nigger, nigger, nigger. By 1968 you can’t say nigger—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a by product of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites and subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But, I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract and that coded, uh that we’re doing away with the racial problem one way or another you follow me cause obviously saying we want to cut this, is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than nigger, nigger, you know? So, any way you look at it race is coming in on the back burner — Lee Atwater (1981)
Trump brought it back to the concrete and away from the abstract. People don’t have to pretend to hate government spending because they think ‘those people’ get it more than ‘deserving’ people. They can just express disgust and disdain for immigrants, non-whites, feminists and muslims openly without having to couch them in abstract excuses to justify it.
Also the people who think the election was stolen are the same people who think a president who lies 31,000 times in 4 years is trustworthy. I don’t think a lot of Trump voters realize how badly they’ve destroyed their credibility on an individual and collective level. Lots of people lost a lot of respect for their fellow citizens the last 4 years. I think thats one reason the democrats are showing at least some spine now when normally they are so submissive and give up so fast, because the total lack of respect for Trump’s enablers has really seeped into endless millions of people.
My view is that Trump’s white nationalist views are almost incidental. He just listens to the crowd and gives back to it what gets the applause. If he had got roars of approval from the simpletons who attend his rallies by confirming his support for minorities he would have done so. As I understand it, he admitted that at least one of his major stances just developed from some relatively random remark that got good crowd feedback.
It would by its very nature be a damn hard point to prove, but I think that only a small minority (10%?) of those who say they think the election was stolen actually think, in their heart of hearts, that the election was stolen. I think for most of them, if you got them alone and with no recordings being made and drilled them on the evidence they would admit they know it probably wasn’t. It’s just something they want to believe.
As to trustworthiness, maybe those who actually believe the election was stolen actually trust him, but I think, again, that most of his supporters don’t actually do either. They don’t trust him they just think he’s a liar in their cause.
Trump probably realises that he has only limited chance of running again - there will be people who’ve learned his tricks and are not nearly such useless humans who will be aiming to make a run while they have a fired-up base. There is no certainty Trump would win in a primary. That’s why he was cagey about his intentions - to see who the competition would be, if nothing else.
He needs to make himself safe by winning control of as many jurisdictions that are seeking to prosecute him as possible. That will not be easy, but his self-interest lies in the Republicans winning but believing that it was only with his help and backing and that once in office they owe him. Big time.
Way more than 10% don’t have any reflective capacity. There is no “deep down”. They live an unexamined life. So while hypothetically they might reject the idea if they engaged in sober reflection, they never will.
It would be a huge mistake to belive they are, on some level, in on the joke. They really do believe what they want to be true.
The solution is simple: They don’t see this behavior as Trump “Throwing someone away”, they see it as “Someone failing Trump”. They never have to worry about ending up on Trump’s bad side, because they will never betray Trump like those losers did. It’s the political version of Trump’s “You’re Fired!” tag line. They got fired because they deserved to be fired.
The counter-example of the Capitol rioters also being thrown under the bus after doing what Trump wanted them to do will, of course, be lost on them.
They’re craven cowards, but they have every reason in the world to believe that if enough white people stick together, they’ll always fail up and never face any consequences. This is the way, this has always been the way. The only misstep they made is being too bold to fly under the radar anymore.
The percentages are hard (probably impossible) to judge. However when I have read or heard interviews with Trump voters – not the crazies at the rallies just ordinary voters – many have been cynical about him ie they have expressed the view that he is untrustworthy, untruthful and of extremely poor character but they vote for him because he gets things done that they like.
I suspect such people’s belief that the election was stolen would be superficial at most. And I am consequently not so sure of Wesley_Clark’s comment that the people who believe Trump stole the election also believe he is trustworthy.
I think you wildly overestimate the percentage of people who have anything other than “superficial”, unexamined beliefs.