You say all this as if the GOP has somehow been obliterated.
Y’all may not realize this, but the GOP seems to be doing pretty well where shit counts: holding onto power. Would that the Democratic Party could manipulate the levers of power so effectively. If they had, maybe we wouldn’t have Trump 2.0, and the metaphorical leopard-in-chief would be literally caged.
We need to stop saying “Oh, look at how awful those Republicans are behaving, no manners!” and start coming up with ways to smuggle a gun into a knife fight. Because insisting on a gentlemanly brawl of fisticuffs is how they are fucking gutting us.
They have. They invited the lunatics in and got eaten up from the inside; what exists now is a faction of maniacs wearing the skinmask of the old GOP like Hannibal Lector.
I would say the introspection should have started after the Reagan/Bush 1 administration and the small but strong Republican minority that wanted this country to be a Christian theocracy.
I know, right? Democrats allow Republicans to walk all over them, even when Democrats hold the Presidency and both chambers of Congress, but somehow it’s the GOP that needs to look inward and figure out what it’s doing wrong?
I was thinking about starting a new thread entitled “Surprises coming for people who think surprises are coming for voters for the Leopards-Eating-Faces Party” but decided it would be too confusing, and this thread has already gone somewhat off-topic, so I’ll just post this here.
As much as Trump is a bull in a china shop, breaking stuff without giving a shit, he and his many handlers are just bright enough to understand that they shouldn’t bite the hand that gives them their power. If they disband FEMA, it will be replaced with ad-hoc grants from the Federal government to states that are in good graces. If they institute clumsy tariffs that hurt red states, they will continue to chaotically revamp them until only the people they want to hurt are hurting. If they hurt agriculture by scaring away non-citizen migrant workers, those workers will soon find themselves in detention camps where they will be compelled to work the same fields, but this time without pay.
For sure, these fast clumsy moves will hurt everyone from time to time, but don’t get complacent about that. Everyone should assume that despite the chaos, the people in charge have their targets and their friends, and there is nobody to stop them from breaking any and all rules to hurt the former and help the latter.
Given recent news, this does seems likely. (The ‘he can’t really do anything really bad; he’ll be constrained by X, Y, and Z’ people seem to be inexplicably less active, the past few days.)
Now Elon Musk owns all the information in Treasury computers, and he has full control over payments made by the US government. (Presumably including Social Security benefits.)
That does appear to indicate plenty of feasting for the leopards for some time to come.
No, they are bright enough to realize that you can just gaslight people, like they did in multiple ways over covid for example, as 1m americans died.
And note the distinction here: the suggestion in this thread is that many Trump voters are about to be hurt by his policies, not that they will necessarily understand that and place blame accordingly.
There are many millions of Trump voters in even the bluest states. And there is no reason for FEMA not to support them – there’s nothing that forces a trade-off between states, it just pure hate and vengence. So yes disproportionately more democratic and other voters may get their faces torn off than MAGA voters, but that wasn’t the question.
A lot of Trump voters are going to be hurt that didn’t need to.
Sure in a hypothetical universe Trump could implement precise tariffs that help boost particular industries, even while being a slight drag on the economy overall.
Back in our universe though, Trump is just doing blanket tariffs against whole countries’ imports, which most economists believe are going to cause misery across the US economy. It’s too soon to say, but in the meantime, it definitely doesn’t belong to the “refuting surprises coming” bucket.
They likely want to do this, but it’s probably up there with the wall and a new healthcare system for ambition. It’s not cheap to keep people in prison (so the economics make no sense) and you’d likely need whole new prisons in relatively out of the way places. The US imprisons more of its citizens than any other country and uses them extensively for slave labor; if it were possible to cover the lion’s share of agricultural work this way, it would already be happening.
I basically agree with you. I suppose that it is fair to say that in the very near term, there will be some unpleasant surprises for the leopard-voting public, particularly those that are ethnic minorities or live in blue states. But Trump deeply understands his mandate, to “hurt the right people”. I expect that once the initial rush to take power is over and things get a bit more settled, 2-3 years out, the leopards will mostly only be eating the faces of those who didn’t support Trump.
Sure, but, that’s still gonna hurt a lot of loyal Trumpists. Cut off California, which would likely be target #1? That’ll hurt the 6 million Californians who voted for Trump in November. Similarly, Illinois has 2.4 million Trump voters, and New York State has 3.6 million Trump voters.
He’s doing a lot of stupid stuff, and a lot of that will hurt his supporters. Some of it will be stricken down and much will be winnowed down such that it is nowhere near as broad as announced. But they are firing off so much bullshit, and are learning from what doesn’t pan out that they will keep sane folk on the defensive, litigating simply to stay in their jobs, out of jail, and alive. And come 2 or 4 years, a whole lot of his braindead and/or craven supporters will leap at any excuse to vote against the woman/PoC/libtard. No matter how much they have to pay for their fucking eggs.
Yes, this. No Californian who voted for Trump will blame Trump for Trump’s withholding the federal aid that normally and routinely is given in particular circumstances.
The power of self-justification (‘there’s nothing wrong with the way I voted!!!’) is simply too strong. (And as you suggest, Newsom is right there, waiting to be blamed for insufficient fealty to Dear Leader.)
I didn’t think anyone here is saying that the GOP hasn’t been successful. They’ve succeeded wildly beyond what any reasonable person would expect. But the way they achieved that success, by giving up what scruples they might once have had and letting the clowns drive the car, has had tragic consequences for America. And the enablers haven’t been totally safe from blowback either. A number of once-influential Republicans have been cast out for deigning to do something that displeased their emperor.
And I certainly agree that the Democrats need to rethink their tactics. They’re playing the game like it’s 1992, when taking the high road could get you far, and the opposition was still acting in a somewhat rational manner. But, as is so often the case on the left, no one can seem to agree on a way forward. And a leadership that has, for at least the past 10 years, been averse to taking real risks, hasn’t helped either.