TL;DR - trump took a great big shovel in his tiny hands and turned over the rocks so now all the creepy-crawlies can slither and sting freely with his blessing.
…Several fringe ideas and conspiracy theories have been pushed further mainstream by the president, often via tweets to his 85 million followers.
Unproven cures for the coronavirus have grown in popularity after the president has promoted them. Many Trump supporters remain convinced hydroxychloroquine is a miracle COVID-19 cure but that there’s a conspiracy to obscure its efficacy in fighting the disease.
Birtherism has mutated from false claims that President Obama wasn’t born in the U.S., an idea Trump built his political career on, to casting doubt on the eligibility of Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who was born to immigrant parents in California.
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Tech censorship began as an idea most embraced by fringe online figures like Trump super-fans Diamond and Silk before becoming widely accepted) in the GOP, with Trump as its top promoter. The idea that tech companies censor political speech they disagree with is now a commonly held belief among both Republicans and Democrats, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
QAnon continues to grow. President Trump, who praised supporters of the conspiracy theory last week, has retweeted QAnon followers at least 90 times since the pandemic began, and others in Trump’s inner circle have also shared Q content. Nearly a dozen QAnon supporters are now 2020 Republican Congressional nominees.
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The bottom line: The office of the president makes Trump a uniquely potent vector for spreading fringe beliefs, particularly as some Americans’ trust in other institutions crumbles.
“When a figure that has inherent trust built into their position or role in society addresses a fact or idea, it provides validity to it,” says Webster-Jacobsen.
I really don’t get Nikki Haley. Does she believe this helps her career in any way? The hardcore Trumpist types would not support her run for President and she’s burning bridges with everybody else.
She’s running for president in 2024, and would therefore sell her first-born to get the “rising star” convention speaker slot (Reagan 1976, Obama 2004…). She needs to walk a tightrope, saying just enough nice things about Trump to get the spot and not piss off any current Trumpists, but stay at just enough distance to be redeemable in 4 years. She’ll be like post-war Germans who said yeah, I may have been a Nazi but I wasn’t fanatical about it.
I get the motivation. I don’t get why she thinks it’ll work that way.
There’s no tightrope. The hardcore Trumpists are also misogynists and racists, which she well knows. There’s no ‘there’ there for her, except as a subservient mouthpiece - and they’re all about women and people of color (both in her case!) serving at the pleasure of rich, old white men.
It worked for her in South Carolina. You also have to understand that some really hardcore Trumpists would vote for her, because that would prove they’re not racist.
She’s like the often advertised black best friend.
Yeah, I can see that for a governor or even a Senator. Or even a VP candidate. Harder to see the GOP do that for POTUS where there’s no shortage of alternatives who fit the preferred profile.
After the Beatdown of 2020 (oh please god please please) the shards and remnants of the Republican Party will try to reassemble, promising that this time they’re a real party, with real ideals and real candidates. Their hope will be to cobble together a coalition of disaffected pre-Trump republicans + MAGAites. So anyone with an eye on 2024 will need to be able to appeal to both, and Nikki’s saying “I’m your gal!”
I’m not sure who you’re talking about. The more moderate Republicans left ages ago. Some went Libertarian, several joined the Dems, and others just opted out entirely. The ones who are left are predominantly the crazies and the collaborators.
Kasich is a fair point. He’s certainly not insane or a collaborator, though I’d be hard pressed to classify him as a moderate Republican, except by comparison to the nuthouse the GOP has become.
I’d disagree about McCain, though. His voting record sure doesn’t reflect the idealized version people like to trot out. He was a louder version of Susan Collins - talked a big game but when push came to shove, he was a safe vote for his party with only a few notable exceptions. And that included occasionally praising most of Trump’s moves in 2017 before his cancer treatments precluded more involvement in the Senate after that.
Kind of the opposite of Hillary Clinton whose voting record was more progressive (with only a few notable exceptions) than Obama’s, despite her reputation.
Scheduled speaker at the convention who is on Individual 1’s campaign staff has had her scheduled speech pulled after she tweeted a QAnon link saying the Jews are plotting to take over the world