Yep. MSNOW had a recent approval breakdown that his approval rating with those that identify as MAGA was 96%. Some people don’t mind if the leopards eat their faces, as long as they are also eating the faces of people they don’t like.
That seems really low–it’s like saying Jesus has a 96% approval rating among Christians, or Stalin has a 96% approval rating among Stalinists. What would it even mean to identify as MAGA and not like Trump?
The attack on Iran probably budged even some MAGA. They thought Trump was suppose to keep us out of wars, not start (and lose) one.
And if every single other elected Democrat was heaping praise and adulation on this theoretical Democrat president that was an evil, awful, corrupt person, I might think about distancing myself from the party that is doing that supporting.
In my life I have left the Republican party and eventually joined the Dems.
So people do change parties if the party changes. Sometimes the people themselves change.
There were aspects of Republican Party I never liked, mostly on social stuff, but my view on 2 big issues also changed in my later 20s and early 30s. Meanwhile the party brought all those evil Dixiecrats in and the racism kept increasing. Then Bush/Cheney happened and I finally had to give up all hope for the Republican Party.
I’d be surprised if Jesus had an approval rating that high these days. There are a lot of Christians out there who think Jesus was too woke.
I will never understand what voters expected. I mean it was an open book test, and people were screaming the answers at them for years before the multiple choice test with 2 potential answers even started.
It may be a bit of both, particularly with the prevalence and popularity of right-wing media. But there’s no doubt that Republican strategists like Karl Rove and the infamous Frank Luntz have long been experts at framing issues in terms that are favourable to Republicans and/or harmful to Dems. This is a skill the Dems lack because they tend to be factual, forthright, and almost naively honest, while Republican strategy is best described as “cunning” and prone to play fast and loose with the facts.
Thus the Affordable Care Act, whose primary purpose – to provide more affordable health care (duh!) – is something most Americans should have supported, in the Republican re-framing became “socialized medicine” and "government-run health care. This was a page out of an old playbook where in the early 60s Ronald Reagan headed a campaign warning that if Congress ever enacted the scary program called “Medicare”, it would usher in an era of socialism that would mark the end of freedom in America as we know it.
As for the topic of this thread, I’m optimistic that this disastrous regime, as indicated by poll numbers, should be a significant boost for Democrats in the midterms, mitigated only by Republican tactics like artificial gerrymandering, voter suppression, and other shenanigans.
What it means for the presidential election in 2028 is far less certain. It may have an impact if someone closely associated with the present regime is the candidate, such as Vance. But if they manage to find a sane Republican to run, the present disaster likely won’t matter much at all.
It’s sad that the lies, the gaslighting, the immorality, the corruption…none of that matters.
It’s gas prices that did it.
Now of course, there’s a degree of poetic justice in that, as republicans mislead voters into believing post-pandemic inflation was down to Biden, thus seeding the idea that it’s all the president’s fault. And of course it actually is the president’s fault this time, thanks to the unforced errors of tariffs and a war.
But still, it would be good if something a bit more principled took him down.
“Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn’t block traffic.”
― Dan Rather
It should be noted that RealClearPolitics is a right-leaning aggregator. What that means for an aggregator is that they exclude polls that are unfavorable to Republicans. So if RealClear has him at 39%, the real number is probably around 35-36%.
Right before the 2024 election I told a coworker (a naturalized citizen, which normally wouldn’t matter but is probably more relevant in this case as I didn’t expect him to really know that history) that even if Harris were to win I didn’t see her winning again in 2028. That I expected the country to keep swinging back and forth with one term presidents much like we saw for most of the 19th century, especially in the era starting with van Buren and the continual issue of slavery dominating so much of political fights but with some of the late 19th century economic instability and inequality as well. In this case, I see the driving force being far more like the era of various panics and economic issues that weren’t dealt with at all until Teddy Roosevelt did something and then continued being an issue through FDR.
People are going to keep being in a “throw the bums out” mood, complicated by a number of structural factors that will keep most of the bums in, at least in Congress. Ejecting a President is probably actually easier for an electorate craving an actual change even if it doesn’t know what it wants that change to be. Or to be more precise, an electorate that generally knows what it wants but not how to get there or what the solutions really should be.
I hope that see-saw does not occur just yet. A Democratic president to follow Trump is going to be blamed for all of the Trump/Republican fuckups that have been shat upon our nation. Let another Republican follow Trump. (I can hardly believe that I just called for a Republican president!) But I am really coming around on the idea that a Democratic congress is the way to go following this shitstorm, and let a Republican president answer for the state of things.
And now it is the beginning of the end of freedom in America, as you put it. And they still don’t have any sort of reasonable health care.
I can’t believe you did, either. Fuck that noise. Get the pubbies out and keep them out.
Yeah, I know. In such a scenario all of my hope would be pinned on that Democratic congress. I really don’t look forward to a Democrat picking up after Trump, while taking all of the blame.
Yeah, Democrats DO campaign, but they have the strategic disadvantage of feeling compelled to (mostly) stick to facts and truth and play by the rules.
This 100%! And Democrats never set the record straight–did they even try?
The ACA was sort of based on the popular and effective health insurance program that Mitt Romney (Republican Presidential candidate, remember?) had implemented in Massachusetts when he was Governor. Known as “Romneycare.”
I had to straighten out a lot of people who thought that the ACA was government-controlled health insurance, that somehow Big Brother was going to tell you what doctor you could go to, etc. (Oh–that’s what private insurance companies tell you, amirite?) When the ACA was in fact, a program that directed people to buy private health insurance. The Democrats did a lousy job of making that clear. And attaching Obama’s name to it (a la Romney) was a double-edged sword since he was and is loved AND hated.
They did, with little media coverage.
Which in turn was based on a 1989 study by the right-wing Heritage Foundation titled “Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans”. So ultimately the ACA could trace its roots to a notoriously right-wing think tank back in saner times, but once it became a platform for Democrats, Republicans decried it as “socialism” and the Heritage Foundation itself backed away from its own recommendations.
Put another way, Democrats are all about policy – policies that will be beneficial to the country and its citizens, while Republicans are all about winning elections to benefit themselves. That’s why they’ve been particularly good at it in this new age of disinformation and social media.
The Republicans are going to blame Democrats for all our problems no matter who’s in the White House. And even where it’s obvious that Trump caused the problem. So it may as well be a Democrat residing there.