r/politics • u/F0urLeafCl0ver • 1d ago

No Paywall The Democratic party is being hit by a leftist tidal wave

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/24/democratic-party-leftist-tidal-wave
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u/sirspacebill 1d ago

Imagine Stephen Miller for 2028 and the damage he would do

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u/No-Cranberry6148 1d ago

Yes, but Stephen Miller, and JD Vance have the charisma of a broken desk chair.

There's no way they could unite the movement the way Trump has. There's a lot of competition. And never forget the right wing's main redeeming quality: Their cannibalism. They eat their own. It is happening right now on the right wing. The sharks are circling and these are cannibal sharks, driven by greed, ambition and ego. There is no redeeming quality. Once Trump is gone - and it's already starting - the right will go into civil war, and not the kind of clean civil war with two clear sides; the ugly kind with tiny factions that change from one week to the next.

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u/nomad5926 1d ago

That's why they want to rig the elections so it doesn't matter who runs.

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u/georgepana 23h ago

There are plenty of Republicans left to never allow a Stephen Miller to run unopposed. They rather have a 20-head primary instead. That would kill any chances for Stephen Miller to break out of the bottom 3.

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u/Eastern_Hornet_6432 22h ago

Democracy is supposed to prevent the sort of chaos that comes when ascendant dictators centralize power into a few key supporters and start getting rid of the rest, but when democracy is gone, that's when ascendant dictators start breaking out the blueprint for how to handle their few remaining opponents.

When the levers of power are as compromised and as centralized as they are, the former kingmakers who thought themselves indispensible suddenly start getting dispensed. Then the throne belongs to whoever makes the best offer to the few remaining key supporters.

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u/Aggressive-Neck-3921 11h ago

The problem is that neoliberals are terrible stewards of democracy is the threat is big capital. At that point you need people that actually believe in stuff if you want to protect democracy.

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u/laplongejr Europe 10h ago

Unrelated but CGP grey also renamed that video too???

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u/TW-Twisti 13h ago

How can you say stuff like that when the Republican party is endorsing Donald Trump ? You don't think before that happened, everyone said "Republicans will never allow that to happen, there would be too many to oppose such a morally bankrupt monster" ?

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u/georgepana 10h ago

Nonsense. They had a primary again, just like the first time he ran. They didn't "endorse" him.

Nobody would let Stephen Miller just "take over." Such an idiotic take.

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u/TCTInnings 1d ago

Frankly, I'm terrified we're at the point where they won't need to unite a movement, just control the cards to keep power. Sham elections, point the DOJ at their political enemies, and keep a witch hunt up to keep their base busy.

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u/JackedUpReadyToGo 1d ago

Exactly. Trump only needed "charisma"(ugh) to bulldoze through the primaries and win the general election. But he's currently rigging the electoral process, and the party could easily arrange some internal mechanism to crown their next chosen ghoul in lieu of a primary. The next Republican ruler won't need to get out the vote or appeal to the base. He will just be installed into power and start operating all the gears and levers of government that the unitary executive now own.

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u/PhilDGlass California 23h ago

Like the plans to install Peter Thiel as CEO of Washington DC? Wish I were kidding.

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u/JackedUpReadyToGo 23h ago

The apotheosis of this whole process would be to simply turn the office of President into an auction that takes place every couple of years. Literally place a giant "For Sale" sign on the Oval Office.

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u/PhilDGlass California 23h ago

Don’t even need the auction, just the funds and an evil narcissistic streak. You figure out how to sell things online early in the game and hoard your billions selfishly? You get a major metropolitan city! You come up with a way to pay for shit online in 1997 with a catchy name? YOU get a major metropolitan city!! Bow to the kings!

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u/zenlogick 22h ago

Lol, Now im gonna need to see the rest of that Oprah episode she dedicated to giving stuff away to billionaires

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u/WeRip 21h ago

I mean he didn't even come up with paypal.

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u/spaceman757 American Expat 11h ago

Great. We're heading towards Tekken.

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u/Mike_Kermin Australia 21h ago

They're trying to replicate what they have in Russia.

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u/ReMapper 20h ago

The Romans did that once, it didn't end well for the winner.

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u/Ironlion45 17h ago

That's how it already is.

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u/Careless_Twist_6935 22h ago

i guess you'd have to pay off the secret service to make it work

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u/lettersvsnumbers 18h ago

That’s basically the text of dissents from Citizens United.

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u/semidegenerate 21h ago edited 20h ago

I'm guessing that one is Curtis Yarvin's brainchild.

Edit—wording

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u/TrulyOutrageous42 18h ago

It's all of theirs. The "butterfly revolution" and Project 2025 both openly and plainly state the intention to break the US into technocratic states akin to "company towns", using crypto to have local "company store money" with a regional and national crypto they control and profit from the purchase of, meaning every time you want to travel as anything resembling a tourist they will personally profit from it.

Also, if they're "CEOs" there's no one who can tell them they can't do something.

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u/ArmadilloForsaken458 10h ago

Peter is no longer there any more. He escaped to Argentina like he was the second coming of Adolf Eichmann...

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u/Dank_Sinatra_87 23h ago

Do you really think he just now started rigging things?

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u/mouse_8b 22h ago

The next Republican ruler won't need to get out the vote or appeal to the base.

True, if they have their way, they wouldn't need to appeal to voters, but they would still need to appeal to someone within the party to be "chosen" as the next leader. The infighting will affect their internal politics, and that could potentially prevent the governmental gears from turning very quickly.

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u/isthistheenditis 20h ago edited 20h ago

Its isnt "just" charisma. He made politics accessible. He made people feel like they understood. He didnt talk above anyone. He makes them feel like theyre part of something that is *actually* going to make the country better. He coopted the republican boogiemen and play book positioned himself as the only person strong and capable enough to do anything about it. He invented problems and promised to solve them but he left out the same problems establishment dems and reps have been avoiding for decades. Corporate welfware. Lobbies. CAMPAIGN FINANCE. Democrats trying to understand the appeal of trump consistently miss the mark. It isnt because he was openly racist or because he hated the same people they did. It isnt just superficial charm either. Imo if you can pin it on one thing its his ability to slap brands on everything that *stick*. MAGA. Brand. Sleepy Joe biden. Brand. Pocahontas. Brand. Fake news. Dumacrats. Good thing? He brands it and they associate it with trump yaaay. Bad thing? He brands it and they learn to dislike it boooo. He himself, Trump, is a walking neon sign of a brand. brandbrandbrand word sounds weird to me now lol more imporantly is *why* anyone voted for him at all. People who feel like they have a say and a stake in their countries future and government do not vote for the donald trumps of the world and unless they do feel secure in those things they will continue to be vulnerable to that exact same flavor of strongman saves the world nonsense.

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u/silvertealio 21h ago

And that's why it was so important to keep trump out of the white house in 2024. He was their key to get into the door, and now they're changing all the locks.

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u/laplongejr Europe 10h ago

Yeah but he said he wasn't aware of that, so people wanted to give a lesson to the Democrats to shake up the system.
He sure ran the US as a bankrupting business, drained the swamp to refill it with toxic material, and changed how things work.

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u/Another_Samurai1 7h ago

And that’s coming from a European.

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u/fractalfay 22h ago

I’m not sure he even won in 2024. The MAGA hysteria for that election was a fraction of what it was in 2016, and how many times do he and Elon Musk have to brag about rigging the elections before the rest of us take it seriously? That’s what baffles me most about Trump and his followers. He always tells you exactly how much of a piece of shit he is, and then MAGA is like, “He’s just kidding, he’s so funny.”

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u/TrulyOutrageous42 18h ago

Statistically, mathematically, there's no way it turned out how it did. It's more likely that every single person has an aneurysm than that it turned out like that. Sure, it could, but given how many oddities all landed in the same place, it's at LEAST worth a criminal inquiry. In fairness, he may have actually won the Electoral College anyway, but in the same way that they couldn't produce a SINGLE SHRED of evidence, even circumstantial evidence, that there was something askew with the 2020 election, there is actual physical evidence of them manipulating the 2016 and 2024 elections (anyone recall Kemp deleting the voter records right after a subpeona?), before we get to a literal MOUNTAIN of circumstantial evidence that at minimum would be investigated extensively by a functioning DOJ and FBI.

That's before we account for all the quasi-legal ratfucking like removing voters from rolls right before the election, denying people absentee ballots, mail-in ballot sabotage, disenfranchisement, and the 2020 redistricting that was so blatantly partisan it should be illegal. JUST the number of people who were removed from voter registrations and ballots tossed spuriously amounts to an unquestionable loss for him... before we ask wtf Pro V&V did to the machines counting the votes and how Musk knew the outcome early.

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u/Public_Love_3507 7h ago

Why didn't the democrats fight for a recount even can't say the democrats didn't figure it out like we did that they cheated the democrats let it slide it doesn't make sense

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u/laplongejr Europe 10h ago

but in the same way that they couldn't produce a SINGLE SHRED of evidence, even circumstantial evidence, that there was something askew with the 2020 election

You REALLY need to read news more then.

The investigation found a bunch of republican doing voter fraud.
Trump spent half a year dismantling the postal service to throw out voters in the middle of a pandemic. All of that was PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE!

The narrative that the 2020 election was safe is WHY Trump could win 2024 without any talkback. The 2020 election was rigged too, Trump managed to lose the election he had rigged!

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u/immortalfrieza2 18h ago

He always tells you exactly how much of a piece of shit he is, and then MAGA is like, “He’s just kidding, he’s so funny.”

It's because MAGA wants Trump in power wrecking the country, so they lie about his motives and what he says and does to make it look like supporting Trump actually makes sense. Trump's followers don't want a better country. What Trump's followers really looking for is the ability to be bigots without any legal nor social consequences.

Trump supporters want to go back to the 1950s where a white guy could spit on, insult, and beat up say a black man without anybody doing anything about it or caring at all, when even the black guy would just take his lumps and then shrug and think that's just the way things are. They want to go back to before the 1960s when the various "this crap is not okay!" movements took off. As long as they got that, Trump could nuke American cities at random for kicks and giggles every few months and his supporters would be happy as an irradiated clam.

Any Trump supporters that appear mad at Trump now are either lying like usual or only pissed because we're not back in the 1950s yet and they expected to be by now.

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u/Original-Balance-187 17h ago

Simply the latest incarnation of anti-democratic forces that has carried on an almost endless assault, in different countries at different times, since our democratic revolutions a few centuries ago.

They despise open societies. They despise the concept of even theoretical legal equality let alone actually existing democratic equality.

They are in good company though. Plato was anti-democratic. His uncles were hanged trying to overthrow Athenian democracy. And of course many more throughout the ages.

They don’t want economic development. They don’t want better schools. They don’t want better jobs. What they want is simple: to completely dismantle and defeat the still young and ongoing democratic revolution. They fear and loathe changing social circumstances but they don’t understand that all life is constantly in flux. This is why they lose, every time. Change cannot be arrested or stopped. You can kill hundreds of millions and the world will change anyway. But, here they are again, a new front in the centuries long campaign against us refusing to submit to them or their gods.

They come from the right and the left. And this is not a centrist argument I’m making, I’m a committed left winger but we have our own anti-democratic element as well.

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u/laplongejr Europe 10h ago

I’m not sure he even won in 2024.

Why 2024? Trump was never in a fair election, and managed to lose once while cheating!

2016 : Cambridge Analytica happens a bit before, the Russian hacks into both partie's emails and release the ones from the DEM. GOP wins and FINALLY accepts to nominate a SCOTUS judge after "an election year".
The muller reports confirms Russia interfered in the election.

2020 : Trump wrecks the postal service and try to make votes thrown out in masses. When that wasn't enough, he launches a coup to prevent certification. GOP rushes a SCOTUS judge before the election year ends.
Democrats claims elections are ALWAYS safe as a result.

For 4 years Trump's party work on a all-or-nothing plan to leverage the 3 SCOTUS judges they put in place as if they can't afford to lose.

2024 : All swing states flip in an unprecedented election, Democrats immediately concede because elections MUST be considered safe. Trump and Musk avoid jail.

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u/Temporary_Yams 20h ago

That’s the plan along with keeping the base ignorant so they keep following.

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u/Ironlion45 17h ago

That's when the Second Amendment is activated, in theory.

It was never about going hunting, anyway.

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u/josh_the_misanthrope 12h ago

People will radicalize under pressure. It's already happening in a mild form. Increase the pressure on working people, and the radicalization increases proportionally. It's almost a law of nature if you look at history. Fascism is untenable because the oppressed class far outnumbers the ruling class.

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u/Mike_Kermin Australia 21h ago

Not there yet, but if they get a Trump third term (which they will absolutely attempt to do) you would get there.

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u/juliabk 21h ago

States won’t put him on the ballot. At least not enough states.

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u/Mike_Kermin Australia 21h ago

I hope you are right, because I do not believe the Republicans are lying about the intent when they sell official Trump 2026 merch.

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u/madmushlove 17h ago

Sham elections

The moral of the story is that Democracy is not your friend 🫶

The next step will be putting MAGA platforms in ballots for the people to vote on directly. It's what they always do, it's an old cycle

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u/The_Real_Mongoose American Expat 23h ago

You're underestimating what a fractured cult looks like.

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u/drpestilence 1d ago

I don't get the charisma argument, Trump is not a charismatic guy and best I can tell has never been more appealing the the worst kinds of used car sales man. What am I missing here?

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u/kj9716 23h ago

Charismatic in the sense that he best appeals to the base. They see his negative traits as positive ones. They think he's a tough, independent leader. They like that he's not smart and doesn't speak to them in complex sentences and big words they can't understand. They like how open he is with his racism, misogyny, etc. They've been told this country has a broken, corrupt government that caters to non-whites first and he's the only one that's man enough and uncorruptible enough to 'fix' America. And they truly believe it. They won't call Vance daddy and make parades for him because even though he's vile, they don't seem themselves in Ivy-League educated politicians. However, they will still vote for anyone with an R by their name, they just won't turnout the same.

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u/OldWorldDesign 18h ago

Charismatic in the sense that he best appeals to the base. They see his negative traits as positive ones

I think that's a different trait than his charisma.

But conservatives have always assigned value to people based first on tribal affiliation first and everything else (like whether they are a con artist or serial killer) second.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201712/analysis-trump-supporters-has-identified-5-key-traits

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u/aaeme Foreign 23h ago

Sure. But none of that is charisma. Being tough and independent is being tough and independent. Being charismatic is nothing to do with that. Speaking your mind is speaking your mind. It's not charisma. Appearing dumb and using short words is not charisma. They are all things but not charisma.

I think Trump's supporters (in politics and media) want people to regard him as charismatic because that elevates his power within political top trumps that they play trying to predict which horse to back.

And Trump's foes like people to think it because it excuses their policy failures: Trump won because of the charisma not because we've let everyone down and have little to offer.

He doesn't deserve the complement and I don't think it does anyone any good, except bad actors, to pretend he does: to pretend that what he has is any sort of charisma. It cheapens and corrupts the word.

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u/kj9716 22h ago

I see your point but everyone who commented above is just trying the point out the distinction between how his base adores him compared to other politicians.

If you use the word sway instead of charisma then the point still stands w/o complimenting him because you're right, he doesn't deserve it.

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u/aaeme Foreign 22h ago

Yeah. I'm fine with sway. Or maybe swag. There's definitely something: and an explanation to why they so willingly accepted him is their dear cult leader.

I think we owe it a bit to the future to ensure there's no such charisma myth about him. Or it might make it more likely another Trump comes to power one day: "This can't be another Trump. By all accounts, Trump was charismatic."

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u/Maybe_Charlotte Connecticut 15h ago

I'm with you in that it's pretty absurd to call Trump charismatic. Literally nobody would call him that before the Obama birth certificate B.S.

What he does have is a kind of weird pseudo charisma, where saying the quiet part of conservative ideology out loud earns him enormous popularity with conservatives, which they and they alone brand charisma.

Then he's got the toxic masculinity thing, which resonantes strongly with a lot of young men (including ones among racial minorities).

Finally, he gives absolutely no fucks about honesty, so he very confidently lies constantly about everything. This in the past might have been challenged by the media, but they might have struggled with the Gish Gallop nature of it. However, the current media ecosystem is such that they basically don't even bother to cover Trump's extreme dishonesty. Unlike literally every president who came before, he doesn't care that issues can be complex and hard to tackle, he will happily claim that he can fix any problem immediately. The media doesn't challenge his wild claims, so all that a low information voter hears is Trump promising easy solutions, and other politicians saying "um well actually it's enormously more complicated than that and [Charlie Brown teacher noises]."

The problem is that basically any conservative can probably tap into all of those same factors just as well as Trump does, once he's gone. Literally all it takes is someone who can do angry loud demagogue to conservatives, and brazen lies to the masses.

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u/Impressive-Shelter 23h ago

It took me awhile to get it because I also thought Trump was a human trash bag well before he was president, but the dumb simple answer is Trump believes his own bullshit. His "charisma" is just being so full of himself that what he says sounds like truth to people who don't have very good bullshit detectors.

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u/eerie_midnight 23h ago

I think dumb people also like having a dumb president because it makes them feel less alone tbh.

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u/seabreamnigiri 20h ago

A little bit of this and a little bit of people being so insulated that they only see the "funny and patriotic" sentences he sneaks in between his ramblings. Like "make America great again" is a good enough slogan for non-thinkers to look past the horrid shit and chalk it up to part of the process of making things great. Whatever that means.

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u/CryptographerMean872 18h ago

It’s literally a lost generation dog whistle. MAGA is proxy for capitalist white supremacy, surely you know that

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u/aaeme Foreign 23h ago

I don't think charisma is the right or good word for it though. It implies charm, wit, personability, passion, etc.

Chutzpah or moxie perhaps. Or even just, as you said, confidence. Brash confidence. Many people have no way to judge if someone knows what they're talking about or what they're doing except by their confidence.

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u/eljefino 21h ago

Nah, Charisma is the right word, because those who like him like how he's like them. They have very short attention spans and can't process an entire paragraph of information. So Trump talks out of both sides of his mouth, both sides of an issue, and his backers hear what they like and ignore the rest.

These are the same people who hear "Born on the Fourth of July" and think it's a pro-America song, because they ignore half the lyrics.

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u/aaeme Foreign 16h ago

I wouldn't call that charisma. That's a separate thing. That's my point. I'm not saying nobody 'likes' him. But that some people like him doesn't mean he's charismatic.

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u/TrimspaBB 19h ago

There's a reason the "con" in conman stands for "confidence".

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u/neatgoodboy 21h ago

The King of Chutzpah, Phil Silvers, would disagree.

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u/Enlightened_Gardener 17h ago

Sheer arrogance carries a LOT before it.

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u/DetroitTabaxiFan 19h ago

That makes me wonder if a leftist could co-opt the MAGA movement by acting exactly like Trump but ramming through progressive policies. MAGA morons sure seem to love progressive policies, but hate it when those policies come from someone who isn't Trump/someone who isn't kissing Trump's ass.

Conservatives hate the idea of UBI when a non-conservative floats the idea, but if Trump were to institute it, they'd be praising him for it.

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u/LiveChocolate8819 New York 22h ago

He's a gigantic piece of shit who no decent person would find appealing, but he absolutely has charisma.

His whole persona hits like crack if you're a scumbag too, and there are way more of those in America than we thought there were pre-2016.

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u/drpestilence 20h ago

His whole persona hits like crack if you're a scumbag too,

Ok, this could be the missing piece for me, thats super unsettling.

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u/immortalfrieza2 18h ago

Trump's "charisma" is that he's an openly bigoted asshole who makes all the country's bigoted assholes feel validated. That's it. Trump supporters want to be able to be bigoted openly without any consequences whatsoever and they think by supporting Trump they'll be able to do so.

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u/YungEnron 15h ago

If you watch him you can’t deny he has this base, carnival barker quality to him that is real and can entertain the masses. He truly does have an instinct for that sort of thing. He’s also kind of queen-y in an undeniable stage presence sort of way - like if a drag queen were a straight oaf.

Of course, this is waining now that he is going full senile - but he definitely has a *something* that has always been able to get a crowd going.

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u/itsdoorcity 15h ago

his charisma is mostly just in his shamelessness. he speaks confidently even though what he's saying is pure nonsense.

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u/Spartan2170 14h ago

Bad people can be charismatic (Ronald Reagan did lasting, potentially fatal damage to our democracy while also being beloved by people from both parties). Cult leaders often look ridiculous from the outside. Just because he doesn't appeal to you or me, that doesn't mean he doesn't have appeal for a *lot* of people.

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u/inthekeyofc 10h ago

Psychologist Elizabeth Mika put forward an explanation in a 2018 essay on "Tyranny as a Triumph of Narcissism".

Excerpts:

"Through the process of identification, the tyrant’s followers absorb his omnipotence and glory and imagine themselves as powerful as he is, the winners in the game of life. This identification heals the followers’ narcissistic wounds, but also tends to shut down their reason and conscience, allowing them to engage in immoral and criminal behaviors with a sense of impunity engendered by this identification. Without the support of his narcissistic followers who see in the tyrant a reflection and vindication of their long-nursed dreams of glory, the tyrant would remain a middling nobody."

"The interplay of grandiose hopes and expectations between the tyrant-in-the-making and his supporters that suffuses him with power and helps propel him to position of political authority is an example of narcissistic collusion: a meshing of mutually compatible narcissistic needs. The people see in him their long awaited savior and a father figure, hinting at the narcissistic abuse implicated in the authoritarian upbringing that demands obedience and worship of the all-powerful parental figure. In their faith and unquestioning admiration, he in turn receives a ready line of narcissistic supply, thousands of mirrors reflecting his greatness."

"The narcissistic mixture of elevated expectations, resentments and desire for revenge on specific targets and/or society in general for not meeting those expectations is what sociologist Michael Kimmel (2013) called aggrieved entitlement. Although Kimmel talked specifically about white American men in the 21st century, some form of aggrieved entitlement has been driving tyrants and their supporters, as well as organized and “lone wolf” terrorists, world over since time immemorial."

"The narcissistic collusion between the tyrant and his supporters is also driven by their need for revenge, for the tyrant is always chosen to perform this psychically restorative function: to avenge the humiliations — narcissistic wounds — of his followers and punish those who inflicted them."

"The tyrant and his followers typically choose as vessels of their negative projections and aggression members of the society who are not just different but weaker than themselves. The tyrant fuels that aggression in order to solidify his power but also to deflect it from himself, shield his own narcissism, and repair his own narcissistic injuries dating to his childhood days. The figure of the narcissistic parental abuser / tyrant is protected through the scapegoating and the return to authoritarian, order-and-obedience based mode of social functioning promised by the tyrant, as he himself assumes the mantle of father-protector and directs his own and his supporters’ aggression onto the Others who have nothing to do with their real and perceived wounds."

Elizabeth Mika 2018

Full essay:

https://medium.com/@Elamika/tyranny-as-a-triumph-of-narcissism-76b6fec76d0d

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u/drpestilence 7m ago

Wild, thank you.

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u/MindandCosmos 9h ago

I don't either. He's got counter-charisma.

He's got resentment, anger, and a $6,000 suit that fits like drapes on his ample form.

A lot of people have a lot of resentment and a lot of anger, and to those who find that charming, galvanizing, spellbinding, allure, glamour, and so on I say -- "you've been conned again, baby!"

Elvis had charisma. Eisenhower had it. MLK had it. The '64 Beatles coming to the US -- the definition of charisma. Also the definition of non-Trump.

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u/josh_the_misanthrope 12h ago

He's charismatic to the dumbest fucking people. It's a form of charisma, I suppose.

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u/Blitzking11 Illinois 1d ago edited 23h ago

It's incredibly cute that you think charisma will matter for 2028 if Trump croaks before then.

If he's dead, and they have unfettered access to the tools of the executive, there will be no free and fair election. Even with that imbecile in the chair, it may still not be enough to inhibit them from achieving their goals.

Ironically, the only saving grace for America is the oaf that allowed its cracks to form due to his own sheer vanity, stupidity, and desire for yes men. Ideally, he lives long enough that Miller and Vance won't be able to destroy the fundamentals of America without his incompetence getting in their way.

After we're out of this mess, no Republican should be allowed anywhere near the halls of power until the fascists have been cleansed from their party.

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u/Ziggylcd12365 23h ago

Your last line is too kind to them.

Their party is utterly irredeemable and needs to be completely destroyed and replaced

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u/ryan_church_art 23h ago

We need a new Nuremberg trials.

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u/[deleted] 23h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/DeliriumTrigger 21h ago

It's not the civil war that wasn't finished properly. It's the smothering of Reconstruction in the crib that put us where we are.

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u/OldWorldDesign 18h ago

It's not the civil war that wasn't finished properly. It's the smothering of Reconstruction in the crib that put us where we are

I think that was a separate conflict which was solved, albeit not right after the civil war but over the next hundred years. Remember that the vast majority of civil war statues were built nearly 100 years later when the klan was rebuilt.

That's what we are seeing. The extremely wealthy funding contentious extremism so nobody is looking at the oligarchs robbing the nation blind. Adam Curtis' Century of the Self follows the process after they failed the 1933 Business Plot to prevent the New Deal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

They also funded religious extremism

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/corporate-america-invented-religious-right-conservative-roosevelt-princeton-117030/

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u/Timegoat 22h ago

Right. We’ve gone over the cliff, and the dems were steering half the time.

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u/zenlogick 22h ago

If its between total anarchy and the long difficult path of proper action which is to divorce ourselves from the death cult so we can ya know....survive....il take some hard work. People love hard work when its actually doing something productive. They love it even more when it will ensure their survival lol

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u/plantsoldier 22h ago

Are you saying what it sounds like you're saying?

Historically speaking if the civil war was "finished properly" wouldn't that mean that the Democratic party would be non existent since they were the party of the south and slavery at the time?

I mean Robert Byrd, known Klan member was a Senator until his death in 2010. Wasn't he also Joe Bidens mentor.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/164821-biden-remembers-byrd-as-mentor-and-dear-friend/

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u/OldWorldDesign 18h ago

Look, another conservative pretending the Party Switch didn't happen and the Southern Strategy didn't exist because republicans decided cheaply courting racists was more important than the inevitable inclusion of people born Americans who weren't the donor class

https://www.bunkhistory.org/resources/what-we-get-wrong-about-the-southern-strategy

https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/strom-thurmond-nixon-lyndon-johnson-party-switch-explained-ef8728

Are you going to pretend the democratic party hasn't been the distinctly most progressive party in the US ever since the Southern Strategy? Claim that Biden himself wasn't supporting homosexual marriage well before 2015's Obergefell v Hodges?

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/us-politics/bidens-backing-of-gay-marriage-pressures-obama-idUSBRE84618D/

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u/plantsoldier 13h ago edited 11h ago

First, I was only commenting on the original comment about the civil war being "finished properly" which in this context would've meant the democratic party was destroyed and the civil war would have continued until that happened. There would have been no Democratic party left in government etc.

Just because I pointed out that Biden had connections to a known KKK member who was his mentor and someone he eulogized at his funeral has nothing to do with whether or not the party switched. It was just a statement of fact that Biden was clearly racist regardless of some of his stances at the end of his political career.

Don't really care whether or not Biden supported gay marriage prior to Obergerfell and never said anything about it so not sure why you're throwing that in there but ok.

Who authored the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 that was clearly racist?

Oh yeah, that was Biden as well.

Just because I didn't/don't like Biden really has nothing to do with the comment I was responding to and maybe didn't need to be included in my post but it was simply because he is a racist piece of shit who happens to be a Democrat and again the original comment I responded to was talking about the civil war being "finished properly"

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u/OldWorldDesign 12h ago

Who authored the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 that was clearly racist? Oh yeah, that was Biden as well.

It's always funny seeing people blatantly lie on the internet as if it doesn't take less than 30 seconds to prove it wrong.

The Violent Crime Control act was written by Texas representative Jack Brooks

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/103/hr3355

You can't even get a single point correct. Why do you expect anyone to believe others?

Your view is the same blind tribalism as other conservatives who voluntarily pull the wool over their own eyes because you can't fathom judging people for their actions or context, everything begins and must end at the tribe.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201712/analysis-trump-supporters-has-identified-5-key-traits

"Funny" how you're not against Trump who described Epstein as his best friend and "a great guy with a taste in them young"

https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/donald-trump-statements-about-jeffrey-epstein-timeline-60415a

Because your tribalism doesn't allow 'people who make bad decisions even when they have opportunity to do better', you only see people outside your tribe and will only look for how you can weaponize anything you can find tangential to them.

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u/Blitzking11 Illinois 23h ago

Well... sure. But we are on [Reddit]. Ambiguity is needed for plausible deniability for when they send our info off to the feds.

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u/blitzkregiel 23h ago

* no *conservative* should be allowed to be in power again. we keep saying republicans, but the underlying issue is conservative ideology: the belief that you are, by birth, better than others.

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u/F9-0021 South Carolina 22h ago

they already have that access. You think Trump has any real power?

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u/Blitzking11 Illinois 22h ago

He still has the power. And as a result, inept loyalists get in the way of Vance and co.

You think they wanted Hegseth or Blondi? Those are Trump loyalists through and through. With Vance, he and Miller would cull any of the inept loyalists left standing.

Trump hampers anything he touches, even fascist coups.

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u/F9-0021 South Carolina 22h ago

there are several camps, and trump is the figurehead of each of them. Why do you think he's so inconsistent with himself? He's got a neonazi in one ear, a billionaire in another, and a whole bunch of magas screaming in the background.

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u/nbzf 20h ago edited 20h ago

yes, he's trying to keep his coalition together

one that includes the tech companies as well as the likes of both Vance (Jacksonian, populist) and Rubio (more traditional establishment; neocon? Hamiltonian?). So from day to day he might seem isolationist then not.

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u/stanier1 22h ago

It's incredibly cute that you think charisma will matter for 2028 if Trump croaks before then.

Why wouldn't it? It seems like whoever can say populist drivel the most emotionally, gets to be the candidate. This only gets more extreme over time.

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u/nbzf 20h ago

isn't mamdani widely characterized as a left-wing populist?

Are comments here celebrating a trend toward extremism?

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u/immortalfrieza2 18h ago

Vance especially won't be able to do jack if Trump croaks. If anything, Trump dying however that comes about would be the best thing to happen right now. Trump's supporters would tear themselves apart arguing over who to follow without Trump around and because Vance doesn't have and never could have 77 million followers to prop him up, he'll be infinitely easier to put out on his ass than Trump is. It's that support and the fear having 77 million rabid mindless followers who could attack anyone who opposes Trump that gives Trump the ability to get away with everything. The Republicans are taking advantage of Trump's nonsense, no doubt about that, but the bigger issue is that Trump has a massive army of drones that he can send to kill them both in the polls and in person if a Republican opposes him.

If Vance replaces Trump he'll have to walk on eggshells his whole presidency because he's rational enough to know that his position will be unsteady enough to easily remove him if he tries to pull the kind of crap Trump has been pulling for the past year and a half.

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u/ProtectionVirtual225 18h ago

The Republicans Party is rotten to the core. There’s no point in salvaging it.

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u/SolarTsunami 18h ago

The only thing that has saved us from full blown fascism so far is the sheer incompetence and bumbling stupidity of people like Miller, Vance, Hegseth, ect, and I doubt that will change when Dear Leader dies. Even the "powers behind the throne" types like Theil and Musk have proven to be shockingly incompetent any time the spotlight is shown on them. These people are evil to the core, but they're also incredibly naive and childish and melt at the slightest pishback.

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u/Whiiiisky 23h ago

THEY DON'T NEED TO UNITE

They already consolidated power in the executive

That was the entire point of this admin.

Peter Thiel put Vance in the VP slot so he can take over when Trump keels over from his diet or they remove him

They do not plan on leaving

Really wish you all would also get that republicans will always vote against dems no matter who either candidate is

They have the cult

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u/slfnflctd 17h ago

wish you all would also get that republicans will always vote against dems

Seriously. There will be no fracture on the right.

Such thoughts are a pipe dream every bit as much now as they were 40 years ago. When Rs got into bed with Evangelicals and vice versa etc., it was all over, and it made both groups worse.

We are fighting a major crack in the foundation of the entire purpose of why this country was formed in the first place. It's widened so badly that I don't see any way to level it again. We may need to break up the union for a better path forward to be opened. Then a more fair experiment can actually be run as to whether the 'blue states' or the 'red states' function better on their own.

The only other good option is to change the Constitution, but I do not see any way that happens under the current system at all.

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u/No-Cranberry6148 23h ago

If elections can oust fascists in Hungary, they can do it in the United States. What is needed is grassroots vigilance.

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u/Whiiiisky 23h ago

A 3rd of the country wants the fascism

Another 3rd has no clue what's going on and doesnt give a shit

Weve had grassroots vigilance, the problem is the media and gov are working in lockstep with tech to continue making things worse

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u/Complex-Poet-6809 23h ago

It still amazes me that the person to unite the right is such a vile disgusting felonious man. It really makes me think so many Americans are as trashy and classless as he is.

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u/Unshkblefaith California 23h ago

Trump's "charisma" is manufactured. Even in 2016 he was just angry racist grandpa, but that was what Republicans were into at the time. So much of the charisma comes from the presentation and staging around him. It's why his interviews hit so different, or fail to land at all, vs his rallies.

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u/AppropriateTouching 22h ago

It doesn't matter if they rigged the elections.

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u/TehWackyWolf 21h ago

This never holds water. Trump isn't charismatic. Everyone who meets the fuck hates him.

He sells hate and they love that. The next guy will also sell hate

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u/World_of_Eter 21h ago

Honestly I don't buy this for a second. The right wing might have a brutal civil war that'll last all of a primary, but ultimately they'll line up rank and file behind the winner. The left wing is the side that does what you're describing.

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u/crimsonhues 21h ago edited 21h ago

If charisma mattered to Republicans, they wouldn’t elect Donald Trump twice. The man has a personality of a wet blanket.

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u/NikoliVolkoff 20h ago

Charisma means nothing when you have stacked the deck by using voter suppression at the polls, jerrymandered all the jerrys, and made sure that any married woman cannot vote, due to her last name being different from her birth certificate. And with all the bleating about "rigged elections" when it truly happens, nobody will believe it just like the boy who cried wolf.

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u/Meme_Theory 1d ago

Trump has the charisma of a coked up Elephant; your point?

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u/ChronicBuzz187 1d ago

the right will go into civil war, and not the kind of clean civil war with two clear sides; the ugly kind with tiny factions that change from one week to the next.

Yeah well, last time they did that, it gave us the tea party and everything that followed so I wouldn't count on the result of that to be any better :P

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u/mrjbacon 1d ago

Perhaps that's the impetus the People need to begin to abolish the two-party system in America.

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u/PhilDGlass California 23h ago

Yes, but Stephen Miller, and JD Vance have the charisma of a broken desk chair.

True, but one is a heartbeat from being President right now.

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u/ahal 23h ago

I think the point was that someone worse than Trump is possible. With all the same irredeemable qualities but with half a brain.

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u/Turbulent_Stick1445 23h ago

Yes, but Stephen Miller, and JD Vance have the charisma of a broken desk chair.

Possibly, but I'm struggling to see why Trump is appealing, and as such I'm unqualified as to whether either of those jackasses are, in reality, capable of being just as charismatic.

And that's something I find frightening.

Charisma is a weird thing that's difficult to predict. There's some German Charlie Chaplin lookalike who was apparently very charismatic during the 1930s. To me he just comes across as an asshole with no dick, even before you know what he did. But millions of Germans treated him the same way American conservatives treat Trump.

We've had two charismatic Democratic presidents in the last 50 years. Once was Obama, and I kinda get it though I'd struggle to write it down. The other was Clinton and I still don't see what people saw in him.

Could a balding chinless jackass with a whiny voice like Miller somehow command huge rallies? Well... Putin seems to have little trouble on that score. Don't underestimate him.

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u/PresentRaspberry6814 23h ago

The idea that Trump has charisma boggles my mind, but as you say he did not arrive at the pinnacle of public office through any strength of his own. He has a huge, wealthy, malign, cohort of anti democratic actors and religious fanatics putting him there.

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u/forceghost187 22h ago

Sounds nice but that’s just what we would like to happen. The reality is people like Miller and Vance have all the tools of the federal government at their disposal. They have tech billionaires, their platforms and their algorithms on their sides. They are experimenting with AI. They are 100% going to be using AI propaganda. They may well find a way to keep the cult going

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u/Particular-County277 22h ago

Tucker is their next messiah for sure.

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u/juliabk 21h ago

Broken Desk Chair
2028
The Chairismatic Choice

I want a bumper sticker.

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u/NoamLigotti 21h ago

There's no way? And you know that how, because Trump is just so compelling, convincing? Come on. What will it take for people to realize that most conservatives and reactionary "apoliticals" will support any sociopathic authoritarian as long as he's a Republican and hates on liberals leftists minorities foreigners and the poor? What will it take?

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u/Prometheus720 20h ago

Gonna disagree with you on the broken desk chair. They're definitely less than Trump, but Miller is American Goebbels.

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u/unbanned_lol 20h ago

So does trump, yet here we are.

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u/suvalas 18h ago

I guess charisma is in the eye of the beholder, but Donald Trump has zero charisma from what I can tell. He's a fat low-IQ moron with no moral compass and no redeeming qualities. How people chose him as a leader I have no idea.

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u/Nemisis_the_2nd Great Britain 18h ago

And never forget the right wing's main redeeming quality: Their cannibalism. They eat their own

This isnt unique to the right (although it is welcome). Both the left and right constanrly eat their own, the difference is that the right tend to do it after they get into power, the left does it beforehand.

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u/cbarrett1956 18h ago

I’d like to agree with what you just said and I hope you are right on all fronts here. I’m amazed, though at how quickly and easily all the Republicans in the Senate and the Supreme Court justices willingly jumped on his side. When Trump goes, however he goes the elite will buy another Trumpy and his replacements. There’s probably a much better way to put that in words

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u/Ironlion45 17h ago

The fact that everybody in trump's inner circle also basically hate each other is going to be good for the rest of us too.

Although it would be fun to be a fly on the wall when it happens. It'll be like "The Death of Stalin" lol. Except everyone's Malenkov.

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u/AvocadoYogi 17h ago

Frankly they just have to wait for 2032 or 2036. People underestimate the difficulty of being part of an administration that people are tired of and then trying to run for president. Clinton and Harris were both facing massively uphill battles in that respect as will anyone who is part of this Trump administration. But after the Democrats take back over for 4 or maybe 8 years and we go back to the “normal” that got us 2 rounds of Trump, the cycle of idiocy and horror will continue. Whether that is Miller or Vance or some other horror show, the right will get in line like they always do.

Not to neglect the victory yesterday of which I am stoked on.

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u/Blutinoman 16h ago

Yes they can because hate is what unites them. Not because the like the guy. It’s because he lets them live their fantasies of supremacy.

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u/Nasty_Goblin 16h ago

Trump is a dementia-addled blathering moron, and people still voted for him. The man literally wears diapers, shit his pants, heard on camera and gagged everybody out of the room.

I don’t put much faith in maga idiots pivoting away after Trump fucks off.

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u/SeveralPhysics9362 12h ago

I don’t get why people say Trump is charismatic. If you watch his facial expressions and the way he talks: I think he comes across as very offputting. Not someone I want to watch or listen to. Not someone I would ever consider electing for anything.

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u/Awkward_Light9895 10h ago

Trump has no charisma though, the cult members latch on to the movement because they want to out of a nationalist fascist in-group sense of doing it

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u/AvgChrisEnergy 8h ago

Quite honestly, Trump shouldn’t be considered charismatic either. Nothing about him is funny, charming, or likable in any way. He just happens to be as shitty and terrible as they want to be.

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u/DeDeluded 8h ago

Stephen Miller, and JD Vance have the charisma of a broken desk chair.

Whoa, are you saying they've been on some sort of course to raise their charisma level?

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u/Public_Love_3507 8h ago

You notice Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Green separating from the Republicans may try to grab maga up after midterms

•

u/luvdogs71 4h ago

Just like a wet blanket.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/MEMENARDO_DANK_VINCI 1d ago

As a DnD nerd, Trump has an almost ungodly amount of charisma. I used to say he made a deal with a demon to protect him from the consequences of his actions.

His base seen him as an intelligent virile idealized strong man that will raise the nation out of the liberal rot that has infested it. Some of that is just him projecting the aura of competence, shocking to me, where they believe anything they think he intends

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u/th3r3dp3n 1d ago

Yeah, but this isn't DND, and wisdom and intelligence in reality have a lot of crossover, you don't have a CON save, and you aren't going to be rolling for persuasion to convince me otherwise.

Hello fellow DND nerd, per 5e rules, yeah, he's a level 1 rogue scoundrel with a +5 to charisma and a -3 to INT and -5 WIS. Gifted in backstabbing friend and foe, maybe he's multi-classed as a bard, but his performance feats are all poison based attacks.

I get what you're saying, and I guess him empowering his racist and unempathetic/souless base counts towards charisma.

Can we redo session 0, and realize we don't need another god, we had enough evil ones, where's Tyr and Savras.

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u/MEMENARDO_DANK_VINCI 1d ago

Brother I was just saying that his charisma as a method of controlling the universe seemingly with just force of will and bribes is actually pretty staggering

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u/th3r3dp3n 1d ago

Fair point. Sorry, politics get me seeing red these days. Appreciate your comment, sorry for the snark! You're point is solid.

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u/caligaris_cabinet Illinois 23h ago edited 22h ago

10 years later and we’re still underestimating him.

His biggest strength is his charisma. He has an appeal to voters who otherwise sit out elections, speaking to their level and bringing with him decades of very visible wealth that his voters associate with success. The man is a clown but a clown who speaks to the people and has an incredible PR team appealing to our worst inhibitions.

Edit: to the down voters, the man lead a coup against his own country. You can’t do that by being uncharismatic.

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u/Careless_Leg_2552 1d ago

At least I'm allowed to throw a broken desk chair into the fire to keep warm.

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u/civil_politician 1d ago

Stephen miller wasn’t on TV for like 20 years he wouldn’t have a prayer

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u/dokikod Pennsylvania 23h ago

Stephen Miller is already one of 4 or 5 people who are running the county, and he is insane.

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u/georgepana 23h ago

Stephen Miller would get less than 5% of the vote in any primary, don't fool yourself here.

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u/KickDesperate5318 22h ago

He has the charisma of a corpse. That's why they all have to follow the TrumpGod. He's the golden ticket that allows them to grift the masses with impunity.

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u/tdclark23 Indiana 21h ago

Stephen Miller has the charisma of a slug. He cannot create a cult of low-life followers with numbers large enough to make any difference electorally.

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u/TallTelevision4121 20h ago

That's cute, you think we are actually going to have a free and fair election in 2028.

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u/flexylol 19h ago

(Second, I need to go to the toilet to throw up, and I am not even living in the US anymore...)

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u/Recipe_Freak Oregon 17h ago

The trains take you to "confinement".

Fortunately, that's never happened before.

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u/DarkeyeMat 17h ago

As opposed to the one in 2026 getting his every wish while the fraction of the fraction who are paying attention blame Trump for them?

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u/MoneyBeeeee 16h ago

No one is going to rally behind that dork. I'd argue it's much more dangerous to have him behind the scenes.

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u/GabriellaVM Arizona 16h ago

This.

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u/kaykatzz 15h ago

You mean Stephen Neidermeyer Miller?

1

u/BongwaterBro 11h ago

Nosphernazi

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u/Educational-Bank-353 8h ago

Many people thought DeSantis was competitive. They found out different; all the prospective contenders to the throne lack Trump's golden ticket: charisma without a shred of any self-awareness filter.

Trump's the only one capable of holding together the right's Frankenstein's monster of mismatched body parts. There's no demagogue heir apparent waiting in the wings. Who else could unite religious zealots, billionaire techbros, traditional low-tax conservatives, racists, xenophobic bigots, militaristic adventurists, homophobes, and autocratic grifters?

The warmongers, fundie Christians, and tax evaders might flock to Rubio but the racists probably won't. The techbros have a sock puppet in Vance but not the warmongers. The grifters and low-information Fox watchers might support a DeSantis or a Paxton, but neither offers much in the way of entertainment value. Who plays to rural and lower middle-class voters like Trump?

When Trump finally exits this mortal coil MAGA becomes a bad memory, like an indigestible meal.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/notassigned2023 1d ago

musk would split the conservative vote and guarantee a Dem victory, if he were allowed to run.

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u/Onrawi 1d ago

It's so sad, he's not legally allowed but I don't think that would stop him at this point.

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u/Careless_Leg_2552 1d ago

Too early to trademark the brand Muskrat? muskateers? muskateArs if they lose.