Americans have been electorally mercy killing the GOP for forty years, they invented moving the goalposts in response.
There may still be a less electoral way to mercy kill the GOP.
this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
0 points (NaN% liked)
politics
19107 readers
2408 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Americans have been electorally mercy killing the GOP for forty years
Feeling incredibly happy every time a cockroach dies of old age, because I'm pretty sure this means I'm beating them.
There may still be a less electoral way to mercy kill the GOP.
Unfortunately, the folks with the highest proclivity to try and run a rival's campaign bus off the road aren't in the liberal party.
What's terrifying about MAGA isn't Trump, it's who comes next.
A second term for Trump will be terrible, but it'll end fairly quickly as I don't think he's going to live another 10 years.
However, if you take a look at the "Next generation" they are all copying trumpism but just making it a bit more crazy. Vivek is the poster child for this behavior. They are finding more and more than just abandoning pretext and saying the quiet part outloud doesn't lose elections.
The only way to stop this is having the GOP lose over and over and over again. After Biden's presidency the GOP cannot see power for at least another decade otherwise it will just snowball into more extreme craziness (it may do that anyways as the insane base will keep moderates out of office).
Cults of personality tend to die when the leader at the center goes away (by jail or death or something else). There are exceptions, but it's what tends to happen.
You can see this in the lackluster performance of down ballot candidates who get Trump endorsements. The cult wants Trump, the singular man. They don't turn out to put his lackeys into power. Some of them still win because they're in safe red districts, but they don't win as hard as they should.
What? Which ones?
I'm actually drawing blanks. Perhaps it's survivorship bias but to me it seems like most cults of personality stick around if there's no force actively shutting them down, generally with violence.
Nazi germany, for example, didn't end because hitler died. It ended because the allies and the soviet union occupied germany for decades squelching any Nazi sentiment. Ditto for Japan with the Hirohito (who himself was in a long line of royals that still continues just with muted power). You can look at mormonism where the founder was killed by a mob, that's still very much alive. Or Scientology where the leader had a heart attack. Heck, even the moonies are still around.
Without a heavy societal push, cults of personality very often linger.
Oneida Cult. It dispersed almost immediately when the founder was arrested, and all that remains is the silverware manufacturer. Quite a few other examples in upstate New York in the 19th century, which was a very popular place to start weird new religious movements. There were tons of them, but you only hear about a handful that survived--Mormons, 7th Day Adventists, and Jehovah's Witnesses are about it.
Nazis did fight right up to the point where Hitler died. He was the one pushing them to fight until every man, woman, and child in Germany was dead. Hitler died on April 30, and the official surrender happened on May 2. Nobody was actually interested in continuing to let Germany burn.
So yes, it's a matter of survivorship bias. You know the counter examples because they stayed around, but they're exceptions.
Without a heavy societal push, cults of personality very often linger.
They may linger, but they never have the power they used to. If they do, they have to rebuild from scratch, which is more or less what Trump does with white supremacists.
They may linger, but they never have the power they used to. If they do, they have to rebuild from scratch, which is more or less what Trump does with white supremacists.
I guess this is what generally concerns me about trump. I don't think he'll be replaced while he's alive. However, the apparatus that made him a god amoung racists is still in place and hasn't substantially been changed since he left office.
What's frightening to me is it just takes the rightwing grifters to rally on another god king to ultimately start this problem anew. We have an entire "media" ecosystem that's now learned that fascism is actually kind of cool.
The only hope, it seems to me, is that his supporters tend to be old people that will end up dying around the same time he does.
I'll also say that I don't think the study of cults (or more accurately to the terminology of the field, high control organizations and the BITE model) are very well developed. They're focused on identifying them, and helping individuals leave and reacclimate to the larger society. There's very little research on how high control organizations end, why the cults of personality that survived in the long run managed to do so, or tactics that could be used to dissolve them on a greater scale.
Here's the thing, I'm not sure I'd totally classify Trumpism as a high control org. It certainly has aspects of it, but it probably more closely resembles the hippy movement of the 60s (from which many cults did spring). The only real core belief is how awesome trump is. Beyond that it's a bunch of fringe and frayed beliefs based whatever that individual might believe.
For example, I have black in-laws that are also trump supporters (yeah.. I know) who are convinced that Trump isn't racist AND that trump has this secret plan that would have made all black people fabulously wealthy, Had Joe biden not stolen the election. It was something that was always on the cusp of happening were it not for "the deep state".
I don't think this is a mainstream trump belief but I now have to wonder how many trumpist have these sorts of special whacky beliefs untethered from the reality of who trump is.
But then there's another phenomena that seems somewhat unique to trump which is, when he says something they do not like it's "He didn't say that. Oh, he did say that? Well he didn't mean that, it was just something he said for X reason". That is, they don't actually care about what Trump says or does, they care about what he represents. Trump can't really command his followers super effectively because half the time they are going to think he's "just being trump". This is also where it's scary because a number of his followers want violence and I don't think trump could stop them if they started down that path.
I don’t think this is a mainstream trump belief but I now have to wonder how many trumpist have these sorts of special whacky beliefs untethered from the reality of who trump is.
As a former Jehovah's Witness myself, I can see parallels here. There are often things believed by rank and file members that don't match up with what people at the top are saying.
For example, if you were to ask regular JWs what the doctrine says about the Big Bang theory, you would get an answer consistent with most fundamentalists Christians--that is, throwing it in the same bucket as evolution. However, I've also gone over the actual published material on the subject, and it's not actually obvious what the official stance is. Much of what has been written in official material is along the lines of "the Big Bang shows that science agrees that the universe has a beginning, just like Genesis says". It never quite comes right out and approves it, but it never strongly denies it, either. It's a major contrast from evolution, where the official stance is quite clear.
They seem to be fully aware that the rank and file think one thing, but the official doctrine in place is something else. I find that even many former members are surprised to learn this.
I bring this up to say that you might be seeing a similar thing among your relatives. There are all sorts of crazy Trump beliefs that derive from nothing the man has actually done or said. People will imprint their own thoughts and hopes into places where there is otherwise a vacuum of things the cult tells you to think.
Oh hey, I'm exmormon myself! Isn't it fun how these high demand religions drive you into researching what makes cults in the first place :D
We sort of have an analogy within mormonism though it's a bit different. For mormons, the issue is almost the opposite, rather than no ever having an official stance on things mormonism has had official stances on just about everything but then it's slowly walked them back and distanced itself from the wacky belief. However, that means that the rank and file still remember, hold onto, and retell things that the org itself would rather go away. For example, blacks and the priesthood. Mormons would much rather the doctrine and leaders weren't so explicit about the "curse of Cain".
Similarly, mormonism has gone everywhere from denying evolution to even denying astronomy (They used to literally believe that the sun was Heaven, the moon lesser heaven, and the stars even lesser heaven). That's actually why mormons were some of the first moon landing conspiracy theorists.
We do have some off track beliefs with little to no teachings, but mormons are a lot quicker to try and tamp down and eliminate those. For example, heavenly mother.
The end result is you do still have people teaching weird non-doctrinal (or previously doctrinal) while the church tries to back away and kill them off.
I know this is a bit of a sidetrack, but are you still in contact with anyone that's a JW and are they all Trumpers? Trumpism took mormons by storm, they are some of the most dedicated adherents to it. I'm wondering if the same thing happened with other high demand religions.
I don't have any particular contact with JWs. My impression is that the rules against contacting ex members among the Latter Day Saints is much weaker than JWs, who have a strong prohibition against it.
That said, JWs in general are supposed to be politically neutral, which means not voting and not explicitly taking sides. Now, during my time in, I heard plenty of people express opinions that would tend to land one direction or another, and I had similar opinions myself. Most of the ones I heard actually tended more towards the Democratic party than Republicans, but that might be because I grew up in a city and people absorb the opinions of other people around them.
Most ex JWs go either towards Democrats or much further to the left.
Latter-day Saints have absolutely no prohibition against interacting with former members of the Church. Unfortunately, many former members leave under difficult circumstances and distance themselves from their friends who remain in the Church. We would love nothing more than to stay in contact with them and still be friends.
Unfortunately, many former members leave under difficult circumstances and distance themselves from their friends who remain in the Church. We would love nothing more than to stay in contact with them and still be friends.
Many former mormons, like myself, are distanced by their "friends" as soon as they leave. It's a two way street and all the responsibility isn't on a single party.
Often times that "friendship" is contingent on church attendance and belief.
Have you ever asked a former member why they left? What did they say?
Have you ever asked a former member why they left? What did they say?
I helped a person rejoin the Church when I was a missionary. It was obviously not a representative experience, but he had left at a time in his life when he was angry at members of his ward for not supporting him the way he felt he should have been supported. At the time it seemed he had felt a bit more entitled to special attention than was reasonable (keeping in mind the Church has a lay ministry and we're all just regular people with regular lives outside of church), and he had also tried to have an affair with someone's wife, IIRC. He had requested his records to be withdrawn because he wanted members to stop contacting him. He was a lot different when I met him than when he left the Church, and had a lot of rough life experiences that emphasized the value it brought to his life.
I have not had any close friends or family leave the Church, so I haven't had any opportunities to actually have a discussion about it with anyone else other than online. Those online interactions have been mostly hate-filled and vitriolic by the former members.
Like most members of the Church, where I live I am a religious minority. It's far more common for people to ask me questions about my faith than for me to interact with former members.
Trumpism took mormons by storm, they are some of the most dedicated adherents to it.
Plenty of us despise him, though, and one of the highest leaders of the Church has donated to the Democratic party in the past.
Oh wow, I need to update my mental facts here.
https://www.americansurveycenter.org/newsletter/trumps-problem-with-mormon-voters-is-getting-worse/
Early demographics for Mormons was something like 70% approval which had them as one of the most trumpy demographics. However, it looks like that approval has taken a significant nose dive. With a majority now disfavoring him.
If I can ask. Did you previously support Trump? If so, what changed to make you despise him? Also, in the up coming election what are you planning on doing (assuming both Biden and Trump are the nominees, which seems obvious at this point).
I have known anti trump Mormons, but my understanding is they were the minority (apparently not).
I have never supported Trump. I was serving my mission in 2016 when he was elected and I couldn't find a polling place to vote, and I sort of had a favorable impression of him at first just because my family are big Trump supporters. However, many of his policies and his hateful rhetoric are impossible to square with my religious beliefs, which I consider to be mostly centrist. I think most Latter-day Saints are in a similar boat. We are serious about our religion and aren't going to support a political leader who goes against many of our most deeply-held moral doctrines.
The most important thing we believe are the commandments given by Jesus Christ in Matthew 22:36-40. These are summarized as "love God with all your being" and "love everyone around you as well as you love yourself". I can't see how it could be possible to support Trump and sincerely believe in those commandments at the same time.
For me, however, the final straw was when Trump started speculating on live television about injecting light into people to fight the Covid virus. It was utter loony talk and I was completely disgusted. January 6th didn't surprise me at all (Trump was laying the groundwork for it a year in advance) and at that point I almost registered as a Democrat. Now that Trump has taken control of the Republican party I'm definitely registering as a Democrat before November.
I like Donald Trump and I'm voting for him in 2024.
Am I allowed to say that here?
I have to ask, why? Why would you support someone so transparently anti-democracy, possibly one of the most dangerous enemies of the United States in a long time, the leader of our very own home grown Beer Hall Putsch? Why would you give him a second chance to overthrow the democratic government of our country?
They won't respond, they have thrown their hand grenade and they're off to the next comment section.
Why did you link me to a comment by a six hour old account with five comments?
They won't respond.
I have no intention of drive-by comments. I'm here.
What got your last account banned?
On Lemmy? This is my first and only account.
On /r/politics I'd expect to get banned for such a comment, hence my first question.
The mainstream media "fake news" has created a caricature out of Trump. They have taken what he has said out of context, taken soundbites, and not accurately reported what he's said and done. Therefore, it is no surprise to me that you, and many, feel the way you do. I'd be on your side if I believed the caricature version.
Look, I've talked to enough people to realize that we have more in common than not. And what's dividing us are the filters. I listen to Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, and Joe Rogan. Others (speaking in generalities, not specifically you) may read and listen to MSNBC, Salon, The Atlantic, The Rolling Stones, etc. Fair to say these two categories are not even reporting the same basic information, let alone opinion on the matter.
May I suggest listening and going to these sources that don't agree with you (or you even find very offensive), and see what they have to say. That's why I'm here. I want to connect with people, and see what people I don't necessarily agree with are saying. I don't care what you believe or where you came from.
I realize I didn't exactly answer the question you asked, but if you really are interested in what I think (and I'm no one special) reply and I'd be happy to talk to you.