• ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 months ago

    They might be moderately more competent, but they likely won’t have his charisma and cultural cache. A lot of more competent fascists have tried to steal his thunder, and they’ve all ended up either kissing his ring (Vance) or flaming out spectacularly (DeSantis).

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      All those more “competent” fascists are simply trying to position themselves for the inevitable post-Trump GOP. God will eventually exercise His Ultimate Veto on Donald Trump. When that happens, the GOP will appear to be divided into folks who double down on Trumpism (like Vance), and folks who are just as evil but will use Trump’s absence as a fig leaf to pretend the party has changed (like DeSantis)

      This division won’t be real at all. It will all be performative, like the Kayfabe in Pro Wrestling, or the factions in Survivor. It will still be racism and Fascism all the way down. But the GOP Reality Show will still need to pretend there is a choice that they can rally the team around.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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        3 months ago

        I think you underestimate how much these people all hate each other. Trump fealty is the only thing keeping them together. And it still sometimes surfaces. Laura Loomer’s recent Twitter spat with Marjorie Taylor-Greene where Loomer threatened to release compromising information on Taylor-Greene is a good example.

        • half_fiction@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 months ago

          I don’t know. I mean, they definitely hate each other, but there is also nothing Republicans do better than falling in line when it matters.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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            3 months ago

            They may fall in line eventually, but not until after most of them have destroyed each other. Maybe that will lead to another demagogue like Trump, but in the mean time, they’ll all be out for each other’s blood in some amazing factionalism.

        • dhork@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          No, there are other things keeping them together, like “starve the beast” tax cuts, racism, and Fascism. They want to make sure that the “others” are sufficiently put in their place.

          There may be some collateral damage along the way. Loomer is especially dangerous because she is unaccountable to voters, so is able to do things that a politician looking for votes cannot. But I don’t think the occasional slap fight will derail the overall mission of the party to entrench themselves as the ruling class, in spite of their dwindling numbers.

    • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Jesus.

      He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!!!

      You have any idea how easy it is to spend your whole day screaming about how “the liberals and immigrants are all out to exterminate white people, and we’re the only ones willing to say it out loud!”?

      He’s not savvy, he’s just so spoiled he has no filter, they’ll build another one out of spare parts.

      We had Glenn Beck before this, we’ll have another soon after.

      Generational Adaptive Networks work by testing something until it fails, then making a change to see if it gets better or worse, they’ll do the exact same, find a Trump, a rich, obnoxious guy, Musk isn’t busy, and just build an image around him where he’s suddenly a devout Baptist who is staunchly pro-life and never secretly paid for dozens of his interns to get abortions.

      Trump’s strength was his transparency, he was clearly the opposite of everything the Bible belt claim to believe in, he’s the 7 deadly sins made manifest by a bad writer. The missing ingredient that always tripped up everyone else: Shame. The next generation will have no such weaknesses.

      This isn’t the end, this isn’t even the beginning of the end, but this is the end of the beginning.

    • BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      His “charisma” only appeals to a certain subset of Americans. Sure, he has fanatical support in much of the Republican base, but he has low overall favorability ratings and turns off a lot of moderate voters.

      I am actually glad it’s Trump and not another Republican who’s on the ticket. I think he’s easier to beat. I am more scared of what happens when smoother, more coherent Republicans begin campaigning on the same platform without the chaos and cringe of Trump.