politics

Trump is now worse than Reagan 2nd term: not only is he demented, he and his people simply can't hide it at all.

Person, woman, man, camera, TV.

He passed the test! He can remember words he remembered!

Not that any test was given in that moment, but facts don't matter when you have Alternative Facts!™

Trump has also stated he wants to be a dictator on day 1. This plus all of the other anti-democratic stances of the Republicans has me convinced that if Republicans win in 2024, there isn't going to be another real election in the US. It'll either be so corrupt, abbreviated or "managed" that it's effectively Russia, or there will be an "emergency" that delays a national election indefinitely.

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.

the only way to stop this is having the GOP lose over and over and over again.

This is asking a lot imo. You’re asking everyone to be vigilant and I think the last 10 years have proven that a significant proportion of the voter population cannot be relied on to be vigilant, because they’re content in being myopic.

That seems to be the weak point of a republic. I just watched a video essay on YouTube about the politics of Star Wars and how the Republic fell to the Empire and I think the guy made a lot of good points and it included a call to action in our elections. I think Star Wars is known to have taken from the fall of the Roman Republic and there’s more recent examples of the death of a democracy in the Weimar Republic in Germany.

With the two real life examples, all it took was a prolonged period of decay (from inside and outside factors) to lead to the Roman Autocratic Empire and Nazi Germany. I’d argue the US was on this relative path before with the America First party that rose to oppose FDR in the 1930’s. All it may take is another bad world event to push people into being content with a populist autocrat like Trump.

I’m still hopeful, but we should all take the lessons of the past into account when deciding how to move forward.

Which Republican said "The era of big Government is over!" right before dismantling or slashing the bulk of federal safety net programs? Which Republican took office on anti-corruption messaging, then immediately turned around and let criminal bankers who decimated the US economy off the hook?

The Republican party is a psychotic cesspool, but Democrats have plenty to answer for too. The rust belt in-particular was dominated by Democrats until Bill Clinton made the conscious choice to turn against the unions that had put him in office.

Trump is literarlly elected because Hilary's campaign elevated him in their piped piper strategy to make Republiacan candidate more extreme so more people vote for her. https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/

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.

They have been killing them with the popular vote. The GOP wins the electoral votes often actually.

don't make me hope ;_;

i have been dreaming of this,
pleading for this.
but i never dared to consider it might actually happen
i can't afford enough copium to sustain it

In this case she may have been making an indirect swipe at Republicans in general, saying that the party isn’t strong.

The country genuinely does need a competitive second party.

Everyone blames Democrats for the lack of choice in candidates, while the other guys are nominating a twice impeached, adjudicated rapist and insurrection supporter with ninety one criminal indictments and multiple pending civil suits.

I haven't had a candidate come out of the GOP worthy of consideration in my entire lifetime. At one point, they were the party of not only Lincoln but folks like Eisenhower.

No, there is a Republican party. It's MAGA and a large number of voters who vote R regardless of name.

So many Republican voters simply don't care.

Source: I worked as an election poll worker. The number of people who asked me, "Who are the Republicans?" on ballots where there is no party would shock you.

No more than the death of the whigs. A dead Republican Party creates a vacuum for either the democrats to split or a third party to ascend

I'm not a political scientist but I watched Hamilton one time, and I think what would happen is the parties start to move around. Right now both parties are unfortunately right leaning.

Democrats, by European standards, are middle-right, while Republicans are ~~chaotic evil~~ far right. Maybe the parties start moving closer to the left?

The two party system isn't the rule as much as it is a symptom of our winner-takes-all voting system. In the event that the Republican party loses significant support from voters, the Democratic party would surely split into two polar factions.

The Democrats because what they already are: the right wing corporatist party, and hopefully leftists actually form a coalition and a party

The real fix is to get rid of the electoral college. Only then will the will of the people be felt.