Trump: The Cognitive Slip Continues...

Well, two things:

1) I'm describing Trump's "soft support", i.e. mostly longtime conservatives and GOP voters who are just going along with it while trying not to notice or acknowledge how the sausage is made (a group I would argue is an important part, but not a majority--maybe not even a plurality--of Trump's voters in Nov. 2024);
2) I'm not sure that pointing out the moral cowardice of people who choose to accept lies and hide from the actual consequences of their actions is being all that generous. I think it's a pretty harsh indictment of their failure as citizens, even though I'm not talking about the most overtly bigoted cohort of that electoral coalition.

But fair point. I knew when I posted that that I was risking giving the appearance of forgiving or whitewashing the ugliness of MAGA, and that's very much not my intent.

 

Human nature is plastic and relational.

One reason I've become more lower-case 'c' 'conservative' in recent years is because I'm more aware of the limits of human nature and the fallacy of traditional liberalism and capitalism both to regard humans as fundamentally rational, independent actors.

 

True, but I'm not talking voters. I'm talking the Moms for Liberty, the angry people crashing school board meetings, etc. Those people already existed prior to 2024, and I had feared that in "blue" areas like Northern Virginia, they would smell blood in the water--and increased leverage coming from the Federal government--and therefore feel empowered to go after schools, libraries, Democratic elected officials, etc. They had been somewhat active in this area for years, so I thought they would be motivated to step up and finish the job.

Instead--around here, anyway--it's been mostly crickets. Maybe they don't want to be waving the MAGA flag while friends and neighbors were losing their jobs to DOGE, I don't know, but the downhill consequences of the GOP sweep in 2024 I was expecting here didn't materialize.

 

One bedrock value I will expect from every Democratic candidate in every primary election I vote in will be a stated unwillingness to take any statement by any Republican expressing a concern about morality, character, or decency, at face value. These people have waived the benefit of the doubt for the foreseeable future.

I just did a bit of searching, and it looks like she had ties to Scientologists--basically, fundraising--but was not a member herself.

 

Laziness is a bit part of it, I think you're right. I was thinking the same thing when I posted elsewhere that the slapdash incompetence of the Kid Rock TPUSA show was emblematic of MAGA.

 

Funding will be vastly reduced for many of these groups right now

 

You're correct. I think they want to rule rather than govern.

 

Are you arguing he should assume homophobia stopped after Trump's re-election?

 

Also, most of them don't really want to destroy public schools or public libraries, they just want those institutions to survive as culture-war punching bags while continuing to provide education and other services.

 

I don't think you believe yourself on this one.