The core Trump voter is a suburban fatass white person. Those people have zero appetite for any kind of sacrifice. Politics is just a substitute for what used to happen at church and the neighborhood bar, a way to feel like they fit in.
Like weāve been experiencing since the 90ās?
Yes but moreso.
So a return to 60s-70s levels of political violence?
That is the core Trump voter, but as weāve seen there is a violent fringe of Trump voter as well. 74 million people voted for him, itās not that comforting that only 1 million of them are itching to take up arms and start murdering people on his order.
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That seems inevitable doesnāt it? The US is on a bad trajectory, and when the mythology of America conflicts with the lived reality of Americans, they tend not to correct their myths. They get angry.
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Ok, but thatās not all that new. There might be an uptick in the number of coordinated attacks, but I donāt think Trump getting sent to prison will be the catalyst that sparks a civil war type rift in the country. If anything it will be used by the more influential people on the right to stoke more anger and grift even more, but none of those people or few of them want a civil war. Tucker Carlson isnāt going to lead a coordinated violent conflict. Who would? Not DeSantis. Ted Cruz? Lauren Bobert?
Of course none of them would lead the attack at personal risk, but all of them would continue Trumpās lead of having authorities stand down while others attack and then pardoning those who got in trouble.
The Trumpists arenāt a bunch of morons being led around by grifters and Russian bot farms. These are a bunch of morons who do their own research and make their own dumbass decisions. Weāre not going to face a coordinated uprising with a hierarchical leadership, but we might see stochastic political violence that exceeds the sum of Reconstruction-era violence.
ā¦ but, all their āresearchā is reading information provided to them by manipulative grifters and Russian bot farms.
I do agree that there will be a certain amount of āorganicā movement creation, with all of them coalescing around a religious devotion to American mythology that leads them to a set of natural conclusions (no Russian bots required). This is why the comparison to ISIS keeps coming to mind for me. Deplorable American conservatives will rally around their idea of America (although twisted to their own desired ends) in the way that ISIS rallies around their idea of Islam (although twisted to their own desired ends). As pointed out by folks like @Riverman, the missing secret sauce in the US is that the American deplorables arenāt really desperate. America, after all, has been mostly designed to their tastes and their advantage. They live mostly comfortable lives where all their āfearsā are largely made up (fears of SOCIALISM, fears of black people, fears of transgender mega-Nazis, etc.) But thereās a pretty dangerous dance going on where if the American ISIS With Pickup Trucks and Football people ever really, truly experience desperation then they are primed to violence. Thatās not great, Bob.
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We saw them starting to feel desperate due to mask and vaccine requirements. What might set them off is being forced to make significant, permanent changes to their way of life by measures to address climate change.
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Yeah, if Trump gets arrested Hillaryās getting locked up the second Rs take control of Congress.
Donāt threaten me with a good time.
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Deal!
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I was going to put this in the Ukraine thread but it should probably go here.
It should be noted that the timeline of events around Ukraine essentially rules out the Russiagate idea that Putin had any direct influence over Trump. Itās now obvious that a war with Ukraine has been something Putin has been considering for a while. On the phone call with Zelensky Trump threatened to withhold aid unless Zelenskyā¦ announced that he was investigating the Bidens and followed up on some conspiracy bullshit Trump saw on Fox. After Zelensky played ball, the military aid was restored before any damage was done. This is incompatible with Trump doing the will of the Kremlin unless you think Hunter Bidenās laptop was an issue of equal importance to them as $400 million in military aid to a country they were seriously considering invading.
Russia had ample reason to assist Trump to win the election without any kind of quid pro quo - weakening the US by putting an imbecile in the White House, Trumpās NATO skepticism and tendency to fawn over Big Strong Guy Putin. After winning office, Trump felt under no obligation to repay this assistance, he just kept looking out for number 1. Same Trump as always, people help him and then heās just like āthanks, now go die in a ditchā.
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Lol, man, wtf? Like, Putin has flooded the Republican Party and the right with money. He has long ties to Trump. Trumpās advisers were filled with people with all kinds of ties to Putin. Why do people keep trying to ādebunkā the idea that Putin helped Trump and Trump helped Putin by coming up with increasingly cramped/constrained ideas of what actually constitutes collusion? Wtf. Seriously. What. The. Fuck.
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I think ādirect influenceā has multiple meanings. If you mean literally 100% tell-me-what-to-do influence, then no, Putin did/does not have direct influence over Trump. But Trump has been awash with Russian money for decades, the Trump campaign (and the Republican coffers) were awash with Russian money and many members had/have ties to Putin and Russia, and Trump both privately and publicly as president was āalliedā with Putin and Russia on many key issues.
I cannot see any logic in concluding that Putin has/had little influence over Trump based upon Russia invading Ukraine shortly after Trump is no longer president.
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Well of course Iām not denying that Putin helped Trump, that is obvious. What Iām saying is that this was based on an assessment that Trump would destabilize both the US and NATO in ways that were advantageous for Russia, rather than being based on any kind of direct leverage over Trump.
If you have anything substantial Trump actually did while in office that was friendly to Russia, Iām all ears.
Well that wasnāt my argument but since you mention it, Putin choosing 2022 to invade Ukraine and getting blasted with heavy sanctions which threaten to topple the Russian economy also doesnāt make a lot of sense if youāre operating under the assumption that he had a friend in the White House circa 2017 through 2020.
I mean any kind of influence at all other than perhaps an open ear into which to make suggestions. If that influence existed, Putin would have used it. Where is the evidence that he ever used it? Not only does no such evidence exist, but we have an example of Trump actually utilizing what would be an incredible piece of leverage for the Kremlin - military aid to Ukraine - and just wasting it on petty political bullshit that was important to Trump, rather than anything that mattered to the Kremlin.
To me Putin is apparently just another in a long line of people who helped Trump and thought they were going to get something out of it, only to be discarded when their usefulness was expended (Sessions, Barr, Cohen, etc etc). I donāt get what the resistance to this is other than people being emotionally invested in the idea that Trump was doing Putinās bidding.
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