Yeah America is a joke now lol.

@Elessar we've already seen this exact same thing about 80 years ago and know how it ends, but a lot of people find it very difficult to learn from history...

@NerdyPotato We've seen it much recently with the Brits as well. 52% of the Brits who bothered to vote wanted to live the union, all the promises the right made them failed to materialize, now the Conservatives are on a free fall and >60% Brits would want to rejoin but the damage is done.

@Elessar the consequences in the UK were mostly limited to economic hardship though. The USA is looking to abandon democracy and human rights. (And making good progress already before the elections too.)

@NerdyPotato

@Elessar
It's worse because Brexist actually made sense. The UK left the EU to have more autonomy, that's fine. They just didn't know that their government was run by the Right, and the EU was actually protecting them from their own government.
But in America, we all know the Republicans have gone full fascist. It's not like 2016 anymore.

@BohemianBabe I know what's at stake. My point is that, just like with Brexit, these people will wake up only the moment the damage is irreversible and the mask comes off, not a minute before. I'll argue also that some significant damage has already be done and is being done as we speak, and that's while they control a single branch (judiciary) and paralyze another (Congress).

Even if Biden gets reelected you'll be at this very same crucial point in 2028. And then 2032. The country is pretty much toast if you ask me.

@Elessar When it comes to the supreme court, there's not much we can do. So yeah, we're screwed until some of these judges start dying.
But if we can beat Trump in November, I'll be really optimistic. Both parties have their private platform and their public platform. The public platform of the Republicans is Donald Trump. That's it, they don't care about policy anymore, it's literally just blind loyalty to Trump. So if Trump can be defeated one more time, the Republicans will have nothing to run on in 2028. They'll have to rebrand themselves and that will take decades. The supreme court will still be out of control, but we'll still have Democrats in place to keep from descending into full Fascism.
Now if Trump wins in November, I'll be living in Germany for the foreseeable future.

@BohemianBabe Unfortunately it's a movie I've already seen, MAGA and especially Project 2025 won't go anywhere. It's our 2013 all over again, people believing that the right would've deflated once the charismatic conman's career was over, and that the successors wouldn't stand a chance... and look who's governing now. You (plural) are overestimating Trump's role; he's just a spokesperson and not a particularly bright one (especially when compared to similar populist leaders elsewhere), no one who challenged him could replace him for now; but once he's gone, rallying his base under someone else is as simple as running a campaign on FOX and saying «the only hope for the country not to be "destroyed" by the left is voting *insert younger fascist here*», who'll inherit the very same platform (and potentially make it even more radical) and that they'll vote en-masse.

The only thing that can and will absolutely deflate them is the reality check once the flame they've ignited will burn themselves too, but at that point it's far too late for anyone to call it a win. Just like with Brexit except much, much harder to reverse.

@BohemianBabe I don't know if 4 years will be enough to put project 2025 on hold, but it's the very least Americans can do this year. A lot of work needs to be done to prevent project 2029 though. Putting another candidate in charge of it won't take longer than that. The plan is much bigger than MAGA and more widely supported than by that cult alone. Trump's irrationality and flip flopping divides republicans at the moment. A candidate who is more consistent and outspoken about the project may even improve their chances in the next election.

@BohemianBabe Yeah, that's my point: Trump has no actual power beyond what is granted to him by those individuals and organizations who operate from behind the scenes and want him there (Heritage & co.), he's just a spokesperson, and has no strategic value whatsoever for the party. He can be totally replaced if needed.

I hear this all the time from American liberals but I personally dissent, it's just something that they tell themselves in order to sweeten the pill and believe that the disappearance of Trump from the political scene would somewhat result in the GOP disorderly going into a breakdown, as if the organizations that prop him and that have operated for decades had no contingency plans: that's absolutely not the case. The right has no interest whatsoever in replacing Trump right now as we speak simply because it would be a cost without any useful returns (Trump is already popular and at the same time absolutely malleable and too dumb to turn against the puppeteers without sabotaging himself in the process, so where's the need to replace him?), and that's the reason why he keeps being the nominee. I'll argue none of those other nominations were a serious attempt to try to decouple the GOP from MAGA, or MAGA from Trump; it's just political theater and/or testing the ground/loyalty of the base.

All those features are completely meaningless, if the rightwing media machine wanted to re-orient their audience towards voting another candidate they would do so relatively easily, they'll just prop up the umpteenth fearmongering campaign indicating the candidate in question as "the only hope and savior" while also lauding the different features of the new candidate and giving him/her plenty of screen time, and the great majority of them will fall in line within months at most, maybe even just weeks. I'll argue they could even be reprogrammed to say they never actually supported Trump, if it was ever needed, in a surprisingly short time too.


Still to use my country as an example, Giorgia Meloni has been in politics since 2008. She was initially a member of Berlusconi's cabinet, then split and founded her own party in 2014, so exactly ten years ago. Similarly to DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Ted Cruz, the general consensus was that she made a step bigger than the leg and that she didn't have the features that would've appealed to the majority of Italian rightwingers.. until 2022. And Berlusconi's party is still getting a 10% of votes just by having "BERLUSCONI" in capital letters and with a bigger font than the logo of the party, in spite of having passed over one year ago now lol, so I wouldn't be too surprised if Trump will continue to get the GOP votes beyond his physical lifetime.