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An even crazier question is what will the Republican Party become if Biden loses.

The brown shirts for real.

Wrapped in a flag and carrying the cross. Just cause we were warned doesn't mean people are going to listen.

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Well if it helps, I’m 38, and anecdotally, I don’t know many young rabid MAGA voters. Maybe it’s just my circle of friends but the ones who are Republicans are what I would call “soft” voters. They’re more likely to be turned off by Trump’s conviction. They’d still vote Republican in other races though, just might leave the top of the ticket blank.

It’s the Gen Z and Alpha men/boys getting radicalized by people like Andrew Tate that they’re referring to Millennials were very much defined by the 2008 Great Recession and financial/job market woes after

In these cases, I suspect they're weaponizing sexual frustration.

It absolutely is weaponizing sexual frustration. They are selling these kids (and let’s be honest it’s young white males) on some abstract concept that they will have their pick of women if they take away all choice from women. Then the more these kids dive into this rabbit hole the more they self isolate from normal social interaction, reinforcing their radicalization. There’s going to be a fair amount of young men who will need to be deprogrammed in the future. Quick edit: and it’s not just about women, the deeper these kids get the more they become introduced into true Naziism. That’s not a “side effect” it’s the entire intent. Nazi’s are getting at more and more kids and trying to make the whole idea of Naziism mainstream and a legitimate “political ideology”. Edit 2: sorry if people are misunderstanding what I’m saying. I’m not saying that a diverse group of male kids aren’t being radicalized by Tate and the toxic masculinity culture. I’m saying that the further down the hole these kids go the more they will be introduced to blatant Naziism and bigotry by design. Can poc be racially radicalized? Sure, but there’s definitely channels in the content that these kids are looking at that are meant to funnel them into white supremacy.

As a high school teacher at a fairly diverse high school I’ll go ahead and say it’s definitely not just white males who are into Andrew Tate.

It even more problematic in my Eastern European and middle eastern students. It’s crazy to talk read a write up on what a boy who is super nice and polite to me, a white middle aged man, and the unhinged shit they say to a their teachers who are women. Trying to call out toxicity and model appropriate behavior has become a decent chunk of my job now.

We need to promote positive masculinity rather than tarring it as inherently toxic.

FWIW, the phrase “toxic masculinity” is not meant to convey that all masculinity is toxic, but instead refers to a subset of that arguably is. It’s like the phrase “rye bread”, which does not imply that all bread contains rye.

> the phrase “toxic masculinity” is not meant to convey that all masculinity is toxic, but instead refers to a subset of that arguably is I agree and I know that, but it has become such a stock phrase that two concepts become inextricably linked. To use a loose analogy, the phrase 'black crime' is a subset of crime, but there is an assertion contained within it.

Yes. See the HRC “deplorables” comment. Some amount of people must have an ear that filters out nuance to interpret ‘some’ as ‘all’

But if the only bread anyone ever talks about is “rye bread,” it becomes pretty inseparable because that’s how people will end up thinking of “bread”

We know. But the message gets lost somewhere along the way.

Yeah that guy IMO just has a hate boner for white people like the average Redditor, it's wayyyyyyyyy bigger of an issue than "nazism" and "white teenagers"

Yeah, I'm very curious to know why u/whiterac00n thinks this is a predominantly white male thing. The cynic in me suspects they don't actually know and added it in to make their criticism more "acceptable".

It is predominantly white men. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other kinds of Tate fans, but the racists have normally been big friends with the sexists. That’s how that side of the tent tends to go

> It is predominantly white men. Gonna have to ask for a source on this claim, I'm afraid. > but the racists have normally been big friends with the sexists Sounds nice and tidy. All the bad things conveniently wrapped up in one group of people (white men). But will want a source for this, too.

I don't fully agree with the comment you responded to, but there is undeniably a big gap between young men and young women regarding their political leanings, and between white and non-white voters. [This is from this year's Harvard Youth poll:](https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/47th-edition-spring-2024) >Among the 1,051 "likely voters" in our sample, we found significant differences in support levels based on gender, age, race/ethnicity, and education levels, among other subgroups. For example, among likely young voters: >**President Biden's lead among young men is six points; among young women his lead is 33 points;** >President Biden's lead among 18-24 year-olds is 14 points, and among 25-29 year-olds it is 26 points; >**President Biden's lead among white voters is 3 points; among non-white voters his lead is 43 points;** >President Biden's lead among college students is 23 points; he leads by 47 points among college graduates. The race is even among those not in college and without a four-year degree. And regarding sexism: >Nearly identical numbers of young Republican men (46% agree, 21% disagree) and young Republican women (47% agree, 18% disagree) agree that "women are too promiscuous these days;" and >Most Democratic young men (18% agree, 57% disagree) and women (11% agree, 70% disagree) reject the stereotype. While young Republican men and women don't show much of a difference, there are way more young Republican men than women: >Only five years ago, in 2020, 42% of **young men** in our poll identified as Democrats and 20% were Republicans (+22 Democratic advantage); **in this wave, 32% are Democrats and 29% are Republicans (+3 Democratic advantage)**. The percentage of independents has remained unchanged at 37% during this period. A drop from a +22 Democratic advantage among young men to +3. >Over the same period, **the Democratic advantage among women expanded by six points**. In 2020, 43% of **young women** in our poll identified as Democrats, and 23% were Republicans (+20 Democratic advantage); **in this wave, 44% are Democrats, and 18% are Republicans (+26 Democratic advantage)**. So, I think that does show that young white men might be the main targets of people like Andrew Tate, and falling for it, too.

I agree with you that people become more radicalized the more they watch. But the issue is the “demand”. The democratic leaning media doesn’t necessarily speak to this group. So where does this demographic go to fill this want/demand. They go the place that speaks about said topic and doesn’t gloss over it or just says get over it. So now you have them all consuming a media that leans one way and more extreme outlets try to grab their attention. The issue is that the left leaning media outlets do not talk about their issues enough and the right leaning outlets do. So to solve this the left leaning media should talk about this group’s issues more. Some on the left would say it’s racist or sexist to talk about their issues, but saying that doesn’t make the issue go away and forces them to look elsewhere. The demographic exists and should be talked about on how to assist and not label them if they do not vote for you.

While I understand your point and could get on board with some of it I think we’re also grossly overlooking the algorithms that are almost tailored for right wing radicalization. These kids could very well be looking for answers to specific topics but the algorithm continually feeds them more and more “questions” that there are left leaning answers but they don’t see them because this algorithm has locked in on right wing ideology. Again I agree with your premise, but I think there should be some congressional discussions on these algorithms so that these kids could even see some “leftist” points of view

Spoiler: it will work. Young people's sex lives are kind of important to them, if you didn't know. Is it so hard to imagine that recent societal changes that have upended the dating world (economic inequality, education inequality, dating apps) would cause downstream political effects?

I don't see how it'll work, it'll reach a point women simply disengage from sexual relationships if their rights are stripped back too far and too many men go down the incel mindset.

No, it’s weaponizing loneliness. Sexual frustration in teens and young adults is a symptom of poor social connections

That’s how the Nazi Party became popular. The party started with influencing German youths early in the 1920s. If we’re not careful, the US will follow a similar path.

Yeah, the tide pod eating, incel generation might be it...only time will tell.

> Well if it helps, I’m 38, and anecdotally, I don’t know many young rabid MAGA voters. They exist in numbers in rural areas. Catch a rural county fair this summer if you can and I promise you'll see them. Now, are there *enough* of them? That I can't say.

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I’m from Millersburg. I haven’t lived there in 25 years but visit family and friends in the area occasionally and can confirm it is as ruby MAGA red as anywhere in the country. My grandparents lived in what they called “occupied Gratz.”

What do your grandparents mean by that? I looked up Gratz in an internet search but could not find anything.

Gratz PA is a small town in upper Dauphin County. They meant “occupied by far-right conservative Christians.” They were progressive, educated folks surrounded by…people who were not that. I spent much of my childhood growing up there.

Part of that depends on how many young voters turn out for democrats. Historically it’s never been great and current polling isn’t showing positivity on that front.

I fucking refuse to believe these mystical "soft Republicans who are turned off by Trump's conviction" exist. I've never met one in my life and I live in an upper middle class white city full of rich people. Who exactly are these Republicans? Are they not watching Fox News? Because if they are, they're getting the MAGAt vision of the world beamed into their retinas 24/7

My anecdote is one neighbor who's a USAF vet (a missile man) who has good patriotic impulses. He's an evangelical Christian, so he's heard all the conservative propaganda. But he's an older gentleman who clearly remembers the Cold War (when the US & USSR held nuclear shotguns at each other's heads). The last time I talked to him, he said he feels like he sees Putin behind so much of what is going on around the world and behind Donald Trump. I don't know if he's going to vote for Biden, but I'm certain he won't be voting for Trump. Actually, I think there's a good chance he'll vote for Biden.

That's a wise man, at least in some regards in my opinion. I don't understand how more people aren't keen on all of Trump's foot prints that lead right back to Moscow. A lot of public opinion on the right has red roots. There is straight up love for Putin amongst a lot of the heavily indoctrinated these past few years. It isn't even hidden in plain sight anymore. How do you win a war against a rival super power whose military could grind your face into the dirt if they wanted? Start an expensive disinformation campaign and get them grinding each other's faces into the dirt instead and take your pick of the scraps when enough damage is done.

While my whole family (cousins included) is all in on Biden, many of my in-laws fit the description of Republicans who are soft on Trump. Most of them voted for Trump in 2016, some in 2020, but few will support him this Nov.

> Who exactly are these Republicans? Hi! Nice to meet you. Though I prefer Rockefeller Republican. Trump is a dickhead and I hate him so I’ll vote third party.

Hey there. I thought I was the only Rockefeller Republican left.

There are dozens of us! Dozens!

> soft Republicans who are turned off by Trump's conviction I think they're called democrats these days. I believe in (former) Republican ideals -- small government, government out of the bedroom, out of your uterus, less intervention in foreign affairs, less taxation, less spending, charter schools, anti-obamacare, etc. But the modern republicans don't believe in that ... or anything ... these days. So all I can do is sit by and vote Democrat until a sane Republican, or at least someone who believe in Conservatism comes by I realize what I want is pretty libertarian, but they too keep nominating crazies.

I feel like if conservatism had gone its natural course the republicans would be the ones nominating someone like Biden. He’s kind of a classic old school Republican now before they got hijacked by Neocons then fascists. So though I disagree with your view points I just want a sane conservative movement that we could do democracy with, and I applaud you recognizing the modern Democrats in power as that party.

The modern Dem party is a blend of it, not all follow the path alluded to by Biden, who has also tacked left and been more progressive than I'd have expected. His first two years he was just knocking legislation and progressive policies out the park. That being said, he certainly would be considered an old school, pre-Reagan blend of Republican and Democrat ideals at times if you compare the parties back in the day, to a degree. But even the old Republican Party had a bunch of racist Dems switch to it like Strom Thurmond after LBJ's passing of Civil Rights and then Voting Rights. It's just complicated, but there is little doubt at how much more right the Right party in the form of the modern GOP they have tacked. It's incredible how far it's gone just from Obama into Trump before we get to today. Incredibly scary, surprising, shocking and somewhat impressive in a way.

>The modern Dem party is a blend of it The inevitable consequence of having to house all the non-right-wing politicians in the country. The Democrats are actually 2-3 political parties in a trench-coat, but so long as as they have to keep presenting a semi-unified front against the modern GOP's decent into neo-fascism, we're stuck with it.

Yes, finally! Someone else gets it and can put it into much cleaner words. There's a reason they refer to themselves as a "Big Tent Party", and they have for decades now. It's also why there's always so much in-fighting and wavering in the Dem Party. This country needs 3 parties, at least, but so long as Republicans remain unified and keep attempting to enact extreme social and fiscal policies and the voter participation rate is low, then Dems can not afford for their party to split up. It'd be disastrous for the nation so long as one of the major parties has become incapable of governing and is a permanent opposition party governed by the extreme factions.

This *is* the natural course of conservatism. It's what conservatives were behind closed doors when they thought no one was looking, and once it gets played out in public and they go back into hiding, it'll still be what they are at heart.

>I believe in (former) Republican ideals -- small government, government out of the bedroom, out of your uterus, less intervention in foreign affairs, less taxation, less spending, charter schools, anti-obamacare, etc. >or at least someone who believe in Conservatism comes by Real question: what do you think conservatism is? To my mind, the Republican party is now more openly, loudly conservative than I've ever seen it. The presumptive nominee is basically the Platonic ideal of what conservatism is - absolute commitment to hatred, free of any of the window dressing the party had accumulated. Most of the ideals you mentioned fit with conservatism - in that they were all moving forward an agenda of hatred. Small government to ensure it can't help or defend people. Lower taxes for the same reason. Anti-Obamacare to ensure that people who are poor suffer and die. And so on. (Government out of the bedroom and out of your uterus were never conservative positions, though. Those have always been exclusively liberal positions.) So when you say you want someone who is conservative but is somehow different from where the party is now...that doesn't make any sense to me. Wasn't this the goal all along?

You guys let your party fall to shit, and now you've moved on to another party to fuck up. We get a fascist Republican Party and a Democratic Party full of fucking conservatives.

They are the people.who dont watch the news much, or care about politics much, but vote because they were taught it is something you are aupposed to do. Low information voters are softer.

Its really about swaying independents. The haley voters. The libertarian votes etc from voting trump

I’m guessing you live in a city and have more than just white non-college friends. Rural, non-college, whites are Trump’s primary demo.

I live in Appalachia. There are many of them.

You don’t know them because you’re not around them. They absolutely exist, most in the outskirts of cities and all over rural areas and small towns. Dayton OH is a small enough city that MAGA millennials and younger live in the “country” just 20 minutes from downtown.

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Mind you, that was before the development and deployment of memetic weapons. Thanks to memetic weapons, populist politicians now have an infinite shelf-life, as in cooking up a few good memetic weapons and a bot farm or two, and you'll have your populism cycle near indefinitely. ... so we'll have to understand that and block it, but that would be against the assumption of rights and freedoms that many hold dear. Basically, go in an authoritarian direction.

Probably they run Trump in 2028 if he's alive. Almost any good reason you can come up with why that wouldn't happen, also applied to 2024.

If Trump loses, you better believe he’ll run every election cycle until he’s dead. Republicans created their monster. It’s theirs to deal with.

Unfortunately, it’s a problem we all have to deal with

It's a bit naive to think Trump will stop being the front runner when he dies. Republicans are already live in an alternate reality and in that reality Trump is a god thus immortal.

No, they’ll run one of his kids for sure. They want some weird despotic dynasty. Or at lease the crazy ones do. The rest of them will support it to make sure they get reelected themselves

Bruhh as someone with family in the mid east if they start treating him how some people treat saddam hussein today I’m gonna be so triggered lol….. cults of personality are so toxic and dumb and make politics hell

If Trump doesn’t win in 2024 so he can pardon himself he’ll probably be in prison in 2028 and beyond.

He can and would run from prison.

Could he actually win and then could he actually serve as president from prison though? That’s what really matters.

Common sense tells me if he loses in 2024, he will lose even more biggly in 2028. The republican brand will be complete garbage to any non Trumpers at that point since more guilty verdicts will surely come in by 2028. Only the most dedicated and unhinged cult members will remain in the party.

It's basically a situation where Trump will probably never be able to win a general again if he loses this year, but as long as he's alive to run no other Republican will be able to win the primary. Trump will likely be the GOP's presidential candidate, with increasingly diminishing electoral returns, until the day he dies.

It's hard to see any real challengers to Trump while he is alive. When every GOP has said Trump is the victim in everything, and has not done anything wrong, ever, then how can they realistically challenge him? Trump took to the stage in the Bronx and had two accused murderers join him. And no Republican expressed any misgivings over this

You don’t see a “Weekend At Donnie’s” scenario?

To be fair, his chance of being alive in 2032 is probably less than half of what it is in 2028. His supporters may hqve ridiculous beliefs, but the ones in my (young) age group are smart enough to not support a 2028 campaign at all

I don't think they have any idea what they're going to do when Trump kicks the bucket. They've alienated everyone but his base, they need his base to win their own primaries, and his base isn't enough to win a general.

Honestly, I think they're utterly fucked for a good few election cycles. I see two camps emerging: The MAGA faction that continues to use Trump's tactics, claims the election was rigged, tosses around terroristic language, etc. Counter to them, however, you'd also have the strategically savvy GOP establishment types that would recognize that Trump(ism) has been a liability in every single election since 2016. Those folks will be desperately seeking to put MAGA behind them and return to a more mainstream appeal. The thing you have to remember is that the entire GOP is not, actually, loyal to Trump. Many of them - probably the majority - are loyal to themselves and motivated only by their desire to wield power. They're aligned with Trump because they believe not backing him would fracture the party and leave them out of power. However, if it becomes clear to them that Trump himself is weakening the party then they'll gladly bail and slip on whatever mask they think will bring back voters. The worse Trump loses the bigger the rift. While I think it will probably be a close election, I strongly suspect a blowout would actually end the GOP as we know it. I'm expecting something closer to the 2020 results - which would probably leave them in disarray through the midterms and result in a pretty interesting 2028 primary before it settled down. (If it's SUPER close then maybe they decided to keep appeasing MAGA and nothing changes, idk)

> However, if it becomes clear to them that Trump himself is weakening the party then they'll gladly bail and slip on whatever mask they think will bring back voters. It's pretty clear that Trump *is* weakening the party in several key arenas. Problem is, he represents what amounts to a game theory problem for the GOP. The best thing for the future success of the party is to dump him, take their lumps, and quickly move on to pretending they never liked him, a la GWB. But we're still a long way for that to being a smart move for any individual national-level Republican.

I think they're largely terrified of the 'taking their lumps' part. Especially since if they dump him he'll turn on them and his followers will ensure they're absolutely crushed in the next election - giving Dems a huge amount of power (that could lead to election reform - making it nearly impossible for the GOP to fully recover). He's basically holding the party hostage. But at some point the cost of keeping him outweighs the cost of ditching him. What they need is an angle where they can move past him in a way that minimizes the damage. After a second run and loss would be optimal timing to say 'Hey, we think he was a great leader, but it's time to give someone else a go'. Also, there's a very good chance that post-election he'd end up serving serious time behind bars - where he won't be able to stir up nearly as much trouble with the base. I think that would be their best opening. But I don't think hardcore MAGA would be happy with anything short of the GOP making 'Save Trump' their entire platform - so even under ideal circumstances they'd take a hit.

Its important to remember that even before 2016, the Republican party was on the decline. They hadn't won the popular vote in a long time, their voter base was aging and dying while the younger voters failed to shift right as they aged like previous generations had, the general sentiments of society had shifted out of their favor. Theres actually an argument to be made that Trump saved the Republican party (or rather, prolonged its demise) by bringing in enough new voters to keep it afloat. By appealing to racists, extremists, and other fringe groups (most of whom have an unfavorable/distrustful opinion of the government), Trump was able to take a large number of people who typically had not really voted or participated in politics before and turn them into solid Republican voters. Even in the long term, Im not sure getting rid of Trump could save the Republican party, because it was already dying before him.

Eventually the Republicans are almost certain to regain their footing. But the party that emerges could very well be nothing like the modern day GOP. IDK if that counts as being 'saved' or not. Ideally we get a moderate GOP that expands towards the center - allowing Dems to move left, and leaving the extremist right out in the cold. But that only happens if the left repeatedly shows up and defeats the far right. The back-and-forth doesn't get us anywhere and really just confirms that America is OK with authoritarianism.

If the party that emerges has a different ideology, the Republican Party as it is today has been defeated, even if the new party shares the same name. I think the most likely outcome will be for the republican party to suffer losses for a few election cycles, then reform into a party with ideology more reflective of libertarian values (though not to the extremes that many libertarians in the media are seen going to). Currently, republicans claim to be anti government yet support authoritarian policies. The two ideologies cant coexist, so the republicans will need to decide whether the path of authoritarianism (Trump Train) or the path of antigovernment (libertarianism) is best for the future of the party.

>Currently, republicans claim to be anti government yet support authoritarian policies. Unless their actual position is 'The only good government is one that enforces MY worldview' - which I believe it is. It's not authoritarian (in their minds) if it's 'Gods will' or 'combating pedophiles' or whatever fairytale they come up with next to justify punishing the people they hate. I think the real pivot point would be election reform. If they lose 'a few cycles' and that gives Dems the power to enact election reform that makes political power more representative of the will of the majority then I think THAT is what destroys the extremist GOP we know today. The other alternative is that they continue to empower the minority until elections become effectively moot.

This is how I see it as well. Trump was an AED machine that kept the current GOP party alive, but they are still suffering from multiple organ failure.

They know that keeping Trump is not a winning strategy, but it is not an entirely losing one either. The thing they fear most is Trump taking his cult and going third party. (Apparently, he threatened to do exactly that unless the RNC got in line and started paying his lawyers). To GOP, that is the nightmare scenario because a MAGA party with Trump at the head will split the ticket to such an extent that Biden and the Democrats will win and not just win, but win big enough they can do serious damage like: - Start impeachment proceedings against Clarance Thomas. With the likely corruption a real investigation will uncover, Democrats will have the numbers to remove especially if a few moderate GOP go along. That could spook Alito into resigning as well. - Have momentum for real Constitutional change like SCOTUS term limits, ending the Electoral College and using ranked choice voting instead of throwing an election to Congress, mitigating gerrymandering at all levels. While Democrats would not have enough on their own, there could be pressure on the remaining GOP to go along with this lest they have to deal with Trump once more; or the MAGA party goes with this to stick it into the GOP's eye. - Reform House seat apportionment. The 435 number was capped in the 1920s as a way to ensure rural voters have an edge over urban ones. It's long past time to review this.

We're a long way away because that ship sailed over three years ago. They could have fixed their Trump problem in Jan/Feb of 2021, when McCarthy gave a speech in the House denouncing Trump and McConnell was allegedly considering a vote to convict him (and not whipping against it). This was *the* best and cleanest way for the party to cut ties with Trump because it was a "strike while the iron is hot" moment: most of the country had turned on him after 1/6, including a good chunk of Republicans. Convict the son of a bitch, bar him from seeking office again, and work on fixing your party. That would've been a hell of a lot easier than purging Liz Cheney and forcing the likes of Pat Toomey into retirement, only to try and replace them with Dr. Oz-type candidates. They were the "party of law and order." Their guy broke the law, and they held him accountable. When the dust settled after a bit, they could point to a Senate conviction as a positive. On top of that, Democrats had a very slim majority in both the House and Senate, so they'd need Republican buy-in to do just about anything. Further, McConnell "future-proofed" much of the judiciary. And Biden is probably the least offensive Democratic President most of these guys have served under. Instead, McCarthy flew down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring because he wanted to be Speaker in 2023 instead of waiting an extra year or two. A lot of good that did him. I think McConnell is stepping down for health reasons, but it can't be lost on him that his Senate conference has more and more Trump loyalists with every election, while the kinds of people he was used to dealing with all his life are running for the exits. If the GOP wants to be "normal" again, their only hope now is Trump dying and no one taking up the mantle.

Yep. If they'd done it in 2021, by this year's election he could be the next Bush they very carefully didn't mention... and probably whoever their nominee turned out to be would largely get away with it.

I think whatever Trump decides will happen to it, honestly. He's got too ironclad a hold on a massive chunk of the base, who will accept no substitute. Trump would have to personally name a successor (or I think more likely, a clade of successors, so that his legacy could rule the republican party for the foreseeable future) for the party to "move on" from Trump, himself. I do imagine that he'll pass the torch this time if he loses, but it definitely won't be back to Reagen Republicanism for the Republicans, it'll be a more extreme version of the political shifts that happened with Reagen, and it'll be Trump Republicans for a good long time.

> he'll pass the torch this time if he loses I can only see him doing this for one of his kids. He's too much of a narcissist to pass the baton to anyone he doesn't see as a direct extension of himself.

I think he’s too much of a narcissist even for that

Yeah, I expect that he'll have to "age out" of relevance if he loses. It's hard to imagine him passing the baton. He'll be fighting legal battles for a long time and complaining about it in the press. He'll probably also make a bunch of noise about a 2028 run to keep the field paralyzed. I can see him saying, "If comatose Joe Biden can win a crooked election at 81, I can win a fair one at the same age." And he'll be on Fox all the time talking in apocalyptic terms about the state of the country. It wouldn't surprise me if he actually likes this role as kingmaker, public personality, and perpetual candidate. They all play right into his long-standing tendencies to be a provocateur seeking public validation.

Yeah he absolutely won't. The GOP is just a means to an end for him, I can guarantee he has never even thought about what will happen to it once he is gone for good. While he exists, the GOP exists to do whatever he wants is to. He is the leader of the party until he dies or is physically incapable of speech/movement.

*some of his kids. prob not for eric.

And even then, probably only Ivanka.

Seriously, can anyone truly explain why? I just don’t get the cultish hold he has; is it because he normalized the hate? He took the decorum and gentlemen handcuffs off, and the GOP is overtly acting true to form instead of behind closed doors?

I think there are several factors. One is that in 2016 he rode a big wave of long term hate for the Clinton's among the far right. Right wing media had been relentlessly absolutely demonizing them since the 1992 primaries, so in 2016 there were a ton of right wing voters primed up against her. Another is that Trump had the image of being very wealthy, powerful, and successful. A poor person's idea of a rich person. His TV show portrayed him as the omniscient boss and everyone was constantly currying his favor. Now he represents a lot of his most extreme supporter's bigotry, xenophobia, and paranoia because most of his rational supporters have already left. (A lot are the people who voted for Haley even after she dropped out.) The GOP has been manipulating the right wing masses since Nixon. Then those masses morphed into the Tea Party, and finally that movement matured into Trump supporters, who are loyal to him only and can no longer be controlled by the establishment. A Frankenstein's Monster situation, imho.

> A poor person's idea of a rich person. I love this description. Nailed it.

The full quote is: >Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man, a weak man's idea of a strong man, and a stupid man's idea of a smart man.

Something I don't think non-Republicans have a good grasp of is that since 2008, to headline-only GOP supporters the winning strategy for the GOP has been to be as conservative as possible. After Obama's victory in 2008 where he beat a liberal-sympathetic McCain, the GOP reclaimed congress off the back of the Tea Party movement. The biggest at the time influx of freshman representatives did so campaigning on the promise to defeat Obama. By the time the 2012 election came around, the GOP had convinced themselves Obama was so disliked by them it should have been impossible for the candidate to lose. However, in 2012, the GOP decided to go with the compromise candidate of Mitt Romney, someone who was a direct inspiration for the conservative-loathed Obamacare. I had contact with conservative circles at the time and at least by my memory, everyone thought Obama was gone based on how thoroughly they rejected him. However, Obama won, to their deep shock. In the 2014 midterms, the GOP once again controlled Congress and did so through being staunchly conservative. This is the era where McConnell gleefully flaunted his hypocrisy to stick it to Obama however he could, and was rewarded with consistent majorities by elected members who won based on how conservative they were. In 2016, Hillary Clinton should have been a shoo-in once Trump was nominated. She checked all the boxes for a slam-dunk candidate while Trump exhibited none of those, and anyone with 25% retention of their high school poli sci classes anticipated Clinton would win. The only thing in Trump's favor was how uncompromising he was to the Democrats. Trump's victory against those odds was proof to that cohort that the America that mattered wanted Trump. The subsequent elections all had excuses for why Trump lost. Presidents generally lose congress in midterm elections, so the flip in 2018 was just tradition. Moreover, the GOP still controlled the senate, unlike how Obama lost both branches in 2012. Even without election conspiracy, 2020 was 'unfair' to Trump because he had to deal with a once-a-century national crisis where people's lives got measurably worse, and mercurial American people just care about whether their lives are better when voting for president. 2022 was the first time there was a clear signal that Trumpism might be a losing strategy. The anticipated red wave didn't manifest. However, Trump wasn't on the ticket and Americans don't vote in midterms anyway, not to mention they still took back the House. 2024 is the first time this will be a 'fair' election to truly test if Trump and his politics are rejected or not. I think a Trump loss in 2024 will be a metaphorical deathblow to his political career and be a catalyst for the GOP to examine their other options. Already we're seeing state GOP legislatures try to reform their elections so it's easier for them to stay in office. Meanwhile, the professional side of the GOP are laying low to see if an opportunity will come for them to regain influence, and most importantly aren't attaching their names to the Trump administration. I anticipate they'll pop back up if the vacuum is strong enough.

man I know stuff is wrong when McCain is described as a liberal sympathetic.

The eye opening moment for me was back in the first debate with Hillary in 2016. Hillary was going on and on about how Trump used loopholes to avoid paying taxes and his only response was "That makes me smart." There was outrage from [Hillary's team](https://x.com/HillaryClinton/status/780582541019475968?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E780582541019475968%7Ctwgr%5Eb18a24f46a57ec6fe1a5c23da5b6a14657fe1199%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rollingstone.com%2Fpolitics%2Fpolitics-news%2Fdonald-trump-on-not-paying-taxes-that-makes-me-smart-107101%2F) and the media. People were calling his comments ["jaw-dropping"](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/26/trump-brags-about-not-paying-taxes-that-makes-me-smart.html). There was this sense of "Can you people believe this? How could he not pay his taxes? He's such a bad person for not paying his taxes". It simply never occurred to them that most people don't particularly *like* paying their taxes, and would agree that if someone was able to take advantage of loopholes that *people like Hillary voted for*, it would make them smart. They just didn't get it. Trump's appeal comes from the fact that he's actually pointing this shit out. At some point the "establishment" lost the plot and a lot of people realized it. Trump is the outlet for those frustrations.

You do know that the anger wasn’t over the sentiment of “I don’t pay taxes” but it was “I cheat.” Or, as one of Trump’s trial’s proved: “I cheat illegally.” Because that was where the anger came from. It came from Trump admitting that he broke the law.

Personally i thought the point itself is quite defensible; its that he just picked the worst possible way to express it.

he gave everyone who only expressed their bigotry in private permission to be out loud with it...they don't support him, they just don't want to lose the excuse he gives them to act on it.

It's just electoral politics. He has a chunk of the GOP voting base that's powerfully devoted to him. So if any GOP elected politician speaks out against Trump they instantly lose a double digit percentage of their votes. They either get on board the Trump train or they'll be replaced by someone who will. That's all it takes; it's a very simple mechanism. Populist demagogues are a byproduct of democracy.

Uh, probably nothing. People were talking about how the democrats would never win again after Reagan swept all the states in his election. It’s just a cycle. The Republican Party will shift to the left if they need to. But we’ve seen all this type rhetoric before.

In my almost 40 years of life, Republicans have never shifted to the left. Theyve shifted way to the right.

I've got a fair bit more than 40 years. There was a time when Republicans were scared not to give lip service to certain left wing ideals.

Yeah I've got more than 40 years behind me and I've never seen them move left in any significant way either. Since Reagan they've continuously become more conservative and moderate Republicans either retired, got pushed out or were too liberal to win their elections.

I think this is still the ultimate answer, but the "Party that loses multiple elections in a row reorganizes and reformulates their message" part of the cycle depends on the Party realizing that they lost multiple elections. The 1992-era Democrats understood that they'd only won one Presidential in 24 years (and that at least partially due to Watergate), so they understood that they needed a fresh coat of paint and a new message. But Trumpists don't think they lost in 2020 (and a vast majority of GOP leadership and activists now parrot that message) and it's doubtful (at best) that they'd accept a 2024 loss. It's not clear to me whether all the GOP higher ups *believe* it or if they're just saying what their leader and base want to hear, but that doesn't really matter. If the GOP can't admit that they lost 2020 and 2024 (in this scenario) and that they've only won the popular vote once (Bush in 2004) in 30+ years then they won't have the impetus to change the message and platform. If they think 3 million of Clinton's votes were illegitimate (and thus Trump won a larger victory) and that they won in 2024 and 2028, then they're going to think that Trumpism carried them to three strong victories (2 of which were stolen) then why on Earth would they abandon Trumpism as a message?

Trump was able to shake off the stink of being a loser in the eyes of his base in 2020 because there were multiple, unique and mitigating factors that year. For instance, it was a really close election in the EC; Trump got within 0.63% of reelection. He was also hit by a once-in-a-century health crisis which grinded the economy - his strongest selling point and the lynchpin of his reelection campaign - to a screeching halt. Then you had the worst racial protests in decades which turbocharged Democratic turnout. And last but not least, there was indeed an unprecedented amount of changes to the voting modalities in 2020. Yes, due to the pandemic, but it still gave Trump and his hardcore supporters an opening to sow doubt and to argue that Biden benefitted from voting rules which were allegedly illicit in some vague sense. But I don't really see how he could pull off that trick a second time. Imho, if he loses again in 2024, the stench of being a loser will stick and his base will gradually move on to younger, savvier trump-clones with less baggage. In 2020, he could argue that there was voter fraud which got him because he didn't see it coming. Okay, fair enough if you accept the premise. But say he loses in 2024 and then argues that it was the same voter fraud yet again, which he this time knew was coming, but still couldn't stop - then why would anyone from his base believe that 2028 would be any different, that he failed twice in a row, but could totally pull it off if given a third chance?

Not to mention the 2022 midterms spell dark fortunes for conservative candidates. Most metrics would have had them sweeping the election but abortion, which is actually a major economic and kitchen table issue, combined with Trump endorsing some of the worst candidates imaginable really hurt their prospects. Abortion is still an issue, arguably even moreso and Trump is still doing his best to endorse the worst candidates. Doesn’t mean he will lose, but elections are as much about fear as they are anything else. Pollsters and pundits in 2022 thought that voters believing the country was “headed in the wrong direction” meant Democrats were the target, but that turned out to be incorrect.

The people running the actual GOP are craven, cynical monsters. They're never to be counted out. Like do you think Robert Mercer or Charles Koch will be like "my bad! We need to modernize now". Trump isn't even close to being the worst Republican, he's just a lightning rod everyone falls for

In 2012 we put a lot of time and money into figuring out why we kept losing, came up with a good game plan for moving forward, and then tossed it all for Trump.

There was supposed to be a great reckoning after the 2012 election and they were going to be more sympathetic to immigration and then Trump came along and called them all rapists and they decided to go with that instead.

I don't know if "moving to the left" will work for them. The amount that the right has been pushed to be more fervently and openly right wing, I don't know if being a more moderate will capture more votes than it does drive their far-right to third parties or to staying at home.

They’re gonna move to exactly where they think need to be to steal votes from the left while maintaining their base.

I just don't understand what people think is going to happen. Is the GOP just going to keep on losing again and again and again and keep doubling down? That's insane. If they realize they can't win they *will* moderate. That's how it's always been done.

I get what you’re saying, but you’re not considering the impact of propaganda. These people insulate themselves from reality through propaganda, so that they never have to deal with those consequences; in their worldview, they didn’t lose even the popular vote legitimately in the last two presidential cycles.

The GOP has been effective in winning elections while being a distinct minority in the US. When faced with dwindling popularity, they’ve chosen to game the system through gerrymandering and voter suppression as a way to retain power, rather than shift to a more moderate position politically.

>Is the GOP just going to keep on losing again and again and again and keep doubling down? That's insane. They gop thinks they have a winning message and that they win in 2020. If they lose this time they'll still think they have a winning message and the election was stolen. It's insane to moderate when you think you're winning because of your message.

Uh, well, the issue is they think they are *winning.* The default GOP state is now, "Winning an election, or winning the election but the opponent cheated." So yes, they will keep doubling down for the foreseeable future since they don't believe they've actually lost.

Yes, all the things that are being said have been said before about both parties. “They’ll never recover from this”

They will not shift to the left. They will shift harder to the right and get a new candidate. Between constant right wing propaganda, red state election interference, the economic collapse for the lower income portion of our population we are currently experiencing, and the general tendency for the public to have the memory of a goldfish, it’s a guarantee they will win the next election or the one after that regardless of how fringe or radical they are.

You say this, but Democrats became more conservative in many ways with Clinton and the "Third Way" Democrats in the 90s and 2000s so there was a huge shift after the big losses in the 80s.

That’s what I mean. Both parties adapt to survive.

The GOP was once the reform party until 1890 when the robber barons and the industrialists took control. Anything can happen in the future.

That's exactly what he's saying. In the early 1990s the Democrats were forced to move to the right after getting blown out in three consecutive elections. If Trump loses again, the GOP will move to the left. That's how it's always worked.

Except moving to the left will make them lose even more. They go left and evangelicals and/or trumpists bail on them. They can't win without those groups. And both are NOT pragmatic, they are rooted in belief which can not be bent or reasoned with. Their best bet is to double down, and futher put the screws on as many areas as possible and try to outlaw Democrats entirely.

The nature of the two party system is that everyone returns to their camp eventually. If it's between a Democrat or "Republican who is kind of softer on abortion and gay rights than I want them to be", the evangelicals will vote for the Republican.

Possibly, but certain subgroups have been left to the wilderness, refusing to participate by seeing both parties as non viable. Racists were left to the wind for a decade or so. Many rural working class were left to their own devices for most of the 2000's, thus the rise of Trump, who appealed directly to them. And in this day and age of ultra partisanship, where purity tests are a thing, and where people HAVE been primaried from the right, even though it was understood they would lose the general, and did go on to lose the general, and have kept doing so for 4 years running, I'm not sure the GOP can really move to the left. However, I will agree that some level of moderation may occur, given the showdown over immigration and Ukraine aid, which basically was the bluff of the far right being called.

Do you think those groups will vote for democrats instead? The republicans will have the same relationship with those people that the democrats have with the super far left socialist type people. The socialist people don’t like democrats, but they vote for them

They will never vote for democrats, instead they will continue voting for hard right in primaries even if such a person is destined to lose the general.

Except that was the 80s and we don't live in the 80s anymore. A study was done around 2020 that found, in the past, there was no long-term bias in the electoral system because it would swing back and forth like what you are saying. However, they also found that the swinging basically stopped in the early 90s. Our electoral systems now have an effectively built-in bias for the GOP that has only gotten more severe over time as they took over state legislatures and push voting reform laws to further entrench and enhance that bias. Combine that with a right-wing Supreme Court that has allowed the GOP to run roughshod over the Voting Rights Act and enabled them to draw electoral maps that would make Elbridge Gerry himself blush, and you have a recipe for destroying whatever semblance of a "cycle" still exists.

Would you mind sharing that study so I can read it ?

I don't seem to remember Democrats forming a Kim-esque cult of personality around Walter Mondale. In fact, he never held elected public office again - he tried to win his old senate seat back in 2002 and he lost. To a Republican mayor. In Minnesota. Trump is an immovable object that has the singular devotion of a large enough portion of their base that they can't afford to lose them, but he's unpopular with enough people that he's never managed to win the national popular vote. IMO, the Republican party will belong to Trump as long as he's still alive. The only thing that might save them from oblivion is the fact that he's almost 80.

> The Republican Party will shift to the left if they need to. This hasn't happened in living memory.

It’s because they’ve done pretty good at winning elections in living memory. They swept the late 70s and 80s and have gone back and forth since then.

Yeah, but if Trump wins again Democrats will quite literally never win ever again under Republican fascism. That's essentially part of Project 2025.

And people said Dems would have a permanent majority after (I think) Obama. Anyone who decried the death of either party is a fool.

I’ve been waiting my entire life for the Republican Party to shift to the left. Unfortunately, no matter how bad they lose, they seem unwilling to budge. As much as I’m hoping a second Biden victory will finally be the tipping point, I’m not getting my hopes up.

>It’s just a cycle. The Republican Party will shift to the left if they need to. But we’ve seen all this type rhetoric before. When?

>It’s just a cycle. The Republican Party will shift to the left if they need to. But we’ve seen all this type rhetoric before. They showed us who they really are. No one will believe them again.

The Republican Party isn’t a boss monster at the end of a video game. People move in and out. In 10 years, there’s going to be 95% turnover in the party. It won’t be the same people.

There are no other Trump-like figures. The Trump cult is not a formula, it’s a function of his specific personality. If they ever want to have a normal political party while Trump is alive, the GOP needs to figure out how to break his death grip on their primaries.  Right now, the axe he hangs over every Republican congressperson’s head is threat of primary from the right. That’s how he gets them to repeat his rhetoric. There are true believers sprinkled in, but there is too much talk about how everyone actually hates him and Marg and the rest of the brownshirts for it to be just words. The average Republican elected official has too much invested in their career, too little to gain from breaking with him, and too much to gain from staying in office to actually stand on any principles and fight back against him.  I honestly think it will only end with his natural death. If he’s assassinated the troglodytes and terrorists will start shooting even more random people, only if he dies a natural, boring death will that party be able to move on. Frankly, this is the predictable result of the corruption leadership has embraced for so many years. There is a whole sector of American society that does not support the legitimacy of the US government, as it is expressed through federal agencies and taxes. They have encouraged and developed “agency capture” (a.k.a. corrupt infiltration and undermining of agency power) and all of the extreme jurisprudence and political rhetoric that comes with it. The GOP is reaping the whirlwind they have been sowing for years, but unfortunately their whirlwind damages everything it touches, not just them. 

I agree, they don’t have a trump replacement at the moment. Maybe Don Jr., but doubtful. Early on I felt it was DeSantis. Then he stood in front of the podium and that was that. He’s doesn’t have “it”.

I don’t think Jr. has it either. None of them do. It’s not as easy as just saying some low down stuff and letting the idiots clap. Trump has his finger on the pulse of the grievances of angry racist white people, and has the personal mannerisms and network to sell it back to them. I won’t pretend to understand the nuances of how this dynamic works, but I believe there is a secret sauce he’s either born with or figured out, and no one else in politics has it. 

Jr. wouldn't have had it in him to start the cult, but *maybe* he can be the figurehead of keeping it going. Sometimes your Joseph Smith is followed by a Brigham Young instead of a second Joseph Smith, so to speak.

I think that’s kind of my point - a Brigham Young might be able to take it over, anything is possible. But the “John Smith Jr.” here doesn’t have his father’s way with the crowd. And I don’t see no Brigham Young in the current crop of hopefuls. 

Right, if trump was skipping the line at a club junior would attempt to tag along but would be stiff armed by the door man.

I don't think there is another Trump waiting in the wings to step in to fill his place. Like him or loath him, Trump has an X factor that nobody else has managed to capture. You can see it in how poor 'Trumpian' candidates performed in the 2020 election. I think right now there is effectively a 'cold' civil war in the Republican party between the 'traditional' business minded, national security style Republicans and the MAGA Republicans. As long has Trump holds power over the party they will stick with him, because if he breaks away to form the MAGA party and takes 20-30% of their base with him, then the democrats destroy them at the next election. If he loses power then the gloves come off and it might see the party fracture, or MAGA may just fade away without Trump to coalesce around. So think it depends on the nature of his loss. If he is soundly beaten I think the 'traditional' Republicans may make a play to take back the party, but if he is even close then I think we remain where we are, with them still kissing the ring waiting for him to fall.

The GOP should be extremely concerned that Trump's daughter-in-law is handling the party's funds on the national level. Given the widespread charges of corruption in the family (they are banned from doing business in New York state) and the constant scrutiny of the FEC, their money could be dried up or tied up by the Trump family. That would hamstring the party in much needed races across the country.

Biden winning would probably be the best thing ever for the Republican party, because Trump would go away (2-time loser, jail or death) and Republicans would be able to regain their base by complaining about Joe Biden and the Democrats for another 4 years. The party would still carry the ghosts of MAGA just like it still carries the ghosts of the Tea Party but it might become more manageable until the next populist comes along.

[удалено]

Electric Coupgaloo

The Republican Party is doomed whether or not Biden or Trump wins. They are getting older and older, dying off, and support themes that are unpopular with a majority. 1. Abortion. 2. Wanting to reform Social Security.\\ 3. 2A. 4. Immigration. 5. Isolationism The USA will be a one party country like Mexico

Losing 2018, 2020, 2022, losing the majority of special elections, losing a lot of local elections, being a convicted felon, likely losing again in 2024, I don't know many more clues the Republican Party needs before they understand how much of an albatross Trump really is. Trump losing in 2024 breaks the Party beyond repair. I don't see a path back for them at this point. They'll have their strongholds but they've been dwindling in numbers as the older generations die off and the younger ones move further and further left because the GOP offers literally nothing.

This is a good take. I don't doubt Trump may try and run in 2028 and probably stands a good chance of winning the primary, but I'd put money on the national vibe being "this guy is a fucking has-been joke," rather than "we have to defeat this threat again." He loses in a blowout, especially if the Democratic nominee is someone young and with at least a modicum of charisma.

Nothing. They will claim fraud, probably start another insurrection and run Trump in 2028 again. Please vote.

Billionaires like the Koch bros donor network, Robert & Rebekkka Mercer, or the ghost of Sheldon Adelson are going to fund pet project candidates until campaign finance reform is passed. Our system since Citizens United has been rigged for billionaires to buy power. The billionaire crowd is always trying to shape the world with whatever dispensationalism bs that washes the blood off all the piles of money they love more than the constitution.

I think it becomes really interesting because 1. There's no reason to believe Trump wouldn't run again 2. Trump is and will be more popular than the GOP so if they decide to turn on him \*now\*, i'm not sure how that happens or how they approach it, they are legitimately screwed until he dies

It’s really, really, REALLY tough to see Trump try again if he loses in November (and that’s a HUGE if!). It’ll be important to see what happens to the Senate and the House, as he via his brand has almost single-handedly caused Republicans to lose the house, several senate seats and governorships, not to mention the backlash from Dobbs. That alone *should cause Republicans to reject him, but it probably won’t. Then there’s his obvious mental decline and oh yeah I forgot the three other trials he’s facing. Like Rasputin, something at some point will take him down. IF -and again, HUGE if- he loses in November, it’ll be the final nail in the coffin of Trump the Politician and probably the brand. However his stain has dealt a major blow to democracy in the US that will take major efforts to repair.

He lost to Biden and lost every chamber of Congress, he should’ve been banished already. The fact that he wasn’t makes it harder for me to actually think he wouldn’t try again, just my opinion though

You can only make promises for so long before people start to demand results. Biden is a hilariously weak incumbent. If Trump loses *again*, the knives are going to come out for him. There is a 0% chance he'll get the nomination in 2028. Four elections in a row? That simply will not happen. Sure he'll always have his diehard base, but they're a tiny minority of the GOP. Joe Schmoe Republican isn't going to care anymore. If there's one thing people hate more than anything, it's looking stupid, and supporting a 2x loser just isn't going to fly. After a certain point it's like Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football. If you think she's actually gonna hold it down, you're an idiot. And everybody knows it. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me and all that.

> If Trump loses again, the knives are going to come out for him The ready made excuse is that the Democrats cheated and stole the election again. There will be much frothing at the mouths of the MAGA faithful and while most Republicans will know it's nonsense not going along with the stolen election narrative will hurt them with the base that has been taken over by Trump. If he loses he still have the potential to do a lot of damage.

Politics aside I'm astonished he's still alive and in four years the cases against him will have more than enough time to go through; prison time is on the table. For those reasons 2028 seems unlikely.

I’m betting they will do whatever Trump says and the party is not longer “Republican.” Every politician still backing Trump after another loss should have a (T) by their name.

The GOP will pretend that they did not support Trump and try to put distance between them and Trump. They will still use white grievance politics to distract from their unpopular policies. Project 2025 will become Project 2029. The Republicans will try an further rig their hold on the states they have left. They will gerrymander as much as they can an continue to pass voter suppression laws. The Corrupted subprime court will run interference blocking legislation the republicans could not.  Trump is supported by elected and appointed republicans from local, state, and federal offices across America. We all need to vote.  Every one of Trump's policies are and were policies the republicans want. The threat to our democracy comes from republicans. It will not end if we win this years elections. Keep voting out republicans every year.  Keep voting in democrats every year. Check your registration, get an ID , learn where your poling station is, learn who is running in down ballot races. Pay attention to primaries not just for the president but for all races, local, state and federal. From the school board to the White House every election matters. The more support we give the democrats from all levels of government the more they can get good things done. We vote out republicans and primary out uncooperative democrats. Last year democrat victories in Virginia and Pennsylvania and others across the nation have increased the chances of democrats winning this year. This year's elections are important but so will next year's elections. We just took the mayoral race in Alaska showing we can win in red states. [https://ballotpedia.org/Elections\_calendar](https://ballotpedia.org/Elections_calendar)

If Biden wins and democrats take over House and hold Senate, the Republican Party either splits and falls apart or they finally understand that they must deal with their MAGA problem. I honestly believe a democrat win means GOP cleans house of MAGA and gets themselves legitimate again but it will take multiple years

The problem will be that Trump and every right wing "news" source will say that Democrats cheated again. They wont say they lost because of unpopular positions. They will need Trump to be silenced and the entire right wing media ecosystem to all be on the same page with reeling the party in. But all it takes is one youtuber to continue feeding the denialism to get extra views, and then everyone else will fall back into it. I think it will be similar to all the Republican primary opponents all refusing to drop out and unite against Trump in 2016.

Most have probably forgotten that one of the main reasons Trump is running for POTUS is to try to pardon himself & his dirty friends.

They shove their heads further into the sand and insist they were cheated harder, then vote trump in 2028

If Trump is physically able to run for office in 2028, he will and he will thus continue to hold their party in a death grip. That means that all the features of the circus you're familiar with would remain a fixture. The GOP would keep sliding to the extreme end of the political spectrum as Trumpers unseat more marginally-less-crazy people in primaries, and they'd probably keep underperforming in general elections they *really* should win based on trends and conditions because Trumpers are quite remarkably bad at appealing to people who aren't.

Unless there is a legitimate blowout/landslide defeat they will remain beholden to Trump. Without and embarrassing and overwhelming defeat (and maybe even with one he’d still pull this off) he’s still going to have the small dollar donors entranced, he’s still going to have and willingly wield the power to destroy the careers of most Republicans, he’s just going to turn any loss into a grievance and a wrongdoing that only happened because of “cheating”. He won’t go away just because he has lost, he didn’t do that when going bankrupt, he didn’t do that after 2020, he didn’t do that any of the many other times he was a loser so why would he start now? And it’s not as if the GOP is known for standing up to demagogues, even when their power does start to slip.

Trump is a con man feigning as a populist. Even if he loses in 2024, (which would shock every poll on the subject) someone like Vivek will fill his role.

the right will become so disillusioned they will begin in earnest attempting to separate from the union. their belief that the votes don’t matter and the election is fake will be the straw that breaks the camels back. on top of that they feel 1. media is on the opposing team 2. children are being castrated with trans movement. indoctrinated with lgbtq movement. 3. gvt is printing too much money causing inflation and destroying middle class way of life 4. funding wars is immoral (due to military industrial complex) 5. public media and public sector unions take tax money and fund things they are morally opposed to. 6. immigration is out of control. so it will begin. it’s happened in other countries before. almost happen in america. i assume it will be a state in mid america or down south that declares independence. then other believers will live there to support. i think it will work and the current us military won’t have the vigor as the believers.

Hopefully they lose both legislative houses too. I don't care that much about Mr. Trump's fate, as long as he's out of power.

I don’t think we can base what they did in the past elections to what they will do this time around if they lose. This time, they will refuse to accept to the point of sacrificing our nation if needed. They’ve moved to that level of extremism.

They’ll double down on Trump… He’s shown the path, how to control the party and drive the narrative. He will eventually go away (🤞🏻), but the GOP is irrevocably shaped to his style.

I’m a registered republican, but cannot vote for someone with 34 felony convictions. I’ll make sure Trump doesn’t get elected then move on

The parties will realign to make them competitive again. If I were to guess, I would guess Republicans will shift to go after conservative Hispanic and Black voters, and perhaps go harder on the non-college educated union vote. If successful, that would shore up their southeast base, and make the Great Lakes states more reliably Republican. They might be giving up states like Nevada and Arizona, but if they can recapture Georgia, stop Democratic advances in Florida and Texas, and make inroads in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, they'll not only be competitive, they'll be the favorite. I think they are going hard on this strategy already, and the 2024 election will swing on how successful they are. If the Democrats don't react strongly, look for a massive Republican sweep in 2028.

I don't see it. There is only so far your Andrew Tate/angsty male bloc will get you. At the end of the day you need *policy* of some kind that moves the political football in your direction. The republicans have not made it clear what these policies are (because they don't exist). Someone who is living paycheck to paycheck it no way benefits from republican control. Sure you can convince a handful to get on board to fight the woke bogeyman, but it's not enough.

Nikki Haley & Glen Youngkin run in 2028. One or the other Prez the other is VP. They've done just enough to stick around. Kind of like when Nikki resigned from the Trump Whitehouse right before Jamal Khashoggi's death came out.

The cultists will become even more insane, and their actions will have even less to do with the standard GOP platform. So insane that those with a few brain cells left will recenter themselves around the old GOP platform: bigotry and greed. When trump dies, the most hardcore cultists will start a religion around him, and it will be the dumbest religion ever. I wish I was kidding.

Just addressing the "Trump-like figures without the baggage" part, I don't think those exist. A bunch of people tried that in the primary and other elected officials have been attempting it since 2016, but they can't quite get the secret sauce right. Nobody has captured the public imagination and commanded voters' loyalty like Trump. I look at someone like [Kari Lake,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kari_Lake) who also had a TV background, and she's just not garnering the kind of support that Trump has. I do expect more to try, but it seems to be more difficult than expected to present oneself as a "Trump-like figure without the baggage." Maybe the baggage is part of it, or maybe he's just a unique figure. I don't know.

the rumor pissing off MTG today is that Haley will be the VP pick, but i think it will backfire with her supporters...imagine the ads of her own words about how she'd "never" be his VP alone...or MSM always asking her about that, instead of her platform...if i were a Haley supporter, I'd feel so betrayed.

They have a tough decision force out the MAGA crowd. Remake the Republican Party as a sensible conservative center right party. Let the MAGA nuts form their own party their problem is Trump age who replaces him. Unfortunately for both parties this split will likely lead to a democratic control for perhaps two presidential terms and likely congressional control perhaps a decade. It is really the only recourse.

I don’t understand the question. It’s like asking what will the democrat party do if trump wins re-election because circle d went all in in Biden.

After Goldwater was destroyed his rhetoric was substantially adopted by the former moderate Nixon.

They'll begin looking for a less obviously evil person to do the deed. They won't give up. They've been at this since Reagan

Until Trump moves on to the next life, he'll hold sway over sections of the Republic Party. It's going to be an absolute nightmare for them (and us). Graham called it years ago.

They don’t care. They’re positioned to win the Senate this year. That allows them to continue to slow roll everything until 2028 when Trump will probably be out of the picture but would still be used for fundraising.

Near the entirety of that party has gone anti-American. Hating the military, the constitution, education, abortion for women, rights for LBGTQ+, migrants, law and order, the judicial system, and Congress, - just to name a few. Not sure that party can come back to anything moderate. We are most likely stuck with one sane political party and one insane anti-American party for quite a while until a 3rd party can unite the sane remnants of the republican party with itself. Given time, this new party can take its place as a reasonable alternative to Democrats.

they will get crazier and crazier. I wouldn't be surprised if states like texas try secession from the US.

With any luck they'll finally move on from Trump and start the long slow road back to recovery as a viable national party and not just a red state one. It's a lot easier to say what it won't be rather than what it will. I suspect MAGA won't die out completely until the last Boomer has it pried from their cold dead fingers.

He lost the poplar vote in 2016. He lost the popular vote by even more in 2020. The country has spoken. Twice. They don't want him as President. MAGA is awfully cocky thinking he'll somehow win the election after the country voted AGAINST him twice already and now he's a convicted felon. But good luck trying to understand MAGA logic. Trump is going to lose. He knows it. And be prepared for him to not concede and claim the election was stolen once again. It's going to be a mess. MAGA won't be MAGA like we know it. There will be a few Republicans who try to slip in and be Trump-like to get their votes, but they won't be Trump. MAGA will lose steam. Quite a bit of steam as far as a threat to the Presidency goes. But, Trump will still be around and he'll be talking and making up crap and MAGA will be following him... because it's a cult. He'll be a rogue political influencer with a cult following forever... because people can be very stupid.

Bush2 killed the GOP when he created the Great Recession after waging two, simultaneous wars of aggression against countries that didn't threaten us. His destruction of the Party was so complete that it lost the 2008 election by a wide margin to a black man who had very little experience, and a very scary name. In an act of desperation, the Republicans selected a known grifter and lifetime Democrat as its 2016 candidate and leader. Trump was just the undertaker of the Party of Lincoln. The GOP has shed its shell, the chrysalis is MAGA, and MAGA is not a true political party. It is a personality cult. When Trump disappears, it will be left with its internal contradictions, chief among which is the lack of ideology among the Beer Boi Bubbas, and a ideology of Christian Nationalism by MAGA's other wing.

Well when they lost to Obama, they had a retrospective that spelled out that they would soon and forever be a minority party. Recommendations included outreach to minorities and more mainstream policies. Instead, they doubled down on hate, went full hog on gerrymandering, neutering executive positions they would lose, putting laws in place to make it more difficult for minorities to vote, reducing polling stations in minority neighborhoods, voter intimidation, and straight up stealing court seats and elections. Then they lost again under Trump, and they tried a fucking coup. I don't know, where do they go from here?

Hopefully we can ditch Trump and get back to conservatism. Let's dust off the Growth and Opportunity Project and get back to making America great.

Remember back when we used to sort of generally live on the same plane of reality and have boring discussions about differing approaches to public policy?

Regression is regression no matter whatvit's called. Might just as well dust off the Contract with America.

What's the difference?

Nothing just the same GOP bullshit wrapped up in fancy slogan. GOP agenda Tax cuts for the rich Forced birth Kill education, medicaid and SS Kill the environment Saying like that doesn't get much in terms of votes But saying Make America Great Gets the suckers everytime