In a sane world, the party that has only won a plurality of Presidential voters once since 1988 would try having at least a tiny shred of self-reflection. In this world, they double down on the crazy.
That moment was after Obama's reelection. The RNC did a big post mortem analysis on the 2012 election and reached the conclusion that they need to appeal to a wider spectrum of voter demographics and stop catering to the more extreme wings of the party. But by that point they had already let the tea party get a foothold and the train was running away towards MAGA with no brakes to be found.
https://www.npr.org/2013/03/18/174665725/rnc-report-a-postmortem-on-failed-2012-election
Tax cuts for the rich running up the deficit. The horribly botched COVID response. And the attempted coup. Not to mention all the other crap. Biden's right: our democracy is at stake. Check out Trump's statements and Project 2025. Tuberville is blocking military promotions for a reason, and it ain't abortion.
I honestly can't imagine Trump winning legit. His biggest strength was that he was an unknown quantity and his opponent was a woman who had to pay off DNC debt to keep popular democrats like Biden from running and beating her for the nomination.
He may have been an unknown quantity to you in 2016, but for his supporters he was exactly what it said on the tin: a racist, angry old white man who yelled at the dinner table about all the things Fox News told him were wrong with this country. And after 4 years of his administration, he actually picked up votes the second time. Biden had the largest turnout in American history in 2020, but only ahead of Trump's 2020 numbers.
If anything, he has confirmed to the conservative base that he is who he said he was. If Biden fails to motivate his base, he will lose, because Trump is not going to lose votes.
Question for my American friends out there: any worry about the current clusterfuck in Congress making an end to "Democracy as you know it" seem more palatable than people might realize? Just struck me as a potentially two-edged argument, especially to Republicans who are watching their own party implode.
A big reason why Hitler rose to popular authoritarian power was because the Weimar Republic's government was deadlocked and ineffective
I hope the people of the USA will make the right decision. But, looking at it from Belgium, I'm also so tired of, since 2016, looking at every presidential election in the USA as being the one that will possibly sent the world into chaos. Every night-show, podcaster, ... that I'm able to watch on YouTube can only discuss the situation from the point of view from one side. This makes the programs that once were very entertaining to watch, much less fun. So since I don't have any impact on the outcome, I'm skipping many of these shows that were once a nice discraction. I'm curious if in the USA itself the people are also taking distance from this rethoric on television to not let it impact their daily lives too much.
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