Originally posted by: Jeff
"What is telling to me is that most conservatives no longer deny Trump did this stuff,"
Most conservatives hate Trump. Most Republican office holders tell reporters off the record how much they hate Trump, but going public would be political suicide. I think you are conflating MAGA and conservatives.
But even the MAGA mob knows Trump lies through his teeth, but unlike non-MAGA, they approve of his lying through his teeth. They love his lying through his teeth. They are so angry at and resentful of the "elites" and others whom they feel have done them wrong that they relish everything that Trump does that repulses everybody else, BECAUSE it repulses everybody else.
That's why the more hot water Trump gets into that outrages 70% of the country, the more popular he becomes with his base (30% of the country).
Talk radio, Hannity, Carlson have enormously potentiated this anger and grievance for their own self-aggrandizement, i.e. money and power. As seen in the Dominion lawsuit filings, even they don't believe what they feed to the poorly educated MAGA crew.
Trump realized this early on and exploited it brilliantly. It took everybody else a long time to realize what Trump figured out from the get-go even though he made no secret of it with, "I could shoot someone on 5th Ave. and ..." He told us he had created a cult of blind, ignorant followers, and there was nothing anyone could do to deprogram them.
The only hope is that MAGA, as boisterous as it is, loses elections. MAGA lost in 2018, 2020, and 2022. I think they will continue their losing streak in 2024. The horrifying thing, though, is that I could be wrong.
Jeff, you're correct that the idiot goober "base" is not only not repulsed, but rather, thrilled and titillated by Trump's language and behavior. When Joe Pickup Truck drinks away his paycheck every Friday night and wakes up Saturday afternoon without enough money to buy groceries, he gets angry and wants to "stick it to the man." And he turns on the TV and lights up a stinkarette and lo!--there's his orange prophet telling him to just send $500 his way and everything will be fine again. It's a transparently stupid con, but such cons work just great on transparently stupid people.
What I've asked myself is, was this always the case? Was a substantial portion of the populace as dumb as a sack of moldy potatoes? I think the answer is "yes." It's just that now, they have an outlet as well as a "spokesman."
As to the difference between MAGAs and conservatives...I think it's smaller than you believe. Consider that conservatism is inherently flawed--its fundamental tenet, its bedrock contention is that the past was better than the present and change is bad. This is incorrect to the extent that in order to be a traditional (non-MAGA) conservative, you have to delude yourself and adhere to some core beliefs that are, how shall I put it, horse pucky. So the journey from classic conservative to MAGA is shorter than you think--one already laps up bullshit, it's just that the bullshit is new(ish).
The advantage we have is that the stupid and evil gang is mostly lazy. They get ginned up easily, but they don't stay that way for long--sooner rather than later, they're back to watching Celebrity Truck Wrestling or whatever. This does mean, however, that we can't repeat the mistake of 2016--"ha, ha, who would vote for that fuckhead?" The answer is, enough to swing an election. I don't think we twigged to the fact that due to gerrymandering and voter suppression, we have to win every election 11-10 just to break even (think of it as the RepubliQ "vig").
Another reason why 2024 will be different than 2016 is all the recent RepubliQ unforced errors, like abortion bans, book burning, and anti-everybody laws. People are horrified by that shit, and some (some!) Republicans are people.
