> He's trying to convince apathetic, disinterested non-voters to go out and vote, by making an appeal that this one-time act will fix things. This is an appealing claim to many people who believe voting doesn't matter, nothing ever gets fixed or meaningfully changes and so don't believe it's worth their effort. It's not a long-term commitment to becoming more political involved or a requirement to vote in every primary, ballot initiative, etc, it's a one-time ask.
While I admire your optimism, this is quite a stretch. He literally said "In four years, you don't have to vote again, we'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote." It's certainly more hopeful to believe he's openly abandoning the future of his party to their faces than that he's a wannabe dictator, but that's simply not plausible. He's speaking to his base, he's telling them what he thinks they want to hear. He surely doesn't think that they want to hear isn't "I don't care whether the Republicans win the 2028 election".
And, notably, this is a pretty significant change from your initial claim that I took what Trump said out of context. First it was out of context, now I'm just interpreting it uncharitably? You're just looking for another way to justify your pre-existing belief when you discovered that the context didn't support it after all. Similar to how conservatives can't seem to agree whether on their cover story: was this taken out of context, or was this a joke?
And to be clear, I'm not accusing you of any malice here; I think it's human nature to be optimistic and to feel discomfort at changing your beliefs, even in response to evidence.
> Maybe you should try to talk to some real-world conservatives to broaden your understanding.
Maybe you should make fewer assumptions about who I have and haven't talked to.
I lived in TN the last 3 years, and recently moved to KY. I have no shortage of conversations with conservatives. And I agree with you in a sense, that a huge problem in the US is that a large portion of the left doesn't understand issues that rural conservatives are trying to address because they view places like this as "flyover states"--that's a literal phrase I've heard people use unironically, and it's horrifically dismissive of human beings, citizens. There are a lot of issues I'm with conservatives on, due to my time in the rural south.
But one thing talking to conservatives will not do, is persuade you that they don't hold any extreme views. A coworker of mine recently said, roughly, that the problem with Biden is he's too weak, and we need a leader like Trump because he'll be more like Putin. A vendor at a farmstand a few weeks back shared his view that Trump is the antichrist, and we needed to elect him so he could take over the world to bring about the second coming of Jesus (bizarre, yes, but I promise you this is what he said). A guy I met online to go rock climbing, told me that letting minorities have the vote was a mistake, because democracy is supposed to be rule of the majority. These are otherwise normal people I met in real life and didn't go out of my way to find.
EDIT: Perhaps the worst example was maybe a year ago when a different coworker said that trans people are pedophiles, and I pointed out that he had a "kill your local pedophile" sticker on his truck, and asked if that meant he wanted to kill trans people to which he responded, "Yeah. But you can't just say that nowadays or people get uppity."
If anything, I'd say that if you aren't aware of the number of conservatives who are actually quite on board with authoritarianism, perhaps its you who should talk to more real-world conservatives.
And that's the conservative base, not leadership. The GOP has plenty of history of actively undermining the democratic process, from trying to stop the count of votes in urban areas while demanding recounts in already-lost-to-them states, to the nearly-mathematically-optimal gerrymandering of Georgia. These aren't people who value democracy.
> Or at least recognize that your belief is a fringe, extremist interpretation not held by 99% of people.
I am more concerned with whether my beliefs are true than whether you think they're fringe or extremist--that's just a shallow dismissal. And while I certainly think more than 1% of people agree with me, it is deeply concerning to me that so few people are facing the reality of the danger we're in here.