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Comment by bsimpson | Hacker News Reader

I continue to be astonished at how the Republican party transformed from libertarians into a personality cult overnight because some weirdo won an election.

Lindsey Graham was on TV being all "never Trump" one week and then fully supportive the next. c.c. almost everyone else in Washington.

I wonder what the tipping point is among Republican voters between those who genuinely support Trump vs those who think the Democratic candidates are so bad for foreign policy, DEI, etc. that they'll vote from Trump in protest.

Who would the Democrats have to nominate to get the libertarians who used to vote Republican to back them instead?

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I think Sanders would have unified because my MAGA parents liked his working-class support. But if I mention that among my progressive friends I get glares and stern warnings that Hillary was "the best" candidate and any objection is sexist. It's kinda like being a conservative who doesn't believe in god or is gay, your party will shun you.

I'm from Nevada.

I know lots of conservatives who aren't religious.

> I think Sanders would have unified

No, Sanders would never be a unifying figure. Libertarians see him as being essentially equivalent to Trump: a demagogue who makes emotional appeals to build a cult of personality, deeply misunderstands economics, and seeks to use political power in an unbounded and illegitimate ways.

But there as many libertarians that matter as there are antifa that matter.

They are noise in the data.

Populism is a marketing tool (to quote Hank Green) and Sanders wielded it as well as trump, but to help people, not punish them. Both have decades of track records demonstrating this fact.

> But there as many libertarians that matter as there are antifa that matter.

Various surveys have indicated that 20-30% of the US population broadly align with libertarian principles, regardless of party affiliation or nominal identification. This aligns fairly well with the proportion of the electorate that had negative opinions of both Trump and Harris in the last election (even those who took a "lesser of evils" approach and voted for one of them).

I know anecdote vs anecdote is pretty much meaningless and I’m channeling “No true Scotsman”, but I find it hard to believe an actual progressive telling you that - the complaints from the progressive wing about Sanders losing the primaries are evergreen.

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