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Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

Trump's decision to hide the list was the first time that I've seen MAGA anything split with Trump.

Proof that it contains egregious crimes by Trump, really could widen that. Doubly so given that these are crimes which Trump can still be prosecuted. Particularly since there is no statute of limitations on many sex trafficking crimes.

Could it widen it enough to allow Republican politicians to reject Trump? That's a good question. But I do find it hopeful that Ted Cruz, who has been so good at folding to Trump that he now resembles a piece of origami, was actually able to stand up and mock Trump's administration for his attempt to crush free speech by shutting down Jimmy Kimble. If Trump loses a chunk of his base, maybe some R politicians will remember what it's like to have a spine.

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> Could it widen it enough to allow Republican politicians to reject Trump?

There are no Republican politicians left

There are plenty of politicians with R in the name.

That their policies don't look like Republican policies of 30 years ago shouldn't surprise. Republican policies of 30 years ago didn't look much like Republican policies of 60 years ago.

The current ones don't fail to be Republican. It is just that Republican now means something different than it used to.

The same exact comments could be made about Democrats. For example look at Joe Biden's legislative record. He was President as a champion of DEI and LBGTQ+ rights. But back in the Clinton era, he sponsored a crime bill that put a ton of blacks in prison, and sponsored DOMA, a bill that blocked federal recognition of gay marriages.

> That their policies don't look like Republican policies of 30 years ago shouldn't surprise.

There’s only MAGA now

Their policies don’t even look like their policies 8 years ago - there are no policies or principles

Certainly the new era of republican thought has policies and principles. The main principle that informs all the others is "win at all costs" below that is a variety of white nationalism and economic populism.

I've seen it just as split during Jan 6th. You can look at 4chan's archive for /pol/, as well as the "thedonald.win" website, and even r/askTrumpSupporters and r/Conservative - all on January 6th 2021. You will see a fragment and fracture that I would personally attest was even stronger than the Epstein files meltdown.

Cognitive dissonance can be jarring. But they are mostly all back on the same page again.

There was clear, genuine shock even on the right over that event. It lasted a few months, at most, until their talking heads managed to "catapult the propaganda" sufficiently, and various conspiracy theories were seeded, fertilized, watered, and took root to give people something to believe other than their own eyes and ears.

That brief span of perhaps a few months was probably the last window of time we had to save the US—maybe, still would have been a long shot. But nothing was even attempted.

> "Trump's decision to hide the list was the first time that I've seen MAGA anything split with Trump."

There's a lot of diversity of views among those who might have voted for Trump. For instance his nonstop backing of Israel and decision to continue the war in Ukraine have been divisive, as was his decision to bomb Iran. In general Republican views are not like the equal but opposite of Democrat views. There tends to be much more diversity on most topics.

For instance you probably think the average Republican is pro-gun and anti-abortion. In reality only 24% of Republicans completely oppose abortion [1] and only 27% think gun laws should be less strict. [2] The party has become extremely heterogeneous. I suspect this is largely because of people like me. I do not consider myself conservative, but am highly supportive of equality of opportunity, freedom of speech, opposed to political correctness and war, and so on. In other words a pretty much typical liberal of 20 years ago, but one who no longer really fits in the modern Democrat demographic.

I think it's fairly obvious that nobody is ever going to be prosecuted over the Epstein stuff. He seemed to have had dirt on basically everybody. So I suspect everybody will finger point and imply things to score political points, but in the end it's the pot calling the kettle black, and so I doubt anybody would have the gall to escalate it to the point of prosecutions.

[1] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/246278/abortion-trends-party.as...

[2] - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/24/key-facts...

32% of all Republicans also support universal healthcare as well. That alongside your examples just shows that there are not the most rational bunch in general and suffer form severe cognitive dissonance.

> In other words a pretty much typical liberal of 20 years ago, but one who no longer really fits in the modern Democrat demographic.

Sure. But its hardly conceivable that such a person would fir in the MAGA party either.

Of course even someone like Mussolini was a socialist activist for years so people's views do change...

But how many people do the stereotypes of MAGA actually apply to? I certainly haven't met that person. But I have met a fair chunk of people who, for various reasons, found themselves on a different side of the aisle than might have otherwise been the case.

Trump for instance won the majority of Hispanic males (and nearly females as well) and even started to kind-of-sort-of make black males a competitive demographic. That's still an exaggeration since it was only like 22%, but that's still far greater than usual.

But now imagine if people made their politics public - the majority of Hispanic males would be running around with their MAGA cap and more than 1 in 5 black males doing the same. It'd become clear that the stereotypes are mostly just nonsense.

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