Chilling, but a sobering assessment. I remember reading somewhere that when Trump was a toddler (in age as well as mental capacity) the thing he enjoyed most was having new expensive toys and breaking them. It’s possible the aged toddler might get bored of doing that to the country and turn into the sort of monarch who just waves at crowds. What I wonder, though, is, if Trump is just the poster boy (ugh!), whether the anti-democratic alliance of extreme right-wing ideologues, preachers and mafia dons, with billionaires’ money and, no doubt, Russian assistance will have tightened their hold over formerly democratic institutions to such an extent that a non-violent response would inevitably fail.
Level headed piece. Blue state secession is probably the best way out if it must happen in the next 5 years.
But Trump’s death might change MAGA in ways we can’t anticipate. Cultural conservatives certainly hate liberals but only Trump has been able to unify them to the extent he has, and Trump, although a policy ignoramus, it must be confessed is a towering political talent, one of the greatest in world history. I’m not convinced JD Vance can unify the right as Trump has.
Even if somehow Republicans including Trump in the Trump administration were prosecuted for breaking the law and the party banned, nothing would stop a second party from forming immediately to oppose the Democratic Party.
The US has a two-party system not by law, but rather as an consequence of the Constitution. There is nothing that says these parties have to be Repulican or Democratic.
Yes but the transition period will be very hard. A new party will face sever problems establishing itself agains a party like the democrats firmly established already.
And MAGA voters will look at Democrats as traitors and oppressors and will vote on anyone who will get back at them.
It will be a very volatile transition period where I see it as hard for normal democracy to function.
I don't think it would take long for a new party to organize. The US has not always been Republicans and Democrats. And also the two parties have flip flopped on many of their positions since Lincoln. In Lincoln's time it was the Republicans who were the good guys regarding civil rights, now it is the Democrats.
Two or more parties could even form out of the remnants of the Republican Party if it came to that.
But my original premise "even if somehow Republicans including Trump and his administration were prosecuted for break the law and the party banned" is indeed a pipedream. Not going to happen, even in the unlikely event that a few bad apples are held accountable.
Formally registering a new party is quick, but actually building up an effective party organization, loyal voters etc is a time consuming process. We know this. We can look at political history across many different countries.
The former East Block countries are a good example. They had no established parties. Tons of parties got registered once they became democratic but the first years were very chaotic as parties lacked any brand and trust with voters.
Especially the US with its massive money machine in politics will make it hard for new parties. Just look at how hard it is to be a challenger for a seat in the US when you go against a politician firmly established with a brand with the voters.
I know Dems and GOP flipped, but that was a step by step process and they didn't just get rid of all their former policies. Voters could still recognize a lot of the parties and what they stood for.
I also do not believe Trump and the GOP will be prosecuted. I am merely saying that is what should happen if there was any working justice system. And since that will not happen, there is in principle nothing stopping an American descent towards autocracy.
Democrats and the respectable people of the US legal system do not have the guts to do what is needed.
Completely agreed on your broader point that we are just speculating on a what if that is not likely to happen. So the reality is that democracy at the federal level is in great danger in the US. Well that is an understatement. It's probably already gone. With the Justice Department being part of the Executive Branch, and the US Supreme Joke of a Court ruling that the President cannot be prosecuted, we are in big trouble here in the US. I've written on the need for the Justice Department to be independent on my own tubacalc.substack.com blog.
Well it might take a bit of time, but with first past the post things don't remain chaotic for a long time. For example Ross Perot basically started his own party with his own money in the Bush Perot Clinton election, and got something like 20% of the vote. That is not too shabby!
I think everyone who is not a Democrat and who hates the libs would find a way to coalesce.
Okay, fair point. But he didn’t have a party organization to elect senators, majors, house representatives etc to his party though? That matters for nationwide power. I am just skeptical a whole new party can be built up nation wide in just months or even a year. Not to mention Democrats would need to make sure it is not simply a relabeled MAGA party. In other words they don’t have the luxury of having complete free elections as one needs to guide a development away from MAGA politics.
There's nothing in the Constitution that would prevent the use of PR or preferential (instant runoff) voting, which would allow multiple partiest to emerge
The problem with this solution is that the “blue state/red state” divide is artificial. In the last election, there were seven swing states with results within a few percentage points. But even in the most partisan states, around 30 percent of the population supports the other party.
I think a secession would entail a good deal of sorting. I’m a liberal living in deep red Florida. If there is a blue state secession, I will move immediately to a blue state. I do NOT want to live in what a Trumpistan will certainly become. The BSA (Blue States of America) will be an economic powerhouse, and a Trumpistan will become a poverty-ridden hellhole.
Some conservatives in blue states will move to Trumpistan. However, millions of Trump-voting conservatives aren’t idiots, know how this would play out, and would remain in the BSA, where they’d still have a political voice, and a middle class to patronize their business.
Definitely. I'd expect a mass exodus in both directions. I'm in SW MO and I have no doubt it would become a red state. We're retired and have family in MO. I would hope they would be aware enough to get out of that happened.
The thing is I'm convinced that secession would lead to civil war. The GOP knows that the blue states underwrite the red states. I don't think they'd let the blue states go without a fight. 😔
But the right has said all the time they don't like Democrat controlled states. Also they are ideological heirs to the Confederacy which fought specifically for the right of secession so it would be hypocritical to go to war over it now.
Also times change. US civil war was in 1860s.That is very long time ago. When my native Norway left the Swedish-Norwegian union there was no war. But there was a war in 1814 when we tried to object. But from 1814 to 1905 a tremendous change happens in people's mindset about self-determination and about solving problems in a peaceful manner.
I think in 2025 people will be far more inclined to seek a peaceful solution that war. Both red and blue states know that an American civil war in 2025 would become far more destructive than anything that happened in the 1860s. Both sides would have far more powerful weapons.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Sure what you point out is absolutely a problem, but is this problem not much less than a bloody revolution or living under a Trumpian authoritarian illiberal "democracy"?
Everyone would love for everyone to become rational sane and respectful again but let us get real: That ain't going to happen. MAGA are not going to yield.
This is like a divorce. It sucks for all kinds of reason. Especially if you have kids. But is really staying with a violent or abusive partner any better?
Sometimes you got to eat the cost of change. People caught in the "wrong" state should still have some years to say make a transition to the other country. E.g. 3 year period to where you can get citizenship in the other country.
And people can still choose to stay and fight for change. It will be a uphill battle but still possible.
I believe a Trumpian state with liberal states gone will in fact become LESS oppressive, not more simply because he will need less force to silence liberals. The people are overwhelming with him anyway. His power will not be on shaky ground.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. This is also argument why US should stay united. Why throw away mostly working government and society for uncertain division ?? US is not Czeslowakia, there not hard divide between Red-Blue. Most Cities are blue. Most Red States are Red because of influx of retiree from Blue States. Most Rural places are Red.
I wonder if creating a new country could be done peacefully in the United States. We've seen in history that countries that were split up because of religion, for example, became a scary place during people's move to their preferred country. So many died. The US with all their guns...I don't think it would be preferable.
The Whigs collapsed after they lost the 1852 election and two years later there was a replacement party which ran in the very next presidential election. Right now the stock market is heading down and people are losing their shit. Musk appears to be losing favor with Trump and may be gone soon. So it is not clear things are going so well for the GOP.
MAGA would keep being crazy. But when Trump make things bad enough, 1/3 of Americans who dont bother to vote would push them out.
Creating new countries would create various new problem: it make Democrats traitor instead of patriot, abandoning blue cities in red states, difficulties with Institution, etc
But those people will never vote. We have seen time and again that no matter how serious the election gets they will not vote. Isn’t that just a pipe dream at this point?
I know what I suggest sounds extreme, but do you seriously think the MAGA problem will go away. It is a huge and powerful movement. They are not merely nobody voters but hold important positions of power everywhere.
Imagine in the 1930s you managed to somehow outvote the Nazis from power. But they still sat around as judges, bureaucrats etc. How would that be a tenable situation?
You are not going to change their minds ever. Either you yield to them or it will get bloody. They will not fight fair and square. It will get dirty and Dems are not ready for a dirty fight.
First. Gladys had pointed out that personal hardship would push more people to votes.
Second. Nazis did still exist in Germany and France after WWII. There are massive pardon and non-investigation of followers of Petain and Nazism. It baby boomer generations after 60s-70s that started to view Nazism negatively
Third. US always have conservative conspiracy theorist inside. Know-Nothing party. Anti-Masonic party. John Birch Society. Movie Rambo is basically homage to conspiracy theory of US surviving prisoner in Vietnam.
In essence, Victory and Defeat DO affect how voters speak, organize, and votes. FOX News and Trump didn't create MAGA, they already exist, they simply surface to mainstream.
Unless you want to abandon democracy and select voters; having crazy people happen in every country.
Finland managed to develop social democracy AFTER Finnish right-wing massacre Finnish Left en masse.
I don't know how its all going to play out, but maybe this will be a dictator (lite), i think the way the United states power structures are layered, i don't think it will become a full blown dictatorship, which is different then Nazi Germany.
The other thing is his policys will backfire if it hurts enough people. Americans are fickle voters and they do not like being hurt financially
I do believe that MAGA will go away once Trump is out of office, or at the very least diminish. Anyone that succeeds him will not be able to excite the voters the same way. Their will never be another Trump, and i believe once he is gone, people will forget and move on, especially if his polices hurt his loyal voters. Plus a lot of people that voted for him are Not MAGA, and they will fall away first.
I do believe though that the United States will be changed by this adminstration, to what extent i don't know, i guess we will see.
Hey it is great to have this exchange, so please don't take this the wrong way but your viewpoints here just comes across as very naive to me.
I'll agree on some of your points. I do not believe it will turn to Nazi Germany, but not because they couldn't, but rather because we live in far more civilized times where democracy is more entrenched and less is at stake. Germans had just gone through an experiment with democracy that had not worked very well. Many longed for the old days. There was complete financial chaos. America is not anywhere near that. Democracy is something Americans have a long experience with they are not skeptical of it as Germans of the Weimar Republic were.
I think that is ultimately more important that institutions onto themselves. Thus far I think America has looked weaker than the Weimar Republic in many ways. The US failed to imprison the leader of an attempt to overthrow democracy on Jan 6th. Even Weimar put away Hitler for the same attempt.
As a foreigner I am curious why you think MAGA will be gone with Trump? I spent a lot of time in the US. Came first time in 1995 and lived there are a student about 20 years ago. From my perspective a lot of the MAGA thinking has long been there. It did not pop into existence with Trump. It has been drummed up by FOX and friends for years.
George W. Bush straight out tortured people and committed war crimes left and right and conservatives defended it. US media utterly failed to hold his folly accountable. Then you had the tea party movement. Extremism on the US right has been there for a long time and growing.
It used to be a form of Christian fundamentalism mixed with laissez faire capitalism. Now that has morphed far more into a fascist ideology. People will not just abandon those beliefs because Trump is gone. I think that gives him far too much credit. Trump is surfing on a wave of extremist. He didn't invent it. He simply seized the moment.
You can see the same about Nazism in Germany. Hitler or the Nazi party did not invent that. Those ideas had been floating around in different forms all over society for a long time already.
I talk to these MAGA here regularly. I read accounts of Americans with their MAGA family members. These people are utterly lost. Trump gone will not change that. They will not snap out of it. Just like the death of Hitler did not make people snap out of Nazism. That is what research showed. Most of the people who supported Hitler stayed loyal even after all the destruction of Germany.
Here is one thing I want to challenge you on which I am curious about your response. I agree another MAGA leader may not fire them up as much as Trump. I concede that. But, I will retort that their hatred of liberals and the left will not change. They have bought into a crazy conspiratorial delusion about the left somebody who will destroy America. Kamala Harris was presented as a dangerous Marxist. I recently debated a MAGA guy totally convince of this. In his mind Trump election saved America from communism.
My claim would be that as long as the delusional perspective on the left persist, the MAGA train will keep going. Doesn't really matter who will seize the opportunity to lead them. Eventually somebody will.
I think we're stuck with MAGA-like followers for a long time, no matter how things work out. Propaganda works terrifyingly well. I also think we could end up as a failed state, complete with insurgencies. There are more firearms than people in this country. I'm really hoping I'm wrong here. I'm not predicting anything here. These are my opinions based on my historical knowledge.
Yeah that is my belief as well. And thus I don't think there is a peaceful solution beyond splitting the country. Abraham Lincoln fought for a noble cause that is honorable but ultimately made the wrong choice in my view. He pulled into the US a part that was ideologically fundamentally at odds with the rest of the US. This difference between what the North and the South represent has been a source of conflict through the whole existence of the US, and now I believe it comes full circle. The forces that lost the civil war, are now winning government, and reshaping the US into a form of New Confederacy.
Of course we live in more civilized times so slavery isn't coming back. But it is the same reactionary regressive views updated for the 21st century that now reigns.
You are correct this divide has been building for a while, but i don’t buy that MAGA cannot be reasoned, maybe right now, , but i think once Trump leaves it will be different especially if his policies hurts their loved ones or their pocketbook, their will be a backlash. Americans do not like being economically challenged. As it is right now business leaders are angry about the Tarrifs and have turned against the administration ALREADY.
Besides not everyone who voted for Trump is MAGA, those that supported Trump in a less intense way will change their minds faster.
If you are right and their is a divorce or civil war, it will be ugly and brutal, God help us
Chilling, but a sobering assessment. I remember reading somewhere that when Trump was a toddler (in age as well as mental capacity) the thing he enjoyed most was having new expensive toys and breaking them. It’s possible the aged toddler might get bored of doing that to the country and turn into the sort of monarch who just waves at crowds. What I wonder, though, is, if Trump is just the poster boy (ugh!), whether the anti-democratic alliance of extreme right-wing ideologues, preachers and mafia dons, with billionaires’ money and, no doubt, Russian assistance will have tightened their hold over formerly democratic institutions to such an extent that a non-violent response would inevitably fail.
Level headed piece. Blue state secession is probably the best way out if it must happen in the next 5 years.
But Trump’s death might change MAGA in ways we can’t anticipate. Cultural conservatives certainly hate liberals but only Trump has been able to unify them to the extent he has, and Trump, although a policy ignoramus, it must be confessed is a towering political talent, one of the greatest in world history. I’m not convinced JD Vance can unify the right as Trump has.
Even if somehow Republicans including Trump in the Trump administration were prosecuted for breaking the law and the party banned, nothing would stop a second party from forming immediately to oppose the Democratic Party.
The US has a two-party system not by law, but rather as an consequence of the Constitution. There is nothing that says these parties have to be Repulican or Democratic.
Yes but the transition period will be very hard. A new party will face sever problems establishing itself agains a party like the democrats firmly established already.
And MAGA voters will look at Democrats as traitors and oppressors and will vote on anyone who will get back at them.
It will be a very volatile transition period where I see it as hard for normal democracy to function.
I don't think it would take long for a new party to organize. The US has not always been Republicans and Democrats. And also the two parties have flip flopped on many of their positions since Lincoln. In Lincoln's time it was the Republicans who were the good guys regarding civil rights, now it is the Democrats.
Two or more parties could even form out of the remnants of the Republican Party if it came to that.
But my original premise "even if somehow Republicans including Trump and his administration were prosecuted for break the law and the party banned" is indeed a pipedream. Not going to happen, even in the unlikely event that a few bad apples are held accountable.
Formally registering a new party is quick, but actually building up an effective party organization, loyal voters etc is a time consuming process. We know this. We can look at political history across many different countries.
The former East Block countries are a good example. They had no established parties. Tons of parties got registered once they became democratic but the first years were very chaotic as parties lacked any brand and trust with voters.
Especially the US with its massive money machine in politics will make it hard for new parties. Just look at how hard it is to be a challenger for a seat in the US when you go against a politician firmly established with a brand with the voters.
I know Dems and GOP flipped, but that was a step by step process and they didn't just get rid of all their former policies. Voters could still recognize a lot of the parties and what they stood for.
I also do not believe Trump and the GOP will be prosecuted. I am merely saying that is what should happen if there was any working justice system. And since that will not happen, there is in principle nothing stopping an American descent towards autocracy.
Democrats and the respectable people of the US legal system do not have the guts to do what is needed.
Completely agreed on your broader point that we are just speculating on a what if that is not likely to happen. So the reality is that democracy at the federal level is in great danger in the US. Well that is an understatement. It's probably already gone. With the Justice Department being part of the Executive Branch, and the US Supreme Joke of a Court ruling that the President cannot be prosecuted, we are in big trouble here in the US. I've written on the need for the Justice Department to be independent on my own tubacalc.substack.com blog.
Well it might take a bit of time, but with first past the post things don't remain chaotic for a long time. For example Ross Perot basically started his own party with his own money in the Bush Perot Clinton election, and got something like 20% of the vote. That is not too shabby!
I think everyone who is not a Democrat and who hates the libs would find a way to coalesce.
Okay, fair point. But he didn’t have a party organization to elect senators, majors, house representatives etc to his party though? That matters for nationwide power. I am just skeptical a whole new party can be built up nation wide in just months or even a year. Not to mention Democrats would need to make sure it is not simply a relabeled MAGA party. In other words they don’t have the luxury of having complete free elections as one needs to guide a development away from MAGA politics.
There's nothing in the Constitution that would prevent the use of PR or preferential (instant runoff) voting, which would allow multiple partiest to emerge
Thanks, I'm sure you are right. Maybe it is state constitutions that have us in this rut? Or state laws?
The problem with this solution is that the “blue state/red state” divide is artificial. In the last election, there were seven swing states with results within a few percentage points. But even in the most partisan states, around 30 percent of the population supports the other party.
I think a secession would entail a good deal of sorting. I’m a liberal living in deep red Florida. If there is a blue state secession, I will move immediately to a blue state. I do NOT want to live in what a Trumpistan will certainly become. The BSA (Blue States of America) will be an economic powerhouse, and a Trumpistan will become a poverty-ridden hellhole.
Some conservatives in blue states will move to Trumpistan. However, millions of Trump-voting conservatives aren’t idiots, know how this would play out, and would remain in the BSA, where they’d still have a political voice, and a middle class to patronize their business.
Definitely. I'd expect a mass exodus in both directions. I'm in SW MO and I have no doubt it would become a red state. We're retired and have family in MO. I would hope they would be aware enough to get out of that happened.
The thing is I'm convinced that secession would lead to civil war. The GOP knows that the blue states underwrite the red states. I don't think they'd let the blue states go without a fight. 😔
But the right has said all the time they don't like Democrat controlled states. Also they are ideological heirs to the Confederacy which fought specifically for the right of secession so it would be hypocritical to go to war over it now.
Also times change. US civil war was in 1860s.That is very long time ago. When my native Norway left the Swedish-Norwegian union there was no war. But there was a war in 1814 when we tried to object. But from 1814 to 1905 a tremendous change happens in people's mindset about self-determination and about solving problems in a peaceful manner.
I think in 2025 people will be far more inclined to seek a peaceful solution that war. Both red and blue states know that an American civil war in 2025 would become far more destructive than anything that happened in the 1860s. Both sides would have far more powerful weapons.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Sure what you point out is absolutely a problem, but is this problem not much less than a bloody revolution or living under a Trumpian authoritarian illiberal "democracy"?
Everyone would love for everyone to become rational sane and respectful again but let us get real: That ain't going to happen. MAGA are not going to yield.
This is like a divorce. It sucks for all kinds of reason. Especially if you have kids. But is really staying with a violent or abusive partner any better?
Sometimes you got to eat the cost of change. People caught in the "wrong" state should still have some years to say make a transition to the other country. E.g. 3 year period to where you can get citizenship in the other country.
And people can still choose to stay and fight for change. It will be a uphill battle but still possible.
I believe a Trumpian state with liberal states gone will in fact become LESS oppressive, not more simply because he will need less force to silence liberals. The people are overwhelming with him anyway. His power will not be on shaky ground.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. This is also argument why US should stay united. Why throw away mostly working government and society for uncertain division ?? US is not Czeslowakia, there not hard divide between Red-Blue. Most Cities are blue. Most Red States are Red because of influx of retiree from Blue States. Most Rural places are Red.
I wonder if creating a new country could be done peacefully in the United States. We've seen in history that countries that were split up because of religion, for example, became a scary place during people's move to their preferred country. So many died. The US with all their guns...I don't think it would be preferable.
You may appreciate this essay from last year.
https://roguesystemsrecon.substack.com/p/the-ragnarok-of-liberal-democracy
The Whigs collapsed after they lost the 1852 election and two years later there was a replacement party which ran in the very next presidential election. Right now the stock market is heading down and people are losing their shit. Musk appears to be losing favor with Trump and may be gone soon. So it is not clear things are going so well for the GOP.
Its bad solutions for non-existent problem.
MAGA would keep being crazy. But when Trump make things bad enough, 1/3 of Americans who dont bother to vote would push them out.
Creating new countries would create various new problem: it make Democrats traitor instead of patriot, abandoning blue cities in red states, difficulties with Institution, etc
But those people will never vote. We have seen time and again that no matter how serious the election gets they will not vote. Isn’t that just a pipe dream at this point?
I know what I suggest sounds extreme, but do you seriously think the MAGA problem will go away. It is a huge and powerful movement. They are not merely nobody voters but hold important positions of power everywhere.
Imagine in the 1930s you managed to somehow outvote the Nazis from power. But they still sat around as judges, bureaucrats etc. How would that be a tenable situation?
You are not going to change their minds ever. Either you yield to them or it will get bloody. They will not fight fair and square. It will get dirty and Dems are not ready for a dirty fight.
First. Gladys had pointed out that personal hardship would push more people to votes.
Second. Nazis did still exist in Germany and France after WWII. There are massive pardon and non-investigation of followers of Petain and Nazism. It baby boomer generations after 60s-70s that started to view Nazism negatively
Third. US always have conservative conspiracy theorist inside. Know-Nothing party. Anti-Masonic party. John Birch Society. Movie Rambo is basically homage to conspiracy theory of US surviving prisoner in Vietnam.
In essence, Victory and Defeat DO affect how voters speak, organize, and votes. FOX News and Trump didn't create MAGA, they already exist, they simply surface to mainstream.
Unless you want to abandon democracy and select voters; having crazy people happen in every country.
Finland managed to develop social democracy AFTER Finnish right-wing massacre Finnish Left en masse.
I don't know how its all going to play out, but maybe this will be a dictator (lite), i think the way the United states power structures are layered, i don't think it will become a full blown dictatorship, which is different then Nazi Germany.
The other thing is his policys will backfire if it hurts enough people. Americans are fickle voters and they do not like being hurt financially
I do believe that MAGA will go away once Trump is out of office, or at the very least diminish. Anyone that succeeds him will not be able to excite the voters the same way. Their will never be another Trump, and i believe once he is gone, people will forget and move on, especially if his polices hurt his loyal voters. Plus a lot of people that voted for him are Not MAGA, and they will fall away first.
I do believe though that the United States will be changed by this adminstration, to what extent i don't know, i guess we will see.
Hey it is great to have this exchange, so please don't take this the wrong way but your viewpoints here just comes across as very naive to me.
I'll agree on some of your points. I do not believe it will turn to Nazi Germany, but not because they couldn't, but rather because we live in far more civilized times where democracy is more entrenched and less is at stake. Germans had just gone through an experiment with democracy that had not worked very well. Many longed for the old days. There was complete financial chaos. America is not anywhere near that. Democracy is something Americans have a long experience with they are not skeptical of it as Germans of the Weimar Republic were.
I think that is ultimately more important that institutions onto themselves. Thus far I think America has looked weaker than the Weimar Republic in many ways. The US failed to imprison the leader of an attempt to overthrow democracy on Jan 6th. Even Weimar put away Hitler for the same attempt.
As a foreigner I am curious why you think MAGA will be gone with Trump? I spent a lot of time in the US. Came first time in 1995 and lived there are a student about 20 years ago. From my perspective a lot of the MAGA thinking has long been there. It did not pop into existence with Trump. It has been drummed up by FOX and friends for years.
George W. Bush straight out tortured people and committed war crimes left and right and conservatives defended it. US media utterly failed to hold his folly accountable. Then you had the tea party movement. Extremism on the US right has been there for a long time and growing.
It used to be a form of Christian fundamentalism mixed with laissez faire capitalism. Now that has morphed far more into a fascist ideology. People will not just abandon those beliefs because Trump is gone. I think that gives him far too much credit. Trump is surfing on a wave of extremist. He didn't invent it. He simply seized the moment.
You can see the same about Nazism in Germany. Hitler or the Nazi party did not invent that. Those ideas had been floating around in different forms all over society for a long time already.
I talk to these MAGA here regularly. I read accounts of Americans with their MAGA family members. These people are utterly lost. Trump gone will not change that. They will not snap out of it. Just like the death of Hitler did not make people snap out of Nazism. That is what research showed. Most of the people who supported Hitler stayed loyal even after all the destruction of Germany.
Here is one thing I want to challenge you on which I am curious about your response. I agree another MAGA leader may not fire them up as much as Trump. I concede that. But, I will retort that their hatred of liberals and the left will not change. They have bought into a crazy conspiratorial delusion about the left somebody who will destroy America. Kamala Harris was presented as a dangerous Marxist. I recently debated a MAGA guy totally convince of this. In his mind Trump election saved America from communism.
My claim would be that as long as the delusional perspective on the left persist, the MAGA train will keep going. Doesn't really matter who will seize the opportunity to lead them. Eventually somebody will.
I think we're stuck with MAGA-like followers for a long time, no matter how things work out. Propaganda works terrifyingly well. I also think we could end up as a failed state, complete with insurgencies. There are more firearms than people in this country. I'm really hoping I'm wrong here. I'm not predicting anything here. These are my opinions based on my historical knowledge.
Yeah that is my belief as well. And thus I don't think there is a peaceful solution beyond splitting the country. Abraham Lincoln fought for a noble cause that is honorable but ultimately made the wrong choice in my view. He pulled into the US a part that was ideologically fundamentally at odds with the rest of the US. This difference between what the North and the South represent has been a source of conflict through the whole existence of the US, and now I believe it comes full circle. The forces that lost the civil war, are now winning government, and reshaping the US into a form of New Confederacy.
Of course we live in more civilized times so slavery isn't coming back. But it is the same reactionary regressive views updated for the 21st century that now reigns.
That is a good obeservation
You are correct this divide has been building for a while, but i don’t buy that MAGA cannot be reasoned, maybe right now, , but i think once Trump leaves it will be different especially if his policies hurts their loved ones or their pocketbook, their will be a backlash. Americans do not like being economically challenged. As it is right now business leaders are angry about the Tarrifs and have turned against the administration ALREADY.
Besides not everyone who voted for Trump is MAGA, those that supported Trump in a less intense way will change their minds faster.
If you are right and their is a divorce or civil war, it will be ugly and brutal, God help us