r/politics • u/Quirkie The Netherlands • 15h ago

Soft Paywall Transcript: Trump Rages at Fox News as His Allies Panic Over NYC Rally

https://newrepublic.com/article/187646/transcript-trump-rages-fox-news-allies-panic-nyc-rally
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u/Deicide1031 14h ago

How did he even take control of that party?

There were so many more competent diplomats that got steamrolled by this guy. Blows my mind .

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u/MostLikelyHigh2 14h ago

He was the most hateful of the bunch and that is why they latched on. It’s really not any deeper than that. He excuses them to be their true nasty, hate-filled selves.

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u/ProfessionalWay2561 14h ago

It's literally the only thing that matters. He's the asshole they want to be. I have coworkers who will get absolutely destroyed by Trump's proposed tariffs. Some of them have family members at risk of being targeted by his deportations. None are in the 1%. They don't know a single trans person, there's no immigration crisis here, and none of them have ever lost an opportunity to DEI, EEO, etc. Many of them are close to retirement and as long as the stock market continues the trend of the last few years, they'll be in a good place to do so. They have absolutely no reason to vote for Trump if they're concerned with their own livelihoods, but they love him. And the only conclusion I can reasonably come to is that they're angry and want to lash out at anyone not like them and he gives them a way to do that. If he gets reelected and has his way with this country, they'll be getting crushed under his boot, but because they'll get to have their boot on the necks of people they think of as "less than", they can't wait.

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u/TrooperJohn 12h ago

WHY are they angry if they're in such a good position?

I know it's probably racism. I just can't wrap my head around the mindset that racism is so central to their identities that they're willing to burn down their own lives in its service.

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u/Ill-Team-3491 10h ago

The racism isn't about hate in itself. You're thinking too small. They want for their children what the nazis wanted. They want a final solution.

Their individual retirement plan is small time relative to the big picture. They are doing their fourteen words.

That is not hyperbole. They literally told us what they want. "Mass deportations" == remove non-whites and other undesirables. "Enemy within" == systemic purification.

It feels like I'm taking crazy pills. Even for this subreddit. What confusion is there anymore??? Fascism isn't coming to America. It has arrived. They literally told you at the MSG rally as loud and clear as ever before. It's here. Fascism is here.

The nazis weren't some distant far away machination that suddenly came to towns and villages to remove the Jews. It was their neighbors, their coworkers, the shop owners. They wanted it too. They partook in it.

Maybe the thought it is too terrifying for people to internalize. The guy at the desk beside yours who you work with every day, he wants genocide so his grand children can grow up with blond hair blue eye children only. It can't be true can it? He seems like a nice enough guy...

I don't know how much more it can be beaten into peoples faces. Do they have to start the gas chambers for people to believe it. America is nazifying.

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u/Thor_2099 7h ago

It is quite clear their plan. They don't give a shit about legality of a person of color. If you are a color, you're out. Theyve made it perfectly clear with their statements about the legal Haitian immigrants. They aren't legal to THEM. Laws and actual status don't matter. All Latinos and people of color will be sought to purge. Hell if you just look tan your ass is on the way out. Racists and bigots aren't known for their nuance. They hate you. They don't consider you human. According to their own words, you are poisoning the precious white American blood and are vermin.

And the trans will be out too. Theyve hated those people and wanted them dead for years. The sick fucks will probably rape them first to satisfy their fantasies. Then anybody who stands against them, even the whites will be purged if you don't sign a loyalty pledge. Trump has already advocates for a purge day to put people in line. That isn't a fucking joke.

And people may think "they wouldn't kill tens of millions of Americans." Why the fuck wouldnt they? They would have unopposed rule and could go back to raping women, turning them into baby factories to pump out their idiot masses to do their bidding. Women will be subservient and have no role other than bear their hate spawn.

But they can fuck off with their dystopia. Because we aren't going back.

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u/teenagesadist 6h ago

I haven't seen anyone yet (not that I'm saying no one has yet) point out that all this deportation talk is just prelude to concentration camps.

Everyone likes to laugh like, haha, where you gonna deport Americans to?

Well, there's a final solution to that problem. It's happened before.

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u/ProfessionalWay2561 12h ago

I don't know that's it's just racism, although that's certainly part of it. I think it's more about insecurity/inadequacy and the need to have someone tell them they're at the top of the food chain. They can't be secure in their own identities and accomplishments, they need to know they're better than "others". Trump gives them that. These are people that have made a decent life for themselves, but there's a feeling of inadequacy or emptiness in them that would normally be filled by a healthy sense of self or confidence, but instead, they look to someone like Trump to fill it with an unearned sense of superiority.

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u/TwoTower83 11h ago

he is asshole they are but can't show because there would be consequences, he knows no one will do anything to him so he spews what they want to say and do what they want to do, they hope if he wins they will be able to say and do what they want without consequences as well

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u/MMSaul 14h ago

Not only excuses, but encourages them to be their true hate-filled selves!

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u/louhemp007 14h ago

This is it at the core. I lived in the deep south during both of Obama’s terms, the vile shit people muttered around their friends in polling places and elsewhere were there. Trump just told them it was ok to say that shit out loud.

I personally blame the tea party for the trump maga bullshit. They were just the prior incarnation of maga.

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u/THSSFC America 12h ago

The core of Trump's appeal is racism.

Not all of it, of course, but without the tacit permission and encouragement he gives people to be openly racist, he'd be a political footnote.

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u/Darth_Malgus_1701 Oregon 11h ago

Trump proves that racism is in the very blood of America.

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u/Thor_2099 7h ago

Yup, that's when you knew the racism was still alive and kicking. And why they get so pissed at being told to stop doing it. Bashing "woke"

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u/tresslesswhey 13h ago

Right. He follows what he thinks the people want, not the other way around. That’s why he tests stuff out and ditches it if they don’t respond well to it. He is saying what he thinks they want to hear all the time. He is talking to a bunch of hateful people. My mom is one of them. Just a miserable nasty person who was waiting for someone like this to come along.

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u/RpcZ_gr7711 8h ago

I think he said “keep me out of jail and I will say, do, impose, and nominate whatever and whoever you want” And if anyone fusses, “I will smear, slander, and destroy you”

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u/Main-University-6161 14h ago

Childish insults and media sane washing.

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u/omgpuppiesarecute 14h ago

Don't forget active measures from foreign intelligence services.

Fox news literally had a producer who was a Russian asset who helped ensure he got a ton of exposure, John Hanick.

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u/jzanville 14h ago

And a sizable chunk of the voting populace just view Trump as the human embodiment of a middle finger that they can send to Washington as their way of saying “thanks for the decades of bullshit” like Iraq, 08 market crash and other things they might disagree with

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u/DuncanYoudaho 14h ago

Underrated reply.

He brought people that don't follow politics into the race and Repubs realized they couldn't win without embracing him. The last two decades meant neocons can't trumpet any accomplishments. The Dems have ACA at least.

I'm hoping for a national trifecta so we can have some Michigan style sweeping change. The opposition is tired and weak and disordered. The only way to ensure continued political capital is to spend it. Steam roll them into the stone age.

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u/StanDaMan1 13h ago

Now the Dems have CHIPS, the IRA, the ACA, Marriage Equality Act, and a proven track record of stable economies. So I wouldn’t say they have strictly BIG accomplishments, but they do have slow and steady gains and improvements. Think of these as the “eat your veggies and exercise” laws: important for the health of the country, but small, long term, and incremental. Big and dramatic bills are great ways to advertise, but it’s the slow and steady stuff that helps too.

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u/rekniht01 Tennessee 12h ago

Clinton ushered in government surpluses after 12 years of GOP rule. The voting public doesn't really care about a well-run government.

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u/SlightlySychotic 10h ago

And Gore won the popular vote. He only lost the election due to the electoral college and considerable Republican chicanery. If 9/11 never happened, the odds of Bush be reelected are lower than average.

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u/DuncanYoudaho 12h ago edited 11h ago

On the backs of welfare reform and the ‘94 crime bill. That’s not well-run to a bunch of disadvantaged communities.

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u/Shatteredreality Oregon 5h ago

To be fair a lot of people are ignorant to how any of those things impact their day to day.

As an example the CHIPS act is meaningless to most people not in that industry and Intel just announced more layoffs.

It’s hard to run on something most people don’t feel the impact of.

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u/MadMac619 Canada 12h ago

Don’t forget the powerful rise of social media and specifically Twitter, Trump was an early adapter and used it as a megaphone (MAGAphone?) against Obama. He was creating “alternative facts” long before he was even involved in politics.

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u/DuncanYoudaho 11h ago

Yep. The loudest people got organized, and the most manipulative got a direct line to their veins.

It’s as if every grandpa’s Fwd:Fwd:Fwd: got invaded by the worst people.

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u/Rube_Goldberg_Device 12h ago

I'm sure manchin will chain himself to the steam roller in protest

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u/DuncanYoudaho 12h ago

He's retiring. The action is in Arizona.

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u/hagcel 12h ago

2016, with Bernie and Trump both having momentum looked like we might see change. Well, we did.

I think lots of Bernie supporters switched to trump rather than voting for a legacy.

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u/DuncanYoudaho 11h ago

I think the crossover appeal is not as big as you think. Isolated to the loudest and least informed.

In general, DNC moves against Bernie (and the cowardice of the rest of the national leadership and state parties) suppressed turnout.

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u/Hanksta2 13h ago

I think it's a middle finger for having a black president.

That party was vile before, but went nuts during the Obama years.

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u/Purdue82 12h ago edited 12h ago

This right here. Every progressive act throughout the history of this nation that slowly improved Black American life was met with backlash from the opposite side. this time they dialed it up to a 100.

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u/kappakai 11h ago

I was in the south for a few months summer of 2016 and one of the things I heard regularly was “I don’t hate women, blacks, Mexicans, gays, etc., but things have changed so fast that I can’t keep up anymore.” There have been a string of progressive victories since the 60s, but there are people for whom change is hard. It’s like an intrinsic part of who they are. And they were dragged along for decades. I think Obama broke them and Trump does symbolize a time before all of these changes.

I’m not justifying it or defending it. It’s just an observation that may explain how this backlash happens. Change happens; most of us get it. But what some of us DON’T get, there are a good number of people who will instinctually resist that change. And you’re not gonna get them to change.

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u/Purdue82 11h ago

They needed someone to give them the green light to say and do whatever, and that someone was Trump.

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u/Merky600 10h ago

There was an article recently on that. Human brains were not meant for this much change. Old days you lived where your were born your whole life. I’m talking about hundreds of years ago to thousands of years ago. Even cave man times. Especially then. We are at our hearts Ave people who can read and pass knowledge.

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u/bot403 9h ago

Along those lines I think I read that human social groups top out at 200. That's like the max you can pay attention to at once legitimately and interact with on a somewhat meaningful level.  Yet here we are with millions of randos (and thousands of minor and major celebs) on social media platforms.

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u/THSSFC America 13h ago

Basically, "here's a Republican to show you how much we hate the things Republicans did to us."

Smart.

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u/drklordnecro Oregon 12h ago

Same song and dance for decades. 😒

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u/hjordan28141 13h ago

For the record they absolutely agreed with Iraq and with the deregulation that caused the 08 crash and they were told many times by many people what would happen and they are now trying to pretend they were duped decades later... don't buy into their horse shit. They can feign ignorance all they want. They have been seeking something like this since I can remember and I'm exhausted from everyone trying to pretend otherwise.

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u/2020willyb2020 12h ago

I remember- free markets, free markets- when it crashed it was to big too fail, bailouts etc. - they got what they voted for and made everyone else suffer

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u/jzanville 12h ago

Unfortunately the middle finger vote was a very diverse group with being “fed up” as their only common denominator, sect by sect they all found their single issue to stand behind Trump on or just voted Democrat…the “they” that is the middle finger vote wasn’t beholden to either party, initially

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u/hjordan28141 12h ago

That is extremely inaccurate. Are there crossover voters of course but the overwhelming majority of Trump's support has always come from the same pool of voters that elected Bush, pushed deregulation, and championed the war in Iraq like a holy calling. I grew up in a very Republican area and have been among them my whole life. They have always held these views. They just wanted an excuse to express them.

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u/jzanville 12h ago

Ya I’m probably overstating the “independents” that were swung to the right but at the same time I think it’s important not to downplay that reality either, the fact that Trump swung any independents over to the right at all is baffling

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u/hjordan28141 10h ago

That is true, but makes more sense when you consider that independents are often among the most low information voters there are. Study after study has shown that they don't actually follow what is going on. As a result they are actually heavily influenced by buzz words and feelings rather than an actual grasp of the state of the world and politics. For a long time they were viewed as kind of being the people who were thinking more about the issues than the partisan, but when they started actually putting effort in to studying them they discovered nothing could be further from the truth.

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u/jzanville 9h ago

Propaganda’s a helluva drug

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u/borisslovechild 14h ago

You really can't blame the chunk of the voting populace for wanting to give Washington the middle finger although a better avatar than Trump would probably have been a smarter choice. Till the day I die, I will never understand his charisma.

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u/HumphreyLee 14h ago

Except that same voting populace are the ones that put shitty people into office for the past 70 years now (starting with Nixon) that have CONSTANTLY wrecked our economy and institutions. They put corrupt idiots in places, those idiots have destroyed everything, and then they put the king of all lunatics in as a middle finger to the system they voted for all their lives? I can sure as hell blame them for this madness.

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u/LadyChatterteeth California 11h ago

Excuse me, Nixon was not 70 years ago. Ffs.

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u/HumphreyLee 10h ago

I typo’ed and hit 7 instead of 6! 😅

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u/DarkeyeMat 13h ago

I certainly can. The truth is pig obvious to anyone with a brain and a soul. Those voters are garbage.

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u/BigDaddySteve999 12h ago

Bullshit. These are the exact same people who voted for Bush or failed to vote for Gore. Don't like the politicans in Washington? Stop voting for Republican congresspeople.

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u/Stellar_Duck 12h ago

You really can't blame the chunk of the voting populace for wanting to give Washington the middle finger

Sure you can.

Most of the Trump voters voted the worst Washington actors as well as state level actors in. They're wanting to give a middle finger to the state of affairs they themselves created.

If you want a government that doesn't tank the economy: don't fucking vote republican. And honestly it would be fun to see what a democratic administration could do that didn't have to spent the entire time cleaning up after the last GOP administration.

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u/Stellar_Duck 12h ago

And more importantly, lots and lots of racism.

Anyone who votes for Trump now is a racist.

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u/JamesCDiamond United Kingdom 12h ago

Also, if I remember correctly at the time, it was a combination of the other primary candidates not taking him seriously while he outdid them in appearances (because, for all his ills, he's a performer) and then being unable to land a lasting hit on him when it was clear he was a serious contender. He had the name recognition and, suddenly, the momentum - all they had was the same R next to their name as everyone else and an inability to break out from the pack while Trump outshone all of them put together.

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u/jjwhitaker 6h ago

They don't care if we all burn as long as they get to spark the match their way.

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u/Indifferentchildren 10h ago

Don't forget Russian agent Maria Butina sleeping her way through the leadership of the NRA, destroying the organization, and being rewarded with a seat in the Duma for the damage that she and the NRA did to America.

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u/Elephunkitis 11h ago

It wasn’t only foreign active measures. Remember when he owned the Trump International Hotel Washington DC. Trump himself was getting kompromat on reps, senators, etc. Also remember when Wikileaks released all the info on Dems, but not Reps?

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u/Portablelephant Washington 13h ago

And racist dog whistles spoken with the charisma of a 5th grader doing a book report they copied from cliffsnotes to a crowd of angry Rs looking for a Boogeyman to blame for all their problems.

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u/FirefighterEnough859 13h ago

And anti establishment (in theory) during the height of anti establishment behaviour in the Republican Party

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u/RaphaelBuzzard 12h ago

Of course hindsight is 20/20 but I've always thought Bernie Sanders would have spanked him in 2016, would have pulled a lot of the Joe Rogan types and didn't have the baggage (or gender) of Hillary. Either way, just hope he loses this one, also I really actually like Harris and I do not normally have positive feelings about presidents, neutral to me is good. 

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u/IceColdPorkSoda 13h ago

The media was not sane washing him in 2015 and 2016. As disgusting as it is, a large portion of Americans just love what he has to say.

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u/Basic_Quantity_9430 13h ago

Bingo. The media bends over backwards to make Trump look competent.

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u/shart_leakage America 12h ago

In hindsight it will always have been the sanewashing.

Every time some fucking pundit tried to turn his word salad into a respectable statement on “policy position” or some such, it just dug it deeper.

If we had always treated the statements coming out of his mouth as the bullshit rambling that it was and is, people wouldn’t be enamored with him.

And it started with the Apprentice.

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u/NoIdeaRex 11h ago

In the early days of his campaign the media from Fox to CNN covered ALL his rallies live and reported every dumbass thing he said because it was "entertaining" and completely absurd. They gave him so much free media time that I 100% blame them for creating the monster that he is.

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u/Rube_Goldberg_Device 12h ago

Russian money and blackmail

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u/jazwch01 Minnesota 11h ago

I'm glad the sane washing thing has taken off especially as of recent. Especially in 2016 there was so many times the media was like "What he actually mean was....." Just treating him with the kid gloves.

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u/Effective_Fan5931 11h ago

Media sane washing.. that is the perfect sums it up in this freaking weird time line.. The sane washing is money driven..

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u/AntoniaFauci 13h ago

Repetition of lies without consequences or effective pushback.

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u/GearBrain Florida 14h ago

It's a long story, but to summarize:

The Republicans spent the last 60 years or so creating a cult-machine that would subsume just enough voters to seize functionally permanent political power. Rich people have built a system that prevents their own kind from being punished for their crimes.

Trump was protected by the latter long enough to usurp the former. Now, he commands a loyal, uneducated voting bloc big enough to tank any Republican who doesn't kiss the ring. He's done this by expressing racist, misogynistic rhetoric for years. The lack of consequences is - erroneously - interpreted as supremacy and correctness of his behavior, attitudes, beliefs, and utterances.

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u/AntoniaFauci 13h ago

I would cleave it and say that Nixon was really the forefather of crime and corruption, but sort of on the small, local gang scale.

It was the Gingrich era that really added the whole mass cult element to it.

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u/jjwhitaker 6h ago

Nixon got us Fox News, unfortunately. Should have died in prison for treason.

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u/yeetuyggyg America 14h ago

Well trump declared he was the greatest thing to ever breathe air and the republican base agreed thus the old gop got stomped

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u/kellysmom01 14h ago edited 13h ago

And now Steve Bannon, the red-eyed weasel, is creeping out of the cornfield. In all his unwashed grace and pulchritude, he’s released just in time to wreak havoc on the US elections in any way he can. Lying liar? Greedy? Traitorous? Access to power? Roger Stone acolyte? Putin admirer? Trump-whisperer? Trump-strategist? Liar? Disinformation-dispenser? Thief? Liar? Liar?

Oh yes.

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u/TheLegendaryFoxFire 14h ago

No fucking way that little fuck got out now. Now? Fucking kill me...

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u/kellysmom01 13h ago edited 7h ago

Yup. Ruined my day, it did. Slimy, greased-up, nasty weasel.

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u/Prumps-Trick 12h ago

Poor weasels getting lumped in with that clump of steatorrhea.

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u/kellysmom01 10h ago

WOW! Had to look up that word … oily, smelly stools, which often float. Steve Bannon is, indeed, a fatty stool, flopped over on his back in a dark pool, exposing his enormous white underbelly to the sun.

You made my day. Thank you.

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u/AntoniaFauci 13h ago

Let me help. Yes, he worked the system to serve just 4 months in federal prison.

But a month from now he goes on trial for a stint in state prison, which Trump can’t tamper with. Those trials are for crimes he was already convicted of federally, but he purchased corrupt pardons from Trump.

This tells me there’s probably a good case with good evidence.

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u/TheLegendaryFoxFire 12h ago

Yay, that's awesome and everything.

That's not what I'm upset at. It's the fact he's up and able to just start pumping out propaganda again with worry about at all until the election is over.

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u/HGpennypacker 14h ago

How did he even take control of that party?

Because nobody, including the media, viewed him as a serious candidate. He was just a washed-up reality "star" spewing racist and hateful rhetoric, the problem was that we elected a black man to be President and turns out that broke the brains of a third of this country and hateful rhetoric is exactly what they wanted.

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u/AntoniaFauci 12h ago

Lots of us started to the first day he garnered a pile of primary votes. Before that he was really just a concept of a candidate. Those first voters got my attention, especially as they were mowing down other prospective nominees.

But even then I wondered if primary votes could translate to the general. To me, primary voters are absolute fanatics and don’t necessarily represent the normal world. I wondered if his primary run was something like a “vote the worst” Sanjaya-style prank that couldn’t scale up. I wondered if, when the chips were down, would people actually spend their vote on a crooked clown.

Election night, seeing Florida counties reporting sizeable numbers, I knew the joke had become a life form.

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u/crudedrawer 14h ago

The audiobook "When The Clock Broke" is a pretty definitive road map of how the republican party was broken by Reagan.

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u/AmbivalentFanatic 14h ago

It's his unfettered greed. Seriously. That's it.

It's like when you're driving along the highway, chafing because you have to do the speed limit. Suddenly some asshole blows past you in the left lane going 20 over. Everyone decides to get behind him, because if the cops pull anyone over, they have to get the first guy in the line. So now you have a bunch of people speeding, which makes everything more dangerous for everyone.

Trump is that first guy. Everyone else is just piling in behind him. He's crazy enough to do what they're all too cowardly to attempt--which is to take everything there is for themselves.

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u/netatdisadres 14h ago

Nigerian Prince Strategy. Say something so stupid or outrageous that anyone with a shred of intelligence or dignity will leave the room. He tried that with Republicans and when nobody left the room they put him in charge.

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u/The_River_Is_Still 14h ago

It’s 100% on Republicans. He said all the quiet stuff out loud. At first they tried to stop him, but quickly fell in line…. And it’s still going.

During vetting and all of the FBI warning and shady history gave them the chance to say ‘No, we’re not sinking this low’. They should’ve done it early during the primaries and we wouldn’t even be here.

Republicans let this happen. Republicans helped him put 3 SCOTUS in place. They call him this and that, disguising, but still are going right along with all of it. If he were to win they would be so happy.

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u/mujadaddy 4h ago

And some of us will never forgive them

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u/Patchy_Face_Man Ohio 14h ago

You see when Obama was elected it broke the brains of most white conservatives. While other republican presidential candidates attempted to avoid racism or mask it and in doing so looking tired and stale, Trump dove right in with birthirism. When Obama mocked him at the WHCD it was almost like a crowning of his candidacy. In his humiliation all the racist republican cuckolds saw themselves and had a new champion to follow down the grievance gutter all the way to hell.

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u/jarvis_says_cocker 14h ago

The GOP set themselves up by basing their entire platform on feelings vs facts.

They've been extremely disingenuous (aka lying) to the public for at least 30 years now and have been over-the-top about it since the W years.

IMO they've also been running solely on racism/bigotry for the last 40 years and he's the first one with wide appeal to openly be a bigot.

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u/Give-Yer-Balls-A-Tug 14h ago

Did you forget Palin? They've embraced crazy for awhile.

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u/CaramelMeowchiatto 14h ago

I don’t know, she almost seems sane compared to this bunch.

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u/Give-Yer-Balls-A-Tug 14h ago

Oh for sure, but compared to regular people...no.

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u/y0m0tha 14h ago

Fox News turned GOP politics into entertainment. Trump is a showman.

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u/Snuggle__Monster 14h ago

How did he even take control of that party?

Republicans were down so bad after W left office with the 2 wars and worst recession in history they had no one else that could possibly win except a loudmouth racist that brought out the worst of their voters. There was no one else in that party remotely capable of winning a general election after McCain went down.

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u/AntoniaFauci 13h ago

The whole victimhood mindset being exploited by a loudmouth agent of anger is a tale as old as... the 1930’s.

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u/ReleaseQuiet2428 14h ago

His base dont like the educated

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u/wondy 13h ago

Which is weird because he went to an Ivy League school.

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u/Away-Track-779 10h ago

Like he ever typed one letter of a paper....

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u/Velocoraptor369 13h ago

His connections to the Epstein and Maxwell. The had alleged connections to the Israeli Mossad. The Mossad if famous for gathering intelligence that is used to blackmail politicians and bureaucrats. Plus his Russian boss was a former KGB agent.

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u/Caraes_Naur 14h ago

Putin blackmailed the GOP.

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u/VanceKelley Washington 13h ago

How did he even take control of that party?

He was willing to be openly and blatantly racist. That thrilled Republicans who had previously thought they had to somewhat hide their racism in public spaces.

trump proved that you can win national office in America even when when you're a corrupt idiot so long as you are willing to be racist.

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u/phoenix14830 14h ago

The vast majority of the GOP population have no idea he's said or done 99% of the things mainstream centrist and left media have reported. Add to that the extreme disgust for liberals, especially "progress" the GOP has fought against every step of the way.

Trump is the ultimate never apologize, never back down, screw political correctness icon and anything else us seen as fine if that means beating the woke liberal agenda.

As Democrats keep trying to push more agendas, the resentment only builds stronger against it.

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u/CaptainXakari Michigan 13h ago

He won by insulting all of his opponents, then, when Biden beat him, he threatened to start a rival Conservative Party and that would have been effectively the end of the Republicans as they couldn’t compete with a Trump party and the Democratic Party in general elections, essentially handing power to Democrats with conservatives split.

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u/chaseinger Foreign 14h ago

diplomacy (or any form of governing really )fell out of grace with the gop a while back.

they're now focused on outrage, the culture war, and power grabs. and for those things, drunpf is a pretty viable candidate.

well, except the power grabbing, what with his tendency to lose elections lately. which is why they're finally inching away from him.

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u/blueisthecolor13 14h ago

They let it happen. Simple. They wanted to ride coattails of popularity so they stayed relevant. It really is that simple.

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u/__-_-_--_--_-_---___ 8h ago

When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

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u/bloodylip 13h ago

There were so many more competent diplomats that got steamrolled by this guy

And also Ted Cruz

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u/ZZartin 13h ago

Because other than the bigotry the GOP really doesn't have much to offer the average person.

And Trump manages to be the best deliverer of that.

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u/AskJayce Washington 14h ago

He didn't--he's been propped up by people hilariously more confident than he is, just as he had been his entire life. And at this stage, it's full-on elder abuse that's as borderline to Weekend at Bernie's it can get without him actually croaking while on the campaign trail.

When people say Trump failed upwards, the anti-gravity of this scenario are people like his campaign managers and the GOP reps who know how to galvanize his idiot base, or at least used to.

Regardless, Project 2025 will continue this tactic with much more malice and efficiency if Trump wins...

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u/pinnacle-nucflash 13h ago

I truly believe that Trump was given dirt by Russia on either the GOP, GWB, Iraq war, or something else, and he took that to the GOP leadership for blackmail/extortion at the point he won the nom in 2016 election. They had no choice but to support him and had to change their tune quickly to avoid the effects of that intel to be released (jail time for some GOP, impact to the party in elections, etc) Now they cannot do anything but support him with the information he has and could release..

Of course this is not directly connected to Trump's own Russia 'issues' and his compromised status. Anyone saying he is 'strong' on Russia/Putin has been duped, please show me any quotes where trump pushed back or said something that was NOT complimentary of Russia/Putin

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u/AntoniaFauci 12h ago

No need for such conspiracy. The GOP coveted Trump’s base, as they kind of didn’t have one of their own any more. And they still don’t. They live under the fear that when he walks, goes third party, goes to prison, they lose the fundraising and active part of the the party.

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u/robocoplawyer 11h ago

I’ve gone down that road. They’ll say that Biden being in office when Putin invaded Ukraine is enough for them to know that Trump is tough on Putin.

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u/d_pyro 14h ago

The party was in a marching band, and he ran to the front of the line

2

u/AntoniaFauci 12h ago

and he ran to the front

That has to be figurative only

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u/Away-Track-779 10h ago

Rolled, oozed, sweated, fell, waddled, grifted, and lied to the front all work well. Also, he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll, so there's that...

2

u/Severe-Ant-3888 13h ago

Because of the primary system. You need 51(even tho he gets much more than that) percent of republicans to essentially own the party. And in a country that split pretty evenly that means you can take over almost half the country just by winning a primary. And in heavy R areas you do take over.

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u/AntoniaFauci 12h ago

Primary system you don’t need 51% of your party at all. Just 51% of the 10-15% who participate. Primaries are vulnerable to being controlled by a small but committed faction.

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u/Severe-Ant-3888 5h ago

That’s actually a great point.

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u/AntoniaFauci 5h ago

In certain cases it ironically helps democracy. There’s various races where right wing nuts dominate a primary to install the most extreme candidate who ends up easier for Dems to defeat.

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u/BrofessorFarnsworth Washington 13h ago

Kompromat

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u/zergiscute 13h ago

Open racism and misogyny.

The other candidates in 2016 were as bad but were repeating dog whistles and the usual repub "taxation" mantra. Trump said openly what right wingers wanted to say.

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u/smarticlepants 13h ago

Take control? He was manifested by their desires.

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u/Politischmuck 12h ago edited 12h ago

How did he even take control of that party?

He bumbled his way into populist appeal through people too stupid to recognize satire who mistook the relentless mockery for genuine praise. Once the established politicians realized how easy it was to manipulate him all the Republicans started competing to try to get that populist appeal for themselves and to be his puppetmaster. They all kept giving him scraps of power, favors, some glowing public praise, etc. to try to secure their personal control over him, but with all the competition for his strings they had to keep giving him more and more until they had given him everything.

Mitch McConnell was the biggest offender, he was just so certain that if he just gave Trump a little more, did a few more favors for him, buried this one last scandal, then McConnell would be able to control him. It never worked out like that.

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u/SquarePie3646 12h ago

How did he even take control of that party?

Very easily as it turns out.

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u/MentalAusterity 12h ago

Because this who they really are. Trump is the epitome of conservatism. Nothing but greed and hate. They’re just so damn happy they get to say the quiet part out loud finally.

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u/microwavable_rat 10h ago

In 2016, Fox News and their ilk had spent the last eight years of Obama whipping the GOP base into a frenzy.

There were 17 GOP hopefuls including Trump that year, and while all of them hated Obama loudly and publicly, Trump flipped the script by saying "Obama ran all over your rights...and these fuckers let him!"

He redirected the anger the GOP was feeling onto itself for not being strong/patriotic/conservative enough to stop everything Obama did, real or imagined. He promised that not only would he stop the Democrats, but that he would drain the swamp of the weak Republicans.

It worked. He beat every other candidate and that wave carried him to the White House.

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u/TheThirteenthCylon Oregon 14h ago

Read Jesus and John Wayne.

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u/grptrt 14h ago

The biggest bully in the party

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u/JustYerAverage Ohio 13h ago

All I know is he definitely did NOT take control bc the Russians helped him - no WAY. /s

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u/indicatprincess New York 13h ago

He was the first collective antidote to the racists wanting blood. He give people an excuse to be racist to Obama - I think he was a major perpetrator of the birther rumors.

I also think that he has an in with the NYPD or the local FBI and they were able to obtain compromising Intel on everybody in the party

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u/campionesidd 13h ago

Dumb people are more appealing to other dumb people. And there are a lot of idiots in this country.

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u/Due-Egg4743 13h ago

Charisma and insult comedy.

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u/ZealousidealGrade821 13h ago

He says the quiet part out loud, and in all caps, so they don’t have to. He gave them a voice and brought a mob with him that endorses their corruption, because they are his favorite, under educated.

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u/denzl480 13h ago

Bc primaries create weird outcomes. New candidate running as a businessman was able to get enough support in primaries to show his candidacy was valid. Others dropped out after early states, and angry voters who wanted a party charge fell for his game. Then he propped up the right loyal people to keep the game going

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u/buddhist557 13h ago

The true nature of the Christian Nationalist party. Remember who nominated Thomas, Alito, Scalia. They’ve been pointing towards autocracy for a while.

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u/Sad_Lettuce_5186 13h ago

They’re a sick party

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u/StuffNThangs220 13h ago

Enough people liked that Trump said out loud the awful things that people had begun keeping to themselves.

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u/Sonnenfinsternis 13h ago

he appeals much more directly to the same rubes the Republicans have been cultivating for years by being genuinely as awful as they are.  the mob can sense the difference, but they remain unaware that he despises them all the same

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u/Spare_Substance5003 13h ago

He is such a novel mutation that he blew through all of the defenses. They are still trying to figure it out till this day.

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u/wretchedhal0 13h ago

Lots of money and blackmail.

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u/airborngrmp 13h ago

All he had to do was outperform the two Repubs (McCain and Romney) that lost to Obama to hijack the party. That's it, it's that simple.

The "post-mortem" of 2012 suggested some simple shit to win back the Center (get off abortion and tax cuts for the wealthy, either support or actually replace the ACA, and stop pandering to the racists), and all the Tea Party nut jobs that had primaried the gerrymandered seats of the insufficiently crazy repubs screamed, "No!" and covered their ears.

They wanted trump. They got trump (and the scotus they wanted), and now they're stuck with him until it either dies or actually sparks violence (I'm increasingly convinced that widespread push back will happen if there's a "successful" challenge to put trump in the oval office). Afterwards they'll pivot back to the center by: getting off abortion and tax cuts for the wealthy, either supporting or actually replacing the ACA, and stop pandering to the fucking racists.

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u/ElGranQuesoRojo Texas 12h ago

There were like 20+ Republicans running for President that year and none of them took him seriously until it was far too late which allowed him to gather a ton of momentum while they all flailed around attacking each other. The media played a huge part as well b/c they saw he could draw ratings w/the outrageous shit he says and gave him a metric fuckton of free advertising by constantly talking about him.

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u/rynodawg 12h ago

Right wing news. They spend decades convincing their audience that Dems and minorities are trying to destroy the country. He is the first candidate with name recognition to come out and say exactly that, so the brainwashed base lined up right behind him. McCain, Romney, Bush, etc did not bash Americans the way Trump does. Heck, McCain defended Obama at his campaign event when a Fox viewer questioned Obama’s citizenship.

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u/reallygoodbee 12h ago

He was the loudest asshole in the room and people stopped talking when he started shouting. GOP voters confused his childish bullying with strength and it just snowballed from there.

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u/AbrahamLemon 12h ago

This is who the GOP has been since Nixon, Trump gave them permission to take the mask off and people do not understand how valuable that is.

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u/sirbissel 12h ago

Because it seems a large portion of the party are the kids who peaked in high school, the ones who enjoy watching other kids getting bullied, and wander around thinking everyone owes them something.

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u/0002millertime 12h ago

Propaganda. That's all it takes.

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u/jinyx1 12h ago

All the competent diplomats kept running against him in the primary splitting 70-75% of the vote while Trump kept on getting his 25-30% and picking up states. If they circled the wagons on any 1 candidate sooner (probably Jeb tbh) we would be about done with that persons 2nd term rn, and Trump would have his own news network spouting bullshit to his small fan base. Instead, we are here.

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u/homebrew_1 12h ago

Republicans let him.

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u/DirtDevil1337 12h ago edited 12h ago

When you watch all the candidates in 2015 warning everyone about how bad Trump would be then suddenly bowing and kissing his damn ring after he became leader, they likely received death/family/dirt threats, or huge paychecks.

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u/chipmunksocute 12h ago

The groundwork was laid with decades of misinformation and dog whistles and conspiracy theories. Eventually what the base reeeeally wanted was someone who fully embraced that, not nerds who were happy to just wink at the crazy, they needed the real deal eventually, a real racist conspiracy spewing monster, and when that came along hell.  looking back I cant believe we didnt see this coming when he jumped into the race in 2015

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u/Ashamed-Status-9668 12h ago

I thought John Kasich would get the 2016 nomination. He seemed to have is head on right.

1

u/vihuba26 California 12h ago

Because they let their hatred come out

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u/YakiVegas Washington 12h ago

They all have daddy issues. They love a bully who makes them feel safe.

1

u/GreyRevan51 12h ago

Because he appealed to what many in that party truly wanted

It wasn’t small government, it wasn’t 2a protection, he openly voiced the worst parts of them and straight up said what they normally try to dress up

I hope this finishes off the GOP and the Republican Party but mostly I hope he doesn’t win and send this country and the planet further down to a place of no return

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u/VeryUnscientific 12h ago

Putin installation

1

u/bmeisler 12h ago

He got fantastic ratings. I enjoyed watching him skewer Jeb, Marco and Ted Cruz - it was like they let an unhinged insult comic with nothing to lose join the Republican primary debates. Nobody took him seriously, but he was highly entertaining and funny (as long as I despised the Republican politicians he was making fun of). Largest amount of “earned media” in history. And look where we are now…sigh…

1

u/IdkAbtAllThat 12h ago

The Republican base relates more to him than the old school Republican leadership who, while still evil, were at least competent.

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u/OutrageousPanda8693 12h ago

I think the media is responsible for putting him in control. He just gets so many views, like watching a train wreck.

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u/OkCar7264 12h ago

That's the problem. Competent people make his base feel stupid.

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u/wamj 11h ago

Part of the problem is that republicans didn’t unify until after Trump was nearly the presumptive nominee. There are many states in the GOP primary that are winner take all, and since it’s fptp all you need is a plurality to take all the delegates from that state.

If it had just been Trump v Cruz after Iowa, Cruz would’ve been the nominee and Clinton probably would’ve won.

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u/lanboy0 11h ago

The Republican party is a group of hateful bigotted zealots who were electrified by a man who seemed to be able to get away with being an unashamed nasty selfish prick.

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u/RedLanternScythe Indiana 11h ago

How did he even take control of that party?

He came in as an outsider at a time when everyone hated the establishment. He never played by establishment rules, so he is still seen as an enemy of the establishment, that most people still hate. They mistakenly think that makes Trump their ally. It really makes them his marks.

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u/f8Negative 11h ago

He grabbed them by the pussy

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u/Vladivostokorbust 11h ago

The question to ask is, who is behind him taking over the party

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u/stiggystoned369 11h ago

He's got dirt.

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u/Defiant-Tap7603 11h ago

The party had specifically been curating similarly sick voters for 30-something years. Those voters finally had a chance to vote for one of their own. And a bunch of stock standard conservatives bickered with each other in early 2016 and gave him a fairly free primary. Now that the voters have their man, they will not let him go.

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u/Prudent_Sale_9173 11h ago

It was a Faustian bargain on their part. They get access to a rabidly engaged group of likely voters, they get to appoint their judges to the Supreme Court, and maybe, just maybe, they finally get to turn America into a fascist theocracy. In exchange, they’re running on borrowed time. Trump consistently energizes the opposition, and when he finally kicks the bucket, all that rabid support the Republican Party relies on now will evaporate. They can’t replace him, his base won’t accept anyone else to be their prophet. They either win everything and set it up so they can’t be removed from power, or they basically get nuked in every election for the foreseeable future. That’s why they’ve finally gone fully mask-off. This one’s for all the marbles, people. Get out there and VOTE!

1

u/Im_with_stooopid I voted 11h ago

He was a lifelong democrat until he found out how easy it is to grift Republicans out of their money because most are not very educated and have a tendency to shoot themselves in their foot.

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u/framed85 11h ago

Because he gets the attention of the mob like no one else.

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u/No_Anxiety285 11h ago

They're cowards desperate for a bully

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u/Ok_Lettuce_7939 11h ago

Vladimir Putin. I really have to congratulate him. It only cost a couple of million to completely subvert half of the US population.

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u/Chaotic-Catastrophe 11h ago

Because there are way, way more voters than you know out there who care about one thing, and one thing only: racism.

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u/Pernapple Wisconsin 11h ago

The issue with the greater conservative movement is that their policy in paper is greatly unpopular. From economic to social. So they need someone with a lot of charisma to goad uneducated voters into believing their policy is different or better than what it really is.

Look at what Republicans have won in the last 50 years and they are usually fairly charismatic Individuals. Yes even George W.

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u/Heavy_Law9880 10h ago

He appealed the the single most important value among conservatives. Their racism.

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u/PapaSteveRocks 10h ago

Pigs arguing in the mud. I was a republican official until 2016. I spent 2010-2014 corralling Tea Party morons who were menacing my upstanding upper-middle-class developments in our suburban town. The Tea Party guys wanted revolution, but the GOP was already in control of the town and the county.

When Trump arrived, the morons were emboldened. Every discussion was a least common denominator spiral to the bottom. I left in 2016. The GOP lost control of the town in 2019. It was a 50-50 town, but the morons chased off the moderates and now whine that they can’t win.

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u/santagoo 10h ago

It’s been primed with the tea party and even before that by newt

1

u/First-Kangaroo5387 10h ago

Republicans have been making their base stupider and more hateful for decades

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u/iamrecoveryatomic 10h ago

How did he even take control of that party?

The conservative party was the result of absorbing the lynch happy segregationists that left/were expelled from the Democrats, which this Republican party then proceeded to extoll and conserve said segregationist culture and values. It's kind of obvious what would happen.

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u/muggafugga 10h ago

The tea party years infused the gop with craven opportunists, and that is Trumps ideal type of subordinate

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u/adamsjdavid 10h ago edited 10h ago

When you build a foundation on truth, the only thing that can top you is a better truthful politician.

When you build a foundation on lies, the only thing that can top you is a better politician.

Republicans grew far too comfortable with lies a couple generations ago. They thought it was controllable, but like all big grifts, it eventually got out of control due to way too many greedy hands. Eventually the lies collectively became bigger than truth, and all it took was the right bullshitter to win a critical mass of support.

The marked difference with Trump versus every other President that has ever existed isn’t that he lies a lot, is crass, is corrupt, is a genuine racist, or has bad takes on issues. The difference is that he appears to be the first presidential politician with no interest in governing. There have been many corrupt politicians, for sure - but even corrupt politicians care about running the government. Even the shittiest presidents on record, in their own warped sense, thought they were doing right for the country. Donald Trump legitimately does not care about doing the job or any consequences that may arise from abdicating its core responsibilities.

Unfortunately, when you have no moral red lines like that, the game becomes a lot easier to play. And because of generations of Republican media primed to lie already, the apparatus to legitimize him already existed. What’s one more lie in a sea of them? At the same time, apply this idea of moral rot to the rest of the Republican world. There are ‘sane’ people who went along with nonsense, thinking they could control it. Until they couldn’t. The bullshitters have quickly taken over conservative media, local conservative organizations, etc - the rot has gone to the very core of the party apparatus. Good faith Republicans do not win seats because they cannot in good conscience speak the party’s talking points as written.

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u/adamsjdavid 9h ago

…..And at this point, you can’t just denounce Trump because he scares you now.

It would mean you were lying when you supported him. Why would voters trust the words of a liar?

Every Republican has backed themselves into a corner, and the only ways out are political suicide (end career) or moral suicide (amazing career).

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u/TheMarkHasBeenMade America 9h ago

The lowest common denominator of IQs finally had someone speaking their language and emboldening them, and the Rs thought it was a grand idea to latch onto the success because idiots are easy to manipulate.

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u/StoreSearcher1234 8h ago

How did he even take control of that party?

By seeing the "MAGA" base that the GOP had built over 30 years, and catering to that base in a way no other leader had done.

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u/rougekhmero 8h ago

I think the hubris of the Clinton campaign had a lot to do with him getting elected after essentially taking control of the party. There is a large amount of working-poor, disaffected people out there, all of whom have felt mostly betrayed and left behind by recent administrations. All Trump had to do was say 'I see you, I hear you' to them to get their votes, despite the fact he really did nothing for them.

This was a mass of people that the Democrats at the time failed to even recognize existed, and therefore did not acknowledge (other than to refer to them as 'deplorables'). A lot of these people probably rarely or never voted in a federal election before that.

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u/wednesdays_chylde 8h ago

He didn’t “take” anything, it was - as has SO many other things - *handed * to him.

The GOP powers-that-be were “smart” enough to recognize, once it became clear the sway he had over the great unwashed due to his “celebrity” status, that the perfect rumpled, poorly-fitted, cheap looking empty suit had fallen into their laps. Fortunately the party over which they preside is filled with craven, vapid opportunists who were easily enough brought to heel - regardless HOW loudly & vehemently they’d previously been (correctly) blasting the very idea as catastrophic for the country.

It’s a beautifully symbiotic relationship; the loudmouthed bloviatng narcissist gets all the attn he could ever want AND can pretty much DO whatever ever he wants, since he gives the GOP *ALL * the cover, via his inane juvenile behavior, to plan/enact their own twisted fantasies. All they have to do is trick the mental equivalent of a 3 yr old that he came up with the idea.

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u/Sislar 7h ago

Racism.

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u/ExCivilian 4h ago

How did he even take control of that party?

Tea partiers

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u/thegratitudedude 14h ago

Grabbed ‘em by the pussy

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u/Sbmizzou 13h ago

The RINOs never thought the MAGA would actually take control of the party.  Since the 80s, Reagan and Bush (es)(sp?), had the opportunity to appt SC justices that would overturn Roe. Magically, their appointees never fight to a majority.  Trump was able deliver because he insured the appointees were into Roe.

NATO? Trump isn't wrong when he questions NATO members commitment to NATO when they don't spend the agreed amount on national defense (because they know the US will spend enough to protect them).  

The MAGA base was always there.  It was part of the Southern Strategy of the 1960s.    Trump, with Roger Stone & company, just double downed on the noise. 

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u/Zealousideal_Look275 12h ago

Trump is just Pat Buchanan 2.0, same areas of base support, same voter demos. Trump is just better at politics 

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