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He literally just ran a campaign wherein he successfully appealed to voters. Have you tried looking at his actual appeals to voters, and what voters say they found persuasive about them?
What about the wars? What about cost disease? What about culture war? What about Institutional trust and social cohesion?
This all seems quite straightforward to me, and I'm at a loss where the confusion is coming from. Blue Tribe achieved a high degree of social and political dominance. They became The System. They then failed to deliver appreciable progress, and their failed efforts burned institutional trust and social cohesion. Because of that loss, the public is now rebelling against them en-masse.
I wanted to vote against the dominant foreign policy consensus, typified by endless, pointless foreign wars. Trump seems like the best candidate available to do that.
I wanted to vote against the dominant economic consensus, typified by offshoring and free trade, the service economy and the decline of industrialization. Trump seems like at least one of the best candidates possible to do that.
I wanted to vote against the dominant social consensus, and particularly against the repeated and coordinated attempts at forcing epistemic closure on the part of major political, media and corporate institutions. Again, Trump.
I want to vote against rule by an unelected, unresponsive and uncontrollable federal bureaucracy. Again, Trump.
I want to vote against crime and unaccountable political violence. Again, Trump.
I want to vote against entrenched corruption on the part of government officials. Again, Trump.
I want to vote against censorship and propaganda coordination between the government and major media corporations. Again, Trump.
I want to vote against the disastrous educational policies that have been shambling forward like a zombie for the last fifty years or so. Again, Trump.
None of this even seems to require "multicausal" explanations. I want to break the social and political dominance of Blue Tribe. All of these are just expressions of that dominance, and the insulation from consequence or accountability that has resulted from that dominance. And sure, there's a lot of Trump voters who probably wouldn't describe their view in the way I have above: they'd say something like "everything's gone to shit" or "I don't trust the democrats or the media" or something along those lines. Tomato, tomahto.
Trump had many failures last time. But given the record of how his last administration went, it's hard for me to grasp an argument that the problem was Trump, and not the entrenched elites working to foil and destroy him from the second the 2016 election ended. This goes well beyond immigration, into a whole variety of very serious illegalities and norm violations taken in an effort to end or at least stonewall his presidency and to protect his opponents.
A lot of people support Trump because they want to fight back against a system they perceive to be deeply pernicious and entirely insulated from accountability. They want that system removed, because its continued existence forecloses their ability to hope for a better future.
Where it gets complicated is that at least some of these things could theoretically be achieved by other Republicans like DeSantis who wouldn't have Trump's ability to make unforced errors (with an idiot-savant ability to tell how much his party is willing to tolerate).
And yet, Trump blew them all out in the primary.
You're neglecting the other dynamic among high-participation GOP voters (the ones most likely to turn out for the primary, as well as to volunteer, donate, etc.) - that of the "former partisan who took his institutional role and oath of office seriously" once installed, i.e. discovered a strange new respect for the status quo once he actually faced the prospect of having to implement his prior policies on a disapproving department he now ran. The formerly rock-ribbed conservative jurist who suddenly is desperate to find any way to avoid actually implementing the positions he enunciated before being put on the bench. The bright firebrand Jim Hacker getting sabotaged by suave Sir Humphrey Appleby and immediately caving.
There was, and remains, a desperate hunger for conservatives who can credibly signal they will actually do the things they campaign on instead of just getting absorbed into the DC liberal borg.
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Desantis's entire campaign which burned through hundreds of millions of dollars was a train of unforced errors from horrible staff picks to position picks
basic interaction with Trump supporters should make clear they thought Desantis was a fraud like so many other Republicans, especially ones with neocon tendencies who claim their idol is George HW Bush
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DeSantis was not working to achieve these things prior to the rise of Trump in 2016. He fell in line behind Trump after Trump was already ascendant. If the Blues can successfully destroy Trump, I am not confident he will not simply tack back to the center. He is efficient and effective, but not reliable.
Blues have made destruction of Trump an overriding priority, and therefore a legible proxy for their control. Reds, it seems to me, correctly perceive defense against such destruction as a Schelling point to coordinate around. We believe that our own party has been grifting us for decades, and we are attempting to weed out the grifters, to align the party with our values in fact rather than only in appearance. Part of that is rejecting the sort of "compromises" that have been used for decades to sell those values out. A good way to avoid those compromises with our enemies is to force them to compromise with us instead. Trump is excellent at accomplishing this, and the "never Trump" movement has successfully removed a large proportion of these people from our party.
If Trump had lost the primary, the argument would be that "Trumpism" had clearly failed, and that it was time for "moderation" and "reconciliation" and for the Republican Party to "regain its sanity". In other words, total capitulation to the Blue consensus. We know this because this was the argument for why it was a mistake for the Republican party to support Trump in 2024. And if it had worked, the argument would have smoothly transitioned to "The republican party is still tainted by the shadow of Trump, and all his supporters/policy goals/constituency must be purged". And once this was accomplished, in another few years all the articles about how the current Republican candidate was actually Hitler would start back up, and Cthulhu would continue swimming left. We need our leadership to reject the authority of Blue Tribe in total. We need them to ignore and delegitimize the media and the knowledge production apparatus generally. We need them to break the bureaucracy. They can't do that if they're convinced that fighting is doomed and "compromise" with Blues is the only path forward.
Except that this raises the question of whether elected Republicans can. I've long held that the reason past Republicans that promised action have perpetually sold out once in office — have "discovered a strange new respect for the status quo" and been "absorbed into the DC liberal borg," to quote @Supah_Schmendrick, is not because it's full of "grifters" who were lying from the start and needed weeded out, but because on arrival they found out how DC actually works. That is to say, it isn't because they never actually wanted to do these things, it's because they learned they can't. That they are mostly a figurehead, and as such, they can join in maintaining the kayfabe and enjoy the perks, or they can engage in a futile struggle that risks making a lot of enemies if it ends up threatening the illusion (since plenty of the perks of everyone's jobs depend on maintaining it).
In other words, what if the reason Republicans keep ending up "convinced that fighting is doomed and "compromise" with Blues is the only path forward" is because it's true. What if Blue control is so strong that not even the President, both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court all together aren't enough to remove it? Plenty of people seem to think that if losing slowly via "compromise with Blues" is the best on offer from our electoral system, then we should take it and count it as a "win" because it's better than the alternative.
Is the alternative burning it down? A quick hot fire can lead to renewal.
No, in this context I meant "Democrat electoral victory." I'm talking about the people who acknowledge that the most the Republican party does is slow the boiling of the proverbial frog, but consider that a "win" and a reason to keep voting GOP, because it's preferable to the faster "boiling" when the Dems are in charge. That "losing slowly" is a "win" when the game is a choice between "losing slowly" and "losing quickly."
You know, the view that's like: "Well, under the new 'bipartisan' 'compromise' on 'reasonable' gun control, a lot of us are going to have to give up some of our guns — and will likely have to give up more the next time we have to 'compromise' — but it's still a 'win' because it's not the total confiscation the Left wants, so keep voting Republican."
Oh.
I'd rather see it all on fire than more of that kind of 'win'.
Understandable and relatable; but, in my experience, there's a lot more people on the American right who will content themselves with that kind of "win" than there are ones like us.
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