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Notes -
Trump is a symptom of polarization, not a cause. He suspended his campaign in 2012 when it was clear he wasn’t going to go anywhere, in 2016 he cleared the field and hasn’t had a serious GOP rival since.
Why? Well, I would point to the actions of the center-left establishment as pushing conservatives into hostility. Obviously there’s the just, blatant, lies about everything from the media. But in Obama’s second term you also had fast and furious, you had democrats aggravating racial tensions for shits and giggles, you had the IRS targeting scandal, you had Obama himself moving from a polarizing but broadly popular figure into a progressive ideologue partisan. Then you’ve had the Biden admin targeting conservatives, with EG going after pro-life activists for three-felonies-a-day stuff while ignoring attacks on churches and pregnancy resource centers.
I recall reading a CNN journalist once writing, with great concern, that 40% of Americans think democrats want to take their guns away and force them to let trans in their bathrooms. It didn’t seem to occur to her that this was because democrats keep saying they’re going to do those things.
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