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They shouldn't be "happy with him" though. He beat a far better candidate in the current primary based on voter ignorance, glib charm and lies, likely will lose in the general and sell you down the river again if he wins. He doesn't believe in anything except his narcissism.
Who?
Nikki Haley is not a serious candidate. DeSantis was nowhere near as strong as Trump either.
DeSantis was far superior - not so old, not indicted, hasn't lost to Biden once already, not involved in a bunch scandals, can serve two terms, not obese, better on handling Covid, not related to Kushner, on the right of Trump on various issues, etc.
Those are all kind of nice I guess, but the negatives of "being part of the GOP establishment" are just too big. It wouldn't matter if you pulled out a Dragonball Z power-level scouter and got an objective reading that Desantis had a political powerlevel ten times higher than Trump's - he's not on the same team nor does he actually care about the needs and wants of the base.
It's not 2016 anymore. Trump is integrated with the GOP establishment now. RNC chair Ronna McDaniel was his toadie. He endorsed both previous speaker McCarthy and current speaker Johnson.
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I preferred DeSantis too. But elections are contests and it was Trump's job to beat him, which he did, fairly; it would be silly for someone whose preference is DeSantis > Trump > Biden to punish Trump for doing so by not voting for him (or even voting for Biden) in the general.
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Trump is currently poised to beat Biden in the general. MAGA likes Trump and Trump likes MAGA. J6 or whatever aside, no politician in America today has withstood as much pressure as Trump, and if Trump wanted to sell out his base, he could have. We could argue all day about this, but your complaints to me don't add anything that hasn't been debated a million times before.
Twenty years ago before MAGA even existed, its precursors like the Tea Party had almost no institutional support. Ten years ago, the conservative faction was represented by people like Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor, and Trump's nomination was hotly, hotly contested. Today, MAGA is the dominant faction in Republican politics, even marshaling the commitment to unseat a Speaker of the House, and establishment Republicans have largely made peace with Trump as the leader. Like it or hate it, MAGA is proving effective at taking over the Republican Party. In light of that, it's hard to argue that MAGA is especially irrational. They are clearly one of the most effective factions currently operating in American politics.
"MAGA" from the 2016 campaign trail or "MAGA" from the 'legal immigration is actually good for the economy' that Trump started parroting in office after one too many a meeting with the fine folks from the Heritage Foundation?
"MAGA" is an empty political slogan that one too many 'right wing' American pours all their hopes and dreams into. It's vague enough to fit all of them. Vote for change!
To give a factual example of why "MAGA" is a marketing thing and not a political thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2018_United_States_federal_government_shutdown
"MAGA", if it ever was a thing, caved in, got on all fours and kissed the ring of TPTB. No wall, no deportations, more immigration. That has been its state ever since.
What happened to illegal and legal immigration numbers when Trump was in office?
Illegal immigration enforcement had its worst years since the establishment of ICE in 2003.
Legal immigration fell during COVID but otherwise it only slightly decreased.
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Tea party was about fiscal responsibility. At the end of Trump administration US was close to outright socialism, with the stimmy checks, rent moratorium and unemployment paying more than a minimum wage job. If Tea party mutated into that, that's some real "Cthulhu only swims left" stuff. Your guy wins a popularity contest and you completely lose any mission objective along the way.
Some people (you) will never be happy. But, by the standards most people would use, MAGA is increasingly successful. Your drive-by caricature-summaries aren't persuasive or accurate.
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