Is There ANYTHING Trump Could do that MAGA Voters Wouldn't Support or Tolerate?

Although I'm probably in the minority once the tariff-induced inflation and recession start actually affecting the economy even his loyal supporters of MAGA will start abandoning him. So far they've bought into Trump's narrative and have indicated that they're willing to tolerate short term pain for Trump's narrative of long term gain. I suspect that's very likely to change after three or four months of higher prices, shortages and increasing unemployment. They say that they have no problem with paying higher prices when the inflation is a hypothetical. That's very likely to change when the hypothetical becomes a reality.

 

He was from a time when the parties weren't ideologically sorted (and when things like abortion only mattered to Catholics), but he more or less compromised himself and sold himself out with the people that now run the GOP, so dont be too nostalgic. And his shitty ass sons prostrated themselves even more.

 

I hated the idea of Jeb in 2016, but I'd take him in retrospect. Definitely more like his dad than GWB, who wasn't a bad guy, just a weak guy who let others lead him by the nose. Dad may have seemed understated, but was anything but a weak man. Flew TBF Avengers off carriers in WWII, had a story nearly if not as harrowing as PT-109, led Yale to 2 CWS titles. . .

There's a good documentary on him (American Experience) and in the latter half they touch on Nancy Reagan calling him a "wimp" during the election. Then reeled off all the stuff GHWB DID that Reagan pretended to do as an actor. Brilliant editing!

 

Ah, Jeb the guy who put Florida on its path to becoming the California of Mississippis ... I dont get the the nostalgia. Sure all these people you have mentioned were Lawful Evil instead of Chaotic Evil, and that is I suppose more predictable and comfortable. Jeb isnt going to watch a movie and decide to bring back Alcatraz or because he's envious of some dictator's megaprison. He'll just give state money to build more private prisons and keep the unions out.

 

Funny thing is, he did increase taxes. Tariffs are a tax on American business, passed on to US consumers who ultimately pay them. He also did away with the de mimimus exemption, so consumers have to pay the tax directly on small personal orders….

Not a peep from the Trumpsters…

 

I should refine that to corporate and income taxes. Conservatives love regressive taxes, especially if consumption driven. Tax burdens are for the peasants, not the lords.

 

BTW I would suggest the book A World After Liberalism ... its a good survey of conservative thought that explicitly rejects liberalism (all from people who lived during the time of ascendant liberalism) ... the ideas presented there seem much more in step with conservativism now than Friedman, Burke or whatever.

 

I think you are right that there is threat of an illiberal right (though many have complained over the last decade of an illiberal left as well), and this is the essence of the fears of the four conservatives I highlighted above. Indeed, I think each would say they are an intellectual descendent of people like Locke, Smith, and Madison. I think their fears are the right ones to have. Passing some conservative leaning laws isn’t the end of the world, even if you are a progressive. But a world where the Supreme Court can’t check the president and laws can be passed against particular groups is basically the end of the American experiment. These conservatives don’t understand that. It is true that some of our more progressive posters have called for packing the Supreme Court, which would be essentially thing. But Biden and his team never actually made a move in that direction.

I am more optimistic about the future of the American right however. There has never be a 20-30 year period where both parties haven’t changed in significant ways, and I don’t assume that will start now. Still, I am quite disheartened at the current state of the right.

 

I'll give you that. But, again, context matters here. And, yes, I would kill for an "enemy" like that instead of a full-blown retard and his band of merry dipshits.

 

Brooks openly says Burke (interview I watched the other day).

The far left and the far right are THE problem. That's why I long for a Sulla type who will "Proscribe" the shit out of both sides. Thus, short of some kind of a military takeover, the "solution" to Trump will be something equally stupid and destructive from the left. "Normies" are the bad guys now. GHWB - or for that matter GWB or Obama - isn't walking through that door anytime soon.

Thanks MAGA. Yet another thing I'll add to the list of grievances when retribution time comes calling.

 

It’s funny that you should mention this book. I just finished Jonathan Rauch’s Cross Purposes, where he reviews the post-liberal movement in conservatism, and that was one of the books he uses as a prominent example, along with Why Liberalism Failed and Regime Change, among others. It’s a bit terrifying for me.

 

That’s how voter fraud happens

 

Why is that? You are on campuses I assume. The young Republicans arent reading Hayek and Burke, they are reading (if they are reading) Bronze Age Pervert and Sam Francis. I dont think anyone under 40 entering Republican politics has any affinity with liberal values like they did a few decades ago. That seems like it will be a problem. The only optimism I have is that people hate their ideas and they dont have anyone that can sell them like Trump. But the American political system is perfectly equipped not to punish them as long as they have a foil that enough people wont vote for.

 

I thought it was a good read. The 5 thinkers they cover are such weird little guys. It was like reading Bolano's novel Nazi Literature in the Americas, but for real life.

 

Oh I agree that kids aren’t reading Burke and Hayek. I don’t have any insight into exactly where the American right is going. Again, I am just using past a predictor, where change has been constant. 30 years ago we had HW Bush vs Clinton. Pretty different set of values and characters on both sides. I just can’t see MAGA being where the right still is in 30 years.