Comment on Would America be as divided if Trump lost to Hillary in 2016?
SleezyDizasta@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Hillary is pretty divisive herself, and there was bound to be another Trump like candidate in the next election who would makes waves. Trump is a symptom, not the source
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
Exactly, without Trump all the bigotry in the US doesn’t just evaporate. It’s still there and there’s still a sizable portion of voters that want that.
xmunk@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Oh, it’s definitely still there but it’d still be considered fringe. Trump normalized hate groups in a manner we haven’t seen before.
SleezyDizasta@lemmy.world 3 months ago
In my opinion, MAGA officially crossed the line from being a fringe political movement and into a genuine cult after 2020. It was pretty bad starting all the way back during his first campaign in 2015 and it got gradually worse over the years. However, during 2020 MAGA turned into an actual national security threat, not once, but twice. First, during the anti-vaxx shit were they literally denying the existence of the virus, or even worse, they were actively mocking the people who died, and then again after they lost the election and attempted the coup.
Any sane conservative who didn’t nope out pretty early on in his term distanced themselves after Jan 6th. The only people who still supported Trump after what he did were the ones that worshipped him. Since Jan 6, 2021 Trump’s MAGA consist of people who will follow him no matter what, will listen to whatever he says no matter how false or dangerous, and will unironically want him as a dictator. I think the cult thing became most apparent when supporters were wearing diapers in a show of support for him… that’s so batshit crazy that it leaves me speechless.