When I say Trump is not special, I mean his politics fall comfortably on a spectrum between neocons and Tea Party Republican and his preening reality TV persona and alternating gleeful and sulking narcissism are fairly typical for that type of conservative.

Trump's only innovation was to unapologetically say the quiet part out loud and get away with it, bringing the GOP's racism, misogyny, and desire for white supremacist, monarchal rule to the forefront, but Republicans and the media were eager to enable him from the start.
It could have been anyone, though. You can see guys like Jim Jordan and even Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham wish they'd done it first. Because the GOP and their rabid white supremacist base were fully primed for someone to come along and say and do what Trump did.
Once Trump won, the entire GOP folded into Trumpism overnight because there was never any practical difference between them. The early worriers like Graham merely feared it wouldn't work and there would be a political price to pay. It turns out: not really. The base ate it up.
The media spent about a year trying to spin Trump as a continuation of "respectable" Republicanism or in tension with them before they caught on that conservatives didn't care and just started repeating his lies with a shrug.
There's an argument to be made that Trump's sheer ridiculousness made it easier to shrug off his "rhetorical excesses" at first, but we could just as easily have ended up with a "sober" fascist saying the same things and with the same full-throated GOP support.

We still might.
Clown car conservatism goes hand in hand with its most violent and fascist elements, and with white conservatives gnashing their teeth at Obama and then Clinton, it was inevitable the Marco Rubios of the party would get passed over for someone like Trump or worse.

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What does "patriots in control" mean?
What would that "look like" in reality?


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Hunter Biden's book is categorized as "Chinese


TIME admits to "conspiracy" to "not rig, rather


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This is partly what makes it impossible to have a constructive conversation nowadays. The stubborn refusal to accept that opposition to Trumpism and GOP nationalism is about more than simply holding different beliefs about things in and of itself. 👇


It's fine for people to hold different beliefs. But that doesn't mean all beliefs deserve equal treatment or tolerance and it doesn't mean intolerance of some beliefs makes a person intolerant of every belief which they don't share.

So if I said I don't think Trumpism deserves to be tolerated because it's just a fresh 21st century coat of cheap paint on a failed, dangerous 20th century ideology (fascism) that doesn't mean I'm intolerant of all beliefs with which I disagree. You'd think this would be obvious.

Another important facet. People who support fascist movements tend to give what they think are valid reasons for supporting them. That doesn't mean anyone is obliged to tolerate fascism or accept their proffered excuse.


Say you joined a neighborhood group that sets up community gardens and does roadside beautification projects. All good, right? Say one day you're having a meeting and you notice the President and exec board of this group are saying some bizarre things about certain neighbors.

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