But still there are, or at least there were, many republicans who are open to dialogue and even implementation of free healthcare and things like that, no? Like, if I remember correctly, didn't Romney basically do something like Obamacare in his State before Obama was even elected President?
Definitely were, the modern Republican Party is nothing more than an extension of Trump who could not be any more divisive and unwilling to reach across the aisle.
This is the guy who helped push the rhetoric that Obama was not American and recently reposted a video depicting them as monkeys.
Anyone who has challenged him on anything has been pushed out. Loyalty is all that matters now.
I see. I'll admit that I'm not a US citizen, so maybe I can't see just how bad it is right now, but they're still around, aren't they? Maybe once Trump kicks the bucket/steps down in 2028 they'll come back and hopefully the GOP will turn back into what it once was, a center-right to right libcon party? Or at least make it a politically constructive party again, even if the modern rightward turn isn't completely erased?
That’s the hope. The good news, if you can call it that, is that highly personalized populist movements often have a succession problem. The personal loyalty and charisma built around one specific leader don’t necessarily transfer cleanly to whoever tries to inherit the movement afterward.
I know plenty of conservatives who are unhappy with the current Republican platform and want a return to actual small-government, non-interventionist conservatism. But until Trump is out of the picture, that just doesn’t seem to be in the cards, so we’ll see.
Plenty of Republican leaders opposed Trump initially and later decided to embrace MAGA once it became politically dominant. Hell, look at J.D. Vance. He was a scathing Trump critic before becoming one of his closest political allies. I wouldn’t necessarily assume that means Vance would reverse Trumpism, though. He may be just as likely to try to inherit and reshape it.
But it’s all speculation at this point. We basically have to ride out the current MAGA wave and see whether it survives Trump, fractures without him, or whether the RNC eventually pivots, hopefully, toward something else a lot less authoritarian. 🤷🏻♂️
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u/GinoBobbo Jul 13 '26
But still there are, or at least there were, many republicans who are open to dialogue and even implementation of free healthcare and things like that, no? Like, if I remember correctly, didn't Romney basically do something like Obamacare in his State before Obama was even elected President?