Do You Believe Republicans Are Brainwashed, Hateful And Racist? Nearly 90% Of Democrats Do

And With A Leader Who's A Real Life Fascist To Boot?

When I started blogging in 2005, someone warned me about Godwin’s law which warned about using the word “Nazi.” My attitude was basically “Screw you, Mike; I know what a Nazi is when I see one.” In an OpEd for the L.A. Times in 2018, Godwin wrote that it might be time to update his rule, which few people were still paying any attention to anyway. “It still serves us as a tool to recognize specious comparisons to Nazism— but also, by contrast, to recognize comparisons that aren’t.” Finally last year he gave up on the nonsense entirely: “Yes, it's okay to compare Trump to Hitler. Don't let me stop you… [W]hen people draw parallels between Donald Trump’s 2024 candidacy and Hitler’s progression from fringe figure to Great Dictator, we aren’t joking. Those of us who hope to preserve our democratic institutions need to underscore the resemblance before we enter the twilight of American democracy.” That took long enough.

On Friday, Sasha Abramsky noted, in an essay for The Nation, that it’s perfectly ok to call Trump a fascist, wondering why it’s taken so long— and is it too late to make any difference in this election. “Anyone who spent time studying Trump’s speeches, his mannerisms, his incitement of his crowds during the awful years, from 2015 to January 2021, of his candidacy and then presidency,” wrote Abramsky, “knew that Trump was a fascist. That he was constrained not by any inherent moral limits emanating from within but by legal and political guardrails that, while stretched to breaking point, ultimately held. Take away those guardrails, and you are left with a man who believed that his power was, and should be, unfettered; that, as with the Führerprinzip, those in government owed him a personal loyalty oath; and that there was no functional difference between the state and the individual who had executive power over the state.”

A few days earlier, D. Earl Stephens, former editor of Stars and Stripes, had denounced not just Trump but the shattered millions who support him. They don’t believe in law and order or truth and honesty, in the future of the planet and the future of their own children, in a strong economy, in respect for women, in Jesus’ message, in the dignity of the military… These MAGAts are “broken beyond repair... You support the monstrous, orange man because he has given you license to be just as completely awful as you want to be. He brings out the very worst in you, and because you are weak in character, you somehow get off on it. I will always blame the gross “leadership” in your broken party— 80 percent who know better— for the predicament we are in, as we fight tooth and nail to keep this anti-American loudmouth out of our White House, and preserve our republic. And I will alway blame my former brethren in the bought-off, reprehensible corporate media for normalizing one of the worst people in world history. They have done catastrophic damage with their refusal to cover one of the biggest stories ever with the weight and vigor it deserves. He will do everything he can to end us, and YOU know it, damn you. But it is you, Trump voter, who I reserve the majority of my disdain. You have been coddled long enough in this country. You aren’t misunderstood. The truth is you have very effectively spent the past eight years making it crystal clear to anybody paying even the slightest amount of attention just how revolting and toxic you truly are. I understand you all too well, and hope you all go straight to hell for the damage you have done to America, the majority of our people, and the brave souls who gave their lives defending her.”

Or are they just too stupid to understand? More dumb than evil? British philosopher John Stewart Mill had something to say about this and we looked at it yesterday “Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives…  That fits the few Trumpists I know personally— more stupd than the picture Stephens just painted. But they’re in New York and New Jersey, not Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama. Let’s not forget these folks have been gaslit by a professional cult leader. And his campaign style has always involved shifting rhetoric, promises tailored to different audiences, and strategic ambiguity— all designed to maintain a broad appeal without locking him into specific, restrictive stances. His approach embodies a “say anything for votes” strategy that allows him to adapt to changing public sentiments, social media dynamics and Republican base expectations. 

His economic platform was a blend of populist promises (like bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. and raising taxes on the wealthy) and typical Republican tax cuts. He often claimed he’d “drain the swamp” and take on Wall Street, which appeal to working-class voters disillusioned with both parties. Of course, in practice, his regime completely favored corporate tax cuts, breaks for the superrich and deregulation policies that benefited big business. Some morons still don’t understand that his promise to raise taxes on the wealthy never materialized, and that his 2017 tax cuts favored corporations and high-income households. This year his bombastic rhetoric has shifted slightly in response to manufactured right-wing discontent with globalism and “woke” corporations. He now claims he’ll punish companies perceived as too liberal or “anti-American” and promises a return to economic “nationalism.” 

His most famous example is the endlessly repeated vow to build a “big, beautiful wall” on the U.S.-Mexico border, which he claimed Mexico would pay for, a promise that helped galvanize his base in 2016. While a very small amount of wall construction occurred, the majority of funding came from reallocating U.S. defense funds; Mexico never contributed to the costs. Instead his hardline rhetoric on immigration went beyond what his base even anticipated— Stephen Miller’s 2018 family separation policy. Although initially defended as a “zero tolerance” approach, Trump ultimately walked back on this stance after overwhelming public backlash. 

As long as we’ll looking at his 2016 campaign lies, Trump repeatedly promised to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with something “much better.” However, despite Republican control of Congress in his first two years, he was unable to deliver on this promise and never came up with something even a little better. In fact, the replacement proposals that did emerge were widely criticized for likely to leave millions uninsured, and no comprehensive alternative was ever proposed by his regime. Similarly, another core part of his platform was lowering prescription drug prices, an issue important to many of his older supporters. Although he signed executive orders targeting drug prices, no effective measures were ever implemented and pharmaceutical prices continued to rise until he was driven from office by the voters in 2020.

Millions of this supporters were satisfied that he used language that appeals to racial and cultural grievances while maintaining a fig-leaf of plausible deniability. And his 2020 “law and order” rhetoric, portraying himself as the defender of American values against “radical left” and “Antifa,” was aimed at conservative suburban voters concerned with social unrest. However, his stance shifted depending on the backlash he faced, especially after violent incidents related to these issues, showing a selective commitment to the position he publicly held. This year Trump and his pathetic party have moved on to othering the transgender community and the enemy.

His messaging is transactional when it comes to abortion, COVID, election integrity and any issue that comes up. His approach revolves around an unparalleled ability to mold his public persona to whatever narrative is most advantageous. By “saying anything for votes,” he combines an appeal to working-class discontent, nationalist sentiments, racial grievances, and an anti-establishment posture to create a populist movement. This fluidity can be seen as both a strength and a risk—it allows him to adapt to almost any political situation but also contributes to a perception that he lacks ideological coherence or principles.

In the 2024 cycle, we see him applying the same strategy but with even sharper attacks on institutions (media, FBI, DOJ) that he claims have wronged him, shifting the focus to a personal “revenge” campaign against the “deep state.” It’s a narrative that serves his current needs, uniting his supporters under the idea that any tactic, promise, or slogan is justified if it helps Trump “win” against his enemies.

And that was apparent in 2016 when the Republican Party surrendered to him. NY Times evangelical NeverTrump columnist, David French thought, in 2016, that evangelicals would be a firewall against Trump. In terms of Reaganism, Trump was a RINO and, thought French, evangelicals would never put up with it. What a surprise when they remodeled themselves based on it and changed the definition if RINO from anyone who opposed “limited government, social conservatism and a strong national defense” to anyone who opposed Señor Trumpanzee, the “big-government, isolationist libertine.” 

Many of us who dissented from Trump on ideological grounds were stunned at the sheer intensity of the blowback. It soon became clear that even some friends viewed the debate less as a disagreement and more as a betrayal. How could you break ranks with us? How could you provide political ammunition to them?

I thought ideology defined the community, but the community existed regardless of the ideology, and breaking with the community was the far graver sin.

And so Republicans could cling to their ideas and face the wrath of their neighbors, or they could conform, keep their friends and comfort themselves with the notion that no matter what Trump did or said, at least he wasn’t a Democrat.

…Evangelicals thought they valued integrity in politicians, and they held to that conviction until the very moment it carried a cost. That is when courage failed.

Hatred is the prime motivating force in our politics. If you made me write a one-sentence explanation for why the Republican community abandoned its ideology, much less why it abandoned its morality and began to support Trump, I’d say, “It’s negative partisanship.” A central fact of American politics is that partisans on both sides utterly loathe the opposition.

A perfect expression of MAGA’s negative partisanship came from Trump’s vice-presidential nominee, JD Vance. In a 2021 profile in The American Conservative, he told the writer James Pogue, “I think our people hate the right people.”

Political hatred is amply documented. According to a recent study by More in Common, a nonpartisan organization that does research on political and cultural differences, 86 percent of Republicans believe Democrats are brainwashed, 84 percent believe Democrats are hateful and 71 percent believe Democrats are racist. Democrats have an even dimmer view of Republicans— 88 percent believe Republicans are brainwashed, 87 percent believe Republicans are hateful and 89 percent believe Republicans are racist.

I was talking recently to a friend who was astounded that Republicans were so willing to support a corrupt and cruel man to defeat the alleged threat presented by a “normal Democrat.” But if the Republican view of Democrats is that low, then there are no normal Democrats. Instead, they’re a collection of depraved zealots, Marxists who are actively trying to destroy the United States. And desperate times require desperate measures— like nominating Trump again— to defeat this mortal threat.

…When I ask which news outlets they follow, invariably they give me a list of channels and sites that were so comprehensively dishonest and irresponsible in 2020 and 2021 that many of them have been forced into settlements, have retracted stories and have issued apologies under pressure.

Yet all these outlets are all still popular on the right. Long after their dishonesty was exposed, the MAGA faithful continue to believe their reports and share their stories. It turns out that people will in fact trust liars— so long as the liars keep telling them what they want to hear.

… When Trump announced his first run for president, his vitriolic speech planted a seed of hatred in the American body politic. That seed found fertile soil.

If I could talk to my 2015 self, I’d deliver a simple, dispiriting message: There isn’t a specific tactic or argument that will win back the Republican Party from Donald Trump.

You’ve already lost.