cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/17713638
““If we jail Trump, get rid of Maga, end the electoral college, ban voter ID, censor free speech, we’ll save democracy,” says one meme in a QAnon channel on Telegram that depicts Biden in a Nazi uniform with a Hitler mustache”
Apparently they at least understand their opponent’s view .
“The right” doesn’t believe any such thing. "The right’ doesn’t exist. MAGA believes it. Probably the GOP believes it. But those two groups don’t hold the patent on “conservative thinking”.
Never confuse the loudest for the most numerous. They are a minority of fundamentalists who have taken over the microphones of the GOP, but the vast majority of “everyday folk” are just trying to live their lives just like you or I.
The very proof of that is Trump’s guilty verdict. Do you think there weren’t at least a few “conservatives” on that jury? Of course their were. But a person can be conservative and still do their duty. I’m willing to be a number of service men and women in the military are also conservative, but I have no belief that they’ll suddenly “rebel” because at the end of the day, they aren’t insane. I’m sure some of the capitol police on J6 lean conservative as well. But guess what, they all just did their job.
Maga is not “conservatives”. In fact MAGA is not a political ideology at all; it’s a very loud excuse to use hate as a weapon, nothing more. While I may not be “conservative” in any sense of the word, and believe it’s a relic of history, it’s not MAGA. It’s a very real and tangible political thing that sadly never gets debated or talked about anymore because MAGA shouts over top of it.
I have no idea the point of this argument. You have to be living in a fantasy world where a rational Republican party exists. Many people will argue that this was a time in the past, but honestly, there has never been an era of a rational Republicanism.
In America “The Right” = “Conservatives” = “Republicans” = “Trump/MAGA”
in 2016 63 Million people voted for Trump. In 2020 74 Million people voted for him.
Roughly half of American voters are backing the Republican Party and Trump in 2024. The Republican party is dominated by MAGA-style culture wars.
I get that it is comforting to believe that Fascism isn’t mainstream Conservatism, but it absolutely is, and ignoring that fact does nothing to protect us against the threat that it poses to this nation and its people.
I agree with you, but I want to point out that this conflation is a direct result of our election system because it mechanically cannot support more than two parties.
Any other political interests need to merge together into one big entity that is nearly impossible to disentangle from the rest, so now maga = conservatism and we lose a lot of nuance in or political decision making and ability to be represented.
I’m pushing for Election Reform this election to move past First Past the Post voting.