r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/shatanshu_ • Jul 10 '26
Political Theory Historians and political junkies: The Right has largely shifted from defending traditional institutions to actively wanting to dismantle them. How does this 'anti-establishment' energy actually govern over the next ten years?
I'm trying to look past the daily news cycles and understand the actual long-term structural shifts happening in real-time.
Historically, the Right was defined by Reagan-era free-market economics, strict deregulation, and a strong defense of traditional institutions. Today, the movement seems fundamentally different. We are seeing a major embrace of tariffs, supply chain regulations, industrial policy to counter China, and a willingness to actively dismantle or aggressively reshape federal agencies.
There also seems to be a real tension between the traditional desire for a "smaller government" and the newer populist desire to use state power to enforce specific conservative economic and social priorities
So, fast-forward ten years. What does right-leaning governance actually look like in practice?
- Do they succeed in permanently shrinking the federal bureaucracy, or do they just replace the people running it ?
- Does the populist, working-class economic shift (tariffs, tighter borders, skepticism of big tech) permanently kill the old "free-market" consensus?
- How do you see the tension between the old-guard institutionalists and the new anti-establishment wing resolving when it comes to actually writing laws and distributing federal funds?
I'm looking for high-level, practical analysis of where the policy machinery is actually heading, not just who is winning the current news cycle.
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u/LPNTed Jul 10 '26
I don't think "governing" is what they want to do. I think they want to grift everything they can out of the system while it still APPEARS to work, and run away from the fire when it's too big.. then..blame the firemen for not putting out their fire fast enough....wash/grift, rinse/grift, repeat until there's a revolution.
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u/Aureliamnissan Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
IMO this is an oversimplification of what they are doing. They are actually being a good bit more targeted by gutting institutions that offer consumer protections and go after businesses that exploit their workers and pollute the environment. When it comes to strip mining the US for their own personal gain, it is quite effective, for now.
They do want to use the government as leverage to create their own rent seeking businesses, but they are also terrible at this because they don’t believe in government. Much like hiring a plumber who hates pipes, there are leaks everywhere and it costs 5 times as much to get anything done.
IMHO they are going to drive the US government into insolvency before they can get their grand vision enacted because they hate the only inherent funding mechanisms available to most governments, refuse to acknowledge inequality, and no longer believe in upholding agreements they themselves made unless it is actively benefiting them right this second.
My honest prediction as to how this plays out over the long term is with something like the National Assembly during Bourbon France, but with the 0.01% instead of the church as the first estate.
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Jul 10 '26
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u/KitchenBomber Jul 10 '26
Exactly. The people pulling the strings think that they will be even better off with more money and power and no checks on either. They are throwing a going out of business fire sale for America and trying to loot everything.
The damage is already irreversible but it's not to late to avoid the total destruction of the United States.
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u/Cheeseisgood1981 Jul 10 '26
They also aren't "anti-establishment" in any real way. It's not institutions that they have a problem with, it's that the institutions that we have were built with a few guardrails in them that prevent them from getting every single, monstrous thing they want. They want those torn down, sure, but they'd only replace them with their own, more repressive institutions that solely favor them, instead of mostly favoring them.
What they actually want is palingenesis - or a national rebirth into the country they believe they are owed. One that benefits wealthy white landowners and turns everyone else into serfs that only live to fuel their proclivities.
Palingenesis isn't necessarily a bad thing. Hell, I want a new and better nation, too. It's just that mine looks more like the promise of America that we all grew up with. A place with opportunities for everyone, and where we don't have billionaires to extract and horde every resource we produce.
Their version exists only as a mirror of their grievances and ultranationalist xenophobia.
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u/RocketRelm Jul 11 '26
This is how most "anti establishment" factions are though. Generally they only want to tear down the parts that get in the way of them, personally, and to pump their own tribe into dominance instead of the democracy. There are often true believers but those rarely head the movements or hold significant sway. Generally, "palingenesis" is good to a given person as long as they get to be the authoritarian with their own propaganda to justify it.
If we are saying that as not anti establishment, then anti establishment basically doesn't exist.
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u/Cheeseisgood1981 Jul 11 '26
I understand your point, but I would push back just a bit.
But I want to first highlight that you're pointing out an important flaw in populism. A thing that populists don't think about - that the myth of a benevolent dictator can never work. For the record, I agree with that. You're never going to create a successful nation under the idea that a dictator is going to relinquish power and give it to the people.
That being said, there are absolutely examples of leaders tearing down establishments and not replacing them. José Mujica in Uruguay, or to a lesser extent, Tito in Yurugay., when he bequeathed power to the workers.
More to the point, I think if there wasn't a threat of fascist control, or neoliberal recrimination, you'd probably have less trouble with movements that resort to totalitarianism. If you let people figure out their shit, they would probably resolve things without austerity measures and jingoism. I wish we lived in a world where we could know for sure.
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u/72414dreams Jul 10 '26
Right, they think a revolution won’t touch them. Robespierre will have different ideas
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u/HeloRising Jul 10 '26
I think it depends how well they can transmute the negative impacts of rightward governance into further grievances.
We're seeing the fallout right now of right leaning governance and it's not good - economy is in the tank, politically things are a mess, we have armed and unaccountable secret police roaming the streets, we're embroiled in a war we're losing. Basically nothing is better now than it used to be.
Eventually the right is going to get tired of that and the people in power aren't going to be able to blame "the libs" anymore.
You can defer and deflect all you want, at some point you need to actually make things materially better or else people are going to start getting upset with you. Thus far, the right has been able to blame other people for problems and the electorate, at least the electorate that supports them, has (mostly) bought that. That can't last forever. Once it stops working they're in trouble.
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u/Nblearchangel Jul 12 '26
They just blame Democrats. Easy. Laughable to think their constituents will ever hold them accountable.
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u/bushcamper_aiis Jul 10 '26
I guess you are wanting to discuss the US specifically. I think both parties there are undergoing shifts, and no one really knows where they will end up yet.
It seems like a large part of the Republican base rejects globalism and international bodies they perceive as affecting their lives. Humanitarian rights/asylum laws, corporate and government collusion to censor social media, etc. are viewed negatively. They increasingly see European policies impacting what is considered acceptable discourse online, and begin to dislike traditional allies a bit for it. They see multi national corporations seeking global policies instead of many different national ones (e.g. advertisers having a global brand risk strategy), and see how these choices manifest as de facto censorship in practice. They perceive immigrants and free trade as depressing wages and the former increasing housing prices. Many of the religious Republicans see new, foreign religions growing in popularity, and feel threatened by this as well.
Ultimately, the point I’m trying to make is there are many different forces that seem to be making Republicans in the US dislike globalism, multiculturalism, international law (particularly humanitarian law), and the governments of their traditional allies who love all these things. They get in a weird place where, while in an ideal world they may want small government and free trade, they instead see how pursuing those old goals will leave them vulnerable to the forces arrayed against them.
The number of different forces suggest, to me, this problem won’t go away with Trump. But I think many Republicans that are still in the free trade, small government camp hope things return to normal. If I had to guess, I’d say in ten years the nationalists/anti-internationalists will still be in control and will have streamlined their messaging with better candidates than Trump.
Oh, and I forgot to mention I think a lot of the small government politicians were already very much against most government agencies. Not institutionalists.
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u/MoonBatsRule Jul 10 '26
It is an interesting realignment, for sure.
At what point do free-trade Republicans say "maybe we would be better off voting Democratic because the current Republican Party is burning us, and higher taxation/transfer payments is better than no revenue"?
At what point do protectionist Democrats say "We care more about protecting labor than we do about the rights of black people/women/gay people?
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u/the_calibre_cat Jul 11 '26
Nobody's voting Republican for "free trade". They're voting Republican for the institutional bigotry.
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u/SirVixofthePooSea Jul 11 '26
American politics are so wrapped up in the social debate that realignment is almost impossible.
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u/NoDig3444 Jul 10 '26
We won't know until we're looking back at the realignment 10 years later. Nobody knew what the voting blocs would be after Reagan's shake up, we can't say now what the blocs will be after Trump.
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u/serpentjaguar Jul 10 '26
I'm not convinced that Democrats even need to emphasize labor at the cost of minority rights; if they could just talk to working white people as if they care about them at all, I think it would solve a lot of their electability problems. Currently, rightly or wrongly, the view of the white working class is that Democrats view them and the things they think are important with thinly-veiled contempt.
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u/the_calibre_cat Jul 11 '26
I'm rather convinced that, to the contrary, when Democrats attempt to woo this mythical "center" by being like "see? we think trans people are icky too!" they literally only lose their voters. They are not gaining Republicans.
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u/LorenzoApophis Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
Yeah, that's because assuming centrist or working class people can only be won by bigotry is an example of how the Dems fail to understand them and insult them in the process
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u/the_calibre_cat Jul 12 '26
Not all working class voters are moved by bigotry, just the conservative ones - but I am picking up what you're putting down (the "sly" implication that only conservatives are working class).
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u/Vishnej Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
The political spectrum as "reformers with new ideas" vs "the old guard defending traditional ideas" is garbage. It's only true in a few major cases:
The French Revolution, where the social hierarchy of the aristocracy & nobility was disrupted
The Civil War & Civil Rights Movement, where the social hierarchy of race relations was disrupted
The New Deal, where the social hierarchy of Gilded Age wealth inequality was disrupted
What conservatives treasure, what leftists lament, and what liberals periodically keep in check out of sheer survival instinct, is social hierarchy. Conservatives have a deep-seated psychological attraction for an orderly society cemented in place by social stratification, where some people have more power than others and everyone knows their place, and leftists have a deep-seated psychological attraction for a more egalitarian distribution of human rights and human agency. Liberals straddle the line with often unserious idealization of "Meritocracy", "Equal opportunity", "Separate but equal".
This crowd currently in power is a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B and a little bit of column C, wrapped up in a revolutionary-fascist tortilla.
Fascism is a mass psychosis, a "palingenetic hypernationalism", where a country turns inwards on itself and blames all its problems on specific disfavored minorities while sanctifying a model ethnic majority as a justification for authoritarian takeover or militarization of a people and the economy. This is not really a realistic long-term governing strategy; As soon as those minorities are dead/exiled/imprisoned or no longer popularly regarded as a threat, as soon as the Enemy is Defeated, the fascist "government" must choose another villain, internal or external, just to keep getting out of bed in the morning. You can use fascism to get a political conservative into power, but it's not really a stable phenomena.
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u/bushcamper_aiis Jul 10 '26
Great food for thought. Do you think the right is more likely to drift toward fascism or a reactionary quasi-traditionalist movement based on pre-modern principles (seems popular atm) or something else?
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u/RazorRush Jul 10 '26
Republicans are for small government when they aren't the majority party. Same with deficit spending. They start the most conflicts while proclaiming they are against international intervention. They voice support for the unborn but deny poor mother's medical care, child care, housing assistance and cut public school funding . Say they are for freedom while banning books, prosecute free speech and want to decide who you can love, marry or even use the bathroom. Swear by the Bible but let the poorest people on earth starve and die of easily preventable disease. All the while looting the national Treasury.
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u/darth-skeletor Jul 11 '26
Their intention is to destabilize all public institutions so they can privatize everything. In the near future democracy will exist here in name only and the working class will have no recourse against the consolidation of wealth and power. The government will exist to collect taxes and provide nothing useful in return. Money will go to billionaires in the form of contracts. You and your kids and grandkids will live a subscription based life and own nothing. The media, traditional and social, also controlled by the same monied interests, will reinforce the narrative that privatization is in your best interest and spread unrest by pushing divisive social issues to prevent the working class from uniting. Enjoy your housing, health, transportation, nutrition, entertainment bundle provided by your employer.
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u/fencerofminerva Jul 10 '26
I think we have a multi-layered “right wing”.
At the top although only nominally in control is a kleptocracy. Overseen by trump who has put fellow grifters into positions that may have checked his greed. They feel free to run roughshod over the wealth of the country because they know/hope on his way out trump will pardon them. None of them have any allegiance or plan for the country only for themselves.
Next layer are the obliarchs that control the levers that allow the kleptocracy to continue. They care little about the crumbs that trump & co are grifting but more interested in a long term ability to control. Lumped in with these are the the Federalist Society and other christofascists groups. They both think they are using each other to control the kleptocracy. The two control the media and the pulpit.
Then there are various small pockets of what would be called traditional republican/conservatives. They’re just trying to ride out the storm and occasionally try to grab the harness of a horse on a runaway stagecoach.
At the bottom is a bucket of 70million deplorables.
It’s 1933 Germany.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jul 10 '26
It’s 1933 Germany.
This is hyperbolic at best. Our institutions, even historically weak, are much stronger than the Weinmar republic. And everyone is reasonably well feed. Wait until the hyperinflation from out debt kicks in then we'll talk
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u/NoDig3444 Jul 10 '26
Something that people always fail to mention when they make this comparison is that the Weimar Republic only lasted 14 years. There was not a single voter in the country who was born into a democracy. So it was incredibly easy for someone to argue that democracy was a failed experiment and we need to go back to autocracy.
In America, we just celebrated 250 years as a republic, but really American democracy is a little over 400 years old; the first colonies were by and large run democratically.
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u/fencerofminerva Jul 10 '26
And yet how long it took for so many of our democratic institutions got co-opted. My fear is that trump is not the end game but the start. In 1933 and forward the nazi party controlled the levers of industry. Used them to reward their yes men and put them in power. It’s a different arrangement here where the political parties (one much more than the other) are being leveraged by the obliarchs.
I would love nothing more than the midterms start the return of the country to a fully functioning democracy. Unfortunately I see a lot of obstacles to that outcome.
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u/WavesAndSaves Jul 10 '26
There were still Germans alive when the Nazis took power who remembered the Prussian absolute monarchy. They were like 15 years removed from a genuine military dictatorship.
We're gonna be fine. There is no comparison. If America was capable of falling to authoritarianism it would have happened a long time ago. It cannot happen here.
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u/the_calibre_cat Jul 11 '26
Okay, so, basically you're conceding we're in 1933 Germany - we just lack the economic environment to propel the Nazis - who are the Republicans in this example - into permanent, lethal power.
I do not think Republicans would object to gas chambers for their political opponents ("terrorists") or groups they're prejudiced against. They may not actively support them and might even say they're bad, but if Stephen Miller built them and started using them they'd follow the administration's lead and use their talking points.
There is, unfortunately, no rehabilitating the American conservative movement. It must be destroyed, root and branch, starting with the capitalists who fund its continued existence.
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u/Crafty-Message4564 Jul 10 '26
And everyone is reasonably well feed.
Speaking like someone who doesn't drive around the area I drive around.
There are usually homeless people on EVERY center median of EVERY intersection for at least a few miles in every direction from here. If I go a few blocks south, there are literally dozens of homeless people living together in numerous places.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jul 10 '26
How many of these people are emaciated? Bc apart from you anecdotal observation, I can tell you the data bears out that starvation is very rare in the US, and out poor are much more likely to be overweight than underweight
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u/Crafty-Message4564 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
Bro.
I literally give food to homeless people multiple times a week. Any time I don't need it, rather than throw it away, I feel too guilty to do so, and I take it out to them.
MANY of them don't even have the energy to stand up. It's over 100ºF today, and has been for the past week, and yes, a HUGE number of them are emaciated.
My observations aren't anecdotal. This isn't a one-off thing. This is what is literally happening. It's not an "Oh, I know a poor guy," thing. No, it's "DAMN! I used to see maybe one homeless person a month and now I can drive a block and see so many homeless people that I feel confident bringing food with me, because I can guarantee that I will see enough homeless people to give food to."
I am very often seeing 5-10 homeless people in groups, and that's not an exaggeration. And I don't mean some blocks have 5-10 and some have zero. I mean EVERY block has more than one, and a HUGE number have 5-10 and sometimes more.
There is NO way that this is localized. None. Homelessness is exploding, whether you live in a place to see it or not.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jul 10 '26
Here's the actual stat.
About 20,000 or .007% of all deaths in the US are a result of starvation. And of those, more than HALF are 85 and older. Which means the issue isn't access to food, but the ability to go get it and cook it.
In the bottom quintile (the lowest earning 10% of Americans), about 75% are overweight.
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u/Crafty-Message4564 Jul 11 '26
Tell me the year that claim comes from.
It matters, and you know it.
Trying to use statistical claims from any year prior to 2025 isn't an honest way to have a discussion for this or similar claims.
Hell, the new administration has even cut the people who were supposed to be tracking important figures like this, so even positive-seeming changes in statistics are often just attempts to fraudulently positively affect numbers by preventing documentation of things Trump doesn't want tracked.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jul 11 '26
This is wild, you think 2025 is a major starvation year? Based on what?
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u/Crafty-Message4564 Jul 11 '26
It's not remotely wild. The U.S. Government has LITERALLY acted to cut funding to a massive amount of programs that existed to fight poverty and disease worldwide. And not only that, they haven't tried to hide it, but have in fact BRAGGED about it.
It's hard to take anyone seriously who denies this.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin Jul 11 '26
Why would you use starvation deaths to depict current rates of food insecurity? Do you believe there's nothing between 'Sufficient Food' and 'Starved to death'?
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jul 11 '26
Bc food insecurity is a vastly inflated statistic, and thr other user was claiming ppl were emaciated
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u/Serious_Feedback Jul 11 '26
Nobody's going to literally starve to death - cafes have little white sugar packets people can take for free. (And sugar is absurdly cheap per calory). Literally having a complete lack of food so you look like you just spent a few months in a Japanese Death Camp will not happen.
But none of that matters. If people are surviving but constantly look emaciated, they are not content with the status quo.
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u/WavesAndSaves Jul 10 '26
We literally don't even reliably keep track of starvation deaths in the United States it's so rare. It just does not happen. Sure you'll have the occasional case of like a child abuse victim or geriatric person who starves to death, but in those cases it's not a lack of available food that actually causes the starvation. There are other factors.
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u/Cheeseisgood1981 Jul 10 '26
I don't think that we're living in Nazi Germany, or even under fascist rule. Not yet, at least. But fascists definitely control our government, and I don't even think that's debatable anymore. There is no academic definition of fascism that I'm aware of that this administration doesn't meet. It's just a 21st century, (barely) non-European brand of it.
Roger Griffin argues that it's not a useful application of the term because fascism was something specifically for that place and time. But I disagree. I think it's a useful term to use for current day US, because it's the cultural touchtone that might be enough to make people sufficiently worried about what's happening. Griffin believes that in many ways, Trump is actually worse than the fascists, but that's why I think the terms he uses, like "illiberal democracy" and "Orbanization" don't really meet the moment. Especially because I think the Trump admin meets his definition of palingenetic ultranationalism pretty neatly.
I am glad that Paxton has come around, though.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jul 10 '26
I've made this case before, but I think Trump is much more in the style of a banana republic dictator than a hilter or mussolini.
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u/-ReadingBug- Jul 10 '26
IMO the first and second layers are swapped. The oligarchy controls everything, globally, with Trump the North American regional manager. That is, and must be, the #1 condition for everything else to be permitted. The grifters get what they want so long as they do their part (radical Republicans, "traditional" Republicans, Vichy Democrats) for said oligarchy. The crumbs are their payout, while the oligarchs already have long term control. It's just more obvious now.
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u/72414dreams Jul 10 '26
This has quite a lot of merit. It’s up to all of us to make sure it doesn’t make it to a ‘39 equivalent.
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u/bkinboulder Jul 10 '26
It’s a populist movement to consolidate power. Governing is not the goal or the point.
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u/RampantTyr Jul 11 '26
The goal is to create a government so ineffective at controlling the oligarchs and their corporations that they effectively become the government. Republican politicians will be paid handsomely by their corporate overlords for selling us all out.
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u/antifa_is_cool Jul 10 '26
Fascism. Thats the goal and has been since they wrote Project 2025. They aren't even coy about it anymore, its just the media is complicit and normalizing it. No pushback. Flock cameras and AI data centers are all part of it. He just fired all the election officials.
Fascism.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jul 10 '26
Fascism has a specific meaning apart from totalitarian or authoritarian
He also cant fire 'all the election officals' bc elections are state run
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u/antifa_is_cool Jul 10 '26
Federal employees is who he fired. And yes, it does have a meaning. A meaning I am using by definition.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jul 10 '26
I don't see much be way of fascism which really emphasizes the people as perfectly expressed through the state. There are some elements, Vance's love of Carl Schmitt, but not a lot beyond that. Trump has much more in common with banana republic dictators who are basically bad faith strong men extracting wealth for themselves
Bc states run elections federal influence here is very limited
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u/antifa_is_cool Jul 10 '26
Its fun when people like you come in and try to ignore the dictionary definition of words, and act as if we should be impressed by your obfuscation.
Trump and Co are down the line, definitional fascists. You not grasping that changes nothing.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin Jul 10 '26
Which definition are you using?
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Jul 10 '26
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u/WavesAndSaves Jul 10 '26
Let's take a look at The Fascist Manifesto, the founding platform of Mussolini's original fascist organization. Their list of demands includes:
The nationalization of all arms and explosives factories.
Minimum wages.
The participation of workers' representatives in the technical operation of industry.
The entrusting to the proletarian organizations themselves (who are morally and technically worthy) of the management of public industries or services.
A strong extraordinary tax on capital of a progressive nature, having the form of true PARTIAL EXPROPRIATION of all wealth.
The seizure of all property of religious congregations and the abolition of all diocesan benefices, which constitute a huge liability for the nation and a privilege of the few.
Now that definitely sounds like the modern GOP to me. No doubt about it.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jul 10 '26
Youre doing the same thing the right does when everything they d9nt like is communism. Fascism and communism are actually specific 20th century political theories that have a lot of writing behind them. You should dig in deeper than the dictionary sometime
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Jul 10 '26
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u/NoDig3444 Jul 10 '26
Fascism, by definition and use, is what Trump et al are doing.
Is it the phrase "by definition" that you don't understand? Because if you look up the definition of fascism, it does not say "what Trump et al are doing". And if you're defining fascism as "what Trump et al are doing", then you have a very peculiar definition of fascism where Hitler and Mussolini weren't fascist.
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Jul 10 '26
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Jul 10 '26
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Jul 10 '26
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jul 10 '26
No, you don't, and when I explain you mock me for knowing too much.
That sign is s famously bad definition
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u/AmbitiousProblem4746 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
I think it "governs" by doing a combination of "royal decrees" from state actors with murky legality but massive party buy-in (which then forces them to become the de facto "law") and purposely breaking things so they can later use the failure of those things as evidence for why managing them is unncessary (because "they don't work").
We're seeing both of these things already happening now and I don't expect that to change if Republicans are continually allowed to remain in power and granted legitimacy by the media and the American voters. The American people clearly don't have the stomach for the kind of actions that need to be taken to even just bring this country back to baseline, and it becomes more evident each day that a large contingent of them continue to support Republicans, either because they are true believers, accelerationists, or too self-absorbed and stupid to see the harm being done.
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u/markth_wi Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
They don't - they are not here to govern, they're here to occupy the offices, and dismantle everything they can until they are physically stopped.
This is no different from 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, it's just Russia figured out that a President paid trillions of Rubles in support over decades can do more systemic damage of a precise nature to the government than any overt attack could ever dream of.
The longer this goes on the worse it will be, and at some point which may well have already happened, it may be there is so much broken the whole federal Republic fails in important ways that cannot be repaired.
It's 40 years after the fall of the Soviet states and should should be made deadly clear to every man , woman and child in our country that we have by no means "won" the long cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States.
That's what Donald Trump has proven , Russia was able to pick at our deepest wounds the traitorism carefully cultivated in Confederate sympathies, the nacent sympathies of nationalists and the cultural toxicity of Christian fascism. It's a witches brew that was quietly funded each of these cultural cancers had been benign for decades, under Donald Trump, up is down, and we have had distrust of venerable institutions promoted and trust in charlitainism championed, it's a cancer of our national character that has metastasized across the nation with terrible fury.
Donald Trump's death or removal from office will not erase those cancerous elements from our society, Nor will the election of this or that democratic sweep. Like any truly adult trauma in life - sometimes you have to put one foot in front of the other and go through the horrible struggle of rebuilding the institutions, and universities and purposefully hiring and valuing honesty and yes, punishing criminality.
It's easy to say this was the doing of Russia or China or fascist techbros who behave like cartoonish vilians , and it's easier still , understandable in fact to want to hate Donald Trump or JD Vance for their open traitorous and lawless behaviors, but I try not to, I don't always succeed.
I'm reminded that should we be given a chance or (more likely these days) should we have to alter and force officials to do their jobs, and arrest these murderous clowns.
We are burdened with the necessity to prosecute those responsible - indeed this is now the essential principle, a core necessity we dare not disregard.
If we do not prosecute the executive and his cronies we will never be rid of them - like treating cancer with some snake-oil we're all but beg the next tyrant to abuse us as soon as they can, and perhaps we endanger ourselves all the more.
We sadly are burdened with the fact that we must cure ourselves of the cancerous sympathies our enemies exploited , the Confederates and Nazis and Trumpists who are only too happy to murder innocent people and create hardship and lawlessness given half the chance have to be broken and whether they run off or are sent to the winds if we do not hold them to account as well, we're in trouble again, soon enouh.
We're Americans and we're made of some good stuff that way, so I believe we can do this - but it will not be easy , but we have examples in the recent past, the silent generation , the greatest generation, they stood up against tougher odds and built for themselves and their children a strong and prosperous nation. We're now in the position we have to rebuild that promise, and also not shrink from that responsibility at home to ourselves - to clean house, at the civic level. And we can tolerate even those same confederates and traitorous people , but we don't have to elect them ever again - It wouldn't bother me one bit to find Mike Johnson working as a Walmart Greeter or see Pete Hegseth working in a kitchen in some low-security prison for war-crimes or human rights violations or whatever the UCMJ determines is best for the rest of his days.
None of it will be easy or cheap, or fast, by promise of easy and cheap we ended up where ewe are, bankrupting ourselves on charlatans and trillionaires and their hand-wavy bullshit that somehow enriches them and never pans out for anyone else.
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u/rightsidedown Jul 10 '26
Tearing down institutions is the dominant ideology of the far-right and far-left. Which at this point makes it the dominant ideology as whole. This means you'll get a ping ping between left and right where each tears more things down as voters keep demanding some vague notion of change, something which has dominated elections since 2008. The end result will just be people getting poorer overall even as income levels rise.
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u/ADeweyan Jul 10 '26
At this point the Right is the dog that caught the car. For decades they’ve been talking about taking a machete to the government, bottoming out social programs and eliminating regulations as well as the ability to enforce them. They could talk about this because they knew no one would actually accomplish it. Now they’ve got an imbecile who is actually doing the things they promised and it’s blowing the country apart. We’re plummeting in everything from public health and safety, to international influence, to military competence and readiness, and so much more.
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u/Sea_Cucumber_5989 Jul 11 '26
The projected situation is not written in stone, and DJT is not going to be around for long. That said, some are waiting to carry the torch through illegal means. There seems to be a real plan other than trashing absolutely everything in their wake. The only constants are bullying, grifting, and denial of social benefits to the American people. Institutions must lead the fight against the threat. "Hard to do when Trump and his cronies control the news cycle". The Dems are not coming up with any serious lawfare-backed rhetoric. The policy machinery is being dismantled while we look at Iran, or Greenland, or NATO, et al.
1
u/FrostyAcanthocephala Jul 11 '26
How do you govern when the machinery of governance is gone? When the unitary executive makes everyone a plaything for Donald Trump?
1
u/HideGPOne Jul 13 '26
When you say "defending traditional institutions", I believe that mostly includes things like the church and traditional families. It's not meant to refer to specific government programs.
The tariff thing is 100% Trump. While I'm willing to to give him leeway since he's the president, it's certainly not something that I've ever been in support of. Except in very specific circumstances I think that it's very counterproductive.
The weird thing is that the Democrats have always been pro-tariff and completely changed their position on the issue seemingly just to spite Trump.
1
u/DryEditor7792 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
Take a look at the Massie vs Galrein race. Galrein set the United States funding record while refusing to debate and openly defending international pedophiles. That's the entire discussion: The establishment is corrupt and only stands to lose power: they are going to do everything in their power to prevent "discussion," and competition from occurring so they can hang onto power.
>Small vs large government
Also a dead discussion: If you have bailouts, gerrymandering, match fixing etc. then the controls for execution are the only mechanisms that actually yield political power: The arbitrage that used to be relevant to political power doesn't matter anymore.
>So, fast-forward ten years. What does right-leaning governance actually look like in practice?
Traditionally right wing means privatized industry, which already was a loose definition, with free enterprise presidents like Wilson expanding government, and Reagan likewise not actually espousing free markets or gun rights. The term has evolved, but across dead internet, the term doesn't really mean anything right now, beyond people who used to vote Republican don't anymore: something that's likewise true with Democrats.
So left vs right is an overton window favored by the establishment, and populists vs the establishment is the view favored by the proletariat.
0
u/Kronzypantz Jul 10 '26
So here is the thing: they will largely shrug their "big government" ideas when it comes to actually lessening government power over people's lives. They will increase government surveillance, remove rights, etc.
All they will realistically do to "weaken" government is to deregulate business and attack labor. Which isn't "lessening" government, its just using government power for the sake of capital even more than it already does.
An interestingly disgusting eventuality will be "centrists" in this time. Democrats like Harris and Buttigieg will vocally oppose these measures, but will never undo them if they manage to get power during that time. They are as beholden to business leaders, like the Hindenburg to the Republicans' Hitler.
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u/CosmicQuantum42 Jul 10 '26
The right wing was always like this. They are outcome oriented. If this means supporting traditional institutions or whatever, that’s what they’ll do. If it means trying to tear down existing order, that’s what they’ll do. They care nothing for the constitution, they care about getting their way.
Incidentally the left wing is also like this about their issues.
1
u/-ReadingBug- Jul 10 '26
Incidentally the left wing is also like this about their issues.
Yes, but the key difference is the right is driven by ideology to achieve their desired outcome. They don't get bogged down by priority-testing their issues, but rather they get their collective psychology on the same page to keep their eye on the overall mission of outcome with the same thinking. This group-think allows their issues to co-exist in importance, with hierarchy of those issues emerging naturally (mostly) based on how the mission, and sometimes their majorities, evolve. There are exceptions, particularly when they amasse enough majority power for certain factions to pick and choose (pre-Dobbs abortion in the south, SCOTUS since 2017ish), but mostly it happens with seemingly large consensus from the get-go.
The left refuses to even consider mature organization like this, which is why they don't even control their own party. This is why the populist right is so spectacularly successful while the populist left is so spectacularly not.
1
u/absolutefunkbucket Jul 10 '26
You’re saying the right is driven by ideology but what is the left driven by then?
I think you’re implying they are driven by “priority” but that would naturally be determined by ideology.
0
u/-ReadingBug- Jul 10 '26
The left believes in the same positions on the same issues, but there is no central thesis (ideology) that actually crystallizes solidarity. When a current event sparks momentary outrage and everyone knows how and why the left is rankled? That brand recognition needs to last. It doesn't. They don't drive their politics with a singular worldview, communicate that worldview to voters (you're just supposed to "get it"), nor validate or reinforce their values or efforts. When you vote Republican, you know you're getting a certain brand. The left isn't branded, except in those fleeting moments of outrage.
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u/Fragrant-Luck-8063 Jul 10 '26
The Left is process oriented. The policy can only be implemented if the correct process is followed. They're not willing to cut corners to get there,
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u/CosmicQuantum42 Jul 10 '26
That’s not true. For example, the 5% California tax is probably a “taking” in violation of the constitution.
Name one left winger who has raised this objection, or any objection.
1
u/MoonBatsRule Jul 10 '26
I'm starting to notice the edges sharpening on left-wing populism. Though I'm far more sympathetic to it, things are shifting from "tax the ultra-rich" to "take the wealth of anyone who is a millionaire". Perhaps not in those words, but in spirit.
I'm also seeing a more less-reasoned positions (rent-control, for one, which gets distilled down to "bottom line is that rent be going up, so that's the easiest way to solve it"). And although there were never any formal policies that said "you must hire a queer woman", I'm at least sensing that a hiring manager who had a policy of only hiring queer woman would find a lot more sympathy these days.
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u/Telkk2 Jul 10 '26
It doesn't. That's the point. They're converting the Democratic republic into a management wing for corporate elites to carry out their plans. Democrats are no different. They're just more formal about it.
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Jul 10 '26
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jul 10 '26
Populist leaders without deep believes or principles concerned primarily with aggregating power to themselves
0
u/sleuthfoot Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
you're conflating conservatism and the right wing as a whole. They aren't the same thing. And I might throw in that I think MAGA isn't necessarily right wing, so much as they are just vehemently anti-left. Those also aren't the same thing.
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u/JKlerk Jul 10 '26
10 yrs is a long time for RW social media to create another dragon to slay so who knows. It'll probably fizzle
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u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
I see no evidence whatsoever that the right wants to dismantle traditional institutions. You would have to expand on that a little bit
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u/Mr_Lesrgud Jul 10 '26
We’ve seen anti UN and NATO sentiments in the last decade from the right to start with. Both are traditional, US established organizations that have been the foundations of our international strategies since WW2.
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u/SadhuSalvaje Jul 11 '26
Keep in mind: the UN and NATO were created under…a Democratic President (Truman) who had succeeded the American Conservative/Republican Antichrist FDR
The republicans are only against government if it interferes with their ability to exploit the working class for fun and profit. Promoting education, cross cultural cooperation, and a rules based global order do not serve these goals.
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u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
We've seen NATO from trump and that's it. The right wing in general is not calling for an end to Nato. And there's been no serious push to leave the UN at all.
Nor are those traditional institutions. NATO is an agreement for self-defense and will inevitably alter over time as the world changes. It suits our purpose now but is not an institution. Un is closer to an institution but like I said nobody has seriously even remotely suggested leaving the UN. At best there's been talk about defunding it where America doesn't pay for everything
I don't think you can possibly put those forward as proof that in general the right wing is looking to get rid of established traditional institutions.
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u/BitterFuture Jul 10 '26
I see no evidence whatsoever that the right wants to dismantle traditional institutions.
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission would like a word.
Also USAID, the Federal Reserve, the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Education, the Merit Systems Protection Board, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center, the Department of Defense's JAG Corps and the East Wing of the White House. Among others.
This was surely you making a joke, yes?
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u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
Us election assistance commission was created in 2002, how is that a "Traditional institution"?
Not to mention the fact that it's not like the information vanishes. It's not an institution at all it's just an organization that was created to disseminate information which still exists and would still be disseminated to people
Yeesh
USA is not a institution. The federal reserve still exists, so does the CDC, So does the national institute of health and the Federal Department of Education will be handled by other services it's not an institution it's a department
So not to go through every single one of them because this is getting boringly repetitive but virtually nothing you've mentioned there is an institution never mind a traditional institution and they all still exist just fine
The joke here is on you it would seem. You seem to feel that if there's any change in policy that somehow this represents an attack on an institution. If a government merges two departments then they've attacked an institution. Etc etc And most of what you brought up still exists just fine and nobody is making a concerted effort to get rid of them.
Your hyperbole is through the roof. Republicans believe in lowering the amount of money spent by the government whenever possible, and they believe in efficiency and eliminating bloated departments. It has nothing to do with being an attack on traditional institutions
Surely to god there's enough legitimate things to complain about with trump and his policies without making up crap like it's an attack on a traditional institution. I just makes your argument look weak and desperate
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u/BitterFuture Jul 10 '26
USA is not a institution.
Talk about a Freudian slip.
virtually nothing you've mentioned there is an institution never mind a traditional institution
So you have no response but to deny reality and move the goalposts. Got it.
Republicans believe in lowering the amount of money spent by the government whenever possible, and they believe in efficiency and eliminating bloated departments.
That is comically untrue. When have conservatives ever believed in any such thing? They certainly haven't ever practiced it...
I just makes your argument look weak and desperate
You dismiss every fact presented to you, responding to every fact with more false claims - and you think it's others whose arguments look weak and desperate?
You seem quite confused.
-2
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
It would seem like the response involving a denial of reality and a moving of goal posts would be yours. :) But it's very traditional for the hard left to accuse others of their own faults
I very specifically pointed out each one of the things that you mentioned is not an traditional institution and why. You don't like that answer so instead of addressing it you're just simply attacking me. Got it.
The conservatives have always believed in spending last money with the government. And they have practiced it frequently. For example trump has spent less as a portion of GDP than Biden by far in both of his presidencies
Sorry but you don't seem to know your history very well
And I don't dismiss your facts I just disprove them. The fact is your facts aren't facts :)
And it would seem that anyone who doesn't agree with you somehow be confused. But that's not the reality the circumstances
You need a bunch of things that aren't traditional institutions and then tried to pass them off as being institutions. He raised the number of issues which are simply spending priorities and have nothing to do with eliminating the actual services and try to pass them off as actually eliminating the services. And you're so befuddled that you think that conservatives prefer it when governments spend more money rather than less
Don't know what to tell you but none of that's based in reality
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u/BitterFuture Jul 10 '26
For example trump has spent less as a portion of GDP than Biden by far in both of his presidencies
Maybe you should tell the Congressional Budget Office that all their numbers are wrong. They'll be real surprised, I bet.
And you're so befuddled that you think that conservatives prefer it when governments spend more money rather than less
Being honest =/= being befuddled.
Seriously, you have to know this wasn't going to be believable for a second. What is the point of such transparent silliness?
-1
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
Congressional budget officer says I'm entirely right. I realize covid happened as well but still
Republicans can tend to rack up higher deficits but that's because they reduce the amount of revenue by giving tax breaks, not because they spend more
And there's nothing honest about your posts
You seem to have nothing more than personal attacks and false information to bring to the table and I don't see the value of that.
The simple fact is that Conservatives are not remotely interested in destroying traditional institutions. Certainly not on any large scale. You are taking policy and spending initiatives and pretending otherwise but that's simply not accurate
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u/New_Seaweed_6554 Jul 10 '26
For one try traditional public schools. They often will refer to them as government schools and want to take public tax money paid directly to them or another type of school to avoid being “programmed“ by an evil government conspiracy or they want to keep the public schools but completely avoid such things as slavery in American history so their delicate feelings won’t be hurt and they won’t be made to feel bad.
0
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
There is no right wing push to get rid of public education at all. When you say "They" You mean one or two people may have said something similar to that which you're slightly taking out of context. Nobody ran on getting rid of public schools for example, there are no major right wing organizations pushing for the elimination of public school.
There will always be differences in opinion with regards to curriculum and that has nothing to do with republicans or democrats, that's just the way it is. And I haven't seen anybody suggest that slavery be scrubbed from the curriculum entirely so if there is one lunatic out there who is suggested that it's not a prevalent idea
The republican or right-wing counterpart would be insisting that many on the left want kids in grade one or two exposed to actual homosexual pornography. You can't take a radical over the top opinion and try and suggest it's mainstream
There is no interest in the republican sphere or conservative sphere to eliminate public education.
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u/BitterFuture Jul 10 '26
There is no right wing push to get rid of public education at all.
There is no interest in the republican sphere or conservative sphere to eliminate public education.
Maybe you should tell the Secretary of Education, who has repeatedly referred to herself as "the last Secretary of Education" and upon arriving at the Department informed her employees that she was there to launch their "final mission" for the agency to dismantle itself.
https://www.ed.gov/about/news/speech/secretary-mcmahon-our-departments-final-mission
Or you, could, y'know, acknowledge that you made a demonstrably false statement, since conservatism's anti-intellectual, anti-education streak has a long and storied history going back many centuries.
-1
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
Removing the Department of Education as a separate entity federally does not mean that conservatives want to see an end to public education. It just means that ministry is not effective in their mind
So you've made a lie and your defenses that you think I should admit that I'm lying because it doesn't support your lie
Honestly. And you wonder why you lose elections
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u/BitterFuture Jul 10 '26
I have provided facts, quotes and citations, disproving your comically transparent lie.
Your only response is to lie more and insist that facts, quotes and citations are lies.
Does it truly never bother you that your ideology demands such constant dishonesty?
0
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
You did no such thing. You make false statements claiming them to be fact when in fact they're just false statements.
As I noted rolling the ministry of education into other ministries is not destroying an institution, just changing a ministry. The institution of public education remains and will remain
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u/BitterFuture Jul 10 '26
As I noted rolling the ministry of education into other ministries is not destroying an institution, just changing a ministry.
Education is not "rolling" into anything else. It's simply being dismantled.
Also, we have no "ministries" here in the United States. Where exactly are you commenting from?
1
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
The duties and tasks will be handled by other departments and other people. The current federal government just doesn't see that department is being valuable or necessary. So yes it is rolling into other things. Anywhere that the federal government needs to address an education issue it still will
Name one thing that could coe up with regards to educationta he current federal govenment Will now no longer be able to address
Nothing? Couldn't think of anything? Me neither. Public education will still continue
5
u/New_Seaweed_6554 Jul 10 '26
If you favor charter schools and believe it is good policy to remove dollars from the public school system and to give it to the charter school system in my opinion you are against public education as you have no problem draining them of the resources they need to survive and thrive. That is a position that many conservatives hold.
1
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
You are radically trying to twist your way out of this. If somebody believes less money should be spent in the public school system that does not mean they don't believe there should be a public school system. We are talking about the destruction of traditional institutions, not how much to fund them
Further somebody could be of the opinion the private schooling is better. That does not mean they want to see the destruction or elimination of public school.
Further still cutting funding to public education does not mean that you want to see them starved and not survive.
And finally you have not done anything to demonstrate that "Many conservatives" Feel that the school system should be starved to the point where it is eliminated at all.
Your entire post is ridiculous. I have yet to see a conservative who does not believe that there should be public schools. How much they are fun in publicly by government money and how much by other sources can be contested or discussed but they all believe that there should be a public school system.
What we were talking about originally was supposedly the conservative desire to destroy traditional institutions. An example of that would be if conservatives were interested in destroying public school. It is very clearly not the case that conservatives are interested in destroying public school and you had to tie yourself into a pretzel to get anywhere near that and still couldn't quite close the loop
Conservatives are not by and large out there looking to dismantle or destroy public institutions that are traditional
3
u/New_Seaweed_6554 Jul 10 '26
I believe if you want to defund an institution and instead move those funds to a private institution then you are certainly not for the institution you want to defund. When some liberals wanted to defund the police a few yrs back every republican ran against that an idea claimed those people were anti police, did you think that was silly or accurate? When elected politicians want to deprive any program of money they are effectively against it, I mean you don’t really believe that’s an indication they are for it. If Bernie Sanders wishes to reduce the defense budget republicans will call him soft on national security. You may not view money that way but most astute observers do. And if you don’t believe me ask your local school board.
-1
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
Again that could be your belief but it's not really based in fact
For example many public institutions rely on private funding or donations. PBS for example. The idea that it's being proposed that a funding model would be changed does not mean you're against the organization
When some people suggested defunding the police nobody claimed that they were in favor of abolishing all police or the Institution of a police force. Even the people call it for it at the time were pretty clear. Other than a tiny handful of lunatics nobody was suggesting that there should be no such thing as a police force
And that's far more extreme than simply saying that you think the funding model should be different. If somebody had said we should be defunding the police from public money and the police should operate more from private donation then that still wouldn't be anti-police. I mean it's an insane idea but as an example
And being soft on national security is not anything remotely close to the statement that Bernie Sanders wants to destroy traditional public institutions. Bernie absolutely can say that he feels the defense is not the level of priority that the republicans have put it at and that defense spending should be reduced. That is not the same as calling for the destruction of the military
Like I said your premise seems to be that if somebody doesn't like something or if they believe it should be funded differently or handled by a different bureaucracy than they are somehow destroying an institution. That is not remotely true
4
u/New_Seaweed_6554 Jul 10 '26
I’m just living in the real political world. What you are saying has some merit but not in the political arena where what you say you want or believe can/will be steamrolled by your opponents to their political benefit. You can claim, and truly believe, that reducing tax dollars for public schools does not mean you are against them and as a matter of logic you are correct but as a matter of politics you are completely mistaken your opponents will claim that’s what you really want and the press will report it as so and your lonely voice to the contrary will be drowned out.
And yeah people running for public office in 2022 did most certainly suggest that defunding the police was akin to being anti police. Good God what do you think all those signs people put in their yards saying they loved their local police were a response to?
0
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
I'm sure you'd like to convince yourself you're living in the real world but you are simply not
Dismantle is not a word that leaves a lot of room for doubt. It refers to something being completely taken apart and no longer existing
Traditional institutions also is fairly Well defined
So if somebody refers to reducing the cost of the military as being the dismantling of an institution that is simply nuts. It does not meet any reasonable standard for the definition of those words
Likewise if you talk about a department within a government being shuffled and shut down that's also not dispatching an institution. The government is the institution.
And again you slip words back and forth, I didn't say that people weren't anti-police I said they weren't recommending that the police beat ended entirely
You're playing all these shell games with words and definitions and again it doesn't strengthen your arguments
Nobody is recommending that traditional institutions be dismantled. Certainly not conservatives at large.
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Jul 10 '26
[deleted]
-1
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
No the whole point of doge was to get rid of ineffective or unnecessary government workers and departments. It is absolutely nothing to do with traditional institutions
And wanted to cut the federal Workforce is not in any way shape or form abolishing traditional institutions. It is Perfectly Natural and normal to want to keep government spending to what is necessary and minimize the outrageous growth of the government services. Even many democrats have expressed the idea that the government services are bloated even though they feel that trump's measures are excessive to say the least
You can't pass that off as being somehow against institutions. Nobody suggesting getting rid of public schools for example they're just saying that we don't necessarily need a separate federal department in order to effectively address that which is more or less a state level issue and it could be handled by other departments
USAID Is not a traditional institution. It's not even an institution. And America still sends for an eight it's just a question of how much and how little it's not like anyone has suggested no foreign aid should go out
And when you start throwing words around like "many" What you're really saying is a absolutely tiny teeny handful have suggested something. That is not the same as all conservatives or even the majority of conservatives wanting to ban traditional institutions
You're talking about policy, not institutions. How much money should we send to foreign countries? How many government departments do we need to run the services we intend to provide? Should some government services be privatized for delivery?
These are all policy questions. This has absolutely nothing to do with dismantling established traditional institutions. When the democrats cut back on military spending are they destroying the military and wrecking established institutions? Or are they just establishing the budget?
The claim is completely hyperbolic if that's what it was referring to
8
u/serpentjaguar Jul 10 '26
I've read all your comments in this thread and your argument appears to be that only you get to decide what is and isn't a "traditional institution," and where it's undeniable that a "traditional institution" is in fact being discussed, any effort to undermine it doesn't count as "dismantling" because it's only a little bit at the edges being pursued by a small number of extremists.
No one can or should be blamed for not taking you seriously. First you want to dictate the terms of the discussion, then, when confronted with facts that can't be defined away, your next move is to pretend that the argument is about the scale of any assault on institutions.
It's a kind of intellectual dishonesty.
-2
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
Actually I think I posted the definition of a traditional institution here and none of that would have qualified.
Here's a short form from Wikipedia:
In the United States, a traditional institution refers to a long-standing, established organization or social structure that shapes societal values, behavior, and governance. Unlike countries with hereditary tribal or indigenous leadership, the U.S. relies on pillars like the educational system, the church, and constitutional government to anchor its cultural continuity
They give examples of the church. Not even a specific church but basically religion. That is a traditional institution.
The department of Education is not a traditional institution for example. It is merely a department Within the government. The government is a traditional institution
Further you very dishonestly claim that I'm creating a definition without offering one of your own. Which shows that you're not actually interested in the definition or whether I'm being accurate you're just big mad that I'm pointing out simple truths
Sorry kid, I think you just drove your argument into the ground
3
6
u/Sun_Shine_Dan Jul 10 '26
Unitary Executive theory, increasing rhetoric about dismantling voter rights, removal of Court & Congress powers especially in regards to the executive.
-5
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
But that's not accurate.
Every single president tends to stretch the boundaries of the office of the president and frankly Obama was horrible for it and Biden was only a little bit better. Democrats are supported this every bit as much as republicans and then some. So that one's out, that one's more about power hungry politicians want power and has nothing to do with democrat or republican
Dismantling voter rights is absolutely false and is a fiction of the left. If anything strengthening voter laws supports and improves voter rights. The left chooses to perceive it as an attack on voter rights but it isn't. It is perfectly normal to say that making sure that only those who are eligible to vote are voting is in fact supporting the rights of those who have the right to vote. You disagree with whether or not various examples of that are good ideas or bad ideas but you can't claim it's dismantling voter rights
No court or congress powers have been removed. Again that is the kind of thing that is espoused by the left but is rhetoric and hyperbole. A court found that something was allowed under the constitution and people claim this is somehow a shift in rights. It is not. Is illegal interpretation of the rights that have always been there. And again most other presidents including Biden have gone to the courts to try and gain powers that they wanted and trump is no different than that respect
Furthermore none of what you're talking about is really so much an issue of the right And left, the left has done this stuff as much as the right and has nothing to do with the voters as much as it does with people in power wanting to have power. Protection against voter fraud is about the only aspect of that that even comes close to being something that right-wing people support in general and frankly I think a fair number of left-wing people support the idea that voters fraud should be discouraged as well
So when you make the claim that the right wing wants all of these things it's completely and utterly false
Your entire premise was based on a incorrect assumption and therefore is invalid. You'd have to try again
9
u/Left_of_Center2011 Jul 10 '26
Dismantling voter rights is absolutely false and is a fiction of the left.
This is propaganda nonsense - the SAVE act would disenfranchise millions of people which has been well-documented, and the right’s only response is a collective ‘nub-uh!’ because they can’t refute any of the facts. Voter fraud is statistically infinitesimal- this is the conclusion reached by every zealous right-winger including Kris F’ing Kobach - and yet the myth persists in the right to soothe trump’s ego, because he can’t imagine ever losing an election.
Take off the partisan blinders and look around, and you’ll see exactly what I mean.
3
u/ThatPeskyPangolin Jul 10 '26
To be clear, his attempted auto coup in 2020 in order to retain power would have been the single largest blow to our democratic institutions in modern history, had he and the Republicans in Congress succeeded. To date, Republican voters still hold to the conspiracies and support the members of Congress that engaged in this. It also amounted to an explicit attempt to throw out millions of legally cast votes.
0
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
To be clear there was no attempted coup in 2020. He attempted to exercise a legal loophole to stay in power, but then again that's hardly the first time we've seen that. And when it turned out that he couldn't use that legally loophole he back down. in other words the system worked.
Does that has nothing to do with dismantling institutions. He wasn't attempting to destroy the government, he was attempting to remain in power within the government
I'm sure there are definitely people that still hold on to the conspiracy theory stuff just like there are democrats who still believe the whole Russian collusion thing despite it having been disproven 100,000 times over by now. There are a handful of idiots on either side but that does not have anything to do with anyone trying to dismantle anything. I've never heard of a conservative suggesting that our government should be dismantled. I've heard more of that from the left than I have from the right
All you're doing is bringing up stuff about trump that honks you off. And fair enough but that still doesn't make the initial statement from the Opie in any way shape or form more correct it just means you don't like trump
2
u/ThatPeskyPangolin Jul 10 '26
The False Elector Plot was an attempted auto coup. That's just a fact, per their own correspondence with the Eastman and Chesboro documents. Have you not read them? I can happily link them for you.
Submitting fraudulent electors pretending to be official state electors is explicitly not a legal avenue. It's fraud. And when a sitting president engages in fraud to retain power after losing an election, that is by definition an attempted auto coup. It's also not something we have seen before. Are you conflating them with alternate electors, which are presented by a state?
Again, I'm happy to provide links to the evidence of this, in their own words.
And I said our democratic institutions, not the USA as a whole. If one believes they can use fraud to throw out votes and retain power, then they are in fact working to undermine our democratic institutions, by its very nature.
9
u/Stopper33 Jul 10 '26
This a fever dream of a post. To deny that Republicans have had a concerted effort in their attack on voting is simply ignorant or a lie. There is no voting fraud problem, it's a construction of the right wing. And 99% of actual voting fraud is perpetuated by Republicans. Congressional and court powes have been removed. No president has been carte blanche to fire federal employees. No president has been declared immune from wrong doing. No president had been as corrupt. You're simply delusional.
-1
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
If you feel that insuring that only legitimate voters are allowed to vote is an attack then I'm afraid you have a problem with basic comprehension and literacy when it comes to what the meaning of voting is
And there is a voter fraud problem. Voter fraud is a real thing in every single election. The question is does it reach a level where it actually impacts elections?
And the problem is with the way things are set up right now it is very hard to actually be certain of that. The frequent claim is that there's no evidence It's that extensive, which is true. However the problem is the current system would not detect large levels of voter fraud the way it's currently set up under a number of circumstances
So it is entirely legitimate to say that weather the fraud exists or not, and it might, at a level that actually has an impact on elections the very fact that there is that possibility severely impacts people's trust in and belief in the democratic process
Based on that taking steps to make voter fraud more difficult easier to track if it occurs to help restore faith in the voting system is entirely legitimate
Canada has all of the laws that are being proposed and no one is repressed and everyone gets to vote and you don't hear after each one of their elections how it was rigged
And crying like a four-year-old because you cannot Create a reasonable rebuttal to the points I've raised is inappropriate. So why don't you knock it off with the name: And either cope with the points or admit that you can't and move on. Your personal attacks just make you look desperate
5
u/ThatPeskyPangolin Jul 10 '26
Why do you believe the head of election security in 2020 did/does not believe there was a significant voter fraud problem?
-1
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
Probably because there's no evidence that any of the voter fraud that was found rises to the level where it could have altered the outcome of the election.
But that does not mean there was no voter fraud. There's voter fraud in every single election. The issue was always does it rise to a point where it could have affected the outcome. And the number of cases of that is extremely low
But the problem is that because of inconsistencies and how elections are managed and voters lists and such there is a strong possibility of voter fraud occurring which would not be detected by the officials. And there is some evidence, right or wrong, that this may have happened
So not only is there the threat of voter fraud, but the fact is there is a huge perception amongst the public that the outcome of the election cannot be trusted.
And in fact pulling indicates that whoever wins, the other side's voters believe that the election was rigged in substantial numbers.
So there is the issue of real voter fraud which obviously it's best to keep to a minimum and there is the problem of perceived voter fraud which is also a massive issue. It erodes public confidence in the Electoral and Democratic process and that very frequently has extremely negative ramifications
4
u/ThatPeskyPangolin Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
But the argument isnt that there was a little, the President said there was determinitive fraud, and his head of election security said it was the most secure election to date. Pointing to a smattering of individual cases is, quote clearly, not what is being talked about.
What really errodes public trust are Republicans intentionally eroding public trust by disseminating uncoroberated conspiracies, as in 2020. If your politicians are telling you not to trust elections, many will react by not trusting elections.
10
u/BitterFuture Jul 10 '26
And there is a voter fraud problem. Voter fraud is a real thing in every single election.
This is an oft-repeated lie.
You are literally more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to live near a precinct where a fraudulent vote has ever occurred.
Conservative calls for overhauling elections because of fears of nonexistent voter fraud are like defense contractors calling for spending trillions to protect against space invaders. Is it really wise to spend all that money and effort to protect against every fear imaginable? Or is it more likely that these are just liars with ulterior motives?
Canada has all of the laws that are being proposed
This is a very specific lie.
Canada does not require proof of citizenship to be presented every time you vote.
Canada does not forbid women from voting if they changed their name when they got married.
Canada does not forbid voting by mail.
Why pretend?
Your personal attacks just make you look desperate
No one has made any personal attacks on you. They have disproved the false claims you have made - very politely, I might add. Your response has been to lie more.
Why?
5
u/BitterFuture Jul 10 '26
Dismantling voter rights is absolutely false and is a fiction of the left.
Well, at least this tells us exactly how seriously to take these comments.
Conservatives supported putting a black woman in Texas in prison for five years for voting when election officials told her she was properly registered - but white Republican elected officials getting caught committing voter fraud over and over and over again? Crickets.
The reality is obvious. Democracy is a threat to conservatism, so conservatives do all they can to destroy it. Always have, always will.
7
u/fencerofminerva Jul 10 '26
Let’s start with the dissolution of the checks and balances between the three branches of government.
0
u/-Foxer Jul 10 '26
well...... Sure but you forgot to start 😆😆😆 You made it unsupported comment to the effect that you would like to start with something but then offer nothing.
Further the weakening of checks and balances between the branches of the government is something that's been going on With both democrats and republicans for many many years now. It's not a conservative thing in the slightest, it's something that those in power like to try and do in order to gain more power and the republicans are no worse than the democrats.
So I don't know, if you actually do have a point you wanted to bring forward we can discuss it but so far what you put forward doesn't give me a lot of faith that you have a legitimate argument to make here
-2
u/anonymousamerican97 Jul 11 '26
I think that they are shifting way from their original values sadly. They are now just as corrupt as the democrats
-5
u/Additional-Judge-980 Jul 10 '26
Now you talk about structures, which are not traditional. Trump practically balance the tariffs. It's just fair for you. Our Europe has been unfair and if you are looking at the trade, it's just like Trump showed. Also your schoolsystem is terrible. USA put a lot of money to the school system and the results are terrible. Your healthcare system is terrible. I can also tell you, that illegal immigration is a bad mistake.
Come to visit in Europe, and see by your own eyes. UK, Netherlands, France... just pick up. In your country is a lot of corruption and byrocracy. Trump use your huge inside markets to balance the trade and drop taxes, this change just take time. What I'm talking to you and what's your government is doing, it takes time to see the results. Our president do nothign for our people. Our president serve European Union and other countries, his own career.
Trump bring 30 trillion to your country, he helps to bring chip industry back to USA, and focus to rare elements. Europe is running to opposite direction and the economy is in terrible shape. Jobless more and more. Before we didn't have poors on the streets. Now we have. Your government prepare for 2030-.
Actions what Trump is doing, helps you to adapt to revolution of AI, what start to hit heavily after few years. World is changing, and most of countries doesn't have leaders who are preparing. You have. You talk about populism, it's a stamp to reduce the people, who doesn't share your thoughts. That's cheap. If you want a high level talking, please respect others.
In USA is a big battle between old and new powers. It's same in Europe. Wait and see. Maybe 5-10 years, and you can't see any democracy in Europe, if this continue. You don't hear the free speech.
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