JMHO: “… and here’s a wonderful feature of my all-encompassing Fascist realm, something that should make all Christians very happy.”
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Yeah, there are all sorts of possibilities there - elections that continue on, but all power resides elsewhere, in positions cemented in place that can’t be altered by the outcomes of elections, etc. But all these options ultimately represent an ending of democracy. If you can vote, but the votes have no actual impact on government or policy, it’s not remotely a democracy.
There may be ambiguity in a lot of what he’s said, but yeah, he’s pretty explicitly saying that in this case.
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Even pro-dictatorship Congresscritters would logically want to retain some power, otherwise nobody would give them campaign contributions.
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Calling the Orange One out on this to most of his audience for this speech will not bother them in the slightest.
To a Christian Reconstructionist, democracy is at best a second-best option for how to organize society. The natural and desirable ordering of society, to them, is a literal theocracy: an absolute king appointed and anointed by God, with all living in harmony under his benevolent rule. (And John of Patmos wrote a whole book about how to get there.) Freedom of religion is, to them, only a good thing to the extent that it prevents the suppression of Christian Reconstructionism. Freedom to vote is undesirable once a theonomic government is established.
At least that’s how I understand it. I probably don’t. R.J. Rushdoony’s thinking is too foreign to my own. But similar things have been going on since the forced Christianization of Armenia in the year 301.
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That’s not really who most people are trying to convince, though. His hardcore are lost at this point, they’re basically in a cult. This sort of information matters to convince people who aren’t paying much attention and need to be told what Trump WILL do if in office again - swing voters, independents, people who buy the “both sides” bullshit, generally democratic voters who aren’t engaged, republicans who just tick the box for the GOP because they always have, etc. This information is more for them than for Trumpers.
If some of his cult followers who aren’t also theocrats can also be convinced, then great. But it’s not who this information is being shared for, primarily. These people are NOT a majority of the country, and the Christian Nationalists are especially not anywhere NEAR a majority of Americans. They are a minority of even conservatives, who have just managed to take over one of the major political parties and who plan to impose this stuff on the rest of us who don’t want it.
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No, no. He clearly said “I’m MAGA Christian,” not “I’m not a Christian.” If you misheard him then it’s you’re own fault for having insufficiently patriotic ears. /s
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Given how performative the Republican party (especially the MAGA wing), is now (and given the huge divide between what Republican voters think their reps are doing and what they actually do), being able to make policy is already little more than a distraction. So long as they can fear-monger and make promises (that they have no intention of keeping), they’re golden.
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Oh come on. Democrats shouldn’t do the gaslighting for him.
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I mean, she has Bill Kristol backing her up on this one, folks. We can all go home, he’s always right about these things… /S
The pundit class just do this shit like breathing. What does a former campaign spokesperson do to stay relevant? Oh, yeah, say stupid extreme shit that will get attention.
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They have 930 some pages worth of plan.
That he can’t read it will have no dispositive effect on whether it is
implemented.
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That’s worth remembering, because the weird assholes who wrote this blueprint for Gilead will be around long after the loser is gone. And though someone claimed labelling them weirdos is disarming, it counteracts their claim that they are really mainstream.
Which is why this particular loser so pathetic in his begging. Wheedling to get those he pandered to, to vote one more time, even if they think they got what they wanted.
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This, theoretically, should have cleared things up, but…
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Glad you posted that, i was checking to see if someone had done so already or not. But here’s the relevant quote for those that haven’t read the article yet:
“That statement is very simple,” he added. “I said, vote for me; you’re not going to have to do it ever again. It’s true.”
“This time vote, I’ll straighten out the country, you won’t have to vote anymore, I won’t need your vote.”
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So, exactly how we interpreted it, in other words. 
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Thank you @FGD135 for posting this link. That is some powerful and incredibly scary imagery, and the implicit promise / threat of four years time is very much on point. One thing that irrationally annoyed me in seeing these photos was the realization just how much better (in the strictest technical sense ignoring any moral dimension) the Nazis were at propaganda and imagery. Everything T*** does looks cheap and tawdry in comparison. AND IT STILL WORKS. Obviously, I’m not wishing that today’s fascists were better at what they do, but it still irks me how well such a low effort, low skill grift is working.
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That’s because the people it works on are already inclined to embrace the nazi world view. Youtuber thoughtslime did a video on the book the Turner Diaries, and one thing he realized is that the book is not to convince people of the nazi world view… it’s to give ideas and comfort to the people who are already there. Same as the propaganda used by the Trump campaign… it’s for the faithful, not for the rest of us… They don’t want to convince us, they want to convince the hardcore to embrace the nihilism and go full-on nazi and take the rest of us down with violence. At the heart of all this, is just bullies, looking to beat the rest of us into submission, not convince us of anything (except maybe of our own "weakness’?).
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Yeah… so I think the consensus here is that Trump is definitely creepy.
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I fully agree. I guess the best analogy are the Nigerian prince scam emails. I still feel insulted by the lack of effort, somehow.
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