Comment by tempestn
16 hours ago
It seems optimistic to me at this point that he could be replaced by a Republican not largely crafted in his image. It's possible, but I certainly wouldn't take it for granted.
16 hours ago
It seems optimistic to me at this point that he could be replaced by a Republican not largely crafted in his image. It's possible, but I certainly wouldn't take it for granted.
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It's something of an open question whether MAGA will follow him or not. I would bet against it, for the same reason few of them followed Jeb after George. I would bet on some in-fighting between Don Jr, JD and some of the others, and a new MAGA champion will emerge (maybe not for a decade) who we aren't really paying too much attention to right now.
Vance has zero of the charisma that Trump has for his voters.
I can’t explain the charisma. I can’t even really describe it, but it’s real. Others have tried to replicate it with no luck.
Neither did Biden, and he won. Neither did Clinton and she didn't, but still got more votes than Trump. And the Republicans are leading on the issues: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/poll-americans-trust-rep.... In an election between a boring Republican and a boring Democrat, the Republican probably wins.
Vance will "have the charisma" of being the focus of the palace cult (around a quarter of the country) while Trump's corpse is still warm.
These people aren't people anymore, they're cultist NPCs. They have suspended personal agency and independent reasoning about their interests in favor of the vibes, in favor of the grift, and in favor of arbitrary Strong Executive Leadership. They will say literally anything Fox News et al tells them to say.
Vance's job was always to end democracy by replacing Trump with somebody more subservient to capital who could stay on-script, while seeming less crazy to liberals. He was practically raised for this. MAGA has been trained to water at the mouth when somebody jangles their keys, and will happily transfer their utter loyalty and devotion to somebody else who can jangle keys.
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