The Fight Against Fascists (I Can't Believe This Exists)

[Dill]

(06-10-2021, 12:05 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: I'd love to really explore what you think is a "maga type" and who exactly you're referring to when you say a "middling" amount of his supporters would like to send people to camps, incinerate people, and would be totally ok with deaths if they were strangers, and many even with family and friends.

Off the top of my head, I think Trump got around 70 million votes.  What percentage of those votes would say fit your description?

Are all MAGA people the same?  And what is a MAGA person exactly?  Is it simply someone who voted for him?  Is it someone who had a Trump sticker on their car and/or a sign in their yard?  Is it someone who gathered on the side of the road in a large group with signs?  Is it reserved for those that attended the rallys?  Is it smaller pockets of all the above?  Or is it just the miniscule amount that showed up on January 6th?

My response here is to you and Samhain both.

We had a discussion about how representative the Capitol rioters were a couple months back.  My conclusion was that there might be 100,000 or so, collected from all 50 states, if you include their hangers on and people who MIGHT be psyched to act if everyone around them is too. 

So while I argue that a great threat to democracy continues emanating from the Trump camp, I maintain that it is not really coming from the MAGA-hatted oath-keeper with zip ties on his belt and a can of bear spray. 

Rather we ought to be much more concerned about the business-suited party operatives in potential swing states perfecting the art of the pre-election voter purge and pushing legislation to give Republican legislatures and officials more direct power to question/alter election results. This and the RWM which amplifies support for such actions, in part by celebrating these "patriots" and in part by refusing to challenge, and even continuing to affirm, the Big Lie. Trump's power--and theirs--disappears when the Big Lie disappears.

They are setting the stage for election disruption, "questions" about election integrity that must finally be determined by REPUBLICAN state legislatures or REPUBLICAN secretaries of state, i.e., officials who can be "trusted" to do the right thing, as Georgia's Secretary of State could not. 

And it is not 100,000 people supporting this behavior, but millions. As tens of millions may disagree and think something is wrong, but aren't up to challenging it. Still far more worried about AOC and "leftists."