Trump’s base was vocally divided over the prospects of direct U.S. attacks up until the moment they happened.
The MAGA movement’s top influencers were divided over bombing Iran until Donald Trump did just that Saturday night.
Now, at least for the time being, the lay leaders in Trump’s base appear to be rallying around a position that spares Trump criticism: Direct attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities are justified, as long as American troops aren’t sent into a third full war halfway around the world in the last quarter of a century.
This is something that really bothered me about the recent election. It was clear that Cheney was only campaigning with Harris because she wanted to stop Trump not because she agreed with the policies of Harris. She was still a believer in “Republican” policies but understood the danger of Trump winning and did what she could to make him lose.
The left then said that because she was being put out there by the Harris campaign as someone who would help get people to vote for her that must have meant she agreed with all of Harris’s policies. Which means Harris must have been a Republican and had all Republican policies despite her having multiple rather progressive policies that the majority of people support.
Instead of having the completely rational thought that if a shitty Republican like Cheney refuses to vote for Trump and says we should all vote against him then that’s a positive and should help convince independents and non voters that this was such an important election, they ignored that and made BS assumptions and accusations about the entire Harris campaign. It fucking sucked.
The context was us asking for Palestinian or queer voices to be part of the campaign, and we got a neocon instead. We could have had “all of the above” but they were only interested in inviting those further on the right.
But there were queer voices speaking for the campaign. There weren’t really trans people, even though there should have been. But there were definitely queer voices being out there. Also many many progessives campaigned for her as well. Fuckin hell Tim Waltz is an incredibly progressive governor and he was on the ticket.
As for Palestinian voices, sure. Those should have been there absolutely. But them not being there doesn’t somehow invalidate that there still was a coalition of people trying to join together to fight against Fascists.
I don’t think that’s what actually happened. I think people just used it as an excuse. I think it amounts to people not wanting to admit they are <racist, misogynist, Nazi, homophobic, etc> and are looking for an excuse, any excuse, to vote for their secret interests. “Oh I would have voted for Harris, but… She laughed this one time… And really, Trump just feels like a better use of my vote now.”
That’s fair. People were definitely looking for any excuse.