2mo ago

MAGA influencers fall in line behind Trump after U.S. airstrikes hit Iran

www.nbcnews.com

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.

35 comments

I just saw another video of Theo Von clearly struggling with his support of Trump. I’ve seen so many others in that same position. On one hand, yeah, it’s easy to call them idiots for not seeing it sooner. But on the other, I get it. You go from being a comedian to suddenly part of this powerful inner circle, and that kind of validation is intoxicating, especially for someone with addiction issues who’s always chasing a high.
What frustrates me is how we, especially on the left, tend to fumble these moments. Instead of recognizing that some of these people might be waking up, we rush to humiliate them. We waste the opportunity to build something better just so we can rub their faces in it and get our own little high.
That’s something that really pisses me off about the left: the way we seize the worst possible opportunities and completely ignore the critical ones. Right now, yeah, some MAGA influencers are doubling down. But others? They're starting to crack. And instead of isolating them even more, maybe we should be thinking about how to help them speak about their shift in perspective.
- 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.
  
  Dems never learn. Republicans will not abandon their hatred no matter how nice you are to them. They only understand cruelty. Republicans want nothing to do with Cheney and have zero respect for Democrats, and anyone to the left of George Bush hates Cheney. Mythical moderate Republicans were the only people who could have embraced Cheney im a meaningful way but they do not exist. Move left and embrace populism or lose forever on behalf of corporate donors who are happy under fascism.
  https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/liz-cheney-electoral-fiasco-kamala-harris/
  They do not respect your opinion. They could care less what the mainstream thinks of them. If you are a Democrat what you actually believe has no impact on any Republican. They will make up whatever they want about you and believe that instead. Just fight already
- I think you are spot-on. Too bad I can only up-vote you once ;)
- Yeah and that is the problem with team A vs Team B mentality at the end we are all in this together.
  
  And the fact that it’s basically playing into Russia’s hands, who has worked to divide us and destabilize us as much as possible
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
  Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States and Canada to fuel instability and separatism against neoliberal globalist Western hegemony, such as, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists" to create severe backlash against the rotten political state of affairs in the current present-day system of the United States and Canada. Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social, and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectariangroups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".[9]
  And is also the goal of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment
  Which seeks to accelerate the collapse of all countries so they can be run as fiefdoms by billionaires
- What frustrates me is how we, especially on the left, tend to fumble these moments. Instead of recognizing that some of these people might be waking up, we rush to humiliate them
  Ok - on the one hand we could permanently convert one of these folks from a die hard to a never-Trumper.
  But on the oooooother hand we could get some social media juice making another tired Leopards Eating Faces joke. It’s really a toss up, ya know?
- We should be taking pages from their own playbook and weaponizing their own converts against their own cult.
- I came here to post a derisive comment, but you've changed my mind. Well said.
  Edit: derisive
- I agreed with everything you said except the show them mercy part. They are worthless animals not fit to be called humans and liberals again and again giving them chances is why we are here.
  They don’t deserve chances. They deserve public mockery, shame, and if we can get things right again, exile.
  
  Why do they deserve that?
  How does it benefit you?
  
  They are worthless animals not fit to be called humans
  That's the kind of attitude towards fascists that leads to complacency and a belief that it couldn't happen here or we're better than that. The most important thing to understand about a fascist is that they're a person like you. No one is immune to the risk of falling into it. All it takes is the right circumstances to incentivize a person, and there's a decent chance they will take up fascism.
  If we hold that Nazis were monsters, or subhumans, or some other kind of beast entirely unlike us, we will never dig deep to understand what makes fascism appealing or what needs it serves, and we will miss the warning signs in ourselves and those around us should we start sliding towards it. I think most Americans missed their own country's capacity for fascism until it was right on top of them, because they had spent decades imagining the Nazis as some special kind of inhuman monster. That attitude is dangerous. Fascists are ordinary people like us.
- I tried to say that once on Reddit, it didn't turn well.
- The thing about authoritarians is they never, ever wake up. They will justify, compartmentalize, excuse, hand wave, and intellectually retreat to protect their forgone conclusions. There is no reason behind their beliefs or behaviors, no knowledge or logic that led them to being authoritarian, and nothing will lead them out. Their identities, personalities, and egos are built wholely upon those foregone conclusions and to change their minds about those things is to essentially kill themselves and destroy their very reality, which is unthinkable. It is a mental illness that cannot be cured. It can be dampened slightly through first-hand exposure to diversity, but never completely cured. It is a significant, serious, and dangerous mental illness that has been allowed to propagate.
- https://media1.tenor.com/m/NKO9zN6OzDIAAAAd/steve-buscemi-fuck-all-that.gif
That is what they're paid to do.
I honestly expected this to happen for many of them. They are authoritarians, after all.
- This is pretty accurately what I thought their faces said. Well done
Let's be real. This is how they make their living. They will always eventually fall in line otherwise....no one would watch them. They would lose their source of income.
They have to be OK with cutting their user base with the anti-war MAGA. Which isn't happening. Greed will overcome any principles or honor.
Not to praise MAGA or anything, but this is part of why the GOP wins more than it should: their voters swallow their misgivings and turn out for them. Dem voters will jettison all support on the merest wafting zephyr of news they don't entirely like.
You don't want sheep, but you want voters who can get on the bus when the election comes around. You want to fight to upgrade the party between cycles, but once primary season is over, get on the bus and vote.
- Compartmentalizing and blindly following aggressive authority figures are the key traits of authoritarians (RWA). These are not desirable traits and RWA should be recognized as the dangerous mental illness it is.
  
  Your reply is a non sequitur.
No point trying to color-correct the videos: they really are wearing brown lipstick.
I really hope there's a draft, and I hope they aren't able to get out of it.
I guess they better fall in line now that there is no other option.

35 comments