Donald Trump’s extreme rhetoric reminiscent of Nazi propaganda and his penchant for siding with America’s adversaries and autocrats pose a unique challenge to his Republican opponents and, ultimately, US voters.

The ex-president, who has a good chance of being the next commander in chief, warned over the weekend that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the United States. And he parroted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempts to discredit American democracy in his latest craven genuflection to the ex-KGB officer, who’s been accused of war crimes.

Trump’s comments on Saturday, at a rally in the first-in-the-nation GOP primary state of New Hampshire, are contrary to America’s founding values and political traditions. They are the latest sign that Trump, who sought to overturn the will of the voters after the 2020 election, would act in an even more extreme fashion in a second White House term. His rhetoric is also likely to play into the central premise of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign – that he’s the only option to thwart a return to power by an ex-president who could destroy US democracy. It is not yet, however, helping the incumbent in polls that show him trailing Trump in vital swing states.

  • spudwart@spudwart.com
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    6 months ago

    I’m getting to the point where I need to start ending relationships with people.

    If you’re a trump voter after all of this, after january 6th, after all of his treasonous actions, and after this clear step towards hitler, we can’t even hold a decent conversation in public, and we certainly can not be friends.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I remember seeing a study that found that conservatives are more likely to have liberal friends, whereas liberals are unlikely to have conservative friends. All the conservatives were circlejerking about “the tolerant left lul”.

      But they missed the point; It’s easy for conservatives to tolerate their liberal friends’ views, because they aren’t direct attacks on the conservative as a person. But liberals can’t tolerate conservatives, because they’ll eventually get too comfortable and drop an N-word with a hard R within earshot to see how you react, or casually tell you that you’re “one of the good ones” like it’s some sort of compliment. Liberals just want people to be themselves, but conservatives want to systematically destroy anyone who isn’t like themselves. And that means friendships between conservatives and liberals are not a two-way street, because one wants to fundamentally alter or destroy the others’ entire life.

        • Esqplorer@lemmy.zip
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          6 months ago

          Other conservatives that are socially liberal. They legitimately think everyone left of Bush II was a secret leftist.

      • Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Liberals just want people to be themselves

        Maybe policy-wise but let’s not go overboard here. You get A LOT of NIMBYs in liberal affluent neighborhoods when you start talking about low income housing. Or they love brown and black ppl but suddenly start complaining about property values when they start moving into the neighborhood and call the cops because they don’t look like they live here.

    • pottedmeat7910@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I don’t think I have any actual friends that believe this nonsense, and I purged my Facebook in 2016. The challenge I’m having now is not blowing up my business relationships because, no matter who the president is, I still need to work.

      • spudwart@spudwart.com
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        6 months ago

        Those aren’t relationships, those are necessities of living under a slave-driver.

        Lie to them, use them to better yourself, and use that power to undo this evil that has been done.

        They do not see you as a person, and will not treat you with any such respect. Nor will they think twice about lying to you or using you to better themselves.

      • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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        6 months ago

        I fired a client after he kept going on political rants and sharing his abhorrent views. I don’t regret the decision at all.

    • rrrurboatlibad@lemdro.id
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      6 months ago

      I had to “break up” with my best friend over this stuff. His could not let go of his “but both sides” crap. It sucks, but it had to be done. Maybe we’ll get back together as friends one day, hopefully

    • Occamsrazer@lemdro.id
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      6 months ago

      They just read different propaganda than you do, and the real truth is somewhere between Trump’s propaganda and what you are reading.

        • Occamsrazer@lemdro.id
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          6 months ago

          Better than being a bootlicker for one of the parties. If people could acknowledge fault with their side, maybe we could have honest dialogue and discussion instead of drones shouting unintelligible noise back and forth at each other according to the script from their party.