OMG wouldn’t that be an interesting outcome. MAGA splits from GOP, taking voters. Suddenly there is room for an actual left side party instead of whatever Dem is anymore. Would be funny if the death of Trump actually pushed us into having more political parties and some actual representation for the people.
Comment on What is likely to happen when/if trump dies?
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
There is a long list of politicians who have tried to do the Trump thing ever since the stupid escalator. Florida Governor DeSantis made a tiny little bit of headway that ultimately collapsed around him, Marge Greene has been setting herself up as the post-Maga maga leader, and Ted Cruz of Texas has been trying for the longest time to position himself as heir apparent of the current GOP, but there hasn’t been anyone who has been able to capture the same spectrum of blind devotion to grudging acceptance that Donald Trump has somehow managed to unite into the Maga movement.
JD Vance certainly isn’t it, and while he’ll certainly get the Oval Office when Trump dies before completing his term, I think his presidency will be fairly unremarkable and rather short, and afterwards he’ll move into private equity consulting or some such and never be seen in politics again.
But without Joe Rogan and Charlie Kirk, and with a ton of the other influencers either jumping ship or losing face, I don’t think we’ll see the same focus on a single candidate again. Since 2016, we’ve had a historical alignment of domestic influence and foreign interference that focused on Trump specifically, and he has used that (as he always does) to build the Trump brand and only the Trump brand. Nobody else can use it; not even Don Jr., who has tried dipping his toes in and mostly been ignored.
So I think the answer is, the maga cult sputters and dies. Maybe it sticks around long enough to poison the waters for a couple more election cycles, but it won’t elect another president. The best case scenario, in my mind, would be maga breaking away from the GOP and trying to field candidates for a few years that become spoilers.
Either way, the Republicans will eventually put the mask back on and try to pretend like nothing ever happened (though I can’t possibly predict whether that’ll work. My gut says yes, but maybe that’s just me being cynical).
CascadianGiraffe@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
In my opinion, the best case scenario is that the GOP dies (it happened with the Whigs!) and a new, more progressive party (maybe DemSoc) becomes relevant to the left of the Democrats. The Dems become the new Conservatives (since they basically are anyway) and the left wing becomes the moderate left. The overperformance of Abughazeleh (even though she didn’t win) and the shocking effectiveness of Mamdani now that he’s in office make this slightly less impossible than it would’ve seemed even a year ago.
DarkFuture@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
This is kind of my best case scenario for the cult. Stick around and try their own thing, which results in siphoning votes from the Republican party.
Oh it’ll work. After Bush Jr. Republicans pulled a “Who? Oh I didn’t know him that well”. Then they got a fascist elected. Their base has hamster brains. This whole ordeal should have buried the Republican party in a deep unmarked grave. But it won’t.