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How Republicans Have Changed And Why [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-02
I just saw a CNN report on the shift in Republican views supporting Ukraine and it produced somewhat of an epiphany in me. I think I long sensed this, but the report brought it to the surface of my thoughts.
The shift in support from Republicans for Ukraine has been massive. This is how many Republicans agreed with the statement that the Russia/Ukraine war should end even if Russia gets to keep the land it illicitly captured.
August 2022: 46%.
October 2023: 55%
December 2024: 75%
I suspect that number has shifted even higher since December, and even higher after the Trump/Zelensky meeting debacle. The Republican Party, it's actual people, the grassroots, has gone from generally supporting Ukraine to strongly supporting Russia. Republicans have changed. But why?
The answer is as simple as it is disturbing. Republicans changed because Trump told them to. They don't have any actual beliefs of their own now. They might as well be drones, believing whatever Trump tells them to believe. Anything Trump does is popular within the party because Trump does it.
This is not a party whose leadership must be accountable to the beliefs of its members. It is a party whose members are driven by the beliefs of its leader. A political party is generally a collection of people who share common ideologies, or political values and beliefs. That is no longer true for the GOP. It is a party driven by one personality and that personality defines and controls what the people within it believe. Those who refuse to subscribe to the personality worship, who hold on to the party's classic values (Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, etc), are summarily exiled and even now threatened with criminal prosecution.
It's stunning what values and beliefs the grassroots of the party will abandon because their leader tells them to.
The party that regarded Russia as the "evil empire," that we must work with others to contain, now treats Russia as the good guy deserving of American support against a much smaller neighbor it attacked without provocation. The close allies we once worked with are now also presented as the bad guys, as nations that simply used us.
The party of free trade is now the party of tariffs and trade wars.
The party of supporting law enforcement, of "Back The Blue," and penalizing the lawless, now supports mass pardons for cop beaters and others who violently overran our Capitol. The party that threatened ten year minimums against any black person who merely defaced public property with graffiti, now pardons those who violently overran and trashed and defecated in our Capitol.
The party of state rights now opposes state sovereignty of everything from to transsexual surgery, to DEI.
The party of family values is now dominated by serial adulterers, by a man found by a jury to have raped/sexually assaulted a woman, who bragged on tape about being able to get away with sexually assaulting women, who paid hush money to not one but at least two adult industry stars.
The anticrime party elected a convicted felon.
I could go on, I'm sure you could to. Trump does not have to worry about doing things that are unpopular (at least within his party) because within his party whatever he does becomes popular even if it requires everyone in his party to change how they think.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” --George Orwell
This is the modern GOP. If Trump commands you to reject what you actually saw happen on January 6, the party’s members, even those in Congress who fled the assault, do exactly that. If Trump commands that you reject having seen piles of classified documents in his resort bathroom, the party’s members do exactly that. If Trump commands that you did not see Elon Musk give a Nazi salute then you decide you saw something else. If Trump commands you to believe the federal workforce has grown uncontrollably, you accept that fiction without question. If Trump commands that you believe Ukraine somehow forced massive Russia to invade little Ukraine, then you believe even something that absurd. If Trump commands you to believe an election was stolen, you believe an election was stolen.
“Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” —Voltaire
With the unquestioned mass belief in these absurdities come the atrocities we have witnessed, and more atrocities we will witness. Inspired by absurdities a violent mob overruns our nation’s Capitol. Inspired by absurdities America supports Russia in its attack on a peaceful neighbor while insulting our allies. Inspired by absurdities Republicans support trade wars against our friends. Inspired by absurdities Republicans support cruel mass firings of federal workers that endanger critical government functions placing everything from national security to national health at risk.
Today’s absurdities, an antivaxer leading America’s healthcare, a head of the FBI with a published political enemies list, a racist misogynist running our national defense, a Department of Justice committed to political retribution, a Supreme Court effectively declaring a President cannot commit any prosecutable crime, shall lead to the atrocities of tomorrow.
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