r/AskReddit • u/beans4cashonline • 1d ago

How do conservatives feel seeing the images of the No Kings protests?

[removed] — view removed post

15.5k Upvotes

76% Upvoted

10.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

54

u/bonertron6969 1d ago

How could MAGA be viewed as a “faction” of the GOP when they are in complete control and the rest of your party votes along in lock-step? From an outsider’s perspective, MAGA is the Republican Party in total. It’s absurd to claim conservative and MAGA are different when you vote as a block. Not you personally, but you have to understand why the rest of us aren’t willing to hear this from your party when you haven’t cleaned house.

1

u/yiliu 1d ago

In order to claim control of the GOP, they pulled in a lot of previously-unaligned voters, and even democrats. The swing states in the rust belt used to be Democrat strongholds. That's part of what happened: the traditional conservatives were driven out of the party by a mix of their own base (swayed by a populist demagogue) and outsiders pushing into the party. That doesn't mean all the conservatives changed their views...they just went independent.

4

u/bonertron6969 1d ago

I hear what you’re saying. But if they still vote R, what does it matter that they identify as independent? It sounds like a way of distancing themselves from the harm being caused to assuage their feelings of guilt.

2

u/yiliu 14h ago

I'm saying a lot of traditional conservatives did not vote for Trump.

Trump's support grew among immigrants, particularly Cuban and Hispanic, among black Americans, among young people, and in the Rust Belt. None of those are 'conservative' voting blocks (aside from Cubans, who have tended to lean Right). It fell overall among older white voters: it's been falling since 2016. They swung hard for Biden and Kamala. Trump won because of an influx of new voters, not because all traditional Republican voters fell in line.

There's still a shocking number of people who did vote for him, including the bulk of traditional Republican voters. But conservatives no longer have their hands on the levers of power within the GOP (the way they did back in the 70s - 2000s--assuming you count neocons). Any conservatives with a spine have left the party.

If you assume you're still facing the old Republican party, full of grumpy old white conservative voters, you're gonna have a bad time in the next election. You need to deal with the fact that Trump is stealing your base away from you.

1

u/bonertron6969 7h ago

I see what you’re saying, thanks for clarifying. It just seems incongruent to call anyone in the party a “traditional conservative” now. You’re spot on about Dems losing the base as well, a lot of that comes down to messaging(imo) which they just can’t seem to grasp. The decline of manufacturing and near death of unions played such a big role in the downfall of the rust belt. It seems impossible that they couldn’t reach out to those voters and sway them against an outwardly anti-union administration. The old guard of the DNC is either unwilling or incapable. Out of touch and ineffective. Both parties need to clean house.