I kind of fear what comes next after Trump (he is old and I can’t imagine him serving a full term).
- Can Trump transfer his cult to a successor with a mere endorsement and forever continue a cycle of scrambling to vote for this “last” democrat.
- His cult fizzles out and the Republican party splits support over multiple candidates.
- A person like DeSantis (less of a narcisstic idiot and more a true representive of Republican hatred) takes over and is worse than Trump.
- If he passes it on to another shameless racist schoolyard bully con man, but really nobody matches up.
- If they were going to split, Donald should have been the limit. Actually, all Repubs will fall in line and vote for whomever their core voting base (far-right racists) wants. Their voting base just won’t be as fired up.
- Desantis doesn’t behave like a clown to get free airtime from all the networks. When he does get airtime, it’s for backfiring stunts like giving immigrants free vacations to Martha’s Vineyard with taxpayer money. IDK if that’s a winning strategy.
Trump has none of the admirable qualities of someone who’s overcome a mental disability. He oozes neurotypical privilege.
I mean… is extreme malignant narcissism considered neurotypical?
I kind of hope not.
He oozes wealth privilege (even if he doesn’t have much left). Allows him to behave however he pleases.
He doesn’t have extreme narcissism. That’s a social disability. Does Trump look like his social faculties are impaired to you? His cognitive faculties are because of his dementia, but he’s as charismatic as anyone, much as I hate to admit it. He’s neurotypical.
Can Trump transfer his cult to a successor with a mere endorsement and forever continue a cycle of scrambling to vote for this “last” democrat.
Trump cares about not going to jail and Trump in approximately equal amounts. No way he lets someone else take the wheel. If he somehow became president again he’d start looking at repealing the 22nd before he’d endorse anyone else.
That’s a great point. However, I woulf think that there is a legal point where a president is to old and becomes mentally or physically incapable of being a president. Basically, someone in government would fight back and say this is a massive risk for the country’s security.
I can’t see Trump being the sort to try to build something beyond himself. I don’t think he could see the point of trying to cultivate a successor; and even if he did, I think he would see them as potential competition - he’d likely try to sabotage them, if anything.
He will never willingly let go of his control over his base. Trump doesn’t give a single fuck about the MAGA movement beyond the fact that it is his own personal army of zombie sycophants.
His followers may be dogmatic about MAGA, but I can assure you that Trump himself is not. If he dropped dead tomorrow MAGA would instantaneously begin fizzling out, and it would fracture the Republican party.
The greatest gift trump could ever giver america is, when he loses the nomination in 2028, to run as a third party candidate. Hopefully he never lets go of his base.
Based on what my true-crime cult obsessed friend has said on the matter, option 2 is probably the most likely; though the party at large will always rally behind whoever the nominee is, because that’s how Republicans operate.
DeSantis already tried to court the cult of Trump, and he failed because these cults of personality are entirely fixed around their leader. As my buddy described it, it’s not like a hydra where you can cut the head off and the cult keeps going. Once the leader is gone, they fizzle out. Even in the case of endorsing a successor, I can’t imagine the group having the same kind of following for the same reason - without Trump, the Flavor-Aid sours. There will be new leaders, but they’ll have to work to sway the core voters in the way that Trump has. And the Flavor-Aid is a perfect metaphor, because Trump sounds exactly like Jim Jones according to my friend.
This is the first time in the wild that I have seen someone correctly mention “Flavor-Aid” instead of “Kool-Aid” in reference to Jim Jones.
If anything, after Trump, he’ll be revered within the Republican party for years like Reagan was. WWTD “What Would Trump Do?” will become their new litmus test for whether a candidate is worthy or not. Republicans will try to show off their credentials of how aligned they were to “Trump’s values”.
That makes alot of sense. However, I’m worried the Republicans reliaze there are better candidates that represent “their morals”. So maybe not DeSantis but someone closer. They also will have to vote for someone.
Cults of personality are never quite the same once the big personality passes. They tend to fragment, shrink, or otherwise fade away. Members may join other high control organizations, but they won’t be united.
Depends… If he can successfully set up a family dynasty (would probably be Ivanka and Jared he passed it on to if we’re being honest), and he stayed in office until he died before passing the torch (or perhaps even stepped back as an “elder statesman” for the last few years of his death so he can work on transitioning Donald Trump diehards into Trump diehards), I could see them making this work.
These people are in deep, and most of them will do anything he tells them to do.
