Trump is basically a moderate pol that moderates despise. That really takes some doing. Even 2016 was a major league fluke. In both 2016 *and* 2020, Trump won a smaller % of the popular vote than Romney in 2012.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidential_election
The secret sauce for Trump in 2016? Jill Stein played spoiler for Hillary in the same way Ralph Nader played spoiler for Al Gore in 2000. Maybe lightning will strike twice. Maybe Jill Stein will run in 2024.
A big chunk of the reason Republican pols and right-wing thinkers dislike Trump relates to his New York liberal views. Social Security and Medicare are the biggest line items in the Federal budget, accounting for about 1/2, and that proportion is increasing relentlessly, thanks to COLA, which doesn’t apply to other budget line items. Like a Democrat, he absolutely refuses to talk about reform (i.e. benefit cuts) because self-aggrandizement (i.e. winning the White House again) is job #1. The other aspect of it is, in 2016, he got the lowest popular vote %s of any winning GOP presidential candidate in a century, and he talks like he’s Reagan, with double digit popular vote margins and electoral landslides.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin
You are a brilliant poster on FR. I always like reading your posts.
Yes, I have observed a stark difference between republicans and democrats. If you lurk on DUmmies, you will very seldom see any posts denigrating other democrats.
Rebulicans are experts in exclusion of any one who does not agree 100% on their agenda. They have obviously not learned from Reagan who said if someone disagrees 20% on issues with you, he/she is not a 20% enemy, but rather a 80% friend. Many conservatives can not tolerate any different agenda. So they act cannibalistic by eating their own.
Is it any wonder why red wave fizzled and Biden is POTUS.