(This post was intended for [email protected], but as it seems they don’t allow text posts, I’m posting it here)
This post will likely not go over well with everyone and some people may not agree with the premise of the question. Mods please remove if not allowed.
I am curious if the MAGA-esque approach to politics is new for the US, or if there have been other examples of similar political movements which may be considered “cult-like”. To better define what I mean, here are some examples:
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Large amounts of signs bearing a candidate’s name being shown by single individuals (e.g. big trucks covered in Trump signs everywhere)
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Use of a candidate name over the US flag
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Use of a kind of supporter uniform (e.g. the red MAGA hat)
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The “alternative facts” of MAGA, where debate can be impossible because supporters believe anyone who is a detractor must be lying
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In some cases, voter intimidation or coercion from staunch supporters
It seems to me that some of this is new but I’d love to hear other thoughts. I have heard and seen many relatively obvious parallels to German politics in the 20s-40s, but I’m specifically wondering if anything similar has ever been seen in the US before.
Well yeah, that’s how attempted assassinations work. People don’t remember the ones that don’t work, they remember the ones that do. If it did succeed then it would be all anyone would talk about. The outcome is what matters in these situations, and greatly changes when and how people talk about it. That’s just how these things go.
Right. I’ll bet a lot of people here don’t remember, or never knew that someone tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan.
The assassination attempt on Reagan also failed, and was bigger news, for far longer. Not JF Kennedy level, but it was more enduring than the attempt on Trump.
The news cycle on the Trump attempt was astonishingly brief.
Where is the damage on his ear?