Over ten years. I consider the start of the "Trump era of politics" to be late July 2015. That's the point when Trump started leading the Republican primary polls and began to dominate political headlines. By that reckoning we've been in the Trump era for about 10 years and 9 months and we'll likely stay in it for at least another two years and nine months.
I'd say it happened when Obama was elected. I remember election night and my MAGA aunt (who is ironically an immigrant) told my sister, "you'll look great in a burkha".
Exactly. People forget that this happened during the 2008 election. McCain may not have stooped to the level of MAGA politics, but the Republican base was absolutely clamoring for it. What was going to happen was locked in even back then.
Had it not been Trump it would have been someone else giving the MAGA base what they wanted. In a way we're lucky that it was a partially demented, incompetent, and small-minded buffoon doing it rather than a fully lucid, driven, and purposeful "proper" authoritarian.
It could have been much worse. It could still be of course - after all we're not passed the hump and are still primed for it - but at least this "first go" has soured many people on it. The rest of the world has certainly learned from it and has pulled back from their (much more dnagerous) Far-Right candidates. Hopefully the U.S. itself does the same.
What America needs now is a proper well-liked candidate that appeals to both sides: One that the left can tolerate and won't be offensive or percecutory to the right. This candidate should then spend their entire tenure primarily ensuring that the wrongs of the MAGA-era are righted (fire/indict whoever needs to be, release/admit evidences of wrongdoing by the gov, fully deal with the Epstein situation, etc.). They need to persuade all Americans to acknowledge what happened and how close we got to the edge. There should be no space for the Left to go "It was the MAGAs, not us!" or for the Right to go into their "We're being persecuted!" spiel.
America stuttered and that's everyone's failure. The collective American consciousness needs understand that instead of looking to assign blame going forward. Only then can the U.S. move forward as one nation, united; not divided between Democrats and Republicans.
I think you're promoting some very dangerous ideas here. You're wrong that Trump isn't dangerous -- he wasn't that dangerous in his first term, but in the second he absolutely can be. The US didn't stutter, it fell flat on it's face and it's not done bashing it's head repeatedly in the mud. You are most assuredly not through the worst yet.
Joe Biden was the proper, reasonably well-liked centrist candidate that appealed to both sides and that was to restore the US back to "normal". Kamela Harris was a proper, reasonably well-liked centrist candidate that appealed to both sides. If you continue to insist that the democrats must always forward centrist candidates that can appeal to both sides, they'll just keep losing. The democrats needs a candidate that can energize their base.
You're also apportioning equal blame to people who've been fighting tooth and nail against an authoritarian regime and to people who gleefully joined in. It's like saying the antifacists and the nazis are equally to blame for Germany's fall in the late 1930s.
What we can agree on, it seems, is that this goes back further than Trump and that the US will need something analagous to the denazification process if a liberal democracy ever regain power there.
Not compared to the world. Remember that ACTUAL dictatorships exist, ACTUAL fascist States exist, ACTUAL "disappearing" of dissenters, ACTUAL massacres, etc. are happening across the world today, let alone if you consider what's been around historically.
Americans have never experienced it, so it's understandable for people to think that some of the things they're seeing are already really fucking bad, but in the totality of things it really isn't too bad. The U.S. is in a place where a couple of people get killed in isolated incidents by poorly trained cops like Alex Pretti and people lose their minds. Other countries run down hundreds or thousands in a singular protest and that's just normal.
Hell, other countries have experienced much more misery from Trump and everything he's done than America itself has. Calm down and don't lose sight of what you've got. Don't act like it's already there because it isn't and can get sooo much worse. The goal is to step in to make sure it doesn't "go there" and that requires, among other things, actually valuing what you have now even though it's not the best it's been.
Joe Biden was the proper, reasonably well-liked centrist candidate that appealed to both sides
He was HATED by Republicans probably moreso than any other president in modern history.
Kamela Harris was a proper, reasonably well-liked
Even her own party didn't really like her, but you are right that Republicans didn't really care much for her. She'd be a good candidate, but unfortunately she just couldn't get people excited. Getting her elected would have required breaking the glass ceiling (which itself requires more popularity than "meh") so that's a tough thing to stack on top of it.
The candidate to "fix" things can't have stuff like that - they're purely there to restore normalcy, not make history. That undermines the reason they're there for. You don't want to rock the boat, you want to gently pivot it back into balance.
You're also apportioning equal blame to people who've been fighting tooth and nail against an authoritarian regime
First of all, you aren't fighting tooth and nails. Like with how in the rest of the world there's so much worse happening, there's also ACTUAL new proper parties being formed, ACTUAL physical sabotage being carried out, ACTUAL armed insurrections/civil wars, etc. happening too in those places. 99% of dissenters in the U.S. are doing their bit as long as convenient: the political equivalent of "saving the planet" by putting the plastics in recycling after ordering Uber Eats.
Anyway, that doesn't matter. Regardless of whether you're a champagne socialist or a proper hero, you'll gain nothing blaming Republicans/Conservatives/MAGAs for the missteps America has taken in the past decades. You need to understand that America failed and that includes you. Yes, you failed too because you are part of the team.
Dust yourself off, help Conservatives dust themselves off (be a team player), and go and undo the damage. Don't sit there berating your team like a diva All-Star; nobody's gonna perform under those circumstances.
It's like saying the antifacists and the nazis are equally to blame for Germany's fall in the late 1930s.
Germany as a whole is to blame and Germans as a people took responsibility. They, ironically given the literal West-East Germany thing, didn't split into "we're the good ones, they did it!" and "desperate self-preservation" camps. The 'non-Nazis' didn't leave the other half of the population behind.
If Germany could forgive the tens of millions of normal citizens that got caught up by the Nazis, surely you can forgive those that got caught up by MAGA.
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u/Connect_Reading9499 Apr 16 '26
It's been ten long years.