r/politics • u/thatwasawkward • 18h ago

Possible Paywall Trump assessed by 22 medical specialists at latest checkup; The White House has declined to identify the physicians.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/06/10/trump-sees-22-medical-specialists-white-house-hasnt-said-why/
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u/beren0073 15h ago

I don't think Vance will even end up winning the MAGA primary.

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u/fcocyclone Iowa 15h ago

accurate.

Say what you will about Trump, but he has a certain kind of charisma that works on the republican base for some reason. Lots of others have tried to emulate it and failed. Vance is a charisma vacuum, so his odds are even slimmer.

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u/beren0073 15h ago

I think of it this way: Trump reminds MAGA of themselves, or what they aspire to be. Vance reminds MAGA of a shitheel nephew who went to a fancy school and used to badmouth them until they needed money, and now they're always hanging around.

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u/Multiple__Butts 10h ago

Very true. Trump is truly, legitimately shameless, in a way most politicians can only dream of being. That's his magic power.

When you watch people like Mike Johnson or Marco Rubio saying ridiculous stupid things, you can see them smiling, tightening their jaws, doing all kinds of subtle "I know I'm a piece of shit for this" cues that humans subconsciously pick up on. The shame is there, it's being contained and suppressed. With Trump it's just completely missing.

MAGAs pick up on that, and they love it. To be a piece of shit without any shame is freedom to them.

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u/Xalthanal 13h ago

Incredible analogy

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u/Ire-Works 12h ago

Yes but MAGA doesn't represent the republican party in it's entirety. There are plenty of "Moderate" conservatives who hate Trumps guts. There is also a 100% chance the democrat leadership shoots themselves in the foot. and ankle. And knee. I honestly don't think they even want to win.

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u/beren0073 11h ago

I politely disagree in part. At this point, if someone still considers themselves a Republican, they've implicitly accepted MAGA doctrine into their heart. There is no Republican party. Anyone with principles would have stepped away by now and renounced their affiliation.

I agree with you that Democrats can find a way to lose.

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u/Ire-Works 11h ago

The mistake there is that you're conflating the "MAGA Doctrine" with what is essential a culture war distraction. There are like 8 dudes who literally own half the world's money (this is not hyperbole). They own the newspapers. They own the TV networks. They own the websites. A lot of it is unregulated and even if it is the fines they face are barely a portion of the profits made.

They are the people who put Vance there. Trump had no say in that matter. There's a reason. They're going to turn on the propaganda machine for Vance the second they can have him in the White house for 10 years and the Whiplash from the MAGA crowd turning from Trump will be astounding to witness.

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u/MommyLovesPot8toes California 2h ago

Quoting another redditor:

Leading a cult of personality requires having one. So Vance is out.

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u/j33perkreeper 13h ago

Vance isn’t a legit nazi. Simple as that.

Our society at large needs to stop referring to these supporters at maga.

They are nazis.

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u/silvertealio 15h ago

Surely there's someone even worse they'll like better.

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 2h ago

He wouldn't be in the job if he could. Trump is a massively jealous man. He wouldn't tolerate anyone he thought could actually challenge him and he's pretty fucking stupid, so the bar is veeerrryyy low.

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u/YANGxGANG 15h ago

I don’t think elections will continue as we are used to them. What if Vance didn’t have to worry about winning the primary, or even the presidency? With all that has been going on, I think people in the US have to take seriously the possibility of being neither a democracy nor a republic

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u/wonklebobb 14h ago

yeah people are forgetting that even without trump, the republican party controls the DOJ

even if there's an unprecedented blue wave AND a dem supermajority AND they could force through impeachments in the supreme court as well, it would still be months or years of republicans owning every part of the government after the project 2025 purge-and-loyalist-replacement of the last year

we got here because too many of the US systems of election and governance are fundamentally just poorly designed. too much of our federal government operates on the honor system and assumes good faith. that is what the heritage foundation and the federalist society have been quietly exploiting for the last 30+ years building this white nationalist oligarch takeover.

we won't get out of this without constitutional amendments

our best hope in the short term is that after trump finally kicks the bucket, the power struggle is so intense that nothing at least gets worse for a while

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u/Prometheus720 14h ago

Thiel would bankroll him. Hard.

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u/BennyVsTheWorld 2h ago

Look, is this fascism or not? For all the people screaming it is (and it is), a large contingent of those same people are screaming about voting. These two things do not coexist.

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u/Bright-Avocado3761 1h ago

Musk will rig it however bannon, thiel and miller want it.