Yes, but sometimes there's an iconic leader that a movement centers around, and while the machine they drive is made up of millions of others, that personality is key.

It's why Trump is so scary. Yeah, the GOP has been evil for decades. But the fascist shift of the past 9 years wasn't something they expected. The GOP lost control of their own party with Trump, and now they're as terrified of him as anyone, but unable to stop him. It's become a personality cult that is no longer connected with political stances.

Liz Cheney was a textbook examen of a far-right establishment Republican, and she was driven out of office and is now in legitimate danger of assassination by the Trump crowd despite holding the same political positions. All because she didn't bend the knee to Trump himself.

The GOP is also terrified at what comes after Trump. He's nearly 80 and is the entirety of their platform now.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Yeah, the GOP has been evil for decades. But the fascist shift of the past 9 years wasn’t something they expected.

kinda disagree with where you take this line of thought - they've certainly been evil for decades, at least since the southern strategy - fosho - but the fascist shift is something they've been building for a decade+ since they realized demographics were not going to keep white people a numerical majority.

So they began a long campaign of gerrymandering (too many examples to begin to describe), disenfranchisement (tens of thousands of black votes discarded in florida that would have elected Gore) and political horror (Willie Horton et al) - and now they're going to see it through with proj 2025.

I think this has been a longterm goal of the right for decades as they see no solution to being a minority except for minority rule.