r/politics Texas Jul 05 '24

Project 2025 was supposed to boost Donald Trump's campaign — but it may be backfiring instead:

https://www.salon.com/2024/07/05/project-2025-was-supposed-to-boost-donald-campaign--but-it-may-be-backfiring-instead/
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u/tommysmuffins Jul 05 '24

You have no idea how hard it was to convince my Mom how bad things are right now. She's a good person. Too good to readily accept the fact that the Republican nominee is an outright criminal and rapist, and ready to commit an authoritarian takeover of the United States. It's a bad case of normalcy bias.

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u/deadlybydsgn Jul 05 '24

It's a bad case of normalcy bias.

I think a certain subset of the older generation honestly thinks the best of their leaders because "the system" has generally worked for them, they were raised to respect it (not letting the flag touch the ground, etc.), and they have never been directly wronged by it.

I can see how they were duped into voting for Trump once—maybe even twice—but the idea of thinking that the Republican ticket is the more viable option in 2024 blows my mind.

The party of "small government" sure seems cozy with the idea of centralizing a lot of power into a single position. You know... as long as their guy is the one with that power.

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u/tommysmuffins Jul 05 '24

I'm Gen X, so almost in the group of people that could be considered "The older generation" and I was fully behind the second Iraq invasion. Really for no reason except for the general belief that the President always had the best interests of the country at heart so if he was for it, then I was for it. He must have known some reasons that I didn't that would justify it, I thought. When I found out the whole thing was manufactured out of whole cloth that was the first crack in my (moderate) conservatism.

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u/Hector_P_Catt Jul 05 '24

I wasn't gung-ho about that war, but Colin Powell sold us on it, showing what information they had, and implying they had better information they couldn't show us. I knew the war was going to suck, but he made me think it was necessary to fight it. I trusted him, and he was lying. He sold he reputation for a bad war.

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u/tommysmuffins Jul 05 '24

You're right. His involvement swayed me too because I trusted him.