re: #107 Anymouse 🌹🏡😷

That was noted by a number of political scientists in the aftermath of the 2016 Apocalypse. Polling and surveys seemed to indicate that Trump brought out a whole lot of bigots who’d never voted before. The trick for any Republican now would be to keep the bigot brigade together, by acting as bad or worse than Trump. Folks like Hawley, DeSantis, and Cruz are trying, but Cruz was already rejected by the same voters once.

As for “normal” Republicans, they will vote for whatever crazy floats to the top of the primaries, because they wouldn’t consider a Democrat and “who the hell else are we going to vote for anyway?” The so-called normal Republicans will happily vote us right back into Mediæval Christian Fascism (complete with the slaughter and holy wars).

Of the three “normal Republicans” I regularly talk to or sort of track via Facebook they seem to fall into three camps. (And I can project a few others onto the same rough model.)
1. Have seen enough and have enough political acumen and understanding to be voting for Democrats from now on. (One of the three)

2. Heartily disapprove of Trump, but will pull lever for Republicans anyways due to “reasons”. (Match what you say above.) Usually due to religions conservatism, but for at least one of them there is a heavy undercurrent of racism due to upbringing. (One of the three - plus others.)

3. Not really a Republican as compared to a pseudo-Libertarian. The latter only comes out when they are inconvenienced by something. Which leads to them voting Republican since they are told the GOP is pro-freedom and the Democrats are the ones making the mask mandates, taxing them, etc. etc. I’d also put most of the “a pox on both their houses” people in here. They don’t like either party and believe them similar without understanding or wanting to understand that from a policy standpoint the parties *are* different. (One of the three here since they spout about “tyranny” when inconvenienced during the initial responses to the Covid pandemic.)

I also know a few Democrat voters who have bought into the Bernie Sanders show. They are at least still smart enough to vote and not stay home, e.g. they are not quite purity pony types though they also seem to not quite understand that the current political climate is not trending towards Sanders stuff at all.

Note: Most of the above are males. The females of whom I know their political leanings are all quite liberal, vote Democrat, are generally *very* pissed off right now, and also are much more politically active than the males I interact with.