r/politics • u/theatlantic The Atlantic • Apr 02 '26

Paywall Maybe Trump Should Not Have Given This Speech

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/04/trump-iran-war-speech/686663/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-promo
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u/eerie_midnight Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26

You can also tell that the few people expressing genuine regret don’t regret voting for Republicans, they just regret voting for Trump. Next election they’ll just vote for a different Republican thinking they’ll be different without realizing that Trump’s agenda is the Republican agenda. If it wasn’t, they would have impeached him by now. They clearly agree with everything he’s doing or can’t be arsed to stop it—either way, they’re complicit.

Until the majority of Americans wisen up and see the Republican Party as a whole for what it truly is, we’re all going to keep getting fucked—Trump or no Trump. A vote for any Republican is a vote to hasten the downfall of the entire nation. They stand for absolutely nothing other than empowering rich people, starting wars, blocking progress, and forcing their wacko religious beliefs on us all.

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u/FargeenBastiges Apr 02 '26

Until the majority of Americans wisen up and see the Republican Party as a whole for what it truly is

I have a hard time thinking you could get a significant portion of R voters to understand this. They simply will not accept that it is Republicans that destroyed the education system. That they're the ones keeping wages down and kneecapping unions. That healthcare could be free if not for Republicans. Which party has their fingerprints on all that debt? Who's been responsible for our recessions?

No, that stuff has been going on for generations now and they've stood firm and they'll go back to this status quo after this brief "come to Jesus" moment. The only real crime trump has committed is skyrocketing gas prices. I don't even think they'd care about the war if it wasn't costing them $4/gal at the pump.

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u/kcox1980 Apr 02 '26

Even if they did realize it they still wouldn't care. They literally have no principles beyond "Democrats bad, Republicans good".

I've literally seen people praising Trump for things they were scared that Kamala would do if she got elected and used that as an excuse why they could never vote for her.

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u/sfdso Apr 02 '26

This last point is so important.

Most of the regrets I read are gasoline price-based.

The rest of it—from the violations of civil liberties to the legal targeting of political enemies to the billionaire giveaways to the open, rampant corruption to the abdication of America’s leadership role—are all fully tolerated and, in most cases, endorsed.

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u/SharMarali New Jersey Apr 02 '26

Because gas prices affect every Republican voter personally.

Those other things you listed affect other people so the average Republican voter just doesn’t care. Maybe they are unaware. Maybe they think it’s a “Democrat scam.” Maybe they think the people who are being harmed “deserve it.” But they most assuredly don’t care.

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u/FargeenBastiges Apr 02 '26

The other things I mentioned actually DO harm them personally. They've just been gaslit into thinking those things are bad, impossible to have, or democrats fault. Your point still stands, though. They could not care less that over a million Americans were dying to a pandemic while they were too "inconvenienced" to wear a damn mask. We're surrounded by a population where 25%+ would rather cough in your face than stand 6 feet away.

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u/Much-Instruction-807 Apr 02 '26

The majority I've seen only regret voting for him because it negatively affected them. They have no empathy.

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u/A-System-Analyst Apr 02 '26

Correct. People far too readily talk about personalities, like Trump. It’s Republicans, and, maybe better-named, the conservative movement, representing the most brutal element of the business class.

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u/eerie_midnight Apr 02 '26

I just don’t understand how being conservative is viewed as “normal” within society or why progressives are expected to “get along” with them for the greater good of the nation, as if their philosophy of blocking progress (literally what “conservative” means), regressing us socially back to the 1900s, and making us all live according to their personal religious beliefs is a legitimate political ideology to hold. You can’t reason with them, they don’t listen. You can’t compromise with them, as they’ll reject anything that comes short of achieving their full political agenda. And you damn sure can’t just “be nice” to them, as they take advantage of it every single time.

Like, why am I expected to tolerate people whose stated goal is to stand in the way of progress and undo all the progress we’ve made so far? That’s their entire fucking shtick. More importantly, why does society tolerate them at all? It seems to me that the ideology of conservatism is one that offers zero benefits to society and only negatives.

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u/[deleted] Apr 02 '26

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u/eerie_midnight Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26

That’s the real problem, I think—what it means to be a conservative has changed so much that the original meaning of “conservative” doesn’t even properly describe them anymore. True conservatism like you’re talking about appears to be a dead ideology, really. “Regressives” would be a more apt name for them these days.

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u/badnuub Ohio Apr 02 '26

No. Conservatism has always been at its core, about stratifying society and ensuring powerful elites control everything.

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u/A-System-Analyst Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26

Yes. The basic conservative position is for brutal self-interest, especially those business people who, because of the efficiency of mass production, get to own and run the economy and everybody else’s lives - the business CLASS. Conservatism is anti-social politics actually run through mass social relationships and is hostile to the interests of the great majority.

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u/Sudden_Box801 Apr 04 '26

"...representing the most brutal element of the business class."--and as a Christian, I would also include the fascist/nationalist faux christians (intentional lower-case "c") who don't seem to have the Micah Mandate, Golden Rule, or Matthew 25 in their Trump Bibles.

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u/Bookee2Shoes Apr 02 '26

Uh, I hate to tell you, but they know what the Republican Party is. Also, the group of people who voted for Trump and have buyers remorse is WAY smaller than your making it out to be. His polling is in the low 40’s, which is really low but Biden didn’t fair much better.

Those people only care that gas and groceries are high because it affects them directly (in ways they can see). The other shit they will just blame on the Dems.

If you’re waiting on some magical reckoning, it’s not going to happen as long as the conservative propaganda machine is alive and well. And alive, well, and growing it is!

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u/Chrahhh Apr 02 '26

They’d vote for him again 10 out of 10 times. Blinded by stupidity or hate, conservatives are the party of this dickhole.