The one thing I’ll give Donald Trump a lot of credit for is that he’s proven basically everything progressives have been saying about the Republican Party for the past 40+ years has been absolutely factual — and that almost nothing conservative voters have claimed to support or believe in was ever remotely true.
Their entire ethos is nothing more than opposing whatever Democrats support to "own those libs."
For decades, Republicans claimed to be the party of Christian values, small government, states’ rights, the free market, keeping government and regulations out of private business, family values, the Constitution, limited government, fiscal responsibility, and opposing dictators and authoritarians — among a few other B.S. talking points.
Yet here we are with Trump, a president and human being who is literally the antithesis of every single thing I just listed.
He doesn’t go to church, he’s cheated on every one of his wives, and he doesn’t display a single trait that Jesus Christ is quoted as valuing in the Bible. In fact, there are several parts of the Bible where Jesus specifically warns against and condemns people like Trump and those who follow them.
Forget small government. Trump believes all of Congress, the judiciary, and every state should answer to him. He’s on record trying to pressure sports teams into changing their names, attempting to get people fired for saying things he doesn’t like, and threatening states that pass legislation he opposes.
Which brings us to states’ rights — something I’ve pretty much already covered in the examples above. Then again, “states’ rights” has always been the conservative go-to piece of propaganda when it comes to defending rights they want to preserve, such as owning other human beings or unrestricted gun access. However, when they hold power, they suddenly couldn’t care less about the rights of states that do things they oppose. At that point, they become advocates for massive federal control and trampling over the authority of state and local governments.
Fiscal responsibility? What a joke.
We all knew that talking point was nonsense decades ago. Even as a kid during my early years of following politics, it never made sense to me how Ronald Reagan became the “conservative icon” of a political party that claimed to care about fiscal responsibility — despite adding trillions to the national debt and never once balancing the budget during his eight years as president.
How exactly are you “fiscally responsible” while massively increasing the debt?
Now we have Trump, who’s on pace to add more to the national debt than any president in American history — despite claiming during his 2016 campaign that he would “eliminate the national debt very easily.”
Obviously, he didn’t “very easily” eliminate the debt during his first four years in office. In fact, he increased it at a record pace.
Limited government? Give me a break.
As I’ve already pointed out, Trump believes every aspect of this country — even state congressional maps — should effectively require his approval. He’s a president desperately trying to become a dictator, seeking control over everything from the media to the arts to education.
The free market and staying out of the affairs of private businesses? Yeah, you can’t claim that when the backbone of his economic policy is massive, trade-killing tariffs. And he’s made it very clear that if any major corporation refuses to play ball with him, he’ll do whatever he can to meddle in, block, or interfere with its business until it does what he wants — or he’ll simply keep abusing his power to target them until they do.
Oh yeah — “low taxes.” Another complete con job.
Donald Trump’s tariffs were one of the largest tax increases on American consumers in modern history. You can’t claim to oppose raising taxes while backing a president who slapped 10–20% or higher taxes on consumers through tariffs. Especially when the tariff propaganda is really just the GOP’s attempt to push a regressive national sales tax so the wealthy can pay even less, while shifting more of the burden for funding the country onto the poor and middle class.
It was never a matter of if the GOP would eventually be taken over by a fanatical wannabe dictator demanding blind loyalty, backed largely by racists and conspiracy theorists, and willing to trample all over the Constitution — only when.
It’s not surprising that it happened. It’s not even surprising that someone as blatantly incompetent and idiotic as Donald Trump rose to the top of the GOP.
After all, if you tell conservatives what they want to hear, many of them will believe it no matter how delusional, fact-free, or completely batsh*t crazy it sounds.
We’ve watched this happening for decades.
So while I won’t give Donald Trump much credit for anything else, I will give him this: he’s finally put on full display that practically everything progressives have accused conservatives of being over the past 40+ years was spot-on — and that much of what the GOP claimed to stand for during that same time was complete and total bullsh*t.