It must surely be imminent. He’s not in the best health if the reports about him eating mcdonalds all the time are true. He’s 79 which isn’t that old but I dont see many fat, stressed 90 year olds on a mcdonalds diet.

Say he had a heart attack next week… then what? Presumably Vance would take over as actual president, but I can’t imagine anyone being as bad as him. Would the maga movement continue with a different cult leader? Do you think things would meaningfully change?

  • Noxy@pawb.social
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    Parties. Celebration. But things won’t really improve in the short term. Medium term, maybe the cult fractures, but fascism is much bigger than this one fuckhead.

    Still, parties.

    • Amberskin@europe.pub
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      14 hours ago

      Fascism usually doesn’t recover from a leader loss for years.

      Historical examples: Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    Most likely a mad struggle for power among those in his circle alongside a struggle to be seen as the heir. Vance has an advantage here, but you can see other players making their moves including Greene. Had Kirk been alive he honestly might’ve been my dark horse bet. But if nobody wins a sufficient coalition then everyone loses. Some of the ideas will remain, but mostly the energized masses return to how they were before him or they’ll split into their feuding factions where the San Francisco technofascists and the Midwesterners who hate change and the southerners who just hate everyone different from them are all back at each other’s throats and all are disgusted with Nick Fuentes

  • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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    There is a long list of politicians who have tried to do the Trump thing ever since the stupid escalator. Florida Governor DeSantis made a tiny little bit of headway that ultimately collapsed around him, Marge Greene has been setting herself up as the post-Maga maga leader, and Ted Cruz of Texas has been trying for the longest time to position himself as heir apparent of the current GOP, but there hasn’t been anyone who has been able to capture the same spectrum of blind devotion to grudging acceptance that Donald Trump has somehow managed to unite into the Maga movement.

    JD Vance certainly isn’t it, and while he’ll certainly get the Oval Office when Trump dies before completing his term, I think his presidency will be fairly unremarkable and rather short, and afterwards he’ll move into private equity consulting or some such and never be seen in politics again.

    But without Joe Rogan and Charlie Kirk, and with a ton of the other influencers either jumping ship or losing face, I don’t think we’ll see the same focus on a single candidate again. Since 2016, we’ve had a historical alignment of domestic influence and foreign interference that focused on Trump specifically, and he has used that (as he always does) to build the Trump brand and only the Trump brand. Nobody else can use it; not even Don Jr., who has tried dipping his toes in and mostly been ignored.

    So I think the answer is, the maga cult sputters and dies. Maybe it sticks around long enough to poison the waters for a couple more election cycles, but it won’t elect another president. The best case scenario, in my mind, would be maga breaking away from the GOP and trying to field candidates for a few years that become spoilers.

    Either way, the Republicans will eventually put the mask back on and try to pretend like nothing ever happened (though I can’t possibly predict whether that’ll work. My gut says yes, but maybe that’s just me being cynical).

    • CascadianGiraffe@lemmy.world
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      OMG wouldn’t that be an interesting outcome. MAGA splits from GOP, taking voters. Suddenly there is room for an actual left side party instead of whatever Dem is anymore. Would be funny if the death of Trump actually pushed us into having more political parties and some actual representation for the people.

      • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        In my opinion, the best case scenario is that that happens, the GOP dies (it happened with the Whigs!) and a new, more progressive party (maybe DemSoc) becomes relevant to the left of the Democrats. The Dems become the new Conservatives (since they basically are anyway) and the left wing becomes the moderate left. The overperformance of Abughazeleh (even though she didn’t win) and the shocking effectiveness of Mamdani now that he’s in office make this slightly less impossible than it would’ve seemed even a year ago.

    • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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      Maybe it sticks around long enough to poison the waters for a couple more election cycles

      This is kind of my best case scenario for the cult. Stick around and try their own thing, which results in siphoning votes from the Republican party.

      the Republicans will eventually put the mask back on and try to pretend like nothing ever happened (though I can’t possibly predict whether that’ll work)

      Oh it’ll work. After Bush Jr. Republicans pulled a “Who? Oh I didn’t know him that well”. Then they got a fascist elected. Their base has hamster brains. This whole ordeal should have buried the Republican party in a deep unmarked grave. But it won’t.

  • Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca
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    I’ll go into the nearest pub and buy everyone a round.

    Things are likely to stay pretty shitty as Trump is a symptom rather than an underlying cause, but we’ve had precious little to celebrate.

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    Politicians will use his death for X agenda. vance is primed for it and Erika Kirk is a good case study.

    • IronBird@lemmy.world
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      the cope is strong, would be a lot funnier seeing everyone finally being forced to come to terms with reality if i wasnt stuck in the US when it goes down

    • fizzle@quokk.au
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      That’s true, but if you pop this particular pustule it’s not clear how long it would take for another to emerge - perhaps hears or decades. In which time there’s a chance you could at least partially address the underlying health issues.

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      It’s a bit of both. He is uniquely good at allowing people to feel like their narcissism is righteous. He’s the best at it since Hitler. JD’s no neo-hitler.

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    Satan keeps his people alive. He has more energy than most 40 year olds.

    79 is not that old? Most people dont live to be 85. So yeah, its pretty old… The average age of death for males in America is 76 years old. Only 1 in 10 males reaches 90.

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    Trump is the disposable useful idiot to be the fall guy if the fascist coup fails. Everyone will pretend to sober up with their “it wasn’t us, it was him and we tried to fight it from the inside, but he was just too powerful.” story. These lines are well rehearsed.

    The fascist party is still fully present and accounted for, and are learning to exercise their newfound powers with alarming speed. Trump dying fixes nothing. They lose a figurehead, and the idiot fallguy. Their plans don’t stop. If anything they accelerate and intensify because their big escape clause just disapeared and the cost of failure goes up.

    • OwOarchist@pawb.social
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      Trump dying fixes nothing.

      Well, it could potentially fracture their party between different figures vying to be the next Trump. That’s the only thing it could fix.

    • RunJun@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      The fascists will still be there, you’re absolutely right. However, do not undercut the cult of personality. People not under the spell, can’t/won’t see it but all of this is built off his “charisma”. Their momentum will absolutely falter when he’s no longer around.

      Once it happens, we cannot allow for elected members to talk about “coming together” and “moving forward”. These ghouls must be held accountable.

      • DoubleDongle@lemmy.world
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        The individual you’re replying to may be sincere, but a shill trying to demoralize us would say the exact same thing. If a scary message doesn’t end in a call to action, it’s not helpful.

      • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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        I personally know more than a couple trumpers who are now fully cultists and will eat whatever right wing media feeds them. As long as there are consistent right wing propagandists, there will be the cult of maga. They will continue on supporting fascism and hurting others.

      • StinkyFingerItchyBum@lemmy.ca
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        Agreed, perhaps I’m just not as hopeful in the damage the cult suffers in this circumstance. It would have been damaging in an election. Things are moving fast now and still accelerating. There might not be another election, then losing Dear Leader doesn’t mean much. Fascists use fear and violence to control opposing groups in populations, not democratic consent to legitimize themselves.

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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    We’d get Vance, who is arguably worse. Seriously. Look into the guy. He’s a freakshow, but more subtle than Trump. Still very stupid though, so we’d still be led by a stupid extremist.

    The cult as we know it would end though. Vance isn’t going to be able to take over as cult leader. He doesn’t have the flamboyant bigotry that Trump does, which is what draws low IQ conservatives to him like he’s some idol.

    Doesn’t matter. I’ve witnessed conservatives all my life. With Trump gone, they’ll absolutely vote for the next shitstain racist/fascist/bigot/moron the Republican party hands them. Because they will never, under any circumstances, vote blue. And they’ll never vote 3rd party cuz they won’t want to risk baby eating Democrats gaining power. So they’ll bite their tongues and vote for whatever Republican is on the menu. And now that Trump has opened Pandora’s Box, we’re just going to see worse and worse candidates from Republicans because they watched and saw what Trump was able to get away with, so they’ll take advantage, because why wouldn’t they? They’ll want their turn to grift the presidency to create their own dynasty.

    I don’t want to make a Monday even shittier than it already is, but realistically, things are probably going to get worse, not better, even with Trump gone. But hey, at least we won’t have to hear his fucking voice anymore or wake up wondering what monumentally stupid thing he’s said or done every fucking day.