I started to read an article about the evolution of the ‘core ideological principles’ of the modern Republican Party. I stopped reading after the first paragraph, because I remembered this simple fact: the modern Republican Party doesn’t have any core ideological principles. They don’t have any ideology; they don’t have any principles. They don’t have any fucking core.
The only thing the modern Republican Party has is a loyalty test. That’s it. Are you loyal to Comrade Donald J. Trump? It’s a simple yes or no test. If the answer is ‘no’ then you’re not a Republican anymore. If the answer is ‘yes’ then you still have to be measured by another metric. HOW loyal are you to Comrade Donald J. Trump?
Will you give him money? If he lies, will you cover for him? Will you shade the truth for him? Will you tell a direct lie for him? Will you let him kiss you? Will you kiss him? Will you cover for him if he commits a crime? Will you commit a crime for him? Will you commit a misdemeanor? Will you commit a felony? Will you commit a crime for him if he promises to pardon you? Will you commit a crime for him knowing he won’t or can’t pardon you? Will you cover for him if his children commit a crime? Will you refuse a vaccine for him? Will you consider injecting some sort of ‘disinfectant’ if he suggests it’s good for you? Will you eat a live cricket if he tells you to? Will you eat a dead cricket? Will you cover for him if he cheats on his wife? Will you cover for him if he cheats on his wife with the wife of a friend? Will you consider giving him a blow job? Will you destroy evidence against him? Will you cover for him if he collaborates with people considered to be enemies of the United States? Will you cover for him if he gives national security secrets to nations considered to be enemies of the United States? Will you assault the Capitol Building and disrupt the Electoral College if he asks you to? Will you cover for him if he shoots somebody on Fifth Avenue?
It’s an uncertain dynamic metric. How loyal are you to Comrade Trump? It’s a variable standard of measurement — inconsistent, volatile, wildly mutable. It changes moment to moment. If it was consistent, it wouldn’t require blind faith and obedience to be loyal. It can only be measured by what Trump wants when he wants it.
Just HOW loyal are you to Comrade Trump?
Loyalty to Comrade Trump is the only metric that matters. In the modern Republican Party you don’t have to have any strong personal feelings about how the government should act. You don’t have to bother with cobbling together some sort of consistent political position on the environment or policing or race relations or whether trans teens should participate in high school sports or the value of tariffs or immigration or education or firearm safety or regulation of wetlands or food safety or freedom of the press. Comrade Trump will do all that for you. You just have to agree with him.
What are core ideological principles, anyway? How do they help you? Are they useful? Can you make money with them? What exactly is the point of core ideological principles?
gregfallis.com 
wow. it is all scary, I grew up in a communist country. Yep, scary
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I think it’s hard for most folks in the US to see HOW scary it is. We’re accustomed to having two major political parties — so we generally assume we still have that. In fact, what we have is one actual political party and a group of power mongers representing a loose collective of angry, conspiratorial, science-deniers in the shape of a political party.
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Loyalty is simple and easy to understand. It doesn’t require thought, education, or even basic literacy. It simply requires that you be able to identify “Us” (MAGA hats, swastikas, etc.) and able to identify “Them” (everyone else, it seems). There are no gray areas: you are either for or against. Simple, no? Trump as our once and future monarch has ascended to a role that the current crop of so-called Republicans have set the stage for.
The sad irony here is that a republic is a political system without a monarch. Republicans, therefore, will need to begin searching for a new name.
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The saddest irony, in my opinion, is that the loyalty is unidirectional. Loyalty TO Trump. It’s a sign of just how misguided they are that they believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that he’ll return their loyalty.
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So sad, yet understandable. We trust these folk survive to detail their experience
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