No point in engaging with someone that believes the interpretation of a single man’s statement represents the belief of an entire half of a society.

I’m not sure if you’re speaking towards me here but if you are believe me I’ve wished for years there was a backbone in the other party that didn’t fall in lockstep. Even so, that party doesn’t follow him any more. And even when it did it only represented ~1/3 of US society.

> called nazis "very fine people"

Did he really? https://finepeople.org/

FYI, and this may come as a surprise, Trump is not the entire republican party.

This may come as a surprise too but the person you’re talking about was a lifelong Democrat. He didn’t express views like that openly until he was sure he had a shot at the nomination. He said what the party was thinking or wishing.

So you're saying every republican likes/agrees with Trump? That's easily falsifiable. If that's not your point, I'm not sure what is?

Most professional Republicans didn’t actually agree with his views as candidate/president. Doesn’t matter. It was popular enough that they wouldn’t cross him. Voters... well, go look at the polls. The vast majority voting Republican did like or agree and were unwavering. Or go look at approval ratings and see he had a floor around 1/3 of the population. Roughly one in three people in the US was racist and hateful enough to hold an electorally decisive minority of the country hostage for one presidential cycle and threaten one more.

Ok, so now your argument is: If you voted for Trump, you agreed with everything he said, and if you didn't, it doesn't matter because most Republicans did? Still a little out there for me.

Let me be crystal clear:

1. If you voted with/for trump it doesn’t matter whether you agree with him, you were giving him material support and demonstrating that you at least accepted what he was doing.

2. We’re not talking about some normal president where it’s a political disagreement. We’re talking about a guy who courted nazis and a wide assortment of fascists, even referring to them as great people immediately following a very public murder.

3. I stopped looking at polling a few months ago because it was upsetting and never changed but last I checked the 1/3 floor I was talking about were “strongly approved”, so I’ll take them at their word.

I think it's easy for people to disregard the values and life experience of those they don't know, and I think this is an example of that.

A perfect example is where your view falls apart is abortion. If one believes it's murder, then one believes the left leaning half of America is out to murder babies. If one genuinely believes that, and many people do, what then could Trump do that's worse? You look at the parties and see one that is ok murdering babies, and one that is not. That's what they see.

When you start throwing around absolutes based on personal moral values, you're ignoring that other people may have different values than you. You're classifying a bunch of people simply as nazi sympathizers when in reality they may just want to save babies.

You have no idea who I know or what my life experiences are. I’m from the people you’re talking about. I was one. I’m not in a silo. I’m the product of their upbringing.

While they may believe abortion is murder, there’s cold video evidence of the nazis. It’s not a matter of opinion. They chose to stand along with nazis in their belief about when human life is human life. Not my fucking framework, and I don’t have to accept it as any more viable than the lives they mistakenly believe are.

Where in my post did I comment did I claim to know you?

Also, you're conflating evidence and belief. There is video evidence of nazis yes. There is also video evidence of abortions. You believe nazis are wrong. They believe abortions are wrong-er.

I'm not saying you have to accept it as your framework, I'm just saying each of us have our ethical code, and which one is 'correct' is much fuzzier than your anger is fit to portray.

The Republican party ran in 2020 on doing whatever trump wants, and still got a whole ton of a lot of votes on that platform.

Trump is for now, the entire republican party, until they figure out a platform that isn't Trump's whims

Please don't openly solicit down votes - it's a tactic that has no place on hackernews and will end up getting you down votes completely ignoring the rest of your statement.

I don’t think there is a political party who owns all the media, there is media selling to the highest bidder. How can it all be out to get Trump with the incredible reach of Fox? https://www.foxnews.com/media/fox-news-finishes-2020-as-most...

The truth is nearly all media is just out to get eyeballs and sell ads.

If you’re downvoted, it’ll be because of asking for downvotes and talking about censorship without evidence. It’s incredible to me that you cannot see right wing bias as well as the left bias.