It’s important to remember that Trump supporters are fanatics
None of you want to remember November 5th, 2024, I know, but here we go anyways.
There were two results from North Carolina (highlighted above) that were deeply important that night: President Donald Trump’s narrow win, and Democratic Governor Josh Stein’s 11 point landslide.
Now, there’s a lot of things we can take away from this discrepancy—for one, perhaps announcing yourself to be a black Nazi on a race fetish porn site was a bad idea, Robinson? And there’s certainly something to be said about Trump/Stein crossover voters. But there’s another discrepancy, too, but it’s hard to spot unless you’re crazy good a mental math. Let’s add those vote totals up:
There is a 300 thousand vote difference between the Presidential and Gubernatorial races.
And yes, the amount of votes as you go down a ballot drops off (dropping most sharply once you get to the second page). But still, this is between the *first* and *second* race on the ballot, not the back part where it tells you to pick two people for county water conservationist but there are only two candidates and so I just put in the names of random celebrities.
It’s not impossible that some Trump supporters skipped the governor’s race, sure, but we can make one pretty reasonable assumption. There are many people who voted for Trump, and did not vote for a single other candidate on the ballot. I’ve been calling it the “Trump and Dump” phenomenon.
Meaning? For many Trump supporters, he’s not just a Republican. He’s their only political figure. He’s risen to the rank of savior. This is cult behavior.
This is not just partisanship. It’s full scale radicalization. There’s not just a ring of separation between Trumpies and non-Trumpies, there’s a ring of separation between Trumpies and Republicans.
The population of North Carolina? 10 million people.
The amount of people who voted? Half that.
Many people talk about trying to transform Trumpers. And to a certain degree, I do get it. But many of them are ride or dies. I think the real future of the Dems is not trying to be the fascist recovery house, but rather, convincing millions of people to give a shit for the first time.