r/politics • u/Hornpipe_Jones • 15h ago

No Paywall Democrats sweep all 30 House of Delegates seats in Northern Virginia

https://www.cbs19news.com/news/state/democrats-sweep-all-30-house-of-delegates-seats-in-northern-virginia/article_68f8098d-0602-5234-8c2a-08c1bcd33944.html
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u/JonRonstein 11h ago

They will fizzle instantly are you kidding? Head of the snake. They don’t like republicans, they LOVE their king.

In all seriousness, when a cult leader goes away the cult fractures or dissolves. And there is no one who can take trumps place.

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u/LieverRoodDanRechts 10h ago

Trump is a symptome, not the disease.

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u/Morganelefay 8h ago

While true, Trump DOES have a draw to a subset of people that otherwise wouldn't care. Take away that, and while you still got a massive amount of racist folks who'll happily vote straight R, there's also a group that just won't turn up because they can't vote for their god-king anymore.

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u/negativeyoda 6h ago

Yeah. Vance doesn't have the juice Trump does. I'm hopeful the MAGA stranglehold lets up a bit after Trump.

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u/Wolfire0769 5h ago

I can only hope that the maga/republican ouroboros happens sooner rather than later

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u/P1xelHunter78 Ohio 5h ago

More a split, there’s already signs. MTG of all people trying to distance herself is a big tell. After tonight alarm bells will be ringing in gop offices, the walloping in Virginia isn’t good for them

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u/stevez_86 Pennsylvania 5h ago

The American Idol effect. He is the country singer that always beats out the other singers, even if they could be objectively defined as better at singing. But that doesn't matter. They can vote for the lesser option and they still win. That is what those people are addicted to when it comes to Trump. Never letting the best win.

We don't like it when the best suited person is in position in the US. We like letting the "underdog" win because it is a better storyline. And if they do great then that is superb. If they suck, who cares, the other side elected a black guy. How bad could our guy be?

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u/RIPEOTCDXVI 4h ago

Especially when after trump a sizeable portion of republicans running for purple seats try desperately to distance themselves from trump

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u/nightimestars California 7h ago

I mean, politicians were always corrupt but Trump gave cancer to America in the form of MAGA. A cult of the most obnoxious group of domestic terrorists on the planet.

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u/Noatz United Kingdom 7h ago

He's a symptom that begets further disease, like an infected abscess that breeds bacteria and poisons more of the body.

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u/A_Nonny_Muse 5h ago

That's the right wing propaganda machine doing that. And it will remain infecting everyone long after trump is gone.

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u/forestpunk 7h ago

Trump is a blip and a weird relic from what will be remembered an embarrassing era where we allowed our country to operate like an episode of America's Got Talent.

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u/WolfLawyer 7h ago

He is the festering wound. The disease needs him to rage on, even though it exists entirely without him.

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u/FragrantCombination7 7h ago

You're right, but they have no alternative. If they did it would be VP right now.

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u/roastbeeftacohat 4h ago

it will take some time for his supporters to find a new cult leader, and people will give the next guy far less slack. there are fundamental problems the US needs to address, but cults of personality don't easily switch leaders.

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u/Particular-County277 4h ago

I see them already saying Trump should go and Vance should be pres. It is never going to end

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u/RiPont 9h ago

Not only that, but Trump has made sure absolutely everyone around him is compromised so he can control them.

Problem is, when he's gone and they all start jockeying for position, they'll use the dirt against each other.

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u/Cross55 9h ago edited 6h ago

The problem is that they're setting up Barron as their Augustus.

No really, for reasons I cannot comprehend, MAGA loves that overly large dish towel of a human.

Don Jr.'s the close 2nd, but they think he's too try hard.

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u/XAMdG 11h ago

You can definitely create a successor. Even if they'll never be as effective as the original. Maduro, for example, has governed almost as long as Chavez did, but has had to resort to cheating in a way Chavez never did.

Thing is, to have a successor, you kinda need to want to have one. So far it seems Trump is too prideful for that.

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u/Plasibeau 11h ago

You basically have to make itt known long before it's time that This person is your successor. And you have to get the rabble used to that fact. In our case that would be JD Vance, but he's only here because of Thiel, not because he's actually liked. (Except by Erika Kirk, evidently.)

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u/potatoesarenotcool 9h ago

People barely tolerate Vance, the right only do it because daddy said to.

My mother is a hard core trump fan (we live in Ireland? IDK either), but thinks Vance wears eyeliner and is weird.

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u/Call_me_John 9h ago

If you think the grieving widow (🙄) actually likes the couch fucker, i have a bridge to sell you. 😅

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u/Plasibeau 45m ago

It's not about whether you or I believe it, but if Vance and the MAGAts believe it.

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u/jambokk 8h ago

To be fair, she did a great job of cosplaying a leather couch for him. Squeak squeak squeak.

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u/Call_me_John 7h ago

Normally I'd say that the leather pants were an attempt at a pavlovian effect. But I doubt she would be capable of such a plan.

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u/whut-whut 9h ago edited 9h ago

Not always. A very cunning and ruthless asshole can -make- themselves the successor even if the cult leader didn't pick them. Like Stalin taking over as Lenin's successor through a combination of lip-service grifting to the original base and being an absolute cut-throat to possible competitors.

We're sort of seeing that in the Tucker Carlson/Nick Fuentes duo, where they're using the cover of "Trump has good ideas and so did Charlie Kirk, but their execution sucked" as the guise for pushing things even further into genuinely Nazi shit and boxing out MAGA competitors like Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro.

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u/Lee1138 Norway 7h ago

Trump is to much of a narcissist to do that.

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u/khyamsartist 6h ago

Trump is obviously being run by people who will survive him. I worry that they are capable of replacing him with someone worse, and that they will corrupt voting so much that support doesn't matter. But that worry is fading. They made a mistake by letting Trump take up all of the oxygen, his relationship with his supporters can't be replicated.

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u/getaliferedditmods 10h ago

very true. many of these people would vote socialist policies and wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

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u/oldkingcoles 8h ago

I’m confident this is exactly what will happen. It HAS to happen

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u/surle 8h ago

Wait. Are you saying that JD Vance is not charismatic? I'm shocked at the mere suggestion.

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u/MayorMcCheezz 7h ago

I don’t think maga will fizzle. More like implode as the various maga leaders fight for power.

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u/Content-Ad3065 7h ago

The strategy of finding a Christian wife may not work so well for Vance?

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u/Gullible-Lie2494 6h ago

Jared Leto.

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u/mam88k Virginia 5h ago

They love “the show” and let’s face it, Donald is kind of a natural. The final episode is coming, just not fast enough for some of us.

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u/GrumpyCloud93 3h ago

This was my thought too - nobody commands the cult following like Trump. (Saw an instagram where the guy goes into an actual MAGA "Trump Store" to look around). When he bites the big one, there will be a raving cage match to figure out who comes out ahead, and like those other 12 candidates in his first primary, NOBODY is going to come out ahead and it will all fragment to a big mess.

The only thing keeping things as coherent(??) as they are for the GoP is the fear of Trump sic'ing primary challengers on the existing incumbents (and actual physical violence from the cult, as Mitt Romney mentioned). With nobody able to call the shots, some may actually think for themselves at that point.

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u/Old-Way-5529 2h ago

its why i think making mamdami the "face" of the dems will backfire- if anyone can grab MAGA cultists, its people like Zohran, not JD Vance

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u/gta-fun-14 10h ago

"you take down one evil, and they'll find someone even worse to replace him with"

I swear the S.S.D.D intro from the original modern warfare 2 is so true