The bigger difference from my perspective is that they have competent people doing the strategy this time. The last Trump administration failed to use the obvious levers available to accomplish fascism, while this one has been wildly successful on that end. In a few years they will have realigned the whole power dynamic in the country, and unfortunately more and more competent people will choose to work for them in order to receive the benefits of doing so.

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Tostino 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

His last administration was filled with traditional Republicans.

I may have disagreed with them on virtually every policy point, but they seemed to disagree with the most harmful Trump policies as well.

We would have never agreed on the right policy, but we definitely agreed that his policy was not the right one.

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vanviegen 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> but they seemed to disagree with the most harmful Trump policies as well.

I imagine Republicans such as this still populate a majority of the house and Senate. If they disagree, they are sure making an effort to do so silently.

	▲	SirHumphrey 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The amount of things Trump did circumventing Congressional approval might suggest that he does not a clean pass even though Republicans have majority in both the house and the senate.

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JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> they have competent people doing the strategy this time

They had a great playbook in Project 2025. I'm not convinced Trump ever had the smartest people executing it.

	▲	tdeck 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You don't need to be the smartest person when you're pointing a big gun at someone.