Is there A Breaking Point?
Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2025 7:18 pm
At the very end of Nixon's Presidency, right before he resigned, his approval rating was at 24%. Looking back on him, it's almost quaint that what he did and represented was enough to cause that fast of a fall. But still, there was about a quarter of Americans who approved of him. There were a quarter of Americans who still stood behind him.
The same data (Gallup) has Trump sitting at around 40% currently. Still a minority of Americans, but also well above his 34% approval rating the last time he destroyed the economy, platformed chaos and cruelty, made us internationally reviled among developed democracies, and debased the office of the Presidency.
This go-around, we have him engaging in a level of communism that is normally only an aspect of conservative fever dreams about Democrats (i.e. his making the US Government a stakeholder in a corporation). He's implemented one of the largest tax increases in modern history (again, something that conservatives pretend to fear Democrats will do), and now he's advocating that the funds from his taxation without representation be used for socialist wealth redistribution to middle and lower-class Americans. He's openly engaged in levels of bribery that are almost comic book levels, and make the unethical Clinton realty dealings seem Mr. Rogers-esque. His self-admitted vile sexual predation of women and children doesn't even seem to register for the people who previously believed the idiocy of Pizzagate. Emails written by an Italian-American Democrat, that reference pasta suddenly become evidence of a vast pedophile conspiracy, but emails written to and by a convicted sex offender specifically talking about bringing young girls from other countries that used to be supplied to Trump... well, that's really hard to parse. It could mean anything.
I keep wondering, where exactly is the breaking point with MAGA Republicans? If it isn't morals. If it isn't ethics. If it isn't economics. If it isn't ideology. If it isn't geopolitics. Where does the breaking point sit?
For the MAGA faithful here, is there anything you can conceive of that would ever make you abandon Trump, or is the Overton Window permanently affixed to casters now, to easily slide down further into the sewer with each increasingly bizarre, unethical, corrupt, vile, disgusting, brutish, and immoral thing he openly engages in? Is there really any identifiable ideology or ethos beyond the vapid battle cry of "liberals are bad," while cheering Trump on as he embraces leftist policies that make Democrats look like Rand Paul?
The same data (Gallup) has Trump sitting at around 40% currently. Still a minority of Americans, but also well above his 34% approval rating the last time he destroyed the economy, platformed chaos and cruelty, made us internationally reviled among developed democracies, and debased the office of the Presidency.
This go-around, we have him engaging in a level of communism that is normally only an aspect of conservative fever dreams about Democrats (i.e. his making the US Government a stakeholder in a corporation). He's implemented one of the largest tax increases in modern history (again, something that conservatives pretend to fear Democrats will do), and now he's advocating that the funds from his taxation without representation be used for socialist wealth redistribution to middle and lower-class Americans. He's openly engaged in levels of bribery that are almost comic book levels, and make the unethical Clinton realty dealings seem Mr. Rogers-esque. His self-admitted vile sexual predation of women and children doesn't even seem to register for the people who previously believed the idiocy of Pizzagate. Emails written by an Italian-American Democrat, that reference pasta suddenly become evidence of a vast pedophile conspiracy, but emails written to and by a convicted sex offender specifically talking about bringing young girls from other countries that used to be supplied to Trump... well, that's really hard to parse. It could mean anything.
I keep wondering, where exactly is the breaking point with MAGA Republicans? If it isn't morals. If it isn't ethics. If it isn't economics. If it isn't ideology. If it isn't geopolitics. Where does the breaking point sit?
For the MAGA faithful here, is there anything you can conceive of that would ever make you abandon Trump, or is the Overton Window permanently affixed to casters now, to easily slide down further into the sewer with each increasingly bizarre, unethical, corrupt, vile, disgusting, brutish, and immoral thing he openly engages in? Is there really any identifiable ideology or ethos beyond the vapid battle cry of "liberals are bad," while cheering Trump on as he embraces leftist policies that make Democrats look like Rand Paul?
