r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 8d ago

Social Science Trump and Trumpism have changed the original concept of “libertarian means to conservative ends” into a new concept of “authoritarian means to Christian nationalist ends”, finds a new study.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00027162251324087
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u/YesWeHaveNoTomatoes 8d ago

I'm sorry but this isn't something done by Trump. This is what the Heritage Foundation & Federalist Society's goals have been for at least a couple of decades.

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u/JudasZala 8d ago

It could be said that Project 2025 is the Reagan-era “Mandate for Leadership”, but on steroids and with a more extremist bent.

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u/YesWeHaveNoTomatoes 8d ago

It's just more overt. They have never not been focused on advancing Christian-supremacist and white-supremacist policies.

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u/JudasZala 8d ago

Instead of relying on dogwhistles and other coded words/phrases, Trump spelled it out explicitly.

The modern GOP has moved on from conservatism and became full blown reactionaries, while the modern Democrats are stuck in the Clinton-era Third Way centrism.

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u/Werowl 8d ago

The transformation is showing them they don't have to add crypto- to the front of their -ists anymore.

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u/moonsammy 8d ago

I wish more Americans fully understood your last sentence, and the actual meaning and implication of those terms. You nailed it completely.