Veee Eyee Teee wrote:
…he can't let his narrative get challenged
This is the crucial point. Yes, there are better leaders and worse leaders. Yes, there are better policy options and worse ones. Yes, you can believe that one party speaks to your values more than another party does. Those are clearly reasonable positions.
Yet you might want to look into what happens in the US even when we have more or less collectively agreed that the guardrails of democracy are in place but one party holds both the White House and Congress (hint: it’s not resoundingly good for the economy historically, whether for Democrats or Republicans).
You might want to look at regimes that hold more power rather than less, whether they rose to power as Left or Right regimes.
Even though it’s meme-level idiocy for fools on these boards to refer to “the intolerant Left,” they get to do it because it has roots in reality. They’d be something other than idiots if they could turn the critical eye in more than one direction.
Obama rose to prominence, gained greater popularity, and earned the presidency as a bridge-builder and source of change. Although I don’t agree with every right-wing criticism of him, numerous criticisms of him are reasonable, and most of those arise from a common feature: The hubris of having to be right (whether as the result of ego generally, another kind of blindness because of conviction about one’s beliefs, or the contempt one feels for opponents).
Our current president is a really strong case of someone whose personal characteristics are strikingly related to ego, the willingness to respond to flattery, and contempt for enemies. That’s what governs his thinking, not “What’s best for the country?” What’s right is what makes him feel vindicated. And no one can produce evidence that will sway him from that kind of decision-making.
You wanted to stick it to a lot of smug, corrupt, or incompetent politicians? Hey, join the club. Trump wasn’t the answer. Don’t double down on a bad bet.