Politics

"Pay no attention to this Epstein thing. I've decreed that Coke is going to start using real sugar!"

You know, just like lollies. Oh, and Coke doesn't seem to be going along for the ride.

He doesn't need them anymore because he's not standing for election again anyway.

Most will get back in line in the end, meantime it gives some permission from their own egos to get out.

Have to assume that part of his inability to put this back in the box is because Musk is pouring money into keeping it in front of MAGA's eyes.

A removal of Trump in favour of some other hyper-authoritarian hazard is not good, but one hopes the replacement fails to capture the ardour of enough of Trump's base.

We saw this in his first term when he shut down the government then caved on his big beautiful wall and MAGA was angry then accepted what he did and get back in line.

I'm not sure how long this will last either, since conservatives are known to fall in line for their leader despite some performative outrage.

There are cases of Republicans somehow reconciling cognitive dissonances that are way more in conflict with each other.

I think this one will hurt him, just a question of how much. Much of his base are people that identify hard with churches, and they're the kind of people that don't take kindly to pedos. Just they've been duped into thinking it is just Democrats, Woke Hollywood, and Silicon Valley Tech Bros on the list. It doesn't compute to them that Trump and other conservatives are going to be on the list repeatedly.

TLDR: His base are morons, that's why he'll get away with it.

Where there's sheep, there's wool. He just wants to fleece them for as much as he can.

This is a healing moment for wingnuts .. some of whom may now wake up