A "huge proportion" is about 10%. Republicans are 30% of the population, and only about 1/3 of Republicans self-identify as MAGA. A majority of independents vote Republican, but a negligible fraction of those identify as MAGA.
10% of the US is still huge in absolute terms, though.
> 10% of the US is still huge in absolute terms, though.
Exactly. 'Proportion' doesn't imply majority, and in a country of about 350M people, that's 35M people that look at what's happening and go "I like this!"
Considering the situation in the US with how political representation is calculated, gerrymandering, non-proportional representation of high and low-population states, that 10% of the population can easily have outsized representative power at the federal and state levels. Which is exactly what we see right now.
What the Trump presidency is doing now is exactly what they said they would do, so anyone who voted for Trump in the last presidential election directly approved of these policies. Nothing good comes from obfuscating the relationship between voting for him and supporting him.
The OP said "cheered for". Most people I know who voted for Trump claim to have done so "because the alternative is worse". They weren't cheering for Trump before or after the election.
Then the Republican party should have lost as soon as they chose Trump. He's not stable or electable. The US already had 4 years of him, and he was transparent about how he intended to run the country. Those who voted Republic knew what they were voting for, and decided that someone with fascist tendencies was who they wanted.
Yes, as far as I can tell, the marginal trump voters are less concerned about his fascism and more concerned that he's destroying the economy. I disagree, but...
> Most people I know who voted for Trump claim to have done so "because the alternative is worse".
Worse in what way exactly?
This kind of statement is a lot like the old "states' rights" pretense where the right in question was slavery -- the dishonesty is clear under even the barest comparative scrutiny.
Anyone who voted Republican knew who they were voting for. This isn't even like last time, they had 4 years of Trump, they can't claim ignorance of what he is. Trump winning the Republican leadership should have meant the GOP throwing in the towel on the election. Regardless of who the Democrats had, he should be unelectable.
I live relatively close to a fairly red-voting area of the state, and have talked to some of the people at those town halls. I got the impression that for many, their rage isn't that Trump's admin is doing these things, but that they're doing these things to them. The subtext of course is that it'd be fine if it was only happening to other people, as long as their lives weren't affected.
Anecdotally, only one person I talked to was willing to admit that they would have voted differently if they knew what was actually to come (which they should have given the first take at his presidency.) Also anecdotally, many that do seem to be raging at what's happening at the federal level don't have much concern with their local politicians being cut from more or less the same cloth. Granted the local ones, especially in lower-population areas, know they might actually have to face their constituents in their day-to-day lives, so tend to spout rhetoric without acting much on it, so there's less to rage about at them.
> I've said all along I think the MAGA cult thing is going to blow up in the faces of the people making this happen.
Maybe, but unfortunately we're all in the last radius.
> Anecdotally, only one person I talked to was willing to admit that they would have voted differently if they knew what was actually to come (which they should have given the first take at his presidency.)
One interesting thing that showed up before the US election in 2008 was the bizarrely small number of people claiming to have voted for Bush. It was a big enough effect that it messed up the polling to some extent. Some unhappy Trump voters are likely claiming not to have voted, now.
