Out of curiosity did another check in this morning to the FB pages of Central Pa HS acquaintances of mine who are strong Trump supporters and who post regularly about politics. It's not pretty. 
The person who made the post in the previous tweet also frequently posts about the bible study he attends. His feed is 1/3 football, 1/3 bible passages, and 1/3 pro-Trump content.
Here's another acquaintance who has been into NWO conspiracy stuff and Qanon for quite a while now. His two most favorite public figures (apart from Trump) are Allen West and Jim Jordan.
Here's the installment in this series from September. Things have only gotten edgier.
Here's a recent post from the official GOP FB page for that county. The comments are noteworthy. This is a PUBLIC page. People are saying these things out loud, on a page sponsored by the county GOP.
This county is filled with small communities of 1000 to 5000 people. The biggest "city" is Johnstown with a population of 19,000. So when these folks talk about Nazi Democrats who want to kill babies, they're talking about their neighbors, co-workers, the barista at Starbucks.
The way this county GOP is pitting residents of the county against each other is despicable. Take a look at that county Democratic page. It's just normal political stuff. There is no comparison. facebook.com/pg/cambriacode…
So to treat the political culture of Cambria County as a case of polarization gone amok is just wrong, because the polarization is completely asymmetrical. No Democrats are talking about a coming Civil War and the need to eliminate Republicans. It's only Republicans saying that.
And here's the even stranger part. Cambria County went 65/30 for Trump in 2016. In 2018 the county generally went more like 55/40 for Republicans. This is a county Republicans control, yet they're ready to grab their muskets to fight off the coming Democratic Civil War.
In places where Republicans are electorally unviable (like Oregon where I now live) the party has come to be dominated by far right edgelords prepping for the coming Civil War against the baby killing, gun grabbing, Venezuela-loving Democrats.
Meanwhile, in places where Republicans are electorally dominant (like Cambria County where I'm from) the party has come to be dominated by far right edgelords prepping for the coming Civil War against the baby killing, gun grabbing, Venezuela-loving Democrats.
If you add those two last tweets together, you come up with the conclusion that GOP has come to be dominated by far right edgelords prepping for the coming Civil War against the baby killing, gun grabbing, Venezuela-loving Democrats. Party of Lincoln the Vampire Slayer.
I remember spending time in the homes of some of these current FB MAGA edgelords when we were kids in the 70s. In several cases I remember seeing the National Enquirer sitting on the coffee table with its stories about alien abduction and rumors of celebrity love children.
It's not like media outlets that make money by whipping up the hysteria of low information voters have never existed before. So perhaps all of this FB edgelordism will just turn out to be a tempest in a teapot.
But what's new these days is
1) the amplifying effect of social media
2) the macabre gun fetishism of the post-1977 NRA
3) the takeover of the GOP by an unhinged conspiracy theorist who fantasized about "2nd Amendment remedies" for his opponents even before he was elected.
1) the amplifying effect of social media
2) the macabre gun fetishism of the post-1977 NRA
3) the takeover of the GOP by an unhinged conspiracy theorist who fantasized about "2nd Amendment remedies" for his opponents even before he was elected.
I mean, this is the current banner for the county GOP FB page. They posted it with absolutely zero ironic detachment.
So if you're waiting for a host of "sane" Republican politicians to emerge out of a few localities and take the party back from the MAGA-maniacs...I think you're kidding yourself.
Trump has turned the GOP's political culture into a fever swamp of fact-free conspiracy theories. It's become a petri dish that only grows bullsh*t, a petri dish where reason and evidence go to die.
This is why reality-based Republicans like Amash or Hurd or Flake or the various Never Trump commentators have either left the party or retired from politics.
It seems likely that Trumpism will either be the virus that kills off the party of Lincoln, or it will transform it into the party of Zombie Lincoln that will devour the constitutional republic he helped save.
This is the song the zombies will be singing when they come for our brains.
