> Here is a quote from JD Vance from 2016 regarding Trump. Keep in mind that Vance was in his early thirties when he said this:
< I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler. How’s that for discouraging?
> And when I asked Grok what Secretary of State Marco Rubio had to say about the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Grok responded with this:
< Marco Rubio, the U.S. Senator from Florida, strongly condemned the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, describing it as involving white supremacists, Nazis, and the KKK. He characterized the violence—particularly the car attack that killed Heather Heyer—as a terror attack by white supremacists. His key public statements (primarily via Twitter at the time) included: On August 12, 2017 (as events unfolded and after President Trump’s initial “many sides” comment):
< Very important for the nation to hear @potus describe events in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by #whitesupremacists.”
< He also stated: “Nothing patriotic about #Nazis, the #KKK or #WhiteSupremacists. It’s the direct opposite of what #America seeks to be.”
< Following Trump’s later press conference (where Trump equated “both sides” and mentioned “fine people on both sides,” while clarifying he wasn’t referring to neo-Nazis/white supremacists), Rubio was more direct in criticism on August 15, 2017. In a thread, he wrote:
< “Mr. President, you can’t allow #WhiteSupremacists to share only part of blame. They support idea which cost nation & world so much pain.”
< He added that the movement is built on hatred that justifies violence, and emphasized: “No, not the same. One side is racist, bigoted, Nazi. The other opposes racism and bigotry. Morally different universes.”
< He further stated the rally organizers were “100% to blame” for promoting an “evil ideology which argues certain people are inferior because of race.”
>Now, maybe we can have Trumpism without Trump. I dearly hope we can. Maybe Vance and Rubio have turned over a new leaf and embraced Trump’s tacit pro-whiteness and will carry the torch once he’s gone. At this point, I have no choice but to give them the benefit of the doubt. But for me that will be trading in a known for an unknown—something I would like to put off for as long as possible because I refuse to take it for granted. In the meantime, I think we should put up with Trump regardless of what has been unflushed from the Epstein files. There has been a lot of justified talk on the Right lately about never allowing the Left to gain power in this country again. Trump seems to be committed to this, which is reason enough, in my mind, to forgive a lot.