Outlaw83
1mo ago
Depends on your definition of didn't follow up. Also, it's bad politicking to say, "if we get elected, and a big enough majority, and nothing changes economically, we're going to do x and y." This is true for Republican's and Democrat's - I'm not being partisan here.
Now, do politicians sometimes sign on to various things from pressure groups in a primary, then basically ignore or hope it doesn't come up? Yeah, but again, it's still better than in the past, when politicians were supposedly better. No, there's just more coverage of it than there was in 1986.
Like, personally, as somebody very rare here - a pro-Democratic Party partisan social democrat, I'm basically fine with everything Biden did, as everything he said he'd do, but couldn't was a combination of Manchin & Sinema, or factors outside of his control. Maybe is there stuff at the edges, that lefties on Twitter sometimes claim he'd be able to do, but most of that is wishcasting.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
Does everybody involved in 'ripped from the headlines' that Law & Order made more salacious deserve 500k then? Because there are plenty of otherwise unknown people that L&O, and L&O:SVU adjusted stories about. Hell, SVU was even crazier at times, due to it being about sexual violence cases.
Also, as a white male, I don't feel portrayed as a Nazi, because other than my skin, there's nothing connecting me with Daniel Perry, and unless I missed something, there was no implication white men are like this, generally. On the other hand, OK, if you're a reactionary who thinks urban streets need to be cleaned up like an 80's Death Wish sequel, then you might feel aggrieved.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
I mean, any smart pro-choice person can make the late term abortion argument - "Almost all late term abortions are tragic situations where there is no other choice, and it's sad religious extremists want to make these women jump through hoops to appease their own doctrines. Like most American's, I trust women and their doctor to make the right choice for them, as opposed to thinking they need to fulfill whatever those who have already openly said they want to ban all abortions want them to do."
Then, depending on the audience, maybe throwing in a crack that Republican's want it to be more difficult for a woman and a doctor to come to a conclusion about an abortion than for a teenager to get an assault rifle.
No, it's mostly a bunch of weird situations and specific political moments.
In 2028, yes, if Trump doesn't win in 2024 is alive and out of prison (or maybe if he is in prison), he'll run again.
Otherwise, on the GOP side, you'll have a bunch of normal-aged politicians like DeSantis, Noem, Kim Reynolds, Stefanik, Abbott, Vance, on the GOP side who are all normal politicians ages.
Same thing on the DNC side - Kamala, Whitmer, Shaprio, Walz, Newsom, AOC.
Again, like or don't like these people, but they're all normal politicians ages. Same thing with the House & Senate leadership. Jefferies & Mike Johnson are normal political ages. Schumer & McConnell will be both are on their way out in the next 2-4 years.
Putting aside Trump, outside of him, I'll bet you a Trading Spaces dollar both nominees are under 70.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
I mean, that might explain the drop in rural America (along with longer-acting contraceptives like IUD's and shows like 16 & Pregnant), but not in other previously less-educated countries. I realize there's a meme in communities like this that education is just signaling and OK, fine, I'll believe you when it comes to high-level college education and such if it'll help you listen to my point, but on the lower levels, no access to it is pretty impactful.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
So, despite what the other people are saying, I think what upsets the sort of anti-anti-Trump person that talks about 2012 the most isn't the just-so story about Romney being this honorable man the evil Democrat's attacks, that were so wrong and beyond the pale.
It's that 2012 was the first time the Democratic Party realized they had a national majority and acted that way in a national campaign. The reality is for the previous 30+ years, from Carter on, the Democrat's basically agreed with the Republican prescription of things, they just wanted a slightly kinder way of doing it - yes, crime is out of control. Yes, welfare is bad. Yes, government is too big, but the GOP are run by crazies who won't cut the right things. That was basically the Dukakis/Bill Clinton/Al Gore/even John Kerry argument.
Obama shifted that, but 2008 wasn't much of a nasty election because McCain liked Obama and vice versa, and people realized the GOP were doomed. But, in 2012, the Democrat's did thing they hadn't did in deciades - talked about how maybe, very rich people weren't perfect ideals of greatness who deserved all the credit for everything.
It helped that Mitt Romney said he liked to fire people, had shut down companies to get rich, and attacked half the population as well, basically 'deplorables' (unlike Hillary, who only attacked half of the Trump voters, so about 25%). People also forget in the post-2012 election, he basically blamed his loss on people (specifically minorities) wanting free stuff before he calmed down.
Now, I know the pushback will be "well, liberals love him now," and as the resident left-wing partisan Democrat, we don't love Mitt Romney, we just accept a right-wing neoliberal is better than a wannabee fascist, and Romney's one of the last Republican's who have actual ideas. Plus, 2012 Republican Nominee Mitt Romney wasn't really what Mitt Romney wanted to be, and he'd admit that to you today. He just couldn't run and win a primary as either 2006 MA Governor Mitt or current day pro-BLM pro-child tax credit anti-insurrection Mitt. I still don't think he's a good guy, I think his wealth should be taxed, and in a perfect world, his many, many children would not get much inheritance from him.
As for the rest, the petty BS people get hung up on happens in every Presidential election - Carter almost lost because he was slightly honest in a Playboy interview, the supposed liberal NYT turned Gore into some serial liar, and peopel already went over the Swift Boating of Kerry.
I also don't regret stopping him from massively cutting people's taxes, passing right-wing social policy, and so on. Be better than the petty wannabe fascist doesn't make you good. Respecting the will of the people isn't a high bar to clear, so I don't need to give him cookies.
But yes, to a certain brand of conservative who was used to the Democrat's being the Washington Generals, where they got most of their policies passed even when the Democrat's won, 2012 was the first time in their political memory the Democrat's actually punched back, and they've never forgiven Obama for doing so, which is why they'll talk themselves into supporting Trump, again.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
I mean, as long as there's an agreement on the decline of Western men as well.
What's happened is the end of the middle in both genders. People who would've been, to use the 1-10 scale, many, many 4-7's in 1985, and been perfectly happy either got fat, hooked on Oxy, stopped going outside, got hooked on the Internet or got absolutely ripped/in-shape doing yoga, can do much better makeup/dress better, and so on, and can be seen by more people because of social media. Like in many thing is in life, there's now much less of a middle.
Like, there are random side characters in CW dramas of both sexes that would've been top-tier heartthrobs in 1987.
Outlaw83
6mo ago
A few things about this -
1.) As other people have noted, the economy is really good for entry-level work, the type that competes with people who end up signing up for the Army via a recruiter. The reality is, post-World War II, and especially post-Vietnam, the military is a jobs program, both in the form of the disparate congressional districts everything is built and being a fairly decent choice for a young person without many prospects in the many less than favorable part of the US.
2.) I'm old enough to remember when the macho Russian military with their un-woke ways were going to roll over anybody put in front of them, especially the SJW military that'd been feminized, etc., etc., In reality, what happened was those macho Russian soldiers got nailed with missiles by Ukranian's who were given targeting information by some trans furries working at an army base in Nevada.
3.) To follow up on that, one positive of the US military, compared to many militaries around the world, including even some friendly to us, is that isn't not haven of a specific ethnic group, geographic region, or familial background. It's a fairly meritocratic institution that will do what it's told, as long as it doesn't break the Constitution. Want to invade Iraq, and wreck Baghdad? Great. Want to be more friendly to women, LGBT, and other minority soldiers because we need them to fulfill specific roles in a new generation of warfare? Sure. So on and so forth.
It's a fantastic thing the military doesn't have to kneel to a bunch of Southerners upset it's not 1985 (and if I was being less charitable, 1925) anymore, and an army base doesn't look like a John Wayne film anymore. Because it means leadership can be found among the wide swath of America, as opposed to just the parts that certain demographics approve of.
4.) Even though I disagree, I have some sympathy for normal people who lost their jobs because of COVID. When it comes to the military, sorry, Charlie. You signed away that whole freedom thing. If they can send you to die in the middle of Ukraine possibly, they can make you get the jab.
5.) I'm perfectly happy to let the Right give away the military, along with football, and a ton of other things bit of the reactionary online right (including folks like Blake Masters) have soured on in the past few years.
6.) Finally, we're still the world's hyperpower, no matter what people upset with some social policy may claim online. If you look into any actual wargames we've lost, you quickly find we put so many limits on our own equipment, just to make things interesting. Yes, random think tankers, Congressman, and such, all whom either work closely with military contractors or whom have jobs in their district, will talk about China as some massive threat militarily, along with ideologues who dislike current American society.
The reality is, the way war is going for the US military, and I actually make the distinction here, is we actually need more people who are open and OK with lots of different types of people, as long as they can "shoot straight," to use a quote from Barry Goldwater, as opposed to a bunch of people with nostalgic ideas about the past of the military. I'm sure there were military families who talked about not sending the next generation, whenever things became a little more open.
But, hey like I said, if the Right also wants to totally hand the military over to us, we'll take it.
Outlaw83
6mo ago
It hasn't panned out for Western Europe, because they're a bunch of weirdos who think being French or German is determined by whether your ancestors were peasants dying for some Lord who wasn't even from that area 1,000 years ago. Throw in bad housing policy, and you have a situation where even fairly well-meaning multi-generation Turks in Germany don't feel German, let alone other Muslims with more touchy backgrounds with the West.
OTOH, if you come to America, have some kids, start a business, learn English (even if it's broken), and don't wall yourself in some ethnic enclave after your first or second generation, even many Trump voters will be happy to have you as neighbors. It is funny how so many people who despise birthright citizenship don't realize the moderating influence it has.
Yes, yes, yes, I know 3rd or 4th generation college educated immigrants are all SJW's who complain about America all the time. Well...what's more American than that?
Outlaw83
6mo ago
Shows bad the pre-Sexual Revolution society was to many people they'd put up with the weirdos.
But, do you think Led Zeppelin, Rick Springfield, and the dozens of other popular mainstream artists, actors, and such who engaged in what were the time, consensual relationships with teenage girls should have their records banned, and so forth, like you want to do with these intellectuals? Like, Robert Plant being a bit of scumbag doesn't make him a worse singer and many of these intellectuals have good arguments despite their preference for young teenage girls.
Outlaw83
8mo ago
Outlaw83
8mo ago
Eh, it's more a combo that "blue tribers" are more willing to not have financially successful lives to get what they want. Like, there are a ton of creative people who won't even get all that rich, but will effect far more lives than the median franchise restaurant owner who got an MBA.
As I've said before, for all the blame on teachers or professors, the actual reason why the median 17-year old in rural Nebraska is likely far more liberal than they were in 1995 is they have access to the Internet and can watch videos of non-white people, LGBT people, and even people from other countries have normal lives, and be into normal things.
Like, some trans beauty blogger who has a few million subscribers on YT or whatever probably moves the needle on those kind of issues more than any kind of official lesson plan Red Tribers can try to ban via taking over school boards.
Outlaw83
8mo ago
I think the person talking about Vivek being the only person not ensconced in the swamp or whatever is being silly.
But, look into DeSantis pre-2020. He was deep with the Club for Growth, Chamber of Commerce, Koch Brothers, etc. Which is ya' know, what you do if you're a rising conservative star, but he wasn't some independent go-getter and hell, his SuperPAC currently has backing from every right-wing billionaire not on the Trump train.
Outlaw83
3d ago
Again, because Biden, Pence, and other politicians when informed immediately returned some documents. The problem isn't having the documents. It's an expectation that in a world where there are 9 trillion documents, some classifield ones will get moved, not out of malice or illegal acts.
If Trump had done what Biden, Pence, and others did, there would be no case.
But, when you refuse to work with the agency tasked to get these records, show said records to other people and talk about how they're classifield, and more, yeah, that's worse.
It's the difference between accidentally forgetting you put a candy bar in your pocket and running out with a shopping cart full of electronics.
Outlaw83
6d ago
But simply having too many cultures, too many languages, religions, ethnicities in a country (to the point they, put together, outnumber the former dominant group) is bound to make it weaker, IMO, because there will no longer be a consensus on values.
I mean, this has been the reality in American urban areas for the past 150 years at a minimum.
Also, "consensus on values" happen after lots of arguing and sometimes blood over what that consensus actually is. Go ask a WASP on the Upper East Side and and a Italian in Brooklyn in 1869 if there's a consensus on values in New York City.
If that makes America corpse of a country, it's been one since the 1850s
Now I know the response to this from some is, "well, we stopped immigration for forty years," but I don't think that's the reason for what people think happened. If there was truly this massive assimilation, it's more due to the Depression followed up by World War II than a lack of new immigrants from Eastern Europe or China showing up in 1934.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
I think the number of women and doctors who would both agree to say, in week 38, to randomly decide to do an abortion is basically zero, and basically all Republican-led abortion restrictions put far too many hoops in front of couples in the middle of the worst moments of their lives, just because of a lack of trust of women, doctors, and random religious beliefs.
As I think I've said before, actual European abortion laws (appx. 15-weeks plus exceptions you can drive a truck through) would probably be fine with a mass majority of the voting public. But, Republican's even when they claim they are, don't actually put forth France-style or German-style abortion laws, so that's led to a massive reversal in support for said 15-week abortion bans (they're now underwater in the US), and much increased support, with 55% noow believe women should be able to get an abortion if the woman wants it for any reason, up from 38% in 2006.
If there was some indication of some large numbers of women having abortions at 37 weeks willy-nilly, my view might be shifted, but even the case people like to trot out - Kermis Gosnell - was mainly women who only went to him, because of restrictions put upon earlier abortions that made it harder for those women to get them then. Obviously, still terrible what he did, but these women were not coming to him at week 37 going, "y'know, baby seems kind of a drag now."
There's a reason 90-something percent of abortion are in the first trimester, and even then, most of those in the 2nd trimester are more, "I didn't have enough money/time to wait out the state-mandated waiting period/etc." than "I decided 4 months in babies are no fun."
Outlaw83
1mo ago
I mean, I think it's fine to have open discussion, but not everywhere has to be an open discussion. If you have a forum with lots of women, minorities, LGBT people, or whatever, and don't want to deal with people asking about IQ, Jew's, or the 2020 election.
Now, sure, actual prominent people should know right-wing arguments and be able to push back against them (Mayor Pete is actually really good at this), but I don't really care if the forum x that happens to have a politics section doesn't want a long argument about whether the Civil Rights Act was good or not. The other reality is most arguments in reality are both people with actually bad arguments with incorrect information - which is fine, mostly, because an argument on Facebook or your cousin's BBQ is not the end of the world.
Again, I'm fair about this - if some pro-life Facebook group doesn't want pro-choice people arguing in the comments, that's A-OK.
I'd also point out when you see people make better arguments than you can on topics, and nothing shifts, there's no reason to further argue. So, when the people with the 93 annotated links and actual statements from various court decisions can't push away somebody from various ideas about 2020, what am I going to do?
Outlaw83
1mo ago
It's easy to say that when you know you'll always be on the side of the 20:1.
Also, I just do think it's true. The smartest left-wing person with immense writing talent could show up here, and honestly, I don't think a single mind would be changed. Now, I know the response to that is, "that's just because progressivism/leftism/wokeism is such a weak ideology, that even a genius-level intellect can argue for it, and the only reason it wins today is the rich, powerful blah blah blah."
No, I think it's because most people here are right-wing. Which is fine to have solid views - God could come down from Earth, say, "actually, all abortion is evil according to your Creator, and all aborted babies end up in Limbo forever" and I'd say, "cool, I don't care. Sounds like you have a shitty ideology." But just admit that, instead of just being, "well, I've heard all the arguments and mine were the most logical and true."
That's the reason I only comment here to put forth the actual left-wing view on stuff, instead of the imagined one, to push back against obviously incorrect stuff, and stuff like this, where it's not really a political issue mostly,
Now, the other thing is, I don't get when it became conservative/right-wing/etc. dogma that liberalism means anybody can say anything anywhere and if you don't want to argue that issue or point, that's censorship and the death of liberalism. Like again, I'm almost middle aged. I've been arguing on the Internet for a long time - even in the early 2000's, there were still TOS and yes, they were maybe more free-wheeling than 2021 in what you thought Twitter was then, and obviously, some politics has shifted, but you could always get banned, and while people may have argued person x didn't deserve a ban, the argument was never, 'banning people is wrong and against free speech,' because even the right-wingers understood there were rules, and if they didn't like the rules, the door was over there. If mods went too far, obviously there'd be a mass dispersal, but the secret was, in most cases, most people who got banned deserved it.
I know the response will be 4chan and it's antecedents, but 4chan was always the place for edgy losers who couldn't follow the relatively loose standards of the Internet, and the fact the young Right is basically all 4-chan adjacent is probably why all decent youth polling still shows them as overwhelmingly left-leaning, because the alternative is the people who were seen as edgy weirdos in 2004, let alone 2024.
That's why even though I dislike it, I'm fine with Elon changing the rules on Twitter/X. Now, he's currently paying the price for it, because it turns out people don't like 'nudes in bio' bot responses, and all the other stuff that has bubbled up, but it's his house, his rules, as long as he's not breaking any other laws. Now, the way he has happily limited the free speech rights of certain groups when certain governments come calling makes him a hypocrite, but that's another story.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
"In my experience discussing issues at all is right wing coded."
Again, as I said downthread, this is only true if the only issues you care about are right-wing.
So yes, it'll seem left-leaning people aren't interested in talking about 'issues' if the issues you're concerned about are proving specific racial groups are less intelligent so we can spend as little on them as possible and make it OK to discriminate them again as been stated by multiple people here, how best to limit women so their only option is to have babies as multiple people have stated here, how everyone who doesn't believe the election was stolen from Trump is part of the Deep State, a RINO, or some other insultincluding Trump-appointed judges or people in the Trump WH who supported him 100% until the 2020 election, with perfect right-wing opinions otherwise, or how transgender people are discussed here, which is a lot of the basic "issues" brought up here, then yeah, you're not going to get a lot of arguments from even normie centrist people - they'll just think you're a weirdo.
Honestly, this is the reverse of some of the very left-wing friends who think 90% of the American population is fascist because they don't want to abolish all police, start bombing Israel (and I say that as somebody who wouldn't mind actually sanctioning Israel), banning cars, stopping fossil fuel extraction, and so on.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
Yet, Biden won the 2020 election, did much better in the midterms, the Democrat's have continually won special elections, and so on.
Now, it's true cities have shifted to the right some (even though that's somewhat overindexed by people online). Eric Adams replaced DeBlasio in NY, various other more center-left/centrist Mayor's got elected in Phiadelphia and other major cities. All these people won fairly easy - it was a little tougher for Adams, but RCV is made to create a close final round. In a typical two round system with an actual campaign, he probably wins 55-60% initially.
But, any politicians rightly or wrongly, actually perceived as just Republican's in sheep's clothing will lose. Eric Adams, the woman in Philadelphia who won, etc. were all able to basically run as "Democrat's who understood crime was bad," and had progressive policy positions other than that. Like, Eric Adams has had some wacky ideas and endorsed Bernie in 2016 after all!
On the other hand, in Los Angeles, Rick Caruso was basically a rich centrist who got coded as Republican be he was a developer, was white, and went a little too far on some issues, and also, his opponent, Karen Bass was a normie center-left Democratic congresswoman, which mean she got massive support from every elected Democrat in California.
Then, in Chicago, it was even worse, because Paul Vallas, who worked under Obama and whatever, seemingly got deep in the same pool of stuff that shifted formerly centrist people right, and said a bunch of dumb things on radio shows and in campaigns, that allowed a black self-described socialist to beat him, despite the crime issue htere.
The actual problem for this idea of a right turn in the cities overall is things are worse than say, 2015 by some measures, but in many cities, things are already better than they were in 2020, and nowhere got close to the 80's and 90's numbers that allowed right-leaning Mayor's to actually win power. In 2024, even our criminals are lazy and don't do their jobs.
Plus, there are other factors - the Republican Party is a more conservative party socially, and it's more of a nationalized political space. In 1989, you could be a fairly liberal New Yorker, but throw a vote to Rudy, because hey, he's a prosecutor, but he's socially liberal, etc. Now, any right-leaning candidate has to deal with the fact that his base base of 10-20% Republican's in a major city have been radicalized, the median urban voter simply does not trust Republican's and has never voted for one in their lives, and you not only have to answer for whatever wacky things Republican's do in Alabama or Texas, you have to denounce it, or lose those votes.
So yeah, in 2022, there was a shift in NY & CA, especially among Asian & Latino voters for two reasons - the abortion issue was strongly off the table, and crime was a major issue. In 2024, I question whether we'll see the same shift. Yes, Trump will do better than he did in 2020 because of electoral polarization, but I simply don't buy the polls showing the greatest racial realignment since Civil Rights (I also don't believe Biden is suddenly winning older whites either).
Outlaw83
1mo ago
Sure, but the issue is there's evidence like I pointed out above that's even fallen off - see Trump's small donor donations, etc.
Now, yes, the person still posting about how the 2020 election is stolen, etc. he's obviously showing up, but not all the non-college educated Trump supporters he brought out in 2016 or 2020 are as connected as people assume, and for all the talk of Biden needing every vote, so does Trump. It turns out that you do need money to actually get lower propensity voters to turn out, and the state parties in many places are in state of disaster, Trump's focused on his legal bills, and so on.
Again, Trump could still win. I'm not denying that. But, his mythical ability to turn out non-voters is slightly overrated. Especially if his campaign, instead of being about immigration and closed factories, becomes obsessed with 1/6, his trials, and so on, as appears to be happening with his current speeches.
Outlaw83
3mo ago
From the outside, that was maybe more true under this place's prior home, but I think there are far more just out and out right-wingers or more accurately, people who have become more right-wing over time. Sure, there are some Grey Tribe or whatever people still here, but many of the comments here, policy-wise, when American politics come up, are just a more erudite version of the comments under any National Review or Federalist article.
Outlaw83
8mo ago
This is a bit of a ramble, but bare with me.
I honestly think what Tinder mostly did was give men definitive no's when they could've maybe dreamed in a perfect world, they could convince a woman they're the right match.
I'll put it this way - back in 1995, your random guy working a decent mid-level job at Microsoft in Seattle wasn't hooking up with the cute rock chicks hanging out in still super cheap 'n' grungy Capitol Hill, but the fantasy could still exist. Now, that same guy knows for sure it's a 'no.' Now, I do think one thing that maybe should be pushed slightly more is unless the other person has a photographic memory, you have a really terrible profile they'd remember, or you have terrible luck, it's probably fine to try to hit on somebody that swiped left on you six months ago if you come across them. Now, the issue there is you shouldn't probably remember the person you didn't match with six months ago, and that's a sign of deeper issues.
There's no actual good evidence of greater hypergamy among women of this actual hoovering up of all the women by Chad's that people on Twitter and the Internet claim is happening. The reality is, despite what some people on this very site claim is happening, you random average-looking office worker in suburban Des Moines is not swiping no on everybody who doesn't make six figures, isn't six feet, or at least "six inches." Now, maybe this is happening in very specific situations that people online are overrepresented in - ie. San Francisco - but most things people complain about Tinder, have been complained about dating since it became something more than what your parents decided you were going to do.
Now, you can maybe make some arguments about the drop of in-person meeting and such, but I do honestly think the results of Tinder have been overstated because two groups of people that Tinder causes issues in totally separate ways - women who get tons of matches on Tinder and dudes who get zero matches on Tinder, both have outsized voices in their own bubbles. I also firmly believe that there are a lot of dead profiles on Tinder or profiles that (mostly) women leave active to be another form of social media that gives them positive feedback in the form of likes. Now, that might be bad, but that's not a fault of women, since men would largely do the same thing if they could.
Tinder, porn, and general changes in dating are thing people are an '8' on a 1-10 scale and will lead to massive scales of societal destruction, but in reality, they're probably a '3' or '4' and nobody actually talks up the positives. Like, knowing say, whether your partner would be OK w/ an abortion or has drastically different views on their future is actually something that's probably stopped bad marriages, divorces, and terrible custody cases. That's not even getting into the fact the actual big society wide changes aren't so-much US going from people getting married at 24 and having 2.3 kids to getting married at 34 and having 1.8 kids, it's that even places like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and most of Africa are having plummeting birthrate drops.
Outlaw83
3d ago
Normal parties don't renominate corrupt, criminal losers who tried a coup.
Like, the Right had this same argument about Brett Kavanaugh - "see, you'll try to take out any Republican nominee with lies and false allegations.'
Except it didn't happen with Neil Gorsuch, who had much the same background and views. Sure, people attacked his judicial views, but in the way both sides do. There were no allegations of him being a rapist or even some lesser crime, because he hadn't possibly done criminal things.
Don't nominate the corrupt former New York real estate guy who tried to overturn an election and you'll be all clear. Yes, we'll say mean things about him if you nominate say, Greg Abbott, but for what I know, he's done no crimes. He's allied with somebody even conservative Republicans think has done cirmes (Ken Paxton), but Abbott himself is just a right-winger.
The part about Boebert is what your described is an underlying reason why we're seeing such shifts in college educated suburbs outside of the other more obvious factors.
Like, I'm sure there have been a lot of right-wing representatives in the past who actually worried about constituent needs - one example off hand is Thad Cochoran of Mississippi didn't need a single black vote to win easily in the state, but nonetheless, he was well known for having good constuent services, even in overwhelmingly black areas of the state, and not surprisingly, while he didn't do fantastic in the black belt regions, he did much better than Trent Lott did who was the other Senator at the time, even pre-Strom Thurmond praise.
Hell, Brian Kemp has passed a fairly strict abortion ban, passed trans laws close to Florida, passed a strict voter ID law, passed the usual tax cuts, and done a lot of stuff I don't like as a left-wing social democrat, but he has a 65% approval rating in Georgia because he said, "nah, Biden won, you weirdos," then he and his Secretary of State easily curbstomped a primary challenge.
The problem for the modern hard-right/far-right/dissident right, whatever people want to call themselves is that there's zero appeal unless you're either a partisan Republican or you're obsessed with the the Culture War issues of the day, but if you're even a somewhat serious person, they all seem like weirdos. Again, I know some won't like this, but look up how AOC questions people in Congressional panels versus Freedom Caucus types. You don't have to like her questions, or agree with her premises even, but she's well prepared and has follow up questions.
Obviously, not every member of the Squad is like that, but the median member of the Progressive Caucus is more serious about actually doing the work of legislating as opposed to trying to get a hit on Fox News or Newsmax than the median member of the Freedom Caucus, and in the long run, swing voters given the choice of having to use certain genders they don't get and some more immigrants speaking Spanish but actually getting stuff done versus chaos, abortion bans, and weird obsessions with issues they've never heard about, they'll back the woke side, even if they heavily disagree.
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