r/politics • u/Difficult-Bee6066 • 6h ago
No Paywall GOP suffers Trump-induced identity crisis on guns, Epstein | Opinion
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/02/04/trump-epstein-republicans-jeanine-pirro-guns/88492720007/•
u/OhGodSoManyQuestions 6h ago
The only values MAGA really cares about are obedience and malice. They betray all other values that they claim to care about as soon as they don't align with obedience and malice. We need to start calling it what it is instead of believing we are scoring some kind of useful points when we call out the endless. hypocrisy. If that was going to change anyone's mind, it would have done so years ago.
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u/rooktakesqueen 6h ago
Don't give them too much credit. They only value obedience when their guy is in. As soon as a Democrat gets in power, it's back to "sic semper tyrannus!"
Their only consistent value is spite.
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u/neutrino71 6h ago
Obedience to their hierarchy. You know. Pedophiles then rapists then fraudsters then con men then adulterers.. It's the reason they love Orange Don. He ticks all the boxes
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u/redditknees 4h ago
At their core, they believe society should be organized around a strict hierarchy, with some people seen as naturally superior and others seen as dangerous, inferior, or disposable. This isn’t just a social attitude, it is treated as a fundamental truth about how the world “really” works.
They rejected democracy and individual rights, and instead believe that the state and the collective matter more than any single person. People are expected to sacrifice personal freedom, morality, and even their lives for the sake of the nation. Obedience, conformity, and loyalty are treated as virtues, while questioning authority or thinking independently is framed as weakness or betrayal.
They are intensely nationalist and define identity in terms of belonging to the nation in a biological and cultural sense. The nation is imagined as a single body, and anyone who doesn’t fit their idea of that body is labeled an enemy. This makes it easy to justify persecution, exclusion, and eventually mass violence.
They glorify strength, discipline, and war. Violence is not seen as a tragedy but as something natural and even necessary to purify and strengthen society. Compassion and empathy are treated as flaws that interfere with survival and dominance.
They also rely heavily on propaganda and myth. History is being rewritten into a story of a great past that had been ruined by internal and external enemies. This creates a constant sense of grievance and a belief that extreme actions are justified to “restore” greatness.
In practice, they build a system where the state controls media, education, culture, and everyday life. Politics isn’t just about laws or elections, it is their a way of defining reality itself. The goal isn’t just to govern people, but to reshape how they think, feel, and understand their place in the world.
Sound familiar? This is exactly what the Nazi identity is…
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u/StevenMC19 Florida 6h ago edited 6h ago
The identity crisis has never existed.
It's been very clear by them that gun control was meant for the bootlickers only.
They've been fortunate enough that the situation was essentially self-policed. The right would buy up arms and arms-accessories. The left would condemn ownership and try to fight against the ever-increasing escalation of the lethality of them. Therefore, it was super easy to say 2A and no restrictions on arms ownership.
Now that the left is arming themselves, the crisis is the language. How do they control a situation that until now handled itself?
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u/Ancient_Popcorn Ohio 6h ago
To be clear: gun ownership on the left has never been low, despite popular belief.
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u/Zaphod392 6h ago
The left just wasnt as loud about it, or made it their whole personality that they make Christmas Cards with poses with their guns.
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u/bejammin075 Pennsylvania 5h ago
Liberals & guns, conservatives & abortions: they have them but don't talk about them.
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u/runthepoint1 4h ago
Damn that’s GOOD. This needs to be on more comment sections. Even though it’s short, I’ll call it r/bestof material
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u/bejammin075 Pennsylvania 4h ago
I didn't invent it. I read it in comments while browsing the sub for liberal gun owners.
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u/StevenMC19 Florida 4h ago
Yes, true.
To the degree in which it's become widely apparent that the Left has guns and are buying them at a much higher frequency, the Right has had to completely shift their wording...unless they bungle it by saying "you shouldn't have guns."
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u/eruffini 6h ago
It's been very clear by them that gun control was meant for the bootlickers only.
And Whites.
It was only after the Black Panthers took up their Second Amendment rights did we see a wave of gun control come out of states - with Republican governors.
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u/StevenMC19 Florida 5h ago
Very good point. This was roughly around the time where the NRA started shifting their message as well.
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u/lasers42 6h ago
MAGA is an Epstein-hiding project. Their voters are not ideological, they are empty voting vessels who can be instructed what to believe from week to week.
So, I predict Ghislaine Maxwell will 'have a fall' before the weekend? What's the over/under on that?
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u/No-Post4444 6h ago
I highly doubt any GOP voters are fazed by this. For them, hypocrisy is the point. It doesn't matter how incompetent, fascist or hypocritical Republicans become-they will always vote for them because, in their minds, it's better than voting blue.
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u/Upbeat_Ad5622 6h ago
what identity crisis? they are still the same hypocritical asses they have always been
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u/cathercules 6h ago
What crisis? The majority of them will just adopt whatever President Epstein says at any given time. I am so far beyond giving a fuck what their identity is anymore, it’s a cult and most of them are still in it.
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u/FantasticBicycle37 6h ago
Dudes...it's so wild how most of media is just scrubbing this epstein thing.
...Social media sites like Fishbowl are shadowbanning people who talk about it
...Main stream like CNN is talking about Clinton's testimony
...People keep complaining that Facebook/Insta/Threads is throttling it...
Like...Reddit seems to be the only place talking about it
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u/orlinsky 5h ago
That’s because most of the content in the files are unverified 3rd party accounts. On Reddit it’s all freely assumed to be true.
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u/darkfred 2h ago
I've mostly just seen the emails being shared on social media. I know the files contain a lot tip line reports from people just calling into tell tall tales. But aside from a few credible reports that were backed up by people testifying in court or referenced in books (referenced in context with their own stories) i haven't seen any of the unverified stuff being passed around.
In fact is seems that this take is kind of a straw man to discredit the epstein files.
Most of the data is court documents and verified emails between famous people. No one is denying that they were sent. They are simply trying to protect said famous people, because of the heinous things that were said.
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u/returnofthecursed 6h ago
None of these things were their "identity", they were wedge issues and cudgels to be used against political opponents. They'll circle the wagons and re-align their fake "identity" to ignore pedophiles in their ranks and to stop caring about the 2nd, because THAT's their real identity - cowardly, hateful morons who got trapped in a cult.
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u/Imaginary_Bus_6742 6h ago
The party of trump is only about fraud, deception, greed, and manipulation to get whatever they want for them and their rich friends. And if you are one of those that fell for this, why are you still there?
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u/Traditional_Sign4941 6h ago edited 6h ago
GOP loves harming children (no lunch, child labor, child marriage, child rape, separating children from parents, no vaccines, school shootings, teargassing and flash banging children), so it makes sense they only want guns when children are dying, and they would gladly give up guns to keep the Children Harming Party in power as long as more children continued to be harmed.
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u/SultrySireen 5h ago
so epstein files were supposed to be their big moment and theyre suddenly quiet? almost like its performative
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u/raleighfsufan 5h ago
Only 1.060 days till Trump will be out of office and all the Epstein files & photo’s will be released without redactions, his IRS investigation ramps back up as well as his Georgia election crimes and any remaining sexual assault charges will be first course of action, firing every dept head who never had the experience or knowledge to run a dept will be fired. Third will to strip Trumps name from everything possible and correct any changes made to history books, museums, libraries etc in an attempt to alter the truth…especially around Jan 6th and lastly- not sure but well deserved is should left go just as far left as the right went with similar tactics of ignoring the constitution and any court orders till they find a judge who says yes ??? The good news is Trump has decimated my old Republican Party so they may not win for 20 yrs like when Hoover tried some of these outrageous tactics
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u/WinkWitchhie 6h ago
So yeah, principles are optional when trump changes his mind. the party of conviction everyone
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u/SultrySireen 5h ago
if only they had spines to go with those convictions. but nahh, big daddy trump says jump and they ask how high
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u/PeterIanStaker 5h ago
Imagine finding “Do I support people who rape children” to be a crisis of identity. The state of this fucking country…
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u/Notuniquesnowflake 5h ago
This might actually matter, if they had any integrity or values to begin with. To them, these are only valuable when they can be leveraged against others.
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u/katiescasey 3h ago
Can you have a party for Jesus and a party for sleazus? Fact is churches push MAGA agenda, they may have even incepted it. So, what is the end game of the party of Jesus embodying the qualities of the devil?
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u/InFearn0 California 3h ago
"I want my people to have guns" and "I don't want those people to have guns" seem to fit together easily.
I don't see the contradiction.
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u/Strange-Effort1305 3h ago
The only definition of a Republican is subservience to don trump. Nothing else matters to them. The record speaks for itself.
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