Yeah, it's really just sort of fallen out of favor. It can still be useful to describe someone in shorthand, like if you said "This person is a RINO," I would get exactly what you mean. The zeitgeist just used it too much, and everyone sort of moved on, I guess? I am not sure if there is even a replacement word for it. If you have an R next to your name but fail to meet the morality test de rigueur- poof. You're a RINO. Which is SUPER weird, because depending on what person from what faction or what allegiance is leveling the claim, it's a moving target. Which naturally transitions into...
...your bolded. It is a great question, and useful for explanation. I knew it wasn't a gotcha. I'll try to be as concise as possible. This is just my read of the tribes.
- There are rank and file folks, usually skews a bit older, that are just "republicans". Standard boiler plate republican values, the tropes. Watches Fox News, thinks Tucker was too edgy but liked his bowtie, live and let live crowd. Squishy on issues that true conservatives value. Would get called RINO. Brian Fitzpatrick is one of these people. Votes juuuuuust this side of democrat. Like a 35% freedom score.
- TrumpWorldMAGA is an entirely different animal. These folks "follow the plan", think DJT is a savior, he can do no wrong, COVFEFE meant something real, 7d chess. Watch only Bongino (RIP), Jesse Waters is the only good Fox Guy left, Newsmaxx. Uses the word "Libtard" unironically. MTG. Matt Gaetz. Just 100% Trump loyalists. I think people think Nancy Mace fits here, but I think she actually fits in the last category, but she popped into mind. Put a pin in it.
- Normal MAGA want to MAGA, but these are the majority of folks that have evolved past the first category but cant deal with the fringe TWMAGA folks. Normal MAGA would have been republicans that we would have actually called hard-line conservatives before the evolution of TWMAGA and the Trump phenomenon. Would call the rank and file republicans squishy RINOs. Anna Paulina Luna, Byron Donalds, Jim Jordan... MAGA. They go hard here and there but don't rise to retarded level, but the party is MAGA at this point, and if you want to be anywhere near relevant, you gotta be MAGA.
- MAHA is really interesting- it's every based chick in the country that isn't a liberal white woman werido in the age group of 35-65. They all coalesced to sort of align with Normal MAGA and were a huge reason Trump won the last election. I just mention them because of their big space in the overall architecture at the moment. That alliance is crazy.
- And then there are conservatives. These are closest to like, old school Liberals. Not what that word means today, but like Rand Paul, Thomas Massie sort of folks that don't align well to any of the above enough to get lumped in those groups. Too averse to using military for everything, not supportive of big government, totally willing to vote on the actual principles as opposed to party lines. There just aren't a lot of them. The antonytm to these folks on the left would be Ro Khanna. Ro is essentially the bizarro version of Rand Paul. It's weird. I think Nany Mace best fits here as well- high freedom score, firebrand without being retarded.
So, anyway, that's my opinion. The folks that come over from the other side of the fence (Jillian Michaels and Dave Rubin are great examples) usually end up in the Normal MAGA camp, very rarely do they go full on TWMAGA (although Antonio Brown 100% did, thanks CTE).
