[tialaramex]

I think Reform is best understood as the Temu Tory Party. What if you couldn't afford an actual Tory Party, but you saw this advertised for £0 on your phone ?

I think it'll be interesting to watch Tories who could never put together a PM bid that worked wriggle inside Reform to push out Farage. Farage is naturally the leader of an outfit like UKIP, actual Nazis in the trenches, led by a few people you can put in a suit who know not to do the salute and who make sure not to say the wrong thing on camera. But, he doesn't want to lead UKIP, he wanted to be Prime Minister, and that's a harder lift.

[rayiner]

How are Reform like Tories? Didn't immigration massively increase under Tories? I don't know anything about Farage, but I doubt your comparisons are accurate. I've seen one video of him, and he came across as far to the left of your average asian leader on immigration.

[tialaramex]

> How are Reform like Tories?

I think the problem might be that you don't know anything about this at all?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2yrjqp4zvo -- Suella Braverman, who had been Tory Home Secretary deciding on these policies you think are the opposite of what Reform stands for, defected to join Reform just days ago.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gv9gyxgjjo -- that's Farage, only days earlier, insisting that his party isn't for failed Tories, like Suella.

It's Temu Tory Party.

[tolien]

This isn’t a new thing either; Farage has been challenged over claiming to align with far-right Northern Irish Unionist parties like Traditional Unionist Voice while recording Cameos saying things like “up the ‘RA”.

The ignorance isn’t a mistake, it’s part of the brand that lets them spout whatever their audience wants ts to hear.

[rayiner]

Several prominent Democrats defected to Trump’s GOP. Does that make that a “Temu Democratic Party?” Or is it just a sign of the ideological realignment that’s happening in conservative parties all across the west?

[tialaramex]

I guess I hadn't heard this news. Who defected? I mean, you said "prominent" so presumably we're talking a few US senators or a Governor or something ? People I'd have heard of?

About half of Reform's parliamentary party were elected as Tories. Was Josh Hawley previously a Democrat ? Did Mitch used to be Bernie's best friend and then Trump swayed him to join the GOP ? Maybe Rand Paul or Tom Cotton ? No ? So we're not talking about the same thing at all.

[rayiner]

Tulsi Gabbard, who was a House member and vice chair of the DNC, and RFK Jr., who is a Kennedy. In the other direction you have Michael Steele, who was chairman of the RNC, and Dick Cheney, who was the Vice President.

What you’re describing is just a party realignment. It’s a much bigger realignment than what you’ve seen in the U.S. for awhile, but every now and then when coalitions will break apart and reform. Many of the original GOP members were former Whig Party members (which was one of the two major parties that existed after the Federalist Party collapsed). Ir would’ve been weird to call the GOP “Temu Whigs” because they had a different coalition with different priorities, despite the overlap.

In the UK, it seems like Reform is prepared to moderate on the economic libertarianism of the Thatcherite Tory Party in order to bring culturally conservative anti-immigration voters into the coalition.

[tialaramex]

I had heard of Gabbard. So that's one representative. It's not nothing but it's not "several" where I come from.

I can't count RFK Jr. I had never heard of him before the 2024 Election Cycle.