The right is in a bind
The End of America primarily isn’t happening because of Trump, but in spite of him. Moreover, his ability to “fade into the background” is limited not just by his ego (though there is plenty of that) but by a left wing propaganda machine that is simultaneously addicted to propping him up as a target and wants to utterly, publicly destroy him.
Trump emerged as a viable political figure because of the previous actions of the left since it’s been in power. After all, Trump had been talking about maybe running for office since the 1980s, but he correctly understood that the time was finally ripe for a run in 2016. One of the main reasons he was able to win that year is that the left didn’t have their full apparatus in place, probably because they underestimated his strength and the public’s dislike for their own favored candidate, Hillary Clinton.
They did not make that error in 2020, and they will not make it in 2024 no matter who runs. People who say that the destructive, manipulative, perhaps fraudulent, and “lawfare”-heavy tools of the left will be mounted against anyone who runs on the GOP ticket are correct.
That said, Trump has a lot of baggage that make him an especially rich target. He also has a lot of plusses along with his minuses. My opinion is that he probably is a worse candidate than DeSantis would be, but I’ve been wrong before and I might be wrong again.
That’s the problem – and it’s not just my problem. The 2024 election is, quite simply, impossible to predict no matter who runs on the GOP side. The tools of the left to prevent any candidate on the right from winning are many and varied; we cannot pretend otherwise. But another thing that is crystal clear is that the conflict on the right between people who have turned away from Trump (or never supported him in the first place) and those who think he must be the nominee is an old one that represents a basic split in the party that long predated Trump. Trump is not really the issue, but he is the lightning rod.
The left knows this, and exploits it.
The left will flat out steal the next election right out in front of everybody and just like the last time there is nothing anyone will do about it.
Know why?
Because the next step is the “blood of the tyrants”. And nobody wants to be the first to draw blood. Nobody hurts bad enough yet. Nobody is threatened hard enough yet.
What’s it gonna take? You KNOW something is going to snap, and then it will be game on. What is that something? Do you know where your personal line in the sand is?
I think it is too early to make these judgments. Things tend to evolve rapidly once a strong potential candidate enters the race and engages with the electorate as a candidate. They might go down in flames like the former governor from Wisconsin, or reveal themselves as formidable. It is easy to feel hopeless at this point and I sometimes do because the situation looks bleak – at this moment. I do hope DeSantis gets in the race and battles honorably. It worked out OK for Reagan and the US, eventually, for example. Vivek also is worth watching closely.
“My opinion is that he probably is a worse candidate than DeSantis would be, but I’ve been wrong before and I might be wrong again.”
I agree with all of that sentence, but I’ll add one other item for myself. I was wrong about how good a President Trump can be.
Conservatives have to win MI, WI and PA to get to 270. I’m not confident that Dem cheating can be stopped or overcome in those states.
If we consider what would be the strongest ticket in 2024, why not Trump/DeSantis? It would unite most of the GOP and might appeal to many moderates.
DeSantis would have to put his ambitions on hold for four years, but assuming the Trump administration was successful, he could look forward to a possible eight years as POTUS.
If both men care about what’s best for this country, I think this is a possible way forward.
JJ:
Only problem is that the ticket you propose won’t be happening.
@JJ
@Neo
I fear you are both right. I hope Neo is wrong (as I imagine she hopes she is). Trump/DeSantis or DeSantis/Trump would be the natural conservative choice, I think. But it is so unlikely in large part because people (I’d say PRIMARILY Trump but not exclusively him) can’t get over himself. I have often defended Trump here, sometimes quite vigorously, but he is hardly a saint and I freely admit that.
Aargh! This is maddening.
Everyone knew in early summer 2020 that the Democrats were preparing to commit election fraud on a massive scale that fall, but Trump, like in 2016 (“Lock her up!”), did nothing about it but bluster. Then, after the election was stolen, he was completely ineffective in his response except for his bluster (“Release the Kraken!”).
Trump is a showman. He talks big but accomplishes little. There are many, many Republicans in this country who actually accomplish things in the fight for our liberty. But some people can’t get past the spectacle.
But all that doesn’t actually matter. The fact of the matter is that Trump is toxic to a large fraction of the electorate he needs to win again. Thus he will not win. Nominating him is electoral suicide for the Republican Party.
Which, it appears, is exactly what it will commit. I think I’ll have another drink.
JJ: A Trump / DeSantis ticket won’t happen because Trump won’t allow it. His ego won’t allow him to have a Vice President who could be seen as preferable to too many Americans. Trump has already attacked him many times in slimeball ways, just as he did to Cruz in 2016.
One of the main reasons he was able to win that year is that the left didn’t have their full apparatus in place,
Absolutely ! By 2020, courtesy of the Chinese virus, but also given the time and money (400 million Zuckerbucks) they did a good job of fraud. The judiciary helped by denying all challenges to the vote count. Even the Supreme Court refused to consider a challenge by Texas, in violation of the US Constitution. Lawyers who attempted to represent Trump’s challenges were threatened or fired from law firms.
I don’t think 2024 is winnable for a Republican unless the economic collapse, which I expect soon, happens before the election. The spending is out of control and the US dollar is failing because of the stupid sanctions by the Biden regime.
As of now I imagine Trump will win the nomination and lose the 2024 general election. On the bright side, I’ve been wrong a lot. After all, I didn’t believe Trump could win in 2016. I also believed the Republicans would win more seats in both houses than they ended up winning in the 2022 midterms. So I’ve been both too optimistic and too pessimistic with my assumptions in the past, whatever that’s worth.
Trump is a showman. He talks big but accomplishes little. There are many, many Republicans in this country who actually accomplish things in the fight for our liberty. But some people can’t get past the spectacle.
I grant Trump’s weaknesses but to say he accomplished “little” is to deny a lot of history. Prior to the virus and Fauci and Birx’s disastrous economic policy, which Trump wanted to end by Memorial Day, the economy was booming. The fact that he let Fauci and Birx run is more the fault of Kushner who was running the 2020 campaign. Trump’s other weakness was relying on family who were amateurs but, given the number of knives in his back from “stalwart Republicans,” I can’t blame him too much.
DeSantis may just want to do another term as governor and avoid the disaster coming in 2024. If Kari Lake can overturn the 2022 AZ election of Hobbs, maybe real election reform could be accomplished but I am not optimistic.
I hope we make it to the next election. If we do we know that the Dems will cheat in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin. I don’t know how but we need to get evidence that is not easily dismissed.
Trump is the issue in that there would be no bind if he were not running.
@mkent
Agreed.
Disagree. Trump did plenty than just bluster, the issue is that he was heavily distracted (and in many cases undermined) by focusing on other issues like the impeachment circuses. Which I know wonder if they were partially intended as a distraction. He also was sincerely concerned about things like COVID, probably more than he should have been. Which helped give the left the openings they needed.
His issue is that his counter-fraud and voter integrity actions were -rather than nonexistent – not enough.
If helping to squash Roe v. Wade and neutering Chinese influence are “little” then I say PLEASE, MORE OF THAT LITTLE!
He is a showman, a braggart, and an egotist but he was and is much more effective than many Monday Morning Quarterbacks are. Mike K is thoroughly correct on those counts.
Firstly: Just because there are many Republicans who can actually accomplish things doesn’t mean that they are best served being President.
Secondly: Spectacle is an important part of politics and especially the Presidency, and even Slow Joe’s corrupt handlers recognized that (even if the manner they have deployed is often self-sabotaging).
Thirdly: There are many, many more Republicans in this country who Don’t Accomplish Things or at least things worth talking about. Anybody here remember when much of the conservative right was relieved at the choice of Mike Pence as Veep because he would supposedly be the solid, respectable right hand to Trump?
Yeah, me neither.
Likewise how Lindsay Graham- though not the strawman demon he is often made out to be – has repeatedly failed us and had to be pushed into action a great many times by the likes of the Freedom Caucus.
This is something I find many of Trump’s extreme opponents do not get. For all of the man’s MANY flaws and failures, he has been more effective and better than most national level Republican Pols.
Firstly: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many of the most effective Conservative Republican leaders in this country – Cruz, DeSantis, and Trump – all have high unfavourability ratings and are deemed as “toxic” by much of the public, especially if you listen to the Left and the Rockefeller RINOs. Part of this is probably due to Che’s old dictum (and one of his few cogent ones) that if you do things you make enemies, but at least as much of it has to do with the systematic propaganda and demonization of anybody to the Right of Lenin.
That should be enough to warn against the idea that this issue is primarily about Trump, and one can be quite critical of him (as our host has been) without losing sight of that.
Secondly: As it stands any candidate will be electoral suicide if we cannot secure the vote to the point where a senile, corrupt, racist idiot and puppet of the far left doesn’t get the highest number of votes in history, including ludicrously artificial ones in Swing States. If you allow the Left to stop counting Ballots mid-election night, We will Lose even if Jesus Christ came down from Heaven and ran on a ticket with George Washington, with a cabinet of the Apostles and Abraham Lincoln selected to the Supreme Court.
Now, I suspect that the after-election auditing would be “interesting” and unpleasant for the Dems in such a situation given the powers of The Most High, but that’s ultimately theoretical since God expects us to sort out or nonsense ourselves.
Agreed. And back in the day a Trump/Cruz Ticket was my dream, and that didn’t happen. Probably in part because Trump was trying to run towards the center and pick out an inoffensive slate, but that still applies.
I can hope that both men may eventually change (especially Trump), and I have not written off the possibility entirely, but I concede it seems quite unlikely and that most of that is probably down to Trump.
Just a reminder of how the 2020 election was conducted, and why the Left produced an incredible (not credible) number of ballots for Biden.
The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election
https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
“The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election–an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted.”
Once again, we see the left and the right have different definitions of what “free and fair, credible and uncorrupted” means. The left believes everyone who happens to be in the US on the second Tuesday of November should be allowed to vote. That’s fair to them. What the right wants to do, is disrupt the free and fair aspect of the election and corrupt it by restricting people from voting– using arcane and racist laws to keep people from voting.
After the “Zuck bucks” of 2020, some states took steps to control this abuse of electoral process where elections were outsourced to organizations dedicated to the principles of their definition of “free and fair”.
@Rufus T. Firefly
Absolutely disagree. There’d be a bind, it would just possibly (even almost certainly) be less of one. But I still remember the bitter factional infighting over things like McCain’s nomination and the Anti-Cruz Crusade before the Escalator Ride.
This is one major reason why I wish Trump would not run, but remain in the front lines as a gadfly of the Left and a major target for their attacks, acting as a lightning rod protecting DeSantis, etc.,
He can still get the lion’s share of attention, and that would feed his ego, but the Right could get a lot more done that way.
I disagree Trump/DeSantis or DeSantis/Trump would be good tickets. Again, Trump surprised me and did a lot more good than I anticipated, HOWEVER, he is super toxic to everyone around him. They either turn into traitors against him, or he hangs them out to dry. Except for his kids and Jared who lasted four years with him? And, as pointed out on a prior thread, Jared and Ivanka seemed absent from his Tuesday speech.
DeSantis is too smart to team with him. He does not want to be the next Mike Pence. And, if Trump would agree to be DeSantis’ running mate (nearly impossible to imagine he’d be asked and nearly impossible to imagine he’d agree) he’d run his mouth and texts 24/7. About 1/3 would be helpful. 1/2 would be comedy gold and the remainng 1/6 would be damaging and insane. Any President with Trump as his VP would spend all his waking hours answering Press inquiries into Trump’s statement du jour.
Yeah, Trump runs his mouth. But I wonder whether that is the reason so many don’t like him compared to the number for whom it’s merely an excuse to cover for reasons they know won’t stand actual discussion, in other words, if he settled down, would his numbers improve ?
The bind has been in evidence as far back as I remember. Rockefeller Republicans vs. Goldwater Republicans. And on and on and on. Bitter fights on the right with the nomination of McCain and Romney were at least part of the reason Obama was elected and re-elected.
Turtler et al,
The bind I believe neo is describing is the one specifically created by a Trump Presidency run. Yes, the Democrats will try any method to defeat whomever the GOP runs. That is, and always has been, a given. So they will try to “bind” whomever, however, Trump as non-candidate could even help deflect some of that. As a candidate he reduces the GOP’s options for defense and offense.
This thread and pretty much one or two threads on neo’s site most days for the past week are a perfect indication of the issue.
When Trump is part of something he becomes the entire thing. The majority of the comments here in the past week have been, “Trump, Trump, Trump…” Love, hate and indifference. He sucks all the oxygen out of the room and becomes the sole topic.
There can be no normal primary process if Trump runs. There can be no normal election process if Trump runs. It’s a damn shame, but it’s reality. Four years ago I thought it was good he fought the fight. But things change. Time marches on. I do not believe he is the right general for the next battle. But if he refuses to leave the field he impairs the next campaign.
To those who complain President Trump didn’t do enough to prevent 2020 election fraud, here’s some evidence that he did do everything he could. The President isn’t king. What are you suggesting he should have done that he didn’t?
“SCOTUSblog: ELECTION LITIGATION”
https://www.scotusblog.com/election-litigation/
“In Two-Thirds of Election Lawsuits Where Merits Considered Decisions Are Favorable to Trump”
https://www.ntd.com/trump-won-two-thirds-of-election-lawsuits-where-merits-considered_563999.html
Republican leadership and supporters need more Sun Tzu and less hope for Perfection … imo
The Trump haters on the right would rather blame Trump than acknowledge that the Democrats are evil. If Trump blamers actually identified the truth of the horror that faces us, they’d have to agree to fight. And wimps don’t ever want to stand and fight.
So much easier to stab friends in the back.
It’s not just that the Left wasn’t prepared for Trump. It’s important to remember that significant numbers of Obama voters crossed over to Trump. The reasons why were:
Trump was an outsider, and much of the Republican base has lost confidence in the Republican Party leadership.
Trump was a celebrity, and the media could not define him for the low-information voters the way they do with every other political candidate.
Hillary Clinton ALSO could not be redefined by the media for the electorate. (Only Trump could have beat Hillary Clinton, in my opinion, and probably any other Democrat could have beaten Trump.)
It’s not Trump’s character that provoked the NeverTrump movement, it was his outsider status. Trump doesn’t know who to pay off to make Washington D. C. run. That’s why the Republican establishment was unwilling to get behind him, and why those people who say “Trump was the leader of the GOP so he should have done X and Y” are full of hogwash. A Republican President who was an insider WOULD have been, but you can’t lead people who won’t follow you because you have the wrong pedigree. That’s why it does not matter to the Uniparty what Trump accomplished or didn’t. That’s why they set him up to fail from day one, and why former Republican standard bearers were so eager to help bite his ankles.
Until the Uniparty is broken up, there will be no change from the top. Won’t matter if there is a Republican or who it is. Unless the actions we take address the Uniparty nothing is changing and Republicans at the Federal level will continue to be controlled opposition; an echo not a choice.
Getting rid of Trump has sweet FA to do with it. We’re ruled by lizard people and they won’t allow a non-lizard in their club. The cure for that is not to continue to put our hope in the next lizard. We need change from the bottom-up, not the top-down.
The anti-Trump contigent here is conveniently forgetting that Trump drew a lot of Obama voters and Republican voters disgusted with the Establishment. It is not cost-free to give up Trump. A lot of the Republican base will dump the Republican party for good if they see Trump abandoned ESPECIALLY when the only reason he’s facing the prospect of jail is BECAUSE he served as President.
No other Republican candidate had to put up with the crap Trump did not only from Democrats but even from his own party, many of whom were happy to sell out conservatism if it hurt Trump. I don’t think the Republican Party survives dumping Trump.
Trump bowing out or whatever might not on net attract enough voters. The Dems and their media adjuncts are always going to associate every Republican with Trump for the next 20 years whether he’s dumped, bows out, or gets the nomination.
I can see the Republican Party being worse off without Trump but I see little prospect of their being better off. Don’t expect any anti-Trump folks here to agree with that, but what I think I can expect, from the honest ones, is an acknowledgement of a large unknown risk, that it’s not all upside.
they are already five steps ahead,
https://redstate.com/bradslager/2023/04/06/fluid-race-baiting-in-the-press-tying-alvin-bragg-to-a-billionaire-is-racist-but-acceptable-for-clarence-thomas-n727475
and blood was spilt in the hallways and tunnels around capitol hill,
Frederick:
“Hillary Clinton ALSO could not be redefined by the media for the electorate. (Only Trump could have beat Hillary Clinton, in my opinion, and probably any other Democrat could have beaten Trump.)”
I think alot of truth there. However, one other aspect of Trump that I haven’t seen from the GOP. Trump rallies voters. Oh, all politicians have rallies and speeches, but not at Trump’s level. If one of the biggest advantages that the DNC has over the GOP is GOTV, then the biggest advantage that Trump has over both is motivating the voters from the start. Of course, some see those same motivated voters as fanatical, and I can’t really disagree in various cases. However, I don’t recall ever being motivated by McCain and after the 2nd debate, Romney was so deflated himself that he couldn’t attract anything more than a vote against Obama. People went to the polls twice for Trump.
People also went to the polls heavily for DeSantis in this last election.
Trump is trump. Anyone saying he accomplished little is a troll or was in a cave during the Trump years. When the country collapses we are going to get a real taste of the real world rather than “mean tweets”. A genuine first world problem. Things are so good you evaluate a President on his tweets instead of his accomplishments. Sucks to be us.
country collapse seems to be their goal though, and the RESTRICT act seems to a means to suppress dissent,
I don’t think the next election will be like the last one. If Trump and Biden are the major nominees, Manchin will run under the “no labels” banner. And he will be running to win – in the House. His only realistic plan will be to win enough states to deny Biden and Trump 270, and for “no labels” to run House candidates in many key districts where they can tie up a state delegation and force a compromise. Manchin will be the only compromise possible if Trump or Biden can’t get 26 State delegations. And the VP will be more important than usual, since in this scenario the VP is chosen by the Senate from the top 2, and if the House is deadlocked, the VP could be acting president for 2 years.
Biden hates America. The left hates America.
Trump likes America, but there’s one thing Trump loves more than life itself: A culture completely beholden to Trump dominating every moment, every breath, every dollar, every news cycle. He LOVES him some Donald Trump.
When the Squad and Pelosi were at legislative and ideological odds in public, Trump got up and said “hey, I’m not the center of this. Let me unify them INSTANTLY with once xenophobic-sounding tweet of ‘go back . . . .””
And on and on. Maximum escalation all the time. And the Trump milk-trance is too strong for those who invested in the flags and merch to turn back now–HAIR OF THE THRICE-LOSING DOG!
We are actually finished. I Don’t know what freedom model will remain when the left gets complete control, but Trump will be the midwife birthing this thing in real time. Ego is a deadly thing, and he doesn’t care if it all burns down–as long as he can try to remove the other Alpha off the field.
Ok Marley tell me which politicians ego isn’t yuge? I’ll take the results he had while in office with the hyperbole.
I don’t need to tell you anything, Rich. All you need to know is–the Red Tsunami was completely shattered by Trump’s hand picked clown-car candidates. Neo is right. That’s all you need to know. The gathering drapes of Marxism are coming. And one man could give us a fighting chance to gain control again–but he won’t. Because he will never go away. “Pride cometh before a fall”. will play out on a GIANT stage soon. Buckle up.
Marlarky Guess:
So McConnell was fighting against The Great Orange Whale by supporting Murk-cow-ski in Alaska? Brandon is driving your clown car.
@Rufus T. Firefly
Ah, I misunderstood. But yes, on that much I agree the current incarnation of the “bind” is indeed dependent on Trump, even if the wider issues are at play.
Fair, and thanks for clarifying.
Fair. I do have my concerns about that, but they are two of the strongest and bravest conservative republican leaders. And at this point in time I really am in “Hope for the Best” Mode.
Agreed.
I give qualified disagreement. Trump absolutely can be toxic, but he has often cultivated strong relationships with those he can trust (Which made things like Pence’s antics all the worse). It isn’t too hard to find long term friends or employees that still remember Trump fondly from years later, and he and Cruz struck up a strong partnership in spite of the foulness in the primaries. That doesn’t mean Trump is blameless, far from it, but he certainly can behave. Issue is if he doesn’t.
Fair point. Not sure how much to read into that.
Considering Mike Pence’s vilifying of Flynn, enabling of Fauci, and abdication of duties regarding confirming the EC votes I don’t think there is much risk of that.
Fair, and I can understand that. But that also has a benefit in terms of stirring the pot, the ability to exercise the bully pulpit, and making it harder for the left to hide stories.
OM
Malarkey has TDS.
@Marleys Ghost
Ok, I agree, with perhaps the slight caveat that Trump might love the US more than you anticipate, but on the whole you make a very good point.
Fair, and I do think that was a problem. Though he has been willing to play surprisingly discrete when he feels the need (like his breaks from Twitter and cleverly rope-a-doping the left on his Tax Returns).
Trump is certainly not who you think of when it comes to deescalation, but the idea that he is “maximum escalation all the time” doesn’t hold water, especially given his negotiations with NATO and the reactions to things like the Pulse Nightclub.
Thrice losing? When was that?
I agree there is a Trump Trance among many of his loyalists, but that doesn’t fit.
And this is where you really start losing me. Kindly take a detour back to the ancient world of 2009 and remember how Obama began taking a hatchet to what little was left of the post-Reagan golden age, with catastrophic ramifications. If you do not remember, Neo blogged about it extensively. If you want the mothers and midwives beyond that praxis of control for the left, look there.
Trump was anything but a saint and you can make a decent argument if you are so inclined that his foibles have helped them reinstate it, but the fact remains that he was a roadblock to their antics after the Obama eras.
Agreed.
We’ll see, and Trump’s actions towards DeSantis do make me wonder if that is true. But frankly so long as he can be directed towards fighting his own personal struggles with the Left that can help. In many ways he reminds me of Teddy Roosevelt and often not in a good way.
Agreed.
To which I simply say Bullshit.
I had plenty of issues with Trump’s candidate picks, but the obsession with them is misdirection. What shattered the Red Tsunami was not “Trump’s hand picked clown car candidates” but the Red/Faux-“Blue” Tide, often manifesting heavily in abuse of the electoral system, unethical ballot harvesting, and outright fraud that does not comport with how actual votes work.
The clown car candidates of weak rosters like Oz did not help, but compared to Fetterman?
And the problems were mostly across the board and also posited by anti-Trumpers like Murkowski. And even strong candidates like Lake and Walker suffered badly. That’s not convenient because it points to far deeper issues than Trump and which cannot narrowly be laid at his feat and that of his close camp, but it is still worth noting.
Did you actually READ what Neo wrote?
Because this doesn’t look like it.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2022/11/12/digesting-the-2022-election/
https://www.thenewneo.com/2022/12/05/trump-as-lear-raging-against-the-vast-left-wing-conspiracy/
https://www.thenewneo.com/2022/04/15/if-you-want-to-know-why-trump-endorsed-mehmet-oz/
Neo has been quite critical about Trump a great deal and has outright said she leans towards DeSantis as Candidate, but she has pointedly said the underwhelming red wave was not primarily due to Trump.
You speak of pride but ironically elevate and exaggerate Trump in a way similar to that of many of his most cultish followers by making him central to the drama of the American Republic, even beyond what he actually is. A nation where Joe Biden could get more than 80 million ballots – supposedly the most in American history, enough to drown out Trump’s “second” highest – is not a country or society healthy enough to be cured or even have a “fighting chance” just because of Trump going away. Even Bauxite (who I have disagreed with VOCALLY and often heatedly in the past) admits that removing Trump will not be enough (in their view), but they believe it as necessary and useful.
I’m a nurse’s son, and the maxim that proper treatment requires proper diagnosis is apt here. No diagnosis, no treatment. Obsessing too much about Trump is at least as self-defeating as trying to ignore him altogether.
It is a certainty that we shall all vote for the republican candidate in 2024. If that candidate wins, though on life support, America will live to fight another day. If the Democrats win, the Republic is over and beyond resuscitation.
In which case, ghostsniper has the right of it. The January 6th gulag will be just the first of many more. And every American adult will face the reality of whether to accept the living death of ‘life’ upon their knees.
“The 2024 election is, quite simply, impossible to predict no matter who runs on the GOP side.”
The only thing we can’t predict is who the candidates will be. Which party will win we know already, and have known for years.
It is a certainty that we shall all vote for the republican candidate in 2024. If that candidate wins, though on life support, America will live to fight another day. If the Democrats win, the Republic is over and beyond resuscitation.
–Geoffrey Britain
I’ve been hearing this every four years since 1960. I just don’t believe it anymore.
Things can certainly get worse or … get better.
But if every election were really the Make-or-Break one I would already be in a reeducation camp by now or living in the ruins of the last world war.
There is no way that Ron DeSantis would ever team up with the cretinous Donald J. Trump after the latter has trashed him so childishly. When Trump loses in 2024, he (Trump) will already have started planning for another run in 2028.
When the voters themselves are compromised the only direction is down.
I think it’s possible that Trump and DeSantis could team up in the end. After all, Trump did eventually endorse Cruz, right? If Trump is still strong in a year, I can see DeSantis negotiating with him to create a winning ticket. I think it all depends what happens between now and whenever the field shakes out. I have a bad feeling that things will much, much worse a year from now, both economically and from the perspective of national security.
@BrooklynBoy
You again. Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got until it is gone, and I hadn’t realized how much I had enjoyed the blog without your own dishonest, trollish, cretin asshole clogging it up. I’ve vigorously contested with a great deal of people I deem going too far in condemnation of Trump, and a few who I feel do not go far enough, but they are almost never completely one dimensional or unable to talk of other matters or reasons.
You on the other hand? You STRUGGLE to reach one dimensionality and can rarely sustain it for long without slipping back beneath it.
I think you greatly underestimate both men, especially DeSantis. They have worked together before, as Sarah Rolph shows.
For once I can actually believe that. Let it never be said that I am not prepared to acknowledge a possible truth, even when it comes from a displaced troll.
The long and short of it:
“The Trump Trials: Changing the Subject”—
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19570/trump-trials
Opening graf:
“What’s a politician to do? Going into a presidential election year, the incumbent president looks to be facing a difficult reelection campaign. Persistently high inflation numbers remain a problem. Energy prices are still up. America’s southern border is being overrun with illegal border-crossers and fentanyl. Major bank failures have raised the specter of a banking crisis. There are multiple House of Representatives investigations covering Biden family finances, the weaponization of government agencies, China, and the origins of COVID. For the current administration and its supporters, the answer is as easy as it is familiar: change the subject to Donald Trump….”
huxley,
That various people in a land of millions have engaged in hyperbole over the years is not a logical rebuttal to any assessment of the stakes in 2024.
I don’t see any possible way that any honest observer can disagree that we are facing corruption and criminality on a scale never before seen. That matters.
Political prisoners, rampant censorship, plots by the CIA, FBI, NSA and a host of other govt agencies against Republicans — this is some serious s+%t.
Election fraud on a scale never before seen. It matters.
Barry Meislin,
As I wrote on the Open Thread; Robert Kennedy, Jr. has thrown his hat into the ring on the Dem side. That is no, minor issue for Joseph Biden. Kennedy is no shrinking violet. Has strong opinions opposite Biden on some key issues and has tremendous name recognition among Democrats.
Having Trump, DeSantis or some other twin of Hitler as his opposition is much easier for Biden than having to address real, substantive criticisms from his own team.
@Rufus T. Firefly:Robert Kennedy, Jr. has thrown his hat into the ring on the Dem side. That is no, minor issue for Joseph Biden.
Bernie’s too old. Kennedy’s the new Bernie, that’s all. There’s no threat. The superdelegates decide like they did with Obama and with Hillary Clinton and with Biden. It’s not 1980 anymore. You still seem to think that voting and voters matter. They don’t. It’s who controls the process.
Bernie and Kennedy are the football that the Democratic Establishment promises the progressives they’ll get to kick if they just Vote Harder. If Kennedy looks like he’s starting to win primaries the same shenanigans that happened with Biden in 2016 will happen again.
If these bastards could manage to concoct 81 million votes for this dessicated old fool–11 million more than “historic” Obama in 2008 & 15 million more than “historic” Hillary in 2016–than you can bet they’ll do it again no matter who runs in 2024.