Comments

Why nominate Trump? — 74 Comments

1. look what it to install biden in power, we’ll get the fraud part last, it took the death of at least 500,000 persons due to a virus partially financed by a leading health authority, the dereliction of duty by the likes of a leading health authority, the collusion of tech companies in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies through censorship of info about effective therapeutics, the betrayal of the oath by the likes of barr and wray and the cia director, regarding an insurgency on our streets,

2. This post pretty much sums up my feelings very well.

   I can only hope that over the coming months gradually more and more current Trump supporters will be able to wake up, understand and accept these hard realities. So many people seem to have a very strong emotional attachment to the guy though. And the more Trump is unfarily persecuted by the current regime, the stronger their love for him grows. He’s basically a folk hero. But unfortunately as strong as their love for him may be, many swing voters distaste and disgust for Trump is equally as strong.

3. “because of fraud, no Republican will win the general” That seems to be where many if not most people are. Dems have a winning playbook and no reason to change it.

4. Aaannnnnd right on cue!!

   “Joy Reid, Lincoln Project Usher in Next Media Installment of ‘DeSantis Is Worse Than Trump’ “—
   https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/06/joy-reid-lincoln-project-usher-in-next-media-installment-of-desantis-is-worse-than-trump/

   (Of course you KNEW this was coming…it was so predictable…with the corrput Media staying true to its sordid self. Truth to tell, NO ONE needed a weatherman to see this blood libel coming down the tracks….)

   Yep, gotta keep those Democrats riled up!
   Gotta get that lava flow of hate flowing good and strong.
   Gotta keep the country nice ‘n divided.
   And full of anger, rage and violence.
   That’s the ticket!

5. continued, even then, they had to stick the landing with the mail ballots, and the back up with dominion, of course the summer of love, was a gentle minder not to examine the ballots, by the justices,

6. hutu radio*, of course look at what lerners playpen (larry nobles shop) is trying against desantis, trial balloon,

7. appeal to enough voters in the middle not only to win, but to win beyond the margin of error, which would involve decisive appeal in the swing states..

   This is not really true.

   The Republican has to win beyond the margin of error/fraud/legal and illegal shenanigans in about a dozen or two voting precincts in swing states in Blue cities that are totally controlled by the Left.

   And that's not just a different league from appealing to the general public's swing voters. It's in fact a completely different sport.

   A Republican candidate cannot win by being popular. There are no Red cities in Blue states. There are hardly any Red cities in Red states. And the people doing the counting in those Blue cities determine where the whole state's votes go.

8. “because of fraud, no Republican will win the general”

   This is not my argument. My argument is that because of various shenanigans up to and including fraud no Republican will win the votes in the specific Blue districts needed to swing the Electoral College because Dems control the counting in those districts.

   I’ve never seen any evidence even presented that this is not the case since 2022. And we’ve seen these things happen in two elections now.

9. the point was punctuated in the mid terms where the likes of the golem and whatever you might call hoff of the mesa, stole their seats,

10. I already have a DeSantis sign in my yard, and I do not live in Florida. Trump will be criminally prosecuted and that will take him out of the race. Garland the vicious knows what he’s doing!
    If DeSantis loses, we can kiss America good-bye.

11. Kemp’s performance in Georgia last year is a data point suggesting that a non-Trump candidate would not lose the Trump base (or would gain enough votes from outside the Trump base to more than compensate for any bitter Trumpers).

    Also, to those sticking to the “no Republican can win because of fraud” argument, why do you care who wins the nomination then? If we think we can win with DeSantis, why not let us try? The worst that can happen is what we both agree is almost certain to happen if Trump wins the nomination.

12. Cicero:

    I don’t know why you say that Trump’s criminal prosecution will take him out of the race. In the legal sense it will not. He can run while being prosecuted, many of his supporters will continue to support him, and it’s not clear that the trial will be over by election time.

13. At minimum you have the simple and brutal math that about 50% of the electorate is unengaged in any Presidential election. The Dems have a system long in place for harvesting Dem and only Dem ballots out of that 50%. What kind of Republican engages so many of that 50% that the Dems can’t harvest any number they need to overcome the statewide margins they need in two dozen districts that they dominate?

    No kind of Republican.

14. Frederick:

    I fail to understand your point, in that I wrote the word decisive in order to indicate that in those states, the non-fraudulent votes would have to be so numerous as to exceed the margin of fraud/rigging. By no means would this be the least bit easy – in fact it would be very difficult – but the question is which candidate would have the better chance of accomplishing it.

    Otherwise one just shrugs and gives up, and it doesn’t matter who is nominated, so why even care if it’s Trump or DeSantis or you or me? Time to welcome our insect overlords!

15. @Bauxite:those sticking to the “no Republican can win because of fraud” argument, why do you care who wins the nomination then?

    That’s a straw-man version of my actual argument, but because there are people who say this I’ll respond anyway.

    I personally don’t care who is nominated; what I care about is people saying without evidence that dumping Trump has more positives than negatives. It’s not a no-brainer or risk-free to get rid of Trump. And most of the people saying “dump Trump” are thinking this is still 2000 and that elections are won by persuading voters. They are not, they are won by specifically targeting ballots to harvest and count while denying the same to your opponent.

16. @neo:so why even care if it’s Trump or DeSantis or you or me?

    Precisely what I have been saying: we need to put our time and energy into doing things that will matter much more than who the 2024 loser will be.

    the question is which candidate would have the better chance of accomplishing it.

    We collectively are not even starting to talk about what actually would need to be done. We’re talking about speeches and policy and optics, not about who has the plan for how Republicans are going to get their ballots counted and deny Dem ballots from being counted in the double handful of districts that actually matter.

17. miguel cervantes – If by golem, you mean Fetterman, then he didn’t steal his seat. He won by about 5 points, or by more than 300k votes out of about 5.2 million cast.

    That’s not (just) fraud. A whole lot of Pennsylvanians prefered a mentally-incompetent invalid over Mehmet Oz. We don’t have to like it, but that’s the truth and we can’t deny it.

18. @Bauxite: A whole lot of Pennsylvanians prefered a mentally-incompetent invalid over Mehmet Oz.

    This is not the year 2000. 300K votes were harvested and counted by Dems that Republicans did not harvest and get counted. You have no idea who those voters whose ballots they may have been actually preferred, and probably they did not even know or care who was running.

19. Frederick, your numbers don’t add up.

    There were about 300k more votes cast in the 2022 PA Senate race than in the 2018 PA Senate race (the last Senate race in PA, which also occurred during a midterm). In 2018, Bobby Casey was the incumbent and Lou Barletta never got with 10% of him in the polls and lost by 13%. Fetterman won fewer votes than Casey did in 2018 while Oz won about 350k more votes than Barletta.

    Considering population growth and the fact that the 2022 race was for an open seat, it is not at all surprising to see turnout increase by 300k votes between 2018 and 2022.

20. Frederick:

    I don’t know who this “we” is you talk about. I’ve certainly talked about those things here. The problem – and it’s a big big one – is that Democrats control those cities. In order to change the law about ballots on the like, elections have to be won by Republicans, and the Democrats make sure Republicans can’t win, plus the cities are blue to begin with.

    There’s no dearth of people saying that the GOP needs to do this and that and the other thing, but most of those things are not possible. I’ve written about this many many times before.

    Also, you write, “we need to put our time and energy into doing things that will matter much more than who the 2024 loser will be.” It’s not either/or – that’s a false dichotomy. Both need doing, and both are very difficult. But it is incorrect to think there haven’t been efforts at doing those things that matter. There are plenty of efforts, many of which I’ve described on this blog. Just to take a few examples of many, see this, this, this, and this.

21. they will churn out however many more ballots, as the cities collapse into cesspools, atlanta where procurator willis holds court is nearly there, the Court has been extorted into allowing the Dems to run roughshod over the redistricting process,

22. Ok folks, break time.

    Neo said “Time to welcome our insect overlords!” Ahhhh… maybe that’s how they did it: https://asiatimes.com/2023/06/mystery-of-missing-indus-valley-ruling-class/

23. the people behind the good wife, posited alien ants, this was back in the summer of 2016

24. @neo: But it is incorrect to think there haven’t been efforts at doing those things that matter.

    Never said there weren’t efforts. How successful have those efforts been? I found nothing in your links that got changed for the better. If I missed something, please point it out. The links you cited talk about how hard it is for Republicans to try to get any of them done and how they failed to do so, sometimes by just that much. Conceded, it’s hard.

    That said, did anything change? None of your links talk about any change for the better that happened in the states that matter. They talk about what Dems did to stack things in their favor and that the Republicans failed to undo any of it. But none of it changed.

    Hence my lack of interest in primary food fights. Hence my lack of belief that some sufficiently popular Republican candidate is going to handwavingly be popular enough to offset two dozen deep-Blue districts that are fortified for democracy.

    Maybe you’ve seen the detailed plan that somebody on the Republican side has for dealing with those two dozen districts. I have not. I’ve seen a lot of Trump bad / Trump good, and I’ve seen people get tingles up their pant leg for Vivek. And sure, DeSantis has solid accomplishments in Florida, but a) the media is defining him as worse than Trump and unlike Trump he has no celebrity power of his own to offset that and b) where’s his plan for those two dozen districts, that are not in Florida?

25. Frederick:

    I don’t see a way to overcome the obstacles I have described. I don’t hear you offering one either. It is not a mere failure of will, as many people keep saying. Winning tactics when the deck is stacked against you are not obtainable except by magic, miracle, or unforeseen serendipitous events.

    DeSantis did very well for voting reform in Florida. But he had the legislature, etc. on his side. Voting reform is done at the state level. The GOP could, if it got control of Congress and the presidency, do a reverse HR1 and pass a national voting security law. I think it would have a good chance of being found unconstitutional, and of being hard to implement on the local level in blue cities. I think such a bill is the only possible approach, however, but it requires a GOP Congress and president first, which is a kind of Catch-22.

26. “But if the republic is going to be saved, it will take a lot more than one Republican president.”

    Yes it will but not the way I infer from your quote. We’ve been voting for 230 years and the government gets worse every election year. I believe voting can’t work to fix what’s broken. We need a better Constitution because the one we have is completely broken. Neither Trump nor DeSantis has shown that they understand that our Social Contract does NOT supply the Limited Government we have been promised. It clearly gives us nearly unlimited government. Power has completely corrupted our Ruling Elites and voting is just too weak to break the cycle of criminality.

27. there’s nothing wrong with the social contract, it how the administrative state has handled things,

28. Cervantes, if a Constitution requires Angels to work properly instead of flawed humans, then it isn’t a good Constitution. Hamilton and Madison made light of the problem of Best Men. And that is the problem we face with voting: We don’t have and can’t get Best Men. We only have humans. Who are easily corrupted.

29. Neo invoke United support to defeat Biden and Democrats. Who can gainsay that?

    “If the Trump wing refuses to vote for DeSantis if he’s the eventual nominee, or especially if Trump runs third-party, there really would be no chance of victory.”

    But does this neglect the fact that is wasn’t monolithic to begin with. Trump picked up where the Tea Party movement left off. This is clear from his writings and speeches prior to running for presidency.

    In the process, he grew support by recruiting the disaffected working class, those who’ve been dropped by Democrats ever since the Bush-Kerry election in 2004.

    THIS is the demographic that the Republican Party needs to capture and enrapture. Trump can and did this. DeSantis then ran in his wake. But will his charisma carry him and sweep up this demo? I think this, too, is a telling and likely decisive issue when it comes to gaining a winning coalition of voters.

    I can’t imagine that R party regulars could reject DeSantis for President. But what of this working class? I have my doubts — now, show me!

30. I’d say the case for Trump is as follows. Republicans have lost the popular vote since 2004, and even then barely. The deck is stacked against them. The only Republican that is likely to win is one who can change the landscape by bringing out voters who typically have not voted on the past. I like DeSantis, but he is never going to be that guy.

    Not sure how much I believe the argument I just made. Just saying it’s the best case for Trump.

31. its not about the social contract, then, if you can up with a better system that has held for more than 200 years years have at it,

32. @neo:I don’t see a way to overcome the obstacles I have described.

    Ok, it seems we’re on the same page there, that what the Republicans are up against in the election is not something that will be remedied for 2024.

    It is not a mere failure of will, as many people keep saying.

    For the obstacles you were specifically talking about, you may be right. However, in the wider realm of things an effective opposition could do, there are things in the power of Republicans to do that they are not doing. They are not making effective use of the power they have, in my estimation. I can give a list if need be, but when you look at the use the Dems make of their levers even in states where they don’t have a majority or when all they have is one House of Congress, there’s a lot of contrast there, and increasingly people who used to enthusiastically vote Republican have noticed this.

    Retaliation in kind is an effective strategy for getting an opponent to stop gaming the rules or crossing the lines. It doesn’t always work, but trying to play by the rules even harder has not been working at all, and now the rules are being changed and enforced one-sidedly even more blatantly. And when the team most affected seems not willing to do what they can about it, well is it any wonder more and more people think the game is rigged?

33. Frederick writes

    “We’re talking about speeches and policy and optics, not about who has the plan for how Republicans are going to get their ballots counted and deny Dem ballots from being counted in the double handful of districts that actually matter.”

    DeSantis has a plan and is implementing it now. First in the primary and then in the general. See this article.

    “Inside the $100 million door-knocking effort to boost Ron DeSantis
    Allies of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis see the large-scale field program as the centerpiece of an effort to overtake former President Donald Trump.”

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/100-million-door-knocking-effort-boost-ron-desantis-rcna89517

34. Doesn’t matter. As others have elucidated, a Republican candidate can’t win. Besides, we are so far gone as a nation, a culture, a civilization that there is no way we could ever vote our way back home.

35. The Republican has to win beyond the margin of error/fraud/legal and illegal shenanigans in about a dozen or two voting precincts in swing states in Blue cities that are totally controlled by the Left.

    Frederick:

    So you keep saying. I would like you to show your work in more detail.

    “totally controlled by the left” is a rather high bar.

36. well thats where the fraud was last time, they haven’t fixed things in fulton or wayne or dane or maricopa, in fact they outright stole arizona last year the court appointee in wisconsin, has made the legislature moot,

37. If President Trump is not nominated and elected, the Republic’s gone. I hope, if he’s not elected I am proved wrong.

    Don Surber said what I tried to get across down at the leaked Trump post below but far, far better; https://donsurber.substack.com/p/the-lesson-of-2020

38. I would emphasize how much Trump has antagonized almost everyone who worked for him. He cannot be effective at governing if he alienates his allies in addition to his enemies.

39. Cervantes, I infer you think that the current Constitution is not only good but it’s the only one we can/should have. Apple is on iOS 16. Doesn’t mean iOS 1 was not brilliant. Just means iOS 16 is better. Wouldn’t you like to have a Constitution that places limits on the President to go to war whenever he wants? To force Congress to be fiscally responsible? To stop SCOTUS from legislating?

40. Mike Plaiss – Data points against your argument:

    – 2018
    – 2020
    – 2022

    Trump won in 2016 because he was still pulling big portions of the old GOP strongholds in the suburbs. Once those folks got a taste of Trump in office, they stopped voting Republican. That’s why Trump and Trump’s hand-selected candidates have lost every election since 2016.

    You may not like those surburban voters, but you can’t win without them.

41. the operating systems isn’t the problem,

    the constitution said only congress can declare war, we’ve ignored that for 73 years, it lays out what the obligations are re spending, they have ignored budgets for 15 years, if not more, same for the Court,

42. yes there were more jobs, no new wars, more plentiful energy, the cities were not basketcases yet, although barr and wray allowed them to descent toward that point, they betrayed this country to this country comprende,

43. Election is over except for filling in the name? 66% of American Voters or Two-Thirds Believe the 2024 Presidential Election Will Be Affected by Cheating.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/huge-66-americans-two-thirds-believe-2024-presidential/

44. The situation in the suburbs is horrific as far as I can tell. Data point of one, nevertheless. I live as close to Chicago as one can get and NOT be in Cook county. I used to think that was perfect. But lots of people moving here from the city. Anyone who thinks they’ve seen the error of their ways is dreaming. The first thing that happens when they move in is the signs go up for the most leftist candidates on the school board, along with yard signs more depressing still.. In 20 years I’ve seen a county go from firmly Republican, to impossible for a Republican to win.

45. miguel cervantes – Barr was in office for about 18 months. He inherited a mess of a department that was completely weaponized against is boss, Trump. The Mueller investigation would have been much, much more damaging to Trump but for Barr’s outlawyering of Mueller. You can’t write him out of the movement because he didn’t completely root out the rot at the DOJ while he was also dealing with Mueller and everything else that was going on.

    That’s kind of like DFAing your right fielder because hit a stand-up double instead of a home run.

46. i think some upper income people had to pay more tax because of the loopholes, but outside of that what was the unthinkable horror that orange man subjected them to,

    by comparison we had a year whent the supply chain was totally smashed, as if we had been blockaded by an enemy fleet,

47. I linked the piece about barr and wray’s malfeasance re antifa, of course mueller should never have been appointed, it was a fraudulent exercise that wasted time and resources best yet applied elsewhere,

48. jack smith should have been disbarred and put in prison long ago,

49. Jim in Alaska:

    There is nothing magical about Trump. What you are saying sounds like a cult of personality to me.

    Surber is living in Dreamland.

50. Our nominee may very likely be facing Newsom, who is young, well-spoken, and telegenic. With Trump, we’ll be the old party looking to the past (for a Hamlet-like revenge) while a future-oriented young handsome man from groovy California steals the ring.

    And even if Trump wins, we get only four years, and middle-class women will be so exhausted and irritated after four more years of him, they’ll vote for the next D candidate no matter what.

51. From the Surber column Jim in Alaska links:
    _______________________________________

    A reader pointed out that Schlichter said he would vote for President Trump in the general election — after trying to kneecap him in the primaries. That will be too late because the damage will have been done. We must unite behind The Donald because if they can crush him, they will crush us all.

    For all Schlichter’s schooling (he’s a lawyer) and all his experience (he’s a retired infantry officer) he has not learned the lesson of 2020, which is that our constitutional republic ended with the end of the Trump presidency on January 20, 2021. Marxists won by any means necessary. The electoral process was demolished by crooked ballot harvesting, late-night switcheroos and a judiciary that refused to look at evidence and stop the steal.

    President Trump was our last hope and now is our only hope of restoring a republic that protects individuals from the ravages of a government so powerful and ubiquitous that the communists in Red China now envy our totalitarianism. And it will get worse.

    –Don Surber, “The lesson of 2020”
    https://donsurber.substack.com/p/the-lesson-of-2020
    _______________________________________

    I don’t find Surber persuasive. It’s mostly strong rhetoric proceeding from the questionable premises:

    (A) We no longer have a constitutional republic.
    (B) Trump is the only person who can rescue us.

    I agree we are in trouble and we are the farthest from a constitutional republic than we ever have been.

    Nonetheless the US still has a helluva lot farther to go such that Red China might envy our “totalitarianism.” I dislike this alarmist level of rhetoric.

    Help us Obi-Wan Donaldus! You’re our only hope.

    Generally I don’t think things work this way. Specifically, I don’t think Trump will either.

    If Trump is our only hope, we probably don’t have any.

52. huxley:

    On that Surber piece –

    Surber has either flipped his lid and has succumbed to some weird Cult of Personality, or is being paid a lot to shill for Trump, because much of what he writes is nonsensical.

    If Surber is so critical of Schlicter for saying “he would vote for President Trump in the general election — after trying to kneecap him in the primaries,” perhaps Surber should have a word with Trump himself, because that is Trump’s m.o. when he runs in primaries: vicious over-the-top accusations against his GOP primary opponents.

    And what is this “We must unite behind The Donald because if they can crush him, they will crush us all.”? Is Trump such a uniquely strong and uncrushable candidate that he must be supported more than any other candidate? If they’re determined to “crush us all” – and if they crushed Trump in the 2020 election – why wouldn’t they crush him, and us, again?

    And Surber is unable to prove that Trump would actually be more likely to win in the general than any other Republican, and has no rejoinder to those who think Trump is actually more likely to lose. Surber also thinks that Trump really won in 2020 and the election was stolen, which although possibly true is a dangerous premise to assume. What’s more, he offers no reason why, if that’s what happened in 2020, it wouldn’t happen again in 2024.

    There are other nonsensical or incorrect statements and assumptions in his piece, but I’ll leave it at that.

53. An interesting discussion. I haven’t read all the comments so forgive me if this has been mentioned before.

    Embrace the idea of a No Labels candidate. About which you can read more here:
    https://www.nolabels.org/

    The GOP has the issues.
    1. An inflationary economy that’s wreaking financial hardship on many – especially retirees and near retirees.
    2. An open southern border that a majority of Americans are wanting closed.
    3. A breakdown of law and order. In our streets and in our federal government.
    4.An assault on the innocence of our children by the LBGTQ+ activists.
    5. A breakdown of educational achievement because teachers aren’t teaching, they are indoctrinating activists. School choice is a huge issue.

    There are many other issues, but those are major.

    Some believe issues don’t matter because of election fraud. That argument is pretty strong after 2020 and 2022. Frederick doesn’t believe the Republicans have the will to change that and he may be right.

    But here’s another possibility. The No Labels crowd cannot stomach the idea of a Biden – Trump rematch. They propose to field a candidate who is a moderate Democrat (Joe Manchin) or Republican (Mitt Romney).

    Imagine that Trump and Biden are the nominees. The No Labels candidate would, IMO, take more votes away from Biden, than from Trump. Biden got 83 million votes in 2020. Trump got 75 million. Let’s say that 48 million vote No Labels – 33 million from Biden and 15 million from Trump. That leaves Biden with 50 million and Trump with 60 million. Nothing scientific about my numbers. They’re just WAGs. My reasoning is that of the 75 million who voted for Trump in 2020, more would vote for him again. The LIVs, never Trumpers, and disillusioned Dems would vote No Labels. The hardcore socialists would vote for Biden.

    Remember it was a third-party candidate, Perot, who helped Bill Clinton win twice, and Ralph Nader who helped W win against Gore. Embrace the idea of a No Labels party as a possible way to take back the presidency, even with Trump as the nominee.

54. 1) 100% give Neo credit for not shying away from a topic that is important to many people.

    2) Take the concerns of “can win nomination, but not general” seriously, and have been trying to see if I can learn anything helpful from history (i.e., party lost general election because selected wrong candidate).

    • Over the past 20 elections – 1944 to 2020 – the Republican candidate won 10 times and lost 10 times.
    • The 2nd place Republican primary candidate for each lost election is as follows: 1944-Bricker, 1948-Stassen, 1960-Rockefeller, 1964-Rockefeller, 1976-Reagan, 1992-Buchanan, 1996-Buchanan, 2008-Romney, 2012-Santorum.

    • Setting aside 1944 and 1948, it wasn’t until 1976 that the 2nd place Republican primary candidate popular vote came within striking distance of the nominee – Ford: 5,529,899, Reagan: 4,760,222.

    • Ford lost to Carter in 1976, and Reagan beat Carter in 1980 – but I am not sure any Republican candidate could have overcome Nixon & Watergate in 1976.
    • Romney lost to McCain in 2008 – 4,699,789 to 9,902,797 – and then lost to Obama in 2012.

    • Have not dived into the same Democrat data yet.

    3) Have no problem with the 2024 Republican candidate being decided by the primary process for many reasons. Including the conclusion that the historical data does not support the concept that the 2nd place Republican primary candidate would have won the general election; which makes sense given the platform, coalition building, momentum, etc. required to win the nomination.

    4) Since 1944 only two Republican primary candidates have received more than 10 million primary popular votes.

    • 2000: GWB – 12,034,676. In 2004 he dropped back under 10 million primary popular votes – 7,853,863.
    • 2016: Trump – 14,015,993. In 2020 he increased his primary popular votes – 18,159,752 – only candidate to ever accomplish that.

    5) 100% agree with those that have concerns about election integrity ^^ – 2020, 2022 & 2024 – and 100% believe that the Republican primary candidate that wins the nomination is the best candidate for the general election (see history). And I will vote for that candidate – Trump, DeSantis, …

    ^^ = even JH at Power Line – who has been negative Trump for some time now – has a post conceding the public’ perception of election fraud and a statement that acknowledges that Biden’ vote count was not accurate: ” The truth, in my opinion, is that Biden fell considerably short of 81 million legitimate votes, but he did win the election.”

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/06/voters-worry-about-election-fraud.php

55. Solid arguments. Even though Trump is alot more alert/healthy compared to Dementia Joe, I think we weaken the “age” argument by nominating Trump. We all know that one slip or hesitation from Trump and we’ll get 24/7 coverage for weeks. of how unfit Trump is. We all know how persecuted he has been but an election is about the future, and Trump is incapable of not responding to media attacks – as soon as he secures the nomination, the media will go into overdrive about 2020 and Jan 6 – and Trump is incapable of refusing to take the bait. Trump is a very smart and shrewd man, but I don’t think he’s always politically astute – he appoints idiots and self-aggrandizers and charlatans. His instincts on some issues are outstanding but on others they’re frankly bad. He had his chance. I’m grateful for all he did and for all the abuse and scorn he suffered for voters. But I just think we need to move on to a younger and more capable choice.

56. Neo, I quite agree, there is nothing magical about Trump.

    However I see him as the only electable that will not necessarily go along to get along. I also see, due to the go alongs to get alongs as well as other major ethical failures, more of our freedoms, more of our Constitutional Republic lost each and every day.

    Call me a cultists if you want, call Surber delusional if you want (I often don’t buy his whole cloth, even in his posting I linked.), none the less, if push comes to shove, if President Trump is not reelected, I certainly hope you prove me wrong. Please!

57. This column seems rather wonky with very linear thinking. A successful presidential campaign builds an appealing narrative that gains momentum and sweeps away its opposition. The Republican nominee needs to develop an appeal to both Parties to reduce the vote deficit in big cities (along with a network to collect ballots in big city suburbs).

    These indictments are a blessing if Trump can beat them back. He can build a story of survival, or of the Great American Comeback or perhaps of David vs the federal Goliath. He can discuss how the Deep State thwarted his agenda in his first term, but he knows whom not to trust now. Given the misery heaped on us by the Biden Administration, a Comeback story has the potential to catch on.

    In contrast, DeSantis talks about policy like the lawyer he is, and he is not very appealing. He seems to lack charisma to inspire anyone to action. He was able to accomplish great things in Florida because Republicans dominate both branches of the legislature. But he may find that Republicans in DC are not so accommodating.

    If one lists pros and cons on paper, DeSantis probably comes out ahead. But the real question is: who can appeal to the masses on an inspirational level? Who can convince Americans that he will restore the economy ( drill baby, drill) and get the federal government off their backs? It might be the guy who has taken on the federal government and come away virtually unscathed. I don’t see Blue City Democrats ever considering a vote for DeSantis. But a guy who has been harassed by the FBI may siphon off some Blue City votes.

    I disagree with the storyline that attitudes about Trump are set in stone. That is probably true for establishment Republicans who are pushing that storyline. However, Trump has the available material to reinvent his candidacy into one of redemption and the Great American Comeback, both of which have the potential to create mass appeal. I think establishment Republicans and Democrats instinctively know this, which is why they are working so hard to send Trump to prison.

58. kelly_3406 – “Trump has the available material to reinvent his candidacy into one of redemption and the Great American Comeback, both of which have the potential to create mass appeal.”

    In the abstract, yes. In reality, nothing that has happened in the past eight years provides any indication that the man is remotely capable of reinventing himself. He’s going around whining about “DeSantimonious” and continuing to insist that he actually won the 2020 election. Childish nicknames and grievance. Same schtick, different day.

    We need to see things as they are, not as we would prefer them to be. Frankly, the inspirational candidate that you describe is Tim Scott, not Donald Trump. Not in this reality, at least.

59. surber is looking at observable results, the Dems know how to get on the same team, even if the goal is the destruction of this country

    desantis is fine, I don’t see why people have agita about him, I was addressing how the administrative legal state works to crush the people underfoot,

60. So miguel cervantes – DeSantis/Scott 2024? I could get onboard with that ticket. Easily.

61. no someone from the midwest, and not devine, who was nearly as bad as baker in massachussetts,

    they murdered innocent civilians in the Capitol, then they mounted this silly waterbuffalo man as a scapegoat, not to mention the other casualties of that day, 400 men and women some decorated veterans, locked up for months

62. Donald J. Trump is a disaster and his nomination will bring down far too many Republicans. If by some miracle he were to be elected in 2024 (Spoiler Alert – he won’t!) he will be unable to govern. His behavior starting on election night in November, 2020 when he refused to concede the election as well as his increasingly deranged statements and actions show him (like Biden) to be unfit for office.

    Bauxite
    “So miguel cervantes – DeSantis/Scott 2024? I could get onboard with that ticket. easily.” – Same here! I am afraid that Trump, who will have zero chances of getting anyone with sanity to be his running mate – will wind up picking Marjorie Taylor Greene.

63. I’ll vote for whoever the Republicans nominate. I’m tired of the infighting, and they’re not going to nominate Christie or Hutchinson (or Romney or Ryan or Cheney or Kinzinger). Anybody would be better than Biden (or Harris or Newsom).

    If Trump gives me a sign that he’d buckled down and become more mature and responsible and less focused on the past, I’ll vote for him in the primary, but it doesn’t look like that’s coming, so I’ll probably sit out the primary. I did that in 2016. I couldn’t vote for Trump in the primary, but I couldn’t not vote for him.

    I might even take a Democrat primary ballot and vote for Kennedy. I have no illusions about him, but I have to stick it to Biden somehow. I took a Democrat primary ballot in 2020 and voted for RFK Jr’s nephew, because I was so sick of Ed Markey, but it didn’t do any good.

    Trump faces the classic problem of outsiders in politics. Because he was outside the usual political process and the power networks, Trump could address issues and take on problems that insiders avoid, but because he wasn’t a part of those networks (which were united against him), big time politics chewed him up and spat him out. Such political sense as he did develop was uneven, and it’s hard for him to control his impulses. Outsider Berlusconi was able to have a second and even a third act. So (for better or worse) was Netanyahu, who was also something of an outsider. Trump probably won’t get a second act.

64. @Mike Plaiss
    “Just saying it’s the best case for Trump.”
    There is no best case for Trump. He is yesterdays man and by his own definiton he is already a three times loser – 2018, 2020, 2022 and will be a four time loser when he is defeated in November, 2024 (by a demented Joe Biden, again). He also is old, increasingly senile, and far too posionous for too many voters. This fanatical loyalty to Trump is bizarre.

65. I’m inclined vote for whom the Republicans nominate, though in re some I’d do so with displeasure. Four of the announced candidates have little or no time under their belt as executives and three others have a history of having sold social conservatives down the river (something the lothario DJT hasn’t done). Of the five remaining, one is the former President. I’m viscerally sympathetic to Trump, but given his age and family history, I do wish he’d pass the baton.

66. @neo
    “Surber is living in Dreamland.”
    I just finished reading Surber’s article and I agree with you, it is an apalling column. He comes across like a Disciple of Trump who is his Saviour of the Republic.

67. Trump has the ability to reach out beyond traditional Republican Voters. DeSantis has not shown Trumps ability to connect yet, or his retail politics ability. Trump comes across as genuine. Trump is moving the gop into a more populist direction, and the eGOP hates that.

68. Ray SoCa – I have no problem with moving the GOP in a more populist direction. Where is your evidence that Trump has the ability to reach beyond traditional Republican voters, though? Certainly not since 2016. At least the net hasn’t been favorable since 2016.

    (FYI – Do you know who else had the ability to reach beyond traditional Republican voters? George W. Bush. His 2004 reelection was successful only because he was able to win the votes of vast numbers of swing state voters who hadn’t voted Republican previously, including many who hadn’t voted at all previously.

    That model worked exactly once, in 2004. Eight years later in 2012, Obama ran more or less the same playbook in reverse and massively turned out a bunch of Democrat-leaning voters who hadn’t bothered to vote previously. We are now as far from Trump’s only election victory as 2012 was to 2004.)

69. No doubt about Trump’s thoughts on the Ukraine/Russia conflict, is there a clear ‘DeSantis Policy’ yet? And his thoughts on ‘foreign entanglements’ (especially wars) would be good to know. Maybe I haven’t been paying close enough attention.

70. His 2004 reelection was successful only because he was able to win the votes of vast numbers of swing state voters who hadn’t voted Republican previously,
    ==
    Chuckles. His father did better in 1988.

71. Ray SoCa:

    Trump moved the GOP in a more populist direction, and that’s okay with me. But he’s not moving anyone anymore, except away from him.

72. miguel cervantes:

    Most of the people who have agita about DeSantis have succumbed to a Cult of Personality about Trump, and they have been fed lies and exaggerations about DeSantis and therefore have dismissed him. Trump has encouraged this, of course, and so have certain pundits, as well as many commenters spreading the Word. It is incredibly destructive and I think if it continues, this fanaticism and split will only enable the re-election of Democrats.

73. I’ve been very surprised in my talks with Blue collar workers, Asian, Hispanic, black, and White how pro Trump they are. Especially those more Christian.

    They despise Biden.

    The more educated the person, I find the more likely they are pro Biden.

    On my political opinions at work, I try to be the grey man with vendors and customers.

    One of my customers even had a pro Antifa type sign. Something along the lines of lives matter more than properly. Very educated person.

74. “Chuckles. His father did better in 1988.”
    His mediocre father won Reagan’s 3rd term.

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>