Comments

Is DeSantis a “failure” for 2024, and if so why? — 98 Comments

1. I think the bigger problem is he went through 7 million in four months, before you get to the first debate, yes there the glitch with the spaces, but that’s near beer,

2. miguel cervantes:

   All the things I list in this post were present before any money was spent. The money is not the issue or the “real problem.” These more basic things are. Money will not overcome them, although it can help. And seven million is chicken feed these days. If a person is doing well, more money rolls in.

3. Excellent article. It will be interesting to see the pro-Trumper commenters appear on this thread. Many of them are leftist trolls. The Left knows they can defeat Trump.

   You have also mentioned before that the piling on of charges is intended to generate sympathy for Trump on the right.

   As I read the blogs, there are people who are tired of Trump’s act and know his weakness and want him to fade into the sunset.

   As to the polls, as I commented before, they are cooked. So I continue to donate to DeSantis.

4. who’s the leftist, no I’m an oddball I’ve voted for guiliani gingrich and cruz, the first was probably the best candidate in 2008, but he was besotted by some terrible staff, like john avlon currently with the basilisk,

5. I’m in agreement with you, Neo. I can handle people who think Trump is the most likely candidate to win in the general election. I disagree, but with respect. What disturbs me greatly is the destructive campaign being run by Trump and his supporters against DeSantis, much of it false. I am contributing to DeSantis and will continue through the primaries, because I think he’s a better general election candidate.

6. IMO, the question is who is most likely to defeat the democrats. Faults of one kind or the other, between the two, are hardly relevant, considering.

7. Ever Trumpers seem not to understand that if the 2020 election was stolen, it was stolen from the voters, not from Trump.

8. What Kate said.

9. Per neo above “ Then there’s the issue of whether any GOP candidate could win in the general. Whether one believes fraud will prevail, or mere “rigging” of the election”. And there’s the rub! It really doesn’t matter who the Republican candidate is. The Dems will harvest enough ballots in Detroit, Philly, Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Phoenix to put those swing states in the Dem column and over 270 electoral votes. Everything else is irrelevant.

10. What Grandpa Grumble said…spot on.

    Well… everything else may not be fully “irrelevant,” but 81 million votes? Really?

11. The EverTrumpers don’t seem to have a clue that over 50% of the country hate him and will crawl over broken glass to vote against him. That’s why the Ds want him as the candidate.

    Yes, he’s gotten a raw deal. But we have to look at the bigger picture

12. So if one truly believes what Grandpagrumble says, the real question is who could possibly win in a landslide big enough to overcome all that? I like DeSantis – a lot. He’s my guy, but right now I can’t imagine him being some Reagan-like popular figure that wins a groundswell of popular support.

13. I do not buy into the “no republican can win in 2024” spin. The 2022 election is a counterexample. The Democrats really really wanted to keep control of the House. Yet Republicans across the country won close races. Here in ballot harvesting California, the John Duarte versus Adam Gray House race was won by the Republican Duarte by a few hundred votes. The Republicans won other close California races. If the Democrats cannot steal the elections here in California, they cannot do it across the country.

14. yes and we should have 20-40 seats, but they played games with the census, with the unverified mail ballots, zelden should have won, if the new york electorate was aware of their circumstances, but they don’t really care do they, and they can get agita over george santos lol,

15. The biggest reason for the unimpressive performance of DeSantis so far is that he is just not very good at campaigning. I didn’t pay much attention to DeSantis before his first run for governor of Florida and given his performance as governor, I always wondered how he could have almost lost to a train wreck like Andrew Gillum. I no longer wonder. Yes, he won reelection in a landslide but he had a solid record to run on against the repulsive Charlie Crist.

    DeSantis is a very good administrator and he has been a great governor but he has trouble reading a room and connecting with people. He is not a natural politician and the more he tries to inhabit a persona that he thinks the voters want, the less authentic he seems. He has also taken some very bad advice on his campaign which raises concerns about his judgement.

    Of course we are in an very unusual situation with Trump’s mounting legal issues and the decline of Biden’s mental and physical health so making predictions of what will happen is more difficult than it usually is at this point. But Team DeSantis is definitely not happy where there are. Yes, he can come back but the odds are against him.

    I know people like to dismiss the polls and many here are quite insistent that Trump does not stand a chance in the general election. But I think the average of polls and the betting odds give a reasonable picture of where this race stands right now with Biden being slightly favored and Trump a close second.

16. Hold on here. Didn’t Florida Gov. DeSantis grow into national significance following on Trump’s coattails? But building on his rhetoric, while using dominant R legislators to enact his policies?

    And THIS, only after Trump had taken on all the enemy arrows, plus the Klieg lights of DC and the State Controlled national media circus.

    And yet, as this thread above implies, we’re supposed to admire and trust the
    Derivative DeSantis more than the original?

    Thus, Neo offers up no defense of DeSantis’ maligned character. No, Sir!

    Instead, we get a defense, put broadly, as a variation on the theme of “Orange Man Bad” for the general.

    Call me an EverTrumper if you wish, but I fail to see anything persuasive in this so-called “defense.”

    I hoped to understand why DeSantis is perceived to be a weak campaigner? Or, perhaps, just lacking in charisma?

    I’ve been grateful that there are two strong political voices on my side — a main man and an understudy, of sorts.

    GO TEAM R!

    I read Neo for answers and I’m left with excuses and unanswered questions.

    (And yes, I see certain attacks by Trump against DeSantis as untoward or even dismaying — but the game of politics is not like lawn tennis. The Marcus of Queensbury Rule Book can burn — my country hangs in the balance.)

17. i don’t get that about desantis, he’s done a lot of good, on cultural, health and economic issues, some complain when the prices of housing and insurance are up, well he’s not a magician, tort reform should work over time,

    but lets leave that for a bit, you can swing wayne county, where they extorted the election supervisors last time, where the zampolit benson is willing to charge electors with thought crime,how about how they stole the wisconsin supreme court, of course vos was in full possum mode, arizona where they denied any republican votes in maricopa county, pennsylvania where they picked golem a month ahead of time,

18. That Trump holds majority support with Republicans is proof that people are more motivated by emotion than by facts. For the facts are that Trump’s last year in office was horrible and the badness was self-inflicted. Trump was gungho on shutting the country down. He attacked Gov. Kemp for ending lockdowns in Georgia. Then Trump privately fretted that lockdowns were hurting him but he felt controlled by Fauci & Birx. Then Trump brought in Scott Atlas who observed that Trump had relinquished his presidency to Fauci & Birx. Atlas was finally able to bring some sanity to the Trump administration Covid policy.

    And yet Trump refuses to admit being wrong. Refuses to apologize to Kemp. And now Trump is bashing DeSantis and for what? It is bewildering. It is childish. It is a terrible look for Trump. And yet more than half of GOP voters don’t care Trump is feckless, spiteful and a wimp.

    They also don’t care that Trump rallied his supporters on Jan6 and then walked away, leaving hundreds to deal with brazen, unconstitutional political prosecutions. Trump has proved he is feckless and a wimp. How does such an empty suit garner support?

    And my response to the GOP is “let the party die”. I really like DeSantis. And I like Gov Kemp and a few other common sense Republican leaders. But the GOP is a stupid party. We get Romney pissing on Trump and Trump pissing on Romney and all the while the Democrat’s Communist regime plows forward. I see zero reason to think the GOP cares to stop the Democrats. I see a GOP that loves the money that Big Government brings and they are happy to play along.

    And Republican voters are the same. As long as they have money to spend they don’t really care about Big Government. They don’t care about DEI & ESG. They just want to believe “their guy” fights for them, all the while they ignore the reality that “their guy” is a feckless wimp.

19. well kemp did advance some common sense motion, but he ratified the steal, and he doubled down allowing warnock a slimy creature to be reinstalled in office, of course they collapsed two banks to make sure he would be in office,

    with imperfect information, Trump put his soul behind Operation Warp Speed, should he not have done it, you look at the evil that Fauci has been responsible for, directly, as much as Daszak, he pushed to restrict the mail avalanche, you saw the reaction, you saw how blatant the steal was in fulton and dane and bucks county, and how indifferent the gop was to that, we saw how the court refused to look into the machinery which was sketchy to frontline as recently as october, so there should not have been any challenge to an obviously fraudulent operation,

20. who are the powerbrokers in the gop, graham who relished the murder of ashley babbit, who thinks we can win a war with Russia, when our nukes are under the steward of a freak like brinton, whose command staff is full of fools and knaves,
    literally waging a war against competent servicemen,

21. now I don’t take it that seriously but desantis was a little slow reacting to everything they (redacted) on the constitution with these bogus legal moves, directed not by the john gill manque garland but cop killer fan kristen clarke and
    russia hoaxer lisa monaco, (which the possums ratified their installation)
    what was the possum priority, well after mcconnaughy, whispered in their ear, push to disarm more citizens, because the criminals have too little an advantage,

22. now what can be said of mike pence in a civil conversation, I’ll skip it and laugh at chris christie, the barney from the garden state,

    now tuberville has done his best gandalf act against the leftist horde in the Senate, with nary a single vote of assent,

23. Two things:

    1. The one thing De Santis is good at, as a campaigner, is putting down lefty reporters and displaying their BS assumptions. He needs to do it more, so he can get more play doing so. Gingrich was great at that. And in the primaries, every time he did it, he got a bump in the polls.

    2. A note about 1976: things got MUCH better for Reagan during the campaign; at one time it looked as if he’d actually pull it off. I remember a McNelly cartoon of Ford accepting the VP slot under Ronnie. Then it slipped away. But he definitely got much closer than 61/33.

24. neo wrote “Before DeSantis challenged Trump, DeSantis was a hero on the right.”. Last year there was certainly high praise for DeSantis and his future in politics……..as Vice President if he chose not to finish his term as Governor of Florida. What changed?
    Also, if the next Presidential election is like every other in my lifetime, the Democratic candidate will be portrayed in the media by November, as more conservative than Reagan, while the Republican will be “literally hitler”.

25. its not surprising he would do this, he thought for a whole host of reason, the florida model would work better than the california-new york dumpsterfire that is spreading like a slouching beast toward the rest of the country,

26. The biggest reason for the unimpressive performance of DeSantis so far is that he is just not very good at campaigning.

    That’s a minor issue, and pretty irrelevant. To campaign before the public, a candidate needs a third party to get the message out, and currently that third party is the MSM. And said MSM understands that DeSantis absolutely is a competent, practical and articulate candidate (and Governor), and if somehow Trump loses his grip on first place, DeSantis immediately becomes a real threat to whomever the Dems hope to install in the White House.

    I believe the unremarkable DeSantis reputation currently among the public is the studied product of MSM/social media/(and gov’t censors and AI?) doing their joint best at keeping public interest away from DeSantis for as long as possible, to spare themselves the mighty labors they’d need to render him as the Devil after Trump is fully dismembered.

27. It is way too early to make pronouncements about which campaign is winning and which is losing. The first caucus and primary are more than 6 months away. Real voters – not the politics obsessed that write and visit this site, and others – aren’t paying attention, at all. What is going on now with the candidates is the soliciting of high level political support, mainly in the form of donations.

    I’ll start paying attention to who is ahead and who is behind when the first votes are cast.

28. I like Ron DeSantis. He has done a wonderful job in FL politics, particularly the decimation of the DEI nonsense and the overhaul of the ‘New College’.

    However, he does not appear to be up to the task of fighting the deep state and the Democrat/Media complex.

    I have followed national politics for many years. Never have I seen a politician that can withstand the slings and arrows that the media launches at Trump every day. After three months in office, I recall being amazed that he was still standing, the barrage being so intense.

    Ron is a good guy and I wish him the best. However, we need a president that has the thickest of skin, a breastplate that will deflect the arrows, and the courage to venture into the viper’s nest of leftists and clean it out.

    At this time, Trump is the only man that can do this.

    Erronius

29. I am sorry, Trump is well beyond his ‘Sell By’ date, he has pushed his ego to far out and made a total mess about his attraction to the middle, and the middle matters. When he was president he did not pay attention to his lawyers who told him to shut up and fire some of the assholes who were attacking him, Trump was still trying to play the celebrity game on TV. He wanted to win everybody over and clear his name and the game was rigged against him. He did not understand politics and how to play the long game when he had the power for a short amount of time.

    One of my relatives who was a partner in the same law firm as Trump’s lawyer told me that Trump just needed to shut his mouth and listen to his lawyers and yes, that’s just what I said above, however that relative, now deceased, was my best friend and he was an old Rockefeller Republican man and his grandfather had, at one time been an interim mayor of New York City over a hundred years ago.

    My friend did not care for Trump however he was distressed about the way Trump was being treated and he could never understand why Trump kept trying to wing it on his own without using the powers of his office and working with his party to consolidate his position. Trump only knew how to play to the cameras and the friendly media but he never really tried to make friends with his party and utilize his executive powers with dedicated party backers. He threw any and all previous, current and future party friends under the big old bus.

    Trump has not learned and he has made himself more vulnerable than ever so it is time to just put a reduced price on him and let him go away. . . . .

30. “The EverTrumpers don’t seem to have a clue that over 50% of the country hate him . . . .” [physicsguy at 5:34 pm]

    I question whether this is true. If 50% of the country hated Trump, the Dems would not have had to resort to the, likely, massive fraud which it appears they did to win the 2020 election.

    Granted all of this is speculation, but keep in mind that the left, placed in the institutions and media as they are, always seem stronger and more powerful than they really are. Take the transgender issue as an example; does anyone reall believe there is brioad-based support for mutilating children? Yet we see messages of this so-called support very frequently in the media.

    So while I don’t accept physicsguy’s statement at face value, I certainly would not yet say that he is entirely wrong.

    As Neo points out, we are early on on the campaigns and 15 months before the election is an eternity in politics. Anything might happen: Biden may not complete his term and the Republican may be running against Harris; Trump may not be the Republican candidate; there could be a major black swan for the Biden administration which the media cannot overcome, or for the Republicans which the Dems and the media capitalize on. Any of these are possibilities.

    I like to remember Henry Kissinger’s comments about international politics being like two chess games, one played above the table and one played below and out of sight. IMO this describes out national politics to a “T” (sorry about the pun), and as a result I believe that is makes no sense to make irrevocable judgements this early in the games. We are all still reading the tea leaves, and the leaves are in a constant state of flux.

31. Great accounting of the circumstances at present, neo! Really stellar!

    Very perceptive and non-biased.

32. Lots of interesting comments. It’s early and there are a lot of people running for the nomination. And my opinion is that any one of the hopefuls, even Larry Elder or Francis Suarez, would do a better job than Joe Biden.

    The uniter-in-chief, Joe Biden, has proven to be a third Obama term on steroids. Plus, federal law enforcement has become the Democrat’s Stasi. Not to mention that the major investment firms (Black Rock, Vanguard, State Street, etc.) are utilizing ESG and DEI to cripple the fossil fuel industry. It appears that they are hoping China becomes the next major superpower. This next election could be the last free and fair election, if they get their way.

    I watched Trump’s speech last night. A laundry list of his accomplishments and a quick summary of what he intends to do when re-elected. He only had ten minutes, so it was bare bones. He did mention that he had a plan to foil cheating in 2024. That gave me a surge of hope. He took a couple of cheap shots at DeSantis, which I think he should have refrained from. He should act like DeSantis isn’t a threat, IMO.

    I also saw Ramaswamy’s speech. It was forceful, uplifting, and hit most all the right notes. However, he made a pledge to disband the FBI, which I think is a bridge too far. He believes the FBI is so broken it can’t be reformed and must be replaced.

    DeSantis has been primarily speaking pout on the cultural issues, which are not getting the traction that I think financial issues would provide him. My main concern is the cost of living. Those of us on fixed incomes and in dead end jobs are falling further behind every month. Even those with upwardly mobile jobs are not keeping up. Reducing inflation is the major issue for millions of voters. This, IMO, is where the GOP campaigns can be most effective. Reduce energy costs, reduce pork barrel spending, unclog the supply chains, and deregulate businesses. It can be done. I’m voting for the candidate who promises to deal with those issues.

    Of course, the FED might crash the economy with high interest rates before the election. In that case, I believe most ant Republican can win, as the recession can be blamed directly on poor Democrat policy.

33. I voted for Trump twice. If he is the nominee I will vote for him. But he doesn’t stand a snow balls chance in hades. His ego is in the way. Others have stated that he just does not understand why so many hate him. He did a lot of good but he did nothing about the swamp then and I really doubt he would next time around.

34. Are there more people hating trump than there were people hating romney or mccain? 2020 election was held amid an Armageddon, that was before vaccines were available and in a situation that the incumbent usually gets blamed and loses in a landslide trump lost in a relatively close race and still performed well better than romney and mccain did? both of them lost in a landslide without democrats needing to cheat in a massive scale. Remember there used to be a blue wall that weren’t even in play for most republican presidents. Republicans are always hated, the media makes you think trump is specially hated because he is someone that can get votes from voters who would never consider voting for republicans.

35. “DeSantis is Jeb”, “The New Jeb,” etc:

    Although DeSantis isn’t Jeb, he’s got Jeb and other objectionable supporters ostentatiously lurking in the background.

    Most unfortunate.

36. I will take Trump, DeSantis will be fine, and Pennsylvania has mail voting so will go to the Deep State candidate who I think will be Gruesome

37. I am very impressed with Vivec Ramaswamy.

38. DeSantis is also to blame for his own failure. His campaign to date has been unfortunately lame and he doesn’t bring a ton of charisma. I like him, hope he learns from this and makes him a stronger candidate in the future. He lost Cernovich who was solidly behind him and against Trump.

39. https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/07/dojs_dirty_deeds.html

40. so maybe trump shouldn’t have hired michael cohen, as a favor to a family friend,
    of course the deep staters, did a number on him, the lawfare boys allow him an actual tax felon to spin all sorts of yarns,

41. Pingback:Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup - Pirate's Cove » Pirate's Cove

42. One thing that neo kinda sorta hinted at is the Democrats’ use of the legal system to attack a political opponent.
    That is a red line that must not be crossed, but they did it anyway.
    We used to bemusedly observe banana republic’s strongmen jailing their pollical opponents and think, “Whaddaya expect, it’s Nicaragua.”
    Now they are trying it here.
    There are so many laws, so many agencies, that every one of us could be locked up under some legal doctrine or another.
    I think DeS would be a better President, but we can’t let them get away with this.
    Not an ever Trumper- I’ll vote for any R over any D, but my primary vote will go to DJT. If he loses to Biden or Newsome, so be it- the end is near anyway.

43. Kate – I really don’t understand Ramaswamy’s popularity. His rhetoric sounds great. I have very little doubt that the country would be much better off if his policy plan were to be successfully implemented.

    But he’s never had to demonstrate that he can govern. I reckon there are probably hundreds of conservatives who could put on the same show that Ramaswamy does on the news talk shows and campaign trail. The main difference between Ramaswamy and those other conservatives is that Ramaswamy’s business interests have made him enough money that he can afford to campaign.

    It’s similar to Trump. Trump had some significant victories but, more often than not, the administrative state ate him for lunch (see – Russiagate prior to Barr, Ukraine impeachment, “travel ban” and Sally Yates, citizenship question, getting bamboozeled on the census reapportionment, Fauci and covid, etc.) I suspect that Ramaswamy would refrain from shooting himself in the foot to the degree that Trump repeatedly did. Just the same, he’s all talk. The administrative state is a snake pit. Where’s the indication that Ramaswamy would be anything other than another sacrificial lamb? I don’t see it.

44. One’s perception of how much Trump is hated is mostly a function of how blue one’s surroundings are. My friends on the right who live in overwhelmingly blue areas or have blue families see the intensity of the hatred and irrational slanders directed at him.

    Trump is Goldstein. And Democrat voters have been roused to insane hatred just as portrayed by Orwell in 1984. Two minutes of hate has become a ritual. This is a hurdle. It’s also an opportunity — assuming the election is honest.

    That really is the key. If the election is honest, Trump wins. The Democrats have nothing worthwhile to run on. The blue model is all failure all the time. If the election is dishonest, nothing matters.

    Which leads to the only quality that really matters to most GOP voters — who will fight and fight hardest? It is certainly the only thing that matters to me. I want a candidate who will shoot, slash, knife, burn and nuke everyone and everything on the left. No holding back. No pretense that Democrats are normal or acting in good faith, or patriots, or morally decent human beings. Nothing but the truth. And be willing to use that truth to destroy them.

45. What you’re writing is so obvious it takes an intellectual to refute it. I, too, have supported Trump all the way, but he has shown poor judgment in the past couple of years. On top of that I think DeSantis would be the more effective leader at this point while also standing a bigger chance of beating any Democrat in the general. It’s about our country, not about the person. I don’t need to go out on picnics with either of them.

46. “If he loses to Biden or Newsome, so be it- the end is near anyway.”

    West Tx: I can’t understand this attitude at all. You’d rather have Newsom or Biden and see the country totally go Marxist, than not elect Trump over another Republican who would have a better chance of winning??? Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water.

    With that attitude and the Democrats, the end is truly near.

47. I agree with the comment about blue states overstating the hatred for Trump. I moved to Arizona 7 years ago because CA was getting too crazy. I meet lots of people who seem to me that they would be liberals but they all love Trump. Our real estate lady was the ex-wife of a doctor who dumped her for another doctor. Angry feminist ? She had paintings in her home of feminist subjects. Nope. Trump supporter. Our handyman who fixes things for us. Another Trump supporter.

    CTH and Sundance go overboard on DeSantis but he did flub the topic of Ukraine.

    Trump was gungho on shutting the country down.

    That’s not true. He wanted to reopen the economy by Memorial Day but the Covid policy was run by son-in-law, Kushner. And Pence was in the middle of it. I read Scott Atlas’ book, too. You can blame him for not controlling the administration but the re-election campaign was run by Kushner. Kellyanne was nowhere near it and I wondered why.

48. physicsguy: This defeatist claim surprised me as well. DeSantis has clearly demonstrated in Florida that the right person at the helm implementing the right policies does matter. The evidence doesn’t become more stark than this.

    The sense of despair was similar in the 1970s and then Reagan happened. I know, different times, different country and different set of challenges, but I will do whatever I can do within my limited powers to ensure the best outcome for our country.

49. Mike K: I’m in Vermont and must sadly report that the ladies here become quite animated when arriving on the subject of Trump. I also know multiple persons who voted straight Republican in 2020 with the exception of the presidency. I don’t understand it either, but we would be foolish to deny this reality. If it’s happening in Vermont, it’s also happening in Arizona, Georgia, Wisonsin, etc.

50. I think it is helpful to look at appearances.
    Trump is much larger in person–he looks more significant than the president of China, he is larger than Putin. DeSantis looks smaller and thus weaker.

    Trump’s voice and way of speaking are more dominant–a necessary quality when negotiating with bad guys. DeSantis sounds like he will “ask nicely” of the enemy negotiators.
    I agree that what is happening to DeSantis among his own party is shameful–but, then again that party hasn’t stood up for much lately!

    Let’s not forget:
    “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances”

51. Yes, DeSantis is uncharismatic and a poor campaigner, and yes, it matters. At another time, the country might be in the mood for him, but it isn’t now. Maybe this election cycle is more like Reagan’s half-hearted effort in 1968, than his losing race in 1976. DeSantis will be back. A little time out of the spotlight can benefit politicians, if they know how to use it. Trump doesn’t. It’s a pity, but he doesn’t want to, or can’t, learn, rethink, and adapt.

    I’m afraid it’s true that over half the country won’t vote for Trump, and is unlikely to vote for another Republican. Cheating may have put Biden over the top in the key swing states, but Trump never had majority approval in public opinion polls. He didn’t win the popular vote in 2016, and it’s extremely unlikely that he won it in 2020. Ballot harvesting and outright fraud are the insurance policy, but it does look like half the country fear or hate Trump and the Republicans. I live in a very Democrat area, so that could account for my pessimism, but it’s not the same country that it used to be.

52. To stan’s point – it’s not so much about being in blue parts of the country as it is about being outside of the right-wing bubble. Roughtly 60% of the country does not want Trump to run. His favorability is in the low 40’s, and flirting with the high 30’s (even considering divorced real estate agents). No, Trump would not win an honest election. You don’t win an honest election with a favorability in the high 30’s or low 40’s. And Joe Biden’s own approval rating and record doesn’t change that. As between a president with an approval rating in the low 40’s and a former president with an approval rating in the low 40’s, there’s an element of “anything can happen,” but suggesting, with any certainty, that Trump would win a “fair election” in that circumstance is delusional.

    To Abraxas point, the best chance that the GOP team has is a “change” election that is a referendum on the party in power, much like Trump’s initial election in 2016 was a referandum on 8 years of Democratic administrations and Hillary Clinton’s foibles. The GOP definately has a shot in 2024 if it becomes a referendum on Biden. That’s not the type of election that we’re going to get if Trump is the nominee, however.

53. yes its very legit, https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1685687311139328001

54. I just donated to DeSantis, following Kate’s lead. I will vote for Trump if he is the GOP nominee.

    “Trump is much larger in person–he looks more significant than the president of China, he is larger than Putin. DeSantis looks smaller and thus weaker.”

    DeSantis appears to be a couple inches shorter than Trump, but seems to have a more powerful build. Putin is much smaller than most Western leaders. DeSantis’ team was in the Little League World Series and he was captain of Yale’s varsity baseball team. Per wiki, “He was an outfielder on that team; as a senior in 2001, he had the team’s best batting average at .336.” He was also on the Republican baseball team during James Hodgkinson’s attempted mass shooting.

    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=desantis+and+trump+together&t=ffab&iax=images&ia=images

    “The only certain fact is that anyone who currently declares the outcomes of the primary races or general election a foregone conclusion is utterly delusional.” –Victor Davis Hanson

    https://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/opinion-columns/victor-davis-hanson/victor-davis-hanson-the-wild-2024-race-2879345/

55. its way too soon, thats why I raised the point about money, specially from tapped out donors, we now see all the stunts they pulled in 2016, and yet some seem to drink from the same stream

56. As my former British colleagues might say, “early days”.
    Clearly, there is a constant drumbeat from Left and Trumpers that DeSantis has failed.

    That remains to be seen.

    I look forward to Trump appearing on a debate stage with DeSantis. If Trump shows up, he may carry the day. After all one commenter on another venue said DeSantis has no chance because he is not entertaining.

    On the other hand, there may be a significant segment of the GOP electorate who will value proven competence and the potential to unite the country, over bombast and divisiveness. If Trump resorts to his usual game of personal attacks and insults, he may be surprised to learn that many people are just very tired of that.

57. people easily exasperate themselves, specially the likes of erick erickson, he might want to try decaf,

58. Bauxite,
    I agree that the deep state will fight against any republican president, so it will be an uphill battle for any R president. I think Vivek will have better chances to win the general than Trump.

59. Kate – I can’t disagree that Vivek has a better shot to win the general election than Trump. I think Vivek would have a good chance of winning.

    One caveat – first time candidates often have skeletons in their closet. Provided that Vivek doesn’t have any skeletons in his closet, he would have a good chance of winning. (That’s just one reason why running for president on your first try for public office isn’t such a great idea.)

60. “Trump was never popular” seems to be the new meme here. Therefore he’d not electable or even re-electable!

    NEVER MIND THAT HE WAS RIGHT ABOUT VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING! The People are too clueless to ever awaken from their slumber and denial.

    Doesn’t anyone remember that Xi-Den “won” with the record lowest percentage EVER of the over 3,000 counties in the country? Meaning, that geographically, Trump’s the most popular Presidential loser EVER!

    What the Hell?

    And that the single most reliable indirect polling indicator, reported during the week before the 2020 election, showed Trump AHEAD — the best indicator of pending victory?

    (SOURCE I’d have to check — but maybe Rasmussen on viewed as “likeable”, IIRC.)

    So, clearly, Trump isn’t popular enough to EVER get elected! And even I’m convinced by the anti-pity party here.

61. Mark Alexis on July 30, 2023 at 11:10 am said:
    Mike K: I’m in Vermont and must sadly report that the ladies here become quite animated when arriving on the subject of Trump.

    When I lived in New Hampshire we referred to Vermont, home of Bernie bros. as “The Peoples Republic of Vermont.” The big box stores were in West Lebanon, right on the border, so Vermonters could drive over to shop. I think Vermont finally reduced or dropped the sale tax on cars because none were being sold there.

62. Bauxite on July 30, 2023 at 3:46 pm said:
    Kate – I can’t disagree that Vivek has a better shot to win the general election than Trump. I think Vivek would have a good chance of winning.

    Vivek has now come out in favor of joining the TPP, cancelled by Trump and joined by Obama and Biden. That is a disappointment.

63. TJ:

    All caps always helps (not).

    President Trump, unfortunately, was not right about the one essential thing, winning the election in 2020. So here we are stuck with Joe Brandon and Humper Brandon, and all the leftist apparatchiks that they have empowered. Just one big thing President Trump got wrong.

    Anti-pity party? Stakes are pretty high, not much margin for President Trump in 2024.

64. Bauxite,

    Your certainty using silly numbers leads to silly conclusions.

    If, after every lie, slander, persecution, and abuse of power ever assembled against one man, Trump is still as popular as he is, his strength in a general election is powerful indeed.

    Biden has no popularity at all. Zero. Loyal Democrats will lie to pollsters, but no one wants Joe and no one wants Kamala.

    I must admit to being shocked by people whose calculations about Nov 2024 do not include the drumbeat of news of greater and greater abuses of power by Joe and the Ds. Those abuses of power do far more than simply depress enthusiasm for Slow Joe. They establish ever stronger predicates for Trump’s case that he is a victim of unprecedented abuses of power. Because he is.

    I have no idea if Trump will do an effective job with ads which lay out the case for the Big Brother evils that Dems have perpetrated. But I do know that such ads could be more powerful than anything we have witnessed in politics in our lifetime. I’m not going to assume they will amount to nothing.

    Even without good ads, Trump wins in an honest election in Nov. 24. Easily. With well over 300 EVs. But that’s also due to the fact that Democrats could never win an honest prez election or take control of either house. Even with a compliant and corrupt news media.

65. I scrolled past most of the comments, so maybe I missed one making this point: who is president should not be of overriding concern. The “imperial presidency” people have been warning us about for 50 years should be of overriding concern. The fact that recent presidents have been using the executive order more and more often should be a lot more alarming.

    And that’s kind of the voters’ fault. We all want “our guy” in there, to get “our stuff” done and to stop the other tribe from doing “their stuff.” We want “our guys” as justices, which has just turned the Supreme Court into a superlegislature. Well, if we hadn’t let the president have so much power, we wouldn’t have to worry so much about who’s president.

    This election cycle is going to be miserable. I fully expect to see both “gerontocracy” and “kakistocracy” batted about more often. At least Trump put it off for four years. Now we’re going to get what we’ve got coming, “good and hard,” like Mencken would say.

66. When I look at this I see individuals mentioned. When I look at the dynamics I see:

    The entire Washington DC governmental structure is liberal/progressive

    The media/colleges/social media is liberal/progressive

    The Justice Department/FBI is the NKVD of the Democratic Party

    The Republican speaker (McCarthy) is a feckless turd.

    There are a significant number of Republican politicians who are in such liberal/progressive areas it effectively limits severely what they can do. They have a split allegiance.

    I don’t know if one man can do it all whoever it is. Concentrate on state elections/Congressional elections?

    I don’t know.

67. Illinois is actually a nice microcosm of the fight problems at the national level.

    In the 2022 R primaries for the Governor’s race against incumbent D JB Pritzker, the passionate voters won over the “meh” voters. The passionate Christian right-wing conservative Darren Bailey got the nomination over the candidate that the “establishment” wanted, Richard Irvin, an African-American mayor. It was actually a nice “test” of media spend vs. ground game. Ground game and heart won the primary. Bigly.

    But Baily had no money. So of course Bailey got crushed in the general election, losing 55-45 to the Pritzker billion machine, because 1) the Pritzker team has VBM down to an incredibly powerful science (think targeted applications/mailings plus ground game to get the ballots in) and 2) you can’t beat that margin because of what I would call the “moderate pro-choice financial Republicans” (think a suburban woman who calls herself socially liberal and fiscally conservative) — in the culture wars with that demographic, you lose. If an R in a blue state can’t win the suburbs, stick a fork in you, you’re done. Numerically that’s where the votes are. The exurbs and rural counties just cannot make that up no matter how good your turnout is.

    Our governor’s race in 2022 was the flip side of 2018 elections, where the “establishment” pro-choice incumbent Chicagoan Rauner was running (and had governed horribly). He lost to Pritzker 55-40 (3rd party spoiler candidates for the R). Rauner had a huge primary fight with conservative Jeanne Ives. A lot of conservatives “stayed home” because of an abortion law he signed. Maybe that was cathartic for them, but losing the governor’s race means R’s lost any redistricting power. So the Dems in the next legislative session gerrymandered the hell out of the districts, and have lopsided supermajorities plus the governor’s race.

    Interestingly, whether you look at the RINO Rauner or hard-core Bailey, they got roughly the same number of votes each cycle. Moral of the story: if you don’t have both halves of the party aligned, you can’t beat the Dems.

    This is the problem we will have in 2024 with R’s at the national level.

    The two halves that need to be aligned are at war, and you’ll get the same emotional responses from R voters/donors no matter the outcome (someone takes their ball to stay home, whether the “culture” people if non-Trump or the $$ people if Trump).

    So, the problem with Trump. The suburban women in the purple areas around blue state cities that he needs to win, despise him. Call it a “not our class dear” kind of thing, call it the alpha male who always rejected them and now they get to reject him back insecurity thing, the “pro-choice” thing, the “university-credentialed class thing,” whatever. They DESPISE him. He has nothing to offer them in 2024 that is better than 2020. It doesn’t matter that their grocery and gas bills have gone up. They didn’t reason themselves into their positions so reason won’t get them out of it. But these are the women who will make damn sure that they get the VBMs for their husband and kids in college, fill them out, and send them in all D.

    Trump also was horrible at picking personnel, was too sensitive to the media circus, over and over again picked personal loyalty over competence, and should have let the govt shutdown happen so that he could have legally fired half the SES. He still has not figured out the power of the post office (where the VBM fraud happens–there is no chain of custody required for ballots in the post office process). Because Trump is a business guy, not a bureaucrat, he did not comprehend (and still does not comprehend) how to make hostile agencies carry out your policies. (Restructuring and firing). He understands they are hostile. But not how to get them out (shrink them, restructure them, relocate them, etc.) His best policies were economic/foreign policy, because he did have the “intuitive” knowledge there to get the right team in place.

    Now to the problem with DeSantis. He is presently the donor “establishment” guy, who does articulate the “America” culture wars (which is at best a wash with suburban women–for every school choice mom you gain, you lose one of whom whose friend has a kid who is Trans so Be Nice). He doesn’t articulate the “America” economic war, which I believe is what got Trump over the hump with men in 2016–the blue collar union guys in manufacturing and the trades who will usually vote Democrat. Bringing the factories back, etc. DeSantis has better governing/legislative skills, and a better grasp that personnel is policy. But rather than brand himself as, “good Trump policies but without the drama and a better administrator,” the grownup in the room who puts his big boy pants on, he let the donor class tell him their “great” ideas (eg launch on Twitter? For reals?). His voice could use training to be less nasal, which borders on sounding whiny.

    Trump does not have the discipline, that I have seen in his campaign teams, to understand and combat the Democratic vote fraud machine in urban areas. They haven’t started any voter roll clean up initiatives, etc. They had to rely on the RNC ground game in 2016, and the RNC ground game on VBM has been atrocious in every cycle, because the people at the RNC (including at the state central committee level) literally cannot get their head around the audacious fraud that happens. (I’ve seen it up close and personal). Their data sucks and is outdated; the Dems are outstanding.

    If there is no plan to stop or counter the vote fraud in Madison, in Philly, in Maricopa, Detroit, Atlanta, etc., then Trump will never make up a large enough margin to outweigh the fraud. Period.

    Not sure anyone backed by the “donor class” does either, BTW. Vivek has NO organizational infrastructure behind him, and this is just not something you can pick up on the fly. Ditto on Tim Scott. DeSantis appears to have been micromanaging his team, which can work for a statewide race, but will produce failure in a national one, because you need people who are in tune with how a state and the niche areas within them operate and thinks–they all are very different. What plays in Pinellas County won’t necessarily play in Peoria, etc.

    Oh, and Vivek could be blessed by Christ himself, but America does not vote for funny names in anywhere from 2-20% of the electorate, depending on where you are. I’m sorry, but they don’t, even in “blue” areas. Indian-American candidates have always struggled with that, unless they call themselves Bobby Jindal or are in very blue districts anyway where all that matters is D after your name.

    If you want to do anything, call your local county clerk, or contact your local R organization, and find out who is registered to VBM in your precinct. If they have a D after their names, or are non-partisan, confirm they actually live there by going to their door. Look at your own neighborhood. Learn how to poll watch. Get certified to be an election judge.

    I’m expecting Trump wins the primaries in the key states, because that’s where the emotion and passion is, and the R’s don’t win the Presidency in 2024, because Trump won’t be able to organizationally outmaneuver the margin of fraud. But we might be able to keep the House or Senate.

    Humble apologies for the length to our lovely host.

68. worth.

    Very good! The R’s here in Michigan don’t exist. I’m moving to a state more friendly to my values. I have come to the conclusion that thing are going to have to get get much worse by orders of magnitude. I still don’t think the average American voter is even close to holding up their end of the bargain.

69. Trump sided with Disney against DeSantis. Makes you wonder if it is all negotiable to Trump. Not that Disney has anything to do with the culutral cancer in America.

    The left fears DeSantis more than Trump and is pouncing on the Florida schoolbook/ history of slavery to paint DeSantis and Republicans as uber-racists. Will Trump join in that attack meme?

70. The two halves that need to be aligned are at war,
    ==
    You don’t have two halves. The affluent twerps you’re talking about aren’t on our side. They’re occasionally persuadable for evanescent and idiosyncratic reasons.

71. The e GOP needs to hire a media expert and develop and focus on a simple message, the economy sucks. And then they need to get behind, without question a decent candidate probably DeS. Make the story simple and then keep it going and hammer it into every part of every media, your dollar has less value than it did four years ago. At this time I would set aside all of the crazy multiple alphabet stuff, pick each battle and engage and win the ones that have a chance of winning and play the smart long game.

    This is easy stuff to say but I have no idea how to accomplish any of this however someone much younger than I am needs to step up and start making changes towards the right where common sense lives. Keep theology out of and try to avoid the race stuff because a lot of people who are not white are not happy with the current shit that is going on, my wife and I can handle some shift in the economy however a single mom trying to take care of a kid might have trouble paying her next electric bill, that’s where it gets real.

    As they used to say on ‘Mad Men’, keep it simple and make it real.

72. What the gop, including the eGOP need to do is focus on voter fraud, lawfare that allows supposedly legal changes to voting rules, and making our election system more trustworthy.

    Instead the eGOP seems more focused on going after any Trump supporters, and having glitzy events. And feeding gop consultants that don’t produce election wins.

    The Democrats are very good at legally protecting their side. The gop abandons them to self fund their legal costs.

    Remember Ricky Vaughn.
    https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/31/far-right-influencer-convicted-in-voter-suppression-scheme-00090042

73. it isn’t merely the economy, reagan said the government was a problem, because they don’t do what they are supposed to, and they meddle in things they aren’t supposed to, but media academia medicine finance has been infected by the prog virus, since the 80s they shipped most industry out of the country, to mexico with nafta, to china with the wto

    Rauner is the guy, we’re told the people want, well it isn’t actually true, Pritzker has just made it worse, in every conceivable way yet he keeps getting ‘elected’ as for Gotham west, chicago, it seems to be falling apart even faster with johnson then lightfoot, which is extraordinary,

74. a prank is a voter suppression scheme, whereas they actually suppressed the vote in maricopa county,

    tim scott seems to following the same template re the florida curriculum, well he actually the dems care about police reform,

75. pritzker and the press, conspired to suppress that very effective ad, about the dumpsterfire chicago has become,

76. theology, in so far as we’re not fighting men (and woman) if I can be so binary, we are fighting powers and principalities, that grand guignol display in philadelphia was emblematic,

    disney is doing a good job of bud lighting itself, it just seems like the dems are more meticulous in tearing anything down, biology law enforcement the fabric of reality, than we can hold things together,

77. Trump wins primary looses the general to an empty suit (or dress). Country is toast. Seems that this is the last chance for the USA I grew up in. Wasting the chance ’cause we all mad is pretty foolish but highly probable.

78. last time they 500,000 (ynmv) so as to deny voter id, so they could overwhelm the four key states, arizona, michigan wisconsin and georgia, in at least two of those states, the dems ran the table that would be wisconsin and arizona, will kemp pretend again, even with the helderman report, is the pope argentine,

79. “Does anybody here have a short explanation for his failure?”

    • Like many job applicants, DeSantis is not as good in person as he appeared to be on paper.

    ***
    “It got to the point where certain very popular blog comment sections were completely dominated by “DeSantis is Jeb” commenters. ”

    • Still 100% appreciate the fact that Neo will permit a wide range of views – something some popular blogs are struggling with.

80. Were Trump actually a patriot, he would admit that he’s taken too many arrows, is to old, and has lost too many elections (his own as well as people he’s recommended in tight races, like PA Senate, Georgia Senate, etc, etc), winning only the one in 2016 against probably the worst presidential candidate in history… HRC. He would hand the ball to DeSantis and do all he could to help Ron win, uniting the Republic and over running the left.

    The fact that Trump has spent $40M (so far!) of his campaign money on legal bills is tell. He likes to guffaw at DeSantis’ spending, but he’s actually the one who can’t run an effective campaign due to the situation he finds himself in.

81. There is a common assumption in many of these comments that if the GOP would just nominate a more ‘mainstream, likeable, whatever you want to call it’ candidate – that candidate will have a chance to sell himself to the ‘moderate, swing, independent’ voters that Trump can’t win.
    Dream on.
    Or get real.
    Eisenhower was the last Republican candidate to be treated respectfully by the media and even he was presented as an affable lightweight. The Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in WWII!
    Right.
    It’s only gotten worse with each election cycle. You all may think Trump makes it easy for the media to demonize him but just imagine how his ‘flaws’ would become ‘strengths’ if he was running as a dem.
    There isn’t going to be a ‘reasonable’ R candidate. The media will see to that.

82. Molly Brown – You’re not wrong that the press is going to be against any R. Look at what they did to Romney. Look at every Republican since Eisenhower, as you note. So what? There have been a lot of Republican presidents since Eisenhower.

    So Trump’s flaws would become strengths if he were a Democrat. Again, you’re not wrong. Look at the way Fetterman was touted as a representative for the disabled. And again, so what? It would take a major miracle for Trump to win the general election. Running against what’s left of Joe Biden after the last four years, a “change” candidate has a puncher’s chance of winning, even with the press against him or her.

    And even if Trump did win, Trump’s last act in office involved threatening his Vice President over a crackpot legal theory as part of a half-cocked scheme to reverse the results of the election that he lost. All without evidence that Trump was the rightful winner.

    Put that shoe on the other foot. You, me, and every other poster here would be screaming bloody murder if a Democrat had tried Trump’s stunt. Just use your imagination and think about how we would respond if a hypothetical Democrat who had pulled Trump’s Eastman/Pence routine were to return to office? If you don’t understand that the so-called “resistance” to Trump would be a hundred thousand times worse if he were to, by some miracle, win the White House again, you’re dreaming. Frankly, I wouldn’t be shocked if he was prevented from taking office. (What would Trump do? Complain that Democrats were reversing an election? He’s already tried to do that! You don’t think that Democrats can come up with some sort of half-cracked theory for ignoring a long-shot Trump victory in 2024?)

83. alternate delegate selections, thats been done forever, as mark levin has pointed out, the dems tried to bribe the electoral college with that bogus russian garbage,
    yes inho, mike pence betrayed this country, in not acting, and look at the results,

    the ruinous and deadly surrender of kabul airport, the prompting of putin to this war that has depleted our stores, the east palestine toxic spill

84. Trump was set up by the Uniparty since he came down the escalator.
    The GOPe was in shock that the world as they knew it was ending. They hated us when we were the Tea Party, and they despise us even more now.
    The GOPe silence, and do-nothingness is what is tanking DeSantis. Pick a side.
    The Uniparty squishes hate us as much as the Progressives. Why would we vote for someone who will willingly cave to the people who set up Trump and his supporters and continue to lie and fabricate “crimes” that the Bidens and Clintons ACTUALLY did??

85. Here is where I disagree with you, Neo: Until justice is restored, we can never go back to politics as usual. Trump vs. DeSantis (or whoever else) presupposes that elections are on the level, or even matter anymore. We cannot unsee what we have seen.

    As you know, intellectual conservatives are not fanboys or groupies. This election is not about Trump, per se. If there is no justice regarding the Russian collusion hoax, or the 2020 election hoax–or any of the other daily hoaxes that we are exposed to, then we don’t have a constitutional republic anymore. We are done. All of our arguments about politics and polls and frontrunners are like the shadows flickering on the walls of Plato’s cave. The people who escaped the cave are tired of being lied to. And we are NOT going back there.

    Simply, Neo, we are at war. We saw the cities burning, and that WILL HAPPEN again (no doubt there will be an inciting incident that will be used as a pretext for violence so as to ensure a Democrat, or acceptable not-Trump candidate, wins the presidency. Can the Deep State even take the chance of a free and fair election?).

    To his great credit, Donald Trump exposed the rot and corruption and the sheer diabolical evil of our political class. No one else could have done it. No one else would have the courage to do it and withstand the vitriolic whirlwinds unleashed against him. The harsh reality is that we have been living under the illusion of self-government for a long time.

    Solzhenitsyn said, “Live not by lies.” Support for Trump is not about a cult of personality. If there is no commitment to truth or justice, then what’s the point?

86. DaveMay:
    You nailed it!

    Here in MT the university town of Missoula was so outraged at the corrupt elections that the R party was able to convince the Dems that we needed a recount. For 18 months the boxes of original ballots were stored “somewhere safe” and then the city/county brought in new machines. We no longer are listed as either R or D–just listed as a voter. They then held a recount–not official just to see if the system worked. Two weeks to count ballots — of course. And, then magically “our new machines are working well!” I’ll let you guess who won the second count!
    The problem is that nowhere in the R party is anyone or any group organizing a way to double check the next elections. It could be done but the Rs are too damned stupid to look that far ahead!

    Also on a second note have you considered the impact of 4 million illegal poor people? How does the R party plan to combat their “right to vote”?

    As long as I am on the topic of the 4 million illegals here is a thought: this summer’s agricultural produce will be somewhat limited by this summer’s heat. However, at any time agricultural products of any kind, fresh, frozen, or canned are a LIMITED RESOURCE! Also, the loss of grain exports to other countries because of the war will create an extra drag on our wheat resources.

    Who is going to be buying the food for the extra 4 million? I know the Dems government will be using our money to buy the food, but as the supply is drawn down the prices will go up even more than they already have–look for a very pricey winter food bill! I know the big corporations and ag producers will be making more money, but in the end what if there is just not enough resource?

87. Funny how he didnt see this.

    All he had to do is be Governor of Florida for a few years. He would have been the odds on choice for 2028.

    Timing is everything and Desantis has none.

88. daveymay,

    You state support for Trump is not about a cult of personality and you also write this:

    “To his great credit, Donald Trump exposed the rot and corruption and the sheer diabolical evil of our political class. No one else could have done it. No one else would have the courage to do it and withstand the vitriolic whirlwinds unleashed against him. The harsh reality is that we have been living under the illusion of self-government for a long time.”

    I agree those things were laid bare during Trump’s Presidency but I disagree it is to “to his great credit.” Trump scatters opinions, ideas, claims, goals… everywhere, nearly continuously. If one spins in a circle firing shotgun shells, some buckshot will hit some targets. It doesn’t mean the shooter is a good marksman.

    Donald Trump does not have an admirable record of accomplishing what he says he will accomplish. He is a great entertainer. He is a skilled promoter. He has also demonstrated a love for America, Americans and our armed forces. But, to paraphrase Sonny Curtis, Trump fought the Swamp and the Swamp won.

89. HEAR!! HEAR!! davemay. EXACTLY what is happening. The naysayers can keep naysaying, and keep voting for the Mitt Romneys and then wonder why we keep losing.

90. davemay and wendybar:

    “We are at war …..”

    Excuse me but there is something going on in Eastern Europe right now (although called a “Special Military Operation”) that is actually a war. Killing of civilians, indiscriminate bombing of non-military targets, forced abductions of children (not for gender reassignment), torture, use of the actuall weapons of war (not just small arms, arty, armor, cruise missiles, land mines, trenches and fortifications, etc.).

    Find your perspective. We have had a Civil War, have you never heard of it?

91. Before war comes internal corruption.

92. Just one thing after another … Not sure how that internal corruption thing works out historically with wars.

93. Stay in the cave, om. I hear the food is good.

94. Om, think harder.

    Politics is how we decide how to use force in society.

    Force. Also known as the threat of violence. Sometimes even the use of violence.

    Joe Biden and the Democrat crime family are imposing Big Brother on us through the use of force. The fact that we have not yet fought back doesn’t mean that we haven’t been attacked in an ongoing war.

    Hitler waged war against Austria and Czechoslovakia. Didn’t have to fire a shot, but he very definitely waged war.

    Democrats are waging war. Clearly. Ask J6 prisoners who haven’t received bail or a trial. Ask Donald Trump and his employees. Ask Gen Flynn. Ask the victims of rampaging BLM rioters who were encouraged, paid and legally defended by Democrats. Ask the people living on the border in Texas. Ask the parents being targeted and harassed by Garland’s Gestapo. Ask Epstein’s victims.

    War. The application of violence, actual or threatened, to force people to surrender to the forces waging it.

95. Bauxite wrote: “Trump’s last act in office involved threatening his Vice President over a crackpot legal theory as part of a half-cocked scheme to reverse the results of the election that he lost. All without evidence that Trump was the rightful winner.”

    If you can’t acknowledge that Trump was the rightful winner and that he had serious legal scholars advising him on a theory that had arguable merit, there is no reason for anyone here to take you seriously about anything. Your hatred has turned your brain to mush.

96. stan:

    One thing that does not necessarily follow another.

    Just try thinking for a change. But I forget, you know “all.”

    And while you rant about hate in others you can’t recognize your own projection.

97. actually we have thought long and hard about it, ‘the sum of all fears’ about this slouching beast, toward every sane redoubt,

98. ee cervantes:

    Try harder. Maybe use words and sentences to conveigh your thoughts.

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