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Of the major Democratic candidates waiting in the wings, it seems clear that Newsom is the only viable candidate. And if you’re Newsom, why would you possibly replace Biden now?
This is likely the only shot at President the candidate that (theoretically) replaces Biden has. If Trump wins, the loss against such a villain will serve as the ultimate embarrassment and humiliation for the Dem nominee. Even if they argue that it was Biden’s fault, the base is unlikely to buy it and the attack that the candidate “let Trump win” will be difficult to shake off. This is particularly relevant as the white man quotient in the Dem party continues to decline, raising ever more questions about why the party for which only a (shrinking) minority of white men vote and which is predominantly PoC and female should again elect a white male candidate, especially a loser, over a woman and/or minority who doesn’t have the black mark of “letting trump win” on her resume.
The polls are not favorable to the Democratic Party for now. Even though the economy is arguably fine, people don’t believe it’s fine, housing costs are increasingly unaffordable for many people etc. Newsom would find himself running a campaign built around defending the unpopular record of a mediocre president, including possibly an ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah depending on how that pans out by November. If Newsom runs against a Republican President or a Republican candidate after a GOP presidency, he can sell a purely optimistic vision without having to defend Biden’s record (he might have to defend his record in California, but most voters won’t care).
Trump still hasn’t built Trumpism into an actual movement that extends far beyond the personality cult when it comes to generating political figures who can take over his legacy. There are people who believe strongly in MAGA, certainly, but there are no incredible GOP candidates waiting for 2028. The non-Trump primary candidates this year were poor. Carlson probably won’t want to run and in any case still has a certain East Coast boarding school effete intellectual vibe to him, even with the log cabin studio. DeSantis is uncharismatic and greasy. There are options, but none of them seem likely to be close to as popular as Trump - certainly they are unlikely to have his pre-existing celebrity, wealth and talent for self-promotion. It wouldn’t even surprise me to see a Rubio return wrapped in a MAGA package, and that would be pretty dire. Gavin is stupid, but with enough training he would be fine against most likely GOP options in 2028.
The public’s desire for continuity often expires at the 8 year mark (if it does not do so earlier). A Democratic nominee who pulls off an upset and wins this year is going to be campaigning on 12 years of blue government in 2028, a proposal that hasn’t won in 70 years. The glory of a two-term presidency is much more easily attainable after the opposition is in power.
Amusingly, the only scenario in which Newsom would be smart to take over Biden’s candidacy would be if he genuinely believed that Biden was going to win. In that case, the 2028 race would be much harder for a Democratic candidate; Kamala would likely be the default pick for it’s her turn reasons and because Trump would have been safely defeated and probably too old and beleaguered to run again (allowing ideology to take precedence over raw candidate strength) and 16 straight years of Democratic control of the presidency seems very unlikely. If Biden wins, Newsom’s next good opportunity might be 2032 or even 2036, in which case he’d be 77 upon leaving office after 2 terms, and that seems like a slog.
Newsom would be dumb not to take the opportunity now. There's no guarantee of coronation as candidate in 2028, just ask 2008 Hillary.
The flip side was RDS. He was in a tough spot. If he waited until 2028 and Trump won, then he is going against Trump’s VP. If he ran with Trump and Trump lost, then he is done. If he ran against Trump and loses, then he also is probably done. He choose the last option. People will blame RDS for running a bad campaign but once the indictments hit the election was over. Indeed RDS still had pretty high favorables amongst republicans (including trump voters); they just preferred Trump.
Timing a run for president is basically really hard. Sometimes going too early is a problem. Other times waiting is also a problem. Sometimes the stars simply don’t align.
Desantis lost because he was too much of a coward to actually run against Trump. He was facing an uphill battle anyway, but his plan of tickling Trump's balls was always guaranteed to fail. He never answered the question of why MAGA voters should support him instead of Trump when he should have been slamming Trump for being a fat old man, a puppet of his advisors, a sore loser, a man who fundamentally did not have the right stuff to Make America Great Again.
You’re not wrong but I also think DeSantis lost because anyone running against Trump was suspected of being a spoiler candidate. Trump’s unique asset is that he is obviously and viscerally loathed by the Cathedral / rich donors and got to the top through TV fame so he is felt to be uniquely independent. The more respectable people pushed DeSantis as being ‘Trump but respectable’, the less popular he became.
Trump's unique asset is that he is deeply and irrationally loved by a significant body of low-IQ conservatives who will rabidly attack anyone who challenges him. As such, he can threaten to spoil any Republican strategy that doesn't elevate him. The point the strategy outlined above is to try and break his hold on these people because insofar as they are responsive to anything, it's to vulgar social dominance. You're never going to win them over by arguing that you're better qualified or more competent, because they don't care. Nor can you win them over by appealing to principles, because they don't have any. You have to simultaneously tear Trump down as a weakling and present yourself as a better vessel for their inchoate rage.
Insofar as Desantis had a plan, it was hope that Trump was too old or too imprisoned to run.
There are genuinely smart people who genuinely love Trump above Desantis and Nikki Hailey. They point to his regulation cuts, relative isolationism, and that he says exactly what he’s going to do.
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The Trump base might not be the most articulate but there are absolutely smart people in their orbit who understand their grievances and why they're so angry. You can win them over to someone who isn't Trump - but you need to understand why they went for him in the first place, and if you're going to claim that was because of vulgar social dominance you're going to fail each and every time. If you're interested in a good article that explains what attracted those voters to him, I recommend https://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-01-21/donald-trump-and-the-politics-of-resentment/
I didn't say every Trump supporter is stupid. I said that he has a dedicated core of supporters who are very loyal but not very bright or discerning, which I will stand by because I think it goes an enormous way towards explaining the durability of his support in particular despite losing as an incumbent and because it conforms to the general pattern with populist politicians more generally.
I've read it before. I'm not impressed. Many of its factual claims are tendentious or more reflective of self-image than reality (e.g. the persistent efforts to paint Trumpism as the voice of the working class). Much of it boils down to saying "liberals don't like conservatives and say mean things about them." Conservatives don't like liberals either and say mean things about them, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from that, other than that maybe conservatives care more about what liberals think of them than vice versa.
Once we cut past that, it is essentially a more sympathetic framing of my claim that Trump functions as an empty vessel for the nebulous fury of his supporters. The difference is that Greer thinks they are basically justified on grounds of economic neglect while I think the economic anxiety narrative is bullshit and they are attracted to Trump because he promises to vicariously remediate their sense of humiliation.
I actually agree with this, but I think that this is true of any large political movement. There are plenty of people in the democrat base who are utterly thoughtless and pick their vote/political allegiance based purely on tribal instinct as well - this isn't something unique to Trump. though his personal charisma likely means he has a larger number of these people than other politicians.
I disagree with this reading of the article - you don't seem to have grasped the point actually being made, which is that Trump has been using this tendency on the part of the left to ingratiate himself with his base. He knew that he'd be able to get the talking heads to talk shit about him in ways that would make people who dislike those talking heads support him as a result, and so he went out of his way to get the media to attack him. This is stated explicitly in the article so I'm not sure if repeating it here will do any good, but that's what you're meant to take away from that particular section.
You think the economic anxiety narrative is bullshit? Do you have any kind of argument against the claims he makes?
Where's the bullshit here? Are you living in another America that doesn't have a massive fentanyl crisis and didn't outsource huge swathes of productive industry to China? I (and Greer, based on the quote) can understand not wanting to talk about it or admit that it happened, but there's a substantial amount of fire beneath the smoke of economic anxiety. Is there an element of vicarious remediation of humiliation? Absolutely! But to pretend that's the only motivating factor strikes me as absurd.
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This is leaning way too heavily into "boo outgroup." Let's not start the "low information voters" and "NPC" discourse here. You're free to argue that a specific group behaves a certain way or that a specific position or belief is uninformed, but just labeling all your opponent's supporters "low IQ" ain't it.
I don't think Skibboleth did?
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