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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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It seems like Trump is getting his twitter back. The weird thing is I think red tribe doesn’t want him to get twitter back. I don’t. Blue tribe will put up a big fight over it but actually be very happy if he got twitter back. Then they get his tweets to rally against. For now Musks says he’s thinking about it. From a free speech absolutist view he does have to approve it. But I still want him to say no.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593673844996288512?s=46&t=o4yJPOOQnQoAxYXvJuPdlQ

It seems conceivable that letting him back on after the midterms might work to Republicans' ultimate advantage. It feels like the electorate has turned against insane clown shows, so Trump putting on his insane clown show might actually move the primary toward DeSantis, and render hollow further attempts by the Democrats to pin Trump to the modern GOP.

But if I had my druthers, he'd stay off -- or better yet, die peacefully in his sleep from natural causes.

why is Desantis winning a primary to the Republicans' "ultimate advantage"?

it would be the destruction of the GOP

Because DeSantis is a better politician: more capable of winning, and more capable through competence and effectiveness in office at growing his political strength and the strength of his party. He has demonstrated this during his time in Florida. Trump has demonstrated the opposite.

Desantis is not funny or cool. The 2016 primary debates were hilarious and will never be topped. Trump is way more entertaining. Who wants some boring unfunny guy

Who wants some boring unfunny guy

::raises hand:: I do

I think we've all seen that while Trump is indeed entertaining, being an entertaining public speaker is not particularly correlated with being an effective administrator in a system largely run by your opponents. I can listen to a podcast to be entertained, I'd rather the Chief Executive be somebody who can effectively break the machine to his will.

Trump claims he now realizes just how much the system is against him and will do better if he gets re-elected. But why didn't he see that 6 months after he took office instead of going through 4 years and losing an election? Why should we believe that he now knows how to do it right? He had his chance and he failed, I'd rather give the job to somebody who has at least some proven experience in running the system the way he wants.

You sure hit the nail on the head. I'm not sure what Trumpists don't seem to get about the fact that throwing a wrench in the system only goes so far, especially now that they've removed the wrench from the works and have it firmly locked up in a cabinet.

Trump's primarily utility, given the uncertainty from the start surrounding his actual administrative skills, has always been as bait to lure more effective politicians into adopting his beneficial positions. The fish (DeSantis) took the bait, but now some people want to throw him back in the water. What gives?

Who wants some boring unfunny guy

Judging by Florida, 60% of the electorate.

There's a whole world out there outside Twitter. They don't care about DeSantis' establishment vibe. They don't think that Trump is funny or cool. They think he's a sad, pathetic, petty, stupid fat old man. Now, I like Trump myself. I think he's a hoot. 'We're going to get tired of all the winning' was funny... in 2016. Now it's funny for the wrong reasons.

the only statewide candidate who got 60% of the vote in Florida was not Ron Desantis

why not nominate her instead?

They don't think that Trump is funny or cool.

what do you base this on? this is the opposite of my experience with the florida gop voters

The electorate this midterm cycle. All of Trump's handpicked made-for-TV clown-car candidates lost to their boring professional opponents, while the GOP's own boring professional politicians did much better.

what was the success rate on a trump endorsements?

did JD Vance lose? that's weird, my bet paid out big on that one, but maybe they mistakenly transferred the money

TBH Trump endorsements were overwhelmingly for uncompetitive races. He was probably the reason the GOP decided to run carpetbaggers, one of whom was a rino and the other of whom had obvious brain damage, in two must-win races, and deserves blame for that.

Absent Trump the GOP almost certainly would've run McCormick in Pennsylvania and probably would have run Jody Hice in Georgia, and probably would have 51 senate seats right now.

Absent Trump the GOP almost certainly would've run McCormick in Pennsylvania and probably would have run Jody Hice in Georgia, and probably would have 51 senate seats right now.

that's an interesting take, what do you base that on?

5 points is a big loss to overcome in the totally legitimate and well-run elections of Pennsylvania. Why do you think McCormick would have overcome that? Other GOP candidates who weren't run by Trump didn't.

edit: It can't be that McCormick was more moderate than Oz. It has to entirely rest on Oz being a carpetbagger. Frankly, I highly doubt an electorate who is willing to send an obviously brain damaged person who struggles to form basic sentences by 5 points would have magically swung for a neocon establishment Bushite like McCormick. Oz did very well with the demo McCormick does well with (college educated whites). Oz did poorly with the working class. Do you think McCormick appeals to the working class? The primary results do not support that.

Because of that, I think if anything McCormick would have done even worse. But to be honest, I don't think candidate quality is the reason why the GOP so underperformed historic trends in specific parts of the country with specific election laws who run elections in similar ways. From what I can tell, the difference between nat'l vote and % of representatives is the worst in a midterm very long time (I stopped looking past a few decades).

TBH Trump endorsements were overwhelmingly for uncompetitive races.

whose endorsements did better?

More comments

DeSantis seems like rebranded Bush/Reagan- Status quo conservatism.

He's been giving every signal that he's serious about illegal immigration, no?

2015-2016 Trump was funny and cool. 2020-2021 Trump was just bitter and angry. The magic is gone. It was a good bit, but it’s played out.

The American voters as a whole, in 2020?