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Another interesting aspect of the Speaker fight has been an additional datapoint on Trump's slowly eroding influence. Trump has explicitly backed McCarthy, and while Trump's endorsement had once been enough to clear state-level Republican primaries to get his preferred candidates to the general election, it hasn't done much in this fight. Indeed, Boebert and Gaetz have been openly flounting Trump's wishes, with Boebert confirming that Trump had called her and told her to "knock it off", to which she replied in a floor speech that she thought Trump should tell McCarthy that he doesn't have the votes.
Trump has been unique in his ability to survive scandals that would otherwise sink mainstream politicians, with it becoming almost a parody that many political prognosticators constantly said Trump was doomed, only for him to float along like nothing happened after a week or so. But I think this caused many people to overlearn about Trump's resilience into essentially thinking he's invincible. In reality, Trump's clout within the GOP and the nation have been declining slowly but consistently. The high point was obviously the 2016 election, but he suffered a minor-to-moderate defeat in the 2018 midterms before being rejected by the country as a whole in 2020, and now it looks like he's slowly being rejected by the Republicans as well; not just the establishment (which has always kind of hated him) but even the far right is looking for other options. Smart money now thinks Desantis is about twice as likely to win the R nomination in 2024 than Trump after Trump's candidates arguably cost Republicans the Senate chamber.
Somehow, some people still thinking that Trump supporters support Trump because he charmed them with some kind of magic spell and they listened to his MAGA siren song and became MAGA themselves. But this is the exact opposite of the truth - Trump got popular because he tapped in and became the focus point of unsatisfied need in the American politics. But then he departs from that point, his influence diminishes. When he is ineffective in serving those needs, his influence diminishes. I wouldn't go as far as proclaim he's beatable in 2024R, my personal opinion he is still going to win (and for DeSantis would be smart to sit this one out entirely). But his decline in popularity, I think, is in direct relation to his inability to efficiently govern and deliver on his promises. He has only two ways to go here: either invent some new way to deliver, that he haven't tried before, and somehow convince a lot of people that it's going to be different this time, or ride a slow decline of his popularity into an eventual political oblivion (or the position of a political commentator on TV).
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I’m taking victory laps on the speaker fight. This was a huge win. And not acting like children so many called this. They got huge policy wins. I don’t even understand why McCarthy fought on these things. A Church Commission is just common sense at this point.
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Trump's decline from the public eye proves how effective the medias, government, and ancillary business can coordinate to effectively silence someone, even a former United States president. His biggest problem was not that he was popular but rather he was unable to convince the congressional R elite that he was someone worth listening to. His manner and persona which made him popular with the plebians made him incredibly unpopular with the congressional elite. The way they straddled pro and anti-Trump positions shows how they're willing to quietly maneuver political positions as necessary to get what they want and how simply ignoring a president is as effective as lashing out against one.
Trump is a populist, and his support came from the ground up rather than from the top down as is conventional from the Republican nominees. The sad part is the established R's were incapable of harnessing Trumps power to amplify their message - either he was too stubborn or the R's were unable to coordinate enough to use him as a mouthpiece - something R's desperately need.
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the late flips happened only after personal calls by Trump himself with pictures/video of MTG holding a phone out at holdouts saying Trump was on the line
my prediction of the "concessions" are few, if any, of the rules changes are going to be passed and it's largely Trump's fault McCarthy is speaker
the fallout from Trump leaning so hard on the holdouts may very well plant the seeds to make your comment come true, but it's not true now
this is nonsense
trump ran better than the GOP throughout those races, trump's gop approval went up throughout his tenure
it's hard to overcome the sheer weight of charisma and charm that is Joe Biden and his 81,000,000+ votes, the most in history by quite a margin
"smart" money was wrong in 2016 when his influence was at its peak according to you, so given that you've surely bet the farm at these odds, right?
"arguable" is doing all the work in this sentence
something funny about pointing to the parody of "this is surely the end!" and then writing a post which is essentially, "but it's true this time!"
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. Are you insinuating the results are fraudulent since no candidate had received 81M votes before? If that is your assertion, I'd say that's a silly argument since population growth naturally means the vote tally for all sides will naturally increase over time. Combine that with a higher participation rate (which has been on a slow, long-term upswing for the past few decades) and 81M votes is hardly implausible.
Again, I'm not sure what you're meaning is here. Political prediction markets can certainly be wrong, but typically not in ways that are obvious enough to bet thousands of dollars and feel safe about it. They went against Trump in 2016 despite him eventually winning, and I think they overlearned their mistake because they flipped to having a Republican bias in 2018 and 2020. If I had to guess, I think they've overlearned again in the opposite direction, as I'd personally say Trump has as much of a shot at the R nomination as Desantis does, but I'm not confident enough to "bet the farm on it" as you say.
It's hard to offer definitive prove since we can't rerun the election, but yes, Trump endorsed candidates in the primaries that were more towards the fringe in many states. Those less centrist views almost certainly cost them a few % in the general election, and in close states like GA and PA that was likely enough to tip the race.
I'm not saying this is the end, I'm saying it's another barometer of Trump's slowly declining influence. Trump certainly still has at least a moderate degree of say in the Republican party, and it's practically guaranteed that he'll at least be competitive in the Republican nomination race, although he's definitely not a shoe-in like he was in the 2020 R nomination.
First off, I have to say I'm surprised McCarthy held to his word and whipped votes to get a rules package passed which looks mostly like the rules framework concessions he made to the holdouts. I was wrong about that prediction.
my assertion is that Joe Biden is an uncharismatic dud who can barely string together coherent sentences; a man incapable of going to major cities and getting more than a few dozen people to show up to a speech
it should set off anyone's bullshit alarms to claim a man like that was able to put to shame Barack Obama's vote totals among blacks (but only in specific parts of the country controlled by certain people with history of creative electioneering)
what do you think was the increase in the legal US population eligible to vote between 2016 and 2020? it wasn't 28 million (the difference in votes), it wasn't 20m, it wasn't 15m, it wasn't 10m, it wasn't even 6m
the sheer difference in total votes cast and counted between 2012, 2016, and 2020 really strains belief and when you add in how those vote numbers and participation rates vary so wildly by county which aligns neatly with legal and illegal changes to election laws and procedures, it creates a whole lot of doubt about those totals at all
voter participation and totals in other parts of the country which didn't make those changes and weren't controlled by certain people did not see this sort of vast increase in vote numbers and participation seen only in those counties and states which did
and then when you put those ridiculous numbers in the context that Trump only lost the election by tens of thousands of votes in a few different states and in those states their supreme courts later went on to declare at least tens of thousands of votes being cast and counted illegally (PA and WI), we get well passed any reasonable bar to put the election outcome in doubt
and there are many more issues, e.g., the laughable joke that is the vote counting processes in multiple states like CA and IL
my meaning is the same as yours here: they're often wrong, especially if you analyze the prediction movements before the market concludes
as a political better: no, they did not
2022 is at least arguable, 2018 and 2020 are not
that's your claim, it is anything but "certain"; more centrist establishment GOP candidates lost worse in places like CO and others
some high profile Trump picks which went on to lose, e.g., Oz, are not reasonably described as "fringe"
neither is Walker in GA
you claim about his declining influence in 2018 and 2020 are simply wrong for the reasons I stated, Trump ran better than the GOP in 2018 and 2020
your claim about his declining influence due to your perception of his, at the time at least, inability to get McCarthy over the line for speaker is similarly wrong and within 24 hours of your post the holdouts relented after concessions after Trump specifically and heavily leaned on them to got McCarthy over the line
If you don't mind me asking, what are your politics and where do you get your "news" or information about politics? How much experience do you have in GOP politics or with the GOP?
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I would insinuate the results are fraudulent because a lot of evidence of irregularities has come up since then, but practically it is a useless discussion because the Republican establishment is not interested to rock the boat, and the rest have zero power to do anything about it. The sacred cow of "there's no electoral fraud" is not ready to be slaughtered yet. In any case, Republicans knew the rules of the game - including the fact that whatever cheating is going to happen, it's going to happen. They were either unable or unwilling to prepare and resist it - the buck for it, as for everything else, stops with Trump. Whether we should interpret it as "country rejecting Trump" or "Trump being bad at winning in the game of politics" is everybody's choice, the result is the same.
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A Trump-GOP divorce is...possible. Are the Freedom Folks pushing for it, or are they jumping on an opportunity?
I think their separation from the rest of the coalition makes the latter more likely.
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Nitpick: Did you mean to say "flout" instead of "flaunt"?
Indeed, fixed.
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