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Just a thought about Vance's chances for presidency. On the one hand his electoral chances are slipping. On the other hand he has the greatest opportunity anybody will ever have of becoming the "American Caesar": 25A Trump, attest to the foreign subversion of US government, invoke any and all power under the sun (all the ones Abraham Lincoln used, any new ones since then), ignore the courts, air out the dirty laundry to stir the masses, orchestrate mass FARA surveillance and prosecution campaign (remember FARA allows you to surveil anyone who is a degree of separation from the target), sue for peace with Iran with an offer that throws Israel under the bus.
It won't happen, but Vance actually has the crisis at his fingertips to become one of the great American historical figures. Instead he'll take the flak for the war and Rubio I guess will be the GOP nominee.
My prediction is Marco Rubio will eat Vance alive in a primary. I know he previously said he wouldn't run against Vance. That's not some enforceable oath or promise.
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Oswald Mosley had a rousing speech about standing at the precipice of history. Which for the most optimistic of us might be where we imagine JD Vance is standing. I took the liberty of slightly editing it to fit America. Though it sounds a lot better after being edited by what appears to be some Polish nationalist living in the UK.
Sadly, if one thinks back to Mosley's day, none then could even imagine just how much worse things could and would get. In that sense JD Vance has not demonstrated any characteristic that would lead one to think he is anything other than a less charismatic Trump. And things might get a lot worse than we think.
I would withhold any positivity until he proclaims he will personally start executing the worst violent criminals in the US right on the White House front lawn with a gold plated 1911. Or maybe I've been seeing to many rage baits here and on X about criminals with mile long records getting released again and again for some mystical reason. In any case, he has to do something. Being as he is, I can't see it as being enough.
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Vance's chances are high, but the most important thing I think is Republicans to have real primaries. It is best if they learn from the other party's mistakes.
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Vance just isn’t personally charismatic. Yes, he beat that stupid oaf moron Walz, but so could almost anyone. Absent an upset Newsom will win if he wins the nomination, probably even against Tucker (who I doubt will run).
Newsom has consistently underperformed a generic Democrat in California. Not nearly as bad as Kamala, but still trailing other Democrats.
The issue is that (recent) California politics rewards different traits than more partisan-competitive states. It is incredibly cutthroat and involves genuine skill, but it is much more cloak and dagger and focused on managing the groups and building alliances with other politicians. These have some carryover to national elections, but it would be much smarter for Democrats to select someone whose skill set involves winning competitive elections.
Then again, he's tall and has a good head of hair, and that may well be enough if the economy or the war go south.
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I think when we have posts like this where a poster calls a series of broadly successful politicians uncharismatic and/or stupid, we should make it an expectation that the poster cites some examples of politicians they do think are charismatic. Somebody has to have charisma and intelligence to have reached the top in a cutthroat hierarchical game filled with competitors. They didn't all luck into becoming senators and governors and vice presidential candidates.
This place is feeling like one of those barbershops where every modern athlete sucks and couldn't carry the jockstrap of [guy from when the barber was a kid].
Let me be clearer. I don’t think Walz came across as intelligent in the debate and in interviews generally. Vance is very intelligent (Yale Law, the Thiel thing, with his background, I don’t think that’s deniable) but has an off-putting personality, smarmy (even now when defending the president) and is not particularly attractive.
There are plenty of successful politicians who are either uncharismatic or unintelligent. Plenty of European and Asian countries (democracies) have uncharismatic but smart leaders. And there have been charismatic but dumb leaders, too. Boris Johnson probably isn’t stupid but was academically poor (graduating with the lowest passing grade in the British college system); JFK wasn’t particularly smart.
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I always thought Obama sounded exactly like a mediocre adjunct law professor and could never see any charisma, but given his successes, I'm obviously the wrong one.
Ditto that when People magazine called Bill Clinton the sexiest man alive back in the day, though I'm a straight dude so that probably has a lot to do with it.
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"With all due respect, sir, you are no Jack Kennedy."
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I don't think Newsom is personally charismatic either, aside from having the looks of a stereotypical US president from a movie, which Vance doesn't (although unlike Rubio, Vance at 6'2" at least has a height that is within the normal range for a modern US president).
So if it comes down to Newsom vs Vance, their middling levels of personal charisma might cancel each other out and the election will be decided by other factors.
To be fair, I haven't seen much footage of Newsom speaking, so it's possible that I'm missing some clips where he displays significant personal charisma.
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Vance's only shot at being president is if Trump dies. That's not particularly far fetched- Trump doesn't show many signs of ill health, but he is in his eighties. But Vance doesn't have a lane in the GOP primary.
I think people here are underestimating 25A possibility if Republicans lose Congress, which is looking increasingly likely. Existing Democrat hatred of Trump + impeding Iran war disaster + global economic crisis + some wildcard (blackmail/allegations etc.) it's not as crazy as it sounds especially if Vance is willing to throw his weight behind it.
Trump picked his cabinet based on loyalty more than competence. If Trump is out of office most of them would be standing on highway onramps with "Will Work for Food" signs. They may be incompetent, but they aren't so stupid as to realize that replacing a guy who won't fire them with a guy who might isn't going to be good for business. If Vance decides to end the war, then Rubio and Hesgeth at least are dead men walking, and Bondi and Kennedy are probably gone as well. If the tide actually turns against Trump to the degree that this is even a possibility, I'd expect impeachment and removal from office before any 25th Amendment shenanigans.
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Basically nothing has happened but the commentariat has decided that Vance is a failure and doomed to lose. I don't know why. I think everyone must be bored.
Realistically, Vance is the heir-apparent to MAGA. Vance is popular, well-spoken, and ties together the different factions that make up MAGA. The only alternative at this time is Rubio and there's no indication that Vance and Rubio are even a little at odds.
Vance just has to defeat whoever the Democrats put up. Is the second rise of Kamala that threatening?
The fantasy you lay out is neither a credible path for Vance to take the Presidency, nor even to rank as a great figure of American history, but more likely to lead in him getting jailed or worse. "Sue for peace with Iran"? I think you should stop scrolling the timeline and pick up a book or something.
I'd be surprised if the Democrats were that dumb. Not extremely surprised, but surprised.
But in general I agree. It's 2026. Election's in 2028. We've got a war to get through, plus midterms. Lots of things can happen, it's way too soon to count Vance out.
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My impression of this forum is that it leans overwhelmingly anti-populist and technocratic. Some of the posters here may have supported Trump and Vance briefly as spoilers within their own intra-factional pissing matches, but they remained 'capital D' Democrats at their core. Now that they know that they may have handed 8 - 12 years of consecutive rule to the populist wing of the GOP the knives are coming out.
I expect many more posts here about Newsom's "inevitability" and how Vance, Rubio, Et Al. are dead in the water before November of 2028.
As an actual Democrat, I can tell you right now that Newsom is not inevitable; in fact, I'd be rather surprised if he wins the nomination. He does not have the support of any component of the Democratic base that I can think of. Black people don't like him. Older people don't like him. Progressive young people don't like him. Moderates don't care for him. Conservatives who dislike Trump don't like him. Try finding a forum online where people keep talking him up. You won't. Maybe people from California like him. He offers absolutely nothing. Okay, he's willing to stoop to Trump's level, and seeing a Democrat do that was entertaining for a while, but the schtick has grown tiresome. He's not going to turn out the base, or any subset of the base, and his crossover appeal is nonexistent. The only reason his name keeps coming up is because he's the governor of a large state and everyone knows who he is. The nominee is probably going to be someone like Shapiro or Beshear who has shown he can appeal to moderates and hasn't accumulated much political baggage.
What about unmarried middle-class white women? What about Hispanics?
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How did Harris fair in that kind of estimation? I get the impression she also lacked a natural constituency, but she ended up a presidential candidate anyway.
I think it goes without saying that she didn't take the traditional path. Her own candidacy in 2020 is an object lesson in this. Reasonably well-known, sort of hyped by the media, candidacy goes over like a lead balloon before any votes are cast.
Jesus. I had forgotten that she even ran
It's okay, I think she forgot about that too.
Biden definitely forgot.
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She didn't go through a primary in 2024 to get there. Her 2020 results speak for themselves.
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You best start believing in ghost
storiesforums Ms @Rov_Scam, you're in one.PotC memes aside, I actually agree with your assessment.
I must have missed all the Newsom fanposting on here.
If you want to shell out the ten bucks to Scott you can read his case for Gavin.
Someone would have to pay me $10 to have me read them making a case for Newsom.
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Compared to other Democrats. Any candidate is hated by 70% of Democrats and loved by 30%. Even as a GOP I don’t see how you hate Newsome. He’s just mid. So maybe his route is no one loves him but only 50% of Democrats hate him.
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Josh Shaprio is 5'8", which does matter I think. No US president since Carter has been under 5'11". He is also Jewish with a little bit of personal history in Israel, which could bad for him in the current political climate.
I know almost nothing about Andy Beshear, but at least he does seem to be within a typical height range for a US president in the modern era. He is also a gentile straight semi-Southern white man, which matters. Democrats have done well with that kind of combination in modern history and would almost certainly be served well electorally by trying to continue something like it rather than risking a black and/or gay and/or female candidate (Obama is commonly thought of as black and did great electorally, but he is also one of the most charismatic political figures in recent history, and people with that sort of charisma seem to be rare in both the Democratic and Republican parties).
Shapiro may be short and have a lot of baggage, but he is a tireless climber and a fairly smart, ruthless one at that. I wouldn't count him out.
I think the only thing that could legitimately knock him out of the running is if the Ellen Greenberg case actually gains some traction outside the Fox news info sphere.
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Shapiro seems like their best candidate right now. But this isn’t the Supreme Court where you can place the Jew and nobody cares. What percent of Dems right now would never vote for a Jew?
Never? Very few. There may be some Muslims or conspiracy-minded blacks that wouldn't vote for one, but they're at the fringes of the party. If you had garden-variety Free Palestine lefties in mind, these are the same people who probably already voted for a Jew twice.
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Vance is not popular, though. He's certainly well spoken and has a good shot at being a conservative intellectual or vizier. But it's difficult to say who he appeals to; the Romneycrats that like his speaking ability prefer Rubio(and have since it became apparent they weren't going to get their first choice, ever).
You wot, mate?
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I'd say his chances for the nomination are lower than they were a few months ago. He has the same problem that Ron DeSantis did—he hasn't been very outspoken lately, suggesting that he wants to distance himself from Trump's policies somewhat, but he's unwilling to take a stand against him, despite being the one person in the administration that Trump can't fire. If he's not going to do that, then the least he could do is toady up to the administration to avoid being eclipsed. I'm guessing he thought that being VP would give him the inside track to the presidency; Suzie Wiles pretty much said he was a blatant opportunist. What he didn't take into consideration is that Trump likes being kingmaker as much as being king, even though his attempts at that thus far have been lacking. If the Republicans take a shellacking in the midterms, which is looking increasingly likely, then his chances of being president will be comparable to Dick Cheney's in 2008; even with the support of the president, it would be a tough row to hoe.
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That’s all sci fi levels of far fetched.
He’s going to run for President after Trump and lose.
He’s he who he is. I’ll even give thought to the conspiracy that he’s a plant from … whatever. Big business or something.
No boat whacking.
He could’ve been great but he comes off like such a dork.
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Rubio is 5'9". Which is about average male height in the US, but he would look small up on the debate stage next to the 6'3" Gavin Newsom. Newsom is also better-looking. I wonder if maybe that alone would be enough to sink Rubio's prospects if the Republicans do some basic electability research. Vance has many issues but from a pure electability point of view, at least he is 6'2". No US President under 5'11" has been elected since Jimmy Carter.
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I don't think Vance has enough control over the cabinet to push this through, much less Congress. If only he did, then he could finally be the Millennial Caudillo 4 Lyfe we've all dreamed of.
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