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Watching the press briefing Trump gave... something in me finally broke.
I don't think it matters what you call Trumpism. I think that we've spent all of this time propping up a broken system with a broken man. I recoiled from the accelerationists who said they were using Trump to break the system because that just seems so destructive and vile, no better than the people who break Starbucks windows.
I thought: maybe he's a good man. Maybe we should give him a chance. And the Democrats are so vile in their baseless slander.
But the Dermocrats didn't make him give that speech on January 6th.
Hillary Clinton should have been jailed and she should still be in jail. There is nothing to be gained however from holding on to a tool that has run out of use.
I mean is there anyone out there who didn't understand why Democrats were in shrill hysterics about fascism? The man like to scare them, and I don't know if I believe that he had so much fun terrorizing the libs (it's so easy and someone has to do it) that he fell into it, or if... well, I just can't go down that road yet.
This criminal wasn't worth all of this divisiveness in our politics. Maybe the divisiveness was already there.
I regret my support for former president Trump and I want him to withdraw from public life. Nixon had the decency to step down when his time was up.
Trump is useless. The Red Tribe will deserve everything they get (and more) if they give him the republican nomination that he is very likely to go on to lose the general with, leading to 4 more years of wokism from above. Perhaps even a Supreme Court seat; Thomas is getting old.
They say that if you can't teach people something with words, the rod usually suffices, and trump supporters deserve the rod, delivered harshly and mercilessly, if they go on to support such an absolute low class, useless, bumbling idiot over the actually competent Ron DeSantis.
Do you think DeSantis can deliver culture war victories? Republican presidents are notoriously poor in this regard. They are good at tax cuts and getting into wars, bad at everything else.
Hopefully yes. He seems to have bungled up the Disney thing but he did manage to bring Florida universities to heel. DeSantis just seems to project an aura of "I will fuck up the wokes and I know how to do it" that is sorely lacking in Trump.
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I don't know if I can go so far as to say that "Trump supporters deserve the rod" because patriots have to stick together, but I think that you have to be smart in politics.
As you (effectively) say, this is about the future, not the past.
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I'm honestly wondering how you could dream that a desantis administration would stop "wokism from above"? The reason the left is pounding this on you is because you have no institutional power at the federal level. He can't even stop it in Florida. His bills are toothless, made-for-tv jokes. His PR stunts, flying illegals and his spat with Disney, did nothing and desantis caved quickly.
And that's even if he could win a general election which he could not because a GOP candidate must win the midwest and desantis wouldn't even win Ohio.
And that's even assuming desantis isn't a neocon neolib pragmatist which he is.
His bills have progressives trying to hide every book in the state currently. He's also actually gone and fired a DA that refused to enforce the law. His admin properly treats enemy media as the propaganda machine it is. And his admin isn't betraying him at every turn while he giggles about it.
He's been a more effective Trump in every way while also not being a nutjob about losing. The only real questions are would he be able to replicate at the Federal level (we already know Trump cannot) and what his foreign policy would look like.
Has desantis even stopped "woke from above" stuff in Florida? From the Floridians I know, he has not. He looks to be making something of a dent, I suppose. The media reacts with hysteria when anything is done whether it's remotely effective or not so that's not a good way to gauge how effective he's been. When I've looked into most of his stuff, his actions are lots of acts made for media and then the follow through is lacking or just outright capitulation.
oh, is that it?
The easy example would probably be vaccine mandates and re-opening in general.
It's definitely a big question, I'll give you that.
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Desantis has roots on the PA-Ohio border. Maybe he can’t win the primary but he will know how to talk to people in that area. His grandparents were all part of the Italian immigrant wave (of which I’m a part of) to the region. His parents grew up there. Culturally he should be able to connect to all the ethnic whites that still exists there, and moving away from the region was extremely common when the steel mills closed.
There is zero chance he wins the primary against Trump in the midwest. Not "maybe" he can't, but zero % chance he wins a primary. I have seen nothing at all to think desantis knows how to talk to midwesterners at all and his record in Congress and comments since then are big turnoffs to midwesterners. The guy is not charismatic and he's not funny. He's the sort of dude who would pay $100,000 for someone else to write jokes for him to badly try to pull-off.
edit: Here's a good example of how Ron Desantis intends to connect with midwesterners. From "his" book:
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Uhm.
How?
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/04/03/desantis-disney-reedy-creek-board-district-investigation/
He's actively attacked a core structure of the cathedral, and hasn't stopped advancing.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/02/ron-desantis-block-dei-program-state-colleges-florida
The colleges almost instantly showed their bellies, in response:
https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-college-system-presidents-reject-woke-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-dei-critical-race-theory-ideologies-and-embrace-academic-freedom-.stml
How did desantis cave quickly against Disney or on the illegals flights? He quickly stopped the illegals flights. His "takeover" of the Disney leaves intact everything Disney cares about, e.g., exempt sales & property tax, tax-free bonds, expedited permitting, among others. Both are examples of heavy PR and lacking substance.
I will have to look into the newest PR blitz on college DEI program "blocks."
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Maybe DeSantis can stop it, maybe not.
IMO DeSantis has a much better grasp of tactics than most other Republicans I see in that he recognizes this is both a legal and institutional fight and he supports people (Rufo) who do as well.
It's a low bar but...
A lot of Republicans are so bad at this they might as well be throwing the fight. A lot of their "strategy" might as well not exist besides whining about wokeness and Silicon Valley bias (basically trying to work the refs) and trying to meet people halfway (in their mind) with the plaintive talking point of "this isn't what MLK wanted".
DeSantis (and Rufo) understand that a lot "wokeness" takes place on a legal level and needs to be attacked by removing the support structures for DEI or taking over the institutions. Judging by the ironic complaints of his enemies, he also understands that somewhat vague or subjective laws are useful by having a chilling effect on anything that could conceivably approach the line of punishable behavior (which forces companies to innovate on woke - or anti-woke- measures just to be safe).
Certainly, I'd be willing to bet he's given it more thought than Trump. If you want to fight wokeness it seems like there's two options and one is more thoughtful than the other (which we already tried and it arguably made things worse)
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Trump is ineffective at operating within the political framework. But he isn't useless. He is a great showman and very combative and that regardless of how effective he is at getting things done is a morale boost for the people he champions, if nothing else. Trump could beat Biden, he might have a better chance than DeSantis overall. Trump knows how to work a crowd and has a lot of support in areas that are likely to be competitive. Though DeSantis would probably be more effective in position I agree.
Trump is divisive but he does inspire a good deal of loyalty and enthusiasm in his supporters. With low Biden numbers and inflation still likely to be an issue, plus the political/cultural landscape, Trump has a good shot if he gets the nomination I think.
If I were still working in politics, and the Republicans were paying me for my opinion I would say that I think Trump has an edge over DeSantis in actually winning the Presidency as it stands right now.
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He is only borderline obese and he hides it well with his large suit and big tie. Winston Churchill and other famous upper-class people were borderline obese too. It does not confer low class. The archetypical rich person is almost always caricatured as being overweight, even grossly obese (whereas the butler is skinny).
There is weight, and then there is carrying weight. Both men are elderly but where Biden is ostensibly "healthy" he struggles to navigate a flight of stairs whereas the ostensibly unhealthily "obese" Trump is observed traversing them with ease. The snide comments about the results of substituting soy and icecream for red meat pretty much write themselves.
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Disappointing. Also infuriating and sad in degrees, but mostly just disappointing. This is why intellectualism fails at capturing hearts and minds: you write something as out-of-touch and vain as how it’s our culture’s job to preserve “beauty” when the working class voters you hate can’t even afford a shitty townhouse for <200k or send their children to public school without fear of them being physically assaulted.
The old meme about Donald Trump being a poor man’s idea of a rich man was the biggest unintentional self-own of the halcyon days of 2016. Trump was an ugly mirror for upper class intellectuals that destroyed them completely: a status-seeking, vain, educated womanizer thoroughly convinced of his own unbeatable cunning and raw power. His existence stated, “this is what you are. I’m just honest about it.”
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It's especially hard to judge him for that, when his executive order mandating neoclassical architecture for new fedgov buildings was overturned on day one of the Biden admin.
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And this kind of comment is why Trump solidifies the underdog vote.
Life is complex in the postwar era, and there are all sorts of hazards for American people who yearn to live by instinct. The voters you describe were educated in public schools, trade schools, and on scholarship at public universities, the very education infrastructure the elites put into place and then eschew.
The men and women you spit on barely have enough time in their day to make a living in a small business in a strip mall and spend an hour or two in the gym every day working off the calories from hyper-stimulus food. Then on top of that, they have to face their children being taught that their parents are carriers of the whiteness virus, the privilege virus, the capitalism virus, and the straight-and-cis virus.
And to blame people from broken families for buying into the fantasy of the billionaire’s supermodel wife is the topping on the scoffing cake.
Oh I absolutely agree it's not their fault, but it absolutely is their problem (by their I mean poor red tribers here). No different to how dogs abused by their owner often go feral.
However, just like the dog, if they are to be returned to polite society treatment (ideally persuasion through words and treats, otherwise the rod) is necessary.
Heads up bro, you've drifted from arrogant brahmin into telenovella villain.
The usage of the dog metaphor was an analogy, I wasn't calling poor red tribers dogs themselves. You're doing literally the exact same thing as progressives do when they say you are objectifying women when you point out the lock and key analogy.
No, what I was doing was pointing out that you don't sound like a rich person, you sound like a cartoon parody of a rich person. I assumed that wasn't your intention.
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the problem isn't that you're calling Red Tribers dogs, though that is pretty much what you're doing, and it's not exactly awesome.
The problem is that you are discussing large numbers of other human beings as though they are beneath you, utterly within your power, and bereft of all agency in their own fate. If you actually think that's how things are, you are a very foolish person.
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No candidate has greater potential to derail DeSantis than Trump. He clings onto the hardcore vote and takes them with him, sets fire to his opponents in the primaries, and renders them worse general candidates.
I hope Trump actually gets convicted, irrespective of the validity of his crimes, just to render him ineligible. Even if De Santis loses in the generals, seeing him as the opponent will force democrats to prefer a moderate candidate.
The most recent 'moderate Dem' to clinch the presidency has presided over a turbo-charged progressivism that's become even more expansive and normalized than even during the 'crazy' Trump years. A development that I was assured would not occur, because said President is old, boring, vanilla, and 'doesnt look or talk like an extremist'.
What on Earth makes you think a DeSantis nomination would force moderation of anything? I would like somebody to actually explain the mechanism that will force the temperatures to die down, because so much of the rationale on offer has proven to be naive or a lie.
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if you're concerned with the law, nothing he's been charged with or investigated for is even in the realm of something which would render Trump constitutionally ineligible
that being said, the law hasn't mattered thus far so no reason to think it would going forward
desantis will certainly lose in the general
desantis must win the midwest to win the general, but I will tell you midwesterners do not like desantis and he will not appeal to them because he's an uncharismatic dork with a long history of being a neolib neocon who votes for forever wars and disasters like TPP
he wouldn't even win Ohio let alone Wisconsin
Joe Biden was the moderate candidate. So was Hillary Clinton. Democrats, as opposed to the GOP, are far more capable of forcing through moderate candidates, and they have, irrelevant of whatever "Democrats" think generally.
I mean, if the Democrats put forth a competent moderate who can beat Trump, then I'd be happy. I don't have any particular allegiances to the Republicans. But look at the alternative democratic candidates now... they're in disarray. Obama wasn't a candidate until the very last minute. So a miracle might happen. But, it doesn't look like the demos have a popular leader they want to band around. I like Pete Buttigieg and Marty Walsh. No nonsense moderates. But they seem to putting their weight behind Biden.
This means it will likely be Biden vs Republicans, and he will not fare well in debates against anyone.
Democrats won 2020 because they came out in droves to beat Trump, not vote for Biden. De Santis can force a lot turnout in Democrats, and energize enough Republicans to take it.
Democrats "won" 2020 because they fundamentally and illegally changed how elections were done and poured ~$1,000,000,000 3rd party dollars and biased gov grants to "get out the vote" organizations to certain areas of the country ran by certain people not to mention a vast manipulation campaign by google and facebook.
Without those illegal changes, Democrats would not have won.
you think this based on what?
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Of their candidates the only one I could potentially stand is AOC and that’s despite her being the leader of the squad. I think she’s toned it down a little bit as she became a real politician.
But honestly I trust her as authentic. I don’t think she’s been bought and paid for yet. Not like Biden taking money from anyone American enemy who was willing to send his son a wire. And more than a few just come off as rich kids on a silver spoon that are listed (Newman for example) or just too old. She’s only a second rate mind (went to BC). I actually sense she’s a nice person. Not a sugar baby like Kamela.
Really? I find her understanding on nearly anything to just be vapidly regurgitate social media slop. She has an Economics degree, she has no business saying some of the crazy shit she says about socialism. I'm not sure if it's worse if she believes what she says or she doesn't.
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Please don't insult my alma mater! (That's my job!)
AOC went to Boston University.
Sorry for being that guy. I guess she’s from a third rate school. And BC was my second choiceto be that guy.
Only other school I considered.
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there is a gaping chasm between defensible polling and not
you want to bet this poll vastly oversamples certain demos and the polling organization has a poor record predicting objective outcomes?
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Of course they do. There are a number of ways this happens, but the main driving force is the ability to affect outcomes in voting by party insiders because most of the Democrat primary voting base is in machine city politics, i.e., "black democratic primary voters," and in union members. Both of these groups are easy to drive to particular candidates. And even if all this softer "forcing" fails, Democrats have more control over who gets the nomination because the nomination is more controlled by party insiders in the nominating process, i.e., superdelegates. These party insiders have "forced" through candidates in the past. This process was slightly tweaked recently, but they are still able to force through a candidate in a contested convention (i.e., fails on first ballot).
IIRC Progressives in 2016 bitterly complained about super-delegates and the potential voter suppression effect they could have when added to tallies of delegates (which'd make it seem like Clinton's lead was insurmountable so why bother?).
Speaking as a left-wing social democrat who voted for Bernie in the primaries twice, those people were dumb.
The percentage of primary voters who ever saw a graphic w/ the superdelegates + Clinton's delegates on a TV screen or in a newspaper article was probably less than 5%, if not even lower.
There was no conspiracy in 2016 or 2020 against Bernie Sanders - he was just bad at appealing to make a majority of Democratic primaries vote for him over either Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. This isn't to say those primary voters dislike him, which is something I think people miss.
Yes, there are a small amount of leftist online who think Obama is a neoliberal war criminal and Hillary is terrible, and a small number of 60-year old MSNBC voters who think Bernie Sanders is a sexist who would've lost 40 states, but the median Democratic voter likes Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and if they're aware of them, AOC, Gavin Newsom, and even Joe Manchin.
The only Democratic person of note who is actually disliked by the median Democratic voter is Sinema, because she openly pushed againt things even median Democrat's support, and openly decided to go all-in on being friends with rich Republican's, when she could've been a Mark Warner-style Senator in Arizona for a generation, and hell, maybe even been a VP or POTUS candidate in a decade or two.
Tim Kaine is replaced as head of the DNC with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who helped head Clinton's 2008 campaign, and then Tim Kaine is made Hillary's 2016 VP. The receipts were all leaked by WikiLeaks, which showed that the DNC did everything it could to ensure Hillary's win. (Donna Brazille even passed Hillary some debate questions in advance.) Tulsi Gabbard resigned in protest over it, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz was eventually made to resign over the controversy.
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They’d have to let him out right? If he was in federal jail he could pardon himself. If he’s in state jail, the supremacy clause preempts the legal authority for a state to hold the chief executive against the lawful authority of the federal government.
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What exactly are the eligibility criteria here? Wasn't there a guy running with a slogan "Prisoner 9653 For President"? Did they change the law since then? And if not, oh god, do you really want to hand a meme like that to Trump of all people?
‘vote for the crook’ predate him by quite a while, I think. Criminals being more honest than the opposition isn’t exactly new in political memes.
"Vote for the crook" was short for "Vote for the crook, not the fascist". It originated in the 1991 Louisiana gubernatorial election when David Duke made the run-off, and was re-upped for the Chirac-Le Pen runoff in the 2002 French presidential election. The point is an explicit appeal to people who wouldn't normally vote for your candidate to vote for the lesser of two evils.
If 2024 is Trump-Biden (80% probability conditional on neither of them dying or having some unconcealable, disqualifying medical issue) then "The Crook" is running against a mediocre incumbent who is normie by Democratic standards. So "Vote for the crook" would have to be an appeal to pure partisanship ("Vote for the crook, not the Democrat"). That isn't an election-winning message in a high-turnout Presidential election where persuasion matters more than base mobilisation.
Incidentally, as a matter of federal law, the only way Trump can be ineligible is if his behaviour following the 2020 election amounted to an "insurrection or rebellion", in which case he is disqualified from office by section 3 of the 14th amendment. I suspect some states have state-level laws which would deny ballot access to a prisoner, though.
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There really is no winning with Trump.
Both Democrats and Republicans seem to be their own worst enemies this time around. Democrats can't figure out 1 decent candidate because of the infighting and senile old man. Trump out here making it impossible for a Republican politician to move on from MAGA while at the same time being unelectable.
without MAGA, there are no GOP victories
move on from MAGA to what? the GOP without MAGA is playing to a demographic which doesn't exist anymore and the reason the establishment GOP hates Trump and MAGA is because he embarrasses them to their country club PMCs that used to form the party structure
those people are either gone or now Democrats
Trump is the only candidate which has a chance to win a general because he's the only one with cross-party appeal who motivates low-likely voters to show up. Without him, the GOP loses badly. Donald Trump is the only get out the vote operation the GOP even has despite spending a billion dollars on a proprietary database which cannot even correctly flag people who are registered GOP who haven't voted yet.
Are there with MAGA? After eking out a narrow victory against a historically unpopular candidate in 2016, Trumpism has mostly been getting its ass kicked electorally despite hefty structural advantages.
Yes, 2016, 2018, and 2020 were all better off with Trump rallying or on the ticket than if he wasn't with Trump running better than the GOP each time. Trump saved the Senate in 2018.
you didn't write any specifics to your comments so there is nothing really to respond to
As others have noted, almost any Republican would've won in 2016, and most probably would've won more convincingly.
Trump and Trumpist candidates have otherwise generally underperformed generic ballots and run behind less Trumpy candidates (most prominently: Trump losing both GA senate seats in 2020 and then doing it again two years later, even as Kemp cruised to re-election). The GOP would be vastly better served electorally tacking back towards the center, which would enable them to capitalize on many of the Dems' wackier social position. This would displease the more radical elements of their base, but they have little leverage beyond threatening to crash the party with no survivors (which, to be fair, they have so far used to some effect).
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MAGA is about aesthetics, not the issues.
The issues will stay the same. The aesthetics are going from institutional kamikaze (Trump) to institutional capture (DeSantis / Rufo).
We aren't talking about Jeb or Ted as the alternative. DeSantis has shown himself to be a competent public speaker that has united coastal and urban florida voters.
MAGA was born from the issues and was successful because the issues and Trump being uniquely charismatic to a broad voterbase who were either Democrats or do not vote. Election 2016 was about immigration, trade, and war only because of Donald Trump.
No, desantis is an uncharismatic dork who comes off badly in public speaking. This description is ridiculous.
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I couldn’t agree more. The contrast is stark. Trump is all sizzle. Yet he appeals in a WWE kind of way to the proles. But politics is full contact and DeSantis would actually advance the interest of the proles.
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