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Notes -
Update. Perhaps I should just include it in the thread I created below but I feel like they go dead.
I complained at the Iowa State Fair that Vivek wasn’t taking the mask off. Here he is. Calling transitioning as a child barbaric. Perhaps this is a sign of really good public speaker that he can be aggressive in one venue and come off compassionate in a different venue.
https://twitter.com/vivekgramaswamy/status/1691880080866263319?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ
Musks also retweeted this speech and I’ll include his summary so you don’t have to click thru.
https://twitter.com/vivekgramaswamy/status/1692267994490060817?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ
TRUTH.
Strategy interests me. The billionaires who were backing Desantis seem to be looking at Vivek now. They like myself don’t like Trumps persona. I now think Vivek is probably the best salesman for the GOP. Especially if they want to make arguments the PMC will listen to. Desantis I believe is the best get shit done member of the GOP. If you get where I’m going Vivek will make a lot of sense as the frontman President with Desantis as VP. Trump is the best at throwing a raving party and he’s really good at taking punches from the left and keeps moving forward. Which has bought him a lot of trust in the gop.
Strategically the GOP best move is to keep Trump as the poll lead until like March/April. Let them develop their lawfare election strategy. Then slide the nomination to probably Vivek maybe Desantis. The issue with this and one of my biggest problems with Trump is he doesn’t care as much about advancing an agenda as he cares about Trump winning. But for winning an agenda my thoughts today is this would be a very good strategy for winning.
Next thought. Vivek said “God is Real”. I assumed he was Hindu so was trying to figure out what he meant. So I had to go look at his Wikipedia and find out what that meant. He’s a monotheistic Hindu. I don’t know if that’s a true belief or something adopted to be more palatable to the right. Could be something explored in the election that he at some point will likely need to explain.
The other thing I thought of when he said God is Real is Marginal Revolution ran an article on St Thomas preaching the gospel in India. So I thought with him saying God is Real it might mean he was a member of that community. I didn’t even know about old Christian communities in India until yesterday. So perhaps there is a connection between St. Thomas and Monotheistic Hinduism. I do recommend reading the marginal posts as initially they thought St. Thomas wasn’t real but then some archaeologist found some stuff that confirmed a lot of the story.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/08/no-doubt-saint-thomas-reached-india.html
If the GOP steals the primary from Trump they are toast. The base wants Trump. That the GOP is still scheming to dispossess the base shows that they don't get it. It doesn't matter how "skillfully" they do it. The GOP will fight Republican voters more than they will ever fight the left, and then ask Republican voters to turn around and unite for the election.
Any candidate who signs onto that plan is fundamentally unserious. How would Vivek or DeSantis pitch themselves as anti-establishment while accepting the establishment primary rig of death?
And if they get Trump they're toast. That's the problem. And if they can't find him off now they won't be able to in 2028 either, regardless of how old he is. The GOP has underperformed for three straight election cycles, and they're barreling into four with abandon. The only way they're going to win back the voters who have abandoned them is to convince them that this party is a different one than the one they voted against in 2020. Instead we get a full-throated embrace of election denial/ January 6th nonsense that won't go away. They need to pull off the bandaid but are incapable of doing so. It's like an episode of Bar Rescue where the owner is going down with the ship because he's worried about alienating regulars. That's usually good advice, but when the regulars can't keep you in business then something's got to give.
I think there’s a limit here. Once he’s put in prison, it’s really going to be hard to make the case that he’s viable as a candidate.
If he's put in prison for any of the stuff they're throwing at him now, he will be a shoe-in for the Republican nomination. You could not ask for a better way to get his base to turn out.
Except you cannot actually do your duties as president from prison. You cannot leave the prison, so he can’t conduct diplomacy, you can’t call members of Congress to get your agenda passed, you can’t really do much. As such, I don’t see any viable way for republicans to elect a guy who can’t do the job.
Well, then he'll just pardon himself.
Can he do that? I don’t think he can.
For Federal charges he sure can -- statewise my fear is that this will turn into a "well come and get me then" situation long before he ever gets elected. (or imprisoned)
Trump rallies featuring standoffs between state and federal police trying to arrest him would be spicy for sure -- but not exactly great for the state of the Union.
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I mean, at this point, I don't think any of us knows how any of this would work. If he actually won the election, even from prison, would they petition for a temporary suspension of his sentence, in order to carry out the duties of office? Would it go through? Who knows. There is zero case history here. Maybe some enterprising law profs are preparing review articles on this topic at this very moment... but yeah, I doubt we have any idea what would end up happening.
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