Trump is anything but the status quo. I dont know when we’ve ever had such a clear and critical distinction between the choices in terms of what sort of country we want to be as we had last time around given that any pretense that Trump could be a normal president was blown up by his actual presidency. Importantly though, this is his attraction for those who still support him. Both with his voters and with conservative apparatchiks who want to do things with our country they dont feel they can get away with in a system where the voice of the people and the rule of law have to at least be paid lip service to. That is why a Trump presidency is about so much more than Trump himself. It’s about what will be allowed to happen around him.
5 Likes
If Trump gets the Republican nomination and loses the 2024 Presidential election, I think he will be finished in terms of trying to run for President again. The next opportunity would be 2028.
Two main reasons:
-
There are already lots of Republicans who say he is a loser, politically. He lost the house and he also lost the Presidency. He is a serial loser. If he gets the nomination, and loses the 2024 Presidential election, I think many more Republicans will be inclined to discard him, as he is a loser for them, politically. (Even if most of them lack the courage to say more truth than that about Trump).
-
Age. Trump will be 82 if he contests the 2028 Presidential election. He is already an old man, though 2-3 years younger than Biden. Mind you, I don’t know who looks more likely to slip off this mortal coil first, as Trump has been an obese man for many years, even if Biden dithers these days.
Anyway, bottom line, if Trump does not win in 2024, my take is that it will be the end of the line for him, as he will be a serial loser, and even if plenty of deluded fools in the Republican Party still like him, their dislike of losing will be what prevails.
A good friend and former co-worker is a lifelong Republican, spent 14 years working various staff positions in the Senate before crossing over to be a lobbyist. Had McCain won in 2008, he would have been an Assistant Secretary in that Administration, he had been tapped for the role before the election.
We had drinks together in DC in May 2016, where he predicted that Trump was going to win the Presidency. That was really the first time I thought that was going to be possible, because my friend is a serious guy and there was absolutely no note of triumph about the prediction - quite the opposite. But what most struck me about the conversation was his simple statement that for the first time in 20 years, he had no idea who would be running the country. He knew who his likely Democratic counterparts in an Obama administration would be, knew their experience and competence. He had absolutely no clue who a Trump transition team would pick, he did not even know who would be on a Trump transition team.
He correctly predicted complete chaos in that level of the US government, posts going unfilled for years, others being filled with completely unqualified ideologues, etc.
5 Likes
They’ll both be dead by then.
1 Like
or we all will
2 Likes
This is just yet another example of why so many of us never took seriously the “lack of free speech on college campuses is a problem” arguments from those on the right.
We knew they were mischaracterizing the issue, and knew it was a projection for the sort of speech control they were desperate to do more of.
The story in context
https://twitter.com/donmoyn/status/1683824545960951809?s=20
Funny how the “cancelled” still have a megaphone to yell about being “cancelled”, while the victim of an actual cancel culture can’t speak out…
2 Likes
I think this De Santis story speaks to this issue pretty well
Hochman is a clear as day fascist sympathizer with white supremacist ideas. This was not unknown, “we” just did that odd collective denialism where we refuse to acknowledge that a person is who they say they are when they are in a position of power and associated with a legitimate political organization. So people are now treating this as a scandal, but it is just simply how the organized US right now works. No, I’m not saying you a fascist if you a traditional conservative, but that the actual organizations ostensibly responsible for advancing this ideology are now all run by a generation of people who grew up on 4-chan and internalized the “ironic” racist jokes into their actual legit personality.
While talk of systemic racism is banned in schools under the stop woke act, the new Florida education standards on American history stress that slavery wasnt that bad because slaves at least learned skills they could parlay into improvements in their life once freed.
It’s obviously too dumb to justify addressing, but it led to obvious parallel of claiming that no one would ever say that about jews and the holocaust.
https://twitter.com/DecodingFoxNews/status/1683605276472008705?s=20
NEVER underestimate the levels these fucks will go to.
1 Like
What was the phrase - “Vernichtung durch Arbeit”?
Regarding the fail that is DeSantis, I’m wondering (hoping in vain), have we reached the evolutionary dead end to the genus Trumpitalis? Trump is/was the pinacle.…
1 Like
fucking hell.
I actually watched that clip twice. that 67-second clip has been cherrypicked from a conversation that I would really like to hear in full. but at second hearing, I don’t really know where the man is going with the Vic Frankel reference. But from what I heard, it sounds like he is referencing how some Jews survived the camps. Not how it was good for them?
Would really rather hear that entire passage of conversation for context.
Open question but how to elevate the said fuckwits?
I have no idea. I’m actually shocked that my ex-wife is raising her kids there.
It just continues to show that when you use words like “Nazi” and “Holocaust” in analogies, you are bound to look less sensitive and less smart than you may actually be. Or maybe you are, in fact, an insensitive dumbshit for going there after so many others have flamed out in their own attempts.
This kind of stuff is far more significant than any of the identity or discrimination complaints that happen. Academic institutions cracking down on experts speaking about their expertise is the thin end of the totalitarianism wedge. Texas and Florida are obviously both now just for deplorables. US is going to need a civil war to cede the hillbilly states or remove the fascists.
1 Like
The ‘brains’ of the Republican party.
1 Like
That was fucking weird , it looked like somebody had just pulled the plug out. I would assume McConnell is now headed for another sabattical. It would be nice to see it made permanent.
1 Like
Sad to see that, on a human level. Don’t like his politics and so on, but I want to go beyond that and hope that he can bow out and enjoy a little retirement before he pops his clogs. Take a trip or two, sit on the porch, drink some ice tea like they do in the south.
On the politics, it has long been a point of attack for Republicans to have a go at Biden for being too old and past it. They do have a point. And then on the other side, McConnell is there too, perhaps even further gone. And Trump will be 78 if he gets another go (God forbid) and as an obese man, he will have, and surely already does, numerous health issues. Mind you, I think the ketchup counteracts the trans fats in the steaks he eats every day.
The constitution needs an amendment. You can’t run for high office under 35 yrs, but you certainly can if you are ancient and well past it.
Put an upper limit into law. I would go beyond the social security retirement age, but no more than one term beyond it.