This thread is the same hyperbolic hand-wringing teeth-gnashing wont-someone-think-of-the children overreaction we’ve seen over the last six years. Trump is an all-powerful God that every Pub will do their damnest to see win. I challenged someone on the Georgia election as a counterclaim and that was blown off. So when none of this comes to pass (cite: Georgia SoS telling Trump to F off) do you think any of the Chicken Little Dems on this board will admit they were wrong? Hasn’t happened for 6 years so why start now.
The Republicans realize that 2016 was the perfect storm for Trump. He ran a perfect campaign against a hated Democrat (to this day I believe a lot of people voted against Hillary rather than for Trump) who ran one of the worst Presidential campaigns since Dewey (Wait?! What’s an electoral vote? I thought it was who got the most popular votes.) Yes, the Pubs kissed his ass while president . . . just like every party lacky does when their person is in office Pub or Dem. The fact that the Dems are fractured over Biden and not pleasuring him every chance they get is the exception not the rule.
Which brings us to 2020. Any sensible Pub could have beaten Biden but, of course, Trump was the incumbent so he ran. Biden is a deeply flawed candidate going back to the 80’s but Trump couldn’t beat him. And here’s the thing - the campaign he ran and insurrection he promoted show the decline of Trump’s emotional control over the course of his presidency. It is a very stressful job and IMHO it changed him from an ass-kicker no-nonsense outsider (Drain the Swamp) to someone that was mentally broken by the job. How many people had a job that was so stressful that it caused a break-down? Pence fled his camp. His cabinet resigned en masse and the only supporters he has are ones like Lauren Boebert and MTG. Are those the kingmakers of the Party? The only politician with any power that is still a Trumpinista seems to be Lindsay Graham. The question is who in the Party that can make a difference (like the Wyoming Republican Party) will lie, cheat and steal to ensure Trump wins the nomination in 2024? Even 1/2 of the Republican voters think someone else should run.
Note: As I was writing this, @flurb ninjaed me. I believe my cite disproves his uncited assumption.
I presume @Little_Nemo is thinking more in terms of rigging things so that he doesn’t even run. Even assuming such a faction exists, and that they had the means to convince Trump not to run, I think such a move would be counterproductive from their point of view.
That poll is apparently of Republican and “Republican-leaning” voters. The people who will decide if Trump is the nominee are Republican primary voters and caucus-goers, who will likely have different opinions.
And the question voted on in a primary won’t be, “Do you want Trump to be our nominee, yes or no?” If he’s going to be beat it will have to be by somebody. And polling on that question shows him with an enormous advantage over any likely competitor.
I don’t think you, or Little Nemo, is looking at this phenomenon correctly.
The problem, as I see it, is that the GOP, after decades of merely tolerating the racists, crazies, conspiracy nuts, etc in the electorate has finally (in 2016) embraced them and elevated them to power within their party’s hierarchy.
They no longer need to be paid lip service (which the Dems did, with their much fewer wing-nuts)–now they control the party and must be courted and appeased at all turns. Since they’re essentially irrational, this means there is no sensible way to appease them. They roar for more, and worse, and crazier–and that means Trump.
I wouldn’t be astonished at this point if Trump were to die between now and 2024 and they would still insist on nominating his corpse.
Really? Does the name George Bush ring a bell? Ronald Reagan? Richard Nixon? Dwight Eisenhower?
The Republicans can win the presidency without Donald Trump. But Donald Trump cannot win the presidency without the full support of the Republican party.
Or do you really believe that Donald Trump is the last Republican President this country will ever elect? That no other Republican is capable to getting elected?
If that was true, I’d be saying hallelujah. But I don’t believe it. The Republican party has no plans on disappearing. They’ll still be around after Trump is gone.
And a lot of people are doing them a favor by focusing all of their energy on Trump and ignoring the real problem.
I can only piss on so many fires at once, and since having Trump Part 2 will be objectively worse than any other possibility, that’s what I’m pissing on right now.
I don’t see it as an issue of embracing the crazies. They just lost control.
The Republican party has two tiers. There’s a small cadre of leaders who normally run the party. And there’s a large group of followers who normally do what the leaders tell them to do. The leaders have their own agenda on issues like tax rates and government subsidies and deregulation - and they make sure the people they elect do what they’re told on those important issues. To keep the followers motivated they throw out a lot of meaningless issues like communism or gay marriage or flag burning or Muslims or socialism or Mexicans or drugs or abortions or black rioters - but none of these issues matter to the people running the party. So once they put their people in office, these issues get ignored and the real laws that matter to the leaders are the ones that get enacted.
The followers slipped the leash in 2016 and hijacked the party. They didn’t get much done because they’re disorganized. But the leaders have spent the last few years working on putting the leash back on and making sure they control where the Republican party goes.
You don’t tell the dog you’re putting him on a leash so you can control him. You tell him you’re putting this leash on him so you can take him to the park.
Part of controlling the mob is not telling them that you’re controlling them. Let them think they’re in charge while you’re pointing them in the direction you want them to go.
Publicly admitting Biden won the election wouldn’t help any Republican official. So why should they do it? Instead they tell the mob that they agree that Biden stole the election and will work on opposing the illegal Biden regime as long as they’re in office. And now they’ve got the mob following them.
Accomplish it? You want to tell me by what metric you feel anything has been accomplished in “fixing” the outcome of the 2020 election? For the third time in this thread, I’ll point out that Donald Trump has not been restored to office.
