Can the GOP avoid nominating Trump in 2024?

Politics & Elections
41

Republicans can’t start thinking about ways to deny Trump the nomination in 2024 until they take baby steps toward that goal.

That means at a minimum, ceasing to denounce and punish Republicans who have spoken out against him.

Once that painful step has been accomplished, what’s left of party leadership can promote conservative (or even moderate to conservative (shudder) candidates who support presumed party ideals and are not in thrall to Trump. Said party leaders could even speak out against Trump and his tired refrain of election fraud.

But that will take a degree of long-term vision (years, not months). It’s much easier to knuckle under while hoping Democrats self-destruct.

The sad thing is that there’s enough of that self-destructiveness to create a risk of significant G.O.P. gains in 2022. In that case, Republicans will think that Trump-worship is still a viable path, with negative consequences no matter what the outcome of the next Presidential election.

42

Agree. It’s likely the Republicans will make gains in the mid terms, if history is any indicator. Trump knows this and will capitalize on that outcome by taking credit for it, which will re-enforce his tight grip on the party.

43

Most Republicans can’t look beyond 2022. They think that their best chance to gain seats is to suck up to Donnie’s base and that’s exactly what they’re going to do and they’re going to keep doing it until it stops working for them.

44

I’m reminded again of turn-of-the-20th-century Republican House Speaker Tom Reed, who led a bitter fight in Congress to abolish the “silent quorum”, through which minority Democrats (including ex-Confederates and other rogues) were stifling legislation by remaining silent at roll calls, meaning there was no quorum to allow a vote.

Reed resolved that if he couldn’t get enough support to break the silent quorum, he’d quit and go back to private law practice, a prospect that (in the view of historian Barbara Tuchman) steadied his resolve and gave him a moral edge over his adversaries.

Obviously there are hardly any politicians like that now, but damn, Republicans could use a few with similar backbone.

45

That doesn’t sound duplicatable today. Getting a motivated opponent out of Congress sounds like exactly the sort of thing McConnell & Co. would love. Sorta like the proverbial holding your own breath as a threat. “If you don’t stop doing this thing that thwarts my side, I’ll go home.” “Don’t the door hit you on the ass on the way out.”

46

Yeah. I’m thinking about buying two other books about Trump.

But I don’t need a history lesson about Trump. I know what he is and do what I can to prevent it from happening again. I don’t need any more info about that treasonous moron. NONE of his supporters can be swayed, so even more information about him won’t help there.

The problem is they admire him for being a treasonous, racist, moron, and want to be able to be the same.

47

I had a similar thought when I read recently that Alexander Vinman (the Army officer who was retired prematurely for calling out Trump’s trying to pressure Ukraine’s president to investigate the Bidens) suggested that GEN Mark Milley shouldn’t have contacted China when he thought Trump might launch nukes to stay in office.

Vindman said that Milley should have resigned.

That’s a reasonable course, if you don’t have Trump toadies willing to step up and do his dirty work. The world has changed profoundly since, say, 1974’s Saturday Night Massacre.

48

No offense, but I don’t need another reason to think that my life will be ruined just a few years after I finally get it together, and I’m doing better than I ever have been. Then I may begin wondering what the point was to working up to this. Or in participating in the electoral process. Or anything.

I just hope that if it comes to pass, we don’t see a wave of suicides and family annihilations. The despair seems right for that.

49

This is a serious question/suggestion even though everything associate with the former president has a mythical and unreal quality to it as well as a whiff of insanity.

Why not produce a serious bi-pic of the guy spanning from roughly late Summer 2019 to the other day when he said at a rally that “We won on the Arizona forensic audit yesterday, at a level …must decertify …” referring to the audit results that proved the exact opposite? This is not intended to be a Cafe Society discussion, this is a use of media in the political world question.

I do not mean a hit piece, or a comedy skit. A serious actor playing the actual person who may not be three dimensional in reality, but play him realistically. Look, we know no MAGA is going to watch any news form that does not support there already formed, yet somehow completely uninformed views. But perhaps a TV movie that is as sympathetic as possible, showing how he did feel assaulted on all sides (however much he may have deserved it), and making his decisions appear plausible in the moment. Show him trying to promote his agenda and having to deal with all the everyday disasters that ruin every president’s day on most days.

Show him being somewhat successful in small ways. Hearing bad news and having dozens of advisors giving conflicting advice, show him making a mental decision then walking to the press room and giving off the cuff remarks that distract from the bigger disaster, spin the smaller disaster – and then walk out of the press room and tell Jared or Mike Pense or someone else to fix the other thing within 12 hours before the real story gets out. (The guy must have done something right in four years there even if it was an accident.)

Make him just sympathetic enough to create a whole person, then show how his pompous attitude and knack for listening to the wrong person, combined with having a morally reprehensible agenda leads to his fall. He can even appear somewhat successful in a completely factual account because he did survive dozens of scandals that would have sunk a decent man. No need to play over the entire four years in the White House, just the last one and a few highlights since then.

I suggest this because whenever there is a mention of Joey Buttafuoco I still picture Alyssa Milano rather than the young woman who actually shot his wife. The biopic serves as my narrative of the event. His supporters are still going to call it a hit job, no matter how factual an account it turns out to be. None of his detractors (me included) will think it hits hard enough. He may even cooperate although it is unlikely, but he does love attention. Either way he will give it lots of free press even if it is just him bashing it. There should be a card before the movie that says while it is a work of fiction it is based upon real life events. But the big ass kicker would be at the end where a different card states every event portrayed is documented and confirmed by multiple sources.

I think it can provide two important defining characteristics for the man. First, just making it will suggest the story is over- this is what has happened; nothing interesting is on the horizon. Second, if it is on a broadcast network, and then shown over and over on cable channels- it will become “the” definitive version of the story because it will be well known by all; not the FOX News version or the MSNBC version, the official version. The best part is, the more accurate it is the worse it will reflect upon him. May have to leave some parts out to make it seem not as hateful.

People who are never going to read the Woodward/Costa book, or any of the other books will have a chance to see what went on behind closed doors. The being creepy with the press assistant, the knowing facts and pretending he didn’t, the letting the virus run because it was affecting Democrat(ic) cities. What he was doing during the insurrection, what he did behind the scenes to overturn the election, the six point plan. All of his dysfunction on display might cut the MAGA crowd in half again. In a very fortunate world he will protest and sue to have the release stopped. Could a biopic define him? Would it stop him from being nominated? Who should play Mitch McConnell (okay, that last one is NOT a serious question.)

50

The call wasn’t that damn secretive, it was coordinated with the DOD and apparently there were a lot of people officially listening. I heard 15 but can’t find a cite with that number.

I read Vindman’s book and there was something in there I found interesting. When he testified, he spoke at length about his family and his father and their early life in Communist Eastern Europe, making it sound like his father was scared that if he (Vindman Jr.) testified he’d be persecuted.

Well, it’s true that his father was an Eastern European immigrant. It’s true that his father didn’t want him to testify. But the reason his father didn’t want him to testify because he was a full blown MAGA Trump supporter that thought Trump was the only thing keeping the US from becoming a Socialist hellhole, and he went off brutally at his son for his “disloyalty” to Trump.

Apparently the Russian propaganda is particularly strong among Russian immigrants. Vindman eventually brought his dad back around, a little bit - at least he refused to go on Fox News and disparage his son. But his dad isn’t as down on autocracy as Vindman made him out to be.

51

Okay, you can buy into my best case scenario:

Mere weeks before the nominating convention, Trump realizes he can’t live without the attention, and declares himself a candidate (and the winner, of course).
The 'Pubs are running around, divided (but united in their confusion and no idea what to do). Right-wingers are so disgusted or confused that they stay home.

Or Trump runs as the hastily-assembled MAGA Party* choice, and splits the Republican votes.

(*“Make America Gimmedat Again”)

52

Speaking of needing attention, I don’t think it’d take much to get Donnie Hisself to play the part.

You’d just have to edit out him yelling “Line!” before every line.

53

I would say 50 years. The distrust of government started with Reagan. It has gone steadily downhill since. Bush’s lying didn’t help.

54

I can’t really argue with you, there; I just just trying to keep the reboot manageable. The Iran-Contra Affair was really the first open scandal in the modern era where the public just kind of collectively shrugged their shoulders and said, “Too complicated, can’t be arsed to care,” and when everyone involved was either granted immunity or pardoned without spending a day in prison, the reaction was kind of am “Well, that happened.” The single protest over the “invasion” of Grenada barely ranked page 8 news coverage in most newspapers and almost no network media time. Bush’s (which ones) lies bracketed Clinton, for whom lying was like a fish in water. I mean, at least people were outraged by Johnson and Nixon.

Stranger

55

Something I think is interesting… well, maybe “disturbing” is a better word, is how few tell-alls there have been from Trump admin insiders. Not discounting Stephanie Grisham et al, but it seems like there’d be a mint of money to be made from spilling the juiciest insider secrets. Naturally nobody wants to be the first, but I was expecting a snowball effect that hasn’t (yet) materialized.

Can’t speculate too much on what that means… maybe everyone’s that invested in the Trump project, maybe they’re all so mutually implicated in criminality that none of them wants to snitch, maybe Trump’s figured out how to make NDA or other threats work for him. Or perhaps they’ve confronted the inevitable truth that nothing they reveal will change anything, so it’s better not to be the rat.

Perhaps I’m impatient, but I take it as a really bad sign that they’re not all throwing one another under the bus yet.

56

While I’d love to see this, what was he doing all year before that – calmly staying in the background and endorsing the actual GOP candidate? No chance.

Maybe they’re waiting to see who gets indicted first.

57

They just drop-kicked South Dakota governor Kristi Noem under the bus, and it was spectacular!

ETA: In case you didn’t know, American Greatness is a prominent hard right pro-Trump site.

ETA again - I do not whether the story is true or not. However, what is newsworthy- and undeniably true- is the fact that American Greatness ran the story. That in and of itself is newsworthy.

58

That guy? Ugh? I mean, I guess he’s a better choice that’s Steven Miller or Eric Trump, I suppose…. On the other hand, Noem doesn’t seem like much of a charmer, either, but talk about your modern-day wannabe Borgias.

Stranger

59

My distrust of government started with Nixon…

.

(though I hated LBJ for picking up his dogs by their ears… but I was too young then, to have any deeper political opinions).

60

Much as I disliked Nixon, I didn’t distrust government at that time. Remember Nixon had to fire an AG and his deputy before he found someone (Robert Bork) sufficiently depraved to fire the special prosecutor. It was Reagan who said, “The most dangerous nine words in the English language are, `I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'” It’s not so much that it made me distrust the government as that it sowed distrust generally.