Both of the GOP Senators from Alaska have now apparently joined the growing chorus of Republican officeholders calling on Trump to step down.
This looks like backpedaling to me. What I was betting on was that this recording, and Trump’s reaction to it, will still be in the news (as measured by TV and newspaper coverage) on October 15, a week from now. You stated it wouldn’t. I bet that will be the case even if no new accusations of sexual assault come out in the next week.
Are you betting that this will be a dead issue on October 15th?:dubious:
You can always come up with reasons why this or that is not exactly like something he’s said in the past. The question is, is this something so categorically different that it stands outside the boundaries of things he said in the past. That is what I’m not seeing.
There’s going to be a debate Sunday night, and the news cycle is going to reset itself. More than likely, something from that debate is going to be topic du jour on Monday. Unless, as I said earlier, actual women come out and accuse Trump of sexual assault. Actual women, with actual names and actual faces. No doubt every journalist with his or her salt is pounding the pavements looking for these women, so if they are there, we should know soon enough.
Hasn’t that already happened, with Jill Harth at least?
We have a few names and faces already. I wouldn’t be surprised if more surfaced.
I didn’t say “it wouldn’t” be in the news. That’s not in any way a fair paraphrase of what I said. I said “we’ll see if everyone is still talking about [t]his a week from now”. “Everyone”, not “anyone”. I’m not seeing this being the hot issue that is now, a week from now. That is, something else will take its place at the top of the list.
There will probably be more than one thing that the debate raises in the news, but it’s quite likely that Hillary hammering him on this tape will be one of them, especially if she does it particularly well. This really is pretty damn unprecedented, and more Republican defectors along with his own VP’s condemnation is proof of that.
That said, this may or may not sway some of the undecideds but I suspect won’t matter one whit among the bigots, misogynists, and general malcontents that are his core base of support.
…aaaaaand he just lost Senator Cory Gardner (R-Colorado).
Oh, I have no doubt it will come up in the debate. So will a lot of other things. Trump seems to have a way of always coming up with some new outrage that buries the previous outrage and the news cycle chugs along. Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe this time it really is different. We’ll see.
What you said implied to me that you though it would be a non-issue in a week. Of course some more recent gaffe by Trump (of which there is almost certain to be one) is likely to be at the very top of the news next week. It’s now reached the point that there’s a new shitstorm every three days or so. But this is not in any way going away.
Surely you’ve noticed that this has had a far greater impact already than Trump’s previous messes? It’s utterly unprecedented - and previously unthinkable - for a large number of senior members of a major party to ask their candidate to step down a month before the election. Whether Trump’s remarks are uniquely bad, or just the straw that broke the camel’s back on top of everything else, something out of the ordinary (even by the standard of this election) is going on.
Melania speaks:
Well observed. But I suppose any woman who willingly went to bed with him and found herself pregnant, would rather have the baby and milk him for money.
Does that make it 7 Republican Senator un-endorsements now? Did Gardner call for him to quit?
Yes; “step aside” was how he put it.
Well, Erin Burnett of CNN didn’t have to look very far.
We already had a link to that story upthread. I still think we need more than anonymous accusations, though. I can’t imagine these women would have anything to fear at that point. But, IANAW, so maybe there is…
Here’s an interestingtime-line of when 140 Republican officials or leaders jumped ship on Trump. An amazing total of 28 senators, representatives, governors, and former governors have bailed just since the tape came out yesterday, and I’m sure the fallout will continue.
Yikes, this thread is running at the speed of light…
Coupla things:
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I think this latest Trump foot-in-mouth offense is giving some Republicans the excuse they have been LONGING for to denounce him without being accused of party disloyalty.
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Re evangelicals and their support of Trump despite his overall disgusting-ness as a human being, specifically this quote from this article.
I read an interesting analysis somewhere recently (can’t remember exactly where, but it was likely the Washington Post or the Atlantic) that the reason evangelicals don’t care whether Trump shares their values is that they don’t see him as one of them; they see him as a rescuer, champion, enforcer, i.e., someone who will go out and do whatever needs to be done (and he’s proven he’s capable of that) to restore their way of life to them. The analogy is that if you hire a hit man/assassin, you don’t expect to find him sitting next to you in church on Sunday, and you don’t care. He’s an outsider, hired to do a dirty job. This is why they still support Trump. He’s the guy in the black hat who rides into town and cleans it up without a shred of moral scruples. From this vantage point, the MORE disgusting and unprincipled he is, the MORE the evangelicals/super conservatives will want him to do the dirty work that no liberal wants to do.
Why didn’t anyone invite him to the church social? Because their daughters are not safe with him.
I count 10 current Republican senators on the list I just linked to.
They’re probably equally busy trying to schedule meetings with Merrick Garland.