Not just off-color but denigrating, e.g. “Grab 'em but the pussy” to say nothing of this gem.
Surely. And so, in the spirit of friendly debate…
I do see it, since my mom, who I have been taking care of for the past three months, has Fox News on all day. All day long, they ask themselves the question, “What can we possibly use to beat up on Biden and the Dems today, no matter how small?”–and they answer that question with program after program, non-stop. It’s quite amazing, really.
I don’t think the business types are all that comfortable with the chaos that Trump brings, but I would want to see some polling on where they stand.
Here I have to disagree. The abortion issue has people pissed–and not just Dems. Look at the referendum in Kansas for one example.
People hate Trump. Hate hate hate. If Trump is on the ballot, Dems with vote with rage, not despair. People hate him more than they did before Jan. 6–because Jan. 6. People hate this motherfucker. You say the Republic will end if Trump is elected. I agree. Not because Trump will effectively take over the apparatus of power as did Hitler, but because the country will instantly tear itself apart and not stand for Trump and the fascists any more. We’ll have a revolution (I thought this would happen in 2020 had he won–I’m damn sure it will now). In short, the energy will be there on our side.
Yeah, it sucks. That cuts both ways, however, and the Dems will target them appropriately (unless they fail in a way they didn’t in 2020).
This also sucks. Massively. It’s not clear, however, if these evil efforts actually hit the right counties, etc., or if they are that much more powerful than in 2020.
Here are the main points I have against a Trump victory:
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He has the legal woes, which will clearly impact his psyche negatively. He looked pretty broken during his Manhattan perp walkage. These woes may fire up his base, but they do not help him among the influenceable.
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Trump’s base is smaller and less motivated. I’ve seen multiple articles on kos describing focus groups in which Republicans have said they wanted a change. Trump’s rallies are not what they used to be.
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Trump is older, more tired, and more beaten up. He is not going to fight as he could in 2016 and 2020. True, Biden isn’t getting younger either, but he is selling something different than Trump.
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People on our side are massively pissed about abortion, Jan. 6, and many other issues. Regardless of the candidate, we are going to treat this election like a Cold Civil War, which it absolutely is.
Biden withdrawing due to health concerns is not entirely unlikely. Even I, a Trump hater, can see Biden is showing very obvious signs of significant age deterioration.
The performance of the GOP in 2022’s midterms under Trump leadership suggests to me a Trump candidacy is a heavy underdog in the general election against Biden or anyone else. Trump has never really outperformed expectations in any election. He won the 2016 primary by getting a plurality of the votes in a fifty-nine-way contest against a field of dreadful candidates and won the general election by the skin of his teeth against a wildly unlikeable opponent. He lost the 2020 election against a less than spectacular opponent, and his party did terribly in 2022 as compared to how they really should have done. He is still loved by the droolers, but he’s still reviled by the same people who reviled him before.
Trump is both the most loved and most hated President of modern times, but the fact is that more people hate him.
Yes, this is a point not to be forgotten. The Red Wave that was really a Blue Wave.
Even if voter suppression succeeds in making Trump president again, we could still have a massive Blue Wave in the House and Senate based on sheer hatred of Trump.
This is why I suspect the GOP is going to work overtime to push Trump out. They have to do this carefully because their primary system gives the party brass less influence than the Democratic process, but the GOP has a lot of candidates to worry about, not just Trump, and they know a DeSantis will help the other elections more. Or, at least, hurt them less.
Yes. I think it will be an internecine conflict between the straight up movement fascists like MTG, who really do want someone like Trump to become an authoritarian dictator and are banking on that, and wet farts like McConnell who think 100% in terms of their own self-interest.
I don’t know how it is going to happen, but I think the GOP Powers That Be are going to get rid of the abomination.
I’m 60. I agree with your statement about wanting versus predicting - it’s the same with sports. What I meant about wanting discussion instead of status quo is that I would like to see two candidates in 2024 discussing issues, and voters decide who to vote for. I mean this with respect to Biden not being challenged by another Dem candidate, even if there may be a better candidate, because of convention. Reading this thread, I have this comment: Many folks here see anyone they label ‘conservative’ as a right-wing evil hater of all that’s true and good, and any ‘liberal’ as riding the white horse of truth and justice. But I think that there are a good number of conservatives who are looking for a better candidate than Trump, especially in swing states. I think a lot of folks underestimate how many of these voters there are. I also agree that there are a good number of knuckle-draggers who will vote for Trump no matter what he does. As has been mentioned, I’m not sure the status-quo math is going to work in 2024. My two cents. Thanks for asking.
And I’m 51!
No insult intended, but this sounds like a discussion about civics from the 1980s. We’re in a cold war against fascism now in which at least much of the citizenry and most of the media are playacting “situation normal” when it’s anything but.
We need a complete overhaul of our political and economic system. We need to draw new state borders (or do better than “states,” which in our system are fucking stupid) and revolutionize how we do, well, fucking everything. And I’m not talking about implementing “socialism” or some grand solution, since there isn’t one. I’m just talking about making things more efficient, rational, just, and equitable–the basics, since we don’t even have those down any more.
But our system was not designed for change (e.g., constitutional amendments are nearly impossible), so the whole thing will probably have to break down before anything can change at all.
The Dems are barely holding the country together, while the GOP is actively trying to implement its own Gleichschaltung.
Conservatism is dead in the US. People of true conservative temperament and philosophy have no home. It really comes down to pro- or anti-fascist these days.
That’s an interesting question. There are those who call themselves “independents,” which might be the best label for them at this point. There are those who are pro-Trump who also call themselves “conservatives,” but I think that’s a contradiction in terms. I think the number of people who call themselves conservative but who are anti-Trump is pretty small these days, and they tend to be intellectuals.
His base wants an authoritarian dictator. It’s that simple. They would be happy to see those they perceive as enemies perish in death camps. I’ll tell you one thing that’s quite odd: I’ve never heard a single Trump supporter say anything like, “We’re misunderstood! We’re not fascist. We want Trump as president obeying the rules and defending the constitution.”
Now, there are plenty of dumb people who call themselves “conservative” and love Trump but who are in some form of denial about what they would accept from him. Take, for example, all of the senators who voted against certifying the election. I’m sure not one of them would have admitted to the media that they wanted Trump to be dictator, yet I believe at least 90% of them would have supported him had he become one or seemed about to become one. I’m sure a lot of people who supported Hitler before he took power in 1933 were of the same inchoate mindset.
I am curious as to what you mean by this.
I used your post to riff a bunch, and again I mean no disrespect. But we are not in “situation normal.” We are in “prevent Hitler or his equivalent from taking power in the US” mode.
I appreciate your read of the Republican electorate. Here’s my read of where Democrats are at the moment.
I think a lot of Democrats would like to have a strong Biden alternative going into next year, particularly if Biden himself decided to step aside in favor of another candidate, at the very least as a stalking horse in case Biden’s health should fail. Biden doesn’t really excite most Democrats as an ideal candidate in and of himself.
But right now, the main thing keeping Joe Biden as the Democratic frontrunner is the fact that Donald Trump is the Republican frontrunner, and as long as that’s the case, Democrats will stand behind Biden as the one candidate who has a proven track record of beating Donald Trump in the general. Everybody saw 2016 when Trump’s plurality support turned into an overwhelming lead in the Republican primaries, and the party infrastructure and anti-Trump Republicans couldn’t throw enough support behind another candidate to stop him; and right now everything looks poised for a repeat performance in 2024. The more candidates split the “looking for a better candidate than Trump” vote that you cite above, the more likely it makes the “knuckle-draggers” voting Trump will give him the pluralities needed to win the nomination again. And once that happens, the Republican party will join ranks behind him - again, including those folks who are so assiduously looking for an alternative right now. Been there, done that, got four years of nightmares to show for it.
So that’s the status-quo math for 2024. If someone - Desantis, Haley, whoever - does somehow knock Trump out of the primaries next year, it’ll be too late for Democrats to find a Biden alternative. But Democrats are not going to unilaterally disarm with a repeat of 2016 on the horizon. Maybe Biden can’t beat Trump in a rematch - 2020 was decided by incredibly small margins. But right now there’s one Democrat who has been shown to win against Donald Trump, and he’s going to be the nominee until Trump is neutralized.
Reminder, this thread is about DeSantis and not Trump. It is also not about how Biden would do against candidates not named DeSantis.
It has gone off on the Trump vs. Biden tangent too long at this point.
Back on track…I think a good number of those crucial Waukesha, Wisconsin voters are just the type who WOULD vote for DeSantis over Biden (but not Trump over Biden).
DeSantis prospects may be looking up, at least to the extent that TFG’s are looking down
The GOP has got to come to the realization at some point in the not distant future that it doesn’t matter how popular TFG is with his base, or how well he does in the primaries, the GOP will perform terribly if they shackle themselves to TFG in 2024. Granted this is only one poll, but it appears his favorability continues to decline in the eyes of independents, with just the first round of what happen to be the least serious indictments. One would expect those favorability numbers to drop even further as more serious indictments - and possibly convictions - begin to drop. It at least allows the GOP one final opportunity in 2024 to make a break, with cause, and choose someone else. There are no great republican leaders waiting in the wings, but right now DeSantis has more name recognition than most other republicans you can name.
No, that is awful news for him.
Why? Because even if Trump’s favorability is dropping, he is widening the gap between them.
Yet another story (though originally posted March 17, it was updated April 5).
In surveys taken since the Trump offensive began two months ago, Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, has steadily lost ground against Mr. Trump, whose own numbers have increased.
It can be hard to track who’s up and who’s down in the Republican race, since different pollsters have had such wildly divergent takes on Mr. Trump’s strength. In just the last few days, a CNN/SSRS poll showed a tight race, with Mr. DeSantis at 39 percent and Mr. Trump at 37 percent among registered voters, while a Morning Consult poll found Mr. Trump with nearly a two-to-one lead, 52 percent to 28 percent.
In this situation, the best way to get a clear read on recent trends is to compare surveys by the same pollsters over time.
Over the last two months, we’ve gotten about a dozen polls from pollsters who had surveyed the Republican race over the previous two months. These polls aren’t necessarily of high quality or representative, so don’t focus on the average across these polls. It’s the trend that’s important, and the trend is unequivocal: Every single one of these polls has shown Mr. DeSantis faring worse than before, and Mr. Trump faring better.
So if Trump is dropping, but still improving relative to DeSantis, how bad must Ron be doing?!
Hate to be the bearer of bad/boring news, but 2024 is just going to be Biden beating Trump again and Trump refusing to accept the results again.
Actually, I strongly suspect “GOP candidate Trump loses, claims conspiracy” is going to be the result of every Presidential race until Trump dies.
As detestable as that prospect is, it does mean that the GOP won’t win a presidential race while Trump is still alive.
I was kinda scared to comment further on this thread, because I don’t want to get in moderator trouble. I hope my comment isn’t too far off topic, but I’d like to respond respectably to your comment: No, conservatism isn’t dead in the US. Some far-left folks would like to think it is, and I think that’s mostly because they are afraid that DeSantis’ brand of conservatism (without the ‘grab-by-the-pussy’ Trump legacy) will defeat Biden. DeSantis, in my opinion, would destroy Biden in a debate.
I was referring to comments up thread about height, hair color, and ethnicity of name being a factor in 2024. I don’t think these metrics are as important as they once were.
DeSantis is not a “conservative”. He’s a far Right Reactionary.
DeSantis’s “brand of conservatism” is authoritarianism bordering on actual fascism.
There are plenty of actual conservatives in America, but they are no longer represented by the GOP.
So these “far left folks” are afraid that a conservative would beat Biden, and…therefore they believe that conservatism is dead? Am I missing something?
I can’t parse who you’re talking to or what you’re trying to say. Not disagreeing with you, because I’m baffled. Then again I baffle easy without enough context.