I don’t think that is what is being claimed; if it is I’d personally disagree.
The issue is that traditional conservative values (I.e. a robust military, patriotism, fiscal responsibility, respect for personal freedom, and science and reason based legislation) - in these modern times - is best found within the Democratic Party.
Whereas the Republican Party is increasingly the party of despots. Even at its most tame, though, the GOP is the party of big government (I.e. Space Force, Department of Homeland Security, TSA), big spending (the Republicans simply refuse to ever actually fund any of their proposals, which is lately just cutting taxes. Instead, they rely on some vague notion that the economy itself will suffice), identity politics (it’s the party that panders to white males by reassuring them (me, I guess) that they are important, too), and reactionary emotion (the one consistency amongst all modern Republicans is how much their ideology is governed by emotion; They are outraged! Changes in society are attacks! Nothing is too remote or obscure to waste their righteous rage!)
Conservatism is dead within the Republican Party, and a true conservative would never be nominated by that party.
But a conservative might be able to beat Biden. It’s just none are ever going to be nominated.
On what do you base this? I haven’t seen any blindingly smooth oratorical skill on DeSantis’ part, and he’s far too used To Getting His Own Way to have developed the civility necessary for the give-and-take of any actual non-tRumpian debate. I mean, Joe didn’t let the CFSG rattle him, so I don’t see how he could have much trouble with DeSantis. It will be “Please Proceed, Governor” 2.0.
Any plausible GOP candidate has an excellent chance of beating Joe Biden. Week after week, month after month, most polls show Trump, the weakest plausible GOP standard-bearer, beating Biden, especially when you factor in a 2 percent or so GOP electoral college advantage. Early? Yes, but the lack of volatility tells me most have already made up their mind.
VP Biden? He’d cream DeSantis, though I can see the Gov getting a few culture-war cheers. Current Biden, who has lost a step or two? It might be a real fight just based on that alone, harsh as it is to say.
Yeah, the fact that DeSantis won Florida comfortably has erased many people’s memory of how terrible he was on the debate stage versus Crist. Robotically rattling through his talking points and then looking like a rabbit in headlights when a point was put to him.
Of course, the fact that he did win handily, demonstrates that the debates don’t matter as much as they used to. But regardless, the point is, he ain’t ownin’ nobody on no stage.
The people who have spent time in DeSantis’s inner circle and are willing to openly discuss their experience describe him as a truly strange little goblin person. That story about him eating yogurt with his fingers? Just the tip of the iceberg. His profile in Florida has been cultivated with careful stage management, keeping his public appearances strictly limited in duration and scope. Word from inside his camp is that his handlers consider DeSantis himself, on a personal level, to be the campaign’s biggest liability, considering that a presidential run requires the candidate to be visible in much-less-controlled settings for hours on end, day after day, month after month. Right now the media are propping him up as a rival because they need a story and there’s no one better to cast in that part, but I am fully confident that once the public gets a clear and unfiltered look at the man, they will recoil.
Post-Roe, any Republican is going to have a hard time winning. Abortion used to be their go-to wedge issue to drive out their voters, but now they will die by the same sword that they live by. Ditto with gay rights. In the 1980s, Repubs would add anti-gay resolutions to state ballots to gin up the bigoted turnout. The nation has moved sharply against them on gay rights as well. Keep nominating anti-abortion, anti-gay candidates and see how that works for you.
I understand that position because people are people, and any large organization is going to have at least a few bad apples. Trusting everyone with a D after their name just because of party affiliation is tribalism, and isn’t healthy, But how does distrusting individual politicians cause your entire political perspective to change?
I (slightly) knew Harold Stassen, and Harold Stassen was no Donald Trump,
Too many times I thought that Trump must have finally past his sell by date. And then I see him continuing to remain neck and neck with Biden in polls.
Trump is 3 1/2 years younger than Biden. If Joe edges out Donald in November 2024 — something I have zero confidence can happen — Trump then is the 2028 front-runner.
This is far different from the Stassen dynamic, as his support collapsed after the first loss.
Assuming this happens, and assuming also that the Dems hold the Senate and take back the House (two dicey propositions, I know), I doubt there’s any way that the GOP nominates Trump in '28.
Googling, I’m finding that life expectany for a 76 year old male American is 10.58 years. But factor in a couple years for being a college graduate. Then factor in another year for the obesity paradox (heavy elderly people living longer). If I want to push it, I would give him another year or two for being married, but Melania may not keep on top of his medical care the way my wife does for me
Now, by saying he will be the 2028 early favorite if he loses next year, I didn’t mean to say that his chances would be more than 50 percent – just both significant and greater than anyone else’s. And I did mean to say that DJT keeps on doing OK in polls, against possible Democratic opponents, after events that would sink others, including losing a presidential and being arrested.
I think Donnie’s prospects are vastly overrated. Sure, to maybe 20-25% of the population, he is infallible. He was born without sin and in incapable or sinning. He is always right and is incapable of error. He alone can save the Republic for which he stands. He is the epitome of all that is wholesome and good and he should be added to Mount Rushmore. To the rest of us, not so much.
He won in 2016 by virtue of facing the only opponent that he could have beaten, aided and abetted by the FBI’s October Surprise. His term in office revealed his cruelty in his immigration policy and his abject stupidity in his response to covid. He has done nothing to enlarge the GOP tent, and that tent is shrinking thanks to the dreadful overturning of Roe. He will be indicted on at least two more matters (GA and documents cases) and quite likely for his seditious insurrection as well. That may endear him to the True Believers, but turns off everyone else. In a rematch with Biden, he loses even bigger.
In 2028 he will either be behind bars or lying stinking in the grave. But if neither is to be the case, he’ll be a bigger joke than ever.
