These fascists surely don’t care if it is stolen, but I’m not sure if they’re assuming that it can be done. However, I saw that clip of the nazi-in-chief of the Heritage Foundation saying that they had things in place that people don’t know about yet but would be revealed later.
Frankly, I think these HF guys and their fellow travelers are playacting a lot. They’re like militia bros but without the camo. Project 2025 is too nuts to be implemented. It’s unrealistic. We’d have a civil war before even 20% of that shit got done.
See, I got a lot of guff for my OP about Trump not being the nominee not coming true, but this is the “ball of shit” I was talking about. I think that the GOP was fooled into thinking Trump was doing better than he was by the comparison with the Biden. Biden sucked at the debate, for which I’m very grateful as we now have a probably winning ticket, but Trump is actually in much worse shape than Biden!
Now the shoe is on the other foot. The GOP should have gotten rid of Trump before the convention, but now they can’t ditch their candidate in the clean way we ditched ours. They are up shit crick without a paddle and a big ol’ hole in the canoe. Can you even imagine how a debate will go at this point? I don’t even know if Trump can make it that far. It’s that bad.
Well, since we last chatted here, things have only gotten worse for the Orange Imperator. His campaign got hacked–oh noooo! And a bunch of creepy Project 2025-related videos are now out there:
Trump’s in a deep stall, guys. Terrain! Terrain! Pull UP!
The bump from getting shot did wear off remarkably quickly. And the Harris-Walz ticket deserves credit.
But if Trump can’t win at this point – and maybe he can – I’m wondering if his big mistake was getting that bloody nick on his ear immediately treated rather than waiting for the dead and injured to be removed, insisting on the crowd staying, and then finishing his speech. While many would have seen it as appalling insensitivity to the dead man, by giving a whole speech, with blood running down his face, the shooting would have stayed at the top of everyone’s mind a lot longer.
Advice to potential U.S. political strongmen: Never let it look like the Secret Service can order you around.
There is no way the Secret Service would allow that. Trump didn’t have a choice there. Just like when they didn’t let him join the protesters on Jan 6.
If I had bodyguards, the fact that I decide what risks to take would be made clear to them in advance. If they cannot work under those conditions, we can arrange for them to be on a different detail.
Trump’s “Be there, will be wild!” tweet was made eighteen days before January 6, so Donald had plenty of time to use a little imagination concerning how it would play out, and order a taxi to the nearest unrestricted intersection, or get someone to give him a metro card (assuming he was, even four years ago, physically incapable of a two mile walk). Would they have shut down the transit system, and blocked streets, against a direct presidential order? I doubt it, and Trump never put it to the test.
It also is predictable that security situations will result in decisions having to be made about continuing with a presidential speech. No law stops the President from specifying who makes the decision (so long as said President is conscious).
Trump didn’t do a Teddy Roosevelt, and continue with his speech, because of cowardice.
I don’t think Trump was a coward for not finishing his speech. There could have been other actors, bombs planted, etc.
I also don’t think it’s strange that the assassination attempt bounce didn’t last:
He was barely hurt.
The would-be assassin wasn’t a Democrat, nor was there a larger conspiracy involving Democrats.
The Secret Service had been incompetent, and the director resigned almost immediately. Thus, the cause was in large measure addressed, and punishment meted out, giving at least somewhat a sense of resolution to the incident.
The RNC followed directly thereafter. It itself produced little to no bounce for Trump, so any momentum from the assassination attempt was attenuated by relative failure (however, see #6 below).
Trump’s dominance in the polls, etc., owed very little to Trump being strong and almost all to Biden being weak. The incident may have had more impact had it been a weaker candidate overtaking a stronger one (i.e., David is now beating Goliath!). “Guy crushing old man is crushing him more!” is not much of a narrative to build on.
As a corollary to #5, it may have been that Trump had reached maximum possible strength in the polls, etc., anyway, and could only have fallen from there.
I’d also tend to agree that it was not abject cowardice for trump not to have finished his speech. There was no way to know the extent of the danger in the moment.
However, is he being cowardly now? I know the Secret Service banned outdoor events, but trump has kept a pretty low profile since the attempt. He did have that one recent appearance in Montana, but other than that and the ‘home turf’ Mar-a-Lago press conference, he’s been pretty undercover.
The Secret Service has not banned Trump from having outdoor events, although it has been reported that they did recommend that the campaign not schedule any more outdoor rallies.
Ah, thanks for the correction. I thought it was stronger than a recommendation.
In any case, I doubt trump will have any more rallies anywhere other than indoor areas that have extremely tight security. Or maybe he’ll start exclusively doing Zoom rallies from Mar-a-Lago.
I don’t think so, unless someone thinks PTSD is a manifestation of cowardice. Obviously I’m just speculating. Trump refuses to submit to my examination.
I think it’s sensible not to do outdoor rallies–unless there is a lot more prep involved or a location is fundamentally more secure. (Obviously, presidents have to do a lot of stuff outdoors too, such as being inaugurated, etc.).
I don’t know how much Trump continues to be rattled by the assassination attempt. He’s said nothing about lingering mental effects that I have seen. Of course, he’s not the type to admit weakness, but he is the type to let slip his fears and frustrations (e.g., complaining about Melania obliquely: “I know a lot of wives who wouldn’t have said that,” referring to the woman who lost her husband in the assassination attempt on Trump and said she would rather have him with her than have him die a hero).
Trump’s mental and physical condition is just terrible. I think that’s the real reason for his not campaigning.
Ok, yes, even considering the subject, maybe I’m being unduly harsh. I’ve never been shot at, and I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like dealing with the aftermath of something like that.
The importance of this should be highlighted. The range between Trump’s ceiling and floor is pretty small. He was pretty much at his ceiling already. Biden had the same circumstance of a narrow band albeit at this floor.
The change in the dynamic to date is not that Trump has dropped much but that Harris is not constrained by the same ceiling as Biden was.
Just an FYI aside: I’ve been to an inauguration. The crowd is enormous—and nowhere near the actual event, which is shown on huge screens. To actually use this to attempt to kill the new president, the assassin would have to conduct some real James Bond stuff to get past all the obstacles.
Yes. I think voters were sick of both Trump and Biden. I think Biden did a great job as president (at least in our current political system and context), but it was ridiculous that he was running again at his age, and his communication absolutely sucked. IOW, I was sick of him too.
It’s so nice having a strong, competent person running now. You know, one that can actually speak. (I mean, my mother died at Biden’s age in February, and I think her verbal acuity at that point was better than Biden’s. Not exaggerating.) Now, had it been the Biden of 2008, I think he would have been blowing trump out of the electric shark-infested water!
