If strong Republicans were enough to get somebody elected, Donald Trump would be President right now.
Nobody’s denying Trump has his loyal base. But he has almost zero ability to reach beyond his loyal base - and he needs to do a lot of that to have any chance of getting elected.
Typical Trump move. Accuse the Democrats of going negative.
I know. Been there, done that.
Unfortunately a strong base is all that’s needed to win a nomination. Trump doesn’t have to win the next election to turn everything into a shit show. He just needs to be nominated.
I’m fine with Trump getting the nomination if he doesn’t go on to win the election. As just a nominee, the only thing Trump can ruin is the Republican party and they should be ruined.
I don’t think he has to actually run as a third party in order to sink DeSantis. Under the likely assumption that the primary is a nasty drag out brawl in which Trump claims fraud, Trump could probably convince his voters to stay home, similar to how he messed up the 2021 Georgia Senate runoff.
Lots of people thought this in 2016. I myself would be delighed if Trump lost the nomination. If Trump wins the Republican nomination, that puts us just one more election away from "Can you fucking believe that happened AGAIN??
Exactly. We need to recognize Trump for what he is: the leader of a fascist movement. The more degrees of separation between him and a return to elected office, the better. If he wins the GOP nomination again, all bets are off for democracy and America. Because even if he loses the general election (again) the specter of political violence will once more hang over the nation.
He needs to be beaten soundly in the Republican primaries, and then let the Republican Party deal with the election-denying nonsense he spews themselves. Let the rest of us—those of us who have not gleefully basked in the glow of a fascist movement—get on with our lives.
I hope he doesn’t win the Republican primaries, even if all signs point to him losing the general election should that be the case. Forget how awful it would be if he won - I don’t think I could stand to go through the worry and despair, during election season, that he might win again.
That too.
Have you forgotten how bad it was when he
lost? Policies come and go. Politics ebb and flow. Even the Supreme Court and precedents will change. What the country may not be able to survive is another unpeaceful transition of power. I don’t see any other potential nominee attempting to stir up a revolution if they lose.
If I have to choose from the consequences of Trump losing vs. Trump winning, I’m going with Trump losing every single time.
This makes me think the Cairo in CairoCarol is more likely to be Illinois than Egypt — since Egyptian regime change would, I suspect, have given you much experience getting through such stress.
A big consideration here, for me, is how bad is DeSantis compared to Trump. I’m thinking that a DeSantis nomination would mean the GOP had walked away from the full-on authoritarian brink. And that DeSantis is bad in a normal range. But I’m going to be learning a lot more about DeSantis in the next year or two, and might change my mind.
What Trump did when trying not to leave office was much worse than anything he did in office and we are still feeling those consequences.
A point worth a debate, however, he had to win first to get there. I’d be happy to stop things at the beginning with that guy.
I lived in Egypt when I joined this message board, many years ago. I live in Hawai’i now 
I’m going to say that’s a little better than Cairo Illinois 
But what if the choice is between the consequences of Trump losing vs DeSantis winning?
But you have to wonder now that Trump opened that door.
Trump’s attempt to overthrow the government was like his attempts to be President; it was full of loud talk, last-minute poor planning, and an expectation that other people would do all the work and then hand him the reward.
If DeSantis or some other Republican gets elected and is facing a possible defeat in 2028, they might look at the Trump precedent - including looking at why it failed. Somebody smarter than Trump would begin laying the groundwork for a coup in advance - maybe even before the actual election. And the actual seizure of power would be a lot more subtle than a bunch of violent idiots storming the capital. It would be done quietly in back rooms and we’d still be questioning if it happened weeks afterwards. The public would only become gradually aware that something happened and things are somehow different now.
That certainly sucks, but I gotta go with Trump losing.