To my knowledge, neither The Rock or the Fresh Prince has announced their intentions to run, while Kanye has.
Actually, Smith has expressed a desire to do so at some point. Dwayne Johnson nada, but he’s a natural talent when it comes to public speaking and projecting strength and leadership.
That will certainly be the goal, one which I share. How will it work?
“Every nominee needs 4 (6? 8? 20?) sponsors from the pool of currently sitting Washington Congressmen, Governors or Majority or Minority Republican leaders in each of the state houses?” (Or mayors of top 20 Republican cities??) (Every sponsor can support up to 2? 3?) (Retraction clause???)
Superdelegates? That won’t be especially popular and wouldn’t work this year anyway given that #1 and #2 were unacceptable.
Smoke filled rooms? (Snort.)
Expect a) unintended consequences and b) the swamps to go nuts.
I think one group that is definitely going to get scapegoated for the rise and fall of Trump is the right-wing echo chamber (Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, et al.). It’s been long overdue for the GOP to kick these idiots to the curb, along with the evangelicals who don’t even pretend to hold onto “Christian” values as long as they can hold the reins of power (e.g. Dobson of Focus on the Family endorsing Trump :smack:).
Hey, I’m feeling wildly optimistic today, so here’s my prediction.
The Trump candidacy allows for a have you no dignity moment for the right. They finally realize that eight years of demonetization and obstruction has not achieved any of their political goals, and so start shaping up their act and working constructively with a moderately conservative Clinton. Ailes leaving Fox news allows the Murdoch Brothers take over and start actually presenting facts to their conservative audience, and calling out right wing nuttery where they see it. This combined with Limbaugh dying of an Oxycontin overdose diffuses the 24 hour hate and fear diet that the Republican base has been fed up to now, allowing moderate Republicans to survive the 2018 primary. Clinton wins reelection in 2020, but the Ryan wins in 2024 against a hard left radical Democrat who mobilizes the left wing base’s frustration with the conservative nature of the Clinton presidency.
Also scientists genetically engineer a unicorn pony that poops skittles and can live in a little girl’s closet.
I think you guys are arguing without defining the term “conservative.”
I don’t know. I imagine it will be subtle; mere administrative details in appearance while giving substantial control back to the party leaders.
Just to throw out a possibility, have a two-stage process. Hold primaries and let people vote for candidates. But there won’t be a first-past-the-gate winner who gets the nomination. Instead there will be a select committee which reviews the three candidates with the three highest vote totals and decides which of them is awarded the nomination.
Choosing candidate number 2 or 3 would be neither quiet nor subtle.
I’d personally like this, but that’s because I think the primary system is nuts. They could also try approval voting if they think they have an extremist problem.
Still, outsiders consistently received 60% support during the 2016 Republican primary. It wasn’t just Trump. It will be difficult for the establishment to manage an electorate that unmoored from reason.
The greatest reason for his popularity is that “conservatives” has been grooming a certain segment of the population (white) with venomous rhetoric and toxic ideas, almost none of which are based on fact. Well-financed conservative propaganda outlets (AM radio, Fox News, Breitbart, etc) have gradually created a ‘base’ of voters that believes people of different backgrounds and who have alternative viewpoints are the enemy. The pragmatist republicans spoke to these people at election time and ignored them after that. Donald Trump has been successful because he comes into the race as the only guy with any credibility. Donald Trump lies his ass off, but in a sense, unlike other politicians, he’s the one guy in the race all along who could say “I never lied to you to get your vote.” “I never used you to get your vote.” “Hell I don’t even care if I win this thing.” “In fact I probably won’t win this thing because you guys and I both know that this system is rigged, am I right?” Nobody else in this race could say that.
I really don’t want to look ahead to 2020. I think we’re going to have our hands full with this race.
That sounds great if you want a Third American Revolution in 2030 by a coalition of Sandernistas and the less nativist Trumpists who will finally send off Wall Street and Silicon Valley packing to the fruit orchards and borax mines after a Ryan administration works with “moderate” Republicans in Congress to raise the retirement age of Social Security to 70, voucherize Medicare, bring in massive numbers of guest workers, implement free trade pacts, and pass a national right to work law.
I don’t know why you think this is wildly optimistic. Seems very reasonable, especially compared to the rest of your past.
Not so fast. I’m going to give you a peek at the future. Dial it up to 2020. Hillary will be running for a second term. Republicans will still be looking to reinvent themselves and reestablish some sort of sanity within their ranks. People will admit to being Republican only in low whispers, gone are the days of red ties and party unity.
Rubio, Cruz, Ryan, Haley, and Pence are Independents, they have been since November 2016. Pence is politically dead, he has been since Trump blamed him for his landslide loss. Cruz helped rig the election according to Trump. Ryan and Rubio were losers, unable to help stop the evil one. Trump’s supporters will buy into this rhetoric.
Rudy Giuliani is posturing for national attention and a Republican bid in 2020. He’s proving he’s every bit the lunatic Trump is, and that pretty much guaranties he’ll have the same following.
Clinton vs. Giuliani in 2020.
About kind of moderation what you expect from the Moderator party.
But seriously, the comment is obviously true (although the 60% is just a guess). The question is, what can be done to get people to vote in the primaries? Or what else to do. I can still barely recall the day that primaries were less important and the candidates really were chosen in smoke-filled rooms in the convention. Un-democratic as all get out, but the effect was to produce candidates that appealed to the moderate voters.
One improvement I could think of is one national primary to prevent the inexorable building of momentum. Then institute preference voting. And have it span a weekend so you don’t have to take off work or offend religous sensibilities.
By 2020 I’ll have a job and money, so the next election will mean absolutely nothing to me (I’ve got no debt, also). Also it will be interesting to see what happens to Trump’s assets after losing (Trump Towers, Mar-a-lago, etc), but I probably won’t care.
If I have to guess, unless Trump does win this year (unlikely, but it’s not September yet (no one ask about October, September is where the action truly starts- in 2008 the crash started that month)), I’ll vote whoever is looking popular. It’s like the Super Bowl- the Bears aren’t in it, so I take a tossup to see who will win.
I’m gonna stand by this prediction.
This thread offers an interesting glimpse back in time.
Would be in the GOP’s interest to do this anyway, even though Trump won.
Boy, does it ever. In the OP, you could replace every “Trump” or “Republicans” with “Hillary” or “Democrats,” and it would almost be a cogent analysis (as it turned out)…for example, which party is (or should be) concerned about how the primary process played out now? (I say this as a Hillary supporter who was annoyed by much of the Bernie fervor, and who remains unconvinced that anyone could have stopped Trump in the end, but still.)
This. I read the whole OP before I went back and checked the date. But it is still a good analysis for the dangers to the GOP.
Trump will be running for re-election in 2020, absent health issues and/or major scandal. And by “major” I don’t mean the kind of things that have already been kicked around - something real. One danger might be that the Dems have screamed “wolf” so much over the next four years that people tune them out. like Democrats thought happened with Hillary and her scandals. Or perhaps the GOP will be stuck with a losing candidate because of something that did stick with the electorate, but they can’t dump Trump. And that the GOP won’t revamp their primary process, because it picked a winner in 2016. That, however, might be more an issue in 2024 because, come what might, the current President gets re-nominated unless the party to which he belongs wants to lose.
What will the Dems do? Their primary process is heavily weighted to picking another establishment Democrat, and Hillary, the ultimate establishment Democrat, lost. Are they going to go with an outsider? It can’t be Bernie - he is way too old. It won’t be Hillary again - she has had two grabs at the golden ring, and came up short twice. Third time lucky doesn’t apply, and she will be (I think) 73 and even less charismatic. The Dems are also at a significant disadvantage if they want a fresh face - most governorships in the US are Republicans, and most state legislatures are GOP controlled as well, so Dems don’t get a chance to shine.
What does the GOP do with a RINO President? I suppose it depends on what the RINO does. Maybe the best-case scenario is that the GOP Congress keeps the RINO in line, and the RINO keeps the GOP Congress in line, in terms of not doing anything too radical.
Or who knows? Certainly not me - I was consistently wrong about everything in 2016.
Regards,
Shodan