Bush was the President who had his Vice President running a secret shadow government, started a war despite knowing his reasons for that war were a lie, established secret bases where he locked up and tortured his enemies, funneled government money to conservative churches, bungled the economy, and botched the response to a major natural disaster.
The main difference between being a Bush Republican and a Trump Republican seems to be that a Bush Republican puts more effort into hiding the worst aspects of what he’s doing. Bush wouldn’t brag about being able to murder somebody in the street; he would have somebody arrested on fabricated charges and then killed quietly in some hidden location. Some people like this because a Bush Republican makes it easy to look the other way and pretend the terrible things aren’t happening.
2016, Clinton outspent Trump almost 2-1, and Trump won.
2020, Trump out spent Biden by about 14 percent, and Biden won.
Of course, I cherry-picked.
There’s some research showing a small advantage to the candidate who raises more money. The question then is — do people donate more to someone they think will win?
Ah, you’re being generous. But you forgot expanding domestic surveillance to a massive scale, invalidating numerous civil rights in the name of national security, increasing the national debt by an order of magnitude, dumping literal shipping containers of cash into the Middle East without traceability or accountability, expanding covert warfare and use of drones throughout the Middle East and Africa, and in general squandering all good will the United States had post-Cold War and after September 11th attacks.
I never argued that Trump will lose the primary. He might not. I think he’s still the favorite at this moment. But I was showing that what Aspenglow was predicting was already happening to an extent.
Though you do have a good point that there could be some debate over how much of an electoral advantage you have just from spending more.
The danger with DeSantis is that he will appear palatable to the “swing voters,” who I believe are generally less informed than we political wonks on social media.
It took enough of them four years to recognize the glaring awfulness of Trump because of their inability to pay attention; Dems will be hard pressed to educate them to the authoritarianism inherent in DeSantis.
Pretty much my exact point from the other thread. Those on the left will think a Republican win will destroy the country. Those on the right will think a Democratic win will destroy the country. Neither are ever right. Another Trump win just might. Another Trump loss when he convinces even more that it was stolen from him just might. It’s not a matter of bad politics it’s actual danger.
Yet more people voted for T**** the second time around than the first. I’m hoping a fair number of folks who voted for him fell away in 2020 but that means even more people who didn’t bother to vote in 2016, after four years of headlines figured he was just what this country needed. I find that disheartening.