Maybe not on every issue, but his praise of white supremacists, his own racist statements, and his administration’s racist policies qualify as “radical right wing”.
I don’t know about that. Seems to me that in a lot of ways, they’re shifting left in response to public opinion. Stuff like UHC, gay rights, etc… are all accepted parts of all of their platforms, and that stuff was not in the cards 20 years ago.
Look at Biden- even his positions have shifted left over the years.
Dude, get Trump out (not that I think Joe can do it though).
I used to think that. But the past year or so has disabused me of that notion.
Trump’s been able to remove the guardrails to a remarkable extent. Now that he can have acting Cabinet members who’ve not been confirmed by the Senate for a Cabinet-level post, but apparently now all they need is to have been confirmed for some minor post earlier on, he’s been able to surround himself with toadies who don’t bring any loyalty to their department or even to their own knowledge and understanding to the job. Hell, even Jeff Sessions had a few scruples - not many, but enough to give us the Mueller investigation. And the Supreme Court all too unsurprisingly seems to be willing to give Trump just about as much freedom to act as he wants, and ditto for freedom from oversight.
Really, there’s no telling what he’ll be able to do with another nearly 5 years as President. I think we’d still have a 2024 election, but I’d be lying if I said I was certain.
I don’t know about that. Seems to me that in a lot of ways, they’re shifting left in response to public opinion. Stuff like UHC, gay rights, etc… are all accepted parts of all of their platforms, and that stuff was not in the cards 20 years ago.
Look at Biden- even his positions have shifted left over the years.
He’s the first President to support gay marriage at the time of his election. Obama shifted mid-2nd term.
He supports state’s rights when it comes to abortion.
He’s definitely not a fiscal conservative.
But, he does successfully appeal to those on the right in the way that he “postures” himself. That’s pretty much why he’s President.
Your premise obviously is that Trump is EXTREMELY right wing… How’s that? What is it that he has done that is EXTREME? Trying to keep out people who aren’t supposed to be here? Letting Israel decide where their own Capital is? ( after we voted to do it 25 years ago! ) Stands up to China, North Korea and ISIS? Enjoys Christian support? Doesn’t like overbearing regulation?
I think ya’ll have completely lost it. And being all overcome with TDJ only hurts your positions… I makes YOUR positions look extreme.
Look, BY DEFINITION, If right at half of America has those same believe’s than obviously it’s NOT extreme. It’s at least FAIRLY MAINSTREAM. You may disagree with it but that doesn’t make HIS position extreme, it makes YOURS at least non-mainstream and maybe the one who IS extreme.
Putting children in concentration camps doesn’t keep them out, it keeps them in. I don’t know what TDJ is, but I’m pretty sure you’d have to do some pretty fancy footwork to convince me that not putting children in concentration camps is an extreme position.
I don’t even know what TDJ stands for.
As far as moderate Republicans in the WH are concerned, we basically had them in 1993-2001 and 2009-2017.
I’m one of those guys who views “moderate” as an absolute quantity, not subject to variations imposed by that Overton character.
Re-reading the OP, it seems to assume some “business as usual” model, in which the D and R parties both remain viable. But this is not correct.
The GOP is trying to destroy American democracy. They make no secret of it: they brag about suppressing Democratic votes, and their gerrymandering. In Wisconsin they jacked-off to their own cleverness of suppressing mail-in ballots and forcing long voter queues during a pandemic. There’s an excellent chance that the D’s will win the popular vote in November but the Rs will find some ways to cheat and remain in power.
The Rs continue to do huge damage to American institutions including its democracy. If they retain power they will continue to usurp the democracy; they may find ways to retain power for decades. OTOH, if the Ds manage to win in November despite GOP cheating, they can undo some of the damage. In free elections with fair information, and voters awakened to GOP perfidy, the present Republican Party may wither away.
Therefore questions like OP’s — “Will you trade the 2022 election for the 2024 election? What about 2026?” — miss the whole point. *** Americans must come to their senses and win THIS election … before it’s too late.***
If I have to live under 4 more years of a Republican president, let’s just re-elect the drooling idiot. The Trump bomb has already exploded and turned the GOP into a crime syndicate. We can’t risk electing one who actually knows how to do the job and wield the levers of power effectively.
For all the horrors Trump has brought us, I feel like it’s been blunted by the fact that he’s ideologically rootless, pathetically incompetent, obsessed by his popularity, and distracted by his business interests. Mostly all he’s done is tear down the accomplishments of his betters and fiddle while Rome burns.
I agree with HMS Irruncible. At this point, we may as well assume that any Republican leader will be evil and corrupt. That Trump is a drooling idiot too incompetent to maximize damage is his one saving grace.
Yes, he’s babyish enough to Push the Nuclear Button in a tantrum, but I think adults at DoD have probably disconnected his Button.
Yes, yes, yes.
When will people finally get it? No Republican should ever win an election until the party falls apart and reconstitutes itself without the bigotry and hate. No Republican, ever, at any level of government, for any reason, even is the Democratic opponent is a murder hornet.
Trump is merely the logical culmination of the Republican party since Nixon. Trump isn’t responsible for all the red states; they preceded him. He isn’t responsible for the Tea Party or the NRA or the white supremacists. But a blue wave in November makes a huge step toward ending the plague.
Take scenario two, replace Biden with Sanders, and the rest of the scenario is what is fairly likely to happen.
So yeah, I’ll take that.
How are you defining “half of America”? There were 237 million eligible voters, and 62 million voted for Donald Trump? By my math that’s 26%. That’s not half. Learn to count.
And never forget, more Americans chose Hillary over Trump. Don’t ever pretend he’s more popular and don’t pretend he represents half of America. Trump won because half of America didn’t choose anybody at all.
^ This. Any hypothetical that includes the idea that Trump winning in 2020 will set up the Democrats for BIG WINS in 2022 and 2024, is null and void. Trump winning in 2020 will set up Putin-style elections for the rest of our lives, in which the Glorious Leader gets 95% of the vote (to make it look good).
I strongly suspect that no such hypothetical is ever made in good faith. These “just asking questions” exercises are intended to sell the idea that there’s no real need to work against Trump’s re-election, because We Just Might Be Better Off If He’s Re-Elected, riiiight!!!1???
Wrong.
^ This, too.
There are 3 things that Trump wants to accomplish during his time in office
-
Stopping the immigration of non-white people into the US
-
“Growing the economy” by doing the following. Please notice that, coincidentally, these items all serve to personally enrich Donald Trump
a. Altering the tax code so that the wealthy individuals and corporations pay as little tax as possible. He also really wants to bring back extravagant entertainment tax deductions for wealthy businessmen.
b. Altering labor and environmental restrictions on businesses so they can enrich themselves by trashing the environment and screwing over their workers
c. Altering monetary policy so interest rates are artificially low in perpetuity, meaning cheap money for the Trump Organization.
- Eliminating the enforcement of laws against white collar crime and the prosecution of white collar criminals in all but the most egregious cases. Obviously, this benefits Trump and friends personally.
He doesn’t care about anything else. As long as the Republican leadership gives him those things, he’ll give them anything else they want and he’ll endorse those ideas like they were his own, he’s a pitchman, a huckster, he can sell anything.
It’s their grand bargain. The Republican Party sees Trump as a murder weapon and they traded their soul for it.
I can’t think of a Republican I would trust any more than I trust Trump. Elected Republicans, I guess I meant to say. They all seem to have swallowed the Trump narrative. Some of them (Romney, for example) have offered the mildest token resistance but fuck 'em all. If they are willing to have that “R” after their name…they are as bad as Trump in my opinion.
I’d go for this scenario in a heartbeat.
Sanders has essentially zero chance of bringing about anything he proposes. A Democrat-controlled House, and even a narrowly Democrat-controlled Senate, isn’t going to do what he wants - it would have to be a democratic socialist-controlled House and Senate, and that won’t happen. So, two years of deadlock and bumbling, followed by four years of moderate Republicanism (Romney would be a dream candidate for me) and then four more years of deadlock, where Democrats try to get stuff done over a GOP veto and filibuster.
Works for me. Some of the time we would be getting better, at least some of the time we wouldn’t be getting worse.
Regards,
Shodan
No they don’t. This is entirely the problem.
A better priority would be getting Republicans out of everywhere else, and the Senate in particular. A Senate (and Senate Leader) that wasn’t openly running interference for Trump would be able to exercise its oversight powers and reaffirm the rule of law. We could have an impeachment trial in which actual evidence and witnesses were presented. The White House’s agenda wouldn’t be automatically rubber-stamped. And accountability would be reintroduced.
No one in the GOP is a fiscal conservative. Rush has even confirmed it. It’s all talk and it’s been all talk for a long, long time.