For Republicans, particularly primary voters, getting a bunch of people with no integrity is a feature, not a bug. These are exactly the kind of people they WANT controlling the levers of power.
This may be true for some people. They might not understand the good points of democracy, and they might not appreciate it until it isn’t there. I think democracy will survive for many years, if any lessons have been learned.
I do not think it is true the majority of people, or Republicans, really do not value integrity in their own lives or the greater system. But if what you say in public is greatly different from what you say in private, you might be on the spectrum of inconsistent, hypocritical, disingenuous, dishonest or worse.
I’ve gone on record before as saying that I’m not sure he lives long enough to serve another full term. I’m not convinced that he lives long enough to see the 2024 election results.
From your lips to Satan’s ears.
Well, now he’s got his Twitter account back.
You and what seems like hundreds of other posters in these threads, for years now. And I just repeat my also-on-record “now watch him live to be a hundred”.
Elon had to do something for the US media to want to stay following Twitter and relaying what appears there.
Because let’s face it: our news media will, again, make their standard lead “LOOK LOOK LOOK WHAT TRUMP SAID NOW!!!” &^%$# addicts…
Yes, but “Truth” Social is a far superior platform because it’s Trump’s. If he abandons, or slows his contibutions to, his own platform so that he can focus more of his insane paranoid lying bullshit to Twitter, then that would mean that he likes Twitter better.
Good thing honesty doesn’t mean jack fucking shit to him.
Since this thread is really about Trump vs the other R candidates, I’ll paraphrase something I said a few days ago in another P&E thread:
If Trump’s followers and the news media quickly turn this into the all-Trump news cycle, he’ll win the primary. If the reaction is more ho-hum, DeSantis or somebody else will.
Welp, now that Trump has announced his candidacy and is back on Twitter (at least until it folds), we’re now running my experiment.
How fast will (or won’t) everybody be talking about him tweeting?
Here’s a shocker: Trumps recent public appearance with famously antisemitic Nick Fuentes forces senior republicans to conclude Trump is “unfit” as a candidate in 2024. Stop the presses. 
Senior Republicans say Trump unfit to be 2024 candidate after he met anti-Semite (msn.com)
I’m sure this news will send MAGA world into a tailspin. Oh my god!! We just noticed…he’s exercising poor judgement!!!
If a dinner with Kanye West and friends is the ultimate cause of Trump’s long overdue downfall, I’m going to stop following American politics completely. Politics isn’t a horse race anymore; it’s a slot machine. Totally unpredictable.
I don’t think it’s unpredictable. I think the White Whale is bleeding, and the sharks are starting to circle. This episode is just one of many, and perhaps enough blubber has finally been exposed to embolden the sharks.
These sorts of stories represent little more than posturing by other right wing hopefuls in the unlikely event that other candidates ultimately beat Trump for the primary nomination. They rely on these sorts of ‘stories’ to create background noise needed to even start conversations about a post-Trump GOP. The fact that Trump consistently exercises poor judgement isn’t news to anyone. The fact that some on the right are now trying make this an issue is news.
Bottom line, no one is going to beat Trump in a primary. He’d sooner destroy the party then let that happen. If it appears likely that he’s going to lose the primary, he’ll find some excuse to drop out of the race. Or go full vengeance mode and spoil the chances of whoever else gets the nomination.
So, if I understand things correctly, the Secret Service would have to approve anyone coming to have dinner with tfg. I am really curious if they warned against it and were or ignored something else.
THey’re not political advisors, they’re security. Why would they warn against dining with a white supremacist? As long as he doesn’t pose a security threat, it’s none of their business.
I doubt Nick Fuentes would count as a physical threat to Trump. That, I believe, is the extent of their approval process. Ye, on the other hand…
The way Trump loses the primary would be for the Trump worshippers to transfer allegiance to somebody else. Note that (at least in my taxonomy) Trump worshippers are a subset of the MAGA crowd which are in turn a subset of the right-leaning half of our beleaguered country.
If someone, perhaps DeSantis, gets a wedge between Trump & his worshippers and suddenly they see they have a shiny new King to worship, Trump may want to wreck the GOP as @Cardigan and others have said. But without followers, he can’t do much. The nature of slavish followers is, well, they follow slavishly. It may take much less than we think / expect to peel away some layer of his followers and suddenly the crowd all wants to follow the crowd that’s now worshipping the new King / Strongman.
For certain, if much of the RW propaganda-o-sphere throws their worship mongering behind e.g., DeSantis, that will greatly accelerate the transition. Eyeballs follow media follows eyeballs follows media and that feedback loop rapidly delivers a whole new paradigm.
Note I’m not predicting that Trump will lose the primary. I’m just predicting that if that does happen, it will more or less follow this script.
Yes, I suppose Fuentes isn’t a physical threat. I think I was imagining myself with a Secret Service Detail. I’m sure I’d develop a closeness with some of the agents and I’d probably even ask them to let me know if I was about to do something stupid.
I forgot for a moment who we are discussing.
Thanks for the laugh!
That’s not the Secret Service’s job. That’s this guy’s job:
I can’t see him ever doing that, as that is LOSER behavior.
I definitely can see him doing that. Scorched earth, and all that.