I agree, but Trump’s delegates would be highly unlikely to pick her if the RNC ruled out DJT due to being indisposed.
How do you figure? 20% of the voters will vote for Trump, even if they have to write in his name. Haley gets 35%, Biden gets 45%. Hello, Biden second term.
It’s not the popular vote I’d be worried about. It’ seems like those percentages are all about the national voting numbers. I think putting Haley into the mix would really move the needle to the right in critical states (like Michigan). I mean Biden isn’t polling very well right now in key states… and he’s running against a fucking monster…
Part of what was appealing about Biden (and still is to a certain degree) is that he is everything Donald Trump isn’t. People were HIGHLY motivated to vote for Biden because he wasn’t a fucking monster. Now, four years later, he’s running against the same fucking monster, and yet people are now sorta saying “Meh. Biden’s not so great.” (yeah, I don’t get it, but they are.) Now if you take the fear of four more years of Trump out of the equation entirely, and you put up a young, dynamic woman who is also a serious and experienced politician, and Biden might be in trouble in those swing states. Because the motivation to vote against a monster isn’t there anymore. Because there’s less urgency to vote for the Dem. Because Haley would be shiny and new and promising shit that might perk up the ears of suburban women and independents who fled Trump. Sure, diehard MAGAts wouldn’t turn out, but she’d still get Republicans and possibly many independents.
Plus Biden’s not such a great campaigner, and he’s old as dirt. I’d be really worried if he was actually going up against a skilled campaigner who wasn’t a fucking monster and had the energy of youth.
I think this is all true. For the first time in 8 years, Democratic voters like me might have to consider how disappointed or scared we would be if a non-Trump Republican were president. It’s gonna happen some day, right?
Remember how we felt in 2000, and 2004. Sad and rather worried, but not utterly despondent. Our concerns wee (and would be again) mainly about things like potential Supreme Court vacancies, and maybe foreign policy issues like unnecessary wars or pulling out of climate change agreements. (Also the way Republicans fuck up the economy, but that’s just a given).
So, the question is how much a Haley (or similar) presidency would be infected with Trumpism in ways that really matter in a practical sense. I actually think the answer is “not much.” America’s 80 million fascist assholes would mostly return to their echo chamber ranting — not quite the rock they were under before 2016, but I’ll take it.
I dunno. Haley or Trump are still both going to want to implement the 2025 Project. That’s what I’m mostly concerned about.
I don’t think Haley would. If a genie came to me and offered a choice between a Haley presidency and letting Trump vs Biden play out, I’d probably take it.
GOP propaganda- “The economy is horrible, we are in a recession! … crime is out of control!” All ies, but the media loves spreading bad news not good news. You will rarely hear that violent crime is down- instead you will hear of “brazen mass shoplifting rings” and “McDonalds prices are way up!”.
So the media is helping trump.
Maybe not. The GOP has lost the demographics war, and it is only getting worse. That’s why they appealed to the racists in the Southern Strategy.
I agree 100%. It sucks, but it’s working (to the detriment of democracy).
New Brian Karem article in which he reiterates his opinion that Trump won’t be on the ballot:
“For months I’ve maintained that Trump will not be on the ballot in November. I believe that the Republicans now have the leverage they need to take back their party from the MAGA extremists - if they have the energy to do so. If the Republican Party wishes to survive, Trump will not be on the ballot in the fall. Let’s be blunt: Republicans love to win. That alone could sway many of those who secretly like Trump but realize that he could lose.”
It could help them, and the country. But it could also backfire. If they drop Trump at this stage in the game, my guess is that they would still lose the presidency. If that’s the case, and especially if they also lose marginal seats in congress, their slice of Congress will become more extreme and conclude that they lost the election because they weren’t extreme enough.
The good news is that if they drop Trump, he won’t come back, because they don’t like loser felons. But I’m not sure if swapping an incompetent outright authoritarian for a competent only-slightly-less-authoritarian would be any better.
This is something that I don’t hear about as much as we should. We have been watching the Rs in Congress as they gradually (but accelerating) get more and more hardline over the past 30 years and how every time there is a flip the conclusion is “we weren’t conservative enough” and what happens is the next cycle over it’s the even-more-wackjob that are the ones that gain in the primaries for county, state assembly and Congress races. The mere absence of Trump will not rid us of a couple hundred members of Congress and two dozen viable presidential aspirants who do want all the things he and the Millers, Bannons, 2025 Projects and Heritage Foundations of the political world want.
I really really hope this is accurate.
Oops, Convict Dickhead’s polling numbers ain’t looking too copacetic this morning:
Common sense and the actions of Trump and his campaign (the desperate way they fought against it and reaction to it) should tell you that of course being convicted is going to hurt him.
There are people who will pretend otherwise as propaganda but it’s smoke and mirrors.
The GOP has not won the popular vote for president since 1988, when Dukakis lost.
One of the last eight—W had 3 million more votes than Kerry in 2004.
They won in 04.
OOps. Still, overall the GOP has been losing the popular vote. I.e they have lost the demographic war. They now have to depend on voter suppression, gerrymandering, and the Electoral college.
I totally agree, except that we do not know how long it will hurt him.
If he were to be convicted, a second time, say, a week before Election Day, there is no way he could win.
No, I am not disputing that. The election is months away and it might ultimately have no real impact. But the idea that it would help him is ridiculous.