ask yourself this - who, uniquely, would have benefitted had they succeeded? who was hoping for whatever delays they were causing to last ‘just a bit longer’ along with throwing things into confusion?
I posted upthread that the Supremes are scheduled to have a conference about a Amendment 14, Sec 3 case on the 26th of this month.The meeting is about whether to grant certatori (hear the case) or not. It’s not getting much news for some reason.
The guy who has repeatedly said he wants to be president for life of the United States. Donald Trump.
The more significant, and much harder, question is — will the world be better off if the Republicans are forced to nominate someone else.
Biden is unpopular, as is Trump. Any Republican nominee is likely — guaranteed no, but likely — to beat unpopular Joe Biden if Trump is out. If it’s someone who in her secret heart wants to beat down the populist fever — Nikki Haley — it will be worth it to me. But if this leads to President DeSantis, it probably is not. (And for Democrats who care most about Supreme Court decisions, including abortion, President Haley will not have been worth it either.)
P.S. Another question is whether Trump will only be the first of several disqualified candidates. I’m thinking no, but it is worth thinking about.
Shouldn’t that be “Any serious Republican nominee”? If such a creature was for real. “Serious” might narrow it down a little.
With Trump bitching and pissing and moaning and whining about the GOP being stolen from him unfairly? Biden will get over 55% of the votes cast.
I may see where you are coming from (Trump is an idiot; elections are won by base turnout) but disagree.
Trump would have a strong disincentive to pissing off the GOP nominee, who almost surely would dangle a possible pardon to be considered only after all appeals are exhausted.
P.S. Trump would be moaning over the Supreme Court decision concerning his ballot access. The GOP nominee would be piously saying that they had wanted Trump to be on the primary ballot.
Wouldn’t matter. If anyone but Trump gets the nomination, under any circumstances, that person gets on Trump’s enemy list. And once you’re on the enemy list, the scorpion stings you even if it’s in the middle of the river.
If that person had nothing to do with getting Trump off the ballot, why would Trump hate them? Is that too much logic for Trump to handle, and he’ll just hate anyone who has what he wanted, regardless?
He’d do it anyway. It’s the scorpion and the frog all over again.
I wonder if this is wishful thinking.
Insulting a judge is a lot different than insulting a chief executive. Judges pride themselves on having a judicial temperament where they don’t let their emotions decide how they rule. DeSantis and company work differently.
From the WaPo:
Telling his supporters not to vote for the GOP nominee has no comparable upside for Trump.
Even without pardon-dangling, Trump will want the GOP candidate to win. If Trump is sentenced to confinement, even an anti-pardon GOP POTUS will have multiple ways to put their finger on the scales of justice, including shortening the sentence and allowing elite level health care in the almost inevitable event that Trump claims illness.
And yet, he refused to pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee this year and ended up getting himself exiled from the nationally-televised GOP primary debates, and instead had an interview with Tucker posted on Twitter or wherever.
Yes, I do think Trump is that petty. He has been in the past and will be in the future. It’s not wishful thinking, it’s paying attention.
Remember how he pounded hard in 2020 about how the elections were no longer legitimate and people shouldn’t vote? And then the GOP lost two seats in Georgia in very close Senate races during the runoffs.
This is what he does. He doesn’t think of “upside”, he acts out of spite, not strategy.
Agreed. If you think he won’t be spiteful if the GOP maneuvers to nominate someone else, then you haven’t been paying attention to the last 7 or 8 years. His body runs on spite as much as oxygen.
The debate refusal move was normie. When a politician is as far ahead in the primary polls as Trump is, making an excuse, however implausible, to avoid debating, is common.
See:
As for refusal to pledge to support their party’s eventual nominee, before knowing who it might be, they all should refuse.
It was a bad move.
And you cited an article talking about nominees who chose not to debate their opponents in a race. Not politicians trying to get a nomination in a primary. I don’t think it’s “normie” at all.
But I think I made my point very strongly. History supports me.
Democratic control of the Senate doesn’t hurt Trump personally. Democratic control of the White House while DJT was incarcerated would.
Not as much now, though as long as the Republican Party is the Party of Trump, any control they have is helpful to him. But when he was sabotaging the Senate, he was still under the impression that he could be in the White House. You really think that he wouldn’t want control of the Senate while starting his second term in office? 
The fact is, he doesn’t think like that. He lashes out at people all the time impulsively when it isn’t to his benefit. He might get himself tossed in jail any day now because he can’t stop attacking people he doesn’t like. You’re not paying attention.
A Democratic POTUS doesn’t even have the power to deny him a second pillow if he’s in a Georgia prison.
Good point.
See:
No incumbent president has participated in a primary debate since Ford
From a GOP POV, Trump is as close as one can be to being an incumbent. Why risk shaking up the nomination race? Isn’t that Biden’s logic:
Poll: Eight in 10 Democratic primary voters want Joe Biden to debate
In my view, eight in ten Democratic primary votes are mistaken. Sitting on a big lead is rational behavior.
There’s a big difference between being the actual incumbent, and already having the nomination, and being a frontrunner in a primary where you have a big lead, at least for now.
Getting back to the actual subject of this thread, there is a strong reason why he shouldn’t take that nomination for granted (the fallout from his insurrection/election fraud plot). The same argument for why he should be disqualified to hold office is a large reason why he’s facing criminal charges, and why he should be taking the nomination seriously. Vivek Ramaswamy is suddenly a name you hear all the time now because of that debate, but nobody is talking about Trump’s chat with Tucker. Here’s an article:
So let’s say Trump is incarcerated, and that he falls behind. Maybe it’s a combination of people not wanting to vote for a convict, and his inability to campaign from prison, and the rise of one of the people vying to take his place. Trump would still wield some power, though.
From that article above:
The mushrooming brawl, sparked at the August Republican debate, laid bare Donald Trump’s dominance in the primary and other candidates’ aversion to drawing his ire or that of his diehard supporters, even though they’re all going to have to leapfrog the former president if they hope to snag the GOP nomination.
Trump still has the MAGA crowd, and in the case where someone gets the Republican nomination ahead of Trump, who do you think needs whom more? Trump, who could rip apart a nominee (even if it’s through an intermediary, as he often did when he was banned from multiple media platforms) or the GOP candidate who might win and might pardon Trump for federal charges? (Even though they can’t pardon him for any state charges he faces in Georgia and New York currently.)
I can guarantee you who has the ego to think they are the one with the power in that situation…
GOP lawyer with ties to three Trump rivals enters 14th Amendment fray
From later in the above quoted WaPo article:
Oh wow, now that is juicy.