Will you peeps please stop continuing the Tucker Carlson support? Ain’t gonna happen. GOP ain’t gonna be too happy with another star from teevee. Tucker will not be nommed.
Yes, please bookmark this post for 2025 when Fucker Carlson is sworn in. I know you’ll enjoy that. 
You’re the first person to point that out (at least in this thread). And it’s worth remembering. The Trump clan fully intends to become a political / kleptocratic dynasty on a scale never before seen.
We’ll be pounding stakes into the hearts of these vampires for decades. Even assuming the best outcome in 2020 it won’t be over in 2024 or even 2028.
Yeah. However Trump leaves office, the “kids” will find a way to spin it to the white-supremacist base as a martyrdom. Even if the older kids are indicted, tried, and convicted, they will hold fast to the narrative of a Deep State who opposed their wonderfulness and is persecuting them.
But one thing about 2024 and 2028: surviving Republicans will have very little taste for the lives they know they’d lead under Trump dictators (Don Jr., Ivanka, or whoever). They’ve lived the last four years in a state of continuous high-alert—even the fully complicit true-believers like Devin Nunes, and many of the GOP governors (Ron DeSantis, Brian Kemp, Greg Abbott, etc.). Not all of them will want to live more years in that state of constant anxiety about pleasing the High and Mighty.
So, yes, the kids will try to retain power. They may find that their path isn’t being smoothed in the way to which they’ve become accustomed, however.
Nah. The thing about the Trump kids is, they’re boring - whatever quality Trump has that fascinates voters, his spawn lack. They’re not like Bobby or Ted Kennedy, where if you squinted a bit, you could see JFK. You squint at the Trump kids, all you see is a blur.
All they have is a name. You know who else had a name? Jeb Bush.
To the degree Trump has installed enough loyalists deep enough, and created enough lasting corrupt contracts through his shells, the clan may well continue to enjoy the fruits of the “klepto-deep state” they’ve worked hard to install these last 4 years. A la Marcos, Fujimori, and another hundred names we all recognize. Recognize that these folks aren’t loyal politically, they’re loyal financially because they’re getting paid under the table to behave a certain way. Or are collecting a “commission” directly as part of the process of feeding money & influence towards the clan.
Plus the clan may still be able to collect pay-to-play fees for their access to those elected and appointed Rs that are still like-minded. Think Hunter Biden’s escapades on megadoses of steroids.
As much as the USA really doesn’t want to encourage a thoroughgoing purge of officialdom at each change of administration, we really need one this time to stop the rot.
Don’t forget that even if Trump is gone, the know-nothing rejectionist conspiracy theory mindset of the Trumpist voters will remain and some enterprising politicians will be trying real hard to collect those voters. I agree the Trump kids are mostly a shadowy blur, but they’re also in the shade of a pretty bright light right now. If Dad is talking them up that may also be powerful.
I doubt it. That kind of corruption requires either approval at the top (like the Trump administration) or at least friendly indifference (like the Reagan administration). Even a minimum of concern for the law clears it up. A Democratic administration, even if it had no principled opposition to corruption, would still have no reason to tolerate corruption that’s benefiting holdovers from a Republican administration.
Trumps flip flops exposes trumps unhinged mindset
16 January 2020
The world’s two largest economies have been locked in a bitter trade battle.
The dispute has seen the US and China impose tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of one another’s goods.
US President Donald Trump has long accused China of unfair trading practices and intellectual property theft.
In China, there is a perception that America is trying to curb its rise as a global economic power.
June 17, 2020 at 7:15 p.m. CD
Trump asked China’s Xi to help him win reelection , according to Bolton book
President Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win the 2020 U.S. election, telling Xi during a summit dinner last year that increased agricultural purchases by Beijing from American farmers would aid his electoral prospects,
JULY 7, 2020
Why China Wants Trump to Win
Four more years might present tantalizing opportunities for Beijing to expand its influence around East Asia and the world.
July 18, 2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s “ban” on travel from China is his go-to point when defending his response to the coronavirus pandemic. The problem with his core argument starts with the fact that he did not ban travel from China. He imposed porous restrictions.
Over the past week, Trump cited his China action repeatedly and as part of a scattered indictment of Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden.
Do you have any idea why you are supporting trump-?
Please check the appropriate box or boxes below—
NOTE: a lie here will haunt you for the remainder of your life
[ ] I like his haircut
[ ] Trump is rich
[ ] Trump is a genius
[ ] Trump promised me he would lower my rent
[ ] my neighbor told me to do so
[ ] _________________________
the Lord is watching
You forgot
he hates the same people that I do.
I’d be very surprised if Trump decided not to run for reelection - doesn’t seem at all likely, given how much he loves the spotlight - but I know just how he’d do it if he did. From his Oval Office speech: “I only needed four years to make America great again. No one else could have done it that fast! Having already accomplished more than any President in history, here’s no need for me to serve another four years.”
Then he would not lift a finger to help the pathetically-loyal Mike Pence win the GOP nomination, as other candidates came running (even in this unfriendly political climate for Republicans).
I think he would try to sabotage Pence’s candidacy. I feel that at some level Trump knows he is losing (even though he refuses to admit it’s his fault). The last thing he would want is to see another Republican succeed in an election he failed at.
Also entirely plausible, given his selfishness and lack of loyalty to those who are loyal to him.
LBJ was a longtime congressman and a member of his party, dedicated to advancing its goals and smart enough to understand that Vietnam was a complete and utter disaster.
Let’s admit the obvious, Donald Trump has bungled COVID-19 hard, his actions may have directly lead to the death of Herman Cain, on top of desecrating American prestige around the world, directly giving evidence of police brutality to demonstrators seeking to stop it; was impeached for non-blowjob reasons, and the ramifications of poor, pay to play government may lead to a pile of scandals for another decade.
These GOP operatives are probably asking the question. The establishment has ultimately knelt to Trump, and carried water to the point of Stoogecraft, to the point where their votes on impeachment give them their own scarlet letter to wear. After failing to make common cause in the primary, failing to protect the guardrails inside the administration, and refusing to challenge Trump as he commits increasingly egregious acts, the sky has simply fallen.
If Trump drops out, the presidential election is a bust; the GOP loses momentum on getting people to vote. In normal times, this is a disaster and why party leaders would pick a strong character to try to run–even if they lose, they narrow the lead of the other party. We’re talking electoral bloodbath here, they very don’t want to do this.
Except if Trump stays in, its the same bloodbath, but with a variety more baggage. Trump isn’t going to win re-election, he’s not going to make the election close; instead, he will continue to demand fealty to himself. He will pull many candidates into the rain gutter with him, and perhaps more hauntingly, that baggage may do so for many years afterward.
Trump has beaten the odds in 2016. I’m not sure how you look at being down 3% in key states, somehow eking out a win, and then decide that polls showing you down by 10% is grounds to quit–I think a lot of rational people would stick it out. There is the added consequence that Trump personally may only be avoiding arrest because the DoJ is run by Barr and has policies against going after a sitting president, so staying in office means delaying that reckoning.
One things matters to Trump, himself. Unless he was convinced that his personal well being was on the line, he will stay in office.
I wonder what he would do to sabotage the Republicans?
He keeps telling people he’s a Republican.
@Little_Nemo Agree. But …
Even if he never says that again, and hadn’t been for the last 2-ish years, it’s still the case that the Trumpist part of the electorate are far more natural R voters than D voters.
He could announce a new party, the “T” party tomorrow. And those voters would still vote R over D in any race where a T candidate wasn’t running.
Bottom line: Trump claiming, or not claiming to be an R is a distinction without a difference. Especially at this late date.
The US system cannot support 3 parties. Between existing law, organizational inertia, and game theory, it just doesn’t work. So either the Trumpist enthusiasts go back to sleep and quit voting, or one party or the other widens their tent enough to embrace them long term. My contention above says it’s the Rs that’ll be doing that accommodating.
Which raises the specter of a permanent authoritarian party in the USA. Which will eventually get lucky and hold all 3 power centers simultaneously.