Eric Trump
- Instant name recognition
- Closest possible association with the Donald
- Christian Positivist
- No political baggage
Pair him with Kari Lake and you have a winning combo for '28 (or perhaps '24).
…wouldn’t the name Donald Trump Jr be closer?
I hope very much the Republicans chose such feckless losers for the next election.
That’s their constituency.
The scum of the earth are all the MAGAciles who now feel their worst inner racial demons are validated, not particular politicians.
Perhaps so, it’s plug and play.
And I wasn’t a competent enough baseball player to start in centerfield for the Yankees. That doesn’t mean I didn’t want to.
His base is the key word here. Trump’s base was never more than 30% of voters. The remaining GOP voting block was prepared to vote for Trump but not committed to the cause. Hence why he was beaten in 2020 and stands a good chance of losing this year.
If the GOP can come up with a more competent fascist who can inspire the same loyalty Trump does in the whole GOP voting block, then we are in trouble.
But seriously 2025 is the time to start worrying about that. The main thing we can do now to prevent it is making sure Trump’s loss is so humiliating and total that for the next generation Republicans get upset if they hear the word “Maga”
I think this says it best. Right now, there doesn’t appear to be one, as neither Cruz nor DeSantis are particularly inspirational. Vance might be the guy, but hopefully a defeat in November will hurt his future aspirations.
Going along with the mob, thinking they can exploit the results, then out of fear they will be its next target, or because they see specific outcomes as desired and they are willing to be in denial about the others or to accept them as the price that must be paid … the rest of the block will do that. But the same loyalty of the MAGA base? Nah.
Lyndon Johnson—against the guidance of many advisors—also expanded US involvement in Vietnam based on a false premise, and when it was clear that South Vietnam was unsustainable and the war unwinnable, doubled down by increasing conscription, sending more troops to Southeast Asia, expanding the war with massive bombing and defoliation campaigns (Operation Rolling Thunder, Operation Arc Light, Operation Ranch Hand) which represented unprecedented conventional bombing and chemical warfare attacks on a a mostly rural populace which had never attacked or compromised the security interests of the United States in any manifest way.
Pretty fucking evil, if you ask me.
Stranger
And he conscripted my father to do it.
I said this in another thread, but in the 2016 primaries the Republicans did not want Trump. Was that for ideological reasons, or was it because they didn’t think he could win? I suspect some of both. Once he steamrollered his way in, anyone who wasn’t a bootlicker got purged. So they kind of had to support him if they wanted to keep doing whatever they personally wanted to do. Since winning is all that seems to matter, if he’s a means to that end then he gets their backing. Same for the next guy.
Very much so, but has anything meaningful been done to address it? If execu…I mean prosecution for inciting an insurrection and treason haven’t even gained traction four years after the fact, how much hope do we have to properly codify procedural rules of conduct? Especially when the Republican party doesn’t care about good governance, quite the opposite in fact, and through their own gerrymandering and shady dealings have managed to keep a stranglehold on at least one branch of the government enough to prevent any reforms.
There may come someone even worse, but I doubt I’ll miss Trump even after Nehemiah Scudder takes over.
Many have touched on this, but the key to Trump is lack of any ideology, which lets him just talk about essentially nothing but insults and rambling personal commentary, which lets his devotees focus less on details and more on hate. What’s his actual position on abortion? Who knows. Here’s a reporter trying to find out this week about mifepristone:
Reporter: There are other things the federal government could do, not just a ban. Would you direct your FDA [Food and Drug Administration], for example, to revoke access to mifepristone? That’s one of the things that’s been discussed.
Trump: Sure, you can do things that will supplement. Absolutely. And those things are pretty open, and humane, but you have to be able to have a vote, and all I want to do is give everybody a vote, and the votes are taking place right now as we speak.
Reporter: Is that something you would consider?
Trump: There are many things on a humane basis that you can do — outside of that, but you also have to give a vote, and the people are going to have to decide.
Can the GOP find someone able to simply not talk about policy, while being charismatic (to them)? Not impossible, but difficult to duplicate.
LBJ was the quintessential mixed bag. Personally a gigantic asshole, pushed through some of the most significant positive legislation of the 20th century, mired us in Vietnam. As big an ego as Trump but approximately 100 times as smart.
My personal opinion on this — which I’ve expressed before on these boards — goes something like this. Trump was watching the GOP, and he saw the base of angry morons that was being cultivated by the party. Because there’s nothing a con artist likes more than stupid people whose emotions short-circuit their intellect, Trump instinctively recognized an opportunity, and jumped in to exploit the cohort the GOP had been nurturing.
For their part, the GOP had a long-term plan for these people, a slow roll to short-circuiting democracy over several decades, and Trump was a disruptor. He was saying the quiet parts out loud, and they rightly saw him as a hijacker, someone who would act for his own purposes and not the party’s. Their fear was that Trump would sidetrack or even entirely blow up the plan before they could bring it to fruition; if he called too much attention to the fundamental racism behind the GOP strategy, which up to then had been expressed only in codes and deniable dog-whistles, then the opposition might wake up and activate themselves.
In other words, in my view, the GOP tried to reject Trump not for ideological reasons, or because they thought he would lose — they feared he would give away the game, stomping the pedal to the floor and derailing the whole long-term project.
Which is why I think “Fascist wannabe ”. is a better term.
“Competent fascist” is an oxymoron.
Huh? There have been multiple competent fascists, including that fellow with the funny mustache. He was a brilliant politician but, unfortunately for his fellow sociopathic bigots, a pretty shitty military strategist.
He led his nation into complete destruction, and murdered millions of Jews and others for no good reason- something that actually hindered the war effort he was a bumbling incompetent, likely mad, who lucked upon the idea of Right Wing Populists everywhere- lie and blame minorities.
Not to mention several of the scientists that developed the Atomic bomb fled fascist oppression.
Fascism is embraced by liars and madmen.