The contours, and causes, of the Trump phenomenon had already become apparent by 2016, eight long years ago. The chattering class looking stunned and sounding like Wallace Shawn in "The Princess Bride" ("Inconceivable!") is a tired routine that hasn't served anyone well, including liberal voters. Speaking of which, it's hard to believe that any political movement has as one of its priorities a porous, chaotic border. But every week, there it is.
I do think that is part of the Trump derangement syndrome. Woke progressives had captured higher education and nearly all legacy media. They thought their victory was complete but then Trump arrived and they realized they ignored the wisdom of the movie Fight Club
My favorite scene in the movie is when they trap the public official who is going to clamp down on Fight Club(s) in the restroom. The Fight Club members were the waiters for the event unbeknownst to the public official.
They pin him to the floor threaten cut his nuts off then Tyler Durden delivers the killer line:
"Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on, we cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances, we guard you while you sleep. Do not fuck with us."
Maybe the vote for Mr. Trump reflects the anger and hopelessness of seeing everything illustrated in Bill Bennett's "The Book of Virtues" (both volumes) repudiated, mocked, vilified, trampled on. Not that Mr. Trump is a very shining example, of course. But at least he thinks we ought to be a country with border control. That we should support civilizations shining star in the Middle East, Israel.
Trump will protect everyone's right to make their own choices, to live life as each one of us sees fit. I don't need him to live like me, I just want the freedom to choose my own path.
You could get all those things with DeSantis or Haley but instead you vote Trump who will tank down ballot republicans? That plan just repeats 2016-2020 when going all in on Trump resulted in a split congress in opposition to him and he couldn’t get anything passed except a tax cut bill that any Republican would have gotten pass.
I just don’t understand. Why not support a candidate that could actually achieve their promises, we’ve already had 4 years of Trump and he achieved nothing.
Nothing? Illegal immigration was way less, murder rate was lower, wage growth outstripped inflation, income tax reduction across all brackets, corporate tax reduction, no new wars…nothing?
None of his actions stuck. It was immediately undone because he’s a poor statesman.
He did not build the wall and his immigration policy will be replicated by any Republican. most importantly, he empowers the left. Their reaction to him has resulted in the establishment of sanctuary cities and the current Dem open borders crises. This will not go away with Trump, it will just temporarily pause it and they’ll come back more extreme and powerful.
Wokism became much more extreme and much more powerful under his presidency and to bring him back will do the same thing.
If you care about immigration, the economy, and disempowering leftists then vote for a generic Republican. If you just care about the show and the pretend “fight” then vote for Trump, but don’t expect him to enact lasting change.
Generic Republicans nod along, at best. Opposition to / awareness of leftist awfulness is now strong, and that's because of Trump. Sanctuary cities existed before Trump. Let's keep encouraging Democrats to make mistakes that make people hate them. A DC outsider like Trump is a good thing (Vivek or Ron would probably do well also).
Generic republicans (DeSantis) actually get results (busing migrants, Disney). Trump made an explosive show and accomplished no lasting results. Even the tax cuts expire in a few years. Wall is not built, illegal immigration has never been higher and the woke left has never been more powerful.
Excellent points. I prefer Desantis, as great governors make better presidents IMO. But will I have the courage to vote the wise or the pragmatic? It sucks. I did that with Perot. And I got Clinton.
I plan to vote DeSantis in the primary (if he’s still in) and third party in the general. I’m not opposed to voting Trump, but I’ve already done it twice and wasn’t that thrilled with his first term anyway.
Serious question on that last bit - how is Trump's support for Israel strong today? I know about things he did in his time as President (Abraham accords, Jerusalem, etc.) but his response to the Hamas attack was to mock BiBi whereas Biden gave him a bear hug and a blank check (and further funding has been held up by the kinds of Republicans that I think Trump likes). His general foreign policy stance typically borders on isolationist. I haven't heard his positions on the war and am actually curious what they are.
I think moving our embassy to Jerusalem and the Abraham accords is Nobel Prize-level effort. To your point, I think he's kept his powder dry on the current sadness -- but I'm not paying that much attention to him, frankly. I'll be voting for anyone who will stop the foreign citizen trespassing.
I think he has the same view that he did about a 2-state solution - leaving it up to Israel and the Palestinians to sort out. I don't know if he would have felt the need to rush Israel more and, but his basic level of support for Israel wouldn't fluctuate, like Biden's has. That said, I do think Bidens strong initial support for Israel was of great use in tamping down interventionist adventurism in that neighborhood (although that kettle is boiling now).
Biden exposed himself with his demands for Israel to unilaterally cease fire. Trump may not have a lot of fondness for Judaism, but I think he views Israel as a good business partner and, just perhaps, an ally that's willing to carry out military actions that he doesn't want to get the U.S. involved in.
Here's what people don't remember about when Trump first took office. He got all the big retailers a tax break, and made sure all the big retailers gave their bottom level hourly employees a dollar an hour raise.
He told all those employers, if the little people don't see this raise, you won't see this tax cut.
Hillary Clinton sat on the board of Walmart, did she ever get anyone a raise? No.
I may not be an "average" GOP voter but I am a lifelong GOP voter who hates both the current idiot-infested GOP and President Trump. I will vote for Trump in the general if he's the nominee but I don't want to.
Trump is a symptom of America's long slide downward. The working and middle classes want someone who cares about them, listens to them, tries to make a better country and one they can be proud of. Trump has made these folks believe that he cares about them and so they'll vote for him.
Maybe more importantly, they loathe the woke, progressive left and love that Trump isn't afraid of them. The head-melting, incoherent, continuous "worse than Hitler" babbling from the Left is music to their ears to the extent they're engaged in politics.
At any rate, I'm thankful Trump has plowed the GOP under and has revealed the true nature and character of this country and its political parties. I hope when he's gone, the GOP factions can see how much we need each other if we're to save this country from something we can't come back from. I fear we're already too far gone for that.
The working and middle classes who you say want someone who cares for them are being conned by a vacuous opportunist who will say anything to anyone who he can see as his base so that he can nurse his own narcissism. They deserve better. Trump is by far the worst politician ever produced by this country. He is vulgar, vindictive, vengeful, inarticulate, incompetent and is not interested in reaching out to the more than half of Americans who detest him. He will never think of the country as greater than himself. And I say this as an independent who utterly despises the Progressive Left in this country. And I want Biden to serve only one term.
We need better leaders in both parties, and we need them fast. As in right now..
I am completely with you. It's totally disheartening. I also see my fellow conservative Jews placing their eggs in his basket because of how supportive he was as POTUS of Israel. All I can find from him since 10/7 is praise of Hezbollah. We know how furious he was with Netanyahu for acknowledging Biden's win. I am not optimistic.
Are we indexing too heavily on Iowa in the wake of the first election of primary season? I live in Calofornia and I’m from Florida, and I know plenty of Republicans who are college educated and wealthy that somehow find their way to supporting Trump. Perhaps Iowa’s classes are split in a way most other states are not?
I read an article elsewhere today (I forget where, but Reynolds linked to it), saying that the support of the college-educated Republicans for Trump has increased considerably in the past year. The article speculated that the two things driving this are the inevitability of Trump winning the nomination, and the very consequential (if improbable) threat of Trump being lawfare'd off the ballot by the Left. I think there's more to it than that, though. The working class and the non-chattering section of the middle class have a lot in common. Inflation is hitting them both; the Left threatens both groups' standard of living, and both groups have a lot of concerns about the security threat of a wide-open border, to name a few.
I think this part of the college-educated center-right (and center-left too) has been keeping their heads down for the past eight years, and that polls tend to miss them. They are just assumed to be in the bag for Biden, but has anyone actually asked them? A lot of this segment of the middle class liked many of the things Trump did in his first term, and they've been very disappointed in Biden.
The Trump voters I know did not pick Donald Trump as their #1 choice in 2019 to be the GOP candidate. It was the other 16 or so candidates that made Donald Trump the choice. The establishment GOP elected and unelected folk are not our friends. No Bush, McCain, Romney please. These folk are what way back when we would call Rockefeller Republicans. They were not our (Republican voter) friends.
We are stuck with Donald Trump because most if not all of the others are not trustworthy or appear not to be trustworthy to defend the citizens of this country .
I gave up the Republican party when George W. was President. Final straw for me. Full Republican control and none of the smaller government stuff they been spouting since Reagan. People can spot phonies pretty quickly.
This article talks about Trump supporters hating the GOP. I am a DeSantis supporter who will vote for the GOP nominee, whoever it is. I despise the National Republican Committee & Ronna Mcdaniel for being ineffective and not taking responsibility for losing elections. Ronan has lost or underperformed in 4 in a row. She has neither resigned in shame nor been replaced. This is ridiculous! It doesn't matter how well you raise money if you can't use it effectively to win elections. Where were the GOP counter suits to all the illegal alterations to election laws made by court order in 2020 and continued in 2022?
The GOP needs to sue using civil rights law. We can't overturn elections, but we can claim that Maricopa County had a conspiracy to deprive GOP voters of their right to vote on Election Day, when accidentally loading new software caused 4 hour waits to vote in a very Republican county. We can ask for remedies like banning the voting machine vendor, replacing the machines and firing the county officials responsible.
Rasmussen polling supports this analysis. By a margin of 2 to 1, Republicans are unhappy with their representative in Congress. Democrats love their representative.
We this dynamic play out during Trumps first term. He was of course at war with Democrats, but also with never Trumpers in the Republican party like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney.
Basically the elitists in the Republican party have lots in common with elitists in the Democrat party. They can agree that a few illegals in the US is a good thing, because you know, "good help" is so hard to find. For the American construction worker, plumber, corrections officer, truck driver, not so much.
I disagree about the free markets. Lowering tax rates while broadening the base, which Trump did and Art Laffer and Larry Kudlow are constantly boosting, is definitely pro free market.
I would like to see the criminal cases against him involving his attempts to overturn the last election reach verdicts well before the next election.
The people should know in advance if they’re voting for a convicted criminal or not.
It seems like he’s trying to run out the clock in the courts. (Typical).
I do not want Donald Trump to be in a position to pardon himself or his insurrectionist mob. Imagine the resulting constitutional crisis and potential for societal mayhem.
Beyond that, the constitution, the fundamental law of our democracy, is quite clear in excluding insurrectionists from office.
He is one, and he should be.
(I recommend reading the opinions of retired federal appeals court judge Michael Luttig, a staunch Texas conservative, on the matter.)
It’s a mess. Hopefully the voters will reject him (again), and his mob will fail to reappear.
What seems more like an insurrection to you: a single riot in DC where the police shot one protester for no reason, or months of riots in over 120 cities nationwide that killed dozens, injured hundreds and destroyed billions of dollars worth of property? The Antifa/BLM Riots were the real insurrection. They were not only allowed, but politically supported by Democrats nationally. And, if you read the goals of both Antifa and BLM, you will find they want to replace the Constitution with socialist dictatorship. They even declared territory they controlled independent of state and federal jurisdiction. That's prima facie insurrection.
Trump's indictments all seem to be for novel legal theories tailored for Trump personally, and not efforts to enforce the rule of law.
The first indictment is an unprosecuted potential federal campaign misdemeanor as a predicate for a NY State felony business records fraud charge. Please notice the compaign finance charge has exceeded the statute of limitations, so the state charge had to be built to get around the statute of limitations.
The second indictment is an untested theory that a former president can't retain any classified presidential records, even for sorting purposes. Trump is indicted under the Espionage Act for possession of classified materials with intent to reveal them to unauthorized persons.
The "Jan 6" indictment says that protesting possible election fraud and asking for Congress to take a look at it is obstructing a government proceding and treason. The government's case assumes that the 2020 election was immaculate, or at least there wasn't enough obvious fraud to change the outcome, and that any statement to the contrary is obviously misleading fraud on the federal government. Pay no attention to the millions of people, like me, who think there were a lot of things that were off about the 2020 election. The government position is that there's no room for doubt here. Also, take no note of the fact that nobody, neither Trump nor any Jan 6 rioter, has even been indicted for insurrection.
The Georgia case says that asking for a recount, or even a thorough investigation into vote fraud, is itself election fraud. So what if the Georgia State Attorney General promised to investigate? He changed his mind, and nobody can argue with him on the phone. Stating how close the vote was in Georgia, and how little vote fraud would make a difference, is obviously incriminating.
Also in Georgia, the Rico indictments say it's fraud to maintain standing in court to contest a presidential election by having a slate of alternate electors. The legal status of the electors was never in question. They couldn't vote unless Trump won his court cases or Congress voted to accept them or state legislatures certified them. At no point was any such action likely. The Congressional consideration of the election was interrupted when Nancy Pelosi's lack of preparation led to the Capitol Riot on Jan 6.
"His mob" is half of America. These voters will not disappear, and hoping for that is the anti thesis of democracy. Keeping Trump off the ballet is the anti thesis of democracy.
You have 2 choices: address the concerns of Trump supporters and bring them to your side, or 2) defeat Trump at the ballot box in a transparent and fair election.
Using lawfare to avoid one of these two options is no different than Putin sending Navalsky to prison.
The thing liberals don’t understand about the average Republican voter in 2024 is that they hate the Republican Party. The average liberal feels well-represented by the Democratic Party because the Democrats’ base, like the party leadership, are college-educated elites. They share the same list of priorities. But the average Republican voter is working class and truly loathes the Bush-era version of the Republican Party, which meant tax cuts for the rich, failed wars, and an economic agenda that outsourced jobs to China.
JEEZUS H CHRIST... the Bari Weiss Democratic Party Rehabilitation Project (aka The Free Press) is desperate to find any way possible to remind people to Vote Blue No Matter Who...
Just remind everyone of the single point of faith that can NEVER be questioned: Republicans are still bad... obviously. Democrats are still good... obviously.
As a proud Only-Trumper, you hit the nail on the head! The liberals are trying to sell that Trump is a threat to democracy as they ignore the border, crime, and walk us into WWIII! Trump may be a threat— To Them!
The man is utterly loathsome, but also a real man at last. Fake as hell, of course, but absolutely real in that sense.
I'm interested to know why you think Trump has the answers when the first time around, especially when he had both houses of Congress under GOP control - he got nothing done except a tax cut that any Republican president could have done. What happened to the wall? What happened to Obamacare? What happened to infrastructure? Nothing happened.
What makes you think he can do anything this time?
If any Republican but Trump was President in 2018, Kavanaugh never would have been confirmed as Justice. The Dems would have cried he’s a rapist without proof, the weak kneed GOPer would have backed down, and we’d finish the term a Justice short as the Dems would have cleaned up (even more) in 2018 as republican disillusionment kicked in. Forget about ACB, forget about Roe, forget ending AA.
That alone accomplished more than any other modern Republican. Just by being Trump, and not a pushover b—ch. lol Romney would have sent Kav to the wolves to promote his book with the libs, and we all know it!
The contours, and causes, of the Trump phenomenon had already become apparent by 2016, eight long years ago. The chattering class looking stunned and sounding like Wallace Shawn in "The Princess Bride" ("Inconceivable!") is a tired routine that hasn't served anyone well, including liberal voters. Speaking of which, it's hard to believe that any political movement has as one of its priorities a porous, chaotic border. But every week, there it is.
I do think that is part of the Trump derangement syndrome. Woke progressives had captured higher education and nearly all legacy media. They thought their victory was complete but then Trump arrived and they realized they ignored the wisdom of the movie Fight Club
My favorite scene in the movie is when they trap the public official who is going to clamp down on Fight Club(s) in the restroom. The Fight Club members were the waiters for the event unbeknownst to the public official.
They pin him to the floor threaten cut his nuts off then Tyler Durden delivers the killer line:
"Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on, we cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances, we guard you while you sleep. Do not fuck with us."
Heck, i'll post a link to the clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVQX5fegiqs
Thats what Trump voters did to the elites in 2016 and the elites have never forgiven them for it.
Shorter version... the GOP hates the voters and we are just returning the favor.
The GOO hates the voters? So you vote for Trump? Huh?
Maybe the vote for Mr. Trump reflects the anger and hopelessness of seeing everything illustrated in Bill Bennett's "The Book of Virtues" (both volumes) repudiated, mocked, vilified, trampled on. Not that Mr. Trump is a very shining example, of course. But at least he thinks we ought to be a country with border control. That we should support civilizations shining star in the Middle East, Israel.
Trump will protect everyone's right to make their own choices, to live life as each one of us sees fit. I don't need him to live like me, I just want the freedom to choose my own path.
You could get all those things with DeSantis or Haley but instead you vote Trump who will tank down ballot republicans? That plan just repeats 2016-2020 when going all in on Trump resulted in a split congress in opposition to him and he couldn’t get anything passed except a tax cut bill that any Republican would have gotten pass.
I just don’t understand. Why not support a candidate that could actually achieve their promises, we’ve already had 4 years of Trump and he achieved nothing.
Nothing? Illegal immigration was way less, murder rate was lower, wage growth outstripped inflation, income tax reduction across all brackets, corporate tax reduction, no new wars…nothing?
None of his actions stuck. It was immediately undone because he’s a poor statesman.
He did not build the wall and his immigration policy will be replicated by any Republican. most importantly, he empowers the left. Their reaction to him has resulted in the establishment of sanctuary cities and the current Dem open borders crises. This will not go away with Trump, it will just temporarily pause it and they’ll come back more extreme and powerful.
Wokism became much more extreme and much more powerful under his presidency and to bring him back will do the same thing.
If you care about immigration, the economy, and disempowering leftists then vote for a generic Republican. If you just care about the show and the pretend “fight” then vote for Trump, but don’t expect him to enact lasting change.
Generic Republicans nod along, at best. Opposition to / awareness of leftist awfulness is now strong, and that's because of Trump. Sanctuary cities existed before Trump. Let's keep encouraging Democrats to make mistakes that make people hate them. A DC outsider like Trump is a good thing (Vivek or Ron would probably do well also).
Generic republicans (DeSantis) actually get results (busing migrants, Disney). Trump made an explosive show and accomplished no lasting results. Even the tax cuts expire in a few years. Wall is not built, illegal immigration has never been higher and the woke left has never been more powerful.
He’s all show and no substance.
Excellent points. I prefer Desantis, as great governors make better presidents IMO. But will I have the courage to vote the wise or the pragmatic? It sucks. I did that with Perot. And I got Clinton.
I plan to vote DeSantis in the primary (if he’s still in) and third party in the general. I’m not opposed to voting Trump, but I’ve already done it twice and wasn’t that thrilled with his first term anyway.
'That we should support civilizations shining star in the Middle East, Israel.'
As if the current administration is not?
Serious question on that last bit - how is Trump's support for Israel strong today? I know about things he did in his time as President (Abraham accords, Jerusalem, etc.) but his response to the Hamas attack was to mock BiBi whereas Biden gave him a bear hug and a blank check (and further funding has been held up by the kinds of Republicans that I think Trump likes). His general foreign policy stance typically borders on isolationist. I haven't heard his positions on the war and am actually curious what they are.
I think moving our embassy to Jerusalem and the Abraham accords is Nobel Prize-level effort. To your point, I think he's kept his powder dry on the current sadness -- but I'm not paying that much attention to him, frankly. I'll be voting for anyone who will stop the foreign citizen trespassing.
I think he has the same view that he did about a 2-state solution - leaving it up to Israel and the Palestinians to sort out. I don't know if he would have felt the need to rush Israel more and, but his basic level of support for Israel wouldn't fluctuate, like Biden's has. That said, I do think Bidens strong initial support for Israel was of great use in tamping down interventionist adventurism in that neighborhood (although that kettle is boiling now).
Biden exposed himself with his demands for Israel to unilaterally cease fire. Trump may not have a lot of fondness for Judaism, but I think he views Israel as a good business partner and, just perhaps, an ally that's willing to carry out military actions that he doesn't want to get the U.S. involved in.
Here's what people don't remember about when Trump first took office. He got all the big retailers a tax break, and made sure all the big retailers gave their bottom level hourly employees a dollar an hour raise.
He told all those employers, if the little people don't see this raise, you won't see this tax cut.
Hillary Clinton sat on the board of Walmart, did she ever get anyone a raise? No.
The little people remember this.
I may not be an "average" GOP voter but I am a lifelong GOP voter who hates both the current idiot-infested GOP and President Trump. I will vote for Trump in the general if he's the nominee but I don't want to.
Trump is a symptom of America's long slide downward. The working and middle classes want someone who cares about them, listens to them, tries to make a better country and one they can be proud of. Trump has made these folks believe that he cares about them and so they'll vote for him.
Maybe more importantly, they loathe the woke, progressive left and love that Trump isn't afraid of them. The head-melting, incoherent, continuous "worse than Hitler" babbling from the Left is music to their ears to the extent they're engaged in politics.
At any rate, I'm thankful Trump has plowed the GOP under and has revealed the true nature and character of this country and its political parties. I hope when he's gone, the GOP factions can see how much we need each other if we're to save this country from something we can't come back from. I fear we're already too far gone for that.
The working and middle classes who you say want someone who cares for them are being conned by a vacuous opportunist who will say anything to anyone who he can see as his base so that he can nurse his own narcissism. They deserve better. Trump is by far the worst politician ever produced by this country. He is vulgar, vindictive, vengeful, inarticulate, incompetent and is not interested in reaching out to the more than half of Americans who detest him. He will never think of the country as greater than himself. And I say this as an independent who utterly despises the Progressive Left in this country. And I want Biden to serve only one term.
We need better leaders in both parties, and we need them fast. As in right now..
I am completely with you. It's totally disheartening. I also see my fellow conservative Jews placing their eggs in his basket because of how supportive he was as POTUS of Israel. All I can find from him since 10/7 is praise of Hezbollah. We know how furious he was with Netanyahu for acknowledging Biden's win. I am not optimistic.
I completely agree with everything you wrote. We all deserve better.
Are we indexing too heavily on Iowa in the wake of the first election of primary season? I live in Calofornia and I’m from Florida, and I know plenty of Republicans who are college educated and wealthy that somehow find their way to supporting Trump. Perhaps Iowa’s classes are split in a way most other states are not?
I read an article elsewhere today (I forget where, but Reynolds linked to it), saying that the support of the college-educated Republicans for Trump has increased considerably in the past year. The article speculated that the two things driving this are the inevitability of Trump winning the nomination, and the very consequential (if improbable) threat of Trump being lawfare'd off the ballot by the Left. I think there's more to it than that, though. The working class and the non-chattering section of the middle class have a lot in common. Inflation is hitting them both; the Left threatens both groups' standard of living, and both groups have a lot of concerns about the security threat of a wide-open border, to name a few.
I think this part of the college-educated center-right (and center-left too) has been keeping their heads down for the past eight years, and that polls tend to miss them. They are just assumed to be in the bag for Biden, but has anyone actually asked them? A lot of this segment of the middle class liked many of the things Trump did in his first term, and they've been very disappointed in Biden.
The Trump voters I know did not pick Donald Trump as their #1 choice in 2019 to be the GOP candidate. It was the other 16 or so candidates that made Donald Trump the choice. The establishment GOP elected and unelected folk are not our friends. No Bush, McCain, Romney please. These folk are what way back when we would call Rockefeller Republicans. They were not our (Republican voter) friends.
We are stuck with Donald Trump because most if not all of the others are not trustworthy or appear not to be trustworthy to defend the citizens of this country .
You mean 2016.
No, I meant the 2020 election. But every election since Ronald Reagan would also qualify as those in charge had little or no respect for their voters.
Or yes, T Reid. Spending two years in the 4th grade did not help.
I gave up the Republican party when George W. was President. Final straw for me. Full Republican control and none of the smaller government stuff they been spouting since Reagan. People can spot phonies pretty quickly.
Trump massively expanded the scope of government and spent like crazy…
Both parties keep doing this. That is why people use the term uniparty. It has to stop.
This article talks about Trump supporters hating the GOP. I am a DeSantis supporter who will vote for the GOP nominee, whoever it is. I despise the National Republican Committee & Ronna Mcdaniel for being ineffective and not taking responsibility for losing elections. Ronan has lost or underperformed in 4 in a row. She has neither resigned in shame nor been replaced. This is ridiculous! It doesn't matter how well you raise money if you can't use it effectively to win elections. Where were the GOP counter suits to all the illegal alterations to election laws made by court order in 2020 and continued in 2022?
The GOP needs to sue using civil rights law. We can't overturn elections, but we can claim that Maricopa County had a conspiracy to deprive GOP voters of their right to vote on Election Day, when accidentally loading new software caused 4 hour waits to vote in a very Republican county. We can ask for remedies like banning the voting machine vendor, replacing the machines and firing the county officials responsible.
Rasmussen polling supports this analysis. By a margin of 2 to 1, Republicans are unhappy with their representative in Congress. Democrats love their representative.
We this dynamic play out during Trumps first term. He was of course at war with Democrats, but also with never Trumpers in the Republican party like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney.
Basically the elitists in the Republican party have lots in common with elitists in the Democrat party. They can agree that a few illegals in the US is a good thing, because you know, "good help" is so hard to find. For the American construction worker, plumber, corrections officer, truck driver, not so much.
I disagree about the free markets. Lowering tax rates while broadening the base, which Trump did and Art Laffer and Larry Kudlow are constantly boosting, is definitely pro free market.
Thank you for the compliments.
And thank you also for keeping it civil, and interesting.
I detest DEI with a passion.
I agree it is tearing us apart.
It needs to be eliminated root and branch.
I detest the political left, and have for decades .
I’ll still never vote for Trump or any of the politicians (spineless cowards) who have repeated his lies and defended his insurrection.
The Republicans need to become a political party again, and purge the personality cult.
Preserve democracy:
Defeat Trump now.
Defeat DEI later.
Personal note about DEI:
The only people who ever forced me to take “diversity training” courses (at work) were Republicans.
I agree, with some reservations.
There are several.
I’ll explain.
I would like to see the criminal cases against him involving his attempts to overturn the last election reach verdicts well before the next election.
The people should know in advance if they’re voting for a convicted criminal or not.
It seems like he’s trying to run out the clock in the courts. (Typical).
I do not want Donald Trump to be in a position to pardon himself or his insurrectionist mob. Imagine the resulting constitutional crisis and potential for societal mayhem.
Beyond that, the constitution, the fundamental law of our democracy, is quite clear in excluding insurrectionists from office.
He is one, and he should be.
(I recommend reading the opinions of retired federal appeals court judge Michael Luttig, a staunch Texas conservative, on the matter.)
It’s a mess. Hopefully the voters will reject him (again), and his mob will fail to reappear.
What seems more like an insurrection to you: a single riot in DC where the police shot one protester for no reason, or months of riots in over 120 cities nationwide that killed dozens, injured hundreds and destroyed billions of dollars worth of property? The Antifa/BLM Riots were the real insurrection. They were not only allowed, but politically supported by Democrats nationally. And, if you read the goals of both Antifa and BLM, you will find they want to replace the Constitution with socialist dictatorship. They even declared territory they controlled independent of state and federal jurisdiction. That's prima facie insurrection.
Trump's indictments all seem to be for novel legal theories tailored for Trump personally, and not efforts to enforce the rule of law.
The first indictment is an unprosecuted potential federal campaign misdemeanor as a predicate for a NY State felony business records fraud charge. Please notice the compaign finance charge has exceeded the statute of limitations, so the state charge had to be built to get around the statute of limitations.
The second indictment is an untested theory that a former president can't retain any classified presidential records, even for sorting purposes. Trump is indicted under the Espionage Act for possession of classified materials with intent to reveal them to unauthorized persons.
The "Jan 6" indictment says that protesting possible election fraud and asking for Congress to take a look at it is obstructing a government proceding and treason. The government's case assumes that the 2020 election was immaculate, or at least there wasn't enough obvious fraud to change the outcome, and that any statement to the contrary is obviously misleading fraud on the federal government. Pay no attention to the millions of people, like me, who think there were a lot of things that were off about the 2020 election. The government position is that there's no room for doubt here. Also, take no note of the fact that nobody, neither Trump nor any Jan 6 rioter, has even been indicted for insurrection.
The Georgia case says that asking for a recount, or even a thorough investigation into vote fraud, is itself election fraud. So what if the Georgia State Attorney General promised to investigate? He changed his mind, and nobody can argue with him on the phone. Stating how close the vote was in Georgia, and how little vote fraud would make a difference, is obviously incriminating.
Also in Georgia, the Rico indictments say it's fraud to maintain standing in court to contest a presidential election by having a slate of alternate electors. The legal status of the electors was never in question. They couldn't vote unless Trump won his court cases or Congress voted to accept them or state legislatures certified them. At no point was any such action likely. The Congressional consideration of the election was interrupted when Nancy Pelosi's lack of preparation led to the Capitol Riot on Jan 6.
"His mob" is half of America. These voters will not disappear, and hoping for that is the anti thesis of democracy. Keeping Trump off the ballet is the anti thesis of democracy.
You have 2 choices: address the concerns of Trump supporters and bring them to your side, or 2) defeat Trump at the ballot box in a transparent and fair election.
Using lawfare to avoid one of these two options is no different than Putin sending Navalsky to prison.
The thing liberals don’t understand about the average Republican voter in 2024 is that they hate the Republican Party. The average liberal feels well-represented by the Democratic Party because the Democrats’ base, like the party leadership, are college-educated elites. They share the same list of priorities. But the average Republican voter is working class and truly loathes the Bush-era version of the Republican Party, which meant tax cuts for the rich, failed wars, and an economic agenda that outsourced jobs to China.
JEEZUS H CHRIST... the Bari Weiss Democratic Party Rehabilitation Project (aka The Free Press) is desperate to find any way possible to remind people to Vote Blue No Matter Who...
Just remind everyone of the single point of faith that can NEVER be questioned: Republicans are still bad... obviously. Democrats are still good... obviously.
Fucksticks.
As a proud Only-Trumper, you hit the nail on the head! The liberals are trying to sell that Trump is a threat to democracy as they ignore the border, crime, and walk us into WWIII! Trump may be a threat— To Them!
The man is utterly loathsome, but also a real man at last. Fake as hell, of course, but absolutely real in that sense.
I'm interested to know why you think Trump has the answers when the first time around, especially when he had both houses of Congress under GOP control - he got nothing done except a tax cut that any Republican president could have done. What happened to the wall? What happened to Obamacare? What happened to infrastructure? Nothing happened.
What makes you think he can do anything this time?
If any Republican but Trump was President in 2018, Kavanaugh never would have been confirmed as Justice. The Dems would have cried he’s a rapist without proof, the weak kneed GOPer would have backed down, and we’d finish the term a Justice short as the Dems would have cleaned up (even more) in 2018 as republican disillusionment kicked in. Forget about ACB, forget about Roe, forget ending AA.
That alone accomplished more than any other modern Republican. Just by being Trump, and not a pushover b—ch. lol Romney would have sent Kav to the wolves to promote his book with the libs, and we all know it!
Well, you're right. Trump got his Court. I wonder how they'll rule (or if they even bother) when his appeal seeking immunity comes to them.
Democrat opposition with support from never-Trumper Republicans. The vote tallies in Congress are there to peruse.