Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

Good news for the guy here who wanted the tax returns.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/22/politics/supreme-court-trump-taxes-vance/index.html

Hope those tax returns get released before this clown of a crook runs for president.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/27/donald-trump-cpac-speech-2021

Wow it's gonna be really kewl and unexpected when he starts talking about how the election was stolen from him.

Morris Day did it better pic.twitter.com/GNfSUSp9gB

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 1, 2021

More and more, I don't subscribe to the idea that the 2024 nomination is his if he wants it. Three points:

1) (I may have said this on another thread) Politicians are hyper-driven by ambition. The idea that all these people dying to run will just step aside down the road doesn't comport with human nature, whether or not he decides to himself.

2) Neither party has given the nomination to a previous general-election loser since Nixon in '68, and that was kind of a perfect storm of events (much like Trump in '16 was). They just don't do it anymore--you get your chance and that's it, you win or you're gone.

3) As Cuomo's present meltdown attests to yet again--the Cuomo who less than a year ago was the VP-in-waiting if he wanted it (with even murmurs of a emergency nomination)--the cliché that "(x amount of time) is a lifetime in politics" is a cliché for a reason. You could list dozens and dozens of examples from recent history. (Reading about the flameout of John Connally in Reaganland right now.)

So I think that, while Trump will be meddlesome and influential in whoever is the nominee, and that nominee could be just as bad and maybe even worse (hard to imagine, but looking at Greene and Hawley, who knows), I don't think it'll be Trump, even if he does run.

If MTG becomes the GOP nominee for president in my lifetime, that will mark the official end of my lifetime.

Why kill yourself just because other people want to kill you? Kind of seems like cutting off your life to spite your life.

Something more like

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AcceptableBothImago-max-1mb.gif

clemenza makes several cogent and valid points, but regarding...

Politicians are hyper-driven by ambition. The idea that all these people dying to run will just step aside down the road doesn't comport with human nature, whether or not he decides to himself.

It was only a short time ago, in 2015, when HRC managed to convince large numbers of her potential rivals that it would be futile to challenge her bid for the nomination, so all of them but Bernie decide to sit 2016 out.

true but there's a difference between HRC, an incredibly intelligent person who was First Lady, a US Senator, and then Secretary of State, and Trump, who has zero experience and understands basically nothing. Dems still believe that experience & tenure matter and that's why they put up candidates like Hillary and Biden - Republicans believe in nothing but punishing people they don't like, so any candidate who is thoroughly hated by the left has a shot

Trump is still basking in the glow of his failed presidency - his fans are by and large not big GOP supporters, they'll follow him anywhere but don't really care about party machinations.

But I wouldn't put it past him - an early announcement of his intention to run again. It's a way to raise money and organize massive super spreader events, to drop coy one liners, to attack his perceived enemies... his greatest joys in life.

I honestly don't think he even cares if he wins as long as he can keep up four more years of rapturous applause at his rallies. That devotion is the shit he feeds off of.

if he can keep up for two more election cycle, that could bring him home -- to the end of his natural lifetime. he will spend it basking in applause and truly believing he is the greatest man in history

by this point the southern district will have finally prepared their case, they'd be ready to bring charges. but alas!

xpost He'll just claim victory anyway... he gets to be the 'winner' without having to do the actual job.

Did I see right that the C-Pac straw poll put him at 55% or so? Even as the avatar of the GOP, a month after people stormed the capital in his name, he could barely squeak out a majority of support.

yeah by 2024, the storming of the capitol will have receded. some conservatives are still revolted by it or say they are but that will die down over time.

everything just fades away with this guy

I genuinely believe that even with his diet and lifestyle, unless he goes to prison, he will be with us well into his nineties. If by some miracle he goes to prison, he won't serve a full year before croaking it.

who knows. he almost died of coronavirus which indicates to me he isn't super healthy.

I think that only proves my point, not even COVID could knock him off, evil stagnates and keeps the husk alive. Look at Kissinger.

Trump getting the 2024 nom would be an unmitigated disaster for the GOP. maybe pre-insurrection I could see it happening, but he's banned from all social media and even FOX won't carry his ramblings most of the time. I don't know if people's opinions of him will soften over time but I think as things return somewhat to "normal" over the next year the idea of going back to the way things were in 2020, a year so fucking awful that it became a meme onto itself, is going to be seen as thoroughly insane. You know those movies where a bunch of crooks & con artists pull off a scheme that relies on so many little things going right, only to attempt it AGAIN and fail miserably as virtually none of the same conditions apply anymore? That would be Trump in 2024.

Yes but Americans hate themselves and they want to suffer.

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict these social media bans aren't going to be "forever", as much as we'd like them to be. And if he became a serious contender and/or got the nomination, he'd be back on every single one of them with lots of hemming and hawing about "learned lesson", "equal time", "newsworthy" and every other manner of bullshit excuse whomever is running Twitter and Facebook by then will trot out.

Business Insider: Donald Trump will only "pretend" to run for president in 2024 in order to raise money before dropping out, his niece Mary Trump predicted.

"I think he's going to pretend to, for sure," Mary Trump said of her uncle running for president again.

"Think about how much money he's made off the big lie the last few months. He's made more money since President Biden won the election than I think he has in his entire life. So I don't think he's going to let that grift go quite so soon."

She predicted that her uncle would not become the GOP nominee in 2024 because he would fear losing.

"There's no way that he is going to put himself in the position of losing again," she said. "The problem is the Republican Party seems determined to continue to keep him legitimate, which is the really scary part."

Sounds about right.

they already made the decision to ban a sitting President. they might play dumb but they're aware he'll never "learn his lesson" and we all know he's going to spend every single public appearance for the rest of his life repeating the same lies that led to him getting banned in the first place. banning him because he was a threat to our nation but then allowing him back on because he has the chance to become a threat to our nation again would be a disaster for them. they've already absorbed the PR hit from the right.

"There's no way that he is going to put himself in the position of losing again," she said.

Thank you, Mary Trump, for this reassuring insight.

banning him because he was a threat to our nation but then allowing him back on because he has the chance to become a threat to our nation again would be a disaster for them.

Yes because, if nothing else, Facebook and Twitter are both notoriously known for always doing the right thing.

has nothing to do with what's right, it would be bad for their bottom line

Look, I don't want to ever entertain the idea of that guy's thoughts being forced on me from any site, but I don't think it's going to be as much of a blow to their bottom line as you might think, at least not three years in the future.

Presuming he can't and won't win a general election, I actively like the idea of him freezing other candidates out. Cruz, Cawthorne, and company absolutely can't run if T is also on the ballot. No one can ever be Trumpier than Trump. So a primary race of him vs. an antiTrump MittBot would be a blowout, but the general would be a different ballgame.

Democrats should be thrilled he's not going gently into the night; he's done more damage to the GOP than anyone in history, let him finish this important work.

That historically damaged GOP still controls many state governments, has 50 US senators and it gained seats in the House in the 2020 election. The storming of the US Capitol will more likely than not be a faded memory of small import in the 2022 elections, in part because it hasn't been hammered at by the media or denounced by Biden on a daily basis to keep it fresh as a rallying cry.

Having Trump on the ballot was great for the GOP overall; but I don't know that Trump fans will give a rat's ass about ballots that he doesn't appear on.

I could easily imagine Cruz trying to weasel his way into the nomination, even if Trump ran, as only Cruz can.

"Look, folks--we all love Donald. We know what he's done for the party, for our country, for our world. The simple fact is, he can't win. Not because he shouldn't win, but because more than half the country hates him. They shouldn't hate him, they should love him--we know that--but because of the media, they can never know the Donald we know. To correct that, I offer myself as a humble stand-in. Let's you, me, and the spirit of Donald Trump go forward and scale heights we never knew possible. Let's do this--let's Make MAGA Great Again."

(Also known as MMAGAGA, not to be confused with Lady Gaga.)

Xp to AndytG, hat is a fair point

Cawthorne won't be old enough to run for President until 2032

CAWTHORN 2032

- Granny Dainger

Hopefully he won't make it to that age.

I think it’s safe to once again say: Classic

Former President Trump is releasing statements that read like tweets on letterhead. pic.twitter.com/bGJaaRvPzf

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) March 10, 2021

Like the aging high school quarterback watching old films of his salad days: "I was something else! Hope they don't forget... "

"(often referred to as...)"--like riding a bike.

it's so strange that he actually could take a teeny weeny bit of credit for the fast development of vaccines but 1) he doesn't and 2) his moron followers don't trust the vaccine that he could be taking some credit for. Because of dumb stuff they read on the internet. Such a ridiculous unforced error on his part.

He really wanted this out there to breathe new life into 'China Virus'.

Hah, like there is such a thing as an unforced error in trumpworld.

The followers don't have any trouble holding contradictory positions as long as all of them can be spun to be laudatory of the god-emperor.

1. The virus is a dangerous bioweapon intentionally unleashed by the wily Chinese Communists to destroy our precious way of life. Only Trump with his manly manliness was able to do the right thing and stand up to those godless bastards with his prescient travel ban. MAGA!

2. The virus is actually not that big a deal, the flu kills way more people anyways. And Democrat health officials are classifying deaths from car accidents as COVID deaths, just to obtain more control. Only Trump with his excellent brain could tell that it was an overblown threat ginned up by evil Fauci and the Deep State to control the lives of our noble patriots. MAGA!

3. The virus would have been a WAY more serious threat, had it not been for the lightning-fast rapid vaccine development enabled by Trump's quick thinking and excellent brain. Had he not acted as he did, millions would be dying in the streets. Thanks, DJT! MAGA!

4. Vaccines are a crock; we should all have been taking hydroxychloroquinine with a bleach chaser and a sunlight enema long ago, and everything would be fine. But the lying deep state pedophiles like Fauci, who are in league with AOC and the FAKE NEWS MEDIA, don't want you to know that. Because they want to control every aspect of your lives. Only Trump with his excellent brain could see through the establishment's lies and see the Truth. MAGA!

There's really no problem believing all these things simultaneously as long as they all end with MAGA!

You’re right but if he had done a better job taking credit for the vaccine maybe he could have attracted some non-true-believers. Wouldn’t have been that hard to do but he was just too lazy or undisciplined.

I wish journalists would stop helping Trump get around his Twitter ban.

someone on twitter determined that this new missive fits just under the current 280 character limit

WmC otm

Dud