Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

I see these two statements repeated constantly:

1. Trump remains, arguably, the most powerful Republican in the country.
2. Aside from his most blinkered loyalists, virtually everyone in the party agrees: It’s time to move on from Trump.

Honest question here. Why does #2 not negate #1?

here's the key part, nothing to see here

So you would still support him if he won the nomination?

I would support him as a Republican, because the Democratic Party has gone so far away from the ideals and principles of where we should be going. Absolutely I would support him if he was the nominee.

"everyone in the party" apparently doesn't include the party's voters

Honest question here. Why does #2 not negate #1?

2, translated: Trump is kind of a shitty candidate.
1, translated: the party's even shittier.

to answer Dan's question, obviously a lot of these guys are gonna talk about Jan. 6 and election denial and all the legal problems he has but the real reason is that he's a loser. despite there being generally favorable conditions for Republicans, they've now underperformed in 3 straight elections and a lot of Republicans are starting to suspect it's because Trump is not only motivating a lot of turnout for the Dems (lets face it, there's no reason Joe freakin' Biden should've gotten more votes than any Democrat in history) but also because he's strongarming them into running a lot of genuine weirdos like Dr. Oz and Blake Masters. it's not a stretch to say he's singlehandedly cost them both houses of Congress.

in other words its like saying Aaron Rodgers is the best QB on the Packers' roster, but it's still time to move on, because you aren't winning shit with him anymore.

Part of is that moving on from Trump, or running against him, means making an enemy of someone who will never shut up and has the blind loyalty of many millions of people

yea Liz Cheney's seat was really safe until she was brave enough to uhhhh point out what we all saw on video

He said You’re Fired on tv and earned about 30 million permanent votes

lol this nerd is going to get booted off mainstream social media again faster than Kanye

yeah I doubt it this time. musk isn't going to kick him off twitter (not that he's using it...yet). meta reinstating him despite everything seems to indicate they feel it's too risky to be anything but totally hands off on this going forward.

He's not even the best drummer in the Beatles.

someone who will never shut up and has the blind loyalty of many millions of people

Perhaps just as importantly, someone who will never shut up and has the not-so-blind loyalty of every influential media company which eagerly monetize both his many millions of blindly loyal followers and his many millions of vehement detractors. it's a self-supporting ecosystem.

sure but it still seems like even FOX doesn't wanna touch the guy anymore. surely that'll change as primaries come up but the guy is just a shell of his former self. he has none of the energy he had in 2016 and if anything has gotten tremendously weirder. feels a bit like the Herschel Walker thing, even the people who support him think it's probably a bad idea to have him on TV right now

We all said this in 2016 and look what happened

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPNwJAcMH5U

meatball ron there you go so much better

Trump has been mocking DeSantis in casual conversations, calling him “Meatball Ron” and “Shutdown Ron,” a reference to coronavirus closures that Trump’s team believes cast DeSantis as a fake https://t.co/54t0ZE5FWG

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 12, 2023

I can get behind Meatball Ron, they must have market tested that one.

When you get right down to it we're all just balls of meat

"All we are is balls of meat..." - Kansas

Classic Trump barb, it scores extra points for being simultaneously dismissive, xenophobic, and body-shaming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_LX4yZjSoA

Meatball Ron is great. Shutdown Ron makes no sense because Florida was famously resistant to federal covid guidelines.

lol

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FpCXzIoXgB0Q9YM?format=jpg&name=medium

i read this earlier today, and got hung up on "I told Nikki to follow her heart, not her ambition or belief." what does he mean by that? also imagine someone telling you not to follow your belief

His new york bitchiness is his most relatable and endearing trait.

We could have been saved from the last seven years if only E! had given him a talk show in 2015.

^the saddest words of tongue or pen

I like this new direction in his tweets, honing his backhanded compliment game.

Not a tweet, but a TRUTH!

the universe will only be put right when he comes up with a nickname for her.. Failing Haley, Tricky Nikki, etc.

haley's going to go down in flames. the two notable aspects of her campaign so far are that it's explicitly christian nationalist (i know, i know: more visibly so than most candidates) and that she keeps referring to trump as her friend even as he tries to tear her down.

https://t.co/yKuzW16bb6 pic.twitter.com/xdfPPpt0tH

— Poli Alert (@polialertcom) February 16, 2023

and re: questions asked in some doc I will never see, well maybe they should be asking about the Evens and maybe the 2005 tour with The Ex or y'know any of the other cool things Ian & Amy have been up to, do the fucking homework

at least they're fucking trying...

haley's going to go down in flames. the two notable aspects of her campaign so far are that it's explicitly christian nationalist (i know, i know: more visibly so than most candidates) and that she keeps referring to trump as her friend even as he tries to tear her down.

🐦[https://t.co/yKuzW16bb6🕸 pic.twitter.com/xdfPPpt0tH🕸
— Poli Alert (@polialertcom) February 16, 2023🕸]🐦

Sorry pressed the wrong button on ZING!

i finally made it into a tweet!

*celebrates*

Congrats Karl!

i hope it goes viral! i know the the low-performing tweets don't get compensated well, but once you make it into the 100M+ territory, that's where you can actually make a great deal of money pretty quickly

I saw the Evens once

lol that one about appointing her ambassador hes mad

wait, whose tweet km?

Oh, I was just goofing on stevie’s post a bit upthread, where part of my ILX post got incorporated into a tweet, sort of. It was a zing disaster, something I’m no stranger to

Aging Act refuses to acknowledge their latest hit

The gloves are off pic.twitter.com/5kc4u7llMt

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 18, 2023

"His loyalty skills are really weak."

lol i will never call meatball ron meatball ron

Did Paul Ryan kill Fox News?

Who are we to speak of apophasis?

His screeds are so unintelligible, his appeal must be getting more "selective" by this point, surely?

meatball

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FpWCG2UXwAE4SXO?format=jpg&name=small

hes going to war god bless

disasters ALL

it's gonna be a Trump-DeSantis ticket

Spaghetti (brain) & Meatball