Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

DeSantis is tacking to the right of Pinochet, I don't see how he thinks this is a winning strategy.. now he wants to end birthright citizenship and dissolve the IRS, no details on how he plans to accomplish other than repetitive evocations of woke

His whole 'we'll fight the woke on the beaches, we'll fight the woke in the streets" is a straight-up Churchill ripoff, except Churchill was talking about literal fucking NAZIs rather than well-meaning folks concerned with inclusion and social justice.. kind of offensive to compare the two

Most progressives do not like her poor history as a prosecutor, and she completely caved on Medicare for All.

Well, there go 30 votes in Vermont and 60 in California...

Sorry, what? M4All is INCREDIBLY popular, at least in coastal states. Oregon enshrined a right fi healthcare in its state constitution. Is it too much to ask America to evolve with the mid-20th century and have guaranteed fucking healthcare? Christ. You’re pudding away hundreds of billions on murdering people abroad every year

Part of the reason why I emigrated to Canada is a desire to not be a slave to my work just for healthcare. It’s an unbelievable burden, and eventually the dam has to burst in America. Or you go bust. Or both.

M4All is INCREDIBLY popular, at least in coastal states. Oregon enshrined a right fi healthcare in its state constitution. Is it too much to ask America to evolve with the mid-20th century and have guaranteed fucking healthcare?

"Medicare for All" as a concept, as a daydream, is popular in a "would you like a cookie? sure, if you're giving out cookies" sense, but it's not a determining factor in most people's vote for president and never will be, because a) they have decades of experience of seeing presidents throw away opportunities to improve the lives of Americans and b) they have decades of experience of governmental attempts at improving Americans' lives turning into compromised, suck-ass half-measures full of bribes for rich scumbags anyway.

I guess Americans are fucked. It sucks that they don’t demand more, but I get it. You delude yourself into thinking you’re superior by staying ignorant of other countries and customs, promoting monolingualism, and romanticizing the status quo

M4Alll is a useful whipping boy for red state legislators; "wouldn't your rather have no healthcare at all than having BIG DEEP STATE gov't deciding when to euthanize your grandma??"

People fall for the Boogeyman. It’s the lack of media literacy (or really, literacy period. Millions cannot read at an 8th grade level)

Millions cannot read at an 8th grade level

My second favorite Tortoise album.

50, 000 Trumpers Can Hijack a Government

How is Biden's health solely an issue when Trump has some of the worst cholesterol numbers that you'd ever expect to see from someone taking a powerful dose of statin. He also never exercises.

Like if someone's making that their reason to vote against Biden, nobody reasonable was ever getting their vote

Still a shame COVID didn't get him

Never said Trump’s wasn’t an issue, either. Neither is doing much better than Diane Feinstein (who I fucking detest. People like her and Ruth Bader Ginsburg just cannot cede power)

Btw progressives didn't give Biden the White House. Independents did. They don't gaf about M4A.

That's missing the point here itt though. Most of us here support progressive policies and know how fucked our system is, so you're kinda being needlessly condescending, beamish.

But lack of M4All isn't dooming Biden.

The worry is the aforementioned Independents. Some of them will defect to the outsider party as per usual. Some will do so because of blaming Biden for inflation/economy. Others will still be driven to vote against Trump. Some may give up on voting.

The indictment will drive many Independents away, as well as gaining some who are stupid and believe it's gamesmanship.

But the Independents plus D turnout as well as Rs maintaining their 2020 turnout are the key to this election

Not trying to be condescending at all. Simply disgusted with the state of affairs in my former nation and resigned to the fact that things are only going to get worse

Turns out "American carnage" was aspriational.

*aspirational

Wish Trump would aspirate.

We can wish that he'd choke on a bone, but he probably only eats boneless chicken tenders.. he doesn't eat salmon

he doesn't eat salmon

definitely the beginning of the end for the Flaming Lips

he probably only eats boneless chicken tenders..

NEVER FORGET

https://img.i-scmp.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=425,format=auto/sites/default/files/styles/768x768/public/d8/images/methode/2020/11/23/06e11d1a-2a47-11eb-bf26-f2b76f37a526_image_hires_185130.png?itok=cUX5o-f0&v=1606128702

One of the only ways he plays is safe: eating KFC w/a knife & fork

that's another crime right there

wish he'd eat it with a katana

But lack of M4All isn't dooming Biden.

I agree — and to be clear, I'm not personally doomy about this election, I'm "I have no idea what's going to happen, shit is crazy." But Biden's weakness is just exactly what it looks like. Even if people don't think he's senescent, they do think he's old and out of touch and utterly uninspiring — I think that myself! For an incumbent, he's a super weak candidate. He got something of a pass in 2020 because so many people were turned off by Trump, but incumbents don't get that advantage. So I think he's coming in with the latent weaknesses of an incumbent in a shaky economy and few of the advantages.

Incumbents do, however, have a pronounced advantage that in modern times, they rarely lose.

that said, I don't think his winning re-election is a foregone conclusion either (and this is coming from someone who spent 2019-2020 basically screaming Trump was toast). i think treating any of the outcomes like foregone conclusions is just an effort in anxiety at this point - who knows, maybe polar bears will take America hostage

I would, however, encourage people to ignore any polling Presidential head to head polling right now, particularly because the 'undecided' responses are through the stratosphere, and pre-nom polls are usually garbage.

People who were turned off by Trump in 2020 are still turned off by Trump, because he's still in their faces every day. That should translate to voting turnout but who can say any more. I just hope that people who got turned off by Trump over the past few years stay turned off.

I’m pretty certain Donnie won’t win again if he gets the nom, but also think the idea of large turnout is wild. Biden is about as inspirational as a school lunch tray left out in the rain.

It's tough to imagine the presidential election with the highest turnout percentage rate in our lifetimes could be followed by an election with the exact same two candidates but see a significant turnout dropoff but ... yeah, there we kind of are.

I for one would welcome the polar bears

they make great points

It's been a while since I poked my head into reddit's Ask Trump Supporters group, where it's sometimes useful to take the temperature of things, and I was (pleasantly?) surprised to see the reaction of many to hearing the CNN tape that it does indeed look bad for Trump. Usually at least a few people bend over backwards to defend him, but in this case, not really.

I’m pretty certain Donnie won’t win again if he gets the nom, but also think the idea of large turnout is wild. Biden is about as inspirational as a school lunch tray left out in the rain.

Biden's been better than I expected. I've no problem voting for him positively.

Deez Nuts has an outsider chance

Bofa/Deez Nuts 24

Deez/Nader '24

Surprise third-party challenge from Updog

Dee/Nuts '24

"I'm being indicted for you." biblical, man. there is so much fearmongering in the new hampshire speech i'm surprised that he didn't just start naming random objects that the government is coming to take away from you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-giInVBpG8

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/27/TheyreComingToTakeMeAway-singlecover.jpg

He'll def be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white robes

I stumbled on a book review from September 2020 for Bob Woodward's tell-all books about Trump. It was a walk down Memory Lane. The review included such golden hits as:

• * Secretary of State Tillerson calling Trump "a moron".
• * Chief of Staff John Kelly calling Trump "an idiot".
• * Secretary of Defense Mattias saying he was "appalled" at Trump's behavior in office and Trump was "dangerous" and "unfit". And that he resigned when Trump's orders went from "stupid" to "felony stupid".
• * Fauci saying Trump's attention span was "a negative number".
• * NYT running an op-ed from numerous anonymous members of the Trump administration frantically trying to warn the public how criminal and incompetent Trump was.
• * Trump telling Woodward on the record in February 2020 that even though he knew how deadly covid was, he fully intended to minimize its danger to the public so he wouldn't look bad.

And after all that he still got 70 million votes

Indeed and I would suggest that this indicates how elite opinion(e.g. NYT Op-Eds) against the guy don’t actually do anything noticeable to decrease his vote count. Hell, more than a little bit of his appeal to part of the voter base that he *against* all those elites that plenty of voters blame for making like shitty(and of course there’s a kernel of truth to that)

I’m reminded of a point I’ve seen made from everybody from George Lakoff to C. Derick Varn over the last 20 years, that non-reactionaries need a far better model of the reactionary mind, as most Discourse on this shit doesn’t have an accurate idea what motivates voter behavior, or even voter whim.

They can interview my family: they hate anyone whom they suspect of receiving unearned benefits. That's the whole story.

don’t actually do anything noticeable to decrease his vote count.

well except decreasing it below how many EVs the leading vote-getter had. the important part.

that's the main thing. we all want all of these controversies to like, embarrass Trump and cause him to lose 538-0, but in today's America nothing like that will ever happen again, even if the candidate is a dog with one leg. I do too! but each party has a significant amount of built in votes now which requires humongous domino-toppling to flip. Georgia is a state a Dem can flip, and Pennsylvania could be flipped by an R like Trump did, but flipping Texas or a Republican flipping California would likely require massive vote-rigging.

but these things DO have an effect on his performance, just not in the monumental way we want it to happen. the impact is more noticeable at midterms, but Trump could have spun COVID into a war-time bump to his numbers and instead it became a liability.

lets be real I think most dogs would probably win in a landslide right now

Eminem vs 2 loud-assed, motherfuckin' barking dogs 2028

but yeah I think you're right, that stuff does move the needle a little, particularly amongst a subset of middle/upper class Republicans who legitimately do not like Trump. I know some of these people and when they talk politics it really is always about boring local issues, like who should be paying for this sidewalk, whether or not the Olive Garden should be subsidized, why the "free market" will always be better than a centralized system, etc. etc. They do not give a shit about Hunter Biden or Bud Lite or "wokeness" or CRT or any of the other shit Ron DeSantis constantly talks about. they really dislike violent protests but that's as far as they go in that direction. I really do think some of them are flippable, I know because I happen to know a few who actually did vote Biden, mostly because they think Trump is really bad for conservatism in general.

that said I think it's true that your average Trump voter is just someone whose life isn't great, who is probably working their ass off just to get by, who doesn't really give a shit about politics other than the fact that everyone is screwing them, so when they do consume any political media they're led directly to FOX News or Joe Rogan or Ben Shapiro or anyone else who will talk to them like they're a child, who insist that everything sucks but it could get better if only we elimainate wokeness or whatever. it doesn't make sense but it doesn't have to. when people like Rex Tillerson say Trump's an idiot, they think "if he's an idiot than I'm an idiot too, and I'm no idiot. You're the idiot."

If Trump can be said to have a talent, it surely is convincing those people that he is one of them, and not one of the Rex Tillersons of the world. Which, truth to be told, he really would be if not for his father's money.