Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

I am still quite adamant his poll numbers will decline next year when the campaign gets started in earnest and he picks a real whackadoo that normal people instantly hate as his VP.

He isn’t edging ahead of Mr. Biden in swing states because Americans are eager to submit to authoritarianism

Then you're saying he'd be an authoritarian with poor approval ratings?

VP Gary Busey

maybe to explain his numbers some analysis of the options being offered to the electorate might be in order

Not to oversimplify things but I'm not sure the political appeal of Strong Man Who Will Solve Yr Problems and Smite Yr Enemies requires all that much analysis. Especially up against Weakish Old Man Who Made My Groceries Expensive.

Might be worth remembering what, if anything, Biden was last time around if not "Weakish Old Man who is NOT Trump" ... which speaks to Boring Maryland's point a few upthread

Was gonna say Trump's supporters are visibly quite comfortable with his authoritarianism. It doesn't matter to them if he uses extra-legal means or effectively destroys large parts of the social contract, so long as they think he'll reward them and suppress everything they disapprove of. These are not exactly deep thinkers we're talking about.

Independents, as always, will swing this thing, as will disgruntled Dems. Independents have begun swinging back Trump's way, but their support is always so much more tenuous than hard Ds and hard Rs.

Not to oversimplify things but I'm not sure the political appeal of Strong Man Who Will Solve Yr Problems and Smite Yr Enemies requires all that much analysis. Especially up against Weakish Old Man Who Made My Groceries Expensive.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, December 18, 2023 1:02 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

And the first one lost already.

again it's pretty hard to take polls seriously before a single primary vote has even been cast, a lot of this is just vibes at this point and the vibes have not been particularly good lately. but like you've got some showing RFK getting as much as 20%, so I dunno how much stock to put in these. I wonder if polls taken this far out are actually predictive of anything. fwiw I do think any illusion that Trump is 'moderate' is gonna be shattered as soon as the campaign actually starts. like obviously he has a path to converting independents if he says and does the right things but we all know that Trump will not, in fact between now and then he's going to say a hundred things that would be disqualifying for anyone else. and I also suspect the media is gonna cover him differently than they did in prior years, like every non-right wing journalist is gonna try to hammer him on the insurrection and 2020 election stuff and I don't think he's gonna respond to that in a normal way.

that said it wouldn't hurt the Dems to actually find a way to trumpet Biden's accomplishments some, it's really infuriating how from 2016-2020 every stock market record and decent jobs report was credited directly to Trump (even by the so-called left wing media!) while Biden's economy by the numbers has actually been significantly better and you don't hear a peep about it. like just imagine if gas had gone down to $2.70 under Trump's watch. you'd never hear the end of it. but instead Biden somehow takes all the blame for high food prices. idk I just think the Democrats have the worst PR people on the planet

Well, yeah.

Congressional Dems rejected the idea of trumpeting Biden's economy

Different games. Maybe it's because I just suffered through George Clooney's latest Greatest Generation rah-rah atrocity, but mainstream Dems are even still stymied by the lure of unity that by all appearances set sail decades ago. That is, suffice it to say, not the game its opposition is playing

idk I just think the Democrats the worst people on the planet

YEP

dunno, I can think of worse

I get the impulse, but I'm not sure I'd sign off on the idea that the milquetoast fascist-enablers are actually worse than the fascists themselves.

I don't remember people universally thinking the economy was sunshine and roses under Trump.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/22/positive-views-of-economy-surge-driven-by-major-shifts-among-republicans/

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/04/07/evaluations-of-the-economy-and-the-state-of-the-nation/

These do have some points of reference, though - healthcare and food costs the biggest issues for household economics, a sharp decline in people who thought the economy was going to improve after a year of Trump (only 10% of Democrats). For people who already owned houses they were seeing the value increase in big chunks in 2018, in 2023 the value of your house has flatlined but people who don't own still can't afford to buy.

I'll post a story about my recent adventures with a local politician running in 2o24 soon

xpost

It's funny, in Tennessee we actually have some pretty good Dems in office but I think a lot of it is because they're so powerless. It doesn't particularly cost them anything to argue for abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, gun restrictions, labor rights, climate action ... because they don't have to worry about trying to put together a majority that can actually get those things passed. They write aspirational bills that get shitcanned in committee and never have to go through the compromises that would accompany them if they had any chance of becoming law.

Posting this a week after candidate filing deadline in TX = masterclass pic.twitter.com/d3WPLHKI1F

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) December 19, 2023

Chip Roy is a RINO? LOL

Pissy baby is pissed because Roy didn't vote to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and because he's currently supporting DeSantis.

There needs to be a new acronym in this case. I propose CUNT: Conservative, Unfortunately Not Trumpy.

At this point RINO is just an insult they throw around without regard to meaning. Sort of like how people get called TERFs when they are not feminists at all.

It's code for "not one of us." You might as well call him a "Trotskyite."

I believe it's spelled "troglodyte"

RINO
Squish
NeverTrumper
Neocon
Deep Stater

These all mean the same thing these days basically

all republicans have to do to avoid becoming a RINO is commit eternal fealty towards a 91 times indicted, convicted rapist with early stage dementia, what's their problem?

BREAKING: Colorado Supreme Court disqualifies Donald Trump from the state's presidential primary ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The move sets up a battle before the U.S. Supreme Court. https://t.co/dfnRnBU3wS

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) December 19, 2023

lmao

I said this would never happen, so excellent work by my home state!

Coloradon't

Ron has a shot then!

Doom-addicted pundits and bloggers sing as one: Oh, no, this will only make him stronger and more powerful...

wow, the woke colorado supreme court

Bold to call others a "RINO", he's the living embodiment of that term

Trump's political party affiliation has changed numerous times. He registered as a Republican in 1987; a member of the Independence Party, the New York state affiliate of the Reform Party, in 1999; a Democrat in 2001; a Republican in 2009; unaffiliated in 2011; and a Republican in 2012.

So he actually LEFT the GOP in 2001

it's funny that any of this is even a question, since the constitution bans people who engage in insurrection from holding office, which trump obviously did (whenever it's suggested that there is anything other 100% certainty on this i feel gaslit as fuck and so do hundreds of millions of other people), but the u.s. supreme court will bail him out anyway.

They haven't been real interested in saving Trump's ass so far

I have a feeling they're going to hinge a lot on the Senate not convicting him. Just cannot see SCOTUS letting it stand. But also wtf do I know.

I think even the most right-wing supreme court judges won't work towards reducing, even giving up their own judicial power, to suit a very strange nazi period of republican party history - that probably isn't that strange in the context of the history of US fascism, exceptions like Aileen Cannon seem like in a tiny minority.

is Aileen Cannon a supreme court judge? fuck knows I'm going to bed!

Dang, Donnie

I can see Clarence Thomas going for that but the other rightwing judges haven't really ruled in Trump's favor on anything so far

I have a feeling they're going to hinge a lot on the Senate not convicting him. Just cannot see SCOTUS letting it stand. But also wtf do I know.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, December 19, 2023

completely agree. although he's not going to win the general election in Colorado in any case

well this is some fabulous news!

Rudy, Colorado, what’s the third

Does SCOTUS even have to hear this? Or can they just mumble something about sovereign state election laws and let it stand

The fight isn't really about Colorado — the suit was under the U.S. Constitution, if SCOTUS upholds it presumably it applies nationwide right? If you're violating the 14th Amendment in Denver, you're violating it in Des Moines.