"Whether you like him or not, or like it or not, Trump is the de facto leader of a combination resistance movement and a revival movement. Leader is kind of an odd word because in the cold light of day at the granular level, there's precious little if anything he personally and collectively with hopefully a cadre of loyal cabinet members and other advisers can do to root out the corruption that took him out four years ago and brought us to the brink of disaster (if we haven't irreversibly crossed over that line already). This assumes of course that he does indeed overcome a cheat that will be in everyone's face and more to the point, survive an increasing likelihood of being convicted in a kangaroo court and thrown in prison for what would be a life sentence considering his ages and the maximum sentences on each of the dozens of spurious and/or non-crime fake charges.
On a much higher level, what's being done to him, and more crucially what has resulted in what's being done to all of us vis a vis a crashing economy, an invasion of illegal aliens, a disastrous foreign policy that threatens a global conflagration, is raising the blood pressure of more and more citizens across ethnic, racial and political divides. More than anything else, and more than Trump, this is what scares the shit out of the Leftists, Democrats and RINO globalist stooges. But given that virtually the entire government and much of society outside of it has been thoroughly corrupted and hijacked by the Left, can a Popular Front for the Liberation of America (that ought to make Lefty heads explode!") ever have a chance to coalesce let alone achieve a final victory in our lifetimes?"
Yep! Trump is not very effective, he doesn't pick the right people, he say stupid stuff.....yet, we know what side he is on. The Leviathan has shown us what side he is on. I personally believe 90% of the Rs and Ds are bought and paid for, or actively against the American people.
I disagree that masks never worked anyway. They did an excellent job of indicating lunacy. We no longer had to check for EarPods before wondering whether that person was babbling to themselves or to an imaginary friend.
Every time I see a mask my mind works to ponder what mental illness that person has.
Also, given that respiratory viruses are incredibly small, I wonder what kind of logic a person has that believes that this "microscopic chain link fence is going to keep the mosquitos out."
"But the water vapor traps the particles and hooks it to the mask!"
And then I consider that they probably vote a very certain way for these same reasons.
Great commentary. Being a lame duck is kind of freeing. I’ve never really been a big fan of Trump the man, but he really has become more of a symbol than a person. A representation of peoples desire to be free from the exploitation and oppression of a government that despises them.
Almost all of the farmers in Iowa are Trump supporters. Right thinking people love to consider Iowa farmers as clueless hayseeds but let's take a closer look.
Our farmer friend manages several million dollars in fixed and working capital. He maintains a fleet of high tech farm machines that are networked to his robot drones. He's active in international commodity markets and knows how to hedge futures to control risks and maximize the gain from the occasional windfall.
He knows just when to plant, fertilize, and water and how a single days combine downtime will affect his future. He maintains the equipment himself, turning wrenches and lubricating chains and troubleshooting the computers.
And yet, the dimmest Gender Studies professor in the most obscure community college considers herself infinitely superior to this man. She views him with utter contempt.
I was at a startup pitch competition at UIllinois. Kid had a very cool thing that measured the humidity level inside the corn sitting in a silo. Farmers don't want to spend money using gas dryers to dry their corn...one questioner (investor) whom I assume was college educated with the MBA to go with it asked, "do farmers use cell phones?".....dunce.
While agreeing with all that you write, elections are, after all, exercises in counting votes. It doesn't matter why someone votes for or against someone (there will be a lot of votes cast "against" the opposing candidate).
Just the total matters and then only within the confines of the Electoral College calculus. Winning California, New York, Illinois by gargantuan margins means nothing within the EC calculus.
There is, however, another aspect -- we have an almost perfect comparison of the four years of Trump (less the Pandemic) and the four years of Biden (less the Pandemic to be fair).
That comparison -- on every aspect of the granular comparison -- favors Trump overwhelmingly.
And, then, there is the personality of the candidates -- like you, I don't see Biden as the ultimate standard bearer, but humor me -- and, again, the positive aspect of Trump proselytizing that he shall make American great again overwhelms the scolding, lying, angry Biden tone.
Personally, I have a need to know whether the 2020 election was a cheat or not; and, I believe that if there is an untainted, no mail in, no ballot harvesting, relaxed Pandemic rule set this election will answer that question.
Already in Illinois, JB Pritzker declared an emergency because of illegal aliens over running his sanctuary state. Other Dem guvs will follow. It is not beyond the scope for them to declare a "climate emergency" and we need ballot harvesting combined with mail in balloting.
One stat last night the left wing mainstream media was alarmed at, almost 70% of Republican voters thought 2020 was stolen. When that strong of a percentage believes it, no amount of fact will change their mind. In my opinion, there is statistical evidence that shows it was in fact stolen. The problem with that statistical evidence is in 2020, and in 2022, Trump backed candidates lost in general elections.
The rules under which the election was conducted in many states was an invitation to steal.
The massive amounts of money poured into the election for GOTV by the likes of Zuck were tools of theft as they were solely focused on districts that would manufacture votes for Biden.
So was the election fair? Nope.
Can we prove it was crooked? Not on the day after the election, but the statistical anomalies of adjoining counties and districts having inconsistent turnout and voter distribution is conclusive that something went very wrong.
This is data, but not evidence of how the cheat took place.
This is one of the reasons I want to see a Trump v Biden rematch absent all the Pandemic nonsense. Did Biden actually get all those votes?
The 2020 election was a cheat. There is no question about it. Tens of thousands of bogus ballots in key locations was all it took, and the Democrats have specialized in that kind of stuff for many decades. It's how Kennedy won Cook County in 1960.
My observation of Trump is that he is good and kind to everyone he meets, especially everyday people (of all demos). He is uniformly insulting - including mean tweets - to the elite class, often mocking them. I disagree with you about Obama. He was smug and condescending to everyday people but sucked up to the elites. That's why people think well of him today: first black president etc. The media covers for him. But he was also a duplicitous liar that took everyone who felt good about his election for a ride. "If you like your plan . . . " and he is singularly responsible for the Mideast situation we see today by supporting Iran over Israel, often surreptitiously. I think Obama hates Jews and hates Israel and will be pleased when the mullahs have nukes. But be careful. Orange Man Bad!
Duplicitous liar is right. Obama criticized the Iraq war, as Trump did later, but once he got into office, he did nothing to challenge the MIC. He escalated our involvement in Afghanistan (look how that turned out), and he got us entangled in messes in Libya and Syria. Remember how he made fun of Romney for raising concerns about Russia? But it was in Obama's 2nd term that the US backed the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine (with the help of Victoria Nuland), and that event paved the way for Russia's intervention in Ukraine and got us into that costly debacle under Biden.
Yes, Biden was a miscalculation. So is the relentless, pointless persecution/prosecution of Trump which only succeeds in making the Dems look small and weak. Never punch down, and then lose. Americans like fairness, and this isn't fair. So I predict a slapback to the Dems in the form of a Trump landslide. And McConnell may just well retire when that happens.
The down ballot Dems are terrified of this sinking ship. Hey, learn to code.
Not sure I trust DeSantis. But I sure don't trust Haley. Trump is an awesomely flawed individual, but look at the flack he's taking. He's totally "over the target!" Pray for the country. I don't see any easy way out of this with all the rhetoric and histrionics coming from the left these days! Great post and great comments as always!
I certainly saw that "blurry thing." Hold the sarcasm. But actually, one man with "50 mighty men" can accomplish a lot, with or without the party.
As for McRomBush, yes Trump endorsed her. Who else was there? Don't answer. No one. The same in many of these races. People like Yertle (McConnell) have ZERO practical opponents. For a couple of years, Trump tried to be a nice guy, to work with them. A little late he realized they were snakes. This time, he must crush them. I believe he can and will. And I hope I'm one of the 50 Mighty Men.
You could scoop up 10 drug-addicted hobos from random San Francisco street corners and have at least a 50% change of finding someone with better organizational and fundraising skills than Ronna, Larry. Trump could have picked one of the organizers who helped architect the voter registration operations in model-run Republican states like Iowa or Florida. Hell, he could have tapped Scott Presler. This idea that there simply *isn't* anybody else is just feeble excuse-making for a guy who's spent the last eight years careening from one terrible personnel decision to another (in non-trivial part because he and his surrogates can't keep from insulting and alienating every halfway-competent individual who might be persuaded to work with them).
As for the idea that he's going to accomplish a lot with "50 mighty men" -- okay. How? Again: let's assume that there are 10-13 million reliable Trump-or-nobody votes, and he wins the Oval Office. He'll have slender-to-nonexistent majorities in Congress, an implacably hostile bureaucracy that's protected by civil service rules he's powerless to change, and he's term limited.
Let's even assume, generously, that he manages to assemble a true cadre of legit badasses rather than another tragicomic embarassment of a Cabinet like he did in his first term.
How's he actually going to deliver? Explain it to me.
Yah, the problem with that is 1) he is backed up by two books that researched the 2016 election and found the same thing, although earlier; 2) Most of us MAGA are no longer "Republicans." I could care less what happens to the GOP. It is, for now, a better vehicle than the demonic DemoKKKrats, but the RNC has been virtually useless either in fighting fraud or signing up voters. If they aren't thoroghly compromised they are incompetent to the extreme. Hence I switched my registration in 2020 after the AZ debacle to IND, as did my wife. Most of those 13 million hate Ds, but also hate Rs for that very reason. So far, it is NOT the party of the "working man," which MAGA is rapidly becoming. There is also a country club, "don't want their type" with the old GOP. It might be saved, but in the meantime, I could care less.
Well, to whatever extent the RNC is terrible at fighting fraud and signing up voters, we can thank Trump-endorsed RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and her crack staff.
But the broader point I'm trying to make here -- that blurry thing that just whooshed past the side of your head -- is that to actually effect the kind of structural change that MAGA claims to want, you need to do more than just tick a box on the ballot for president every four years. And if you're not going to help do that, then what good are you, and why should anybody be interested in structuring a political coalition around you and your preferences?
Pretty much right on. In 2016, BEFORE THE ELECTION, I wrote "How Trump Won" with Joel Pollak. No publisher would take it. Regnery took it immediately thereafter. Some of Trump's appeal is that he does not speak "politicalese." As the great Rush Limbaugh said of Trump, the left takes him literally but not seriously, but the conservatives take him seriously but not literally. At heart he's a salesman, selling the concept of America to the world. Most of all, people understand intuitively that if SO MANY DEEP STATE ACTORS are trying to stop him, he must be the real deal. They only expend this level of effort if the threat is existential. Richard Baris's polling, plus the book by Selena Zito "The Great Revolt," plus the book by Jon Jakubowski, "Bell Wether Blues" all identify a BIG segment of the electorate that is totally disengaged from "regular" politics and ONLY come out when Trump is on the ticket (hence, 2018 and 2022) Baris estimates there are 10-13 million of these. Moreover, his and other polling shows that UNregistered voters are Trump+17, that is HIGHLY more likely to vote for Trump. DeSantis and Haley don't come close to those numbers. Or, the more voters the Rs register, the more the party leans MAGA.
Assume for sake of argument that Rich Baris is not a reliably-wrong grifter preying on the bottomless gullibility of BoomerCons, and that there actually are 10-13 million disengaged voters out there in the hinterlands who only show up to the polls when Trump is on the ballot.
If you're a Republican who wants to see Republicans take and hold power -- not just win the presidency, but win and maintain majorities in Congress -- what's the positive case for trying to build an electoral coalition around those voters and their Trump-or-nobody preferences, especially given that even if Trump wraps up the primary and then goes on to defeat Biden in the general, he's term limited and will never be on the ballot again?
I don't see the miscues from the Republican's in the 90's being tied to getting in bed with the "religious-right", whatever that means, no I see it as getting in bed with Bush 1, who was nothing more than really a RINO in every way shape and form. More of that Rockefeller Repbulilcan from an earlier era. They ran the other direction from Reagan, that was their problem. Trump can do some great things, but only with both houses in what I like to call "true Repbulilcan control"- not RINO control. The amount of things that need to be unwound at the federal level and returned to the states are numerous and well entrenched and will fight like cornered, rabid dogs. The supreme court will need to stay where it is and be steadyd and strong as this process takes place, if in fact it will take place. Certainly the Dems are working overtime on how to replace Biden and Harris, whch I think will become more common for them in this next election and coming elections.
Here's Milei's speech from Davos. We need more (any) politicians who can express these thoughts and develop implementable legislation that moves the ball forward. Current US politicians are afraid of their constituents who all love free stuff.
Ditch the feeble excuse making crap. You know as well as I, since your such a proponent of the "party," that Presler was NOT going to accepted by the internal powers that be. Any general knows he can only fight one war at a time.
You can just quit now. I'm done with you., Certainly I'm done with the GOP. It's Trump or bust. BTW, a "lame duck" who doesn't care is the most dangerous man in Washington. Bye.
It was a freaking *endorsement*, Larry, not a war. But TrumpWorld keeps telling me that election integrity is the highest-priority issue of our time, that if we don't fix it then we don't have a country, etc. -- and if that's true, then what other "war" was Trump involved with that was more important?
And what were the costs of Trump simply not endorsing for RNC chair at all? Was somebody holding a gun to his head?
But hey, you go do your Brave Sir Robin thing. See ya.
What conceivable basis is there for believing that Trump is capable of learning from experience and modifying his behavior accordingly? When in the past has he *ever* exhibited the ability to own up to an error of judgment and adjust course?
This is pretty good: https://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=407895
"Whether you like him or not, or like it or not, Trump is the de facto leader of a combination resistance movement and a revival movement. Leader is kind of an odd word because in the cold light of day at the granular level, there's precious little if anything he personally and collectively with hopefully a cadre of loyal cabinet members and other advisers can do to root out the corruption that took him out four years ago and brought us to the brink of disaster (if we haven't irreversibly crossed over that line already). This assumes of course that he does indeed overcome a cheat that will be in everyone's face and more to the point, survive an increasing likelihood of being convicted in a kangaroo court and thrown in prison for what would be a life sentence considering his ages and the maximum sentences on each of the dozens of spurious and/or non-crime fake charges.
On a much higher level, what's being done to him, and more crucially what has resulted in what's being done to all of us vis a vis a crashing economy, an invasion of illegal aliens, a disastrous foreign policy that threatens a global conflagration, is raising the blood pressure of more and more citizens across ethnic, racial and political divides. More than anything else, and more than Trump, this is what scares the shit out of the Leftists, Democrats and RINO globalist stooges. But given that virtually the entire government and much of society outside of it has been thoroughly corrupted and hijacked by the Left, can a Popular Front for the Liberation of America (that ought to make Lefty heads explode!") ever have a chance to coalesce let alone achieve a final victory in our lifetimes?"
It is not Trump, the Republican standard bearer v Biden (or whoever); it is Trump v
the RINOs,
the Establishment,
the media,
the social media,
the deep state,
the weaponized government departments (DOJ, FBI, CIA),
the external manipulators (China, Russia), and,
oh, yes, almost forgot -- the Dems behind the scenes pulling the levers.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Yep! Trump is not very effective, he doesn't pick the right people, he say stupid stuff.....yet, we know what side he is on. The Leviathan has shown us what side he is on. I personally believe 90% of the Rs and Ds are bought and paid for, or actively against the American people.
I disagree that masks never worked anyway. They did an excellent job of indicating lunacy. We no longer had to check for EarPods before wondering whether that person was babbling to themselves or to an imaginary friend.
ha. ear pods are not necessarily correlated!
Every time I see a mask my mind works to ponder what mental illness that person has.
Also, given that respiratory viruses are incredibly small, I wonder what kind of logic a person has that believes that this "microscopic chain link fence is going to keep the mosquitos out."
"But the water vapor traps the particles and hooks it to the mask!"
And then I consider that they probably vote a very certain way for these same reasons.
We all know it.
It stems from a combination of fear and virtue signaling
Haha, funny and true.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Great commentary. Being a lame duck is kind of freeing. I’ve never really been a big fan of Trump the man, but he really has become more of a symbol than a person. A representation of peoples desire to be free from the exploitation and oppression of a government that despises them.
He's gonna need both public opinion and people in Congress to whip and drive the cattle
Can’t say I’d expect much effort from the congresscritters…
You might like this comment from Instapundit's repost of this article, https://instapundit.com/627100
<quote>
Almost all of the farmers in Iowa are Trump supporters. Right thinking people love to consider Iowa farmers as clueless hayseeds but let's take a closer look.
Our farmer friend manages several million dollars in fixed and working capital. He maintains a fleet of high tech farm machines that are networked to his robot drones. He's active in international commodity markets and knows how to hedge futures to control risks and maximize the gain from the occasional windfall.
He knows just when to plant, fertilize, and water and how a single days combine downtime will affect his future. He maintains the equipment himself, turning wrenches and lubricating chains and troubleshooting the computers.
And yet, the dimmest Gender Studies professor in the most obscure community college considers herself infinitely superior to this man. She views him with utter contempt.
See the problem?
</quote>
I was at a startup pitch competition at UIllinois. Kid had a very cool thing that measured the humidity level inside the corn sitting in a silo. Farmers don't want to spend money using gas dryers to dry their corn...one questioner (investor) whom I assume was college educated with the MBA to go with it asked, "do farmers use cell phones?".....dunce.
While agreeing with all that you write, elections are, after all, exercises in counting votes. It doesn't matter why someone votes for or against someone (there will be a lot of votes cast "against" the opposing candidate).
Just the total matters and then only within the confines of the Electoral College calculus. Winning California, New York, Illinois by gargantuan margins means nothing within the EC calculus.
There is, however, another aspect -- we have an almost perfect comparison of the four years of Trump (less the Pandemic) and the four years of Biden (less the Pandemic to be fair).
That comparison -- on every aspect of the granular comparison -- favors Trump overwhelmingly.
And, then, there is the personality of the candidates -- like you, I don't see Biden as the ultimate standard bearer, but humor me -- and, again, the positive aspect of Trump proselytizing that he shall make American great again overwhelms the scolding, lying, angry Biden tone.
Personally, I have a need to know whether the 2020 election was a cheat or not; and, I believe that if there is an untainted, no mail in, no ballot harvesting, relaxed Pandemic rule set this election will answer that question.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Already in Illinois, JB Pritzker declared an emergency because of illegal aliens over running his sanctuary state. Other Dem guvs will follow. It is not beyond the scope for them to declare a "climate emergency" and we need ballot harvesting combined with mail in balloting.
One stat last night the left wing mainstream media was alarmed at, almost 70% of Republican voters thought 2020 was stolen. When that strong of a percentage believes it, no amount of fact will change their mind. In my opinion, there is statistical evidence that shows it was in fact stolen. The problem with that statistical evidence is in 2020, and in 2022, Trump backed candidates lost in general elections.
It’s unfortunate and alarming that there are 32% of Republican voters that may actually believe the 2020 election wasn’t stolen.
It's unfortunate a lot of self proclaimed Republicans on Twitter say they aren't voting for Trump......silly children
Bear in mind that fewer than 20% of registered Republican voters came to the caucuses yesterday in Iowa.
Only 60 - 65% of registered Republican voters will vote on Election Day.
There is plenty of room for people to pontificate, threaten, and warn -- because 35 - 40% of these charlatans will not vote anyway.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Mask wearing dipshits. To hell with them.
There is "lost" and there is "stolen."
The rules under which the election was conducted in many states was an invitation to steal.
The massive amounts of money poured into the election for GOTV by the likes of Zuck were tools of theft as they were solely focused on districts that would manufacture votes for Biden.
So was the election fair? Nope.
Can we prove it was crooked? Not on the day after the election, but the statistical anomalies of adjoining counties and districts having inconsistent turnout and voter distribution is conclusive that something went very wrong.
This is data, but not evidence of how the cheat took place.
This is one of the reasons I want to see a Trump v Biden rematch absent all the Pandemic nonsense. Did Biden actually get all those votes?
We will get a very good indication this time.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Good prediction that some kind of emergency will be called in October.
The 2020 election was a cheat. There is no question about it. Tens of thousands of bogus ballots in key locations was all it took, and the Democrats have specialized in that kind of stuff for many decades. It's how Kennedy won Cook County in 1960.
My observation of Trump is that he is good and kind to everyone he meets, especially everyday people (of all demos). He is uniformly insulting - including mean tweets - to the elite class, often mocking them. I disagree with you about Obama. He was smug and condescending to everyday people but sucked up to the elites. That's why people think well of him today: first black president etc. The media covers for him. But he was also a duplicitous liar that took everyone who felt good about his election for a ride. "If you like your plan . . . " and he is singularly responsible for the Mideast situation we see today by supporting Iran over Israel, often surreptitiously. I think Obama hates Jews and hates Israel and will be pleased when the mullahs have nukes. But be careful. Orange Man Bad!
Agree with you more than you do with yourself.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Duplicitous liar is right. Obama criticized the Iraq war, as Trump did later, but once he got into office, he did nothing to challenge the MIC. He escalated our involvement in Afghanistan (look how that turned out), and he got us entangled in messes in Libya and Syria. Remember how he made fun of Romney for raising concerns about Russia? But it was in Obama's 2nd term that the US backed the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine (with the help of Victoria Nuland), and that event paved the way for Russia's intervention in Ukraine and got us into that costly debacle under Biden.
Yes, Biden was a miscalculation. So is the relentless, pointless persecution/prosecution of Trump which only succeeds in making the Dems look small and weak. Never punch down, and then lose. Americans like fairness, and this isn't fair. So I predict a slapback to the Dems in the form of a Trump landslide. And McConnell may just well retire when that happens.
The down ballot Dems are terrified of this sinking ship. Hey, learn to code.
Not sure I trust DeSantis. But I sure don't trust Haley. Trump is an awesomely flawed individual, but look at the flack he's taking. He's totally "over the target!" Pray for the country. I don't see any easy way out of this with all the rhetoric and histrionics coming from the left these days! Great post and great comments as always!
What makes you not sure you trust DeSantis?
Jeff — I think your point about general contractors was an excellent one. It certainly fits my experience anyway.
I certainly saw that "blurry thing." Hold the sarcasm. But actually, one man with "50 mighty men" can accomplish a lot, with or without the party.
As for McRomBush, yes Trump endorsed her. Who else was there? Don't answer. No one. The same in many of these races. People like Yertle (McConnell) have ZERO practical opponents. For a couple of years, Trump tried to be a nice guy, to work with them. A little late he realized they were snakes. This time, he must crush them. I believe he can and will. And I hope I'm one of the 50 Mighty Men.
You could scoop up 10 drug-addicted hobos from random San Francisco street corners and have at least a 50% change of finding someone with better organizational and fundraising skills than Ronna, Larry. Trump could have picked one of the organizers who helped architect the voter registration operations in model-run Republican states like Iowa or Florida. Hell, he could have tapped Scott Presler. This idea that there simply *isn't* anybody else is just feeble excuse-making for a guy who's spent the last eight years careening from one terrible personnel decision to another (in non-trivial part because he and his surrogates can't keep from insulting and alienating every halfway-competent individual who might be persuaded to work with them).
As for the idea that he's going to accomplish a lot with "50 mighty men" -- okay. How? Again: let's assume that there are 10-13 million reliable Trump-or-nobody votes, and he wins the Oval Office. He'll have slender-to-nonexistent majorities in Congress, an implacably hostile bureaucracy that's protected by civil service rules he's powerless to change, and he's term limited.
Let's even assume, generously, that he manages to assemble a true cadre of legit badasses rather than another tragicomic embarassment of a Cabinet like he did in his first term.
How's he actually going to deliver? Explain it to me.
Yah, the problem with that is 1) he is backed up by two books that researched the 2016 election and found the same thing, although earlier; 2) Most of us MAGA are no longer "Republicans." I could care less what happens to the GOP. It is, for now, a better vehicle than the demonic DemoKKKrats, but the RNC has been virtually useless either in fighting fraud or signing up voters. If they aren't thoroghly compromised they are incompetent to the extreme. Hence I switched my registration in 2020 after the AZ debacle to IND, as did my wife. Most of those 13 million hate Ds, but also hate Rs for that very reason. So far, it is NOT the party of the "working man," which MAGA is rapidly becoming. There is also a country club, "don't want their type" with the old GOP. It might be saved, but in the meantime, I could care less.
Well, to whatever extent the RNC is terrible at fighting fraud and signing up voters, we can thank Trump-endorsed RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and her crack staff.
But the broader point I'm trying to make here -- that blurry thing that just whooshed past the side of your head -- is that to actually effect the kind of structural change that MAGA claims to want, you need to do more than just tick a box on the ballot for president every four years. And if you're not going to help do that, then what good are you, and why should anybody be interested in structuring a political coalition around you and your preferences?
Pretty much right on. In 2016, BEFORE THE ELECTION, I wrote "How Trump Won" with Joel Pollak. No publisher would take it. Regnery took it immediately thereafter. Some of Trump's appeal is that he does not speak "politicalese." As the great Rush Limbaugh said of Trump, the left takes him literally but not seriously, but the conservatives take him seriously but not literally. At heart he's a salesman, selling the concept of America to the world. Most of all, people understand intuitively that if SO MANY DEEP STATE ACTORS are trying to stop him, he must be the real deal. They only expend this level of effort if the threat is existential. Richard Baris's polling, plus the book by Selena Zito "The Great Revolt," plus the book by Jon Jakubowski, "Bell Wether Blues" all identify a BIG segment of the electorate that is totally disengaged from "regular" politics and ONLY come out when Trump is on the ticket (hence, 2018 and 2022) Baris estimates there are 10-13 million of these. Moreover, his and other polling shows that UNregistered voters are Trump+17, that is HIGHLY more likely to vote for Trump. DeSantis and Haley don't come close to those numbers. Or, the more voters the Rs register, the more the party leans MAGA.
Assume for sake of argument that Rich Baris is not a reliably-wrong grifter preying on the bottomless gullibility of BoomerCons, and that there actually are 10-13 million disengaged voters out there in the hinterlands who only show up to the polls when Trump is on the ballot.
If you're a Republican who wants to see Republicans take and hold power -- not just win the presidency, but win and maintain majorities in Congress -- what's the positive case for trying to build an electoral coalition around those voters and their Trump-or-nobody preferences, especially given that even if Trump wraps up the primary and then goes on to defeat Biden in the general, he's term limited and will never be on the ballot again?
I don't see the miscues from the Republican's in the 90's being tied to getting in bed with the "religious-right", whatever that means, no I see it as getting in bed with Bush 1, who was nothing more than really a RINO in every way shape and form. More of that Rockefeller Repbulilcan from an earlier era. They ran the other direction from Reagan, that was their problem. Trump can do some great things, but only with both houses in what I like to call "true Repbulilcan control"- not RINO control. The amount of things that need to be unwound at the federal level and returned to the states are numerous and well entrenched and will fight like cornered, rabid dogs. The supreme court will need to stay where it is and be steadyd and strong as this process takes place, if in fact it will take place. Certainly the Dems are working overtime on how to replace Biden and Harris, whch I think will become more common for them in this next election and coming elections.
Here's Milei's speech from Davos. We need more (any) politicians who can express these thoughts and develop implementable legislation that moves the ball forward. Current US politicians are afraid of their constituents who all love free stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfcd0gWNIog
Ditch the feeble excuse making crap. You know as well as I, since your such a proponent of the "party," that Presler was NOT going to accepted by the internal powers that be. Any general knows he can only fight one war at a time.
You can just quit now. I'm done with you., Certainly I'm done with the GOP. It's Trump or bust. BTW, a "lame duck" who doesn't care is the most dangerous man in Washington. Bye.
It was a freaking *endorsement*, Larry, not a war. But TrumpWorld keeps telling me that election integrity is the highest-priority issue of our time, that if we don't fix it then we don't have a country, etc. -- and if that's true, then what other "war" was Trump involved with that was more important?
And what were the costs of Trump simply not endorsing for RNC chair at all? Was somebody holding a gun to his head?
But hey, you go do your Brave Sir Robin thing. See ya.
What conceivable basis is there for believing that Trump is capable of learning from experience and modifying his behavior accordingly? When in the past has he *ever* exhibited the ability to own up to an error of judgment and adjust course?