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He proved to be the Democrats biggest weapon. Trump’s endorsement of candidates proved to be voter repellant.
NH’s Maggie Hassan was an easy pick up for Republicans but Democrats saw an opening with Trump endorsed Don Bolduc. Democrats supported his primary run and then threw a blizzard of advertising money at him in the last two weeks as Mitch McConnell dried up his financial support long before the election. Bolduc was left high and dry and lost.
Trump did some good things in office but he has to leave the stage forever.
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Abortion was their biggest weapon. Republicans didn’t mobilize sufficiently, independents are still gamed, and liberal women want the right to choose not to use 9 different types of contraception or common sense who/ how they bang. Republicans still don’t know how to fight dirty. Look at Maricopa County. Let Trump and DeSantis slug it out, may the best man win. The problem is we have no bench nationwide.
“I remember that one fateful day when Coach took me aside. I knew what was coming. "You don't have to tell me," I said. "I'm off the team, aren't I?" "Well," said Coach, "you never were really ON the team. You made that uniform you're wearing out of rags and towels, and your helmet is a toy space helmet. You show up at practice and then either steal the ball and make us chase you to get it back, or you try to tackle people at inappropriate times." It was all true what he was saying. And yet, I
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If trump were a team player, here’s what he should do:
1. announce a run for president. Not now but, say just before desantis
2. Act as the stalking horse for desantis… keep desantis in the news and to the left of “perceived trump” (I say perceived because trump was never a hard right pol).
3. Make it about exposure and favorable coverage for desantis, while doing his “trump” thing to rile the 15 % of the electorate that is “MAGA TRUMP”
4. Go through the primaries with a goal of winning a few but putting desantis on offense and keeping him in the news. The Dems are sure to have a primary fight in 24 OR they will have Biden getting plenty of pub.
5. Drop out and endorse desantis. Leaving desantis as a sane, logical, centrist choice against Biden or whatever other lefty loon the Dems put in place.
this will never happen because trump is about trump.
and, I agree he needs to get off the stage.
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Sic transit gloria mundi (so shut up and get back to work) -
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[quote quote=6619]If trump were a team player, here’s what he should do: 1. announce a run for president. Not now but, say just before desantis 2. Act as the stalking horse for desantis… keep desantis in the news and to the left of “perceived trump” (I say perceived because trump was never a hard right pol). 3. Make it about exposure and favorable coverage for desantis, while doing his “trump” thing to rile the 15 % of the electorate that is “MAGA TRUMP” 4. Go through the primaries with a goal of winning a few but putting desantis on offense and keeping him in the news. The Dems are sure to have a primary fight in 24 OR they will have Biden getting plenty of pub. 5. Drop out and endorse desantis. Leaving desantis as a sane, logical, centrist choice against Biden or whatever other lefty loon the Dems put in place. this will never happen because trump is about trump. and, I agree he needs to get off the stage.[/quote]
Trump is a team player on a one man team.
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[quote quote=6620]I voted for Trump in the past…but I will never do it again. I like many of his policies, but he has too many negative character issues. Also, his recent comment about DeSantis just before the election was the final straw. I wish he would just fade away.[/quote]
Brix- in 4 sentences, you stated exactly how I feel about Trump. Right now he is the glue that holds the democratic party together. Seems like every political ad from the left in the last 3 weeks mentioned MAGA, Trump supporter or election denier.
Trump needs to step aside…..
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I don’t think Trump has a chance to win the primary — unless many Republicans get in and split the primary vote. He has a lot of support, no question. But I have to think that cooler heads will prevail. In a very strange way, he’ll generate a huge turnout among the anti-Trump Republicans — for that reason, I actually support the idea of him running. Republicans will register to vote in record numbers. Based upon how Trump’s candidates got trounced last week, I have to think his support is receding. Not just that, it is likely that Biden and other progressive Democrats will continue to stink up the joint. Incidentally, I don’t dislike Democrats — I’m a registered Independent, and I prefer to think carefully and soberly about any politician for whom I vote. I voted for Obama over McCain and for Romney over Obama.
Once Trump loses the primary, he and the anti-democracy/vote conspiracy people will be finished. I do, however, hope that his common-sense policies remain. Every time I hear a politician support a common sense, middle-of-the-road policy, I want to weep, because it’s so rare. That’s what attracted people to Trump in the first place. And let’s not forget that if there wasn’t a COVID pandemic, Trump would have won the 2020 Presidential election. Or if it had been any other candidate instead of you-can-always-count-on-Joe-Biden-to-f-things-up (my favorite Obama quote), then Trump would have won, because the Dems were only running polemicists like Bernie or Pocahontas.
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“I voted for Obama over McCain and for Romney over Obama.”
I did too.
And while I agree with your comfortable approach there is an element I find troubling. With Trump, you vote for a demonstrated record. His commitment to your “common sense policies” is unquestionable.
Politicians however are committed to their perceived self interest alone. Look no further than Fetterman, Hassan and Ryan. They were Trump policy mavens the last four weeks of their campaigns. Did you believe them Mick?
Tell me, who enters the Republican primary season that you trust? They’ll all pledge fealty to Trump’s policies. Yet they’re all hoping to tap the same money and the money guys weren’t too wild about Trump.
Here's a toast with one last pour, may it last forever and a minute more;
Good fortune seems to you have sung, to live and love way past long
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The Justice Dept and the NY AG want to arrest, convict and jail Trump. They want to publicly destroy, bankrupt, and humiliate him and everyone who supports him. Now is the best time to do it because if it backfires there will be 2 years to recover.
The tragedy of this election for the American people may end up being that we will never know in it’s entirely what happened on Jan 6 unless Republicans take the house and continue the Jan 6 hearings and bring forward defense witnesses to get to the bottom of all involved on both sides. So far it has been a sham trial. If Democrats take the House they can run the hearing indefinitely to divert attention from all of the ongoing problems they have created. They will have Trump and Republicans in a straight jacket.
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[quote quote=6631]Both sides? JFC. I am going to regret engaging here, but I didn’t realize this delusion is still alive.[/quote]
The purpose of the Jan 6 Commission was to win an election. Otherwise it would have been bipartisan. I tend to believe Trump is indictable but not convictible in a fair trial because once you poison the well with censorship it can never be reversed. That’s where we all lose.
The only difference between you and me is that I believe in freedom. You believe in freedom and want censorship. BTW they are coming for Elon Musk for believing in free speech.
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Replying to Neodymium who wrote, “The purpose of the Jan 6 Commission was to win an election. Otherwise it would have been bipartisan.”
Well, it was McConnell (Republican leader) who decided against a bi-partisan Senate commission. And McCarthy pulled the plug on participating when Pelosi vetoed a couple of MAGA nutcases, but accepted three others nominated by him.
I think just about every key witness in the investigation was Republican, so there were endless opportunities for them to testify and make their case. But many of them refused to cooperate. The ones who did cooperate, though, made it quite clear that Republicans were culpable.
And to your point, Neodymium, that I want censorship: no, I believe the government has no right to censor, but private companies do have the right to determine what is on their private platforms. Maybe it’s not always a good idea. There’s an argument to be made that exposing bad ideas to the daylight, instead of shunting them over to some dark-web, is the only way to allow people to change minds. But I nevertheless support the right of private companies to determine their own content policies.
To your point about Elon Musk, I support his right to kick Kanye West off Twitter. I’m curious where you come down on that.
NO MALARKEY
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West is a trivial person to me. What I categorize as mind clutter. If someone wants to be offended by him they can go to Twitter, Tic Toe and Facebook and actively choose to be insulted. I’m on no social media accounts. That’s my choice.
I know it’s splitting hairs but we make our choices. I don’t care what Musk does with his Twitter toy. You’d rather see West banned. It makes you feel better. I don’t care.
I can always come to CEB and read very good posts when I want from everyone including yourself. And I’d love to see Mendi and Fog City here too.
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BT, should there be disclosure requirements on private companies/social media platforms when they become aware of potentially illegal activities?
If a government employee were self dealing on procurement transactions isn’t it a good thing when it sees the light of day? Shouldn’t private actors be required to report those activities?
Your straw man suggests that the media companies were censoring content independently. That’s clearly not the case here. There was active engagement by government employees to suppress speech. My understanding is that that’s a no no for the government and I think an ethical lapse by “independent” media.
One step further, the Baker activities ant Twitter over the last week might be viewed as criminal, destruction of evidence that is potentially relevant to the review of what FBI staff has done. We’ll see when his censorship activities are clearly documented.
I also note that private censorship may damage law enforcement. The San Bernardino attack on government offices was frustrated by Apple’s decision not to unlock the perps phones. Is their position appropriate when deaths occur? And correct me if I’m wrong, doesn’t law enforcement as a matter of practice review the social media accounts of perps to better understand motives and independence of a criminal action? Do I want private actors censoring such speech when as Neo points out, he’s perfectly able to apply his own personal screens?
I’m not at all convinced that your reliance on personal actors to impose speech restrictions universally is appropriate generally and on political speech particularly.
Here's a toast with one last pour, may it last forever and a minute more;
Good fortune seems to you have sung, to live and love way past long -
Cut and pasted from the NY Times OP Ed. I voted for Kent only to help Republicans gain control of the House. Perez, a moderate, is a better choice and I believe she will do a good job. Kent is an election denier, and another Trump endorsed candidate that failed to win. (Kent still has not conceded the election.)
My fear is Trump will not win the nomination and run as independent, assuring a Dem victory.
Here is the op ed.
<p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>”When I reached Marie Gluesenkamp Perez on Monday morning, the Democratic representative-elect from Washington State was sitting on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.</p><p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>Her race against Joe Kent, a stolen-election conspiracy theorist endorsed by Donald Trump, had been called on Saturday, giving her enough time to get to Capitol Hill for new-member orientation. Because of the Republican lean of her district, Washington’s Third, her victory was widely considered the biggest upset of any House contest; FiveThirtyEight’s final forecast had given her a mere 2 percent chance of winning. “A lot of people sacrificed to get me here,” she told me, speaking with particular gratitude of all the mothers who called in babysitting favors to knock on doors for her.</p>
<p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>I’d gone to Gluesenkamp Perez’s district in September because I saw it as a microcosm of the midterms. Kent, a Fox News regular who put a member of the Proud Boys on his payroll, had ousted Jaime Herrera Beutler, one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection, in the primary. Gluesenkamp Perez hoped that there would be enough moderate Republicans worried about the future of American democracy, and aghast at the end of Roe v. Wade, to offset Kent’s partisan advantage. The outcome, I thought, would tell us whether Republicans would pay any price for their extremism.</p>
<p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>It is a profound relief to see that they have. Having spent a fair amount of time thinking about this bellwether race, I see four main takeaways from it.</p><p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>1. Democrats need to recruit more working-class and rural candidates.</p>
<p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>Gluesenkamp Perez is a young mother who owns an auto repair shop with her husband. They live in rural Skamania County, in a hillside house they built themselves when they couldn’t get a mortgage to buy one. On the trail she spoke frequently of bringing her young son to work because they couldn’t find child care. She shares both the cultural signifiers and economic struggles of many of the voters she needed to win over.</p>
<p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>“I hope that people see this as a model,” she told me on Monday. “We need to recruit different kinds of candidates. We need to be listening more closely to the districts — people want a Congress that looks like America.”</p>
<p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>2. Voters can see the link between abortion bans and authoritarianism.</p>
<p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>During her campaign, Gluesenkamp Perez spoke about having a miscarriage and being forced to make her way through a wall of protesters to get medical care at a Planned Parenthood clinic. While Kent called for a national abortion ban, she appealed to her district’s libertarian streak by including both gun rights and reproductive rights in her promise to “protect our freedoms.”</p>
<p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>On Monday, she said that voters connected abortion bans to a broader narrative of right-wing radicalism. Even if voters thought abortion rights in Washington State were safe with Democrats in charge, the end of Roe showed that Republicans are willing to upend some basic assumptions undergirding American life. “It made people take Republicans, especially the extreme wing, seriously when they say they want to defund the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, the F.B.I.,” she said.</p>
<p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>3. MAGA Republicans are stuck in a media echo chamber.</p>
<p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>A common rap on liberals is that they’re trapped in their own ideological bubble, unable to connect with normal people who don’t share their niche concerns. This cycle, that was much truer of conservatives. The ultimate example of this was the Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters, the human incarnation of a right-wing message board, who lauded the Unabomber manifesto and put out gun fetishist campaign ads that made him look like a serial killer.</p><p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>Kent suffered from a similar sort of insularity. He attacked sports fans, suggesting it’s not masculine for men to “watch other men compete in a silly game,” a view common in corners of the alt-right but unintelligible to normies. Gluesenkamp Perez said Kent seemed shocked when, during a debate, his line about vaccines as “experimental gene therapy” didn’t go over well, which she took as a sign that he’d spent too much time “operating in the chat rooms.”</p>
<p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>The ultimate expression of the right-wing echo chamber was the Stop the Steal movement itself. Conservatives might have been less credulous about it if they weren’t so out of touch with the Biden-voting majority.</p>
<p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>4. Data isn’t everything.</p>
<p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>As FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich acknowledged on Twitter, the site’s model didn’t take into account Kent’s personal weaknesses, and included only one post-Labor Day poll. An overreliance on a few data points made Gluesenkamp Perez’s position look weaker than it really was. Democrats I spoke to in Washington State — as well as some Republicans — believed she had a decent shot, but national Democrats seem to have remained unconvinced. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee gave her no financial support.</p>
<p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>Democrats obviously shouldn’t disregard poll numbers or data about the partisan breakdown of the electorate. But we underestimate the human factor in politics at our peril.</p>
<p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0″>“You’ve got a Trump cult-of-personality acolyte, and everybody writes off the district,” Brian Baird, a Democrat who represented the Third District from 1999 to 2011, told me in September. “But up steps this young, feisty, bright, moderate woman, with a young child, trying to run a small business, and she says, ‘I’m not going to put up with this.’” Sometimes stories tell you what statistics can’t.</p>
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