Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

and yet he's thoroughly destroying florida to look 'presidential'

tell me about it :(

I think his whole strategy is to be the 2nd choice and hope Trump is forced out of the race

he prob believed the hype for a while when the media was lining behind him but reality has to be setting in now, just gotta hope trumps in jail or dead

to be fair I believe this was the point in the cycle where Rudy Guiliani had like a 10 point lead so who knows. the GOP wasn't a cult of personality the way it is now though. kinda sucks that Trump is running away with it because this whole thing has the potential to get very ugly in a way that is actually good for Democrats

like I think pudding fingers is probably an effective ad but it plays right into one of the GOP's biggest problems, which is that they're really fucking weird in ways that are clearly turning voters off

DeSantis is young enough to wait it out and run next time tho

Trump and Biden need to run because they don't have another cycle in them

to be fair I believe this was the point in the cycle where Rudy Guiliani had like a 10 point lead so who knows. the GOP wasn't a cult of personality the way it is now though.

Rudy Giuliani had literally nothing going for him beyond "cult of personality" so I'm not sure I see the connection between your first and second sentences. (Also, the Republicans have been a cult of personality since Reagan. Bush I only got in because he had spent four years sitting at Saint Reagan's right hand.)

Meantime should be noted that Trump's various hail Marys to try and stop the E Jean Carroll trial from starting a week from Monday are pretty much nonstarters; there's a little bit of extra stuff that'll have to happen but doesn't seem like there will be any further change there. Like Fox, all the dodging and weaving is for naught.

he won by a landslide even during an election cycle where Republicans vastly underperformed. you could argue his star is never gonna be brighter than it is right now. if he's getting crushed by a dude with 15 active criminal investigations maybe it's just not gonna happen for him.

to be fair I believe this was the point in the cycle where Rudy Guiliani had like a 10 point lead so who knows. the GOP wasn't a cult of personality the way it is now though.

Did you live through the Reagan presidency?

Rudy Giuliani had literally nothing going for him beyond "cult of personality" so I'm not sure I see the connection between your first and second sentences. (Also, the Republicans have been a cult of personality since Reagan. Bush I only got in because he had spent four years sitting at Saint Reagan's right hand.)

well yeah it's been a "cult of personality" in comparison to virtually every other democracy on the planet but what we have with Trump now compares more to North Korea bullshit. I don't think the GOP had to worry about Reagan trying to destroy the entire political party if he didn't get the nomination. which you damn well know Trump would do if DeSantis won.

um he's kinda already destroyed the Republican party

and maybe not when he was in office but Reagan is def. revered super highly --cult leader like Trump? Probably not but close

fairly sure many in the GOP are starting to pivot to "he didn't go anywhere near far enough" w/ Reagan

Rudy had a cult of personality around him, but the GOP base didn't trust him on abortion, so they went with McCain. Trump was all over the place on abortion but the base didn't care.

Did anyone draw Reagan with bulging muscles and sixpack abs back then, a la Garrison's Trump caricatures? Or hobnobbing with Jesus? Seems like that's a cult thing that didn't exist until recently.

They did depict Reagan as the Marlboro Man, among other Western "icons."

Reagan literally had films of himself dressed up as a cowboy, so it wasn't that hard

Trump was all over the place on abortion but the base didn't care.

Trump's great advantage in 2016 over 2020/24 was that he didn't represent the insane social reactionary worldview that has become the GOP standard now - racism, xenophobia and crime obviously his calling cards but he wasn't a creepy off-putting fundamentalist (like Pence) or talking about litter boxes in classrooms. He still doesn't traffic in that stuff as much as DeSantis et al. but he can't escape the stink of it from the rest of the party.

When it came to the bedrock politics of abortion Trump made it clearto the anti-abortion bloc in 2016 that he would fill any SCOTUS vacancies with the justices committed to the repeal of Roe. This was effectively communicated to those voters, and kept them firmly on board even through the Access Hollywood fiasco.

Even so, there were a lot of people in 2016 trying to convince themselves that Trump was more moderate than the typical republican candidate. No one is going to buy that now.

otm

also, uh

Trump Says He’ll Launch Probe Into Whether Trans ‘Ideology’ Leads to Mass Shootings

Trumps Promises Something Designed to Grab Headlines and Reassure Bigots But is Probably Lying

Muslim Ban 2024

What a despicable male antihero

Did anyone draw Reagan with bulging muscles and sixpack abs back then, a la Garrison's Trump caricatures? Or hobnobbing with Jesus? Seems like that's a cult thing that didn't exist until recently.

― Three Rings for the Elven Bishop (Dan Peterson)

Yes.

https://i0.wp.com/www.bulletproofaction.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Ronbo.jpg

yup

DeSatanis could really turn the whole ‘sticking his fingers where they don’t belong’. God these people are so fuckin gross.

My guess is he read all this very haltingly

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/15/trump-turns-from-past-to-future-at-rnc-donor-retreat-00092212

Trump traded the election grievance rhetoric that has defined his last two years in the public eye for a different type of message — his vision for the future

this is nothing new for him. he occasionally makes an empty gesture in the direction of his 'vision for the future'. they're usually hilariously simplistic and bad - like building ten new government cities or Space Force. he'll dutifully trot them out for a public viewing but you can tell his heart isn't in it.

I was promised flying cars.

its sad the real estate developer cant even get into the idea of making his own new cities, id love to see what he comes up with, i want him to get really into it talk about it all the time

lol

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https://www.ft.com/content/9fa26170-5533-4e0b-a852-238b0ef15118

Top Republican donor Thomas Peterffy is halting plans to help finance the US presidential bid of Florida governor Ron DeSantis due to his extreme positions on social issues.

“I have put myself on hold,” the billionaire told the Financial Times.

“Because of his stance on abortion and book banning . . . myself, and a bunch of friends, are holding our powder dry.”

Though DeSantis has not formally announced a run, he has for months been considered former president Donald Trump’s main rival for the Republican nomination for president in 2024.

But in recent weeks, the Florida governor’s popularity among likely voters has wobbled as he has tried to appeal to Trump’s far-right voter base while also presenting himself as an opponent with broader appeal.

If Trump is the nominee — which looks more and more likely — I really wonder who he'll end with as VP. Somebody like Kari Lake, I guess? Doesn't seem like any halfway sane or normal person would do it. Like, Nikki Haley would be kind of a textbook pick under normal circumstances, but hard to imagine her wanting it.

I’m not joking when I say that either Jared or Ivanka have a good shot at being his VP.

i'm not sure why haley wouldn't want it - she proudly served under trump and still, to my knowledge, is unwilling to name a single thing about trump that she doesn't support, or anything she would do differently. i don't think he'd name her vp, though, because she dared to run against him this year. very unloyal.

kari lake seems possible, as does greene

if his draining the swamp includes abolishing the Senate, then he may not need a VP at all

I may be overestimating Haley's intelligence, but being his vice president is clearly a terrible, awful job. He urged a mob to kill his last one iirc.

i guess i'm assuming he's going full on troll for his vp pick. pence is a horrible person, but he represented a compromise to appease delusional people like chuck todd who saw some sort of pivot toward conventional behavior as imminent and necessary for a successful gop candidate. trump put up with pence but also had white nationalists try to murder him. he's going to be embroiled in lawsuits for the duration of this campaign and i'm sure they'll magically peak in summer 2024, just at the point where people start saying that "the people need to decide" via voting, so it's tough to imagine him picking anyone other than the loudest loyal liar

xp

I guess someone like Kristi Noem might do it. She's about as close to a conventional pick as I can imagine being willing to take it on.

haha, just remembering her bragging to the nra the other day about how her 2-year-old granddaughter already owns a shotgun and a rifle. and also a pony. by today's standards it was barely newsworthy but holy shit are they fucked up

if he picks someone like Kari Lake or MTG it'll be a huge gift to the Dems. the VP picks of people like Trump, Biden, and McCain did have some weight to them because the candidates themselves were so old. I mean you could argue picking Sarah Palin singlehandedly tanked McCain in '08. good luck courting the votes of moderates when your extremely unhealthy 77-year old candidate's backup is the Jewish space laser "gazpacho police" lady. I kinda think Trump at least kinda knows that these people are crazy losers who won't do much to help him but who knows. Trump is a crazy loser himself these days. and honestly what kind of actual up-and-coming moderate is gonna want that job?

Lol at “I have put myself on hold”

look I don't wanna get overly confident here but how the hell is Trump gonna do any better in 2024 than he did in 2020? he's gotten even weirder and angrier since and now is facing a lot of actual legal trouble. paying off a porn star may not hurt him much but trying to defraud the election in Georgia, inciting an insurrection, and stealing top secret documents might. Republicans have been geting trounced in nearly every single election since 2016. the abortion issue is killing them right now. they won back the House and haven't written a single bill since. their entire platform is weird unpopular shit like showing the world Hunter Biden's dick and facilitating the genocide of trans people. he won't have the incumbent advantage either which history tells us is a big deal (hell, even Dubya won re-election). I suppose I can see a strange confluence of events pushing him just over the finish line by like 500 votes in all the right states but idk, if I was a GOP politician right now I'd be thinking 2024 was just hopeless

While incumbents do have an advantage, Trump could benefit from the independents who like voting for the rebel candidate from the party not in power. The same voters who say they vote for Republican Senators but Democratic Presidents because they "don't want one party to have too much power".

That and Biden's currently low favorability likely gives him a legit shot.

But, the election cycle gives Trump ample opportunity to shoot himself in the foot so

Pay operatives to approach Trump under the guide of being a conservative blogger and con him into saying really terrible shit on tape that he stopped himself from saying last time