Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

all this drama and fight only makes the martyr more beloved

if Trump is disqualified from the Arizona primary and some other states follow suit, wouldn't that increase the odds of Nikki Haley taking up the running? She seems fairly wretched and I heard a MNCBC pundit (fwiw) saying some polling has suggested she'd do better against Biden than Trump would.

― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Wednesday, 20 December 2023 16:23 (six minutes ago) link

I'm going pretty much totally on feels here, but I do kinda generally wonder if removing Trump from the ballot wouldn't ultimately help the GOP. Trump has a fervent base but, with the number of Republicans likely to abstain from voting and the number of people voting for Biden simply to keep Trump out of office, I'm not convinced that his base is enough to get him re-elected (by legitimate means). Whereas it seems like pretty much any other GOP presidential candidate would get overwhelming support from the party-at-large (maybe less so from the most frothy Trumpites) plus plenty of independent votes, and the turnout for Biden would likely be much lower without the looming threat of Trump Mk. 2.

Colorado's primary (Super Tuesday) is March 5th, 2024. Trump's trial in DC for election interference activities begins March 4th. There is absolutely no way to have that case resolved by then.

to get to trial, the case required a lengthy House Committee hearing due to the sheer volume of witnesses to question and obstruction and obfuscation from Republican Congress, Trump and his lawyers. A special counsel investigation then had to follow that, before the Grand Jury decided to indict.

all this is to say that prosecuting a former President for crimes, which is unprecedented, is the type of thing that takes YEARS to even get to trial, not to mention the length of the trial itself. If you demand a guilty verdict in criminal court as a precursor for his expulsion from a primary ballot, then the President can basically participate in insurrection all he wants, because the clock will ALWAYS run out. What if he was to participate in an insurrection attempt one month before the actual election?

Not to mention, he's not on trial for 'insurrection' in these cases, he's charged with attempting to defraud American and its citizens through election interference and as such even with a conviction, his lawyers will try to argue that this does not rise to 'insurrection' as defined in the Constitution. they're already trying to argue this is a First Amendment matter (lol).

I still want him to lose again in the actual election, but I'll also be perfectly happy for SCOTUS to yeet him from the ballot if they so choose.

dream big, like me: he could die before the election.

Not sure what that’s supposed to mean, JCLC. Maybe you love watching Palestinian children get pulled from rubble as much as Joe Biden does, but most people I know will not vote for Genocide Joe

xxpost Another way to say this is that Trump is not even being prosecuted for "insurrection" because it's not obvious and not easy to prove.

Wow, tables, maybe stop with the completely needless and gross ad hominem bullshit.

Trump actually IS being prosecuted for insurrection, that's the election interference case.

Anyway I'm glad the CO court made this decision because it will force the SC to come up with a standard for something that hasn't really come up since the Reconstruction era.

xpost Not really.

The fact that people are running away from Biden in droves is part of what makes me so uneasy about this. It feels like liberals are celebrating some deus ex machina silver bullet because they're so demoralized and don't believe they can win for real. JiC's term "legal Hail Mary" was very much on point.

Wow, tables, maybe stop with the completely needless and gross ad hominem bullshit.

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d415a40c908c11417ac607a95c3a4c840967a508/206_0_3783_2270/master/3783.jpg

If Trump's off the ballot then Biden might not even run

There was something noticeably absent when the special counsel, Jack Smith, unsealed an indictment this week charging former President Donald J. Trump with multiple conspiracies to overturn the 2020 election: any count that directly accused Mr. Trump of being responsible for the violence his supporters committed at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Sure, but that's still what the whole case is built around — his attempts to overturn the election. You can call it whatever you want, but if he's convicted on those counts it would definitely bolster the "insurrection" legal argument.

Insurrection is defined by violence

I personally think the Colorado decision is both justified and hilarious, and I'm happy for it to be thrown to SCOTUS to make those fuckers squirm.

they're going to overturn it and they're not going to squirm while doing so. this is a waste of time.

Sweet!

The fact that people are running away from Biden in droves is part of what makes me so uneasy about this. It feels like liberals are celebrating some deus ex machina silver bullet because they're so demoralized and don't believe they can win for real.

I think liberals will vote for Biden; the people table references, I have the same friends, they're not gonna vote for any Democrat who they can't imagine as a member of DSA. they were lost already, they're just madder now because Biden is fucking up the Palestine situation so bad -- but they were already disseminating plenty of right-wing propaganda on Biden, helping the right win elections has been one of the putative American left's projects for decades. my point, table, is that those people aren't leftists, they're accelerationists.

xposts

I dunno I'm not a lawyer, but if you're looking for preponderance of evidence of insurrectionary activity I think that case is pretty strong! Four Colorado justices think he's guilty of insurrection even without that, I think a conviction in that case would add more weight to it.

Wow, tables, maybe stop with the completely needless and gross ad hominem bullshit.

Or we are people who actually dare to want something better than the current rot. Your “clear-eyed” view is just nihilism, afaic.

I want something better every time I vote in a primary.

Again viewing this as a Dem Hail Mary is inaccurate as this was a REPUBLICAN VOTER initiated lawsuit. Dems may be happy about it but have nothing to do with it.

Biden's polling numbers are certainly going to improve, much like Ralph Nader in 2000, who posted poll numbers in double digits before winding up at something like 2.5%, third party independent voters with significant backing often overperform in polls before the primaries because the election is an afterthought and people are more likely to reach for the stars or troll with third parties. So his share is probably greatly overstated in any polls.

Turnout is also important and that's harder to predict. It definitely isn't a slam dunk Biden will win, but taking polls this far out as a foregone conclusion is silly.

If economy keeps improving and inflation keeps slowing, that will win voters back. But yes I'd rather have Trump drop dead so we don't have to find out.

Xposts

I wish I had someone better to vote for in a primary. Or that Biden would die or not run again, but I'm afraid the party mandarins would decree Harris the new nominee, then all is lost.

Maybe I'll write in my primary ballot "the Ghost of FDR" or Gretchen Whitmer.

xxpost I think the lawsuit was to get Trump off the Republican primary ballot in CO, so the Dems wouldn't have had standing anyway

Saw a breakdown that for what it is worth, all seven of those justices at the Colorado Supreme Court were apparently appointed by Democrats, so even among the seven there was not a unanimous consensus. We are so beyond the realm of right and wrong, we are at best teetering on the brink of what is remotely achievable. Like, hypothetical law, because the black and white of it has barely held for the last few years. That's why it's a hail Mary. It can say explicitly in the Constitution that people named Trump are forbidden from running and it would still be a hail Mary these days, imo.

xpost it also included unaffiliated voters, who also aren't allowed to vote in the primary, though

Haley does poll better against Biden than Trump does, but I'd bet that's in large part because she's a lesser-known quantity whom voters don't have a strong opinion about. Right now, she polls well against Biden simply because she's neither Biden nor Trump. For a challenger to an incumbent, that may well be enough to win, but it's also way too early to tell since she's never been at the center of a national campaign.

xpost I mean, 6 members of the highest court in the land were appointed by Republicans and any questions of their legitimacy get responses of "cry more", soooooooooooo

I'm voting in the primary only to signal the presence of liberals in Tennessee. I'd be happy to sit it out otherwise, but I want our lack of proportional representation on the record. So that's what my vote is for. Biden is just the name next to the bubble. Voting and not voting can mean lots of different things, and we can define them for ourselves.

As I understand it, the U.S. is pretty much the only country where parties even allow voters to choose their general-election nominees. Anywhere else, Dean Phillips wouldn't even be on the ballot!

lol thinking that in addition to the "Trump's gonna win" containment thread we're going to need one for "Leftists who refuse to vote for Biden/don't try to change our minds" thread. Or we're gonna have this argument nonstop for 10 months.

That would be the "Leftists howling into the void because the world refuses their gift of sanity" thread.

you misspelled "grift"

not from their leftcentric pov

See this is why we need a containment thread.

I apologize to JCLC for the association with a genocidaire, it was unfair.

appreciate but no offense was taken, we do get heated on the politics thread, it's a tradition

Or we are people who actually dare to want something better than the current rot. Your “clear-eyed” view is just nihilism, afaic.

yes, I want that, too, but I'm not the nihilist here; a movement whose single greatest accomplishment is not getting appointed officials who'll achieve their stated ends does not actually want what it says it wants. no window is being moved by online lefties going gonzo on biden, which they were doing looooong before his latest disgrace, it's just reflexive mainstream Democrat hating. (I hate them too! But I'm not a revolutionary because I can really sock it to 'em online.) if your efforts defeat your stated goals, then those are not your actual goals.

Yep, hence my remark an hour ago about primaries. That was our chance to register our disgust with the status quo. Biden won with clear majorities, and here we are. ymmv but I don't vote for exciting candidates: I vote for candidates whose goals more or less align with mine and who have a record of accomplishment. Biden's funding of Bibi's war machine is in the same tradition as Obama's targeting of American citizens with drone rockets and FDR's internment camps; I voted for the first two anyway because #Florida.

look I have no reason to doubt these people table is referring to but I feel like we've already had this exact same conversation many times before. in 2020 when it became clear that Biden was gonna be the nominee there were a lot of progressives on Twitter saying the Dems were absolutely gonna lose 2020 now. it was all the same talk too, "nobody I know is going to vote Biden", "they'll need to do better than that if they want to earn my vote", "I voted Hillary but I'm sitting this one out", etc. etc. and yet somehow Biden still got 81 million votes. because I think at the end of the day its a lot easier to find the motivation to vote when fascism is staring you in the face. especially when it comes in the form of one of the most obnoxious, unlikeable people this country has ever produced. I mean I totally get the leftist opposition vs. Biden right now, but the people who are hitting him hard for what's happening with Israel are generally smart enough to realize that bringing in a dude who is almost certainly gonna float the idea of just nuking Gaza is not gonna make things any better.

and it's December 2023. The general public -- even Dem voters -- ain't paying attention.

Particularly since there's barely a primary season this time around.

people who actually dare to want something better

ah yes those rare people who want a better life. you can't even swing a cat by the tail without hitting one. (apologies to ilx's resident 'cat')

scrolling up to the top of this thread w/Trump's childhood photo up there is like watching the end of Come and See

As I understand it, the U.S. is pretty much the only country where parties even allow voters to choose their general-election nominees. Anywhere else, Dean Phillips wouldn't even be on the ballot!

― jaymc, Wednesday, December 20, 2023 12:42 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

dean phillips can be on the ballot under the system used in most other countries. he just can't claim to represent a particular party unless he wins an internal process in that party. having a state-run election to decide who will be on the ballot in the next state-run election is not an essential attribute of democracy.

Biden won with clear majorities

I think in large part because people perceived he was probably the only candidate who could beat Trump.

xpost

Especially in states with party registration and closed primaries. Strong case to be made that those shouldn't even be publicly funded, they should be paid for by the parties.