The Race For 2024

[Toni]

I hear you but I do hate to think that the GOP is doomed forever, more than it was doomed after Reagan or Nixon.

It's only doomed for as long as Cheato draws breath. Take him away, and you'll hear an epic thunderclap as an incredible volume of blowhards rush in the fill the vacuum.

While I feel very confident that Trump would lose any race he was the candidate for going forward, I am reminded every time I think that that he actually won in 2016.

Yeah. As a political "outsider", not as a proven LOSER with a history of insurrection and long coattails that make LOSERS out of those he endorses. Plus, a lot of the dirty tricks and lies that got him the EC in 2016 have since been laid bare. For 2024 I'd give him a snowball's chance in Hell - even on a cold day in Hell. My only worry is that he will certainly try to overturn the election in 2024 after he loses again. Hopefully he will bungle that too.

However bare his lies and his grift have been laid, he still has a following. To be honest, I had not anticipated that a lot of .....working class people would buy into the grift of a bloviating millionaire who inherited his wealth.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Look at Tim Scott... the alleged middle ground candidate, talking as if Biden and the Democrats had nationalized the gas and oil industry and taking in all the money from those operations.

Trump is the best and worst thing to happen to the GOP. Great for money, not so great for elections. He can really pick 'em for primaries, but once the generals come, the Trump canaidates, like so many of the far right / unqualified candidates in state wide elections for the GOP, have faired not so well. But in the primaries, they do well, and get enough money to make things worth it.

Take Trump out, and you've got a party that is far right, but has this mistaken image of being not far right. There is this bizarre sense of the GOP having the appearance of being "establishment", when they aren't. It is just that the whackos when they don't win primaries, it is presumed the other person is normal. And they react as if the establishment won again. Oddly, the "establishment" has enough cover usually to win the general election, where as the whacko usually can't, red purple or blue state.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I hear you but I do hate to think that the GOP is doomed forever, more than it was doomed after Reagan or Nixon.

It's only doomed for as long as Cheato draws breath. Take him away, and you'll hear an epic thunderclap as an incredible volume of blowhards rush in the fill the vacuum.

While I feel very confident that Trump would lose any race he was the candidate for going forward, I am reminded every time I think that that he actually won in 2016.

Yeah. As a political "outsider", not as a proven LOSER with a history of insurrection and long coattails that make LOSERS out of those he endorses. Plus, a lot of the dirty tricks and lies that got him the EC in 2016 have since been laid bare. For 2024 I'd give him a snowball's chance in Hell - even on a cold day in Hell. My only worry is that he will certainly try to overturn the election in 2024 after he loses again. Hopefully he will bungle that too.

However bare his lies and his grift have been laid, he still has a following. To be honest, I had not anticipated that a lot of .....working class people would buy into the grift of a bloviating millionaire who inherited his wealth.

These same people bought into the down to earth every man image Rove sold for George W Bush, a guy who was Ivy League and grew up in exceptional wealth.

 

[Elixir]

However bare his lies and his grift have been laid, he still has a following.

Without that, the Fascists would probably be able to get someone elected.
But even if the GQP came up with the proverbial Knight in Shining Armor, said Knight could not win a Republican primary because of those morons, bless their little black hearts.

 

[bilby]

To be honest, I had not anticipated that a lot of .....working class people would buy into the grift of a bloviating millionaire who inherited his wealth.

That's basically been the entirety of human history since the existence of a working class.

Exceptions are few and far between.

Working class people are easy marks, after several thousand years of being told that wealth and power are virtues, and signs of the favour of the Gods (if not of Godhood itself).

 

[Toni]

To be honest, I had not anticipated that a lot of .....working class people would buy into the grift of a bloviating millionaire who inherited his wealth.

That's basically been the entirety of human history since the existence of a working class.

Exceptions are few and far between.

Working class people are easy marks, after several thousand years of being told that wealth and power are virtues, and signs of the favour of the Gods (if not of Godhood itself).

I remember my father despised JFK as a rich boy who inherited his money and had no idea how to make a living. My dad would have loved Trump if he were still alive in 2016.

I do not get it at all. Trump is the exact opposite of all of the values I was raised with (except for the racism and xenophobia). Some long time friends since my school days who still live in the area where I grew up also support Trump (or did. We don't talk politics) despite being very devoted Christians. By Christian, I mean the kind of people who don't just go to church on Sundays (and Wednesday nights) but who are the first to bring meals, contribute to fundraisers, do whatever is needed to help someone in need. If there were a barn raising, they'd be there. I remember a classmate whose father died in a farming accident during harvest. Neighboring farmers simply showed up to finish harvesting his crops, ensuring the family made it through the winter. Another classmate of mine just showed up to help my uncle after he had a heart attack. Kept showing up over the years, too. The same people who, if my car broke down in front of their home at 8 o'clock tonight and I knocked on their door, they'd invite me in, see if they could fix my car and call the garage if they couldn't, while offering me a meal and if needed, a bed while I waited. And this is true even if they did not recognize me or my name. They'd do it if you broke down in front of their house, too. They are not the kind of people who ever had much money but they stayed married to the same person, raised kids and love their kids and grandkids. They have worked hard for everything they have and would do their best for anyone they could help.

 

[lpetrich]

Another third party: Former Republicans and Democrats form new third U.S. political party | Reuters - July 27, 20225:32 PM PDT

The new party, called Forward and whose creation was first reported by Reuters, will initially be co-chaired by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey. They hope the party will become a viable alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties that dominate U.S. politics, founding members told Reuters.

...
The merger involves the Renew America Movement, formed in 2021 by dozens of former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump; the Forward Party, founded by Yang, who left the Democratic Party in 2021 and became an independent; and the Serve America Movement, a group of Democrats, Republicans and independents whose executive director is former Republican congressman David Jolly.

 Forward Party (United States)
 Serve America Movement - SAM
 Renew America Movement - RAM

Forward Party – Not Left. Not Right. FORWARD.
I found
Forward Party is Making Politics Local Again
Press Release: Forward Party Announces 2024 Battleground Map
-- seems like it's focusing on local races, with nothing about state or Congressional ones. This party seems like it's acting like a serious party, and not a vehicle for vanity Presidential runs. Like the Green and Libertarian Parties.

 

[lpetrich]

I searched for mentions of vanity Presidential runs, and I found this:

No Labels’ Real Label: Vanity Candidates ‘R’ Us - The American Prospect - April 12, 2023 - "Claiming that no real centrist could vote for either Biden or Trump, it’s got its own spotlight-craving pol (Joe Manchin) waiting to pounce."

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), seeking to reclaim his hold on the nation’s attention now that he’s no longer the swing vote in the Senate, and facing probable defeat should he seek re-election to the Senate next year, is the likeliest recipient of No Labels’ You-Too-Can-Be-the-Presidential-Spoiler Prize. Other possible claimants (though if Manchin runs, they’d almost surely have to settle for the vice-presidential line) include Maryland’s former governor, Republican Larry Hogan, and the general flotsam that has floated around No Labels for years. (At one No Labels New Hampshire presidential primary forum I covered in 2019, speakers included Marianne Williamson and Tulsi Gabbard.)

Leading Democrats of the centrist persuasion, including Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and No Labels co-founder Bill Galston, are now scurrying away from the group as fast as they can, pointing out that characterizing a race likely pitting Joe Biden against Donald Trump as one in which no sober-minded centrist could make a choice—which is precisely No Labels’ line—is pernicious hooey. Third Way, an organization of centrist Democrats devoted to defeating the left in intraparty tussles, has expressed voluble alarm at No Labels’ plan, noting that the states in which No Labels is now gathering signatures are both swing and blue, but decidedly not red. That can only be interpreted as a ploy to weaken Biden and the Democrats.

No Labels justifies its actions by insisting that both Democrats and Republicans have become entirely creatures of extremists.

 

[lpetrich]

No Labels’ Pitch to Donors Pretends Joe Biden Doesn’t Exist | The New Republic -- "A video obtained by TNR tries to suggest that both parties are being captured by extremes—but somehow forgets to acknowledge the sitting president."
noting
no_labels.mp4

A three-minute No Labels video offered a stark warning. With Elton John’s “Funeral for a Friend” playing throughout, the video pits Donald Trump against Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to argue that the country is on a course to “an election in which the majority saw no viable choice” to support for president.

While omitting President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Back to The American Prospect.

Depicting the Democratic Party as an amalgam of left extremes is, of course, the daily fare offered up by Fox News and like polemicists (political scientists call this the “Carlson-Hannity-Teixeira Syndrome”). But not even Fox has gone so far as to suggest that Biden will somehow vanish between now and 2024.

Then noting that political polarizaiton often boosts election turnout,

For an organization that once included at least one serious political intellectual (Galston), No Labels has been willfully indifferent to the leading role that the Republican Party’s plunge into ethno-nationalism has played in the current political polarization. Galston’s Brookings colleague Tom Mann and his co-author, the American Enterprise Institute’s Norm Ornstein, documented the degree to which the Republicans’ move rightward has greatly eclipsed the Democrats’ move left, but that seems to have made no impression on the No Labels crowd.

 

[lpetrich]

Who is it, then, that No Labels envisions as their constituency? The group constantly cites polls that show growing numbers of Americans view themselves as independents, but ignores the same polls when they go on to ask if that group of Americans regularly votes for one party or the other. (That’s just what the vast majority do.)

So they are not really independent, but D's and R's who have not registered as either.

Then noting that Joe Biden will be 81 in 2024 and Donald Trump 78, but some No Labels favorites won't be much younger. Joe Manchin at 76, Larry Hogan at 67, and Joe Lieberman at 82.

 

[Derec]

Hogan at 67 is significantly younger than Trump and Biden, but 100% agree on the other two.

Btw, I think Dems are placing too many chips on Trump being the nominee. I think Biden would fare well against him, but against a younger, fitter opponent he will be in trouble. Note that 2020 was run under very special circumstances with hardly any real campaigning after March. Biden was also four years younger anyway. I have my doubts how well Biden will perform on the campaign trail and . He will be able to skip the primary season, which helps a lot, but general election campaign will be grueling in itself. How will he look next to somebody much younger and fitter than himself?

I do not think Trump will be the nominee. The legal problems, the fact that he lost in 2020, and him being old and tired himself will hurt him in the primaries.

 

[ZiprHead]

The 2024 Republican Primary Is Heating Up. Time For Another FiveThirtyEight Primary Draft!

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited. nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, senior elections analyst): It feels like th…

fivethirtyeight.com

 

[blastula]

BREAKING NEWS

Ron DeSantis jumps into the 2024 presidential race

The Florida governor officially filed the paperwork to run for president Wednesday, kicking off his much-anticipated battle with former President Donald Trump.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Copernicus]

BREAKING NEWS

Ron DeSantis jumps into the 2024 presidential race

The Florida governor officially filed the paperwork to run for president Wednesday, kicking off his much-anticipated battle with former President Donald Trump.

www.nbcnews.com

This news has been breaking so long that it came as a huge surprise to me that it happened now and not later. He needs more time to work on crushing Mickey Mouse and shouldn't let himself be distracted at this point.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I do not get it at all. Trump is the exact opposite of all of the values I was raised with (except for the racism and xenophobia). Some long time friends since my school days who still live in the area where I grew up also support Trump (or did. We don't talk politics) despite being very devoted Christians. By Christian, I mean the kind of people who don't just go to church on Sundays (and Wednesday nights) but who are the first to bring meals, contribute to fundraisers, do whatever is needed to help someone in need. If there were a barn raising, they'd be there. I remember a classmate whose father died in a farming accident during harvest. Neighboring farmers simply showed up to finish harvesting his crops, ensuring the family made it through the winter. Another classmate of mine just showed up to help my uncle after he had a heart attack. Kept showing up over the years, too. The same people who, if my car broke down in front of their home at 8 o'clock tonight and I knocked on their door, they'd invite me in, see if they could fix my car and call the garage if they couldn't, while offering me a meal and if needed, a bed while I waited. And this is true even if they did not recognize me or my name. They'd do it if you broke down in front of their house, too. They are not the kind of people who ever had much money but they stayed married to the same person, raised kids and love their kids and grandkids. They have worked hard for everything they have and would do their best for anyone they could help.

Trump provided a convenient enemy to explain people's problems. An awful lot of people don't look a gift solution in the mouth.

 

[blastula]

DeSantis decided to launch his campaign on Twitter and it went well.



#DeSaster is trending. Trump should go with it.

 

[blastula]

Biden and Trump already have it in their ads.

 

[blastula]

While DeSantis is doubling down on Musk. It's so weird.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

DeSantis decided to launch his campaign on Twitter and it went well.



#DeSaster is trending. Trump should go with it.

Same thing happened to MST3K with their Gizmoplex launch. Of course, that Kickstarter was a bit less expensive.

 

[lpetrich]

How DeSantis’s Twitter Spaces Event Compares to Past Livestreams - The New York Times - "The Republican presidential candidate’s announcement on Twitter had a high of about 300,000 concurrent listeners and a total of 3.4 million listeners as of Thursday."

noting
Elon Musk’s Event With Ron DeSantis Exposes Twitter’s Weaknesses - The New York Times - "What was supposed to be a crowning moment for Mr. Musk’s Twitter turned into a series of technical glitches."
Elon Musk is supposed to be this super genius business manager, but he's more of a hypemeister and bullshitter than anything else. Those skills are useful for making deals with suppliers and customers and for recruiting employees, but that's about it.

Instead, the event began with more than 20 minutes of technical glitches, hot mic moments and drowned-out and half-said conversations before the livestream abruptly cut out. Minutes later, the livestream restarted as hundreds of thousands of listeners tried to tune in. Mr. DeSantis had not said a word at that point.
“That was insane, sorry,” Mr. Musk said.

...
Yet as the Twitter audio livestream faltered, the reaction — including on Twitter itself — was shock and scorn that what should have been a carefully choreographed announcement of a presidential run had stumbled so badly. The hashtag #Desaster appeared on many posts. Others took potshots at the failure, with President Biden’s personal @JoeBiden account tweeting a donation link with the words, “This link works.”

Back to the original one.

Consider that a 2016 Facebook Live event, featuring two BuzzFeed employees placing rubber bands around a watermelon until it exploded, drew more than 800,000 concurrent viewers and a total of five million views within hours of its conclusion. The 2017 livestream of a pregnant giraffe on YouTube brought in five million viewers a day.