The Race For 2024

[lpetrich]

NYT:

Swami Vivekananda, who represented Hinduism at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1893, took pains to depict his faith as monotheistic, in contrast to the stereotypes of its followers as “heathen” polytheists. Although the faith has many deities, they are generally subordinate to one ultimate “reality.” Many Hindus and scholars say its theology is too complex to be described as either wholly monotheistic or wholly polytheistic.

Hindu monotheism is inclusive, portraying its multitude of deities as aspects of a single big one, while Abrahamic monotheism is exclusive, saying that there is no god but the One True God of the Abrahamic religions.

Nikki Haley, another Indian American contender in the 2024 primary, has similarly emphasized her background as the daughter of immigrants. But although Ms. Haley was raised Sikh, she converted to Christianity and now attends a large Methodist church in South Carolina. Bobby Jindal, a Louisiana Republican who ran for president in 2016, was raised Hindu but has described himself as an “evangelical Catholic.”

However,

Dr. Ramaswamy, who has publicly discussed the family’s faith on the campaign trail, said there were more similarities among committed believers across traditions than between serious and nominal adherents within the same faith.

“The fact that we are believers, that we have that sense of humility, that we raise our children with true respect and fear and love of God — that’s so much more unifying than the name of the God people pray to,” Dr. Ramaswamy said.

The more strict Muslims could make the same pitch for their beliefs.

 

[lpetrich]

Hemant Mehta:

Instead of trying to convince voters he’s a good Christian—which, by definition, he’s not—he’s playing up his support of Christian Nationalism.

It’s not a bad strategic move. Evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats spoke positively of Ramaswamy, as did Trump propagandist David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network.

But there has been some pushback from Christian mouthpieces who have used their platforms to promote Trump while spreading misinformation.

HM then notes how Republicans lined up behind Mitt Romney, despite him being a Mormon, and also Donald Trump, because he is clearly on their side.

A quick side note: All of this is hysterical when you consider how former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who’s also Indian, has gone out of her way to make herself seem less foreign, changing her first name and converting religions. Based on poll numbers, though, Republicans don’t seem to give a damn. Ramaswamy’s support is more than double what she’s got right now.

Nikki was her middle name; her full name at birth was Nimarata Nikki Randhawa.

However, Mike Pence is an evangelical as they come, and Republicans aren't going for him very much. The MAGA ones tend to think of him as someone who stabbed their hero in the back by refusing to declare him elected.

 

[Derec]

She's a chronicler of the progressive movement. I mentioned her work earlier in this thread.

That explains it.

AM herself will concede that the Progressive Insurgency, as she calls it, has not been very successful in getting much legislation passed.

Isn't that the main yard stick by which legislators should be measured?

It's a limited sort of success, but AOC has succeeded with it where the Green Party has failed.

She brought a lot of attention to it, that's true. But that's also all.

That's a big problem with the Green Party - no members of that party have ever been elected to Congress.

And with FPTP single-member districts it is unlikely they will elect anyone to Congress in the foreseeable future.

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Derec, than are dreamt of in right-wing outrage-mongering.

For the millionth time, not all opposition to far-left ideas are "right-wing". Much less "outrage-mongering".

Have you ever read the officially published text of the resolution? That was clearly in a leaked draft version. One can find the 2019, 2021, and 2023 versions in congress.gov -- the Internet makes a huge wealth of information available at our fingertips,

Yes. I have read both the text of the resolution and the fact sheet that was originally published on AOC's website, and then pulled after people started making fun of "farting cows". The text of the resolution is rather vague, apparently deliberately so, and AOC's summary was meant to flesh out how she and her people thought it would be implemented.
Note that despite the vagueness, the GND resolution still hasn't been voted on, and we are already almost halfway down its initial 10 year timetable.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Cthulhu on a pogostick! Ron DeSatanist has just vowed if elected to make John F. Kennedy Jr. Head of the FDA or CDC if elected president. The horror! The horror!

 

[Politesse]

I think you mean Robert F Kennedy Jr. JFK Jr was the one whose plane crashed back in '99.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Yeah. Ron DeSantis. "You Trump supporters like crazy? Well, I will give you the crazy you desire!".

 

[blastula]

Checking in on the Desantis campaign.

DeSantis lets go of more than a third of campaign staff as reset continues

The cuts, which were confirmed by advisers, will amount to a total of 38 jobs shed across an array of departments.

www.politico.com

One of those shed is the guy behind this very try hard memey ad..

Ron DeSantis fires staffer who shared video with fascist imagery | Semafor

Sources tell Semafor that Nate Hochman, who left a position at National Review to join the DeSantis team, is out.

www.semafor.com

 

[lpetrich]

Ron DeSantis Is Starting to Look Like a Scott Walker–Level Loser | The Nation - "The governor of Florida is on a 2024 trajectory that mirrors the former governor of Wisconsin’s doomed 2016 campaign."

Eight years ago this summer, Scott Walker was the hottest commodity in GOP politics. ...

Republican operatives assured reporters that the Wisconsinite had what it took to grab the GOP nod and take back the White House from President Barack Obama’s Democrats. ...

But, within weeks of its formal launch, there were signs that Walker’s campaign was unraveling. There were money problems. Staffing problems. Messaging problems. And Donald Trump problems, which surfaced when the political newcomer shredded Walker in debates. By September, just two months after he started running, Walker’s poll numbers had tanked to roughly zero. He quit the race with a feeble call for Republicans to unite against Trump and then, when political reality finally dawned on him, repositioned himself as a Trump enthusiast.

He is reduced to giving advice like “light a fire with primary and caucus voters with some really bold ideas” and “be lean and, at the same time, he needs to go bold. I know this firsthand.”

 

[lpetrich]

RealClearPolitics - Election 2024 - 2024 Republican Presidential Nomination

RCP Average -- 7/5 - 7/25 -- Trump 52.4 -- DeSantis 18.4 -- Ramaswamy 5.4 -- Pence 5.2 -- Haley 3.7 -- Scott 3.0 -- Christie 2.3 -- Hutchinson 0.7 -- Burgum 0.6 -- Suarez 0.0

RDS is declining from his peak of 30% early this year, and NH is also declining. VR, TS, and CC are all rising, and MP is steady.

 

[lpetrich]

Ron DeSantis Catholic or evangelical: The candidate’s odd religion politics.

When Ron DeSantis strode onto the stage in April in front of almost 10,000 students at Liberty University, he did so with an introduction from the school’s chancellor, pastor Jonathan Falwell, son of legendary televangelist Jerry Falwell. The chancellor noted that the university took pride in inviting speakers “who have brought wisdom to this idea of what it means to be a champion for Christ.”

DeSantis took the opportunity to paraphrase Jesus’ words in the Book of John, when he promised believers they would be rewarded if they followed him.

“Yes, the truth shall set you free,” DeSantis said. “Because woke represents a war on truth, we must wage a war on woke.”

It was an evangelical performance in a deeply evangelical setting. Anyone watching it might assume DeSantis was at home among evangelicals. But here’s the thing: He’s not one himself.

Then about an interview with the conservative evangelical Christian Broadcasting Network.

Not only did DeSantis call Catholic traditions a tepid “nice” and Catholic history “really neat,” he gave such a Protestant-sounding answer that Brody had to follow with a clarification. (“You consider yourself Roman Catholic today? Still?” “Yep,” DeSantis said.) As Brody would write on Twitter afterward, “his answer about having that PERSONAL relationship with God was fascinating considering you typically don’t get that type of answer and language among traditional Roman Catholics.”

“Sacramentalism is not simply nice,” said William D. Dinges, a religious studies professor at the Catholic University of America, about the Catholic rites. “They’re constituent for what it means to be a church. Catholicism is not a me-and-Jesus form of religiosity. It’s profoundly communal in the sense of our relationship with Christ and the church. From my point of view, he’s talking more Protestant-evangelical than Catholic.

Seeming like an evangelical would be good for getting the evangelical vote. Something like what Vivek Ramaswamy seems to be doing.

We can’t say whether DeSantis really leans this way “in his heart,” or if he’s playing up his Protestant-esque personal relationship with God for purely political reasons. We have evidence, though, that he doesn’t care about reaching out to Catholic voters, partly because Catholics do not vote as a bloc. (They’re split nearly 50–50 among the two parties and tend to vote more along racial, ethnic, and class lines.) Repeatedly, Catholic bishops have chastised DeSantis for his positions on the death penalty and on immigration. But DeSantis has shown no sign of moderation or remorse at the bishops’ criticism.

And we have evidence he’s trying hard for the evangelical vote.

"While Donald Trump barely makes an effort to pretend to be religious—no one confuses him for a religious man—DeSantis is trying to brand himself as a credible, vaguely evangelical Christian." Thus competing with such already evangelicals as Mike Pence and Tim Scott.

 

[lpetrich]

The religious evasiveness of GOP presidential candidates

Noting that evangelicals are a major Republican constituency, voting last year for Republican Congressional candidates 86% - 12%.

Ronald Reagan, George Bush I and II, and John McCain were and are mainline Protestants, but they tried to pass themselves off as evangelicals. Mitt Romney tried to tell evangelicals that Mormonism was just like their beliefs, but without much success.

Then noting how Democratic Presidential candidates are very open about their religious affiliations.

Even among the GOP candidates who don’t need to don evangelical costume, there’s a tendency to prevaricate. Pat Robertson changed his profession from pastor to TV executive when he ran for president in 1988 and Mike Huckabee managed to hide away all the tapes of the sermons he gave as a Baptist pastor before running in 2008.

One step down ticket, there was Sarah Palin, a dyed-in-the-wool Pentecostal who in the course of running for vice president in 2008 never said she was. Not to mention Mike Pence, who in his run for the vice presidency in 2016 wouldn’t tell anyone where he went to church.

Then there’s the curious case of Ted Cruz, the Texas U.S. senator and an evangelical who doesn’t look, walk or quack like one. Desperate to be the evangelicals’ choice in 2016, he announced his candidacy at a Liberty College convocation — and told a conversion story about his father, not himself. No wonder that, despite eking out a victory in Iowa’s evangelical-rich Republican caucuses, he never really connected.

 

[lpetrich]

Then discussing Donald Trump.

He was confirmed in a Presbyterian church in Queens, New York, and for much of his life identified as a Presbyterian. But the pastor he cherished was Norman Vincent Peale, the celebrity pastor of Manhattan’s Marble Collegiate Church whose mega-bestseller, “The Power of Positive Thinking,” helped Trump in his belief that whatever he wants to be true is in fact true.

As president, Trump not only kowtowed to evangelicals, he gave them just about whatever they wanted, from anti-abortion justices on the Supreme Court to an embassy in Jerusalem. While he rarely darkened a church door, he suffered his evangelical advisers to lay hands on him in the Oval. But he never pretended to be one of them.

Now we have Ron DeSantis seeming like an evangelical and Vivek Ramaswamy presenting himself as much like an evangelical.

 

[Politesse]

Then discussing Donald Trump.

He was confirmed in a Presbyterian church in Queens, New York, and for much of his life identified as a Presbyterian. But the pastor he cherished was Norman Vincent Peale, the celebrity pastor of Manhattan’s Marble Collegiate Church whose mega-bestseller, “The Power of Positive Thinking,” helped Trump in his belief that whatever he wants to be true is in fact true.

As president, Trump not only kowtowed to evangelicals, he gave them just about whatever they wanted, from anti-abortion justices on the Supreme Court to an embassy in Jerusalem. While he rarely darkened a church door, he suffered his evangelical advisers to lay hands on him in the Oval. But he never pretended to be one of them.

Now we have Ron DeSantis seeming like an evangelical and Vivek Ramaswamy presenting himself as much like an evangelical.

Historically an unwise move. Evangelicals may be useful as kingmakers, but we seldom put one of their own in the Oval Office.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Meanwhile, younger American generations are abandoning organized religion in large numbers. Especially the toxic evangelical varities. And hate the GOP culture war garbage. And attacks on women's rights. This will make 2024 interesting. Not to mention in election years post 2024.

 

[SLD]

Meanwhile, younger American generations are abandoning organized religion in large numbers. Especially the toxic evangelical varities. And hate the GOP culture war garbage. And attacks on women's rights. This will make 2024 interesting. Not to mention in election years post 2024.

I’ve heard that siren song before. And it never seems to happen.

I don’t trust young people to get out and vote like their lives depend on it. They just won’t. Even though it does.

Right now, Trump would wipe Biden off the map. Trafalgar has him up by at least 5 points nationwide, and they were right onto money the last two elections. While 270towin, puts Biden ahead in the electoral map, it’s just barely.

Biden is indeed too old. I personally like him, but let’s face it, he’s not going to rally the base, can’t rally anyone. Trump still has the charisma to attract his followers and motivate them to vote in droves and they will.

The democrats need a young charismatic face and s/he’s nowhere to be found. Kamala sure as hell is not it. Even if Biden squeaks through, she’d likely be the nominee in 2028 and Trump, or whoever the Repugs nominate is likely to clean her clock.

And even if trump goes away, the threat of autocracy is still hanging over us.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

RFK Jr. has just been given a warning by the powers that be.

RFK Jr. Denied Secret Service Protection by DHS

 

[Politesse]

If he gets shot now, the rumors will never die.

 

[Toni]

Meanwhile, younger American generations are abandoning organized religion in large numbers. Especially the toxic evangelical varities. And hate the GOP culture war garbage. And attacks on women's rights. This will make 2024 interesting. Not to mention in election years post 2024.

I’ve heard that siren song before. And it never seems to happen.

I don’t trust young people to get out and vote like their lives depend on it. They just won’t. Even though it does.

Right now, Trump would wipe Biden off the map. Trafalgar has him up by at least 5 points nationwide, and they were right onto money the last two elections. While 270towin, puts Biden ahead in the electoral map, it’s just barely.

Biden is indeed too old. I personally like him, but let’s face it, he’s not going to rally the base, can’t rally anyone. Trump still has the charisma to attract his followers and motivate them to vote in droves and they will.

The democrats need a young charismatic face and s/he’s nowhere to be found. Kamala sure as hell is not it. Even if Biden squeaks through, she’d likely be the nominee in 2028 and Trump, or whoever the Repugs nominate is likely to clean her clock.

And even if trump goes away, the threat of autocracy is still hanging over us.

I'm not certain how one can assert that Biden is too old while failing to mention that Trump is only 4 years younger and is in far worse shape physically and mentally and emotionally---separate from the character issues, which are considerable.

I'd frankly be surprised if Trump is still alive in 2028. If he is still alive, he should be ensconced in a prison.

I agree that Harris isn't the charismatic leader that Obama was and in a totally different way, Trump was. I don't see that as a necessarily negative thing. Should I be completely wrong and there is ever a Trump/Harris match-up, I think that Trump will be as much help as Harris needs to win.

Sure, Trump's fans are rabid and will turn out but there aren't nearly as many of them as there were before. I think the Republicans are also counting on Trump to be down and out for 2024, either from ill health or impending imprisonment. Right now, I'd lay money that Tim Scott is their nominee--and I think he has a good chance.

But face it: the economy is doing fairly well, although the rising interest rates are a shocker for the young folks who saw mortgage rates lower than any I'd ever seen.

 

[lpetrich]

 2024 United States presidential election

Mentions some other declared candidates in the two major parties.

Democratic:

• Joe Exotic, convicted felon, businessman and media personality; independent candidate for president in 2016[90]

Republican:

• John Anthony Castro, tax consultant and perennial candidate[133]
• E. W. Jackson, pastor, conservative activist, candidate for U.S. Senate in 2012 and 2018, and nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia in 2013[134]
• Steve Laffey, mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island (2003–2007)[135]
• Corey Stapleton, Montana Secretary of State (2017–2021), member of the Montana Senate from the 27th district (2001–2009)[136]

 Third party and independent candidates for the 2024 United States presidential election - quite a lot.

 

[Tigers!]

 2024 United States presidential election

Mentions some other declared candidates in the two major parties.

Democratic:

• Joe Exotic, convicted felon, businessman and media personality; independent candidate for president in 2016[90]

He sounds like a positively ideal candidate.