Will the GOP alienate voters by being the party of Trump?

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This article shows Trump’s enduring appeal:

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/10/liz-cheney-and-the-big-lie/

Nothing matters, but Trump. The election was stolen, and the evidence is overwhelming. The big lie is that Biden won.

Trump will not be indicted. That’s a liberal wet dream. If anything, Florida won’t extradite him to New York. An indictment would likely boost his standing.

Absent some major health crisis, he will come back in 2024. The only issue is whether the economy is doing well 3 years from now. While I expect that the economy will continue to grow for a good year, maybe 18 months, after that it’s anyone’s guess. But at a minimum it won’t be surging like it is now. People are naive if they expect him to go away or just to lose to a Biden or Harris because you think he’s an insane dickhead. He is. But he’s a dangerous insane dickhead who could easily win a gain if Biden or the economy has a misstep.

So, what are the odds that he will avoid conviction of a crime (disqualifying him from taking office) AND avoid a "major health crisis", over the next 3 or so years?
How old was his father when he died?

His father was 93 and his mother was 88. He's got decent genes, I'd say. He looks like shit of course. But he will not be convicted. There are no present federal investigations against him, and if New York tries to indict him, Florida won't extradite him so he will not be convicted. And conviction of a crime does not bar one from the Presidency. Just impeachment and removal only. And to his supporters, it would just be proof of his martyrdom. Just like Adolf's!

We (the US) could get lucky and Clownstick's health could be much worse in 3 years, but that is just hoping... FFvC is certainly dangerous to our country's democracy, but thankfully we are also not as fragile as the Weimer Republic.

Running again is much harder from the outside, than already being there. Secondly, demographics is a ticking time bomb for the Repugs. Arizona for example has been shifting slowly more purple, even if 2020 was a bit premature. For example I have one elderly white/evangelical/Repug in-law there, that I would give a 90% chance of being either too senile or dead to vote in 2024. But, sure a shitty economy would spell trouble for any President, so that will be a real risk and unknowable variable until we get closer.

 

[ZiprHead]

 

[jab]

The "well he won more votes than..." is a fairly weak argument. That's like saying the stock market is so much higher than (fill in the blank). The stock market tends to go up in the long term, and the number of votes for Trump vs any previous Republican isn't really a good metric. Biden got more votes than any other Democrat AND any other Republican. The important point is that he got 7 million more votes than the bigliest vote getting Republican.



And yet he still lost. Not only did he lose the White House by a margin of electoral votes he himself described as a "landslide" when it happened in 2016, he lost the popular vote by a wide margin. Trump also lost in key swing states, lost some previously solid red states (AZ and Georgia come to mind) and as a result lost the Senate.

I also predict that the GOP will take over the Senate and House in 2022. Well 2023 actually. And they will do so with Trump at the helm, loudly calling the shots from his roost in Mar a Lago. The voters they risk alienating are insignificant and already have long since been alienated by him.

Typically, the incumbent President's party loses in the mid-terms. So naturally one would expect that outcome again, but this situation is shaping up to be very different. When Obama (and Biden) lost Congress in 2010, it was partly because of the energized "Tea Party" base of the GOP, but it was also because all the "Hope and Change" hadn't happened. It was unrealistic to expect that he could right the economy in just a year following such an historic downturn, but that's what the voters want...left, right, and swing. They want results, and are impatient. Hence, the rise of the Tea Party caucus.

This upcoming election may be very different, and timing plays into it quite a bit. Unless the virus comes back with a vengeance (brought on by vaccine-resistant Trump supporters) or some other unforeseen disaster strikes, the economy is set to have at the very least a strong recovery, and at best a boom. Mitch McConnell already warned people to not credit Biden with the approaching boom, so he clearly believes that's what is coming. By the 3rd quarter of this year, the country will be in a helluva lot better shape than it was in November of last year, and by November of 2022? It will have been a full year of economic boom, people back to work/school/sporting events/concerts etc., and the Democrats/Biden would be very smart to take credit for all of it. The pandemic was the worst disaster to hit the country in the memory of almost anyone alive today, and the psychological effect of recovering from that disaster could be akin to what happened after WWII...at least domestically.

What will the Republicans have to run on in 2022? Trump. No matter how fired up his base gets, there's only so many of them...and as November 2020 proved, not enough to win.

So I see Trump controlling the GOP for the foreseeable future. His ghost will haunt them for decades after he’s gone. They will pine for his glory days as they did for Ronald Reagan. I doubt anyone could fill his shoes. But I predict that the future is likely to be difficult going for the democrats as a result. They can still win, and will win a lot, but it’s not going to be easy. The future could be also very dark, possibly even violent with him around.

Trump is now an albatross around the neck of the GOP. The party is locked in an abusive relationship. They know he's bad news for their future, but they're afraid to leave him because of his anger issues. The smarter leaders (and I'd say that includes McConnell and the soon-to-be-not-a-leader Cheney) know that the best way forward would be to ditch Trump and rebuild their party, but they're caught between a rock and a hard place. Even without his Twitter account, Trump can inflict a lot of damage and a lot of chaos on them if he feels slighted. He'll whip up primary challengers to the apostates, tell his supporters to not vote for anyone who draws his ire, and at some point in the election process he might go back to holding rallies. The voters - apart from Trump's base - will see two competing choices for 2022: One that's led the country out of a crisis and into an historic recovery, and one that's in disarray, wracked with infighting, and running on hatred and fear.


What really worries me is that yes, his supporters have already proven they will get violent if they don't get their way. Militias, white nationalists, and lunatics are openly advocating violence, and I would not be surprised if we had another domestic attack like Oklahoma City or another attack on the Capitol.

It seems to me that the question in 2022 US midterms is who comes out to vote in sufficient numbers--the Trumpeters appear more riled up now, and there are a lot of them, which is why the Repugs are clasping him so. Trump's main motive to run in 2024 (not his only onw) would be to avoid criminal prosecutions, which he will do his best to stall and delay until after the election, and if possible, for the rest of his life.
Are the Dems and Dem leaning-independents likely be fired up to get to your polls in 2022?

 

[Elixir]

Are the Dems and Dem leaning-independents likely be fired up to get to your polls in 2022?

It's not time to start panicking them yet (it would wear off long before the election). But a year from now it will start ramping up.
Fearmongering probably works best on mindless Repug voters, but Dem and indy voters are not immune. And there is plenty to fear if the Nazi party takes control.
It should be interesting to see how the production companies take advantage of the copious amount of scary material provided by the Trump junta over the last few years.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

In 2016, Independents gave Trump his victory. They went to Trump by about +3%. In 2020, they went to Biden by about +9%. With fiasco of the 6/1 Resurrection, the covid disaster, crazed GOP politicians like Boebert, Moscow Mitch vowing to oppose Biden 100%, voter suppression and vote stealing by the GOP, I do not see these independents swinging back to the GOP. Latest Gallup survey has Republicans at 26%, Democrats at 31% and Independents at 40%.

 

[Ford]

It seems to me that the question in 2022 US midterms is who comes out to vote in sufficient numbers--the Trumpeters appear more riled up now, and there are a lot of them, which is why the Repugs are clasping him so. Trump's main motive to run in 2024 (not his only onw) would be to avoid criminal prosecutions, which he will do his best to stall and delay until after the election, and if possible, for the rest of his life.
Are the Dems and Dem leaning-independents likely be fired up to get to your polls in 2022?

Again, 2020 proved that while there are a lot of Trump supporters, there's not enough to outnumber Democrats and the independents they can potentially win over. Georgia (and the Senate) were won by turnout, thanks in no small part to Stacey Abrams. It seems to me the Democratic leadership have figured out that resting on their laurels is not a winning strategy. Remember, Biden was not exactly a "light the world on fire" candidate. What the Democrats need to do in 2022 is put up solid candidates, get out the vote, and (if my predictions are correct) take credit for everything that happened on their watch. It's not a heavy lift.

 

[LoAmmo]

In 2016, Independents gave Trump his victory. They went to Trump by about +3%. In 2020, they went to Biden by about +9%. With fiasco of the 6/1 Resurrection, the covid disaster, crazed GOP politicians like Boebert, Moscow Mitch vowing to oppose Biden 100%, voter suppression and vote stealing by the GOP, I do not see these independents swinging back to the GOP. Latest Gallup survey has Republicans at 26%, Democrats at 31% and Independents at 40%.

I don't believe for one hot second that 40% of Americans are "Independents." 40% of Americans may be self-identifying as Independents (and, if a pollster with the experience and objectivity of Gallup says they are, they probably aren't far off,) but, all I see, EVER, is hard-line us vs. them, Red vs. Blue in people's expressions and actions.

I would bet a non-significant number of "Independents" are false-flagging it for one reason or another--in the hopes that "their side" is undercounted and thus underestimated as a force to be reckoned with, or giving some measure of "false hope" to the other side, hoping that complacency will suppress their turnout. Or both.

But there's zero way I think 40% of Americans are genuinely, in the sense of the word, "Independent." By now, almost everyone has chosen sides.
Gallup or no Gallup.

 

[Swammerdami]

D's outnumber R's 50-40 or thereabouts, but due to apathy, suppression. lies and cheating every key election should be considered "10-11 and you pick" (as they say in Vegas) for the foreseeable future. The Trumpsters are the new incarnation of the Teabaggers and are more powerful than the Teabag ever was, catering to neo-Nazis and QAnon. Many Trumpists are more-or-less sentient but brainwashing has left them irretrievable.

The D's will probably lose one or both Houses by 2023; those elections can be considered coin-tosses from here. If Biden is unable to pound sense into Joe Manchin's head by the end of this year, then American democracy is probably a lost cause.


One way to approach all this is as an exercise in scientific conjecture, asking where to place several dozen bunker-busting bombs for best effect. How long would it take FB to get back online if all their facilities were wiped out?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Most independents are either leaning Republican or Democratic. Only about 7% aren't. They often are supporting third parties. And many of these do not bother to vote. Again, the Independents in 2020 swung hard towards Biden, abandoning Trump and the GOP. The numbers of Independents are growing at the expense of the Republicans at this point in time.

It is hard to predict what this will all be a month before election day 2022, and it could all change by then of course. If the GOP could drop Trump and put together an attractive program. But they don't seem able to do that. What happens if many disgruntles Independents leaning GOP get disgusted at the crazy pants GOP and just stay home on voting day? Or find themselves knocked out of being able to vote by GOP voter suppression tactics?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In 2016, Independents gave Trump his victory. They went to Trump by about +3%. In 2020, they went to Biden by about +9%. With fiasco of the 6/1 Resurrection, the covid disaster, crazed GOP politicians like Boebert, Moscow Mitch vowing to oppose Biden 100%, voter suppression and vote stealing by the GOP, I do not see these independents swinging back to the GOP. Latest Gallup survey has Republicans at 26%, Democrats at 31% and Independents at 40%.

I don't believe for one hot second that 40% of Americans are "Independents." 40% of Americans may be self-identifying as Independents (and, if a pollster with the experience and objectivity of Gallup says they are, they probably aren't far off,) but, all I see, EVER, is hard-line us vs. them, Red vs. Blue in people's expressions and actions.

I would bet a non-significant number of "Independents" are false-flagging it for one reason or another--in the hopes that "their side" is undercounted and thus underestimated as a force to be reckoned with, or giving some measure of "false hope" to the other side, hoping that complacency will suppress their turnout. Or both.

But there's zero way I think 40% of Americans are genuinely, in the sense of the word, "Independent." By now, almost everyone has chosen sides.
Gallup or no Gallup.

False flagging? I think a lot of it is people like me--I disagree with both parties. I vote basically 100% Democrat as the lesser evil but that doesn't mean I like them.