Well, here’s a title I never expected to see in The New Republic: “15 Reasons Why Trump Should Be Favored Against Biden in 2024”. That’s the title of a piece by Brynn Tannehill there.
That’s a bit misleading. Here are his first several bullet points:
- Americans perceive the economy as bad.
- Trump probably won’t be in prison at the time of the election because these trials take so long, and he faces the possibility of being out on appeal even if he does go to trial.
- Nothing says you cannot run for president from prison.
Those don’t illustrate why Donald Trump should be favored over Biden so much as that it’s not impossible for him to win.
Unlike progressives I think I understand why Donald Trump has such a following. It’s not fascism, racism, or any other -ism other than, possibly, elitism on the part of the progressives. He’s tapped into a broad discontent with the imperious and condescending air being assumed by the denizens of Washington, DC. Call it the “Deep State” or whatever else you care to but it’s real and it’s dangerous.
The problem I see is that Trump will not or cannot deliver on dismantling it. As evidence I would submit the four years of his presidency.
My problem is that I don’t want either Trump or Biden to be elected president. I think they’re both low characters and corrupt. You can’t get blood from a stone. Or as the New Testament puts it a bad tree can’t bear good fruit.
Trump has been pretty clear that “dismantling the deep state” is a means to a different end – replacing the deep state with one that is loyal to him.
Trump isn’t at all interested in devolving the authority of the federal government or reducing the bureaucracy – he just wants to replace the bureaucrats.
Trump has been more clear than other Republicans but it’s the same thing the others want. They just want their own Deep State.
BTW, I am visiting Chautauqua this week at the invitation of a friend. We sang patriotic hymns and songs last night, I had forgotten that God Bless America had an introduction, and the first major speaker this morning was 100% unabashedly supportive of free speech rights. Nice historical approach. Heavy emphasis on Milton’s curse and how it appears in our politics with people supporting Trump having a variation of this I believe.
Anyway, not what I expected at a place which is supposed to lean far to the left. Or maybe it is since I am suspicious of much of what is written and just based upon the people I know and with whom I have interacted in my life this is what I should have expected to see. Music is really good. Ballet was excellent and tonight is a banjo concert.
Steve
Top 3 reasons
1. Biden’s approval rating. Remarkably, the approval rating at 41.1% is 2% below Trumps at the equivalent point of their Presidency, which of course Trump lost. More ominously, Biden’s bounce in the winter/spring only took Biden to 45%, which suggests a hard ceiling that points to defeat next year.
2. Indictments seem to strengthen Trump at the polls. Trump got a substantial polling boost since March as the indictments roll in. Coincidentally, March was when Biden’s approval ratings started dropping.
3. Elections are usually about the incumbent
“We sang patriotic hymns and songs “
Brace yourself for the shunning.
Look, I agree with Dave about Trump’s in viability as President ,
I seriously doubt that he could put together a capable cabinet.
What the haters are missing is that he HAS charisma.
If you can’t feel it then check the reaction of the audience.
We as Americans, English speakers can’t sense Adolf Hitler’s charisma, but check out his audience!
What I cannot understand is why Democrat candidates see no need to reach out to the white working class.
(I can actually sense the reaction from the professional class following this blog, we ARE hated).
But of course the leading candidate has no need to even campaign, the Democrat party that the Clinton’s built is at this point invulnerable to threat as they ARE the media.
At one time I was a registered Democrat simply because the Republican candidate was not chosen in the primary and my vote was irrelevant, now, it’s the Democrats whose machine chooses the candidate.
AND, uses the courts to enforce their results.
If anyone is interested in visiting the next inauguration, remember that the entire area is blanketed with surveillance.
Over 10,000 people charged to date, I would never bring my family into the kingdom of the wicked witch.
I have heard it asserted that the difference between the libertarian left and the libertarian right is that the former are First Amendment absolutists while the latter are Second Amendment absolutists. Much depends, I think, on one’s definition of “freedom of speech”. Traditionally, the apothegm attributed (incorrectly) to Voltaire was the very definition of freedom of speech:
or “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”. Increasingly, there are claims that words are violence while failing to speak in the prescribed way is bullying. Exponents of both views don’t see any contradiction between them and freedom of speech.
Grey Shambler:
Evidence: his last term. To believe he might put together a capable cabinet if re-elected implies it would be easier the second time around. I see no evidence for that.
My dad was physically present in the crowd for at least one of those speeches. He remarked on Hitler’s charisma. I should see if I can find that in the journals he kept. My dad visited Europe in 1937-1938 and kept voluminous journals (which I have not read in full). One of my ambitions is to read, edit, and publish them.
Second Amendment absolutists.
I’ve long ago made a conscious decision to not own a gun.
I own two long guns which have not been fired in living memory. One was a gift to my dad when he was 12 and the other was carried by my great-great-grandfather during the Civil War. They aren’t weapons; they’re keepsakes.
I had a variety of guns for many years, but after joining the military I had the choice to haul them around – a PITA – or leave them with family. After my overseas tour in the UK (no personal firearms allowed), I sold them all.
Then when my Dad died a couple of years ago, I inherited all of his guns, the newest on is probably from the early 1970’s. They are still sitting in my gun safe and I haven’t yet bothered/had the time to inspect, clean, and test them.
I don’t think there’s a risk in Trump dismantling or replacing the deep state.
The risk in a 2nd Trump Presidency is he’s driven for vengeance.
Own a couple. Go to the local pistol range occasionally though eyesight is getting worse and so are my groupings. Always fun to hang around and chat with old friends/acquaintanances, the people I supposedly hate.
Dave- There just isn’t that much history to support the belief that the right truly supports free speech. One of things I learned from today’s speaker is that Holmes famous comment about not crying fire in a theater was not a real case, that it was actually about a case of Jewish activists protesting WW1. The case was later overturned. Censoring books is a much longer tradition on the right than left. Controlling speech has been used by majorities to control minorities through all of history, including the US.
It’s pretty clear that the use of free speech has been weaponized. I think social media, internet, speed of communications and use of computers (soon to be AI) has helped lead to the targeted spread of harmful lies. I think we really are in a different era now than when print was the media. All of that said it’s likely that any cure is more harmful than the disease. That seems to be a major take home lesson from history so I end up on the side of free speech.
Steve
I agree with CO. Trump will expend more energy on vengeance than any issue in the country. He’s an egocentric SOB.
This will be yet another miserable election.
Please don’t misunderstand, I’m pro-2nd amendment, just that I don’t hunt, and I won’t shoot anyone, the fantasy scenario of protecting the family from intruders is just that.
If that unlikely scenario occurs I will put my fat body in between.
Journals?
As in diaries?
I doubt that I could ever do that without constantly going back and redacting my emotional outbursts.
But since he did and you have them, what a treasure!
To be fair; all Presidents and most Presidential candidates are egocentric SOB… that quote of Theodore Roosevelt that’s used on this site occasionally comes to mind.
But vengeance is rare… closest that comes to mind Adams vs Jefferson in 1800 and Adams vs Jackson in 1828. And if Biden keeps misgoverning, quite a few voters will be out for vengeance.
Oh, I know CO. But Trump is so loud about it. I reluctantly voted for him last election. Don’t think I can do that twice. Might have to sit the upcoming election out.