Same. I yearn for the halcyon days when the worst you could say about the GOP was that too many of their policies were based on the magical sky fairy and what one of their own Presidents called "voodoo economics".


Trump controls the party. This isn't happening until he dies. His lackies literally run the RNC. The base hasn't left him for any reason and is also necessary for other Republicans to win offices. Fundraising goes through him.

If he loses (a big if), they don't hit rock bottom until after he dies. Their saving grace is that no one's been able to take his place with the base.

Given this, I expect what will happen, with a Trump loss, is that the election cycle after he dies will be catastrophic for the GOP, as his base, who have not shown a willingness to follow any of his pretenders, stay home and all the GOP politicians who have tried to become Trump (by that time, heck by now, most of the national party) get crushed without the base turning out.

That's my hope too, of course, and it relies on a lot of ifs, starting with this November. Plus, Trump could easily live another 10, 15, even 20 years. We're all going to suffer through this era of American History a lot longer, regardless of November's result.

The guy who coined that term also wrote this letter to his successor after losing the 1992 election. Seems like ancient history now.

Jan 20, 1993

Dear Bill,

When I walked into this office just now I felt the same sense of wonder and respect that I felt four years ago. I know you will feel that, too.

I wish you great happiness here. I never felt the loneliness some Presidents have described.

There will be very tough times, made even more difficult by criticism you may not think is fair. I'm not a very good one to give advice; but just don't let the critics discourage you or push you off course.

You will be our President when you read this note. I wish you well. I wish your family well.

Your success now is our country's success. I am rooting hard for you.

Good luck — George

That stuff is just optics.

It still matters and is a million times better than denying the election results and acting worse than a toddler.

It is not pure optics. Such things have been a tradition since long before they were talked about much in the press.

Sometimes people that disagree with us politically just do reasonable and productive things despite those differences. There was a time when this was more common.

On the whole 'once the GOP expels MAGA thing', how many people on this forum would consider voting for them under any circumstance in which the Republicans are anywhere to the right of the Democrats in their general platform?

Most of the electorate will still be voting for the party they vote for now anyway, which kind of begs the question; what incentive is there for them to do it? And if Democrats did get a vise-like grip on power for decades with no real competitive second party, it would make their run in Congress from the 60s through the 80s with the House Banking scandal and all the rest of the rampant corruption look like the good ole' days. Be careful what you wish for.

If they embraced fiscal responsibility like any good conservative should then I would consider for for them.

I absolutely would, I was roughly 60/40 GOP before Trump, but I won't do crazy or anyone that supports him, so it has been 95/5 Dem since Trump.

We will never get everything we want from a candidate, but I look for moderates that try and serve their entire constituency, will work with the other side and be normal.

Im liberal on social issues, but pretty moderate on economic issues. While id be much more likely to still vote democrat, if I believed the individual candidate was better id consider it. I mean if my choices this election were Mccain when he ran or Biden again, id likely vote Mccain. Maybe even Romney over Biden.

I would never vote for the GOP under any circumstances, but I remember several folks in here saying they used to vote Republican before Trump.

Conservatives haven't been fiscally responsible since before most of us were born. Both Romney and McCain were more destructive to the average American than Trump ever was.

That's not an endorsement of Trump, just that many people don't care about the actual consequences as long as their politician shows proper decorum and makes them feel good about themselves.

financially voting GOP for me, even Trump, makes perfect sense. We are fortunate enough to be very high earners but I would rather make less money than sell out to a party that is so vile and corrupt.

This is very true

This isnt an argument for Romney or Mccain as I did not follow politics very closely when the ran but i frequently see comments from you that Trump wasnt that destructive to the average american when what i think what you mean is to the average white straight american.

The racism, sexism, and bigotry that has has emboldened others to express is very damaging especially when considering the years he was president.

Ironically, Republican bogeyman Bill Clinton was the most fiscally conservative President of my lifetime.

McCain was extremely racist for most of his life. Romney ran on the same policies as Trump but just used better dogwhistles. Like I said, the difference is optics.

Romney's company is responsible for the loss of tens of millions of jobs and the destruction of the middle class. McCain's incessant warmongering has destabilized the Middle East and the world, as well as caused the deaths of millions of people and trillions of American tax dollars.

In a blend from the discussion in the other thread, Harris and Waltz stopping by Sheetz to pick up snacks on their bus tour is fun campaign visuals.

This is the only time in my lifetime I've seen a political candidate of any party (who is scrambling for every vote he can get) disagree with his own supporters in public.

You're posting a clip where he's insinuating that Obama is a decent person because he's not an Arab. Not terribly surprising given his decades long crusades to slaughter as many Arabs as he possibly could.

And that's kind of my point. It's about optics for most people. This clip makes McCain a good man. It had no real world consequences like voting to slaughter millions of innocent people based on their ethnicity or religion. You can tolerate that as long as he cloaks the bad stuff in dog whistles and isn't as overt as Trump.

It's why you can call Trump a bigot while supporting an administration that is actually committing an ethnic cleansing in the Middle East. As long as they fly a pride flag once a year and tweet out how great MLK was, it's acceptable. Trump is a bad person because he doesn't hide his beliefs with meaningless gestures.

That's what you take from that clip? Wow.

She has been floated as a serious candidate for press secretary but tell me more about genocide and the left

We are in the most consequential election of our lifetime and instead of helping Trump, people want to cry about Palestinians.

I don’t give a fuck about Gaza or anyone who lives there.

And I certainly don’t want any of those people coming to my country as malignant sob…

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) August 19, 2024

"Prices are too high."
"You're absolutely right - we should fight against companies which may be price gouging."
"Communitst!!"

Meanwhile:

Then they used part of the windfall profits to make huge donations to Republican politicians who complained about grocery prices and blamed them on Biden/Harris. pic.twitter.com/vL6JMJdUEE

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 19, 2024

This is like a rumor about a rumor, but what else is this thread for, right?

A couple of anti-Trump Republicans were posting on social media about how they are getting polled about how they would feel about replacing vans with Nikki Haley. Of course that could be push polling done by anyone for any number of nefarious reasons. But if the campaign is actually looking at that, that would be some awesome fireworks.

Trump would never allow it, that would mean he was wrong and he only picks the best people.

I could see him totally taking personal shots at Vance for single-handedly causing Trump to go from winning to losing. He takes no blame, remember? It's always someone else's fault. He could also blame his campaign people, who probably should be on the chopping block anyway.

Trump's not losing alright? The polls are just wrong and the news is fake!

/sarcasm

With a twist of "They replaced Biden, so it would be unfair to not let me replace Vance" to try and make it about the Dems.

Personally, I think that he keeps Vance on the ticket (not even sure if it is too late to remove him), so that if he wins then he's a genius for picking him and if he loses, then he can say he didn't lose/it was stolen, and anyway it was all Vance's fault.

I don't know what the process to replace him would be. They have already been officially nominated. I imagine there might be some grace time to remove him if there was a medical reason, or even if he voluntarily stepped aside (which I don't see Vance doing). But forcibly removing him without medical issue or scandal?

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

Trump blaming Vance for losing the election would first require Trump to admit that he didn't win the election.

So that's not happening.

I think that Trump can keep "I won, and it's Vance's fault that I lost" in his head quite easily

Ha! House republicans issue an over 200 page report detailing biden's corruption and call for his impeachment. Just in time to "ruin" that feel-good Democratic convention starting today.



Democrats should push this as an example of what the House will be like if Republicans regain control, and try to get as many of them to lose as possible.

We have achieved peak GOP:

J.D. Vance helped to fund a startup that was supposed to make things better for working people in Kentucky. But not only did it fail, it provided terrible working conditions, causing employees to flee in droves—only to be soon replaced by migrant workers.https://t.co/b12uGeu9YD

— The New Republic (@newrepublic) August 19, 2024

This Trump-Taylorn Swift AI thing and "accepting" and non-existent endordement is weird, sad, and funny at the same time.

He has nothing and yet way too much in his head at all times.

I think it's extremely far-fetched to think that he'd get replaced at this juncture. However, I definitely don't agree with you on the "hard to see Vance stepping aside" piece of this. If Daddy Trump were to say "you need to step off the ticket," Vance would STEP and FETCH. If he didn't, it's not like Trump would keep it a secret. Trump would BLAST him all over social media. MAGA would say "we never trusted him after he said those bad things about teh Donald in the past," and hate him forever. His political career would be....done. If by some shocker Trump decides he wants Vance gone, Vance is gone.

Yeah, my impression is that Vance got the job precisely because he was an obsequious little shit, and Donald's own obsequious little shits assured him that Vance would do whatever he was told, no matter the situation.

All of this.

We know from his admin that Trump is fundamentally a coward and he doesn't actually fire anyone. He'll complain and blame, but it's very against his nature to actually force a confrontation.

Fox News anchor Brett Baier noted what happened to a lot of those "best people".

You may be right, but here is my read on it. Vance sold his soul for his ambition. Everything he has done lead him to this point, and to surrender now throws it all away. He may not survive Trump attacks if he doesn't step aside, but also doesn't survive having to step aside and admitting he was the weak link. Vance's career is over if he is forced off the ticket. He is young enough to rebound from an electoral loss, but as a hopeful strongman he doesn't return if he surrenders.

That is literally the same position as the Democrats in power. She's just willing to say it. Again, it's not about the issue, it's about the optics to you.

I swear no one in the GOP actually read his book.

Yet another lifelong Republican has repudiated Trump. Retired federal appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig, a prominent conservative legal scholar put on the bench by President George H.W. Bush, is endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump, whose candidacy he describes as an existential threat to American democracy.

It will be the first time Luttig, a veteran of two Republican administrations, has voted for a Democrat.

“In voting for Vice President Harris, I assume that her public policy views are vastly different from my own, but I am indifferent in this election as to her policy views on any issues other than America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, as I believe all Americans should be."

Conservative former Judge J. Michael Luttig endorses Harris

She gives no f's.

Pelosi this morning on anyone annoyed with her:
“I have my relationship with the president, and I just wanted to win this election. So if they’re upset, I’m sorry for them. But the country is very happy ...I don’t know who they are, but, you know, that’s their problem, not mine.”

— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) August 19, 2024

She's got a memoir to sell, and will bravely keep giving herself all of the flowers for Kamala's momentum until someone turns the cameras off.

Former Congressman George Santos sees the writing on the wall and takes a plea deal in his fraud and identity theft-2 counts minimun jail time of 2 years, judge indicates it might be 6-8 years and orders him to pay over $370,000 in restitution.

Interesting you say that, because I just heard her in an interview say that she and others expected an open expedited primary for the nomination, and Biden endorsing Harris killed the plans for that. She quite literally isn't taking credit for the Harris momentum, and placing it squarely on Biden.

You hate to see it.

And I hope we never see his name connected to any political role ever again.

I thought she was politically adept. Is her brain turning to mush in her 80's too?