2024 GOP Presidential Race (1 Viewer)

[SteveSBrickNJ]

Many of Trump's endorsed candidates did not do well on Nov. 8th.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis DID do well.
He won convincingly.
Yet in this OP's opinion, Donald Trump is an egomaniac who is seemingly incapable of putting "Party over Self"
Trump has ZERO chance of being elected our next president.
In my opinion, if Trump would just shut up and go away (fat chance of that)...but "if" Trump did that, Gov. Ron DeSantis would have a CHANCE to be a formidable candidate for President in 2024.
Here is an interesting article on this topic...

Donald Trump warns Ron DeSantis against 2024 presidential bid as Republican rising star wins big

Donald Trump has warned Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis against running for president in 2024, saying doing so would harm the Republican Party.

www.scotsman.com

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What do any of you think re. Trump vs DeSantis?

 

[MT15]

I saw a clip on Twitter of a R (surely a former R) spokesperson saying that Trump having dinner with Ye and Nick Fuentes will hurt him among Republicans. I almost laughed out loud. Where’s the evidence of that? MTG spoke at a Fuentes event and will probably be rewarded with a plum committee chairmanship. After 6 years+, it’s time these guys realize that’s who Rs are now.

 

[superchuck500]

Musk also stated he prefers the most left-leaning Republicans and the most right-leaning Democrats. Which, of course, we know is utter bullshirt given the above endorsement of DeSantis.

He has also said that he only appears right now because the center has moved so far left . . . in a country that has seen things like the undoing of 50 years of protection of women's reproductive rights, re-legalization of racially-motivated voting rules, and the near open embrace of fascism by many elements of one of the nation's two parties.

Much of the Democratic platform from 1972 would be seen as wildly socialist today . . . but right, Elon, it's America that has changed not you. Or maybe you're who you always were, you're just admitting it now.

 

[Taurus]

He has also said that he only appears right now because the center has moved so far left . . . in a country that has seen things like the undoing of 50 years of protection of women's reproductive rights, re-legalization of racially-motivated voting rules, and the near open embrace of fascism by many elements of one of the nation's two parties.

Much of the Democratic platform from 1972 would be seen as wildly socialist today . . . but right, Elon, it's America that has changed not you. Or maybe you're who you always were, you're just admitting it now.

Culturally (gay rights, open racism, environmental awareness) we've moved left but politically? Biden's platform could be Nixon's.

 

[bdb13]

Musk pledges to support DeSantis, a “sensible centrist.”

He is such a jackass lol.. this act has:

We're only lucky he can't run for President.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Donald Trump, the former US president, is all washed up. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is poised to dethrone him. This is the view currently in vogue among many in Washington.

Not so fast, argues Rick Wilson, a veteran Republican strategist and co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group that shot to prominence with go-for-the-jugular advertisements before becoming mired in scandals of its own.

“The greatest danger in American politics is not recognising that there are great dangers,” Wilson, who lives in Florida, says in a phone interview.

“The same people in 2015 and 2016 were confidently asserting Donald Trump could never, ever under any circumstances win the Republican nomination, and there were never any circumstances where Donald Trump could beat Hillary Clinton, and then he could never have almost a million people die because of his mishandling of Covid and on and on and on and on.

“I know that the Republicans who right now are acting very bold and the donors who are acting very frisky – as Trump starts winning primaries, they will bend the knee, they will break, they will fall, they will all come back into line.”………

He adds: “Right now they’re all talking so much shirt: ‘I’m not going to get with Trump. I’m going to be with the hot new number, DeSantis.’

When DeSantis gets his arse handed to him, when he gets his clock cleaned in a debate or forum or just by Trump grinding away at him, eating him alive mentally for weeks on end, and suddenly Donald Trump’s numbers start posting up again, all the conservative thinkers who are right now like, ‘We will never vote for Trump again, we have integrity!’ will find themselves some excuse. ‘Well, you know, we don’t like Trump’s tweets, but otherwise it’s pure communism!’……….

“Has Ron DeSantis been to the rodeo? Has he been out there in the fight? Has he actually faced up against a full campaign of the brutality and the cruelty that Donald Trump will level against him? He has not. It’s like he’s walked on to the field on to third base and thought he hit a grand slam home run. It’s easy for Republicans to win in Florida. It’s how it’s supposed to be: we built it that way. In a Republican primary against Trump, even Trump in a weakened state still has an innate feral sense of cruelty and cunning that Ron DeSantis does not have. How does Trump know that? He watched the debate.”……….

‘They will bend the knee’: Lincoln project cofounder cautions against dismissing Trump

Rick Wilson, a veteran Republican strategist, suggests the ex-president still holds sway despite multiple crises

www.theguardian.com

 

[brandon]

When DeSantis gets his arse handed to him, when he gets his clock cleaned in a debate or forum or just by Trump grinding away at him, eating him alive mentally for weeks on end, and suddenly Donald Trump’s numbers start posting up again, all the conservative thinkers who are right now like, ‘We will never vote for Trump again, we have integrity!’ will find themselves some excuse. ‘Well, you know, we don’t like Trump’s tweets, but otherwise it’s pure communism!’……….

100% this.

 

[MT15]

Yeah, DeSantis is incredibly thin-skinned. He cannot abide anyone or any company who will not bow and scrape before him. Or at least that’s what he has shown up until now.

 

[efil4]

I saw a clip on Twitter of a R (surely a former R) spokesperson saying that Trump having dinner with Ye and Nick Fuentes will hurt him among Republicans. I almost laughed out loud. Where’s the evidence of that? MTG spoke at a Fuentes event and will probably be rewarded with a plum committee chairmanship. After 6 years+, it’s time these guys realize that’s who Rs are now.

I posted this on the Ukraine thread.

They are slow walking the transition to full oligarchy. If this theme keeps up, this is what Rs will want come 2024 thinking its the only way.

 

[Optimus Prime]

I saw a clip on Twitter of a R (surely a former R) spokesperson saying that Trump having dinner with Ye and Nick Fuentes will hurt him among Republicans. I almost laughed out loud. Where’s the evidence of that? MTG spoke at a Fuentes event and will probably be rewarded with a plum committee chairmanship. After 6 years+, it’s time these guys realize that’s who Rs are now.

Donald Trump repeatedly refused to disavow the outspoken antisemite and white supremacist Nick Fuentes after they spoke over dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort, rejecting the advice from advisers over fears he might alienate a section of his base, two people familiar with the situation said.”

The former US president was urged publicly and privately to denounce Fuentes in the aftermath of the dinner, which included the performer Ye, previously known as Kanye West, who has also recently been propagating antisemitic remarks.

But Trump eschewed making outright disavowals of Fuentes, the people said, and none of the statements from the campaign or on his Truth Social account included criticism of Fuentes, despite efforts from advisers who reached Trump over the Thanksgiving holiday…….

Donald Trump ‘shied away from criticising Nick Fuentes’

Advisers wanted ex-president to distance himself from white supremacist with whom he dined but Trump feared alienating supporters – insiders

www.theguardian.com

 

[Taurus]

Donald Trump repeatedly refused to disavow the outspoken antisemite and white supremacist Nick Fuentes after they spoke over dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort, rejecting the advice from advisers over fears he might alienate a section of his base, two people familiar with the situation said.”

The former US president was urged publicly and privately to denounce Fuentes in the aftermath of the dinner, which included the performer Ye, previously known as Kanye West, who has also recently been propagating antisemitic remarks.

But Trump eschewed making outright disavowals of Fuentes, the people said, and none of the statements from the campaign or on his Truth Social account included criticism of Fuentes, despite efforts from advisers who reached Trump over the Thanksgiving holiday…….

Donald Trump ‘shied away from criticising Nick Fuentes’

Advisers wanted ex-president to distance himself from white supremacist with whom he dined but Trump feared alienating supporters – insiders

www.theguardian.com

That's hilarious. As if his advisors don't know who he is. Disavowing the guy would be admitting he made a mistake in inviting him in the first place. NO WAY does Trump do that. Trump never makes mistakes. Never making mistakes is *stronk*!. Besides, it's not like his base gives a flying fart about racism.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Losing the evangelicals?
=====================

Key evangelical figures who previously supported Donald Trump are backing off now that he’s announced his third bid for the presidency.

“Donald Trump can’t save America,” Mike Evans told the Washington Post. “He can’t even save himself.”

Evans was part of a group of evangelicals who met with Trump at the White House, and at one point gave him an award.

Now, he says he’s done with Trump.

“He used us to win the White House. We had to close our mouths and eyes when he said things that horrified us,” he told the newspaper. “I cannot do that anymore.”

Robert Jeffress, one of Trump’s evangelical advisors during the 2016 campaign and a longtime supporter, said he’s not ready to endorse him again.

“The Republican Party is headed toward a civil war that I have no desire or need to be part of,” he told Newsweek, adding that he would “happily” support Trump again... if he wins the nomination.

That’s not a given considering Trump’s plunging poll numbers among Republican voters. Jeffress also seemed to subtweet Trump on the day of his 2024 announcement by urging people to buy Mike Pence’s book:



Jeffress added on Twitter that he still considers Trump “a great friend and our greatest president since Reagan.”

Another onetime faith advisor to Trump, James Robison of Life Outreach International, said in a speech this week that Trump’s ego is getting in the way of the agenda.

“If Mr. Trump can’t stop his little petty issues, how does he expect people to stop major issues?” he said, according to the Washington Post.

He said he told Trump:


He did not say if he was planning to support Trump in 2024.

Still another evangelical figure who previously endorsed Trump was even more blunt, with Washington Times columnist Everett Piper writing that Trump cost the GOP big in the midterms and could hurt them even more in two years.

“The take-home of this past week is simple: Donald Trump has to go,” he wrote. “If he‘s our nominee in 2024, we will get destroyed.” ...............

MSN

An evangelical pastor has made it his new mission to lead his fellow Christians away from what he believes is a self-destructive worship of former President Donald Trump.

In an interview with the Toronto Globe and Mail, Pastor Caleb Campbell revealed that he decided to make wooing Christians away from the MAGA movement his personal cause after he attended a Christian event hosted by Turning Point USA, the right-wing activist group founded by Charlie Kirk.

During the event he attended, says Campbell, Kirk misappropriated quotes from the Bible in order to make it sound like God wanted Christians to be armed to the teeth with firearms.

"I was absolutely terrified and horrified," Campbell tells the Globe and Mail.

MSN

 

[Optimus Prime]

Last week, a meeting of the minds took place in Mar-a-Lago when Donald Trump hosted Ye and Nick Fuentes, two of the most powerful antisemites in American life. The dinner went swimmingly, as Trump “seemed very taken” with the white nationalist Fuentes, according to Axios.

The response from within the Republican Party was that Trump had blundered again. The president’s lack of judgment had embarrassed his allies and generated more unhelpful publicity. “Well, he certainly needs better judgment in who he dines with,” lamented Republican representative James Comer. “Republicans who continue to go along for the ride with Mr. Trump are teeing themselves up for disaster in 2024,” warns The Wall Street Journal editorial page. “If people are looking at DeSantis to run against Trump, here’s another reason why,” a longtime Trump adviser told NBC.

But to conceive of this episode as a mere failure to properly vet the Mar-a-Lago guest list, or even more broadly as an indictment of Trump’s leadership of the party, misapprehends its scope. The issue is that Trump has expanded the Republican coalition to the right, activating and encompassing undisguised white supremacists, who, through their entry into the two-system, have gained newfound influence. This is a dangerous and historically significant change to the American political scene. And hardly anybody in the GOP — certainly not Ron DeSantis — intends to reverse it.

Trump’s campaign in 2015 had an immediate galvanizing effect on white supremacists, a once-marginalized faction that saw recognizable themes in his rhetoric and came off the sidelines to work on his behalf. Trump’s response has always been to profess ignorance without condemning white supremacists or their ideas. This allows a David Duke to shrug off Trump’s claims of never having heard of him but still share in the glory of his success. (“We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back.”)

Trump has woven white-supremacist themes into his rhetoric, sharing Groyper videos and hailing his Nazi-loving loyalists as J6 martyrs. Pro-Trump Republican members of Congress such as Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene — now a Republican power broker who is set to have her committee privileges restored by the new GOP majority — participated in a white-nationalist conference. The status of these ideas is revealed by the refusal of the party’s leadership to cast them out.

The Republican mainstream has shrugged off Trump as an idiosyncratic personality whose behavior indicates no deeper racist or authoritarian tendency within the party. They have accordingly presented DeSantis as the solution. “DeSantis would be a Republican nominee without Donald Trump’s worst and most destructive impulses and habits,” Jim Geraghty argues.

But far from restoring the party’s pre-Trump identity, DeSantis would reify its Trump-era transformation. One way he would do this would be to carry forward Trump’s goal of turning the state into an Orbanist weapon to entrench Republican rule. But the other is to preserve the new coalition Trump created.

DeSantis is quite deliberate about this. He has reached out to QAnon supporters and insurrectionists and suggested January 6 was a setup by the FBI. He has denounced Liz Cheney for participating in the January 6 hearings but refused to denounce a gang of Nazis who showed up in Orlando and menaced local Jews. This is a clear signal of whom DeSantis sees as inside the coalition (white supremacists) and who is out (pro-democracy Republicans like Cheney.)...............

Trump Brought Nazis Into the GOP. DeSantis Won’t Expel Them.

 

[MT15]

An evangelical pastor has made it his new mission to lead his fellow Christians away from what he believes is a self-destructive worship of former President Donald Trump.

In an interview with the Toronto Globe and Mail, Pastor Caleb Campbell revealed that he decided to make wooing Christians away from the MAGA movement his personal cause after he attended a Christian event hosted by Turning Point USA, the right-wing activist group founded by Charlie Kirk.

During the event he attended, says Campbell, Kirk misappropriated quotes from the Bible in order to make it sound like God wanted Christians to be armed to the teeth with firearms.

"I was absolutely terrified and horrified," Campbell tells the Globe and Mail.

MSN

Better late than never, I guess, but where was he for the last 7-10 years? This isn’t really new.

 

[MT15]

That's hilarious. As if his advisors don't know who he is. Disavowing the guy would be admitting he made a mistake in inviting him in the first place. NO WAY does Trump do that. Trump never makes mistakes. Never making mistakes is *stronk*!. Besides, it's not like his base gives a flying fart about racism.

Not to mention nobody presumably gets near Trump without Secret Service scrutiny. They all knew exactly who those people were. Also Milo Y was present as Ye’s “campaign manager”. Milo is on record defending sex between boys under 18 and older men as a legit “coming of age” experience.

These people are legitimately scum.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Former President Donald Trump has been invited back to Twitter by the platform’s new CEO, Elon Musk, but has thus far declined to return. Instead he’s spending his time on his own social media site, Truth Social, where he has posted some truly strange things in the last several months.

Mr Trump regularly "re-truths" posts that sing his praises, but one of his most recent posts includes an edited video featuring a bizarre mashup of scenes from movies in which characters watch in rapturous glee as the former president gives speeches and brags about himself.

As the video rolls, scenes from films including Napoleon Dynamite, Forrest Gump, Gremlins, Kill Bill, Fargo, Ed Wood and more play out, showing characters gathering to watch Mr Trump boast about himself during campaign speeches and more "candid" public meet-and-greets.

One of those meet-and-greets features rapper Kanye West wearing a red MAGA hat and saying "I love this guy" as he shakes the former president’s hand. Mr West has recently taken a public beating for making numerous anti-Semitic comments and for wearing a "White Lives Matter" shirt alongside right-wing provocateur Candace Owens...........

Trump posts bizarre video manipulating famous movie scenes into fans fawning over him

Truth Social

Truth Social is America's "Big Tent" social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating on the basis of political ideology.

truthsocial.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

After seven years of Donald Trump being America's main character, we've developed a tedious routine to react to fresh reminders of Trump's sympathies for neo-Nazis and other fascists.

First, Trump gaslights in response, pretending any racism is being projected onto him by the "fake news." Other Republicans run from reporters or play dumb about what's going on.

GOP base voters, who either fully agree with Trump's racist views or don't care enough to hold it against him, dig in their heels and refuse to reconsider their cult-like worship of the former president.

Eventually, the media realizes, once again, that having an overt white nationalist leading the GOP doesn't actually move the needle much for their horse race coverage, and so they too give up on the story — at least until the next dust-up, when we start the cycle all over again.

The latest reminder of Trump's racial views: He had dinner with Ye, formerly Kanye West (whom Vox dubs "a poster child for antisemitism and white nationalism") and Ye's new Holocaust-denying buddy Nick Fuentes.

As I write this, we're in the middle of the process where Trump pretends it's an accident he keeps buddying up with people who espouse neo-Nazi ideologies. We're also going through the motions of the media expressing outrage at GOP silence, while Republicans lay low, knowing this too will pass.

But not all Republicans are keeping mum. Indeed, a surprising number of them are going on the record criticizing Trump about his dinner with a man who declared, during the racist riot in Charlottesville in 2017, "The rootless transnational elite knows that a tidal wave of white identity is coming."

But these complaints about Trump are hardly evidence that the GOP leadership has developed a conscience and now rejects the racism that fuels Trump and his movement. On the contrary, this comes across loud and clear: GOP leaders don't care about Trump's moral depravity. They only care that his indiscretion huts their party's electoral chances.........

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...sedgntp&cvid=b6e9ae9965664ca2abdac74ee5e7fcb7

 

[Optimus Prime]

I would press McCarthy on this point -

"Is it possible for you have dinner with someone without you knowing who that person is?"

"Is it possible for your staff to set up a dinner with someone without your staff knowing who that person is?"
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MSN

 

[Taurus]

I would press McCarthy on this point -

"Is it possible for you have dinner with someone without you knowing who that person is?"

"Is it possible for your staff to set up a dinner with someone without your staff knowing who that person is?"
=======================================================================

MSN

How about this: "Is it possible for anyone on Earth to set up a dinner with an ex-President without the Secret Service knowing who that person is?"