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Talk Me into Supporting Trump Again
This came up today.
As Donald J. Trump weighs whether to open an unusually early White House campaign, a New York Times/Siena College poll shows that his post-presidential quest to consolidate his support within the Republican Party has instead left him weakened, with nearly half the party’s primary voters seeking someone different for president in 2024 and a significant number vowing to abandon him if he wins the nomination.
By focusing on political payback inside his party instead of tending to wounds opened by his alarming attempts to cling to power after his 2020 defeat, Mr. Trump appears to have only deepened fault lines among Republicans during his yearlong revenge tour. A clear majority of primary voters under 35 years old, 64 percent, as well as 65 percent of those with at least a college degree — a leading indicator of political preferences inside the donor class — told pollsters they would vote against Mr. Trump in a presidential primary.
Let’s have a discussion. Should we, or should we not, encourage Mr. Trump to run again?
If he runs again, should we support him in the primaries over Mr. DeSantis, Mr. Cruz, Ms. Noem, others?
I take it as a given that all but one of us would support him in the general, if we are unfortunate enough to have him win the nomination.
My opinion (as someone who loves the man for his outspoken love of country and for all the good he did despite the array of forces stacked against him) is that we should not encourage him, not support him against other Republicans, but fall in line if he does get the nomination. My logic is that his history makes him toxic. He is likely the only candidate whom Mr. Biden could defeat. If elected, he would be even more ineffective than he was in 2017, when he used a historic alignment of forces to accomplish no major legislation, to appoint three sterling justices, to move an embassy, and to otherwise do nothing of lasting importance. Also, if re-elected, he could not stand for a third term of office.
Talk me out of it.
Published in General
There is also the age factor.
I’m of your exact mindset. Voted for him in the general in 2016 because he wasn’t Hillary, would have crawled over broken glass to vote for him in 2020 in thanks for his SC nominations and what he’d done to improve the economy, but I think he needs to go away now. I’d rather have someone like DeSantis, who seems a lot better at the whole governing thing, but if Trump is the nominee in 2024, yes, I’ll vote for him again.
I agree 100% and hope he doesn’t run. He will go scorched earth on his own side. He’s running out of people to alienate.
He would be impeached every six months over who knows what.
I would NEVER CONSIDER voting for the Democrat, regardless.
I figure the same people who stole the election in plain sight in 2020 will simply kill him by the end of 2024.
I’ve said before that with our gratitude, I hope he retires from politics and enjoys his life. He’s earned it.
A Trump primary brings obvious fissures on the right. Less obvious but perhaps more menacing are the fissures that a non-Trump candidacy would bring. We get nothing for Benghazi, nothing for the stolen election.
This stuff will not go away. It’s just where we are.
Um, I think he was instrumental in pushing the Abraham Accords. That’s kind of important.
I wouldn’t mind seeing a Trump/DeSantis ticket. Trump could announce he will step down after two years and one day because he’s seen from Biden how age affects performance. This would give DeSantis a country back on track, and the potential for almost ten years of his Presidency. Who would be his Veep? I’d look to South Dakota and Kristi Noem. She’s the modern-day equivalent of Sarah Palen, and would be a great choice IMHO . . .
But yes, I would vote for DeSantis over Trump in the primary . . .
One could plausibly make the binary choice argument in 2016 and again in 2020. Trump was preferable to Clinton and Biden yada yada yada. But the 2024 campaign hasn’t even begun even though names such as DeSantis, Pence, Pompeo, Cotton are being thrown around. For the moment at least the binary choice contention doesn’t apply, thank God. Fortunately, the Republican bench is strong. Who do the Dems have? Gavin Newsom? Michelle Obama? J. B. Pritzker, for heaven’s sake? I only hope the Republicans don’t blow it and nominate a man who, outside his own faction, is thoroughly despised.
To me, DeSantis is the most “Trump-like” of the potential candidates, without Trump’s shortcomings and baggage. And he handled the COVID issues much better than DJT did.
RDS in the primaries, and whomever is the nominee in the general.
And it’s one of his actions that Biden can’t just cancel (as he did, vindictively, with everything else). Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are really normalizing relations in the last few years.
Frankly, I disagree. His age is a plus. With the direction the country is being taken, any president who will actually try to do anything will essentially be declaring war on the PTB.
Do you think that any effective president who intends to “drain the swamp” — that is remove the leadership and change the ways of the top agencies, the CIA, FBI, DOJ, Pelosi, et al — will be allowed to live? Only a president without young kids would have the guts. And Trump has already survived one assassination attempt — a bullet fired at his Mar a Lago bedroom, while he was in it, from the air off the coast, fortunately he had just had bulletproof glass installed.
Plus it would take a ton of money for a president to protect his family. Trump has that.
Trump has a team. Why hasn’t a second attempt been tried? I think he’s got whopping security. That may be why they are going through all the trouble to arrest him now (which is the real point of the J6 commission).
Trump has taken everything the government has to give and is coming back for more.
And he probably knows more clearly than anyone else what can be done to avert the coming disaster.
As another member asked, Why are they specifically going after Trump? Political decapitation won’t work if he’s just the symptom of people’s frustration and contempt. Just for the symbolism or in order to cow conservatives doesn’t seem like enough reason to me. It’s not the people, or the politics, or the movement that the government is afraid of, I really think it’s Trump they’re afraid of.
Three fifths of the Roe v. Wade and Casey overturn.
There are yet a number of important events the outcomes of which will influence the approach to the 2024 Presidential election. The nominating process is where a political party chooses the person thought to yield the best result, the best result being to win the election and to provide the American people the best possible performance as POTUS for that Party Platform. The 2024 Republican primary will be different from the 2016 primary with someone like DeSantis possibly outperforming Trump with fewer candidates in the race. Nothing wrong with selecting someone who is even better than Trump. Age and performance history and possible other things are advantages in a DeSantis candidacy. I will decide my vote when the time comes.
It’s crazy to me that it seems everyone just forgot this even happened. The Abraham Accords are a major step to peace in the ME, something I’ve been told all my life would never happen. And yet if it’s even recalled, it’s brushed aside as a side show.
The only reason to vote for him in the primary is that you want the Democrats to win the presidency in 2024.
Yeah, we’ve been full up with that accusatory nonsense since 2015. Sell it somewhere else.
News from 2016.
I mean, that’s exactly why the news media gave Trump so much free publicity early in 2016 and talked so well of him — because they knew that Hillary could beat him easily.
This isn’t 2016.
AND the Dem’s won’t be running Hillary.
I heard Sebastian Gorka (yes he is a blowhard, but I was flipping stations) on the radio the other day saying he was concerned that DeSantis was too much of a politician to actually drain the swamp. It did give me pause, because the corruption in the alphabet agencies has become very destructive.
Another issue by the next presidential election will be whether the republican congress has actually done anything, or is just faking to get elected/reelected, e.g., pulling a Paul Ryan (talking to you, Kevin McCarthy and Mitch).
That said, I will take either man. I fled south to Florida this winter when our illustrious Commodious Maximus, a.k.a. JB Prickster, and the rest of cook county incompetents demanded vearing zee mask und showing zee papers to do anything. Whoever has the democrat nomination will probably affect who gets the republican nomination.
In an ideal world, Trump gets a second term, goes scorched earth and lays the ground work for two DeSantis terms. This project is generational, not just for one or two election cycles.
Largely agree here. Empirically, DeSantis is more “electable”, having won more elections. He may be better with a larger slice of who matters in 2024. On the other hand, Trump has battled the beast up close. It cheated to defeat him, but it did not change his mind.
Trump could seal the deal for me by promising to fire 10,000 government lackeys on day one, provided that at least a thousand are SES or appointees working in DC proper (to include the Pentagon, which is in Virginia, Suh).
Doesn’t matter.
As I just mentioned to someone in a PM, here’s why I would vote for Trump again, even in the Primary:
It’s easy to control politicians by giving them what they want most: money and power. By appealing to their love of the cameras and their desire for fame and a legacy. (“Washington is Hollywood for ugly people.”)
President Trump came into office after a long, successful career, having achieved money, power, fame, a legacy, a TV show, a best-selling book long before he thought of politics (unlike many politicians whose books are merely a part of their campaigns). That was one of the best things about him: having already established a legacy and achieved an enormous degree of fame and wealth, he was impossible to buy off with the promise of such things. With his age and status, Trump likely can’t be compromised. (Biden is completely compromised.)
And he loves America and Americans. And as he showed over and over in international negotiations, he wanted what was best for America first. He put our nation’s interests first.
Now, DeSantis may have all these things, but I think he needs to stay as Governor of Florida and show the other wobbly Governors how to be a proper Governor. Especially if we can minimize the power of the federal government and redistribute that power back to the states where it belongs.
I doubt the people of Florida want to lose DeSantis either.
If you liked Trump’s agenda and accomplishments, and if he runs, I think that you should support him.
Whether or not to run is up to him. If he does, there may or may not be any serious challengers. If there are no serious challengers, then you might as well support him. If there is at least one serious challenger, then I don’t see how the Republican Party could pick someone else without repudiating Trump’s agenda.
I was thinking small: 5,000 from the top down.
Despite the things he DID accomplish, Trump did next to no swamp draining, although he talked a good game.
Maybe he figured out his mistakes. If he runs again, I would think that he thinks he has.
I like this. What does Trump do, if he is the nominee, with regard to the VP? I think in the past neither party has been treating these offices as generational from a policy standpoint but have done so from a dynasty standpoint. This needs to change to a Constitutional basis of focus.
Noted and appreciated.
What did the Founders pledge? We really need politicians who will pledge their Lives, their Fortunes, and their sacred Honor. Find me a politician like that today and I’ll support him.
One issue with Trump is that he is a lame duck coming in. Restricted to 4 years or office. Not sure 4 is enough.
Now the favs
Mr DeSantis — maybe best choice, prefer a governor
Mr Cruz — Love the guy but he is a senator and a lawyer. Never ran anything but loves the law.
Ms Noem — Who?
I’m sure he made some mistakes but there has never been an active opposition to a President led by the Bureaucracy to match 2016-2020 in my memory. I include 2016 since that opposition began before Trump was elected.
This is big for me.
I think being a Kingmaker would be great but 2.5 years is a long way away.