US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4048

On August 27 2023 08:20 ChristianS wrote:
The Republican primary has been in this bizarre impossibility generator state for a while now, it’s really hard to imagine the present arrangement being stable but it’s maybe even harder to imagine what changes it.

I mean Trump is… pretty obviously guilty on a lot of the charges? I can understand skepticism about the Bragg charges – I don’t think it’s remotely implausible a regular citizen would get charged and convicted for that kind of thing, but it’s some creative legal footwork that seems untoward when it’s being presented by a DA in a blue state that’s probably trying to make a name for himself more than anything. We can say “the president isn’t above the law” but come on, this is not necessarily the best mechanism for achieving accountability among presidential candidates, is it?

But you move on to the classified documents, and the fake electors and such, and come on, we’re bordering on “I’ve got this thing and it’s fucking golden” territory. It’s completely transparent that the only reason these offenses *wouldn’t* be charged is if the guy who did it had *extremely* good connections and/or bribes. In theory you can make a case for maintaining a layer of insulation between politicians and the justice system (in other words “maybe presidential candidates kinda should be above the law”) but if you’re then gonna turn around and say “that’s why you should vote for the ‘lock her up’ guy” get the fuck outta here, man, this is transparently bad faith.

But then you look at the primary field. I think Intro is pure copium on the DeSantis situation. IIRC last time the thread checked in on DeSantis we were talking about that weirdly homoerotic ad they tweeted, and Intro pointed out the ad was (as far as we knew) just a fan-made thing the campaign retweeted; did we ever circle back to note we’ve since learned that was a straight-up lie? The campaign made it trying to get a “can’t stump the Trump” thing going, and then pretended they hadn’t, especially when it played so badly. Of course those staffers probably don’t work on the campaign any more anyway, because there’s been more than one big “reset” on campaign staff over there; it’s a real Theseus’ Ship situation, except they haven’t replaced the candidate. I mean, cool, he won Florida governor by a lot in the midterm election, but we’ve got a lot of information since then about how he plays with the national electorate and it’s not pretty.

Then we’ve got, what? Mike Pence is supposed to be dead, according to Trump supporter canon. The standout name from the debate is some 9/11 truther that got rich pump-and-dumping some failed pharma company. Nobody, nobody likes Chris Christie, possibly including Chris Christie. You start getting down to, what, Nikki Haley or something? before you get to somebody that doesn’t have extremely obvious reasons they’re not remotely plausible.

Maybe this is too optimistic, but it feels to me like we’re watching a party that decided to completely break with observable political reality nearly a decade ago, and now the completely predictable political consequences of that are playing out.

On August 27 2023 08:37 Introvert wrote:


Hardly "copium" I've never maintained DeSantis was likely to win and have repeatedly said I don't know if his strategy will work. But I do know from watching other people try to take on Trump (not just in a primary but within the party generally) that the other ways that have been tried don't work. Kemp ran, so far as I could tell, by ignoring Trump for the most part but obviously you can't do that when running against him directly. 2016 showed us that. It just seems to me that a lot of the people here really don't understand Republican politics and get everything they from their own side and filter that through their own predilections. Which is fine and understandable if you aren't a member of the GOP, but I'm pushing back on the idea that the GOP voters aren't flocking to him because they somehow decided they don't like him. That simply isn't supported by what we see.

On August 27 2023 10:04 ChristianS wrote:

I mean, to me the DeSantis strategy reminds me a lot of when I was seeing articles in 2016 claiming Ben Carson had cracked the code of how to run against Trump, which was basically a formula of averting your gaze somewhat while he slanders you and then when it’s your turn to speak just saying “well, anyway, maybe consider voting for me?” The idea, I guess, being that you could make Trump look petty without dirtying yourself if you just don’t engage him.

Except now it’s 2023, and it’s essentially indisputable party canon that Trump was an outstanding president (maybe the best we’ve had, at least in living memory!), and that it’s criminal he didn’t win re-election (and maybe, literally, that criminals stole the election from him). By “indisputable” I of course mean that anybody in the party that *did* dispute those things was run out of town on a rail (or, if that wasn’t feasible, at least marginalized and loudly despised by most of the party). The Carson strategy didn’t work then, you really think it’s gonna work now, when all these guys are already on record loudly endorsing that canon?

And that’s not even DeSantis’s problem, his problem is that the more non-Floridans see of him, the less they like him. I bet if you charted his poll numbers alongside “% of Americans that know what his voice sounds like” you’d see a similar curve. I mean, Florida’s a pretty different animal, and anyway it’s not unusual that someone looks promising in the minor leagues but can’t pull it together once they hit the big time, you know? Let alone going against Mister Big League himself.

On August 27 2023 08:20 ChristianS wrote:
The Republican primary has been in this bizarre impossibility generator state for a while now, it’s really hard to imagine the present arrangement being stable but it’s maybe even harder to imagine what changes it.

I mean Trump is… pretty obviously guilty on a lot of the charges? I can understand skepticism about the Bragg charges – I don’t think it’s remotely implausible a regular citizen would get charged and convicted for that kind of thing, but it’s some creative legal footwork that seems untoward when it’s being presented by a DA in a blue state that’s probably trying to make a name for himself more than anything. We can say “the president isn’t above the law” but come on, this is not necessarily the best mechanism for achieving accountability among presidential candidates, is it?

But you move on to the classified documents, and the fake electors and such, and come on, we’re bordering on “I’ve got this thing and it’s fucking golden” territory. It’s completely transparent that the only reason these offenses *wouldn’t* be charged is if the guy who did it had *extremely* good connections and/or bribes. In theory you can make a case for maintaining a layer of insulation between politicians and the justice system (in other words “maybe presidential candidates kinda should be above the law”) but if you’re then gonna turn around and say “that’s why you should vote for the ‘lock her up’ guy” get the fuck outta here, man, this is transparently bad faith.

But then you look at the primary field. I think Intro is pure copium on the DeSantis situation. IIRC last time the thread checked in on DeSantis we were talking about that weirdly homoerotic ad they tweeted, and Intro pointed out the ad was (as far as we knew) just a fan-made thing the campaign retweeted; did we ever circle back to note we’ve since learned that was a straight-up lie? The campaign made it trying to get a “can’t stump the Trump” thing going, and then pretended they hadn’t, especially when it played so badly. Of course those staffers probably don’t work on the campaign any more anyway, because there’s been more than one big “reset” on campaign staff over there; it’s a real Theseus’ Ship situation, except they haven’t replaced the candidate. I mean, cool, he won Florida governor by a lot in the midterm election, but we’ve got a lot of information since then about how he plays with the national electorate and it’s not pretty.

Then we’ve got, what? Mike Pence is supposed to be dead, according to Trump supporter canon. The standout name from the debate is some 9/11 truther that got rich pump-and-dumping some failed pharma company. Nobody, nobody likes Chris Christie, possibly including Chris Christie. You start getting down to, what, Nikki Haley or something? before you get to somebody that doesn’t have extremely obvious reasons they’re not remotely plausible.

Maybe this is too optimistic, but it feels to me like we’re watching a party that decided to completely break with observable political reality nearly a decade ago, and now the completely predictable political consequences of that are playing out.

On August 27 2023 10:52 Introvert wrote:


DeSantis has criticized Trump on terms Reps can accept and has managed to maintain his favorablility with GOP voters. He also has a record of his to run on, which is an implicit (somwtimes made explicit) criticism of Trump. Which also directly contradicts your last point, besides the fact that thr third largest state and largest swing state is pretty close to the major leagues. I don't know how many times I'm going to say the same thing but Republican voters, the one who will be voting, don't like DeSantis any less than they did before, despite his criticism of Trump (mostly about Covid) and despite Trump's tantrums and kinda lame nicknames for him. Maybe, just maybe, there's more going on here. Especially when you consider that his high polling point existed before he even announced and started to dip also before he announced.

On August 27 2023 08:37 Introvert wrote:


Hardly "copium" I've never maintained DeSantis was likely to win and have repeatedly said I don't know if his strategy will work. But I do know from watching other people try to take on Trump (not just in a primary but within the party generally) that the other ways that have been tried don't work. Kemp ran, so far as I could tell, by ignoring Trump for the most part but obviously you can't do that when running against him directly. 2016 showed us that. It just seems to me that a lot of the people here really don't understand Republican politics and get everything they from their own side and filter that through their own predilections. Which is fine and understandable if you aren't a member of the GOP, but I'm pushing back on the idea that the GOP voters aren't flocking to him because they somehow decided they don't like him. That simply isn't supported by what we see.

On August 27 2023 13:30 ChristianS wrote:
Have you seen Florida politicians? I think being a weirdo is the only way you win in Florida. Nothing against weirdos, mind you, but again, Florida is a pretty different animal to the rest of the country, and that’s pretty well-known.

Nate Silver wrote an analysis on this a little while ago. TLDR: DeSantis has tended to get pretty replacement-level Republican vote totals, with the exception of 2022 where he outperformed by 9-10 points. But there’s little evidence in current polling that whatever that was based on is continuing to appeal nationally. Simplest explanation might be that Florida voters liked his Covid policies, which Is good for him, but unlikely to carry into a national contest very well.

Of course, you don’t have to put much stock in Nate Silver’s opinion. I don’t necessarily, not as a rule, but in this case I think the case is pretty clear-cut. There’s just no reason to think voters actually want this guy to be president, and it’s getting harder and harder to imagine why that would change.

There’s not much evidence that DeSantis has that sort of talent — other than 2022. Sure, 2022 is a pretty big other than — other than that, Mrs. Lincoln — and political reputations have been made on less. But with every week that his polling numbers stagnate, the 19-point win looks like more of an outlier.

...

1 And by the way, it’s possible that Florida is becoming redder in part because of DeSantis. There was a lot of migration there during the COVID pandemic, perhaps motivated in part by people who were tired of strict COVID regulations in blue states.