DeSantis 2024?

[KLB]

I wonder if people are going to adjust to this new reality where the two parties don't totally align as conservative/liberal. There really seems to be a shift towards populist/totalitarian. Will it survive this election?

 

[indyblue]

I wonder if people are going to adjust to this new reality where the two parties don't totally align as conservative/liberal. There really seems to be a shift towards populist/totalitarian. Will it survive this election?

Along that vein:

Republican Loyalty and the Self-Delusions of ‘Never Trump’ - The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator | USA News and Politics

Presidential politics since Goldwater demonstrates the fecklessness of Republican Party turncoats. They are worse when the nominee is Trump.

spectator.org

The ‘Never-Trump’ Posture​

With this hardcore background to steady me, I have never had the faintest “Never Trump” impulse come over me these past nine years, even though, at the outset, I had mixed, unsettled views. If one longed for a candidate with the bearing and clarity of Barry Goldwater, or with the expansive, disciplined mind of Richard Nixon, to say nothing of graces we remember as Reaganesque, Trump was not the man.

Along with a majority of Republicans, I suppose, I’d have preferred a more orderly and polished version of the same candidate, if such a being could even exist, with roughly the same agenda of issues that the party’s presidential candidates, consultant class, and assorted big thinkers had long ignored or else tried too hard to finesse.

I didn’t exactly rejoice at Trump’s arrival but I didn’t mind it either. If he signaled a sudden re-shifting of allegiances in an otherwise static political landscape, a newfound connection with the concerns of voters my party had either neglected or taken for granted, and best of all an end to our reputation for milquetoast, “country-club Republicanism,” I certainly welcomed all that.

In fact, as the large field of 2016 Republican candidates narrowed to a few, I called myself a “Never Kasich” man when the grating then-governor of Ohio offered himself as the last establishment hope against a Trump nomination — foolishly and characteristically inviting the very outcome he was resisting.

Plenty of fellow conservatives I respect simply don’t like Trump, regard him as a “bad man” even if he might at times serve good principles, won’t take the tradeoff in order to elect a Republican, and even now still aren’t sure they can bring themselves to support him against Vice President Kamala Harris.

That’s just never been my take at all. I find qualities to like and admire in the untamed spirit of Donald Trump — his entertaining disregard of PC etiquette, his resilience, incredible stamina, and defiance against calumny and opposition, among other traits — and the impression is partly based, for what it’s worth, on a couple of brushes with him in 2016 and after his presidency. (As if to compel another vignette for this piece, we were introduced in Phoenix at the former residence of Barry Goldwater.)

Yes, we Trump voters could all do without the time-wasting rally riffs, the disconcerting asides, the kind of pointless conflict with fellow Republicans that in 2020 cost a Senate seat or two in Georgia, some of the Truth Social stuff, and other downsides on a lengthy list that anyone, and above all his own campaign advisors, could draw up

 

[DadSmith]

 

[INPatriot]

I wonder if people are going to adjust to this new reality where the two parties don't totally align as conservative/liberal. There really seems to be a shift towards populist/totalitarian. Will it survive this election?

Thanks to @indyblue for sharing the article. Very solid read!

As far as the parties go, I think the greatest legacy of Donald Trump will be that he pulled the curtain on the Uniparty Complex. Trump has shown that people are either in the club or not.

The people in the club publicly disparage Trump. They are bought off. Their well being, their reelection, their donors/donations, their financial future is dependent upon being in the club. They believe in the club and nothing else for the club provides their everything on the backs of the next two, three and four generations and beyond of tax payers.

Most importantly, to them, the club provides their morals, their platform for select moral outrage and the podium for their virtue signaling.

We've already been introduced to the shifting voting blocs. It's nearly not ideological at all. It's urban versus rural. Suburban is split. It's married versus single. It's male versus female. It's advanced degrees versus high school diploma, GED, Trade School, Associate's Degree. It's Wall St versus Main St. Maybe to a lesser extent it's the political correctness of corporate America versus small business owners.

There are people that believe once Trump leaves the scene, the parties will retreat to their pre-June 2015 corners. I believe that's foolish. The toothpaste can't be put back in the tube. The Democratic Party has also completely embraced Marxism.

I don't expect the GOP/America First/Populist agenda in 2028 to mirror the Republican platforms from 1992-2012. Where do those voters go? I'm not sure. There are some here on the board.

The bigger question is where do those politicians go? The Republicans that have been extolled as virtuous by the media since Trump came on the scene are viewed as little more than useless idiots to the Democratic Media Complex. That group may feel empowered now, but without Trump on the scene those politicians will no longer be shown as virtuous and the Democratic Media Complex will out those them back in the crosshairs. My guess is they (against their will) fade away to the grift circuit of think tanks, lobbyists and special interest groups; always the speaker at a $1,000 a plate dinner.

 

[edporch]

Who? DeSantis? Charisma? Dude has the charisma of an accountant. He's well spoken, and thinks on his feet. But that's not what charisma means.

If you're talking about Vance, yeah, he does have more charisma than DeSantis.

I'd vote for either one of them, and put charisma far down on the list.
I vote based on domestic and foreign policies, because in REAL LIFE, policies are what really matter to the lives of every day people.
Everything else is just electioneering fluff.

 

[KLB]

I'd vote for either one of them, and put charisma far down on the list.
I vote based on domestic and foreign policies, because in REAL LIFE, policies are what really matter to the lives of every day people.
Everything else is just electioneering fluff.

You are in the minority though.

 

[edporch]

You are in the minority though.

I agree totally.
That's the cause of a big part of the trouble we're in.

First, too many people avoid Primaries to avoid trying to get candidates that will have intelligent policies to be the fall nominees.
Then when they vote in the fall, they pay ZERO attention to what they're actually voting for.
They vote like they're still in high school, voting for the brain dead "cool" one.