2024 Presidential Election thread

[CMRivdogs]

From today’s Bullwerk and JVL on whether DeSantis would be better, worse or the same as Trump. You could probably ask the same of other GqOP hopefuls 

The answer is a complicated. I could make three different cases for you:

1. DeSantis would be better than Trump.

2. DeSantis would be the same as Trump.

3. DeSantis would be worse than Trump.

Let’s take them in order.

Better than Trump. In some ways, DeSantis would likely be less dangerous. For instance, I do not imagine that he would order an armed mob to storm the Capitol in an attempt to hang his vice president and disrupt the counting of electoral votes.

Low bar? Sure. But also—it’s not nothing!

The same as Trump. Whatever his personal preferences, DeSantis would be subject to the same pressure every Republican politician is these now: Their voters want authoritarianism.

What does that mean in practice? Let’s just limit this discussion just to elections and not governing.

If Ron DeSantis lost the 2024 election, would he attempt an Eastman-style “legal” coup? Whatever his own wishes might be, his voterswould certainly demand that he try it. So in order to do the thing that all normal Republicans did up until 2016—concede his loss and wish the next Democratic president well—DeSantis would have to buck his base.

My question: What in the history of Ron DeSantis leads you to believe that he is capable of bucking his base?

Worse than Trump. Which leads us to the possibility that, should he lose, DeSantis could carry out the maneuvers for a “legal” coup more competently than Trump and thus succeed where Rudy, the Pillow Man, and Kraken lady failed.

---

 

[CMRivdogs]

Adding to my previous post a bit of war gaming from Damen Linker….once again from the Bullwerk 

https://damonlinker.substack.com/p/bad-worse-and-worst-of-all?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The best possible but extremely unlikely outcome for the United States would be for the Republican Party to nominate an anti-populist Republican like Rep. Liz Cheney or Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan in 2024. Whether such a candidate or the Democratic alternative won the general election would matter for a host of reasons, and I would undoubtedly side with the Democratic ticket. But the choice would be an ordinary one, with the stakes as low as they were in, say, 1992 or 2012.

A worse outcome would be a Trumpy Republican ending up as the nominee in 2024—this could be DeSantis, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, or any number of others longing to jump into the race—and winning the election outright, by a solid margin in both the Electoral College and popular vote. I wouldn’t vote for any of these candidates over the Democrat and would be highly critical of the new president’s policies, but it would be better for the country (compared to the alternatives below) for the right-wing cultural populist to have a solid popular mandate for what the administration would attempt to achieve.

Somewhat worse than that would be one of these populists winning an extremely narrow victory in the Electoral College while losing the popular vote by an even larger margin than Trump did in 2016 (and came ominously close to doing again in 2020). This would be bad because it would once again call into question the justice of America’s electoral system, which would understandably be accused by liberals and progressives of systematically handing the country’s highest office to presidential candidates who receive fewer votes. The right would respond that we have never conducted a nationwide popular vote contest for president, and they would be correct. But it’s also true that the right would never tolerate the reverse scenario—namely, the system repeatedly rewarding political power to their less popular opponents.

Similarly bad would be for one of these populist candidates to lose the election very narrowly, leading some on the right to raise Trumpian objections to the vote count in the hope of changing the outcome. My instincts tell me that none of the likely Republican candidates would push these objections anywhere near as far as Trump did after the 2020 election, but another round of severe electoral turbulence would be very bad for the country at home and abroad regardless.

Considerably worse than any of those scenarios would be for Donald Trump himself to run again in 2024, win the GOP nomination, and then prevail in the general election to win a second term in the White House—though the marginally better scenario would be for him, too, to win the election outright by solid margins in both the popular vote and Electoral College. Another Trump presidency would be terrible. But another Trump presidency haunted by the specter of electoral illegitimacy would be even worse.

Which brings us to the worst scenario of all: Trump runs, becomes the GOP nominee, and then loses in the general election, but by a narrow enough margin that he once again denies the outcome, prompting fights to break out in several states over vote counting, rules for rejecting ballots, certification of vote totals, appointment of electors, and all the other steps required to pronounce a victor whose legitimacy is broadly accepted across both parties and the electorate as a whole.

 

[oblong]

3 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

From today’s Bullwerk and JVL on whether DeSantis would be better, worse or the same as Trump. You could probably ask the same of other GqOP hopefuls 

The answer is a complicated. I could make three different cases for you:

1. DeSantis would be better than Trump.

2. DeSantis would be the same as Trump.

3. DeSantis would be worse than Trump.

Let’s take them in order.

Better than Trump. In some ways, DeSantis would likely be less dangerous. For instance, I do not imagine that he would order an armed mob to storm the Capitol in an attempt to hang his vice president and disrupt the counting of electoral votes.

Low bar? Sure. But also—it’s not nothing!

The same as Trump. Whatever his personal preferences, DeSantis would be subject to the same pressure every Republican politician is these now: Their voters want authoritarianism.

What does that mean in practice? Let’s just limit this discussion just to elections and not governing.

If Ron DeSantis lost the 2024 election, would he attempt an Eastman-style “legal” coup? Whatever his own wishes might be, his voterswould certainly demand that he try it. So in order to do the thing that all normal Republicans did up until 2016—concede his loss and wish the next Democratic president well—DeSantis would have to buck his base.

My question: What in the history of Ron DeSantis leads you to believe that he is capable of bucking his base?

Worse than Trump. Which leads us to the possibility that, should he lose, DeSantis could carry out the maneuvers for a “legal” coup more competently than Trump and thus succeed where Rudy, the Pillow Man, and Kraken lady failed.

---

 

One thing to consider is Trumps maneuvering after 2020 were greatly aided by the fact he was president.  A GOP challenger even against a Pete Buttigieg or any other non Biden D wild be at a structural disadvantage.  
 

what I wont discount is some rogue states doing funny things with their electors, state legislatures determinant them other than the voting results,  and putting Harris in a position to “just ceremoniously certify” what everyone knows are bogus electors.  When the D’s object then the Hannity and Tuckers of the world will just say “see.. they do it too”  I see that as a distinct possibility. 

[gehringer_2]

4 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

Adding to my previous post a bit of war gaming from Damen

Which brings us to the worst scenario of all: Trump runs, becomes the GOP nominee, and then loses in the general election, but by a narrow enough margin that he once again denies the outcome, prompting fights to break out in several states over vote counting, rules for rejecting ballots, certification of vote totals, appointment of electors, and all the other steps required to pronounce a victor whose legitimacy is broadly accepted across both parties and the electorate as a whole.

 

Nope. No scenario where Trump loses is the worst, no matter what the other factors. 

[CMRivdogs]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

 

what I wont discount is some rogue states doing funny things with their electors, state legislatures determinant them other than the voting results,  and putting Harris in a position to “just ceremoniously certify” what everyone knows are bogus electors.  When the D’s object then the Hannity and Tuckers of the world will just say “see.. they do it too”  I see that as a distinct possibility. 

That's my biggest fear. Enough people who actually believed the 2020 election was stolen get elected at the state and local level to tamper with the results, or state legislators voting to override the vote. 

This is actually my main argument for killing the Electoral College. Madison argued that he didn't want to put the election of the Executive Branch in the hands of the general voting public at the time. (White land owning males). Rather have local caucuses or state assemblies choose electors.  Once the decision was changed to allow the popular vote I feel the EC became null and void.

One of these days I'm going to be in CW when Madison is around. I'm not sure his character is allowed to talk about anything post 1776, but it would be an interesting discussion with the scholars. 

[CMRivdogs]

11 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Nope. No scenario where Trump loses is the worst, no matter what the other factors. 

Including one where the House of Reps has to make a decision on competing slates. With each state getting one vote, you can probably guess the outcome. Especially one controlled by Republicans. 

I fear the aftermath as well. 

[Tiger337]

The only way the 2024 election is not a shit show is if the election is a blow out which rarely happens anymore.

[chasfh]

On 7/8/2022 at 2:47 PM, Edman85 said:

If the last 6 years have taught me anything, it's not to dance on the political graves of loons until they have lost.

Agreed. I’ve learned my lesson from Trump 2016. I thought people would be sprinting to the polls to vote against the guy then. We saw some of that in 2020 and probably will in 2024, but now that Trumpist conspiracy story-telling has infected the entire elections integrity process, even if voters in certain precincts do sprint to the polls, they may never get in now.

I also feel the same way when I see people crowing about big leads in polls months before elections takes place.

[chasfh]

17 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

Adding to my previous post a bit of war gaming from Damen Linker….once again from the Bullwerk 

https://damonlinker.substack.com/p/bad-worse-and-worst-of-all?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The best possible but extremely unlikely outcome for the United States would be for the Republican Party to nominate an anti-populist Republican like Rep. Liz Cheney or Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan in 2024. Whether such a candidate or the Democratic alternative won the general election would matter for a host of reasons, and I would undoubtedly side with the Democratic ticket. But the choice would be an ordinary one, with the stakes as low as they were in, say, 1992 or 2012.

A worse outcome would be a Trumpy Republican ending up as the nominee in 2024—this could be DeSantis, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, or any number of others longing to jump into the race—and winning the election outright, by a solid margin in both the Electoral College and popular vote. I wouldn’t vote for any of these candidates over the Democrat and would be highly critical of the new president’s policies, but it would be better for the country (compared to the alternatives below) for the right-wing cultural populist to have a solid popular mandate for what the administration would attempt to achieve.

Somewhat worse than that would be one of these populists winning an extremely narrow victory in the Electoral College while losing the popular vote by an even larger margin than Trump did in 2016 (and came ominously close to doing again in 2020). This would be bad because it would once again call into question the justice of America’s electoral system, which would understandably be accused by liberals and progressives of systematically handing the country’s highest office to presidential candidates who receive fewer votes. The right would respond that we have never conducted a nationwide popular vote contest for president, and they would be correct. But it’s also true that the right would never tolerate the reverse scenario—namely, the system repeatedly rewarding political power to their less popular opponents.

Similarly bad would be for one of these populist candidates to lose the election very narrowly, leading some on the right to raise Trumpian objections to the vote count in the hope of changing the outcome. My instincts tell me that none of the likely Republican candidates would push these objections anywhere near as far as Trump did after the 2020 election, but another round of severe electoral turbulence would be very bad for the country at home and abroad regardless.

Considerably worse than any of those scenarios would be for Donald Trump himself to run again in 2024, win the GOP nomination, and then prevail in the general election to win a second term in the White House—though the marginally better scenario would be for him, too, to win the election outright by solid margins in both the popular vote and Electoral College. Another Trump presidency would be terrible. But another Trump presidency haunted by the specter of electoral illegitimacy would be even worse.

Which brings us to the worst scenario of all: Trump runs, becomes the GOP nominee, and then loses in the general election, but by a narrow enough margin that he once again denies the outcome, prompting fights to break out in several states over vote counting, rules for rejecting ballots, certification of vote totals, appointment of electors, and all the other steps required to pronounce a victor whose legitimacy is broadly accepted across both parties and the electorate as a whole.

 

I missed the days when this was all considered Alarmist Non-sense.

[chasfh]

Swift and certain punishment for their actions in 2020 and leading up to Jan 6 is the only way I can think of that might prevent this, and even that might not be enough to stop at least the attempt.

 

[oblong]

This seems too good to be true.  But I like it. Is there a catch?

 

[chasfh]

12 minutes ago, oblong said:

This seems too good to be true.  But I like it. Is there a catch?

 

Supreme Court rules it unconstitutional?

[Motown Bombers]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

This seems too good to be true.  But I like it. Is there a catch?

 

Republicans are realizing Harris can try to do what they wanted Pence to do. 

[CMRivdogs]

 

[Hongbit]

1 hour ago, CMRivdogs said:

 

Wow.  This is a truly frightening read.  

[oblong]

11 minutes ago, Hongbit said:

Wow.  This is a truly frightening read.  

and I think this is happening in a less formal way across the country at the local levels.  The deranged lunatics have nothing else to do so they are running for local boards and councils. 

 

[CMRivdogs]

8 minutes ago, oblong said:

and I think this is happening in a less formal way across the country at the local levels.  The deranged lunatics have nothing else to do so they are running for local boards and councils. 

 

That's been happening for a while. Most voters pay scant attention to many local races, something Republicans discovered long before Trump. 

[CMRivdogs]

 

[Motown Bombers]

20 minutes ago, oblong said:

and I think this is happening in a less formal way across the country at the local levels.  The deranged lunatics have nothing else to do so they are running for local boards and councils. 

 

My city councilman has been arrested multiple times. He showed up to a BLM rally in another city and handcuffed a woman who stole her sign, he showed up to another BLM rally in tactical gear carrying an assault rifle, and was arrested again at Cobo Hall when he was trying to break in to overturn the vote. The district is about 50% black and is a pretty solid Democratic district but no one shows up to vote in these local elections except for the few crazies. 

[CMRivdogs]

On 7/9/2022 at 3:21 PM, CMRivdogs said:

From today’s Bullwerk and JVL on whether DeSantis would be better, worse or the same as Trump. You could probably ask the same of other GqOP hopefuls 

The answer is a complicated. I could make three different cases for you:

1. DeSantis would be better than Trump.

2. DeSantis would be the same as Trump.

3. DeSantis would be worse than Trump.

Let’s take them in order.

Better than Trump. In some ways, DeSantis would likely be less dangerous. For instance, I do not imagine that he would order an armed mob to storm the Capitol in an attempt to hang his vice president and disrupt the counting of electoral votes.

Low bar? Sure. But also—it’s not nothing!

The same as Trump. Whatever his personal preferences, DeSantis would be subject to the same pressure every Republican politician is these now: Their voters want authoritarianism.

What does that mean in practice? Let’s just limit this discussion just to elections and not governing.

If Ron DeSantis lost the 2024 election, would he attempt an Eastman-style “legal” coup? Whatever his own wishes might be, his voterswould certainly demand that he try it. So in order to do the thing that all normal Republicans did up until 2016—concede his loss and wish the next Democratic president well—DeSantis would have to buck his base.

My question: What in the history of Ron DeSantis leads you to believe that he is capable of bucking his base?

Worse than Trump. Which leads us to the possibility that, should he lose, DeSantis could carry out the maneuvers for a “legal” coup more competently than Trump and thus succeed where Rudy, the Pillow Man, and Kraken lady failed.

---

 

From JVL in today's Bullwerk

Quote

So yes, this is very bad and a sign that Trump is a danger to American democracy.

But also maybe he is not a unique danger.

What do other elite Republicans think about Schedule F?

Do they think it is a dangerous idea?

Or do they think it is a sound idea that the next Republican president ought to implement, irrespective of who that president is?

In particular, shouldn’t we all want Ron DeSantis to tell us what he thinks about Trump’s Schedule F plan before we declare that we are 100 percent, absolutely, super-duper-double certain that he is not as dangerous as Trump?

This is a specific policy item where if DeSantis is not as dangerous as Trump, then he can say so. And if he refuses to say so?

Well, that seems like at important data point.

Every Republican in America ought to be put on the spot about where they stand on Schedule F.

 

Tell me again why Democrats are more dangerous than the current crop of "conservative"

So yes, this is very bad and a sign that Trump is a danger to American democracy.

But also maybe he is not a unique danger.

What do other elite Republicans think about Schedule F?

Do they think it is a dangerous idea?

Or do they think it is a sound idea that the next Republican president ought to implement, irrespective of who that president is?

In particular, shouldn’t we all want Ron DeSantis to tell us what he thinks about Trump’s Schedule F plan before we declare that we are 100 percent, absolutely, super-duper-double certain that he is not as dangerous as Trump?

This is a specific policy item where if DeSantis is not as dangerous as Trump, then he can say so. And if he refuses to say so?

Well, that seems like at important data point.

Every Republican in America ought to be put on the spot about where they stand on Schedule F.

 

Edited July 23, 2022 by CMRivdogs

[ewsieg]

I still believe Buttigieg is the Dem's 'next person up' to Biden.  But similar to "that's why you don't elect a businessman to run government", how much of this recent Southwest Airlines debacle might tarnish Buttigieg and start a "that's why you don't put a small town mayor in charge of something big"?

The airlines got a huge bailout with the caveat that they couldn't lay off workers.  Instead they used the money to pay for buyouts and still wrangled around with some non paid furloughs where they would still some benefits.  We all knew it and DoT did nothing but publicly admonish the airlines to get their shit together back last summer, which if you remember, Buttigieg's himself found his flight cancelled the next day.  No teeth from the DoT.  

The railroad 'strike' certainly isn't a win for him.  The ports issue got out of control before we started to see movement on that as well.

Now we're back to the airlines again, or at least Southwest.  At the same time we're learning he likes to fly private quite a bit.  

Obviously much of this is dealing with the side effects of the pandemic, but at some point, does the tarnish wear off?

[gehringer_2]

13 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

We all knew it and DoT did nothing but publicly admonish the airlines to get their shit together back last summer,

you are assuming the Gov actually has some kind of legal lever to tell an airline what kind of management SW to run. I think you would find they do not. It's called 'free' enterprise for a reason. Direct airline regulation ended nearly 40 yrs ago.

There is no longer any enabling legislation that allows the Transportation Sec to tell an airline how to run the details of their business.

Edited December 29, 2022 by gehringer_2

[ewsieg]

39 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

you are assuming the Gov actually has some kind of legal lever to tell an airline what kind of management SW to run. I think you would find they do not. It's called 'free' enterprise for a reason. Direct airline regulation ended nearly 40 yrs ago.

There is no longer any enabling legislation that allows the Transportation Sec to tell an airline how to run the details of their business.

I'm fine with the government not running the details of their business.  But the airlines took a bailout during the pandemic and used some legal, but grey areas, to adhere to the rules while going against the ideas that established those rules.  Here is a decent write up detailing some of that.

https://www.mercatus.org/research/policy-briefs/2020-bailouts-left-airlines-economy-and-federal-budget-worse-shape#:~:text=How Big Were the Bailouts,billion%2C and %2414 billion).

Even if there is no legal means for DoT to reclaim or force them to pay back some of the loans they got which will otherwise be forgiven, government should have a way to deal with big business.  Maybe after the first time all the airlines had trouble over the summer, instead of writing a letter asking them to get better, maybe advocate for an updated Passengers Bill of Rights which would put more financial incentive on providing reliable service.  Southwest specifically had

Additionally, even if this specific issue is something that Buttigieg had zero ability to proactively deal with, it wouldn't be the first time an issue has blame unjustly put on someone and opens up some other legitimate issues.  I wonder if that's what we'll see here.

 

[gehringer_2]

19 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

I'm fine with the government not running the details of their business.  But the airlines took a bailout during the pandemic and used some legal, but grey areas, to adhere to the rules while going against the ideas that established those rules.  Here is a decent write up detailing some of that.

https://www.mercatus.org/research/policy-briefs/2020-bailouts-left-airlines-economy-and-federal-budget-worse-shape#:~:text=How Big Were the Bailouts,billion%2C and %2414 billion).

Even if there is no legal means for DoT to reclaim or force them to pay back some of the loans they got which will otherwise be forgiven, government should have a way to deal with big business.  Maybe after the first time all the airlines had trouble over the summer, instead of writing a letter asking them to get better, maybe advocate for an updated Passengers Bill of Rights which would put more financial incentive on providing reliable service.  Southwest specifically had

Additionally, even if this specific issue is something that Buttigieg had zero ability to proactively deal with, it wouldn't be the first time an issue has blame unjustly put on someone and opens up some other legitimate issues.  I wonder if that's what we'll see here.

 

The public is stuck in a sense when something big hits like COVID. Some kind of bailout plan was good idea - you write the best bill you can get through knowing before hand it will be abused but that is the price you pay for any kind of action. You can always look back in 20/20 and see what kind of clawbacks you should have included for the abusers, but the truth is the best you can do is try to remember the history for next time. 

How government deals with big business is really the political question of the age, from social media cos to dereg to Citizen's United to 'Industrial Policy'. The 180 deg political split between the parties today insures little to no progress is made. In my personal view that is because now that we have let the business camel's nose into the tent, their ability to spread political money acts to prevent any kind of needed system correction. It's one of those structural things that flies below the radar of the MS media fascination with personalities and the immediate threat of large swath of the public's growing sympathy with fascism and even War in Europe, but it's an important threat to the body politic none-the-less.

Edited December 29, 2022 by gehringer_2

[ben9753]

Builds a strawman. When called out on it, says yeah, maybe this is a strawman, but who knows what else there is that’s real??