My title is too clever by half, but Republicans really row Roe up the river

 By Hal Brown

Original uploader was Brett Weinstein (Nrbelex)
 at en.wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons

I grew up in a suburb of New York City where everyone knew what up the river meant. Up the river referred literally to Sing Sing Prison which was about 30 miles up the Hudson River from New York City. 

Going up the river had nothing to do with navigating against the current. Inmates obviously wouldn't arrive on a boat. If they came from New York City they might arrive in one of these:

The virtual museum of the American Police Car

When I was a kid Ossining was rural. We used to go on picnics at nearby Pound Ridge Park and there probably were campgrounds in the area (they currently have them). Quite obviously, anyone sent up the river was decidedly not a happy camper. 

Now we have the ass-backwards position that the GOP has adopted as a major part of their positioning as they campaign for the 2024 elections to represent the country 2024.

They are rowing up the river against the current, meaning the majority opinion about favoring abortion with various restrictions. More than any other of the GOP positions their anti-abortion stance is the one that most Americans are against.

If you've every rowed a rowboat or are into skulling you know that you literally sit backwards as you row. Thus they are leading with their asses.

Public domain from Wiki

The boat they are rowing is certain to capsize. Even the Coast Guard won't be able to save them:

Put another way, they have hitched their campaign cart to asses that are, well, too stubborn to go anywhere.

Adapted by author

Remember how the Democrats defined the tendency to shoot themselves in the foot when it came to campaigning? For example, Hillary and her basket of deplorables comment might have cost her the election.

"Basket of deplorables" is a phrase from a 2016 presidential election campaign speech delivered by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton on September 9, 2016, at a campaign fundraising event. She used the phrase to describe "half" of the supporters of her opponent, Republican nominee Donald Trump, saying, "They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic". The next day, she expressed regret for "saying half", while insisting that Trump had deplorably amplified "hateful views and voices". Wiki.

It isn't only the Republican candidates and their anti-abortion extremism that is rowing them up the river against the majority of the beliefs of the population. The entire so-called anti-woke agenda earns a hokum ho-hum from the majority, some of whom don't even know what woke or elements of woke like Critical Race Theory are.

Add to that the fact that the majority don't see LGBTQ+ people as carriers of a disease deadly as diphtheria and drag as dangerous as dengue fever. Quite the opposite, so many people have friends, family, and acquaintances who are members of the LGBTQ+ community that they know from personal experience that they are just as human as everyone else.

The pundits I follow lean towards saying that Trump would be an easier candidate for Biden to defeat and express concern than DeSantis would be more difficult. In fact because both of them, and also all of the other candidates described as likely GOP candidates, are embracing and running on, positions and policies not supported by the majority.

This is why I say they should dig their dumbass ditch deeper and deeper because the more they do so no ladder will be long enough for them to climb out of.

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Anybody think Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't want to be president?

 Anybody think Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't want to be president?

By Hal Brown

Two days ago I also wrote about Marjorie Taylor Greene: 

Kevin and Marjorie, sitting in a tree, K I S S I N G

Newsweek article shown above 

Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy Share Love-In After 'Crazy' Speaker Race

NBC News article shown above

Marjorie Taylor Greene aims to be Trump's VP pick in 2024 -- "She sees herself on the short list for Trump's VP," said former Trump aide Steve Bannon, who has spoken with Greene.

What a no-brainer question my title is. 

I have no doubt that MT Greene aspires to higher office. In her dreams I think she sees herself;f as the first woman president.

She has only three options for higher office unless you count being appointed to be a Supreme Court Justice (one doesn't have to be a lawyer). 

She could run for governor. 

She could run for the Senate. 

She could be Trump's choice as his VP running mate, no inference meant by using the term "mate" intended. This would be her most likely ladder to the presidency since  Trump might not live to complete a term should he be elected. 

Considering her narcissism and need to be the center of attention I think if she had a choice she'd want to run with Trump. If Trump won or lost the primary  she would be thrust into the spotlight in ways that only ever happened when she was featured at a Trump rally.

If horror upon horror Trump won I have little doubt she would be even less in the news than Kamala Harris. Trump doesn't want anybody upstaging him.

Unless Greene has some plans to hasten his demise - not to say she'd take active steps - but stress can be a big factor in life expectancy, she would be advised to consider the fact that he, like Biden, may be what is called a super-ager. Research suggests that both of them are very likely to life our another term if they are elected.

The key findings of the study:

• Biden and Trump are likely to be "super-agers," a subgroup of people that maintain their mental and physical functioning and tend to live longer than the average person their age.
• Both candidates have a higher than average probability of surviving a four-year term in office, relative to other men their age. For Biden, the probability of surviving the next four years is 95.2% (vs. 82.2%). For Trump, this is 90.3% (vs. 86.2%).
• Biden is expected to outlive Trump, even though he is three years older. In the paper, the researchers note Biden's "nearly perfect health profile for a man his age," compared with Trump's "significant but modifiable" negative risk factors.
• While Trump is noted to have an elevated familial risk of late-onset Alzheimer's disease, neither candidate is expected to have major cognitive functioning challenges now or during the next four years.

What she has to be careful of if she wants to be Trump's VP selection is that for the present she serves two masters, Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump. If these two have a falling out she will have to chose sides. 

That might not be easy. McCarthy has the power to derail her ambitions to be the unofficial Speaker of the House calling the shots whenever she thinks it will accrue to her benefit. On the other hand if she crossed Trump he would never select her to run with him.

If Trump won and became president then Greene, like Harris, wouldn't be a particularly viable national presidential candidate, although I think Harris would be a much better candidate since, well, she's both very smart and sane.

Comment below:

Is there a vaccine to inoculate America against the smart and sane fascist anti-woke Ron DeSantis?

Is there a vaccine to inoculate America against the smart and sane fascist and anti-woke Ron DeSantis? The hypocritical culture warrior, fascist, and overall  P.O.S.  just did a 180 on Covid.

By Hal Brown

Archives on Right >

Why I was banned from Daily Kos

Posting now on Mastodon - see right column there 

Preface: A big thanks to DonkeyHotey

The caricaturist who goes by the name DonkeyHotey (pronounced Don Quixote) has already provide writers with numerous illustrations for articles about the man who is looking like he will be the GOP candidate to president in 2024.

Click image to enlarge

I have used his caricatures numerous times as have many well known websites. Here's a story about his best 2021 caricatures. 

DeSantis is in the upper right corner

Note the illustration he posted on Dec. 11th on Who, What, Why of Trump here.

You can follow DonkeyHotey on the sites below:

flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/
https://whowhatwhy.org/author/donkeyhotey/
https://twitter.com/DonkeyHotey
donkeyhotey.com

@DonkeyHotey@mastodon.coffee

About DonkeyHotey

Today's story

Ron DeSantis is Trump without the stupid red MAGA cap to cover up is male pattern baldness. He has full head of hair. He still believes that to make America great it has to go back at least 100 years.

We know DeSantis will take any position, and change any of them, if he thinks it will help him achieve his political ambition to be president. Here's an example from the news today.

This was then: DeSantis recommends getting vaccinated

Today: 

Democrats can't do a damn thing about which Republican ends up running. Most of them who I've read or heard believe Trump would be the easier candidate to defeat. They can wish Trump would be the candidate, but the various iterations of the saying "if wishes were fishes..."  applies here.

It will be interesting where never-Trump Republicans will come down if the candidate is DeSantis. By now it is a political trope to say that DeSantis is an intelligent and sane version of Trump. He's not about to cozy up to the likes of Ye and Fuentes. He won't tweet barely coherent paranoid rants.

Pundits are not only saying he is more likely to win against Biden or any other Democrat should Biden not run than Trump, but polls support this: 

My impression from reading and listening to never-Trump Republicans is that most of them want to see a tradition conservative run rather than someone who is waging culture warfare and wants to be an anti-woke autocrat.

Nicholas Kristof was on Morning Joe this morning discussing his NY Times column from Dec. 10th Trump Struggles but American is Still Feverish.

Excerpt addressing whether the defeat of Trump endorsed and Big Lie supporting Republicans means the fever has finally broken:

But I may be wrong — and I worry that it’s premature to argue that the national fever has broken. We as a nation still face arguably the greatest peril since the end of Reconstruction, for three reasons.

First, remember that this extremism goes beyond Trump and even beyond the United States. Italy has just installed a far-right prime minister whose party has its roots in neo-fascism, a reminder that the fever persists globally.

Second, even when Trump broke bread with Holocaust deniers and then urged a suspension of the Constitution, congressional Republicans mostly looked the other way. When leaders of one of our major political parties struggle to defend the Constitution or condemn neo-Nazis, America still feels feverish.

Third and most fundamentally, our political dysfunction is driven in complex ways by a broader economic and social dysfunction and despair, one that we fail to grapple with effectively.

If DeSantis runs, and wins, I think it will demonstrate that like the chicken pox virus does, it went dormant in the body and then emerged as a horrible case of shingles. 

There's a vaccine, Shingrix, to deal with that. It requires two doses several months apart to be effective. If you have had it or know anybody who has, you are well aware of how bad it is.

If we extend this metaphor, and I haven't met many metaphors I'm not willing to extend if they make sense, we can say that America got the first dose of anti-fascist conspiracy theory destroying vaccine to deal with the disease of Trumpism. Now they need the second dose to prevent infection with DeSantisism.

Update:

By every measure, Ron DeSantis’ newest Covid gambit is a tragedy

If Covid-19 were capable of feeling emotion, it’d likely be delighted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' latest public health moves.

Excerpt: Imagine Covid-19, eager to infect as many people as possible, was able to hire its own lobbying team. Then imagine the dangerous contagion’s lobbyists, eager to help their client infect as many people as possible, began pressing politicians on what to say and do with regard to public health policy.

In this fanciful hypothetical, we could probably imagine what the politicians would be told to say and do by Covid’s lobbyists. Officials would be encouraged to, among other things, question the efficacy of vaccines, while rejecting the findings of public health authorities.

Or put another way, if Covid-19 could hire its own lobbying team, it’d be delighted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his latest announcement.

Addendum:

Thanks to A. my partner and percipient proofreader for reminding me of this.

There is one outcome we can hope for, though we can't to anything to make it happen. This is that Trump loses the primary, whether to DeSantis or anybody else, and decides to run as an Independent. His psychopathology strongly suggests he would do this. He doesn't have any loyalty to the GOP or anyone in it with the exception of his dwindling number of sycophants. 

Doing this keeps him in the public eye until Tuesday, Nov. 7th 2023 when he splits the vote assuring an easy Biden win. He can have his rallies and spew his hate speech and paranoia to his cheering cult.

 What to expect from the Donald Trump Comeback Tour

by Hal Brown

Archives on Right >

Why I was banned from Daily Kos

First I read this on RawStory which led me to read the article it was based on:

I suggest reading the article which this is a summary of in The Guardian. The excerpts on RawStory didn't convince me Trump would eat DeSantis alive but the full article had so many good points now I lean towards thinking otherwise. Trump will clean his clock. However, if DeSantis puts aside his arrogance and gears up and prepares for what will come if he is the front runner against Trump he may prevail. He will need the equivalent a Navy SEAL training program to toughen up to beat Trump at the martial art he has mastered to the point his killer moves are instinctual. Just ask Hillary Clinton.

The only way I see the Republicans beating Trump in the primaries is for them to coalesce around the candidate who is most capable of taking him on. I doubt this would happen considering the egos involve in the quest to be on the primary debate stage.

Currently of course they are two likely GOP candidates for president in 2024 being discussed, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. Anybody but DeSantis seems like a long shot. In reverse order here's how The Washington Post ranked them last week.

10. Sen. Rick Scott

9. Gov. Chris Sununu 

8. Mike Pompeo

7. Nikki Haley

6. Sen. Ted Cruz

5. Sen. Tim Scott

4. Gov. Glenn Youngkin

3. Mike Pence

2. Donald Trump

1. Gov. Ron DeSantis

Honorable mentions: Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Donald Trump Jr.

 

Previously on this list, at No. 6: Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who — like many MAGA candidates this cycle — ultimately lost her very winnable race and lagged much of her party on the same ballot.

Even though Trump hates losers, he also might find Kari Lake to have charms he can't resist. Who would he want looking with adoration at him between Kari Lake, Nikki Haley, and Kristi Noem. They all might be in close competition with each other. After all Trump think's he's God's gift to women.

Forget about Ted Cruz who is a walking disaster and reputed to be the the  most, if not the most, disliked senator among his colleagues. How desperate is Cruz to get some national attention. Consider how close he's suddenly become to Herschel Walker:

I think Trump will pick a woman because he also thinks she would help him pick up the votes of suburban white women. Even though Nikki Haley is an Indian-American she has an appealing all-American looking family that isn't threatening to the bigots:

If I had to bet he'd chose one of these three women when it came time to announcing running mate. If history is any lesson, he'd make sure it is someone who had mastered the fine art of sucking up to him and also was a national figure. My bets would be on Kari Lake despite, or perhaps because of, her loss in Arizona.

As much as she probably wants to be Trump's running mate I doubt Trump really wants batshit crazy loose cannon Marjorie Taylor Greene to be his VP. I think she has other ambitions.

Of course he could decide on this guy, ya neva know with Trump:

Seriously: 

Trump is the only potential GOP candidate with a hardcore national following. DeSantis is well known but doesn't have large numbers loyal to him. No other potential GOP candidate does.

I predict the GOP primary season will be chaotic but not as chaotic as their convention will be if Trump doesn't come out at the sure winner. 

In that case it will be chaos on steroids with double-crossing dirty dealings going on in every nook and cranny.

If Trump doesn't win the primary I think he will run as an independent. He will wreak vengeance on those who didn't back him by assuring that President Biden, assuming he's the Democratic candidate, won.

Trump's legal status won't make any difference. He could even be in jail. In fact, I think that the more legal jeopardy he's in the more this will fuel his desire to stay in the spotlight and play the tried and true victim game while attacking his accusers.

Related more of less tongue in cheek story: