If Kari Lake is Trump's VP he better get a better food taster.

 

By Hal Brown

Archives on Right >

Why I was banned from Daily Kos

Reading this article in The Bulwark prompted my writing this:

Currently there are two likely GOP candidates for president in 2024, 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.

It seems to me that between the front runners only one is fairly easy to suck up to. Not that DeSantis doesn't have an overblown ego, but Trump is the most susceptible to flattery. DeSantis would see through it and select his vice presidential choice as someone who would enhance his chances of winning.

If by some cruel cosmic joke Trump won and someone like Kari Lake was his vice president she'd be very different than the pious Mike Pence whose presidential ambitions faded when he proclaimed his devotion to Donald Trump.

Anyone on The Washington Post list could decide to attempt to curry Trump's favor so they'd be his vice presidential choice should he win the nomination.

Only one, Kari Lake, jumped out at me as being sociopathic enough to decide the quickest route to the presidency is the untimely demise of the president if she was next in line to be president. President Lake, has a ring to it...

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

Forget about Ted Cruz.

He'd be likely to identify with Lake's doubling and tripling down on denying both the results of her own and more importantly his election.

She'd also be someone who would make a far better opening act at his rallies than posers like his older sons and Mr. Pillow. After all she shares a television background with him and knows how to talk to an audience through a camera.

The only drawback for her would be that he might find she upstages him. She'd have to be wary so she learns the lesson of being the opening act for a major star: be good but not that good. She could learn from reading "10 Opening Bands That Upstaged The Headliners.' Most of these bands went on to become headliners but she'd have to bide her time.

I woke to the nightclub shooting on TV: Thoughts about the MAGA demonization of being woke

I woke to the nightclub shooting on TV: Thoughts about the MAGA demonization of being woke

By Hal Brown

I try to write something every morning but may not post something until later if I post at all today. I have to leave soon to go for mohs surgery on the tip of my nose.

This is how Mirriam-Websters defines being woke:

Woke is now defined in this dictionary as “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice),” and identified as U.S. slang. It originated in African American English and gained more widespread use beginning in 2014 as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. By the end of that same decade it was also being applied by some as a general pejorative for anyone who is or appears to be politically left-leaning.

By chance they used the image of the clock above. I literally woke to this news as I turned on my bedroom TV. I thought about the new meaning of woke.

I thought about how MAGA politicians campaign against "woke" and how it suits them to play into the hate fueled prejudices of bigots. They can use anti-LGBT code words and dog whistles but Republican governors with Republican legislatures can actually pass laws.

If you are the presumptive alternative to Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination everything you say or do will gain national media attention.

More than any other politician, and this includes Trump, Ron DeSantis epitomizes the anti-woke movement. Consider this HUFFPOST story:

This is from June, 2022:

After spending the last year attacking LGBTQ people, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) claimed that the state “will not tolerate hatred towards the LGBTQ” community “of any kind” as part of his proclamation on the anniversary of the Pulse shooting.

On June 12, 2016, 49 people were killed and 53 people were injured when a gunman opened fire on the LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando. June 12 has remained Pulse Remembrance Day in the state. DeSantis ordered flags in the state to be flown at half-mast.

From the LGBTQ Nation story:

DeSantis is the ultimate hypocrite. He happily signed the "Don't Say Gay Law" while saying that “the state of Florida will not tolerate hatred towards the LGBTQ and Hispanic community of any kind, and together we stand united against terrorism and hate of any kind."

This is how DeSantis described his lopsided victory over Charlie Crist in his gerrymandered state:

“We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”

If the Colorado Springs shooting happened in Florida like the Pulse Nightclub shooting, I wonder how DeSantis would have been parsing his words in order to condemn it while sending the message to his anti-LGBT supporters that he didn't mean what he was saying.

I suppose he could dust off what he said after the Pulse Nightclub shootings and order flags to be flown at half-staff.

It is a shame worth crying over that the notion that "woke" has been applied to the political left because I'd like to believe that there are many people who consider themselves to be non-MAGA Republicans who believe in the percepts of being woke.

Feeling people are proud to be woke.

Update:

This was on Fox News:

Fox News expert links gay club shooting to 'elementary school' in wake of GOP 'anti-woke' laws

Excerpt:

"How do we tamp down hate crimes across the board?" Neville wondered. 

"I think it begins in our schools, our educational system," Rogers explained. "We have to do a lot of educating in elementary school with regard to, yeah, people may be different in your eyes but they're people, they're American citizens and they deserve to have the constitutional protections that all of us have."

"So, it begins at the elementary school level and we have to make sure that it continues throughout our entire lives," he added. "We need to stop the hateful rhetoric on the internet, by our politicians, by everyone! And we need to bring the temperature down and understand that, you know, we're all God's children and we have to respect each other."

And then there's her expression of feigned sympathy:

Recent blog stories:

• Can the media ignore the nude nuttiness of the Hou...
• How the Hunter Biden probe can backside fire on t...
• House GOP's eeny, meeny, miny, moe, Hunter, Alej...
• New York Post shows how to get under an attention ...
• Quick with a quip Stephanie Rhule ad libed the bes...
• I suggested Trump took documents so he could have ...
• Georgia gave us REM and The B-52s, delicious peach...
• If DeSantis or another wins the GOP primary would ...

If Trump came up with Ron DeSantimonious himself he may be a little smarter than I thought

 

By Hal Brown

At a rally Saturday Pennsylvania rally Trump had polling numbers on a big screen and said:

"There it is, Trump at 71%, Ron DeSantimonious at 10%, Mike Pence at 7% -- oh, Mike's doing better than I thought," Trump said.

I assume Mike Pence doesn't even warrant a nickname... when he does we'll know Trump feels threatened by him. 

This set off some criticism from conservatives, for example from Matt Walsh (profile):

I wonder if Trump made this up himself or someone made it up for him.

In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if he couldn't even define the word. He used to say his favorite books were the Bible and The Art of the Deal.

It's a common question every presidential candidate is asked: What are your favorite books? It's more than just a curiosity about a candidate's personality; the answers tend to shed light on a would-be president's interests and intellect.With this in mind, I was fascinated to see Donald Trump's answer to this question yesterday.

Donald Trump has high praise for the author behind his two favorite books: himself.When asked this week what his two favorite books are by A.J. Calloway of "Extra," the GOP presidential nominee replied, " 'The Art of the Deal,' 'Surviving at the Top.'"

It's one of the most Trump-like answers Trump has delivered all year. Asked to name his favorite book, the Republican candidate used to say the Bible. Now, he's dropped the pretense: Trump's favorite books are the ones that have his face and name on the cover. Because for Donald J. Trump, everything is always about Donald J. Trump.In the same interview, he added, "I love books. I love reading when I get a chance to."Whether or not one believes this is a matter of perspective. I, for example, find it difficult to see Trump as a voracious reader. Several months ago, asked to name the last book he read, the Republican candidate said, "I read passages, I read areas, chapters, I don't have the time."But even for those inclined to accept Trump's claims at face value should pause to appreciate the narcissism that goes into a perspective like this. MSNBC

The dictionary wasn't on the list. Well, duh, I wonder if he ever owned one, even before the Internet when students all had a copy he probably paid other students to do his work for him.

To be fair, saying the dictionary is one of your favorite books when asked doesn't come to the mind of many well-read people because they consider it a given.

Even if he could define sanctimonious,  I don't want to be snobbish but I  have my doubts many or most of his MAGA crowd would know it was an insult but couldn't define it. 

Oddly, Trump himself isn't sanctimonious in the sense that he believes he is morally superior to other people. Morality doesn't matter to him. Could he even define it? Ask yourself....

The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.

A system or collection of ideas of right and wrong conduct.

Virtuous conduct.

They are pesky impediments to getting what he wants. I think he considers morality a "woke" Democratic Party concept. He simply believes he is superior to everyone in all the ways that count.

I think Ron the Con might have had more of a ring to it and people would understand what it meant, though when it comes being a con-artist Trump has no peer. His MAGA cult likes the fact that Trump is a con, they see it as a good thing because they don't grasp that it is them that he has conned.