November 13, 2022

If DeSantis or another wins the GOP primary would Trump run as an independent? You bet your sweet ass he would.


By Hal Brown

As speculation that Trump is not a shoo-in for the Republican nomination grows like kudzu on steroids I wonder what would happen if Ron DeSantis or another Republican became the nominee. 

DeSantis seems poised to vanquish both Trump more so every week if not every day.  Other aspirants for the nomination may be waiting in the wings should DeSantis stumble, but my bet is that there's a 50% chance he'll beat Trump.

This is from Jamelle Boule in The NY Times (subscription)


The first assumption is: 

The idea that Republican elites could simply swap Trump for another candidate without incurring any serious damage rests on two assumptions: First, that Trump’s supporters are more committed to the Republican Party than they are to him, and second, that Trump himself will give up the fight if he isn’t able to win the party’s nomination.

This is the second:

This gets to the second assumption: the idea that Trump would go quietly if he lost the nomination to DeSantis or another rival. Donald Trump might have been a Republican president, but he isn’t really a Republican. What I mean is that he shows no particular commitment to the fortunes of the party as an institution. His relationship to the Republican Party is purely instrumental. He also cannot admit defeat, as you may have noticed.

There is a real chance that Trump, if he loses the nomination, decides to run for president as an independent. And if he pulls any fraction of his supporters away from the Republican Party, he would play the spoiler, no matter who the party tried to elevate against him. Republican elites might be done with Trump, but Trump is not done with the Republican Party.


If this should happen Trump has two choices. One is to accept defeat with grace and dignity. This doesn't sound like any version of Donald Trump I've ever observed. The other is to claim victory (be assured he'd find a way to do this) and run as an independent. 

Think of the fun he'd have, all the rallies of rabid MAGA fans waving flags depicting an even more badass Trump. I can see one with him dressed as a gladiator with one metal clad boot on Sleepy Joe Biden's neck and the other on the neck of Ron DeSantimonious as he raised a mighty sword towards Heaven. 

If he floated the idea with Republicans for their input this would be irrelevant unless they enthusiastically agreed with the decision he'd already made. The sensible Republicans know how many of his MAGA cult would vote for him would try to dissuade him from doing this. How do you spell spoiler?

Trump would listen to sycophants like Boris Epstein and Steve Bannon who desperately want to remain in his favor. Who knows what Sean Hannity would tell Trump if Murdoch told him to zip it?

Trump is driven by revenge and resentment and wouldn't give a tinker's damn whether he was a spoiler and single handedly destroyed the prospects for a Republican victory. 

The race itself would be a delight for Democrats because the Republican, let's assume it's DeSantis, would have to attack both President Biden and Donald Trump. Likewise Trump would have to attack both of them. Biden would be sitting in the catbird seat because he could just run on his accomplishments which by mid-2023 should be readily apparent.

Trump was always a Republican of convenience has because he has no central political philosophy. He knew that the only party that had a both a contingent which would welcome his racist dog whistles, fascism, and authoritarianism and another larger group that would go along with whatever he wanted to achieve their own agenda from appointing Supreme Court Justices to cutting taxes for the rich

Trump has no loyalty to the party. His only loyalty is to the party of one. There's no political science or punditry. My calculation is based on only on understand the psychology of Donald Trump.

You only have to look up malignant narcissism in Wikipedia to understand why the syndrome's exemplar or paradigm would behave this way:

Malignant narcissism is a psychological syndrome comprising an extreme mix of narcissismantisocial behavioraggression, and sadism Grandiose, and always ready to raise hostility levels, the malignant narcissist undermines families and organizations in which they are involved, and dehumanizes the people with whom they associate.

Malignant narcissism could include aspects of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) alongside a mix of antisocialparanoid and sadistic personality disorder traits. The importance of malignant narcissism and of projection as a defense mechanism has been confirmed in paranoia, as well as "the patient's vulnerability to malignant narcissistic regression". A person with malignant narcissism exhibits paranoia in addition to the symptoms of a Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Because a malignant narcissist's personality cannot tolerate any criticism, being mocked typically causes paranoia.

On another, but very related issue, there's the questions as to whether Ron DeSantis would resign from his position as governor (as it appears he might but not necessarily have to do if he runs for president,  see "If DeSantis wins and runs for president, would he have to resign as governor? There are options.")

I think in his grandiosity and his blind ambition this is how much he cares for the people of Florida as long as he doesn't needs their votes for governor. 


If he resigns he knows they'd still vote for him for president in a primary or general election. Florida has two senators, Marco Rubio who just easily won his bid for reelection over Val Demmings, and Rick Scott whose term expires in January of 2025.

If he doesn't become president I can see DeSantis running and winning against Scott in the GOP primary. The newly minted Sen. DeSantis could command a national stage, thus keeping him as a viable Republican candidate for president down the road.

I see nothing in his personality that indicates DeSantis would have any compunction about kicking a wounded Donald Trump while he was down even if polls showed Trump held an edge over him. 

He knows that unless Trump can been using Adrenochrome, which according to QAnon, is being harvested by liberal elites from the blood of kidnapped children and can confer immortality on those who use it, he can run for president without Trump getting in his way in the following presidential election.



Tweeted by his wife, Casey, with the apparent expectation that it would draw notice and go viral, it casts DeSantis not merely as a model and promoter of selected (and selective) religious principles — that’s commonplace for Republican leaders — but as a divine instrument, a holy messenger, fashioned precisely into his current form and set specifically on his present mission by God.

In little more than 90 seconds, its unseen narrator mentions “God” 10 times, beginning with the assertion that “on the eighth day” God gazed at a newly created world and decided that it needed a protector. “So God made a fighter,” the narrator says — sonorously, somberly. That’s the ad’s refrain, intoned again and again, and accompanied each time by a shining, commanding image of DeSantis.


also:


Early this week, Trump suggested to a group of reporters that he had dirt on DeSantis and was prepared to spill it. “If he did run,” Trump said, “I will tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering. I know more about him than anybody other than perhaps his wife.”

That’s highly unlikely to deter DeSantis, given how celestially high on himself he is. He brings to his political ambitions not just the customary cockiness but a more sinister zeal and grandiosity. No wonder he gets under Trump’s skin. They’re megalomaniacs of a feather.











November 12, 2022

Progressives should stop undermining President Biden

 



This is the essay by Norman Solomon about why Biden would be a disaster in 2024 which Salon, a Democratic website not known to be hyper-progressive, decided to put in the most prominent spot on their site:

When you put your cursor on the front page to read the article this is what you see:


Wait a New York minute, what election is the author talking about, I wondered. The Democrats stood no chance of keeping the House and the control of the Senate hasn't been determined but it is looking good for the Democrats. Just about every honest pundit and journalist is describing the election as a win for the Democrats.

So in what world was Biden a drag on the Democrats in the midterms? If anything he was a sail catching the winds of national sentiment that independent  voters had had it with far right extremism and lunatic GOP candidates. Boring Bidenism won over the election denying lunatics carrying the lunatic banners (and they are so many) of Trump and Trumpism.

I read the essay and then looked up to see who the author was. Here are his previous Salon articles. It was not a surprise that he is an outspoken progressive and former Bernie Sanders supporter.

The first paraprgraph is the gist of Solomon's argument:

No amount of post-election puffery about Joe Biden can change a key political reality: His approval ratings are far below the public's general positivity toward the Democratic Party. Overall, Democrats who won in the midterm elections did so despite Biden, not because of him. He's a drag on the party, a boon to Republicans, and — if he runs again — he'd be a weak candidate against the GOP nominee in the 2024 presidential campaign.
One additional thing, while Solomon links to the Politico article "The red wave that wasn't: 5 takeaways" in his essay he doesn't include a quote that goes against his attack against Biden.
 

Extremism is a Democratic issue, too

All year — and especially in the closing days of the campaign — Democrats cast themselves as a mainstream alternative to the excesses of the GOP. But despite the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the hundreds of election deniers Republicans put on the ballot, voters on Tuesday did not appear to see it that way.

In preliminary exit polls, about equal proportions of voters said Democrats and Republicans were “too extreme.”

I view Solomon as an example of one of people the voters consider to be an extreme Democrat.

Breaking this down further, and avoiding the slam aimed at Democrats about post-election puffery, his comment about the polls is true but his conclusion is opinion, not fact. He doesn't know that Democrats won despite Biden. The midterms were not a referendum about Biden. If anything they were a referendum significantly on both Trump and Trumpism.

Read the article and see what you think, or don't read it. Having read the first paragraph it may suffice to read it and analyze the last paragraph here.

What does all this mean for people who want to defeat Republicans in 2024 and to advance truly progressive agendas? Joe Biden should not be the Democratic Party's presidential nominee. If he runs for re-election, representing the status quo, the outcome will likely be disastrous. Grassroots activism will be essential to create better alternatives.
First sentence above has two elements that are quite different. One is what the author's arguments add up to for those 99% of Salon readers who want defeat the Republicans in 2024 and the second is for those who want to advance the progressive agenda.

I consider myself a progressive, but I also know that there won't be a progressive agenda to advance if the Republicans win in 2024. 

Next, Solomon has a big "if" in the phrase "if he runs for re-election, representing the status quo..." Absolutely, he shows no signs he has so far in his presidency, or will represent the status quo, in the future. He hasn't been progressive enough for some but he isn't bullshitting when he touts his accomplishments so far and reminds people that they won't see the results for a period of months.

Instead of being doomed to failure his attempts to broker deals across the aisle in the Senate which has not become a Trumpian bastion has been effective. All hail the modest moderate who even when he tries to brag can't help having a self-effacing modesty. 

Now to Solomon's last sentence about grassroots activism. He should know about grassroots activism. He co-founded the online activist group Roots Action in early 2011.

He says that grassroots activism will be essential to create better alternatives, meaning I assume better alternatives to having Joe Biden run for president.

On the fact of it this may sound doable to progressives who want not only a candidate with a better chance of winning in 2024 but also leading a blue wave in Congressional and state election, but if they think they have a secret sauce for making progressivism the dominant force in American politics I have a bridge on the moon to sell them.

The only way for the Democrats to win national elections is to recognize that it was Biden who had the secret sauce and is was moderation both in policy and personality.








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