Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Omega10]

Please. They just pivot to "haha, see how the left eats itself". Because if there's one thing a Trump supporter is good at it's flip-flopping positions to suit the narrative they require.

I agree with this. Hive mind is a better thing to be accused of. Let's fight among ourselves AFTER Trump has left office (no sooner than Jan 21 of next year, unless Trump steps down due to "health reasons" before that).

[solinari6]

I agree with this. Hive mind is a better thing to be accused of. Let's fight among ourselves AFTER Trump has left office (no sooner than Jan 21 of next year, unless Trump steps down due to "health reasons" before that).

Dumb question ... if Trump did step down for health reasons, is it too late for pence to get on the ballot in all 50 states? Or does he get added "automatically" because he'd be the current president?

[Breccia]

Things are not looking good for Infrastructure Week VI: We Need More National Socialism.

There appear to be three plans in current discussion:

1) McConnell, who as 99.95% of you have pointed out, is suddenly worried about the deficit now that he has what he wanted, seems to be leaning towards getting the Highway Trust Fund $300 billion over five years.

2) Pelosi is looking at a $500 billion over five years bill for "surface transportation".

3) And Trump wants $2 trillion, as we've discussed before, but now appears willing to settle for $1 trillion.

News of the plan largely caught GOP senators by surprise.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), another member of the Finance panel, said the administration is going about it backward by coming up with a $1 trillion price tag before laying out what it would be spent on.

“You don’t start with the price tag. You start with what it is you want to accomplish and figure out what that is. Seems to me to be the opposite way to approach this by starting it with how much money you’re willing to spend,” he said.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), also a Finance Committee member, said “the trillion dollars may be a little rich.”

But Portman said there are potential areas of common ground.

“I think there are areas where we can do something. Rural broadband is very popular among many of my colleagues,” he said.

He noted there are ongoing disagreements over how to pay for the Highway Trust Fund reauthorization, which Senate GOP leaders had planned to move this year before the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc with the schedule.

“It’s already been passed out of committee, the question is how to pay for it,” he said.

The Environment and Public Works Committee approved the Senate highway bill in July, and it has languished since.

I think we all know how this goes. If the Republicans want $300 billion and the Democrats want $500 billion, it's going to end up in between those. Considering Cornyn and

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who is in charge of coming up with a plan to pay for the surface transportation reauthorization bill, said members of his panel still need to come up with ways to cover $93 billion — a big chunk — of its price tag.

Asked about a news report that Trump is getting ready to unveil a new $1 trillion infrastructure spending proposal, Grassley said whatever bill Senate Republicans come up with “could be a lot less.”

It's just as well. I'm running out of ideas for Infrastructure Week sequel titles. Trump's $1 trillion dead-on-arrival proposal will be VII, and considering the context, the odds of it being the second directly destroyed by white nationalists are pretty high. "Blacktop and Brown Coat"? "Blacktop and White Hood"? "Blacktop is the Lynchpin"? I didn't think I'd need so many of them. Who would have guessed Trump would try anything seven times? I mean, he even gave up on bankruptcy after six!

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if Trump did step down for health reasons, is it too late for pence to get on the ballot in all 50 states?

It's not a dumb question. It's a narrow niche that hasn't been explored much. The last time was 1972.

It turns out, they can just be replaced. It wouldn't have to be Pence, either.

Incidentally, if Trump leaves, nobody the GOP puts up survives. Pence has the Charisma of a potted plant, the fanbase won't follow anyone else, and Trump leaving will be taken as admission the Republican Party was going to lose anyhow.

[PhaelixWW]

Incidentally, if Trump leaves, nobody the GOP puts up survives. Pence has the Charisma of a potted plant, the fanbase won't follow anyone else, and Trump leaving will be taken as admission the Republican Party was going to lose anyhow.

I have a feeling that if Trump were to die, there's a good ~20% of the population who would still vote for him as a write-in for one reason or another.

[starlord]

I agree with this. Hive mind is a better thing to be accused of. Let's fight among ourselves AFTER Trump has left office (no sooner than Jan 21 of next year, unless Trump steps down due to "health reasons" before that).

trump isn't going to go away anytime soon. even if he dies, his ideology and the things in society that drive it will live on. there are right wing conspiracy theorists winning nominations for congress already.

[Lenonis]

Dumb question ... if Trump did step down for health reasons, is it too late for pence to get on the ballot in all 50 states? Or does he get added "automatically" because he'd be the current president?

I believe ballot access is decided by the states -- so the deadlines and rules around this probably vary.

I don't think there is any state that has an automatic process where a running mate takes the top of the ticket. I think what is more likely is Trump would get elected, but since he's resigned it would then immediately put Pence in office. We've had scenarios before where dead and incarcerated people have been elected to office and then it's just immediately considered vacant and either an appointment or special election is held.

Welp, looks like I'm incorrect and there is a mechanism for the RNC to replace a nominee on a ticket.

However I do think there is still a timing issue at play because at a certain point the ballots themselves cannot be changed so it's a question of when this even would happen I think.

[cubby]

trump isn't going to go away anytime soon. even if he dies, his ideology and the things in society that drive it will live on. there are right wing conspiracy theorists winning nominations for congress already.

Agreed. I think the worst thing right now would be for him to die, or somehow debilitate out of the Residency before the November election. We as a nation have to reject his way of governing, and show those people who follow him that their way of thinking and acting is not ok.

If he died right now, he would be "martyred", and whatever amounts for his legacy would continue. I'm not sure if any one person could pick up the torch, so to speak, but the window would open for that opportunity.

[Thekri]

I have a feeling that if Trump were to die, there's a good ~20% of the population who would still vote for him as a write-in for one reason or another.

Due to a horrible miscalculation and an obscure set of legal precedent, this leads to President Tiffany Trump. A Landmark Supreme Court ruling, stating "WTF, I am so done with this shit" clears the way for Tiffany's inauguration.

Her first inaugural speech consists of 25 minutes of uncontrolled sobbing, and repeated assertions that she never wanted this. Most people agree this is still an improvement over her fathers speech.

[starlord]

Agreed. I think the worst thing right now would be for him to die, or somehow debilitate out of the Residency before the November election. We as a nation have to reject his way of governing, and show those people who follow him that their way of thinking and acting is not ok.

If he died right now, he would be "martyred", and whatever amounts for his legacy would continue. I'm not sure if any one person could pick up the torch, so to speak, but the window would open for that opportunity.

i think either way we are in it for the long haul. there will always be the threat of another trump. he's a product of american society's apathy and casual hatred.
in fact i would be very surprised if there isn't another "tea party" that forms modeled after him.

people are focused on "shaming" trump supporters, but trump supporters don't care about shame.

all it will really take is for another trump to win again is for people to become complacent.

[Breccia]

I have a feeling that if Trump were to die, there's a good ~20% of the population who would still vote for him as a write-in for one reason or another.

It might be less.

Biden opens 13-point advantage as Trump popularity drops to seven-month low: Reuters/Ipsos poll

"But Biden hasn't really done anything!"

First of all, he kind of has. Remember the funeral?

Second of all, that should be very concerning for Trump. Biden winning by doing nothing means Trump's support is falling fast.

In the June 10-16 poll, 48% of registered voters said they would back Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in the Nov. 3 election, while 35% said they would support Trump.

Biden’s advantage is the biggest recorded by the Reuters/Ipsos poll since Democrats began their state nominating contests this year to pick their party’s nominee to challenge Trump in November. A similar CNN poll from earlier this month showed Biden with a 14-point lead over Trump among registered voters.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll also showed that 57% of U.S. adults disapproved of Trump’s performance in office, while just 38% approved, marking Trump’s lowest approval rating since November, when Congress was conducting its impeachment inquiry into the Republican president.

In a clear warning sign for Trump, his own support base appears to be eroding. Republicans’ net approval of Trump is down 13 points from March to June, declining every month in that span.

Simply put, and I keep bringing this up I know, but it's the three-part contradiction people usually reserve for God, but a small alteration and it works here.

1) Trump knows more than the experts, and Only He Can Fix It.
2) Trump wants to Make America Great Again.
3) America is having a catastrophically bad time.

You can't have all three at once.

There are some diehards that will just flat-out deny #3 is happening. "Yes, but I'm doing okay!" they might say, "so therefore the country is okay. Also I solved world hunger because I had a big breakfast."

But most can't. Most people, at this point, have been affected by the days between "It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine" and "I can't breathe". Which means one of the following:

#1 is wrong, Trump either doesn't know what he's doing, or can't fix the problem. Incidentally, this is the camp I'm in.

Or, #2 is wrong, and Trump doesn't want to Make America Great Again. (I believe Trump wants this, but in his own twisted version, where things still run on coal and steam, the rich can do whatever they want, and black people use separate but equal water fountains)

Trump knows this, too, which is why he could run in 2016 by pretending he was the trodden-upon victim. In 2020, he has his work cut out for him trying that again. And he can only label so many people as traitors before he's outnumbered.

Then there was the photo op. I think we can expect Biden to bring a poster of that shit to the first debate. Not that he needs props -- Trump proved he can't debate his way out of a paper bag.

And Trump wants those big crowds to chant his name and clap their hands...which is going to be difficult for a while yet, and worse, could get a lot of people sick or even killed. We're still in the first wave.

Plus, while Trump is pointing to the signs of recovery, like that fictional BLS jobs report, it's like saying you topped the charts on self-healing because you stood in the fire.

Trump has serious problems, and he's unable to deal with them. That's why he isn't dealing with them. His E.O. did nothing, he'll deliver a speech about race relations he didn't write by telepromptor (if at all), and his latest tweet, 12 hours ago by the way, is the same mysterious 96% approval in the Republican Party which this latest poll directly refutes.

Not even Rasmussen can back that up.

Trump never broke 50%, something every President since Truman has done -- some more than others, Ford wasn't over 50% long but he was at least twice. And his opponent has a proven track record, while Trump does not.

I don't think he'll die. He's old, fat, frail, sick, and he just removed the Death Tax and has a questionable family, but I don't think he'll actually die in the next five months. But I think he'd rather make up an excuse, claim victory, and leave, than face a fair fight he knows he's going to lose, because he's also a coward. If Biden and the Democrats can mount pressure on the issues, while also preparing for Trump's inevitable personal attacks, Trump's numbers will stay underwater until he waves to the lifeguard, or he drowns.

[Benggaul]

i think either way we are in it for the long haul. there will always be the threat of another trump. he's a product of american society's apathy and casual hatred.
in fact i would be very surprised if there isn't another "tea party" that forms modeled after him.

people are focused on "shaming" trump supporters, but trump supporters don't care about shame.

all it will really take is for another trump to win again is for people to become complacent.

Not to keep banging on this drum, but Trump wasn't even the first Trump. Take a deep dive on the Reagan administration and the similarities are numerous and infuriating.

[starlord]

Not to keep banging on this drum, but Trump wasn't even the first Trump. Take a deep dive on the Reagan administration and the similarities are numerous and infuriating.

very true.
literally the only problem with trump, that most trump supporters i know have with him, is his acting like a feral animal shrieking and flinging poo constantly.
a charismatic, well spoken trump, they would absolutely adore no matter what.

[Benggaul]

I believe Trump wants this, but in his own twisted version, where things still run on coal and goddamn steam, the rich can do whatever they want

A minor correction for you.

[Breccia]

Take a deep dive on the Reagan administration and the similarities are numerous and infuriating.

You're talking about the cult of personality? That both are military-hungry warmongers who claim not to be? Their views on trickle-down? Or are you saying both are senile?

There are some similarities, no question. The biggest difference is, while Reagan had practical experience, he didn't claim to be the one-man band Trump is. I don't recall a lot of Reagan claiming he was the only one with the skills and knowledge to fix things, and in fact, used his charisma to great effect working with world leaders.

The things they have in common are pretty concerning. Reagan was re-elected. But then, Reagan could also debate and 1984 brought...sigh...Mondale. Trump can't debate and he's facing Biden. Also Reagan hadn't killed quite so many civilians yet.

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A minor correction for you.

DAMMIT THE ONE TIME (sigh)

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On the subject of polls:

Biden leads Trump in six swing states

Arizona: Biden 45%, Trump 44%
Florida: Biden 50%, Trump 43%
Michigan: Biden 47%, Trump 45%
North Carolina: Biden 47%, Trump 45%
Pennsylvania: Biden 49%, Trump 46%
Wisconsin: Biden 48%, Trump 44%

The poll also found that 45% of likely voters in the six states approved of Trump's handling of the coronavirus crisis, while 55% disapproved.

44% approve of Trump's handling of police violence and discrimination, while 56% disapprove.

52% of respondents said Trump’s response to the police killing of George Floyd and the ensuing protests was harmful, compared to 23% who said it was helpful.

I think Biden is going to end up with Pennsylvania, a massive blow for Trump if I'm right. Not only do they have 2016 to remind them, Biden lives next door.

[Benggaul]

You're talking about the cult of personality? That both are military-hungry warmongers who claim not to be? Their views on trickle-down? Or are you saying both are senile?

All of the above and more. The reason I say "deep dive" on the Reagan admin is that a lot of what happened isn't common knowledge since it wasn't publicly available information at the time--or there was no reason to suspect what was being told to the public. Today that's different, of course, and laughably ironic that the fully-opaque "most transparent admin in history" is so full of leaks the public gets that information anyway.

I don't have the energy to dig it all up right now--the meds are hitting hard and I'm honestly not even sure if I'm making sense at this point--but the Dollop podcast I posted ages ago did a great job of compiling most of it into a listenable chunk.

[Breccia]

the fully-opaque "most transparent admin in history" is so full of leaks the public gets that information anyway.

You have to admit, it's pretty telling when "the most transparent administration" sues to block a book written about it, by claiming "everything Trump says is classified".

[Thekri]

You have to admit, it's pretty telling when "the most transparent administration" sues to block a book written about it, by claiming "everything Trump says is classified".

It does seem to be a pretty transparent administration though. Just not on purpose.

[Benggaul]

It does seem to be a pretty transparent administration though. Just not on purpose.

That's kind of what I was implying i.e the leaks.

EDIT: OH and all the times the GOP keeps accidentally sending party memos to the Dems.

[Fahrenheit]

I think Biden is going to end up with Pennsylvania, a massive blow for Trump if I'm right. Not only do they have 2016 to remind them, Biden lives next door.

Biden is a native Pennsylvanian, born in Scranton, PA.

Trump won PA by the skin of his teeth against Clinton, Biden should have PA in the bag.

[Elegiac]

Speaking of Trump facing Biden, @Breccia - tinfoil hat time.

The folks over in Pyongyang are also watching Trump's polling numbers like a hawk and may have weighed the risks that this might be their best chance for a while to gain some lasting concessions; that window of opportunity is narrowing the closer we draw to November. Thoughts?