Comment by datsci_est_2015 a day ago
The rest of the Republican Party is completely devoid of charisma, especially the kind that drew so many voters to Trump. There is no drop-in replacement.
Lots of money will be spent trying to manufacture a replacement, though. That will be fun to watch. If you thought the last-minute rally around Kamala was tough to watch…
But what the republican party has, is a lot of isolationist voters who cannot be moved by appeals to markets or international trade. They don’t care about that stuff.
Sure, the republicans will look hilarious trying to replace Trump for a while … but those Americans aren’t going anywhere and will gladly vote for the next Trump whenever they show up, same as they voted for Reagan and Bush II.
The American attitude driving this current period is much deeper and wider than one man, and people thinking it will all go away when one old man steps down are going to be “surprised” when we’re dealing with this again in ten years or twenty years or three years.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the first to jump up and say there’s a deep cultural rot in America that, if it weren’t for the fortune of incredible financial success, would have us be seen as a hellhole of antisocial maniacs.
That being said, I just don’t buy into the notion that the strategy of the party from 2016-2024 (maybe 100 Trump rallies per year?) can carry over into the late 2020s / early 2030s.
If anything, this is me saying everyone is aware that the current window for reactionary politics in America is closing as Trump loses his vigor and gets closer to being too old to do what he did between 2014 and 2024. The reactionaries in the government and behind the scenes may make one last desperate grab at maintaining power.
That's not the point: the point is America did this twice. The world is not going to deal with America radically flip flopping every policy position every 4 years, and escalating that every time.
The US has just finished (maybe?) threatening to invade a NATO allied country. The occurrence rate of that has gone from "never" to "at least once". The delta change on that is infinity: there will never be a world in several generations where that is not a strategic risk the world has to deal with every 4 years.
> That's not the point: the point is America did this twice. The world is not going to deal with America radically flip flopping every policy position every 4 years, and escalating that every time.
I’ll admit, I’m becoming confused about the point of our back-and-forth.
All I’m trying to express is that probably by the end of 2026, and definitely by 2028, the people who are trying to enact reactionary change (Stephen Miller, PayPal Mafia, Heritage Foundation, etc.) will have to adjust their strategy. They are losing their charismatic leader, if not because of constitutional limits on presidential terms, then by his very obvious reduced vigor (he will not be able to do 100 rallies in a calendar year again).
On the world stage, yes, America has stumbled. Maybe even worse, some international folks are realizing that the America that they thought existed was just a Hollywood mirage, and that we were always one recession and a few thousand votes in Florida from becoming a global pariah.
Can't all that be solved by posting ICE guards around all polling stations?
There's no law of nature that proves democracy can't be overthrown, but ICE is currently struggling against popular resistance to merely enforce immigration law in a single medium-sized city. Right now there's not much indication they have either the desire or operational capacity to pull off nationwide voter suppression. (And a number of special elections over the past year have defeated regime-backed candidates without ICE involvement.)
If they tried to merely immigration law, they would had no issue.
They were successful at creating fear and making conflict avoidant people stay home. Despite large amount of protesters, that is real effect.
And it would create real vote suppression. You would had people not voting out of fear. And the opposing side having less votes (even if they win, they win less)
You, I, and regime officials know that they're trying to do more than merely enforce immigration law. But that's not the story they're telling the staff. Your average immigration enforcement officer still believes they're doing nothing more than executing warrants on people who are unlawfully present in the country - indeed, even with all the chaos and murders, there may not even be a majority of officers who've personally performed any misconduct. I'm not saying they're "good apples", but neither will they necessarily go along with an election subversion scheme that has no plausible fig leaf.
Equally importantly, this is not an operation that could be planned in secret or at the drop of the hat. If the Trump regime tries to do something like this, we'll know weeks or months in advance, and there will be plenty of time to make it clear that anyone who participates will face swift and severe justice.
Definitely an odd duck out in the context of Trump, Obama, Bush II, Clinton, Bush, Reagan.
Also remember it’s not just being charismatic, but charismatic enough to keep people distracted from increasingly unpopular reactionary politics that defy even conservative beliefs (e.g. gun control, speech policing, deficit spending, plenary executive).
Gun control (for minorities), speech policing (for liberals), deficit spending (when they are in charge), and a plenary executive (when Obama isn't president) are core conservative beliefs.
They say that they don't like those things, but you can't listen to what politicians and talking heads on TV say. Politicians and talking heads lie all the fucking time. You have to look at what people do.
They aren't stupid in not understanding the hypocrisy.
We are... for thinking that they don't know that they are hypocrites.
Wait. Do you really think that or are you being sarcastic?
Isn’t the VP generally the shoe-in nominee? Vance lacks charisma and gravitas, but he only has to be better than the Democratic candidate. For every Bill and Barack, the Democrats have also given us a Kamala, Hillary, and Al. Never underestimate their ability to pick a loser.