Sykes second argument is more interesting, but the first makes the debate academic (in the pejorative sense). Trump will get the Repub nomination if he wants it, and no alternative candidate has a chance.
Worse than that, Trump will be the next president of how many or few votes he gets. Officials in Republican state will declare him the winner (having replaced those who refused to this last time). If that fails, there's the virtual certainty of a Republican House majority after 2022 - again even if Dems get more votes. The minority who voted to uphold the 2020 election will either be gone or cowed into submission, so a Democratic win will be overturned in 2024.
The die was cast when Trump got away with the insurrection. Anyone who didn't explicitly break with him after that is a guaranteed vote for the end of American democracy. And "anyone" here includes not only de Santis, but almost every remaining Republican elected official and nearly all Republican voters.
I have no real idea how to deal with this (apparently) inevitable outcome, but tossing up people like DeSantis and Youngkin as potential saviours is just a distraction
I’m honestly not so sure how much juice Trump will have left in ‘22/‘24 after the CA recall & the VA/NJ governor’s races. Trump’s intervention in the recall election & his support for Larry Elder galvanized the hell out the Dem base during the California recall election. With Trump held at arm’s length prior to & during the gubernatorial contests, Republicans did more than fine. And those elections were held in blue/blueish states. Seems to me that the available evidence suggests that Trump’s presence is a pretty major drag on Republicans running at the state & national level.
My concern is that how much will DeSantis act as if he is being “owned” by Trump, how like the liberals use to mock W being owned by major corporations and Clinton by conservatives being owned by the Chinese government. I think there could be a strong and emerging case that if DeSantis would win 2024, that Trump might force DeSantis to do something to Trumps will not the country by using some sort of leverage, popularized or hidden, to get what Trump only prefers.
Trump's most potent weapon has been his popularity with Republican voters. That, in the past, allowed him to use his bully pulpit to great effect. This was particularly the case when he had full access to social platforms. If DeSantis were to become the nominee, let alone president, he would effectively become too big to be bullied, too popular among the base to be leveraged the way Trump could leverage some backbench congressman.
The underlying problem is the weakness of our parties, which makes personality paramount. And there's no denying that Trump's personality dwarfed those of all others in the 2016 race. When politics is a spectator sport like Nascar, wrestling, or football, it reduces to itself to entertainment and fandom .
And this is also why even the least charismatic of them (Pelosi, McConnell, Reid) get so amazingly rich.
I don't see a way out. The Clintons, Obamas, and Trumps are all primarily entertainers; none of them have any particular worth as statesmen or politicians, as can be seen by the fact than none of them have made any lasting change.
This is a good point. Prior to the primaries, parties had a lot more influence. Someone like Trump would've been filtered out well before the electoral calendar got underway. The only problem with the older way is the newer way (primaries) seems more consistent with democratic principles. Perhaps being vulnerable to demagogues is the price we have to pay.
We're not a democracy; we're a republic. The founding fathers were deeply suspicious of democracy, and Trump is the reification and exemplar of their fears.
I disagree with the "we're a republic, not a democracy" line because I consider it a misleading binary in the context of U.S. style government. The more salient distinction is between a direct democracy (which is what the Founders feared) and an indirect democracy (a republic, which could counteract the demagogic impacts of "mob rule"). But we're still talking about a democracy. The second clause in your second sentence is perfectly stated.
Excellent, my thoughts exactly. Bottom line Trump is a major asshole no matter what policies he has. I can't stand the guy, no one like him should be a leader, even though, for instance, I agree with his border policy far more than Biden's who doesn't seem to have one other than let everyone in. But Trump meanly separated parents and children and those children are never going to get over the damage from that. He did it just to make a political point. That's wrong.
The reason that most Republicans liked Trump is that he actually did something, the rest of them are all mush. Except Desantis, he is willing to act so I agree with nominating him.
Sykes second argument is more interesting, but the first makes the debate academic (in the pejorative sense). Trump will get the Repub nomination if he wants it, and no alternative candidate has a chance.
Worse than that, Trump will be the next president of how many or few votes he gets. Officials in Republican state will declare him the winner (having replaced those who refused to this last time). If that fails, there's the virtual certainty of a Republican House majority after 2022 - again even if Dems get more votes. The minority who voted to uphold the 2020 election will either be gone or cowed into submission, so a Democratic win will be overturned in 2024.
The die was cast when Trump got away with the insurrection. Anyone who didn't explicitly break with him after that is a guaranteed vote for the end of American democracy. And "anyone" here includes not only de Santis, but almost every remaining Republican elected official and nearly all Republican voters.
I have no real idea how to deal with this (apparently) inevitable outcome, but tossing up people like DeSantis and Youngkin as potential saviours is just a distraction
Happily, I think this outcome is hardly inevitable!
Inevitable too strong, but more likely than not, in my view. And no one seems to be thinking about the implications.
I’m honestly not so sure how much juice Trump will have left in ‘22/‘24 after the CA recall & the VA/NJ governor’s races. Trump’s intervention in the recall election & his support for Larry Elder galvanized the hell out the Dem base during the California recall election. With Trump held at arm’s length prior to & during the gubernatorial contests, Republicans did more than fine. And those elections were held in blue/blueish states. Seems to me that the available evidence suggests that Trump’s presence is a pretty major drag on Republicans running at the state & national level.
My concern is that how much will DeSantis act as if he is being “owned” by Trump, how like the liberals use to mock W being owned by major corporations and Clinton by conservatives being owned by the Chinese government. I think there could be a strong and emerging case that if DeSantis would win 2024, that Trump might force DeSantis to do something to Trumps will not the country by using some sort of leverage, popularized or hidden, to get what Trump only prefers.
Trump's most potent weapon has been his popularity with Republican voters. That, in the past, allowed him to use his bully pulpit to great effect. This was particularly the case when he had full access to social platforms. If DeSantis were to become the nominee, let alone president, he would effectively become too big to be bullied, too popular among the base to be leveraged the way Trump could leverage some backbench congressman.
The underlying problem is the weakness of our parties, which makes personality paramount. And there's no denying that Trump's personality dwarfed those of all others in the 2016 race. When politics is a spectator sport like Nascar, wrestling, or football, it reduces to itself to entertainment and fandom .
And this is also why even the least charismatic of them (Pelosi, McConnell, Reid) get so amazingly rich.
I don't see a way out. The Clintons, Obamas, and Trumps are all primarily entertainers; none of them have any particular worth as statesmen or politicians, as can be seen by the fact than none of them have made any lasting change.
This is a good point. Prior to the primaries, parties had a lot more influence. Someone like Trump would've been filtered out well before the electoral calendar got underway. The only problem with the older way is the newer way (primaries) seems more consistent with democratic principles. Perhaps being vulnerable to demagogues is the price we have to pay.
We're not a democracy; we're a republic. The founding fathers were deeply suspicious of democracy, and Trump is the reification and exemplar of their fears.
I disagree with the "we're a republic, not a democracy" line because I consider it a misleading binary in the context of U.S. style government. The more salient distinction is between a direct democracy (which is what the Founders feared) and an indirect democracy (a republic, which could counteract the demagogic impacts of "mob rule"). But we're still talking about a democracy. The second clause in your second sentence is perfectly stated.
Excellent, my thoughts exactly. Bottom line Trump is a major asshole no matter what policies he has. I can't stand the guy, no one like him should be a leader, even though, for instance, I agree with his border policy far more than Biden's who doesn't seem to have one other than let everyone in. But Trump meanly separated parents and children and those children are never going to get over the damage from that. He did it just to make a political point. That's wrong.
The reason that most Republicans liked Trump is that he actually did something, the rest of them are all mush. Except Desantis, he is willing to act so I agree with nominating him.