Slowpoke, I posted that earlier.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/exclusive-gop-sen-sasse-says-trump-kisses-dictators-butts-mocks-evangelicals

Right now I have a policy of not voting for any individual who has enabled Trump... but if 2024 comes around and it's Sasse vs Harris, it'll be a tough choice.

Of course that hinges on Republican primary voters being reasonable enough to pick Sasse. Which will almost certainly not happen. My guess is Don Jr, Tucker Carlson, or Josh Hawley.

I like Sasse but I'm not a fan of how he handled himself with the Ukraine scandal which was a hard red line for me. I'm not particularly forgiving of people who enabled Trump. It ultimately depends on if there is genuine repentance within the party once they get shellacked in November.

What if there is no shellacking though? What if Trump loses the popular vote by 5%, the tipping point state in the electoral college by 2%, and the GOP either holds the Senate or the balance is 50:50 (with VP Harris as the tie-breaker)?

Imho, the fact that Trump is still somewhat competitive despite the myriad of blunders and grave mistakes, the unfavorable political environment, a hostile press, his horrible conduct and a mediocre track record doesnt prove that everything Trump was a mistake - on the contrary, it proves how potent the themes he addressed actually are, it proves how far a so-called right-wing populist could get who stands for similar policies as Trump, but who's not as crude, boorish, narcissistic or erratic. Someone who's sane and able of staying on message, of strategic long-term thinking, of building actual political alliances instead of directing all his energy toward a self-serving personality cult. Someone who's able to convey a populist or nationalist message without making college-educated people cringe or causing female voters to turn away in disgust.

I think negative partisanship is the main driver... Republicans hate Democrats and they'll vote for anybody who isn't one. Plus Trump is the leader of a personality cult, which the vast majority of right-wing pundits and politicians have endorsed.

That said, a real right-wing populist with charisma, who didn't run on white grievance and perpetual victimhood, but could grab hold of Trump's winning messages on trade, immigration, and the economy would definitely be a forceful competitor. I'm not sure one exists.

This post was edited by IceMage on Oct 15 2020 03:39pm

If anything, it highlights how polarized this country is. The GOP doesn't care about policy. They care about owning the libs.

I think Josh Hawley could be this guy. He's got it all, except perhaps for the charisma. I'm not sure though if he could survive the primary. Perhaps he'd just be crushed by a brutish "hurr durr we're gonna win so much, Murica, fuck yeah"-candidate, similar to how Trump shoved aside little Marco in 2016...


Anyway, the other point I was making is probably the more important one: what if Trump and the GOP lose, but it's far closer than anyone thought and not a rout? Imho, how the party will look back on the Trump years will depend a lot on the verdict implied by the election result. If Trump loses in a landslide and the Dems get to 53 or so seats in the Senate, the party will quickly come to an agreement that Trumpism was a horrible mistake, and that all of them were never fully behind it anyway. If Trump wins reelection (which almost definitely implies holding the Senate), Trumpism will be vindicated and the party will double down on it.

But what if it's a murky verdict? If Trump loses narrowly, and the GOP either narrowly holds or loses the Senate, there will be no clear verdict (considering the extremely unfavorable circumstances (covid, the green wave for Democrats)). In this scenario, I see an ugly and protracted intraparty civil war between those who want to go back to where the party stood under GWB/Romney and those who want to continue Trump's populist path, just without an incompetent wildcard as its standard bearer.

I have to vehemently disagree with this notion. Yes, the ~30% of the electorate that make up Trump's base might feel this way, but not the other 15-20% who make up the rest of the GOP base. Those are the decisive voters, and they imho do care about policy.

Just keep in mind that Trump's approval always cratered when he made big policy blunders. It cratered during the botched rollout of the travel ban. It cratered when his party tried to abolish Obamacare. It cratered in the wake of Charlottesville. It cratered when he tried to strike a lax immigration deal with Pelosi. It cratered during the government shutdown. It cratered when he was unable to say anything constructive or helpful to heal a wounded nation in the aftermath of the George Floyd death.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 15 2020 04:15pm

You seem to view the different paths as strictly policy ones. I don't. It's easy to see the 2024 primary come down to a serious, policy-driven populist vs. a Trumpist knock off. Actual populism vs. an attempt at a mean personality cult.

My guess is there's no longer a chance for anyone who doesn't appeal to voters based on Trump's populism or his personality cult.

I think so too, but at the same time, it's easy to see the RNC make an attempt at going back to a Romney-Ryan-esque platform, flavored with some wokeism and sucking up to minorities and women. Particularly if it indeed is a landslide. We should never forget that Trump basically staged a hostile takeover of the Republican party in 2015/16. The RNC establishment was never genuinely behind him, they just tolerated him as long as the base went nuts for him and he enabled them to achieve their own goals (tax cuts, conservative judges). Ideologically and policy-wise, I think that only very few of them want to continue a populist path.


Basically, Trump is Ramsay Bolton, and guys he humiliated like Cruz or Graham are his hounds - they got beaten into submission and will follow their master's lead as long as he's in charge, but they'd love nothing more than to tear him apart as soon as he shows weakness. And there's nothing weaker than a SAD!!! loser.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 15 2020 04:35pm