Erick Erickson, a Georgia Republican insider, said bluntly on Friday that former President Donald Trump is in real trouble after his frantic efforts to make himself more palatable to voters who believe in reproductive rights and other key issues.
Writing on X, Erickson claimed to have had "privat.....
I've been saying since the primaries that the best plausible scenario was for Trump to get the nomination, then botch the election and drag the weirdos and loyalists in his party down with him.
Trump has spent years purging anyone that was moderate, even slightly principled, or just willing to put the good of the country ahead of his gigantic ego. Not to mention the way they treat the party's warchest as their personal piggy bank, and it's rank and file staff and volunteers as disposable. He's made a party that's blindly loyal to him, and which is a huge threat to the country, but which is ultimately far less effective as a party.
A more normal candidate would likely be dominating the race given public opinion on the current administration and the economy, to say nothing of the obscene amount of money being thrown around. But instead, Trump looks like he will cause the Republicans to underperform for the fourth time in a row.
If Trump loses dramatically enough and drags his people down with him, the party will likely collapse in on itself as opposing factions get locked in a power struggle. Plenty of big donors just want lower taxes and to not have to deal with regulations, and they will probably want to shift the party away from the MAGA weirdness and back towards something normal that isn't going to alienate voters on all sides of the aisle. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the more prominent anti-trump Republicans suddenly got a big boost in support, and a lot of Trump's parasites suddenly find themselves getting driven out.
From a non-partisan standpoint, we're cutting it really close. Most alarm lights that haven't had masking tape put over them by the government are screaming imminent stagflationary depression, maybe one of the worst in American History, and everyone with eyes and basic math skills can see the looming sovereign debt crisis. Nobody wants to be holding this hot potato because whoever is in power at that time is almost certainly going to preside over a disaster and there's nothing to be done about it.
From a totally non-partisan standpoint, Kamala Harris is a terrible candidate for President. She speaks to the American Public like they're 4 year olds, her record as Vice President is basically free real estate for the Republicans, she was the least liked vice president in US history, her only primary campaign was the weakest of all the Democrats on stage with her dropping out first, There are better people within the Democratic party to run, but they didn't and they aren't -- instead they installed Kamala more or less by fiat. I think part of the reason for that is they're not stupid and they know full well winning the next election is a phyrric victory, and whoever is president during that term is effectively ending their political career so might as well let the weakest candidate either lose and end her career or win and end her career. In so doing, they keep their powder dry for the next viable election cycle.
Notwithstanding concerns that Trump will try to crown himself dictator (concerns that I think the conservative response to January 6th prove unfounded -- conservatives want to conserve the constitution and violating that would not go over well), he's only got one term left as president, and he's getting quite old so this is probably his last kick at the can so regardless of whether the party wants to win or not, he clearly does. He seems to be going all-in on a big tent strategy this time, which is why he's brought former democrats like RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard into the fold and adopted compromise positions on wedge issues such as abortion. Personally, as long as he retains his core identity and brand, I think it's a winning strategy, insofar as such a thing can exist.
You must live in some alternate reality where Donald Trump isn't responsible for severely damaging the functionality of the American government, didn't cause a constitutional crisis, and hasn't completely broken the ability of the federal government to prosecute federal crimes against Republicans.
I’m going to vote. I’m not sure what else I can do. When I look at the polling in the swing states, I don’t feel much hope right now. I’m too tired of it being so close.
I mean, its a coin toss right now based almost all available channels of information. So yeah. He might win. And if he did win I agree that it would effectively end party politics; I don't think he would give up power again, and I don't think there is any elected official that would resist him. I do have faith in the joint chiefs however, so while it might be considered a military coup, I have faith they would honor their oaths to the constitution (even if judges, and senators and presidents dismiss theirs, I can assure you service members take their oaths more seriously). If Trump refused to step down, I was confident that the joint chiefs would step in in 2020, and I'm still confident they would today.
That all being said, even though the numbers put it at 50%, I still think its Kamala's to lose. She needs to stop with this Israelli fucking genocidal apologist stance and get back into taking names mode, but beyond that, she's crushing it. If she had more time, this would be even easier. We can blame every single apologist who argued we needed to back Biden even though he was floundering, drowning, dying in the polls (pre debate). They did the entire country a huge disservice with their toxic approach to politics and rhetoric: we should have ignored it then, and we should ignore it now.
To keep this thing on rails we need to mobilize as a country to force Kamala to a position thats more acceptable to voters: whithold arms to Israel. US taxpayers stop funding a genocide. We don't want to fucking pay for the killing of innocent Gazans. Its a no fucking brainer but the DNC is captured by the Israel lobby (like how in years past they were captured by the pharmaceutical lobby). However, the fact that we were able to break the spine of Blue MAGA and get rid of their toxic approach on Biden, indicate we can also use the force of withholding our vote to move Kamala on Gaza. We just have to demonstrate that she can't win without those votes.
Withhold your vote has been the only tool demonstrated to be effective in moving the needle this election cycle. If we use it to move Kamala on Gaza, we can save her from herself.
This is probably going to get me downvoted to hell and back, but from an electoral standpoint Kamala taking a strong position on Gaza doesn’t matter. Tragic as it is, the median voter and most importantly the few swing voters in the US don’t really care about it. Yes, the majority of Americans disapprove of what Israel is doing and support a cease fire, but it’s just not a high priority. Sure, people who are extremely online and spend lots of time in leftist space care, but the average voter? It’s barely on their radar.