No R candidate is going to flip a state out west. What DeSantis does is solidify Ohio, no Carolina, would appeal to Wisconsin, Michigan and possibly AZ. He would win nevada but it's clear the elections there are less than up n up.
Vipe Which states are you including in the people in the West don't trust anyone from Fla? And why don't they trust Floridians? Texans I understand but Floridians?
Anyone west of 100 degrees West. They view Floridians as either Cubans, Drug Smugglers, Yankees, mobsters, or Texans in disguise. The who;e time I lived in LA and Orange Counties, no spoke well of them. I agree they should be brothers, but no.
Nimrata? I'd not use that name on the well formed opinion that Democrats have cornered the market on nimrods.
It's funny how the media and the NeverTrumpers are behaving about the candidacies (or potential candidacies) of Haley and Desantis. The response is dismissal or outright hostility. They ultimately want the "authoritarian democracy-hater" to be the nominee.
They don’t grift or profit off desantis or Haley as much as they would for trump if he were the nominee
All of them including Trump can beat Biden but Trump and the other candidates probably can't beat the dem cheat factor. DeSantis can because he'll win by a whole lot. 2022 showed us that being up by 3-5 points in the polls isn't a safe win for republicans at least for now.
Republicans haven't had a 3-5 point popular margin since 1988, so I don't expect that in 2024 either.
mc I did not know Repub pols grifted off Trump. I am glad Trump was POTUS but do not want him to run. Who profited off him and how?
It's not strange. The NeverTrumpers are partisan Democrats now. That became clear when they were cheering on the Democrats in '20 and '22 and not helping Republican politicians who voted to impeach Trump. You'll notice that I don't call myself a NTer anymore, even though I'm pretty hostile to Trump. I can't make the leap of "Trump is bad, so this means abortion, regulation, high taxes, and adults talking about dicks and racial essentialism with small children are suddenly good things." They can and have. They've completely abandoned all pretenses of conservatism.
That is because the NT demo was never Republican and never conservative and never had the best interests of the Nation at heart.
Well Soros endorsing DeSantis clinched it for me. So I heard this driving. Deez pointed out it was wrong My error
I don't think NT's abandoned all conservative values but Trump is an incredibly polarizing guy and like it or not, we are a cult-of-personality when it comes to politics and particularly POTUS elections. As a general rule, politicians don't actually articulate their true positions well, they use bumper stickers. so it is less about actual policy and more about delivery when people make up their mind to vote. Trump doesn't make it very easy to "slightly" disagree with him. At the first sign of "disloyalty" Trump turns into a junk yard dog and takes a flamethrower to anyone that is not 100% supportive (think Kemp). You can either dodge the fight like Kemp has or you can stand your ground like Cheney did. But like others, Cheney's fight with Trump, became Cheney-stands-with-Dems. It is a tricky place to be. Pick even a little fight with Trump and you find yourself in "total war". This "total war" means you now get in bed with ideas and people that you might never have before.
It depends a lot on who we're talking about. The Dispatch people (Jonah Goldberg, David French, Sarah Isgur, and Kevin Williamson) and to a lesser extent the National Review people (Rich Lowry, C.W. Cooke, etc.) are very quick to attack Trump (and usually rightfully so), but they didn't stop promoting a conservative policy agenda and didn't stop attacking the leftist agenda (though David French has come close). They don't cheer on Democratic victory. Furthermore, they could admit when Trump did something right (like judicial appointments and tax relief). Trump and his surrogates do attack these people, but they basically don't let it impact their focus. These are the people I align with most. The true NeverTrump people (The Bullwark, Bill Kristol, Jennifer Rubin, Max Boot, Ana Navarro, and the Lincoln Project) basically never advocate for conservative policy anymore. They look at the genuinely good things Trump did and dismiss them. They are largely silent on the worst actions of the Left. They openly cheer on Democrats and repeat their talking points and narratives mindlessly. They did little or nothing to help Republicans who were anti-Trump, threw them to the wolves, and let Democrats pick up their seats. These people did abandon their conservative values, and they are traitorous disgraces. Screw them. I get that Trump makes enemies out of anybody who doesn't completely lick his nuts, but that's no excuse to do what these people did. They are pathetic. I had a lot of respect for Liz Cheney when she voted to impeach Trump and spoke out against his conduct on January 6. It did take balls considering where she was from, and I was hoping she would be an advocate for a post-Trump conservatism. She decided not to go that route and joined the NeverTrumpers. Very sad, because it ultimately entrenched Trump further within the GOP (because it ruined the credibility of the conservative case against Trump), and it's a net loss for conservative policy.
^Absolutely correct. Trump is indeed polarizing - there's no middle ground, you love him or you hate him.
Kinda related. Deez points out that the suburban (white) woman is what tilted the last election. Now it seems they're going after these "white saviors". If things keep heading down this path, will the suburban wives double down, or shift the balance of power back to the GOP? What is white feminism and how does it harm women of colour? (msn.com)
I don't think this is a big factor, because we never had the white "girl-boss" feminist types to lose them. They've always been liberal Democrats cheering on the Nancy Pelosis, Elizabeth Warrens, and Patty Murrays of the world. What we've started to lose is married suburban women who lean conservative and aren't overly feminist but have bleeding hearts and don't like obnoxiousness.
IMO, that word summarizes the Trump loss in 2020. The Trump policies were pretty effective, and the country was heading in a good direction. The folks who came out to vote against Trump were doing just that - voting against Trump (mainly because he rubbed them the wrong way and didn't come across as "Presidential" to them). I fear that running DJT again as the GOP nominee would yield the same result - and for the same reason.
