rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

If Romney had won in '12, he probably would have won again against Hilary or whoever the Dems would have run in '16.

Yes, we wouldn't have gotten Trump then, but the Supreme Court situation would have played out the same, except that Scalia would have been replaced quicker, and different chuds would be up there instead of Kavenaugh & ACB.

If Romney had won in '12, Sanderes might have gotten the nod in '16

Isn't this a fun exercise?

if Romney had won in 2012, Balthazar Getty may have stormed the White House with a wagon full of grilled cheese sandwiches

If Aaron Burr hadn't killed Alexander Hamilton, Estelle Getty would be president now.

if Jeb had used a time machine to kill baby Hitler, John Connor would be president

if Estelle Getty had killed Rue McClanahan, we may have had Ruth Bader Ginsberg on Golden Girls

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fej7xditnixa81.jpg

I'll punch your heart out Ha-Ha!

https://media.tenor.com/Me4OGXvkN6UAAAAe/golden-girls-happy-birthday.png

They're not just unserious, they are profoundly dishonest, toadies and lickspittles feigning the pose of challenger while also feigning the role of Trump supporter. Humiliating for them all, and ridiculous for the GOP.

otm

What future does it have, post-Trump?

It pains me, but I think they will continue to hold a large share of power for the foreseeable future. They hold a substantial majority of governorships and state legislatures. They have a strong lock on nearly 50 Senate seats and over 200 House seats. They have a Supreme Court that has been hand-picked by the Federalist Society. And they have a well-funded reservoir of consultants, think tanks, and conservative media who can help them pivot in any direction they think will keep them in power.

All you need do to see how well this machinery works is to watch how the party evolved from what it claimed were its bedrock principles under George Bush to their unanimously backing the crazy new party line of whatever nonsense Trump spouts. When Trump fades or dies, they'll just revamp their wedge issues, flood the zone with invented crises and ride into office in about the same numbers they now enjoy.

After Hoover, after Nixon, after Gingrich, after Dubya -- we've heard the obituraries. It never happens. The party reconstitutes more cruel than ever.

Don’t forget Pat Buchanan!

Not that I want any of the Jackass crew to turn (R) but I'd bet a Koch Bros-backed Knoxville/Steve-O ticket would effectively split the party beyond recovery.

Repubs run as Dems all the time, no reason not to flip that script

Aimless and Alfred completely right. This nihilistic energy preexists the Orange Person. It will outlive the Orange Person.

Yeah, all sensible humans want him to die in agony, because his soul is full of eels and he deserves the worst that the Fates can inflict. I am pretty sure we are in broad agreement that Trump should suffer and die, or die and suffer, or simultaneously suffer and die. The sequence is not important.

But.

There is still a post-Trump landscape where the shit he stirred will still rule. The demons he summoned, the passions he inflamed, the bullshit he flooded the zone with, the lies he spread, and the malevolent energies he unleashed (just for cruel fun, just to own the libs, just to gain power).

All of that dreck will still be there when he succumbs to whatever dietary habit comes to get him.

We can wait out Trump the person.I don't think we can wait out Trumpism the phenomenon. That shit is here to stay.

I don't disagree YMP and there needs to be a longer term strategy for dealing with the Trump phenomenon, but one bright spot that we've seen through DeSantis is that it really isn't that easy to find the individual that can keep those forces swirling in such high numbers.

In theory yes, so far ... Let's see how Kid Rock does in 2028 though

Aimless and Alfred completely right. This nihilistic energy preexists the Orange Person. It will outlive the Orange Person.

Yes, this. William Gass, in The Tunnel, has his narrator Wm. Kohler invent a political party, the Party of Disappointed People. It's pretty much exactly Trumpism.

Jon, you speak wisdom, but we don't really know what will happen when the actual Orange Individual is removed from the equation.

Trump voters, when denied actual Trump, might very well embrace a DeSantis-type figure. I suspect that for many of them, DeSantis's only drawback is that he isn't named Donald J. Trump.

Ehh, DeSantis is a weirdo, Trump has that showman quality... Trumpism even captured more than a few Obama voters

They like star power, not policy

YMP is right in this: before Trump the party couldn't find another Reagan either.

Maybe! I guess we'll see.

From where I am sitting, the only qualification required for GOP success is... having the right enemies.

I'm sure there's another, more charismatic evil option coming down the road, but my point is more that it feels unlikely that, say Trump keels over next week, that DeSantis or Haley keeps that momentum. Most of these Trumpers aren't going to rally their boat flotillas and truck parades for anybody else in the field right now.

xps I'd predict that Kid Rock wouldn't play as well with the cohort of small business Chamber of Commerce lifelong Republican types who have been able to swallow the idea that Trump is a successful businessman/tycoon. The ones who own a local HVAC company or a Dollar Store franchise. They aren't as important as they used to be to the GOP, but they do matter still. They respond better to the nihilists who sport the suit and tie and flag lapel pin look.

A few xps, sorry. I look across the metaphorical aisle and all I can see is "How much do you hate people of color? How much do you hate people who tell you about their pronouns? How much do you hate reasonably accurate accounts of American history? How much of an election do you get when you think about closing the southern border? How many books do you want to remove from the public library?"

Like, that is it. That's the platform. Good luck USA

Lol at election/erection typo

I got election

The last time I had an election was before blekfast

I went looking for an erection for way too long before realizing it was an election

A dull cliche!

Alexander Payne’s Erection

his soul is full of eels

unfair to eels imo; they're just trying to live and do eel stuff

plus they are delicious, unlike our unfortunate thread subject

https://images.app.goo.gl/G1DeRJGroXiMGmzn9

La Lechera, I apologize to you and to eels. Henceforth I will direct my feels to the real eels.

This is, by the way, the best song written and performed entirely by eels. It is called "Woman Driving Man Sleeping."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxDmpaR8fMA

The Tin Drum - Horse Head Scene

Best eel reference in a song:

Got a long black eel,
And nowhere to stick it,
That's why I'm barefootin',
On the wicked picket.

- Black Randy and the Metrosquad

Is this the eel life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide etc.

No escape from this cavity

Yeah, all sensible humans want him to die in agony

This is something I think about a lot, as during his tenure as President I fantasized vividly and embarrassingly often about violently dispatching him (plus some of his enablers/other odious pols -- the Mitch McConnells, Stephen Millers, Steve Bannons, etc.) But, I know that to do so is had for the soul. I don't think it's good to wish ill on others even if they are truly "evil" people (I'm not big on the concept of ~Evil~ but I think that he has consistently and at large scale done one of the worst things a person can do, which is to stoke and encourage others' bad tendencies. He has truly made the US and the world at large  a much worse place and has catalyzed some very unwholesome energies, and given them an unholy momentum for the foreseeable future, in a way that's not really quantifiable as is say, "GWB/Cheney are responsible for x number of deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq!")

So it's weird because on the one hand it does seem evident, to me at least, that if a dozen or so people were to disappear from the earth today (most of them are billionaires, fwiw) life on the planet would get instantaneously better. Truly! There would be a collective global sigh of relief, because these people who suck so so bad and who are seemingly hellbent on making everything shittier and shittier for the rest of us, who only ever seem to use their powers for not-good, would no longer have that pernicious influence that contributes so substantially to the dread we all feel. But, I know it's not good to think in that way. I'm not going to try to speak for others, but I know that I have my own inner Trump, inner Elon, inner Bezos, inner Putin, inner Bibi, inner Modi, inner fascist (yes, it is crowded in here) and that is truly the heart of the problem, and not the bad "out there". Plus I know that I lack the wisdom to make decisions involving judging and condemning people -- who knows but that my self-righteous impulses wouldn't end up upsetting a delicate ecology. Maybe Trump, Elon, Bibi and their actions are somehow keeping something even WORSE from happening. But I don't know. Things are pretty bad as is. I do knowthat I've discovered in my own life that it's bad to wish for bad things to happen to others. Even Trumps... Otherwise (among other things,) I'm just taking on the tendencies of that which I objected to so strongly in the first place.

Also, as a postscript to this novel, it's insane that we have to encounter Trump's name and image every day once again, and that he might be around for several more years. People were talking I think in the other Trump thread about the abusive parent type dynamic among the MAGA cult and their relationship to him, and I think it's an apt comparison. All of us, MAGA and non-, are going through this seemingly neverending saga in which we are held hostage by this terrible man who keeps pumping out terrible ideas into this world. I've said before that I feel like I unironically have "TDS". We're all being traumatized by this freak. It's not good! Why does God seem to hate us so?

All of us, MAGA and non-, are going through this seemingly neverending saga in which we are held hostage by this terrible man who keeps pumping out terrible ideas into this world. I've said before that I feel like I unironically have "TDS". We're all being traumatized by this freak. It's not good! Why does God seem to hate us so?

I feel the same way

x3

I fantasized vividly and embarrassingly often about violently dispatching him

you're not alone in this

X3

I would give detailed plans but I'm worried that most ILXors are actually Secret Service

https://i.imgur.com/BBO6LMj.jpg

i just have an unusual affection for coiled earpieces, that's all. and 2D pants

what is TDS?

you mean TSD?

Trump Derangement Syndrome.