rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

For those who don't already listen to the Know Your Enemy podcast, they just did a good episode considering all of the plans for a 2nd Trump administration — where the plans are coming from, who's putting them together, how coherent or incoherent the effort really is. And they end by talking about how unlikely it is that any of these things would really proceed according to plan, because of how impulsive, vindictive and uncommitted to any particular thing Trump really is.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/project-2025-building-a-better-trump-administration/id1462703434?i=1000643582389

Remembering how Trump did surround himself with nominally competent people (Mattis, etc.) has palliated some of my worries.

xp That's true, and many (most) of the people he draws into his orbit are the same way. Not all of them, though. People like Miller and Bannon are much more meticulous and systematic thinkers than most of the crowd of miscreants, grifters and fanatics that surround Trump like a cloud of flies on shit.

Trump did surround himself with nominally competent people (Mattis, etc.)

Those people were in the minority, and most of them didn't last long.

There will not be any Mattises in a 2nd term. Although finding Trump-friendly military leadership other than Michael Flynn could be one of the harder challenges tbh.

I do wonder if the people out there right now claiming Trump is more popular than Taylor Swift actually believe it. I've mentioned before that if there's one skill the right has it's astroturfing but it feels like Trump voters fall for it more than anyone

Approximately 75 million people voted for Trump in 2020. Swift has about 270 million Instagram followers (internationally yes, but still).

The whole point of Project 2025 is to make sure there aren't any Mattises in the next Trump admin.

Taylor Swift also has more actual money than Trump, I would wager.

NYT pitchbot submission:

Here's why Taylor Swift should endorse Donald Trump and how it can heal a broken nation.

And that's okay

BTW listening to the podcast and I'm somewhat disappointed by how they talk about how "all administrations change staffers", which is true for the political appointees, but they don't mention Trump's plan to immediately strip Civil Service protection from most government employees. Basically to return to the mid-19th Century where nearly the entire government workforce, down to small-town postmasters and customs employees were political patronage appointments.

Project 2025

I only just now did a shallow dive on what this "project" entails and it's almost absurdly draconian

lol jon I can't even tell if that's a real one, kudos

oh yes P25 is a fascist endgame xp

sorry for misusing "almost" there

Sounds like a fascist video game too.

I take it back, the podcast guys do talk about Schedule F, that plan to reclassify large swaths of non-partisan government employees to political appointees.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/02/most-republicans-arent-aware-trumps-various-legal-issues/

There is an assumption, probably particularly among those who cover the news and those who read it, that Donald Trump’s legal travails are common knowledge. We talk about things like the potential effects of a Trump conviction on the 2024 presidential election with the assumption that this would be an event that rose to the nation’s consciousness, triggering a response from both his supporters and detractors.

But this is a sort of vanity: Just because it is interesting to us certainly doesn’t mean it is interesting to others. Polling released by CNN on Thursday shows that only a quarter of voters seek out news about the campaign; a third pay little to no attention at all.

As it turns out, even major developments often fly under the average American’s radar. New polling conducted by YouGov shows that only a bit over half of the country on average is aware of the various legal challenges Trump faces. And among those Republicans on whose political support he depends? Consistently, only a minority say they are aware of his lawsuits and charges.

never underestimate the ignorance & apathy of the American electorate

Also don’t underestimate the insularity of the right-wing media. Its filters are effective.

I can’t bring myself to watch it, but sounds like Biden’s busy giving the election away to Trump on live TV tonight

Egypt, Mexico, tomato, tomahto

Is he talking about how be doesnt really want abortion on demand again

My argument tonight: "Cool! Kamala can be president then!" GOP relatives go apoplectic when she comes up.

suited up the whole squad pic.twitter.com/V9a1iwvW5n

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) February 10, 2024

Kamala ‘24 let’s do this

I mean yes it's a pile-on but wtf do you expect when you run an 81-year-old. Liberal friends of mine are bitching about the Hur report as a hit job, and sure, yes, but ...

Telling people they shouldn't care because "ageism" or whatever is not a very effective argument. The problem is, I don't know what an effective argument here really is. The only honest one is, "Yes it totally sucks and he inspires very little confidence, but whaddya gonna do, vote for Trump?"

I would rather have a younger president, too, but I guess I wonder what people are actually worried about when they say he is too old to be effective. What would he be doing differently if he were younger? What are they afraid of him doing (or not doing) at the age he is now?

One of the things that is most maddening about this situation is that it could have easily been avoided. Instead the Dems are stuck with a guy who was born on the same day as WWII's Battle of Tassafaronga.

What would he be doing differently if he were younger? What are they afraid of him doing (or not doing) at the age he is now?

I don't think he's doing much of anything, to be honest. Based on interviews, public appearances, and what's being said "on the beltway," the team surrounding him is doing most of the work while the old guy naps and makes suggestions that are woefully behind the times.

What are they afraid of him doing (or not doing) at the age he is now?

I think he was mostly picked because of a perceived ability to beat Trump in an election (which was proved correct, though we've no way of knowing which of the alternatives would have also won). What they're afraid of now isn't his ability to be president, its the loss of his perceived ability as a candidate to win again

He did say the genocide that he’s funding is going a little faster than he expected

xp to table: I am not sure that is true, but even if it is ... so what? When I voted for Biden, I wasn't just voting for him but for the people he would appoint to run the government alongside him.

Pretty sure Biden has been responsible for the enthusiastic support of Israel by this admin, a support that troubles even AIPIAC-endorsed doofs like Dick Durbin. He saw beheaded babies.

“It’s actually ageist to suggest that there might be a downside to gerontocracy” has always been an insane argument

Whomsoever amongst us can forget the Battle of Tassafaronga

What they're afraid of now isn't his ability to be president, its the loss of his perceived ability as a candidate to win again

otm. My concerns about his age have almost entirely to do with its non-negligible impact on his chances of winning the election. What happens after the election is a secondary issue that we can worry about if he actually manages to win.

I don’t think you need a list of things younger person would be doing better to not assume you’d feel better if someone who wasn’t declining in front of our eyes was in control of the world’s largest military and a nuclear arsenal that can destroy humanity.

The President is the vibes leader and low energy and confused is not a good vibe.

We still need a better alternative suggestion than "none of the above"

If they both keel over one month before elections, how does everyone's predictions change? Would Harris be the backup against ... ?

I don’t think you need a list of things younger person would be doing better to not assume you’d feel better if someone who wasn’t declining in front of our eyes was in control of the world’s largest military and a nuclear arsenal that can destroy humanity.

Sorry, but I think you kinda do. Most young people are fucking morons and I can't think of one I'd want as president.

Philip, I know you know this, but we don't vote for candidates; we vote for electors who are pledged to a candidate.

When the candidate is unavailable, electors can do whatever the fuck they want. Mostly. Kinda. I think. Who the hell knows?

Maybe we just dissolve the whole dumb project and return to the tundra or jungle or whatev

I have a pretty good loincloth ready to go, and a decent slingshot

Any Generic National Democrat between the ages of 40 & 65 is going to be functionally indistinguishable from Biden aside from not being senescent (and probably being better on Israel). I would choose any of them. Pete, Kamala, Klobuchar, Whitmer, Pritzker, whatever.

The only argument for Biden at this point is the incumbent advantage and when the national conversation for the rest of the year is going to be “are we sure he isn’t senile?” that advantage is negated.

A president's staff and appointees are supposed to do most of the work of running the executive branch. As for ageism vs. gerontocracy, yes, it's much better to have a president who is vigorous and able to absorb new information rapidly and decisively, but these qualities aren't an absolute necessity. What you really don't want is a situation where a president's incapacity or indecision creates a power vacuum and there is no way to resolve conflicting factions at the top levels of the administration. That can happen to any president, but the risk is much higher with an elderly one.

We still need a better alternative suggestion than "none of the above"

I have had this argument with friends who are like, "Who would be more electable?" My point is that we can't know that without a competitive primary. That's why we have primaries. If Biden hadn't run, we would've had probably 5 to 10 Democrats vying for it, and one of them would have shown the political skills to win the primary. Whoever that was would have been (imo) more viable and electable than Biden.

Open primaries are good for identifying political talent. It's how we got both Clinton and Obama, who — whatever you think of them as presidents — were very good presidential candidates.

_I don’t think you need a list of things younger person would be doing better to not assume you’d feel better if someone who wasn’t declining in front of our eyes was in control of the world’s largest military and a nuclear arsenal that can destroy humanity._

Sorry, but I think you kinda do. Most young people are fucking morons and I can't think of one I'd want as president.

It is mildly interesting that there is exactly one professional field wherein I (52) would be considered a young upstart whippersnapper, and happens to be extremely important

I wouldn't trust this guy to run a bath let alone the most powerful nation on Earth.

When I asked a 50+ and 40+ how young a candidate could be, everyone agreed 35 was too young, mostly citing how ignorant and immature they felt at 35. (But I didn't want to tell them they didn't strike me as that much more mature now!)