Um. . . 2024?
Yes, already.
Indeed, the 2024 election has been mentioned numerous times already in our threads on the 2022 election, which also appeared disturbingly early. And the reason is clear. . . the menacing specter of Donald Trump running again, and how the Republican Party is going to deal with that.
Trump's refusal to concede the 2020 election and his historic, and not in a good way, attempt to subvert that election through a prolonged refusal to acknowledged its results followed by supporting those who bought off on his conspiracy theories, leading to the January 6 insurrection, has caused him to retain his leadership role in the party in spite of loosing the Oval office and Capital Hill. And, as we've addressed elsewhere, it's made him the giant GOP elephant in the room both for the 2022 and 2024 elections. As he's a presumptive candidate for the GOP nomination. . . maybe even the presumptive nominee, both those who oppose him and those who hope to replace him as his political heir are lining up to position themselves for a run.
And the race is, effectively, on right now.
So far we have:
Republicans.
Donald Trump.
Trump has been addressed ad nauseum in other posts here recently, but the businessman who built his success on inherited money and selling himself identified his market correctly and sold himself to disenfranchised blue collar Americans. Trump isn't a conservative but rather a populist, and a dangerous one whose main focus is himself. Twice defeated in the popular vote, Trump seems unable to accept defeat in the 2020 General Election and has converted his base support into a near personality cult. he's clearly running for 2024.
His race presumes longevity which nature in general and his appearance would suggest may be hubris. The last two bulky Presidents, William H. Taft and Grover Cleveland lived to ages 63 and 71 respectively. Trump is already older than that and is demographically not well positioned to have nature allow him to run in 2024.
A Trump nomination will nearly guaranty a presumed Harris victory in 2024. Hardly noticed in all the concern for the Trump base in the GOP, his presence is driving conventional conservatives out of the party.
Liz Cheney
Cheney hasn't officially announced but its been predicted and hinted that she's positioning herself for a run. Of note, the first place that was predicted that I saw. . . was here.
Conventional Washington wisdom holds that she's in big political trouble in Wyoming, but the Wyoming GOP has shown itself to be made up mostly of a moderate rank and file and an extremely noisy far right politically active minority. The loud minority, if that's what it is, is busy presuming her defeat, but the fact that the rank and file is moderate and that Wyoming is effectively a one party state means that her reelection is likely. She's loud in her opposition to Trump's anti democratic actions and she likely is gambling on Democratic gains in the mid terms, a gamble which, at this point, is a good bet. If that all comes to pass she'll be in a position to demand with other conservatives that Trump go for good, and will be in a good position to be the conservative nominee in 2024.
Indeed, she's probably one of just a mere handful of Republicans that are actually electable to the Oval Office. She's not personable, but her bravery in taking on Trump has been very widely admired.
Chris Christie
Christie is the former Governor of New Jersey and has run for the Presidency, and lost in the primaries, before.
An early backer of Trump, he's converted himself into a post Gubernatorial pundit. He's a conservative with populist leanings and dumped Trump immediately upon his loss election night. Since then he's criticized Trump for maintaining the fantasy that he won the election but hasn't been vociferous about it in public, basically taking the same approach that Mitch McConnell has. In private he's apparently been blistering on the ongoing association of the GOP with Trump.
If he runs, and he's all but indicated he will be, he'll be more appealing to the Trump base than Cheney but less appealing to the conservatives, even though he is one. In a head to head with Cheney, he's likely to lose, but he is a serious candidate.
Ted Cruz
Cruz is clearly positioning himself to the Trump heir apparent and is betting on Trump not running due to decision or the advance of time.
Cruz seems to be a candidate that Texans like but he's really dislikable almost everywhere else. If he runs, and if Trump doesn't, he'll draw Trump voters early on but will fade. Indeed, my current prediction is that within the next four years he'll lose his Senate seat as well, which if it occurs will knock him out of the Presidential race.
Nikki Haley.
Haley is also positioning herself to be a Trump heir apparent, stating that she won't run if Trump does. I don't know much about the former South Carolina Governor, but she's occupying the same space that Christie does in the "friends of Trump" but not so friendly slot. That is probably why Christie attacked her recently in an interview, criticizing her statement that she'll defer first to Trump running.
Haley may be betting that Trump won't run due to age, infirmity, or nature and that her having deferred to him may help with the Trump base.
Democrats.
Democrats are really in the catbirds seat this election, as long as they don't screw something up. They may be doing that right now, however, by screwing up the economy. If their spending spree isn't checked, they may end up igniting inflation which will mean whomever is the GOP nominee in 2024, assuming that there isn't a new serious conservative party as well, will win the Oval office, probably.
That somewhat assumes that the GOP nominee isn't Trump. Trump lost the popular vote twice and in a Harris v Trump contest, Harris is going to win.
Joe Biden
Biden has stated since being elected that he expects to be a two term President. His advance age makes that highly unlikely but it was likely necessary for him to state that as a sitting President becomes an instant lame duck if he declares himself there for one single term.
Kamala Harris.
If Biden doesn't run, Harris clearly will.
Harris will be a polarizing figure whose mere presence in the race will ignite GOP conservatives, if any are left in the GOP by that point, against her. It'll also mean that the GOP effectively nearly has to nominate a woman, two of whom are mentioned above, as Harris having served as the first female Vice President will draw in votes merely because she will stand to be the first female President.
She'd also be far to the left of any US President ever, which is why conservatives, again if any remain in the GOP, will be highly motivated against her.
May 21, 2021
The much anticipated letter by over 100 Republicans has been issued as A Call for American Renewal. It did not call for a new party, as some speculated, but for reform of the GOP. It issued a manifesto that vague at best.
What's mostly clear is that its the formation of an organization dedicated to taking the GOP back from the Trumpites, which is something, but which right now is a long haul. The organization is holding a national town hall on June 16.
May 26, 2021
The New York Attorney General's office has announced that its investigation of the Trump organization is now a criminal investigation and it will be submitting its findings to a grand jury. Trump has termed it a "witch hunt".
A poll just released shows Trump to be the GOP front runner for 2024, which is rightly interpreted as showing the widespread support he retains in the party, so far, but which fails to note that some of that is due to the mass exodus of conventional Republicans from the party. The party now represents about 25% of voting Americans, which isn't that much better actually than Democrats who are around 30%, but the GOP is hemorrhaging voters due to Trump.
Populist Trump supporters aren't going to be convinced by an indictment, and New York's AG is on the hardcore left wing so there's reason to doubt anything that comes from that quarter, but this gets to a prediction we noted elsewhere in regard to the actions of Elizabeth Cheney. Trump may actually be relatively close to major legal trouble that might cause his general support among voters to evaporate and which could outright disqualify him from running. How this will develop isn't yet known, but current events are dooming the chances of the GOP in 2022 and 2024.
May 28, 2021
In dual examples of delusion, Matt Gaetz has hinted that if Donald Trump doesn't run for President in 2024, he might.
Gaetz will be quite frankly really lucky if by 2024 he isn't serving time.
And Marjorie Taylor Greene has indicated that she and Gaetz are "taking charge" of the GOP.
It's getting hard to recall that the GOP was once associated pretty closely with evangelical Christianity and that a fair number of people with really serious religious beliefs opted for the GOP because of that, mostly because of the Democrats position on abortion and other social issues is in fact antithetical to Christianity. That was before the populist influx into the GOP, however, for which religion is sort of a background issue in some ways.
Indeed, Matt Gaetz expressly acknowledged a libertine view towards sex that's completely contrary to the Christian faith, crediting himself with treating his paramours well, financially. I don't know anything about Marjorie Taylor Greene in regard to this, but her bull in a china shop attitude, and statements on various things, pretty clearly aren't what most Christians would regard as Christian in attitude.
Besieged Anthony Bouchard, who in fairness has never campaigned on religious issues, didn't come across as repentant in his recent revelations in regard to his teenage years, and instead blames having to reveal them on the "fake news" industry, which has seemingly reported everything correctly and, moreover, in the case of the US press, has been pretty delicate on them.
All of which gets to this. From roughly 1973 up to 2020, the GOP attracted a lot of faith oriented voters. They've been struggling ever since the election of Donald Trump, however, who claims to be a man of faith but whose personal life is extremely difficult to reconcile with that. Post 2020 its becoming really confusing.
Which leads back to this.
What the crap is going on in the GOP and when will they get their house in order, if they are going to.
That may not seem to be immediately related, but frankly it is.
A friend of mine from elsewhere who isn't in the populist camp but is a dedicated conservative, in a discussion on Bouchard, noted that he pretty clear didn't like Cheney, and that all she wanted to do is to discuss Trump. Liking Cheney or not, i.e. setting that aside, there's some merit to that criticism, and some reason to criticize that view.
Truth be known, probably the majority of Republican Senators don't like Trump and never did. For Republican Congressman of pre 2016 vintage, which would be a considerably smaller number, probably most of them don't either. For post 16 GOP Congressman you probably have around half, I'd guess, that don't really care for Trump in varying degrees, and half that do in varying degrees, with maybe half of them being dedicated Trumpites whose loyalty to Trump means more to them than anything else. There's reason to discuss how they got there, and for some its one or two issues that really matter, and for others its something else.
Anyhow, most Republicans are afraid of the Trump populists. A few, like Cheney, aren't. Most of the ones who are don't seem to see the moderate Republicans running out of the party, which perhaps is something they should be afraid of. I.e., they ought to be afraid that Greene is exactly correct, she, Gaetz will end up the Alte Kampfer of a GOP internal coup, with that party declining to down below 20% of the American voter, at which time it will simply expire.
So here's what's really going on fight wise. There are three camps. We might term them the McConnell/McCarthy camp, the Cheney/Romney camp/ and the Greene/Gaetz camp.
The McConnell/McCarthy camp is banking on Trump dying, having a stroke, or maybe going to jail, at which time they'll emerge back on top. Their plan is to say nothing at all bad about Trump, as they figure when he goes to his eternal or temporal reward, they'll still be there to pick up the pieces. Of course, a real question is how many pieces of the GOP puzzle will be left by then, but they're banking that conservatives won't really leave or will come back.
In other words, they want everyone to shut up for four years, after which they figure Trump will be a resident of a Federal guest house, on life support, or under a memorial at Mara Lago. All will be forgiven, George F. Will will come back home, and they populist will be reined back in.
The Cheney/Romney camp figures that Trump's amazing longevity in spite of an unhealthy lifestyle, a trainload of ex wives, and constant threats of prosecution, will win out and if something isn't done about him right now politically, he'll be the 2024 GOP candidate. That, they figure will see every Republican still in the party with a community college degree or more leave forever, at which time the GOP goes extinct. Cheney's the most prominent member of this camp, but the 100 Republicans who signed a letter to form a new organization hold the same view. Paul Ryan, now edging towards a 2024 Presidential run, is in this camp also.
And then there's the Greene/Gaetz wing. Trump is their hero, and they hold deeply populist views that aren't grounded in theology or philosophy, but a hard edged nativist cultural instinct. Their views are closer to Nathan Bedford Forrest, in other words, that to William F. Buckley. They figure their hero, Trump, will be around and run in 2024, but they also figure, like the inner circle at the Kremlin in 1953, or in Bergtesgarden in 1944/45, that if the leader falls, they're the next leader.
That's the irony here. Quite a few of the Trumpites believe he will be the candidate in 2024 and are looking forward to it. Trump holds that view most of all. But quite a few aren't quite so convinced and probably have their knives out for each other. Greene figures she's the leader. Gaetz figures he's the leader. Ted Cruz is sure he's the leader.
Whose right in all of this we cannot, of course, be sure. We'll find out. But my guess is that it isn't the Trumpites, as 2022 is likely to hurt the GOP in a fashion that the McConnell/McCarthy camp can't ignore. Folks like my friend, I suspect, may be viewing Cheney as a bit of a hero by 2023.
Ultimately what this means is something additional, in regard to this thread, as well. Will the GOP ticket in 2024 be Trump/Greene (no way Pence is coming back for anything), Cruz/Lummis or Cheney/Ryan. It could, of course, be none of the above.
My present guess it'll be the third of those options.
May 28, cont:
Paul Ryan reentered the political sphere with a speech stating that the Republican Party should not be about one man.
In predictable fashion, Trump, presiding over a party whose numbers are smaller every day, largely due to objections to Trump, and which features a major internal fight over how to deal with his post November legacy, lashed out against Ryan.
Ryan is being somewhat dismissed, but he shouldn't be. He dropped off the radar when Trump overwhelming it, and his reentering now suggest that he, like Cheney, are sensing a shift in the wind. It's easy to dismiss them now, but as things grow closer to 2022, and then beyond it, their positions and actions now will either be regarded as prescient in some fashion.
May 29, 2021
Perhaps an item not really belonging to be in this thread, or perhaps it is.
Following their leader, Mitch McConnell, all but six Republican Senators voted against a 9/11 style commission on the insurrection, a move they hope will help the public forget what occurred and perhaps forget Trump by 2022 and 2024. Barrasso and Lummis were part of the six.
This, of course, with the filibuster rule in place.
The mother of Officer Brian Sicknick requested just before the vote to meet with every Senator. Barrasso did, but Lummis did not, citing scheduling conflicts. A spokesman noted the loss of her husband a few years ago in a claim that she understood what it was like to lose a love one, but frankly that probably only serves to point out that she didn't find time for Mrs. Sicknick.
While McConnell's tactic prevents a 9/11 style commission from occurring, it's one more step towards eliminating the filibuster, which is probably only shy three votes now from occuring.
November 23, 2021
Joe Biden has confirmed that he is running in 2024 for President.
There's some speculation that this may be posturing, to keep him from appearing as a lame duck President so early in his term.
November 26, 2021
Following a visit to New Hampshire, there is building speculation that Liz Cheney will run for the Oval Office in 2024.
Of cousre, she'll have to keep her seat, probably, in 2022 in order for that to be a viable option.
November 29, 2021
On Meet the Press, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen claimed that Trump will not run for office in 2022 as he's "grifting" the American public, and running would not serve that interest, and further Cohen feels he'll lose if he runs.
January 3, 2022
In an absolutely frightening conjunction, all three major weekend political shows featured evidence that the attempt to steal the 2020 election by President Trump really commenced well prior to the election itself. More frightening yet, it's now plain that Trump's campaign is attempting to steal the 2024 one should he run and not obtain a majority of electoral votes.
In the face of this, about the only thing that's happening is that the January 6 Committee is set to start releasing in the next few weeks what it has found publicly. There are slight hints that matters may be referred to the Attorney General's office to determine if Trump should be prosecuted.
My predication is that he will be.
It now also seems clear that Liz Cheney will run for President in 2024.
Of interest, one thing that has developed statistically is that participants in the January 6 insurrection disproportionately come from areas that have undergone a demographic change recently, so there's a strong belief among those participants in the "Great Replacement" theory. This explains a lot of what is occurring, as those individuals are discounting their oppositions' legitimacy entirely.
One two shows it was pointed out that Trump's first claims of "stolen election" went back to the 2016 primary and were first used against Ted Cruz, ironically enough, in one of the primary contests. Running up to the election, he telegraphed beforehand that if Clinton won, it could only be because the election was stolen.
A conservative columnist on This Week pointed out that in fact Clinton was reluctant to actually concede that Trump's election was valid. A Republican House member who did come out publicly against Trump was nearly in despair over the whole thing, but also went back to the 2020 riots to point out that neither side really is that ready to accept a democratic result.
There's something to that which goes back to something I've tried to start as a post here several times and abandoned. In some real ways, the root of the January 6, 2021 insurrection goes back to liberal resort to the Courts to force social changes on the country, which was a predominant part of the history of the country in the late 20th Century. Starting with legitimate reversals of dubious decisions holding up institutional racism, proof that stare decisis really isn't all that much, it went on starting in the 1970s force a liberal world view on the country where it could, most notably, early on, with Roe v. Wade. That decision marked a full scale commitment to change by court decision over ballot box by the left. It also started the process of alienation of a lot of the right wing. The final decision of that type was the notable Obergefell decision, which fell in the same category and which had a much deeper social impact than liberals imagine.
These decisions convinced traditionally minded people that a liberal campaign to force a liberal worldview on the country was in full swing and that it was antidemocratic, which has some strong elements of truth to it. Congressional inability to address real problems inflicting the working class made the impression worse, with a combined blind eye towards a huge immigration rate impacting that class disproportionaly at the same time that jobs were shipped overseas. This has all contributed to a populist radicalization of the blue collar, lower middle class, and even some of the middle middle class and upper middle class that's of a very traditionalist mindset. Discounting the legitimacy of their opposition they were and are ready to believe that elections not going to conservative populists are being stolen in spite of no evidence to that effect, and are silently willing to discount the legitimacy of liberal politics and politicians.
This is going to be really hard to crawl back from, although ironically the process has started. The Supreme Court has been fixed, albeit only recently, and that is about to force social issues back to state legislatures where they largely belonged. A forty year project, the restoration of democracy in this sense is a conservative triumph, but it may be one that will be lost as a result of where we now are.
Or not, if Republicans like Cheney prevail in their party. For Democrats, it's time to restore a belief in campaigning over litigating, something that doesn't seem to have really fully sunk in yet, although there's evidence that they grasped that in the 2020 election. What they clearly haven't grasped yet is how to legislative in Congress Really anti Democratic bills have emerged in state legislatures which could be trumped in the national one, but they instead seem completely stuck in the mud on large infrastructure and massive policy bills instead.
In other political news, Andrew Yang has launched (some time ago actually) a new politcal party called the Forward Party. It's motto is "not right, not left, but forward".
His welcoming letter states:
Hello and welcome to the Forward Party!
I started the Forward Party for a few big reasons. The main one is one we can all see – the current two-party duopoly is not working. While the two major parties have different issues, we can all see that polarization is getting worse and worse, with 42% of both parties regarding the other as not just mistaken but evil. Neither side is able to meaningfully solve problems, so we all get angrier and angrier.
Worse, the incentives of our leaders are not necessarily lined up with ours, in large part due to a closed primary system that disproportionately empowers those with the highest stake in government. Approval of Congress stands at about 28% while individual members sport re-election rates of 92%.
We are also left with an out-of-date bureaucracy ill-suited to solve the problems of today. Washington D.C. is painfully behind the curve, in part because of a seniority system that has led to a gerontocracy.
Indeed, 60% of Americans now regard both parties as out of touch, and 57% want a third party. Most Americans want common sense solutions that would improve our lives - like Universal Basic income - and sense that we will be waiting forever for those solutions to arrive.
So why, if a majority of Americans want a third party, has none succeeded?
One, the Internet is still a relatively recent phenomenon.
Two, the gravity of the dysfunction and the polarization are higher than ever.
But the main reason is structural – the two parties right now control the primary system, which makes it very difficult for any meaningful third party to emerge. You can’t win races.
Imagine a duopoly that prevents any effective competition. That’s what we presently have in the United States.
Changing this is both extraordinarily difficult yet imperative for our future. We need to push for open primaries and ranked-choice voting in Congressional races around the country. This would both diminish polarization by making it so that our representatives answer to the broad majority rather than the partisan few, and enable new parties and perspectives to emerge. It would make our entire country more reasonable.
I also have a hope for a positive political movement that is not born of rage and demonization, but on optimism and solutions. This is an inclusive movement. You can participate while retaining your current party registration if you’d like, as we know that in many locations de-registering would effectively disenfranchise you from your local politics. Forward is positive and practical. We believe in people of every political alignment that want to help the country.
If this is the kind of mission that appeals to you, welcome to the Forward Party.
-Andrew Yang
Third parties haven't done well in the US as a rule. The last really significant one was the Progressive Party, which did see largescale defection from the Republican Party, but which failed to elect its candidate Theodore Roosevelt. Governor Carey of Wyoming, however, was in it, although he had been elected as a Republican. The Prohibition Party did not succeed, obviously, but it was influential as well. The Progressive and Populists Parteis of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century were actually quite influential, so perhaps they can be regarded as successful in heavily influencing both the GOP and the Democrats of that era.
The last fully successful start up party was the Republican Party. That's often noted, but as the Whigs had collapsed, it wasn't really a "third party".
Anyhow, things are a mess right now and Yang does command quite a bit of public attention. While Yang has real points, however, he's most likely to pull from the Democrats, which would help the populist Trump loyalists.
There's been a lot of speculation about a conservative third party as well, but nothing has materialized and it appears extremely unlikely that anything will. So the struggle over what conservatism means, or if it will even exist, will take place in the GOP.
April 4, 2022
John Sununu blasted former President Trump at the Gridiron Club dinner on Saturday, calling him "fucking crazy".
Sununu is expected to run for President in 2024.
Sununu also went after My Pillow figure Mike Lindell, who has been trying to prove that Trump won the 2020 election, which he definately did not. Regarding Lindell, Sununu stated:
This guy’s head is stuffed with more crap than his pillows, And by the way, I was told not to say this, but I will: His stuff is crap. I mean, it’s absolute crap. You only find that kind of stuff in the Trump Hotel,
Holding nothing back, he also stated, regarding Ted Cruz: "What is with Ted? You see that beard? He looks like Mel Gibson after a DUI or something.”
Speeches at the Gridiron Club are supposed to be satirical, but Sununu's were clearly beyond that and state a sharp departure with Trump.
April 11, 2022
In a campaign rally in North Carolina, Donald Trump claimed that he has to be "the cleanest sheriff" and stated that he may be "the most honest human being, perhaps, that God ever created."
April 15, 2022
Park County's Republican Party voted to issue a letter to John Barasso rebuked Senator John Barasso on the basis that he voted for the recent budget, being the only member of Wyoming's Congressional delegation to do so. While a spokesman complained that he was "headed down the path of Liz Cheney", Cheney didn't vote for the budget. One of the county GOP voters stated "Next time, he's next", suggesting that the party will go after him as it has Cheney.
Their complaint on the budget was based on it including funding for Planned Parenthood. The budget did include the same. Barasso, however, generally receives very low marks from Planned Parenthood.
Barasso failed to vote with Trump's policies only 11% of the time when the former President was still in office. Cheney, for that matter, only did 7% of the time. Barasso, moreover, supported the President after the January 6 insurrection, which Cheney obviously did not. The fact that the GOP would go after him now is not only surprising, but telling regarding the current state of the party.
I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are…
Liz Cheney appeared as a guest on Meet The Press today. Relevant to the current election, she indicated that she's not voting for Harriet Hageman or Chuck Gray, and that anyone who is concerned about democracy, cannot.
Cheney also predicated that if Donald Trump is the nominee in 2024, the GOP will split into two parties and a new conservative party will arise. She all but indicated that she'd be willing to be its nominee.
This likely, given the source, should not be taken as idle talk but as an indicator that there's an effort to develop a new conservative party, in that event, right now.
November 8, 2022
Former President Trump warned his chief rival Ron DeSantis that a DeSantis bid for the Oval Office in 2024 could harm the Republican Party.
M'eh.
November 15, 2022
In a blistering act of a hypocrisy, Cynthia Lummis, when asked if she was going to support Donald Trump should he announce his run for the Oval Office in 2024 today, stated:
I don't think that's the right question. I think the question is who is the current leader of the Republican Party. Oh, I know who it is: Ron DeSantis.
Eee gads. Lummis has gone from anti Trump, to pro Trump Senator voting not to certify the election, on to pro DeSantis.
Why did Wyoming want her there? Some sort of human GOP weathervane?
Mike Pence, regarding an anticpated Trump run, has said this time the GOP will have "better options", implying that 1) Trump isn't the best option, and 2) last time he was the least bad option for the GOP in some fashion.
Related threads:
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