It’s not much consolation, but I do take a little solace in the fact that nearly all of the Trump-wannabes have crashed and burned on the ballot. So far, it seems like only Trump can pull of Trimpism. His ego won’t let him name a successor, so when he goes, there will be a MAGA void to fill and it might be difficult for a single person to fill it.

Will Trump’s natural death free us from right wing extremism? Absolutely not. But will one savvy politician gather all the support trump has? Not immediately, that’s for sure. When he’s gone, I bet 40% of his base will believe he’s still alive and the deep state is hiding him somewhere while Desantis-Cruz-Vance, etc are false prophets. I mean, Vance was supposed to be the savvy MAGA guy, and look how well liked he is.

You can decide if the steep increase November-January* was Trump or because he lost the election

Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/2324/sp-500-historical-chart-data

Musk’s attorneys filed documents Wednesday night in the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, a federal court, requesting the matter be moved to their jurisdiction

Yep, he’s get these charges moved from State to Federal court so Trump can pardon him.

I know Billionaires going to billionaire and all, but with Elon Musk so obviously having a strong position in Trump’s cabinet, wouldn’t it make sense to advocate against that administration? Elon is going to crush every private space and EV manufacturer in favor of his own companies. Elon is doing his best ‘toddler in a bounce house’ impression at the rallies. No way Bezos is going to compete or overcome Elon’s influence, especially since I doubt Trump will give a single fuck what his cabinet does.

Again, avoiding taxes is all they care about, but damn. Harris might raise his taxes a fraction of a sliver, but at least Blue Origin would get a fair shake at contracts.

You’re right, there are a lot of very liberal people in the ranks. There’s no disputing that. I’m just saying there are plenty of MAGAs around too, more than enough to cause havoc. And if shit starts going south, the GI bill nerds with degrees will head for the door because they have the qualifications to do so. They can stand up for the constitution because they will land on their feet after they get kicked out.

Generalizing myself here, the more conservative a troop is, the more likely the military is all they know. The promise of being special and fighting for the America they believe Trump will give them is more than enough to push some of them over the edge.

Maybe, the chain of command and lawful orders really only work if the participants are willing and there are repercussions. A MAGA general will know who his MAGA Colonels are and so on down the line. Could it be scaled to the entire military, maybe, no one has tried. But could a General, a handful of officers and 20 or so troops be selected as superior MAGA soldiers reporting directly to the president and his appointed chief of staff? I don’t think that’s improbable at all.

He’s been talking about sending the military after Adam Schiff and other “enemies within”. He definitely heard the SCOTUS arguments. If he’s president and he doesn’t get to fire someone, or everyone, I doubt he’ll hesitate to send a military unit to threaten or even kill them. Who’s going to stop him? Would 15-17 senators vote to impeach him? Would he try to kill them too? Did Tuberville’s General Promotion sabotage leave enough slots open for Trump to install his own “Hitler’s generals”?

I would say I’m being alarmist, but the man is on TV saying this is what he will do on day 1. If he wins, everyone, left and right, is fucked.

I hope you’re right, but in 2016, Clinton thought the toss up and lean blue states were safe and chose to pile resources into lean red/safe red states like Missouri, Texas, and Indiana. Admittedly, the political landscape of 2024 is different. AZ was also targeted by Clinton and the rapid push left in Texas has them worried enough to pass laws to invalidate blue district votes. But still, I hope you’re right and this isn’t a huge gamble.

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2016-10-17/hillary-clinton-campaign-looks-to-seize-red-states-from-donald-trump

Maybe, and while a fair amount of Trump supporters do agree with Project 2025, I bet an equally fair amount of them believe him when he claims he doesn’t know anything about it. Another large share knows it, but thinks the worst parts won’t happen or at least won’t effect them.

I have family that have been straight ticket Republicans their whole lives and voted for Trump. After Roe fell, they claimed they had no idea that would happen. They said Republicans had been saying they would ban abortion for years, and never thought they’d actually do it. They’ll take the easy way out and ignore Project 2025 the same way until it happens.

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NPR says it will go into effect in six months.

https://www.npr.org/2024/10/16/nx-s1-5154814/click-to-cancel-subscriptions-memberships-ftc-rule

Somewhere in West Texas, a non-profit company with a staff you can count on one hand is born to sue the FTC for damages claiming their finger muscles were atrophied by the lack of clicking or some other nonsense that will climb to a 6-3 vote.

I’m not sure why you’re getting down voted, you’re right. Going strictly by polls and ignoring registrations (which are trending favorable for R), strategy, finance, early voting, etc. Trump was neck and neck with Harris up to the debate. The debate say the sharpest shift toward Harris. Afterwards, he has been sticking to Golf and Rallies of his most loyal supporters, keeping him away from the general public. That put the polls back to a toss up.

If he did another debate, he’s on display to everyone again and that won’t go his way. Even if Harris fucks up, he’s still a fascist in decline. His campaign knows he needs to stay in safe spaces until the election is over

Not a direct reply, but I wanted to add a more detailed answer to your question than “It’s Fox”. I think that’s slight oversimplification. He’s center right and has become isolated as Fox programing is speeding further* right to capture MAGA viewers before they fall off the political spectrum and into Podcast or OANN.

So yes, Fox is sprinting to the right and he’s still employed by Fox, but he’s also not one of their political talk shows. He does news and has tried to keep the news accurate, albeit through a conservative lense. NPR had this to say about him last year:

According to Baier’s current and former colleagues, he stands very much alone at Fox News which has been pushed even farther to the right since the outset of the Trump years. Anchor Shepard Smith left Fox News in 2019 after primetime star Tucker Carlson targeted him on the air and the network did not publicly defend him. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace departed and two commentators who frequently appeared on Baier’s show resigned in late 2021 after Carlson’s avid defense of people who participated in the violent attack on the U.S. Congress in January 2021.

Some other details from that article are that he has done coverage contradicting the extreme programming from Carlson and tried to do hour-long coverage post 2020 election specifically to dispute Trump’s election claims, but Fox didn’t allow it.

So he’s still at Fox while his other real-journalist colleagues have left, making him center right at best. I argue, while it may be a less than fair interview, any Fox viewer that is not ride or die MAGA, is probably watching his show. Those are the voters that may be salvageable and Fox is the #1 viewed news media outlet in the country by a huge margin, over one-million more than MSNBC (#2)

After the 2020 election, Bret Baier was isolated at Fox News https://www.npr.org/2023/04/10/1168753288/the-loneliness-of-fox-news-bret-baier

Spoiler, Walters is 100% buying the Trump Bibles anyway. All this does is open the bidding a tiny bit more. Sure, someone can do a FOIA request and ask to see the bids, but they’ll ignore it. The Oklahoma State AG is currently sueing the Oklahoma State Department of Education for ignoring the AG’s own information requests. It’s just $5-6 million for Trump out of OK schools. But hey, it’s one of the best school systems if you flip the list up side down.

He did also claim, on 9/11 mind you, that he now had the tallest building in Manhattan. Which wasn’t even true.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/9-11-trump-tallest-building-manhattan-b2164420.html

Man, I can’t believe 10 years of Trump and people are still doing this “sure, he said that, but he’s actually a brilliant legal and political tactician and what he means is…”

The man is a moron, surrounded by the most hateful motherfuckers on the planet. He says what he Fucking means.

Thank God JD Vance, a white man, is there to protect black women specifically from seeking abortions. We all, conservative white men, know that they, black, don’t understand what they are doing. /S obviously

Additional statistics about the IRA, which Trump and Vance have vowed to defund, from E2 two years into the IRA:

Nearly 60 percent of the announced projects representing 85 percent of the investments and 68 percent of the jobs - are in Republican congressional districts. This despite the fact that no Republican voted for the legislation.

https://e2.org/reports/clean-economy-works-two-year-review-2024/