The 2024 Goat Rodeo Begins
(Courtesy of seekrit scissorhead @NamelessCynic of the Tweeters)
I think we can all agree that another round of The 4th Reich would be a disaster, whether it was headed by Hair Füror (again) or by up-and-coming authoritarian DerSantis. It’s not just that Democracy dies in Darkness, it is executed in the bright light of the Fox “News” Channel studios. Whatever we enjoy of our personal liberties will be gone; we nearly lost it last it in 2016.
How do you campaign against Lord Damp Nut? Our pals over at Electoral-Vote look at this question through the prism of ¡JEB!Santis:
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) had his plan all worked out. He was going to be the anti-woke candidate, punishing evil left-wing corporations, allowing parents to remove Heather Has Two Mommies from school libraries, and shipping migrants from Texas to Massachusetts. DeSantis is very methodical and his method was working fine until an obstacle appeared in his path out of nowhere: Donald Trump. Despite being very coy about his future plans, DeSantis roused the sleeping giant and now has to deal with him. Oops. So far, it is not goingaccording to his carefully laid plans.
Fundamentally, this is DeSantis’ problem. If he agrees with Trump on everything, basically running as Trump-lite, most Republicans will probably prefer the real thing. If he breaks sharply with Trump, he will get a lot of what electrical engineers call negative feedback. He’s not going to be able to avoid the problem for very long.
We’ve seen this with Democratic candidates, too. Can anyone forget how quickly Tim Ryan’s campaign(s) imploded when he tried Republican Lite? But I digest…
Other high-profile Republicans have hit the same roadblock before: Align yourself with Trump and you are a cheap imitation, but attack him and you are a traitor. Jason Roe, who worked on the presidential campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in 2016, put it succinctly: “I don’t think there’s a right playbook, unfortunately.”
Trump’s ride-or-die fans are about 30% of the base, but that is also his ceiling. The more Republicans enter the race, the more they dilute the power of the remaining 70%.
Now, if America want a fascist government (again) then the GOP has us covered with Trump v. DuhSantis, as Meatball will never be the nominee if Hair Füror is in the race. Why vote for the Lite when you can have the Real Thing?
DeSantis has been rattled by not being able to just carry out his plan in peace. His polling has suffered as a result. It’s certainly not fatal this early, but he is going to have to deal with this sooner or later, probably sooner. When he gives a speech about how much he hates woke, but all the questions afterwards are: “What do think about Trump’s remark this morning?” just walking out of the room without answering any of them is going to get old very fast.
And never forget that DerSantis has a very glass jaw.
Worse yet, before too long, Trump is going to start actively attacking DeSantis. Then when the questions are “How do you respond to Trump’s latest attack?”, talking about his glory days when he stuck it to Disney isn’t going to work. In short, DeSantis’ plan was conceived in a vacuum. He was going to go after woke and leave it at that. He wasn’t counting on an 8,000-pound elephant in the room standing in his path. He’d better rethink his plan, and fast.
If someone else can round up the other 70% (all the happy warrior talk aside, I have no idea who it could be, certainly none of the names bandied about in the WaPo Racing Forum have a chance), then Trump takes his 30% with him to sit out the 2024 Goat Rodeo, or more likely aims to destroy the Republican Party.
And the Democrat wins.
Mock Paper Scissors 
TFG has taken to calling Ron Desantis as Ron Dukakis. Seems apropos…
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The GQP is in a conundrum. Mango Mussolini is hung around their necks like the Ancient Mariner’s dead albatross that he killed.
The way out of this is to make a clean break, come to their senses and start moving the Overton Window back towards the middle, where they can continue to service their 0.01% paymasters, but the feral mob they have cultivated as their base will devour them if they try.
They will devour them if Orange Julius Caesar ISN’T the nominee.
They will devour them if Orange Julius Caesar IS the nominee.
He has done nothing for them but make them lose since the day he won by a fluke in 2016: 2020 and 2022 in particular.
So they’re stuck with their 28% crazification factor, thus the only way to keep the power they have is to pay ever-increasing obeisance to that base, which means ever more crazy shit, followed by ever more authoritarian measures to keep winning with a 28% minority.
This will continue to alienate the nominally Republican voters in the suburbs and exurbs, at some point (I feel and hope) this will result in the political equivalent of ruin and bankruptcy: slowly, then all at once.
Gerrymandering can only carry you so far, because that doesn’t work for statewide races.
A trump third party run will destroy them outright, in an orgy of nihilistic revenge by the 28%; a trump third run will continue their losses because all they’ll have to offer is what the feral mob wants, and all the feral mob has is inchoate rage and blind vengeance, and their twisted version of The Purge.
And the 28% is largely too old, fat and lazy for that shit. Even the proud boys are starting to get the shit kicked out of them, because they’ve just pissed off too many people.
the trick, of course, is managing to survive through it all and coming out the other side with our country more or less intact. This aint 1859 with a clear line dividing us; this is more like the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 90’s or Lebanon during the ’75-’90 civil war.
xkcd points this out
This isn’t a recipe for the American Civil war (or “national divorce” as margie traitortoes would put it), this is a recipe for the Bosnian war; neighbor against neighbor everywhere.
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This (gift article) somehow gives me more hope:
https://wapo.st/3KbAtRG
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Thank you!
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BDR –
Life imitating art or something? I don’t know how I didn’t see that one myself, so thank you for calling it out!
I wonder if any of Hair Füror’s legal team was across the street and reporting it to the boss?! I can only hope so. “Boss, the crowds are here demanding you are released!”
Rgds,
TG
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I have a sub to both the FTFNYT and WaPo (academic discounts are da bomb!) and it popped up in my morning summary email.
Honestly the Joker 2 content was more interesting to me.
It will be interesting to see this take on Harley Quinn, give the original’s take on Joker.
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I would like to see mass media and social media drop the term ‘anti-woke’. My preferred term is ‘intentionally ignorant’. Intentionally ignorant Governor Ron DeSantis or intentionally ignorant Representative Marjorie Taylor Green. I think that is much more accurate.
Of course, I’d also like to see the anti-abortion folks referred to as anti-abortion again. I know they insist on being called pro-life, but until they actually show they are REALLY pro-life no self-respecting media outlet should refer to them that way.
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