No, Trump isn’t the only person “who can save America”
[Hat tip: commenter “that guy.”]
Right at the outset, the title of this piece annoyed me: “Only Trump Can Save America.” My quarrel with it? No one person can “save America,” although one person – if elected president – can certainly help it begin to happen. But to do that, such a person would first have to get elected. Is Trump that person? I’m not at all sure he could get elected, although I’m pretty sure he could and will get nominated by the GOP.
Is DeSantis or is Haley that person? I definitely think DeSantis could be that person – but again, he’d have to get nominated first and then elected. Neither looks probable at this point, and neither has looked probable for many many months. So I pretty much gave up on that long ago.
I realized quite early in the campaign season that Trump was almost certainly going to be the nominee – barring black swan events – and I don’t know why everyone else didn’t realize it as well. I have long seen the race for second place as a competition to be the Trump alternative if something were to happen that would mean Trump couldn’t run, and I therefore think it’s fine if the second-place race continues for at least a while.
From the article:
Those of us who backed Ron DeSantis – or the other Republican candidates – should read the room. Former President Trump winnowed the field effortlessly and then crushed the remaining three candidates in Iowa. He leads in the polls everywhere else.
Is the writer, Steve Cortes, just noticing that? Is he only now “reading the room”? But it’s been quite obvious almost from the start of the race. Iowa was merely a demonstration of what has been apparent for ages.
Then he follows up with this:
It is time to coalesce and unite behind the clear preference of the GOP grassroots, Donald John Trump.
No, it’s not. As I’ve said before, that second-place battle is important. A lot of Republican voters don’t prefer Trump, and they don’t want to be prematurely deprived of their chance to vote for alternatives in the primaries. This is not a coronation.
Cortes continues:
We do not have the luxury of further internal strife and instead must gird for an epic battle this autumn against our opponents who are inflicting daily damage upon America.
“Internal strife” has long been a GOP constant, so forget about ending it. And calling to prematurely unite behind Trump when the primaries have barely begun might even increase that strife, because many Republican voters – probably close to half – might resent it.
And if the GOP leaders haven’t already been “girding for an epic battle this autumn against our opponents,” then we’re in even bigger trouble. It is possible to have several candidates competing in the primaries while at the same time not just “girding” for a battle later on against Democrats, but fighting that battle right now.
It would be nice if the also rans started bashing the Dems, and not Trump and each other. Oh well.
It would have been nice if Trump hadn’t made it his business to trash a very successful conservative governor.
Once the indictments started, it was all over, and that was the plan the whole time, bc the Democrats want Trump to be the nominee.
Kate:
Yes. But I expect that from Trump. What really annoyed me was several prominent bloggers (and many commenters) spreading lies about that particular governor, a person they’d admired until he challenged Trump.
mikeski:
They did want to encourage his nomination, but the question is whether that will backfire on them if his popularity among voters as a whole continues to increase.
SHIREHOME:
Of course they bash the Democrats.
Trump is one man who can’t save America. He is divisive and the division is damaging America.
He is more concerned with defeating his rivals than doing the right thing.
Trump is always good for a bit of comedy, he really has a talent for it, but that is not what you want in a President.
What happened the first time he saved America
Both the ” Never Trumpers ” and the ” Ever Trumpers ” annoy me. One group tends to thinks Trump is the devil and the other tends to think he is the American Messiah. He is neither, in my opinion.
“Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. ” Psalm 146:3-4 KJV
Except for their current position on Ukraine I can’t think of anything useful to come out of Great Britain since Maggie Thatcher, so you, DCL, should be more concerned about your own country’s salvation. A CC™ from the other side of the pond.
Rue Brittania.
Democrats like to claim support for Trump is a “cult,” and those bloggers and commentators who turned on a dime to slime the conservative governor have lent some amount of credibility to the claim, unfortunately.
Along with Jon baker, above, I think Trump is neither the devil nor a messiah.
Everyone is looking backwards, Trump is 77 and Biden 81 so I guess you have to expect backward-looking from them and their camps. Refighting the last campaign, disputing the election outcome, unfair! unfair!
Meanwhile the future is rushing at us with a host of crises and opportunities. War, changing alliances, AI and quantum computing, a space race, demographic collapse, mass migrations to the rich and developed world, insane energy policies and climate cult generated catastrophes.
Not a statesman or strategist to be found, the political classes in the UK, US, and EU are horrible and the enemies of the West are on the move.
Things will get seriously messy without strong and clear geopolitical sense from a leadership group that is capable of steadying things and restoring trust. Steve Cortes misses all that in foolishly thinking restoring Trump, and thereby somehow righting past wrongs, will situate us for the interesting but terrifying future that is hurtling towards us while Trump entertains us and Biden does whatever it is he does.
I realized quite early in the campaign season that Trump was almost certainly going to be the nominee – barring black swan events – and I don’t know why everyone else didn’t realize it as well.
–neo
I’ve long been aware that Trump would be the front-runner. I had thought/hoped that DeSantis would give Trump more competition. It is true that DeSantis is charisma-challenged.
However, I also wonder to what extent the blatant legal persecution of Trump firmed up support for him, whether that was Dem strategy or not.
I give my governor a lot of leeway but this is stupid
https://twitter.com/TheNatPulse/status/1748082324376338666
Accepting this poisoned chalice of a fraudulent election may have doomed us irrevocably
Ron DeSantis was a REMF lawyer in the Navy. There is no shortage of lawyers in Congress, arguably a legalistic approach is toothless without very strong political support in Congress.
His website takes a conservative position on a number of issues. But not one word about the Deep State, not one word about WEF, not one word about the Military-Industrial complex, not one word about the political weaponization of the DOJ, FBI, IRS, FDA, CDC, etc. Not one word about Academia, teacher’s unions or the ‘woke’ agenda.
In fairness, his website states; “BREAK THE SWAMP AND PROMOTE ACCOUNTABILITY.” but fails to give any insight into how he plans to accomplish that goal. Much less how he plans to get Congress to support him in breaking the swamp.
All of this is of concern, make of this what you will.
Miguel – perfect example of how the DeSantis campaign is just as petty and thin-skinned as anything Trump’s campaign has done.
Geoffrey Britain has his nappies in a twist about Ron DeSantis. Funny thought Geoffrey, how many citizens serve in the armed forces nowadays, a percentage would be good enough? DeSantis served, voluenteered, wasn’t drafted. So put your REMF trash talk where the sun don’t shine. Why don’t you focus on his record in Florida, or contrast it with Haley, or President Trump.
Who likes lawyers? Until you need one. More trash talk: WEF, DAVOS, NATO, military industrial complex? What about the Spanish Inquisition?
Make what of your rant? It’s a rant.
This is what Jeremy Redfern, DeSantis’ press secretary, said on Twitter today:
You know he will sign $7.8T in debt, have no problem with locking down the country, and he will “take the guns first, due process second.”Trump will allow your civil liberties to get crushed under a “public health emergency.”
There is no difference between the two campaign styles anymore.
om- you didn’t address a single valid point Geoffrey made.
I Cllahan:
Do you know what REMF means? Rear Echelon Mother F*cker. So, by Geoffey logic everyone who isn’t in direct contact with the enemy is to be disdained?
Geoffrey was a ordnance man on a carrier in the Vietnam War IIRC. He wasn’t a SEAL, on a Swift Boat (unlike John F Kerry), flying combat missions (like JJ or Oldflyer). Should Geoffrey’s time in the Navy be disparaged? Is John F Kerry’s service more esteemed than Geoffrey’s?
Ron DeSantis doesn’t claim to have been an ‘operator’ in a SEAL team, but a military lawyer (Judge Advocate General JAG) with the SEALs. Yep, the US military goes to war with lawyers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Advocate_General's_Corps). Shocked you be!
Some JAGs are not so bright though. One JAG raised a stink about match type ammunition used by snipers; Geneva Convention and bullets. Some lawyers are good and some aren’t.
Trash talk, I Callahan. Cheap shots too.
Did Geoffrey make any valid points?
Do you have a point to make?
I started to worry about DeSantis’ ability to compete when he started his initial pitch for why he was running with some 4+ point word salad.
We are past the technocrats and their policy wonk. He needed to speak to the concerns of his base and to the fence sitters.
Although the nomination battle is over (how long it’s been over is a poly sci question), the VP race is alive and electric. As you’d expect, an essential characteristic of prospective VPs is openly acknowledging that 2020 was rigged and stolen.
Unsurprisingly, the thoroughly rotten GOPe (Bush, McConnell, etc) will never admit to the illegitimacy of the Alzheimer Sniffington regime. But other prominent Republicans have been relatively circumspect on the topic.
Something to watch for: Who will now rise to the challenge and denounce The Steal loudly and proudly? The game is afoot!
I just read this article and found it completley inane. The Trump worship and cult is full on display and the thought that he can save anything is funny if not so tragic. If he were to win in November (Spoiler alert – he won’t) he would not be able to govern and the three ring circus we had during his first administration will be followed by Part II. Any Trump victory would be at best pyrrhic since the GOP would be slaughtered in the 2026 House and Senate races. But that is ok for DJT because all he cares about is himself and being venerated by his disciples.
How much do his fans think he would be able to govern and who in their right minds would want to serve in his administration knowing that they will forever be tainted by him and his behavior or more likely that they will be denigrated with the crudest of nicknames and insults?
I think BrooklynBoy’s comment is very good. So I suggest non-OnlyTrumpers continue to support their candidates (hopefully DeSantis). If Trump gets the nomination but is unable to serve, the backup quarterback comes in.
If Trump gets the nomination and is able to serve, I will gladly vote for him. His first term was very successful, except for failing to rein in spending, and the 2020 Floyd/Covid follies. Still, he was in uncharted territory for the latter, so I will cut him some slack.
No Democrat or third-party candidate is an acceptable alternative to Trump.
yes if they refuse to follow through with the reason, they were sent to Washington,
tax cuts being the least of it, then they will lose, look at what Romney and Murkowski have done, Portman was an improvement, I was never keen on Dr Oz, but he could pass the voight kampf test, they spent the equivalent of 20 walls on ukraine, because reasons, lets not bring up the appointees they couldn’t wait to approve like garland austin and co,
Cortes tried his best against Trump and lost, spending twice as much, will there be much of a country by November, with all this silly chatter, with surrenders on the border, in the Levant, with the resurgent Taliban emirate I doubt it,
@ om – just out of curiosity – have you ever been to the UK?
The truth is decisions made in the US deeply affect us. If you lot fall apart we will be in trouble.
If Trump dumps NATO, stops support for the Ukrainians, puts up trade barriers, ignores the need for action on climate change and generally destabilises the international (dis)order then we will feel the consequences.
If he engages in constitutional experimentation creating a new type of Presidency allowing him to break the law without being prosecuted. Or if he allows the Heritage foundation to unpick the US state then it makes no real difference to us other than setting a precedent for a type of government that isn’t so popular over here. I for one would be really interested to see the impact of a much smaller state on the US.
no he just asked them to pay their fair share, but that was too many bridges to cross, funny how it was on Biden and before him Obama’s watch Putin was emboldened, why does the EU have trade barriers, climate change, omg you’re cereal. They have dismantled our energy infrastructure and are on the way to make transportation impossible,
Johnson had promise, but he put Matt Hancock in charge of the health department, and he pushed the ruinous lockdowns, the less said of truss and sunak, the better,
they have as much as conceded the huge mandate they had after brexit, on every front
they as much as handed it to the real Commie which is the Labour party, on immigration on jobs on cultural identity,
@ Miguel cervantes wow – I have no idea where to start with all that. Have you been to the UK? There is some merit in a couple of things you say. Europe needs to pay more for NATO and Trump said so. However Putin is desperate for Trump to win to cause problems for Ukraine.
Johnson was, and is, a complete clown. Very clever and a genuine comic personality but created chaos in a government over which he rarely exercised much control.
Do UK political stories get much coverage over there these days? I always felt US media rarely bothered. US politics gets in depth coverage her and with quite a range of views although it has to be said most find Trump difficult to explain. It comes across a bit like the gun thing – we get the theory of it but cannot work out why you would be so keen.
no they understand each other, the strikes in syria, east and west, made putin not venture too aggressively, while people were talking about helsinki! if it meant anything, I thought the approaches to the kim dynast were foolish, but they worked for a time,
Hancock who served the Fauci function, was worse than the Vikings against England, Rule Britannia has become Perfidious Albion and Londinstan he pushed the lockdowns that destroyed britain, I’ve read as much of the Daily Telegraph and the Mail the Times is possibly the most wrong in reporting the news, sans the BBC and ITV that CNN imported almost whole sale,
Trump is easy to explain, he saw the deinduustrialization of the country as great a Threat as the Soviets, he didn’t see the Cultural issues as paramount, but they are part of the pincer, illegal immigration is foundational, that was as much motivation for this coup,
whether the last two interventions were wrong
I will not argue, but the fact they were carried out with remarkable incompetence is very clear, maybe that was the point
certainly in Iraq, the Authorities handed over control to the Iranian proxies in Basra, as the US did in large part in Baghdad,
“. . . the gun thing . . . we get the theory . . . ”
It was never a “theory”, but a practical matter at the very root of any possible politics, so no surprise you’re mystified.
Geoffrey Britain, You call DeSantis an ‘REMF’, which is a strange term for someone who served in Fallujah in any role. I think the actual REMFs never got closer to the action than the Green Zone in Baghdad, Or some might even say that a classic REMF would be one Donald Trump, who described a military boarding school as rougher than actual military service, and sat out other conflicts in an IVY League business school courtesy of multiple draft deferments.
Cortes noted: “We do not have the luxury of further internal strife and instead must gird for an epic battle this autumn against our opponents who are inflicting daily damage upon America.”
Well, some would call this internal strife competition; and say that it is very well for Trump to be challenged before he faces the Democrat machine. Maybe at some point he will be required to hone his message about why he should be the next President, and quit harping on why he wasn’t reelected four years ago. (I don’t dispute that he should have been reelected, but that ship sailed years ago.)
like the magna carta question, one argument that apparently is too remote for humble citizens
its an opinion, not a binding statement, yes they stole the country out right for the reasons we don’t want to belabor too much now, Trump pointedly did not fund Gaza or the PA, for reasons we know now. He didn’t know about Faucis crimes against humanity nor that the other parties that funded Daszak
DCL:
First, I have never been to Great Britain. (Sacr warning) Everything I know about Great Britain I learned from P.G. Wodehouse, Jane Austin, Masterpiece Theater, James Bond, John le Carré, Rudyard Kipling, GG Chesterton, that old dude Shakespeare, and The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Times; but again I’ve never been there. I’ve only been taught about England, it’s people, and history since grade school.
Now, have you been to the USA, beyond NYC? But does my travel or your travel make any difference, except as a pretext to label someone as insular and ignorant? My spouse and sister in law had a wonderful time in London (two weeks, two years ago, I was working and dog sitting; duty called). Is all of England like London? Wait for it, ,…… , no.
So how do you plan to fix the mess in Great Britain? Thought police etc,?
Your worries about Climate Change is a clue to your priorities. Your list of horrible outcomes should The Great Orange Whale be reelected ignores the fascistic actions of the left in the US and the twisted priorities of the current junta. Did you buy the Hunter Laptop is Russian disinformation, that the January 6, 2021 mostly peaceful protest was an armed insurrection?
You appear to be the European annex to the Concerned Conservative.
So here is something for you to consider:
Trump ‘Was Right’: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s Shocking MAGA Comments Have the Internet Talking
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2024/01/19/jamie-dimon-maga-comments-n2168920
I was a bit harsh about Great Britain not doing anything right since Maggie Thatcher other that their support for Ukraine against Russian imperialism;
Great Britain was a steadfast ally in Iraq and Afghanistan. BHO and Brandon have totally thrown all that away.
DCL, your comments and what your readings in UK sources tell you about the USA make it clear that it is more than just a not-completely-common language which separates us.
Your political leadership and your royalty are committed to policies on “climate change” which work against the health, safety, and well-being of your people. British former colonists in America worked to ratify a constitution which guarantees freedom of speech, religion, and assembly, and self-defense, freedoms which are no longer available to British subjects in the land of my ancestors.
After the Charlie Foxtrot of the 2020 election and the similar catastrophe that was the 2022 mIdterm election the upper echelon Republicans are either complicit or deserving of their sobriquet of “The Stupid Party if they are not preparing for everything short of physical warfare (and maybe even some rather hefty protests like are starting for the Anti Zionists) for the 2024 election. And as far as I can tell they have NOT done that. So which is it Ms. McDaniel (Nee Romney) are you and your fellow travellers submorons or 5th columnists?
seeing as dominion only now is coming to a serious inquiry, some commentary from persons who had no knowledge doesn’t cut it,
now that we know michael byrd filed a fraudulent police report, david lazarus alibied officer he was not in the presence of, its remarkable how much of the J6
I dubbed it delta house, narrative was totally out of whole cloth,
did he make mistakes, yes I don’t doubt he did, as compared to those who are acting with criminal malfeasance to destroy this country,
Interested in real unadulterated intelligence, encryption, espionage and ungentlemanly warfare? Do read the epic fact based spy thriller, Bill Fairclough’s Beyond Enkription, the first stand-alone novel of six in TheBurlingtonFiles series. He was one of Pemberton’s People in MI6.
Beyond Enkription follows the real life of a real spy, Bill Fairclough (MI6 codename JJ) aka Edward Burlington who worked for British Intelligence, the CIA et al. It’s the stuff memorable spy films are made of, unadulterated, realistic yet punchy, pacy and provocative; a super read as long as you don’t expect John le Carré’s delicate diction, sophisticated syntax and placid plots.
For the synopsis of Beyond Enkription see TheBurlingtonFiles website. This thriller is like nothing we have ever come across before. Indeed, we wonder what The Burlington Files would have been like if David Cornwell aka John le Carré had collaborated with Bill Fairclough. They did consider it and even though they didn’t collaborate, Beyond Enkription is still described as ”up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”. Why? The novel explores the exploitation of the ignorance and naivety of agents to the same extent as MI6 does in real life.
As for Bill Fairclough, he has even been described as a real life posh Harry Palmer; there are many intriguing bios of him on the web. As for Beyond Enkription, it’s a must read for espionage cognoscenti. To relish in this totally different fact based espionage thriller best do some research first. Try reading three brief news articles published on TheBurlingtonFiles website. One is about Bill Fairclough (August 2023), characters’ identities (September 2021) and Pemberton’s People (October 2022). What is amazing is that these articles were only published many years after Beyond Enkription itself was. You’ll soon be immersed in a whole new world! No wonder it’s mandatory reading on some countries’ intelligence induction programs.
As for TheBurlingtonFiles website, it is like a living espionage museum and as breathtaking as a compelling thriller in its own right. You can find the articles at https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2021.09.26.php and https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2022.10.31.php.
If he engages in constitutional experimentation creating a new type of Presidency allowing him to break the law without being prosecuted. Or if he allows the Heritage foundation to unpick the US state then it makes no real difference to us other than setting a precedent for a type of government that isn’t so popular over here. I for one would be really interested to see the impact of a much smaller state on the US.
==
You’re not familiar with what’s up over here.
“You’re not familiar with what’s up over here.”
Understatement of the year, Art. Or at least this thread:). DCL clearly gets all his information from knee-jerk TDS sources.
But, have you been to Great Britain?