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Thread: 2024 Republican Primaries

  1. #1

    Default 2024 Republican Primaries

    I'm actually curious as to what the board thinks would be the best (or likely the least worst due to the left leaning nature of this forum) for President? And then also how would you rank them in terms of likelihood of winning the nomination?

    Major Announced - Who would be Best

    Tim Scott
    Ron DeSantis
    Vivek Ramaswamy
    Nikki Haley
    Donald Trump

    Trump did several great things but how he kowtowed to the Covid obsessed crowd in 2020 and his ridiculous support for stimulus ranks him at the bottom. I also despised his shitty effort to hamstring the senatorial side for the GOP, like bro what are you doing?? I like Tim Scott quite a bit, he crushed his opposition in elections and is deep red without being seen as extreme. He supports the FAIR tax which is awesome. I like Ron quite a bit though his spat with Disney probably drops him from 1 to 2. It just wasn't smart. That said he's done quite a bit more that goes overlooked and is right on the money on a host of issues.

    Major Announced - Who will be the nominee

    Donald Trump
    Ron DeSantis
    Tim Scott
    Nikki Haley
    Vivek Ramaswamy

    I'm hoping I'm wrong but we'll see. A lot depends on how Ron handles Trump in the debates. If he lets himself get steamrolled like Jeb its over. If Ron batters Trump over Dr Fauci I think he's got a real chance. I don't feel like any of the others have the star power to really compete with Donald and Ron sucking up all the oxygen from conversation. Vivek actually is an interesting guy but he's probably a bit too out there and his name isn't going to do well in Iowa. Nikki is milquetoast and I don't see a good way for her to shine in this lineup.

  2. #2
    Meatball puddin' Ron is a laughing stock. Did you see how he tried to use Elon for his huge announcement and it was a major disaster? https://twitter.com/EudaimoniaEsq/st...43467401502721
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  3. #3
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...-attack-trump/

    GOP philosophy: everyone should fry for committing crimes, unless they happen to be white and/or Republican.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  4. #4
    Y'all are boring, make your predictions.

  5. #5
    It's going to be Trump and it won't be close (unless he's clearly headed for jail or has a serious health ailment).
    Hope is the denial of reality

  6. #6
    https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/31/p...024/index.html

    That's right, everyone's favourite fat guy is running

    Quote Originally Posted by CNN
    Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie plans to announce his candidacy in the 2024 race on Tuesday, according to three sources familiar with his plans.
    Christie, who also ran in 2016 and has been outspoken against Republican front-runner Donald Trump, will make the announcement at a town hall at Saint Anselm College.
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  7. #7
    Hope is the denial of reality

  8. #8
    The problem begins with Primaries themselves. They're structured by the dominant legislative/political party in each state, and not necessarily for 'democracy' itself.

    Primaries open the door to extremists; even if they make up just 30% of the party's electorate, that 1/3 is still too hard to ignore. So candidates run toward the edges in primaries, then pivot back toward the center for a general election. Even tho it's stupid and destructive, it's been effective in electing stupid and destructive politicians for decades.

    In short, Corporations are People and Money is Speech. Maybe our individual votes don't really count, and we're not really a democracy, but we're captured by political parties (both right and left) that need millions of dollars to run an election campaign, then spend most of their time listening to paid lobbyists. No room for reason, Independents, or third parties - that just "splits the vote".





    On that note, I'll bet that Trump loses the (R) nomination. Then he'll run as third party/Independent or unaffiliated (if his staff can manage those technical, procedural requirements) and won't just split the vote but will destroy the (R) party.
    Last edited by GGT; 06-03-2023 at 12:43 AM.

  9. #9
    Corporations are only people as long as they don't criticize GOP politicians or causes.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  10. #10
    Anyone watching the debate? Its getting spicy - Vivek vs. Pence and Vivek vs. Christi is some good entertainment. It is interesting how little time Ron is getting as he's not getting into the spats as much, not sure if that's good or bad for him.

  11. #11
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    I didn't watch the debate, but it seems Trump won all the same. I don't really see how any of the others have any chance of becoming the GOP candidate.
    Congratulations America

  12. #12
    Hope is the denial of reality

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    He's not saying 9/11 was an inside job, he's saying the government lied. Do you think the government and the 9/11 commission was 100% truthful Loki?

  14. #14
    Lewk, who are you trying to kid? Read the first part of the 9/11 section. He's clearly suggesting the government allowed 9/11 to happen intentionally. If a Democrat said the same, you'd be crying murder.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    Lewk, who are you trying to kid? Read the first part of the 9/11 section. He's clearly suggesting the government allowed 9/11 to happen intentionally. If a Democrat said the same, you'd be crying murder.
    What are you talking about? He used 9/11 as an example of what types of questions we should be asking about J6. He even literally says "probably 0" on the 9/11 quote. Tell me this Loki - do you think the government should be fully truthful with how many Federal agents were in the J6 crowd?

    "There's no such thing as a noble lie" is the money quote. But I'm sure you disagree. I'm sure you would prefer the government lie if it meant furthering the aims of American foreign policy or interests.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    did this guy say anything during the debate that wasn't a straight lie or buzzword meant to make lewk cream himself? this guy couldn't even be honest about the high school he attended.

    I get this is how republicans play, feeding their cult with fear and not policy, but jesus when someone like Nikki is considered the moderate of the night.
    "In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    What are you talking about? He used 9/11 as an example of what types of questions we should be asking about J6. He even literally says "probably 0" on the 9/11 quote. Tell me this Loki - do you think the government should be fully truthful with how many Federal agents were in the J6 crowd?

    "There's no such thing as a noble lie" is the money quote. But I'm sure you disagree. I'm sure you would prefer the government lie if it meant furthering the aims of American foreign policy or interests.
    Probably zero meaning they knew it was going to happen and didn't want to lose their own lives. See same conspiracy theory about Jews.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    What are you talking about? He used 9/11 as an example of what types of questions we should be asking about J6. He even literally says "probably 0" on the 9/11 quote. Tell me this Loki - do you think the government should be fully truthful with how many Federal agents were in the J6 crowd?

    "There's no such thing as a noble lie" is the money quote. But I'm sure you disagree. I'm sure you would prefer the government lie if it meant furthering the aims of American foreign policy or interests.
    I realize your bit involves flip-flopping as often as it suits you, but you do realize that in order to conduct any sort of meaningful foreign policy, any nation big or small must either deceive their voting populace or at the very least suppress some information from getting out, yes? During the Bush (the 2nd) wars, do you think your federal government should have flat-out published every single thing it did, either in the war itself or behind the scenes in international diplomacy when your major allies were going "uh dude, this Iraq thing seems a little fucked up"?

    It seems unclear which would be the preferable outcome to the messaging around the Trumpist march on your capitol, reveal that there may have been some agents in the crowd who weren't ride or die Trumpists out to murder Mike Pence, or to keep mum about it since the conspiracy whack-job crowd will insist it was an antifa false flag communist plot to assault the precious bodily fluids of every person living in a red state anyway.
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  19. #19
    I can't get over how astoundingly dumb and weird these people are. Every single candidate is both repugnant and stupid, with the possible exception of Ramaswamy who's just playing halfwits like Lewk and his Evangelical cultist brethren for a few years of easy money. The other Trump-opponents can't even grift properly. DeSantis is the Human Pet Guy of Jeb! Bushes. At this point, a Cheney-Christie ticket is the GOP's best shot at moral redemption. So fucking embarrassing.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aimless View Post
    I can't get over how astoundingly dumb and weird these people are. Every single candidate is both repugnant and stupid, with the possible exception of Ramaswamy who's just playing halfwits like Lewk and his Evangelical cultist brethren for a few years of easy money. The other Trump-opponents can't even grift properly. DeSantis is the Human Pet Guy of Jeb! Bushes. At this point, a Cheney-Christie ticket is the GOP's best shot at moral redemption. So fucking embarrassing.
    The first step in understanding them is to stop writing them off as stupid. That just sets you up for nasty surprises. The second thing you should then do is to make a list of the men and women on the other side of of the aisle and realize how utterly useless they were in actually making life a bit more bearable for Joe and Doris Sixpack. And let the shock of the realization of how little that actually was work in on you for a bit. By and large you will find that Republicans screwed these people over to line the pockets of their class and told them that was a good thing. You will also find that the Democrats didn't do much more or differently, but we're much worse at selling their inaction. First order of the day for Democrat politicians should be to stop acting like woke Republicans.
    Congratulations America

  21. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Hazir View Post
    The first step in understanding them is to stop writing them off as stupid. That just sets you up for nasty surprises. The second thing you should then do is to make a list of the men and women on the other side of of the aisle and realize how utterly useless they were in actually making life a bit more bearable for Joe and Doris Sixpack. And let the shock of the realization of how little that actually was work in on you for a bit. By and large you will find that Republicans screwed these people over to line the pockets of their class and told them that was a good thing. You will also find that the Democrats didn't do much more or differently, but we're much worse at selling their inaction. First order of the day for Democrat politicians should be to stop acting like woke Republicans.
    Hazir, you must understand that 1. I don't share this weird kink of yours, and 2. I'm talking about the candidates.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  22. #22
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    That 'weird kink' as you call it, is realism. You don't realize it, but most of the time you sound like tthe average suburban westerner who can't grasp why his middle class dream life isn't the standard for everyone in this world. Your inability to grasp what happens in the lives of people who don't have your luck is rather ugly.

    People are rather good at closing their eyes to the ugliness of their own choices, and I suppose that's not so strange, because it makes life a lot more bearable. But when you close your eyes for reality don't expect anyone who witnessed you doing that being very sympathetic when you start whining about the ugliness of the choices of others.

    You are like the German soldier mocking the ugliness of Gernika.

    And yes, that includes the candidates for public office. In case you still don't get it.
    Congratulations America

  23. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Hazir View Post
    That 'weird kink' as you call it, is realism.
    It's not realism. It's a reflex—shared by all sorts of exhausted and wounded people—to respond to man's horror and folly by trying to "understand" destructive people through their own personal narratives. People who can't accept the world as it is—and humans as they are—desperately seek spurious explanations for unpleasantness in the hopes of regaining a sense of control, even if it basically amounts to asking oneself, "What can I do to make the bad man stop hurting me and those I love?" I don't share this victim impulse, Hazir; it doesn't address any of my emotional or practical needs. I prefer to focus on realistic analyses and strategies, and I see no need to coddle bloodthirsty vandals.

    You don't realize it, but most of the time you sound like tthe average suburban westerner who can't grasp why his middle class dream life isn't the standard for everyone in this world. Your inability to grasp what happens in the lives of people who don't have your luck is rather ugly.

    People are rather good at closing their eyes to the ugliness of their own choices, and I suppose that's not so strange, because it makes life a lot more bearable. But when you close your eyes for reality don't expect anyone who witnessed you doing that being very sympathetic when you start whining about the ugliness of the choices of others.

    You are like the German soldier mocking the ugliness of Gernika.

    And yes, that includes the candidates for public office. In case you still don't get it.
    The main problem with your framing here is that it has little practical relevance to US politics, esp. to the subject of this thread. The putative presidential candidates are all elites, but they're doing stupid things by the standards of competent elites—except from a purely self-serving perspective, in which case they're doing reasonable things to maximize their future prosperity given their otherwise underwhelming prospects. The people funding them are throwing away their money. The people trying to hype them up are burning their credibility.

    US electoral politics is, by and large, not being decided by dispossessed and marginalized voters who've been dealt a bad hand and trampled by uncaring elites—with the possible exception of successful mobilization of unlikely voters by Democrats at the local and state levels, where they've made important gains despite the structural and institutional advantages that favour Republican politics at every level. And that's another problem for your asinine narrative—Democrats tend to do very well at the grassroots level, even among the most marginalized, even in the face of unjust obstacles.

    I know very well why my "middle class dream life isn't the standard for everyone in this world", and I suspect my grasp of the lives of people who don't share my luck is better than yours—not least because I lack your desperate need to lie to myself about my fellow humans and their behavior just so I can feel safe. It might give you comfort—or some sort of sick pleasure—to pretend that the poor and marginalized lack, by their very nature, the capacity to understand that it's evil to torment or outright murder the weak; to make lonely kids feel hunted; to destroy women's lives; to treat refugees like vermin; to cheat for personal gain. I think better of people, and I find your compulsion to infantilize them to be both gross and embarrassing. Lie to yourself about yourself if you must, but resist the impulse to lie to yourself about others.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  24. #24
    Two people each talking entirely past each other and not bothering to listen or comprehend what the other was writing. In fairness, both probably never cared in the first place.
    Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"

  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy View Post
    Two people each talking entirely past each other and not bothering to listen or comprehend what the other was writing. In fairness, both probably never cared in the first place.
    I am willing to accept that I take short cuts. I do object though to the charges of not bothering nor caring to understand. What needs some clarification - maybe - is that I am not overly impressed with a narrative that is grounded in how incomprehensible it it that lower class Americans vote for people who are not deeply interested in their interests and who are idiots to boot.

    We know what I think about the first part of this view, as for the second part; if you’re capable of moving a number of voters in the USA big enough to be noticeable, there is something you’re doing right. For lack of a better term.
    Congratulations America

  26. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aimless View Post
    It's not realism. It's a reflex—shared by all sorts of exhausted and wounded people—to respond to man's horror and folly by trying to "understand" destructive people through their own personal narratives. People who can't accept the world as it is—and humans as they are—desperately seek spurious explanations for unpleasantness in the hopes of regaining a sense of control, even if it basically amounts to asking oneself, "What can I do to make the bad man stop hurting me and those I love?" I don't share this victim impulse, Hazir; it doesn't address any of my emotional or practical needs. I prefer to focus on realistic analyses and strategies, and I see no need to coddle bloodthirsty vandals.



    The main problem with your framing here is that it has little practical relevance to US politics, esp. to the subject of this thread. The putative presidential candidates are all elites, but they're doing stupid things by the standards of competent elites—except from a purely self-serving perspective, in which case they're doing reasonable things to maximize their future prosperity given their otherwise underwhelming prospects. The people funding them are throwing away their money. The people trying to hype them up are burning their credibility.

    US electoral politics is, by and large, not being decided by dispossessed and marginalized voters who've been dealt a bad hand and trampled by uncaring elites—with the possible exception of successful mobilization of unlikely voters by Democrats at the local and state levels, where they've made important gains despite the structural and institutional advantages that favour Republican politics at every level. And that's another problem for your asinine narrative—Democrats tend to do very well at the grassroots level, even among the most marginalized, even in the face of unjust obstacles.

    I know very well why my "middle class dream life isn't the standard for everyone in this world", and I suspect my grasp of the lives of people who don't share my luck is better than yours—not least because I lack your desperate need to lie to myself about my fellow humans and their behavior just so I can feel safe. It might give you comfort—or some sort of sick pleasure—to pretend that the poor and marginalized lack, by their very nature, the capacity to understand that it's evil to torment or outright murder the weak; to make lonely kids feel hunted; to destroy women's lives; to treat refugees like vermin; to cheat for personal gain. I think better of people, and I find your compulsion to infantilize them to be both gross and embarrassing. Lie to yourself about yourself if you must, but resist the impulse to lie to yourself about others.
    Between you and me it's you who thinks that the disenfranchised are so stupid as to not understand that they are putting their lot in with snake oil salesmen. I think they very well understand what their interests are and that your alternatives aren't delivering. What is stupid though is smart people who keep losing but never wonder if what they are doing is really all that smart at all.
    Congratulations America

  27. #27
    The real reason people like Lewk love the 9/11 truther: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/o...ing-polls.html
    Hope is the denial of reality

  28. #28

  29. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    Paywall
    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/o...smid=url-share

    Does this help ? I wasn't too impressed by the article. It shows that typical lack of self awareness that is so common for American Liberals.
    Congratulations America

  30. #30
    It's pretty clear that making libs cry has been the main criterion for Republican voters since at least 2016.
    Hope is the denial of reality

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