31 Comments
Mar 21Liked by Mike Redmond

I HOPE what we're seeing is that people are finally coming to their senses the closer the election gets that they really don't want to deal with him for another four years. He's been in the news nonstop for ten years now. Fatigue has to be setting in. And, unlike him, we know Biden will at least step down once his term is up. He loses, and he's finally out of the news. I think it was Vox or one of those sites that suggested the reason why Toad Dick is becoming popular again is nostalgia for pre-pandemic prices. But, let's be honest, he doesn't really have a plan to do give people that. Or any other issues other than "WALL!" Gaza? He'd just let Bibi do whatever he wants. Ukraine? He'd just hand it over to Putin. There's no real solution to anything that Biden isn't either already doing or would make it worse.

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Mar 22Liked by Mike Redmond

Look. I’m a black woman. I was always voting for Biden. People who have the luxury to not care….it must be nice to have no skin in the game.

I’m not commenting on the Israel thing because people keep moving the goalposts. Bibi has always been a POS and I’m glad the WH and Schumer went after his ass. Waiting for the media articles slamming the Democrats as antisemitic and no one defends them.

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Mar 21Liked by Mike Redmond

The State of the Union was why pretending Biden was a senile old coot who couldn't tie his own shoelaces was a dumb angle, even as the Right, the hard-Left, and the press corps went after it hell for leather. They lowered the bar so much that all Biden had to do was deliver a good speech, and it all looked like horseshit. Is he the greatest orator in the world? No. But he worked with Barack Obama for eight years, a man who I would argue really is one of the greatest public speakers in the world. Biden knows what a good speech looks like, and how it should be delivered.

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RE: Trump's Money & the Confederate Money Machine

I keep coming back to Nixon's 1972 election. Yeah, the one where he and CREEP did Watergate, and all the other crimes like the break-in at the office of Dan Ellsberg's shrink, the money laundering, and the finally, all the cover-ups.

Nixon also Hoovered (heh) up a lot of the national campaign cash for the Republican Party in that election as well. His own paranoia and ego drove him to pad his own numbers, and not invest in down ballot races. As a consequence, the Democratic majorities in both houses easily held on or gained, and giving the Democratic Party the open platform to investigate the White House when the crimes started coming out.

Strangling the Confederate . . um, *cough* . . Republican Party of campaign funds in a narrowly divided House & Senate in this election sounds like a FINE idea to me. :)

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Mar 21Liked by Mike Redmond

As much as I am consumed by anxiety and anger and frustration at the failures of our media, our congress, and our judiciary to recognize the stakes of a potential Trump restoration, my rational brain has never once really believed that this country would pull the trigger of this loaded gun. It'd press it against its head, sure, but it would not actually go through with it. There's too much to lose, and material conditions are still too good to flip over the table in this way.

Of course, I thought the same thing in 2016, but the stakes as understood by the country were much, much murkier. I do not think there is a remotely plausible chance that Trump becomes president again absent some major intervening event between now and November.

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Mar 21·edited Mar 21Liked by Mike Redmond

That's a good, heartening point. This is not 1930's Germany. People are (rightly) unsatisfied with the status quo of politics and our capitalist system. But I don't think many people on the center or right are really that unsatisfied with their lives that they're willing to roll the dice with an agent of chaos. And as they hear more from Trump, I think they're going to become more afraid of what he might unleash if he wins.

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Hopefully the stress will overwhelm Trump and he'll do something so heinous that even his cultists will turn away. What that might be, I have no idea. He could pull out his mushroom and spray the crowd at one of his rallies and they'd thank him for the refreshments.

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There isn't enough bleach in the world to get rid of that image.

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Haha. That just made me laugh out loud! The most heinous thing that would turn his cultists away would be trump saying “immigrants make our country great” and “we need stricter gun control laws and everyone buy an electric car! “ now that would horrify them.

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Glad you went there before I did b/c I have an idea.

We should have a schlong-off between Trump and Biden. We already know, odds are, the prez is 'blesssed', if his son and brother are any indication.

According to Stormy, TFG is not.

Biden wins!

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I'm not counting on that. Last thing anyone needs is for him to become a martyr to the MTGs of the world just waiting to follow in his steps. He needs to be beaten at the polls. Democrats and their voters need to accept the responsibility that we're the only ones that can end this - at the voting booth.

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Yeah, I don't think my imagination could come up with anything. Everything I can think of, he's pretty much already done.

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omg...gag. lol

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Mar 21·edited Mar 21

Because I have a lady hate boner for Tim Scott I have to bring his name into and say that Tim needs to stop kissing 45's ass because he is catching the dementia. Tim Scott on Fox "News" supporting 45: This is our time to stand up for what America is today, not this utopian American dream that is our nightmare.

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Does he even know what utopia means? GAWD!

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Apparently not

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My gut tells me that it's still WAY to early in the race for the average voter to even begin paying any attention to either candidate right now.

My hope is that, come September, the Biden team doesn't end up chasing their tails trying to remind voters of all the absolutely batshit and dangerous things Trump has said and done during the primary season

The only positive I can see is that I don't expect Trump to practice any greater restraint over the next 6 months, especially as the walls are closing in on him financially. The guy is fighting for his life on several different fronts. I don't see how his split focus and declined mental stability won't lead to greater fractures down the road that people simply cannot ignore.

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"Trump’s financial situation is not helping his fundraising numbers, either. Why? Because donors — both big and small — know that any money they give to Trump right now is going straight to his legal bills instead of his campaign. With Trump taking over the RNC, donors may be hesitant to donate there, too, since that money may be funneled over to Trump’s legal bills, as well."

All of which is completely illegal, right? I mean, I know it won't stop him from doing it, but I'm not crazy here, am I? All of that is a blatant violation of campaign finance laws?

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Only if anyone bothers to enforce them.

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Republicans won't dare say anything due to fear of 45 and Democrats won't because it helps them, which...shrugs?

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I would like campaign finance laws to be enforced in the general sense, but in this instance, anyone who gives him money knows who they're giving it to and I'm not going to feel bad about him misusing it.

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Trump clearly and repeatedly violated the emoluments clause. No one cared or did anything. Trump and staff have clearly violated the Hatch act. No one cared or did anything.

Trump clearly violated gift acceptance laws. No one cared or did anything

Trump violated anti-nepotism laws in White House hiring. No one cared or did anything.

.

He discovered the secret. No one wants to enforce laws on the president. They are willing to do almost anything to not have to do exactly that.

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I 'm hating on the MAGA boosters (looking at you Shawn Hannity and Lara Trump) crowing on and on about how we find ourselves in so much worse shape than we were back in the days when our golfer in chief was lying through his teeth about the burgeoning pandemic. C'mon, mainstream media, get with it and just show clips of the nightly news from 2020!

The person who really, truly is worse off now than he was four years ago is the presumptive GOP nominee looking at 87 shiny indictments to knock down.

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I know polls and all that, but some from swing states are showing that if Trump gets a criminal conviction, a majority said they won't vote for him (it's obviously ridiculous that everything else up to this point hasn't been enough to dissuade them...), but that also suggests that people are getting tired of him.

Also some good news on the judge shopping that goes on, mostly by Republicans, to try and get right wing judges in front of their cases to get....anything progressive overturned that they can. Some of the uber conservative lobbyist groups have opened up offices in Amarillo solely to get that one right wing asshole (Matthew Kacsmaryk) for their cases, so LOL at them in particular. https://prospect.org/justice/2024-03-15-judge-shopping-ended/

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The potential of a criminal conviction is an interesting red line to me. Because I think Trump's criminality is obvious on his face. But Republicans overlook it for... reasons.

Then Trump gets a mug shot and says "This will make me popular with black voters!" The obvious racist implication is because black people get arrested a lot and will now "sympathize" with him.

It makes me wonder if the elderly, white base of Republican voters who are SO VERY CONCERNED about crime *really* don't like the association that Trump is trying to make there.

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Trump always accuses his opponents of what he himself is guilty of, as a way to deflect. That way the media gets to both-sides stuff, which they like to do for clicks. When he started going after Biden's memory I knew it meant he was getting so bad himself it would be obvious to everyone. It's great that the experts explain the difference between minor mistakes and genuine mental decline. But I doubt the media will take note.

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I’m hoping Trump does another 2020 campaign instead of a 2016 campaign, where he puts a bit too much attention on himself and not his opponent.

The early poll numbers have hopefully awakened a fire underneath progressive opinion sayers that Gen Z listens to who think that another Trump presidency spells the death knell for the U.S.

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We have just watched “Turning Point” on Netflix and around episode 6 or 7 it gets to Putin. I encourage everyone to watch and share it with people they suspect of being MAGAt’s. They’ll be roped in at the beginning and once it gets to Putin and the absolute exact mirroring of Trump, maybe minds will be changed.

I’m hoping that the continued pressures of Trumps legal and financial woes accelerate his obvious mental decline on full view.

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Mar 21·edited Mar 21

I agree with this perspective but how does Vox have nearly the opposite argument on the same day? "3 theories for why Donald Trump’s popularity is rising'

Trump’s favorability has ticked up with many Americans and soared with some traditionally Democratic groups." I'm genuinely asking - I'm not enough of a politico / news follower to parse what's going on behind the scenes. Link here: https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/24105970/donald-trump-popularity-favorability-rising-latino-black-young-working-class

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I saw that Vox headline too, then just scrolled right on past it. Media organizations & websites have a vested interest in treating this election like a horse race, because it generates more engagement and clicks that way. It's a big reason why there's been nonstop harping about Biden's age and mental fitness, even though Trump is about the same age and can't stay coherent for more than 5 or 10 seconds. I'm not saying that we should take Trump or this election lightly as a result, but we shouldn't let headlines like that yank our collective chain.

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founding

Here's what it comes down to: If Biden loses America deserves what will happen next.

Stop worrying ya'll. It'll either be okay or it won't. No point in stressing. YOLO.

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