Trump limps away from Iowa Primary with only half of voters

[John Galt]

The primary season is here and Trump has his first win, as projected. It's also about 20% less impressive than projected.

i saw some exit polling about how 2/3rds of the 1 in 7 republicans who came to the primary were convinced the 2020 election was fraudulent. But 1/6th of those people? they didn't vote for trump in 2024. a further 1/3rd of his own supporters in this primary claim they won't support him if he's a convicted felon

and so here's my prognostication

1. I think the SCOTUS will rule against Trump on basically everything, including the CO ballot
2. Every state someone will sue and he will have to be taken down off the ballot, but perhaps some states would still have him on there
3. With the crisis the GOP will end up selecting Nikki Haley, who in a normal year could have been somebody, but it's not a normal year
4. Trump will become a convicted felon
5. On election day in November, Trump will not be on the ballot, but his message of revenge will be aimed now at the GOP. He will have been ranting and raving for months that they are going to write in his name. he'll probably do something crazy like say you need to write his name in for everything. Trump all the way down the ballot.
6. Any Senate race where a person is a "Republican" and not running as a MAGA party, they are in trouble.

I think we are looking at at the biggest election sweep by a President since Reagan, at least a 52D senate, and a large majority in the house. And those 52D? No Sinema, no Manchin, bye bye Ted Cruz, bye bye Rick Scott. IN MO TN ND and NE are all on notice as well in this scenario. Yeah even ND.

Now what if the first step in this is wrong, and the SCOTUS stupidly rules in favor of Trump? I think Trump still loses, and by a lot, but it's not going to cause the same level of bloodbath. Roeback is still a thing, and it's basically changing the cook partisan index in the last year to be +11D over expected. So, in that case, FL, TX, MO and IN are still possible flips in the senate. And Trump himself will cause the opposite effect that the GOP would want, bringing down the vote. So i think even with Trump on the ballot legally he's going to bring down the vote for the GOP. if he's doing his write in thing, which i expect will happen, he'll be a disaster for the GOP, the one good thing he ever did for this country. the only way that Haley becomes an actual rival of importance? trump dies outside of a month before election day.

speaking of Iowa though, Grassley, age 90, is in the hospital being treated for an infection. if Iowa senate is on the ballot, Iowa flips too

[Eternal]

All the polls I read says Trump will take the Republican primaries and is a strong possibility for the presidency. So, let's examine this:

On one level this is good, as Trump can only serve one more term as POTUS and after that he will never be able to run again as POTUS.

However, this technically doesn't preclude him from running as vice president. And let's be honest, if it came to a challenge in the supreme court as to whether a twice elected president can run as VP then they would almost certainly back Trump.

What would even be worse is if there is a red slide during Trumps presidency (either on the night or during mid-terms) to the extent that he could command two thirds of both houses. If that occurs, then he will simply change the constitution so he can server as many terms as he wants.

A lot of countries don't set term limits for their political leaders (which would be one of the arguments that his supporters would run) and so long as the POTUS is elected you could not argue that the USA is becoming a dictatorship (which would be another argument his supporters would run).

The reality however is that the USA would become a dictatorship in every way but name. The power that Trump would weld would be unprecedented and unchallenged.

The question I have to ask, as a non-American on the other side of the world, is how the f*ck did America get here? Is the life of the average American so fricking bad that the only Saviour they can envisage is Donald Trump?

[John Galt]

The idea that the media is 'left wing' is the most stubborn lie about the media that exists. The media isn't there to correct it because the truth is worse. The media is corporate. The media exists for shareholder value. How do we increase shareholder value in a media company? Clicks and views of course. How do we get more clicks and views? How about the existential dread of a Trump Presidency returning?

The media has a financial interest in keeping Donald Trump relevant. The media has a financial interest in pretending it is a horse race. It's not. It's not even going to be close.

First of all, polls often are of the landline variety, and even if they aren't, they come up as "unknown caller" on your cellphone. Are you answering this stuff? No. Something like 1 in 7 americans even have a landline in their house, and guess how old they probably are?

So the polls themselves are fundamentally flawed. And you can see this, somewhat, in their data. I looked at NYT polls that showed who answered and less than 20% said they were liberal (self-reporting). https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... oters.html
Next, Donald Trump has normalized lying. His fans hate the media and would lie to pollsters and claim they are moderates or whatever.

Next, the pollsters already know where people live, and they can "randomly" select the people they want.

We know there is a fundamental disconnect because the special elections this past year were +11%D over expected (that is, on average, democrats did +11% better in every contested election... i can't find it, i thought it was on dailykos but these aren't the right spreadsheets but this is close anyway https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1 ... -good-news)

People just aren't paying attention because they can't believe Donald f**k Trump (that guy who tried a coup) is going to actually be the republican candidate.
It is only if Trump dies of natural causes within the next 3 months that I think the GOP has a chance of anything in November. otherwise, it's going to be carnage for the GOP and they will deserve it.

[Eternal]

I wish I could embrace your confidence but even the bookies are having Trump as the favorite for the 2024 Presidential election. The fact of the matter is even if Trump loses he still wins. He is no longer a political candidate he is a cult leader and we all know how that ends.

[John Galt]

degenerates gamble not normies

trump is going to be humiliated

the blow to the GOP will be fatal, as I think they actually lose ground even in the Senate (which is a terrible year for Democrats), and lose the filibuster because of the mandate the people give the democrats. it's going to be like the aftermath of the New Deal: the next 72 years of democrats controlling the congress, except for 4 years non consecutive in the middle