Trump Could Maybe Refuse To Accept A Loss in 2020

The next election is the Democrats' to lose.

If:

1. The party makes the same mistake as 2016 by putting forward a lackluster uninspiring candidate with zero large ideas
   
   
2. Democrats in the House fail to impeach, allowing Trump to ride to 2020 setting the public agenda and denying denying denying the Mueller report
   

I hate to say it, but a rather large percentage of the voting public doesn't care about, doesn't understand, doesn't pay any attention to policies or precedent.  They only care about TV ratings, glitz, facial recognition, airtime, familiarity, TV presence.

If Dems hope to sway uncommitted voters, they need somebody with star power equal to Trump's.  Having an agenda in addition would be a bonus for us issue voters.

If the above is true, the following candidates are straight out.

• Biden
  
• Sanders
  
• Warren (those are unfortunately the top three right now)
  
• Inslee
  
• DeBlasio
  
• all the others, except:
  

I think the following have the POSSIBILITY of motivating voter turnout, separately or in novel combinations:

• Harris
  
• Booker
  
• Buttigieg
  
• Klobuchar
  
• O'Rourke
  
• Swalwell
  

I guess we'll see who emerges in the upcoming debates and thereafter (if anyone...) Polls say 40% of voters support Trump -- no matter what -- and 40% oppose Trump -- no matter what. What's in play (as usual) are the 20% undecided in the middle; the low-information, too-busy-to-follow-politics, too-dumb-to-care, usually-not-even-motivated-to-vote electorate. A slice of white bread with mayonnaise like Biden isn't going to bring 'em out.

If he doesn't, he might refuse to vacate the White House.

Your list needs revamping. Biden is going down in flames.

They need a plant o get the 40% of people who had a conscience and didn't vote for Trump but didn't like Hillary. So far, it looks like they still don't get that.

This is a little old, but I don't remember it being posted here before. It goes on too long, but the basic thesis is relatively simple and looks to be obviously true. And some of the observations have been reinforced in the interval between publication and now.

The First White President

Ok, update based on what I'm hearing around town:

The electorate is in 3 groups right now:
1) Trumpettes: these fools gone vote for the man no matter what he does. I estimate this to be around 27-30% of the population.

2) THIS IS WAR!!!!!: these people recognize the paradigm and accept that this is a unique moment in history and can be relied upon to vote blue no matter who. My estimate is that this is about 25% of the population (more in coastal regions, less down here.)

3) The Gap: This is the large portion of the electorate that we have to motivate to come vote for the Dem candidate. These are the people who will hand us victory. I think the secret is to use the same righteous anger that the Reps have used for decades and this is a unique moment in that the Rep President lends himself to that argument. We have to present ourselves as the guardian angels, the protectors. We should be saying to them, the Reps want to attack you. They want to attack your healthcare, they want to attack your children in school, they want to attack your neighbors as they grocery shop, they want to attack your ability to provide for your family. We will protect you, we want to protect your kids, we want to protect your right to survive and make enough to live and send your kids to school. We turn that shit the Reps do back on them. They are the pussies who kiss Putin ass and we are the warriors who will fight for the Average Joe's needs in the face of Big Business. These people do not want to elect a wuss and they don't always understand the complexities but they can understand that we need a champion of the middle class. (a lot of this group stayed home in 2016- idk what that bodes for the next round.)

I’ll tell what it bodes for the next round, if Dems don’t get off their collective asses and nominate someone fiery, someone who will motivate the great unwashed 40%, the low information voters, the moms and pops who are too busy putting food on the table to care what happens in Washington, then Trump will win a second term.

Middle-of-the-road, mainstream, non-controversial, non-Big-Idea candidates won’t do that. Biden is a shoo-in for 4 more years of Trump.

Many of Trump’s disasters can be unwound, but lifetime judgeships will take a generation to undo. And endangered species extinctions will be forever.

Democrats are reluctant to use Republican dirty tricks against them. I understand the reluctance to “stoop to their level” but the importance of the 2020 election makes me waver. Perhaps we should publicize the connections between Trump, Barr and Epstein? Perhaps we should bring up Fred Trump’s arrest in Klan regalia? Perhaps we should start a “Deport Melania” campaign?

Okay, this picture is fake.  But Fred Trump WAS arrested wearing Klan robes when he was 22 years old.

If Trump survives the Senate vote and wins re-election, maybe he'll be the first president in history to get impeached twice.

OTOH, Trump may decide not to run.  He's been battered pretty hard these past 3 years.

He may decide to take the $165 million he's raised and retire from politics (candidates get to keep any unspent campaign funds, that's part of why so many run).

He'll designate Pence as his successor, and Pence will designate Newt Gingrich as his running mate.  You heard it first here folks.

The relatively unbiased commentators at the bridge club are forecasting a second term for him. They also say that it will be a disaster for America, and don't understand how Americans can be this stupid, but, nevertheless...

Franklin Graham wrote:

Billy Graham "knew Donald Trump, he believed in Donald Trump, and he voted for Donald Trump. He believed that Donald J. Trump was the man for this hour in history for our nation."

Because, like, he's such a moral man?  This shit is unbelievable.  Who can explain it?

richard09 wrote:

The relatively unbiased commentators at the bridge club are forecasting a second term for him. They also say that it will be a disaster for America, and don't understand how Americans can be this stupid, but, nevertheless...

I've been trying to warn of the same. I see it coming because the DNC just will not embrace what the majority of Americans need- which is really the same thing- a game changer. Us working po want change, the youngsters want change, the poc want change- we all agree and yet here we are watching people like Pete and Joe be the front runners while far left folks like Bernie get side swiped. When people tell others it was between Trump and Bernie for them, they get scoffed at. Which doesn't win a vote. Look, we don't have to like how stupid people are but we do have to meet them where they are if we want someone besides Trump.

He could probably win re-election, but it seems he really doesn't want to.

James Woods wrote:

Donald Trump is a rough individual. He is vain, insensitive and raw. But he loves America more than any President in my lifetime.

Donald Trump wrote:

I think that is a great compliment. Thank you James!

Quote :

Woods' tweet is 100% right when it comes to how Trump can win again in November. The simple truth is that Trump was not (in 2016) and is not now someone who a majority of Americans say they like or admire. How did Trump win? Because people may not have liked him but they wanted radical change in Washington and believed that he could bring it about. Four in 10 voters said that the most important quality in a candidate was one that "can bring change," among that group, Trump beat Clinton 82% to 14%.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/18/politics/donald-trump-james-woods-2020-reelection/index.html

Trump loves America SO MUCH he's willing to sacrifice 100,000 of you to keep his businesses solvent.

I like James Woods as an actor, but that comment is asinine. I haven't seen any evidence that Trump has ever done anything that wasn't self-serving. He only loves himself.

richard09 wrote:

I like James Woods as an actor, but that comment is asinine. I haven't seen any evidence that Trump has ever done anything that wasn't self-serving. He only loves himself.

Woods is hella MAGA. I mean boot licking, ass kissing Trumpette. I had no idea and then saw his feed on Twitter and was just like wow. So the mental illness is strong with this one.

There has been a lot of hand wringing that if the election is close -- or even if it isn't -- DJT may declare it invalid and refuse to vacate the White House.

I have another worry.

What if DJT loses, and accepts defeat -- but his army of Bubbas with AK47s decides they won't accept Joe Biden in the White House?  What if there's armed resistance to the peaceful transfer of power?

Because for these Bubbas it's MORE than a peaceful transfer of power.  It's back to the closets for them.

Quote :

What the lack of any sort of formal concession from Trump would do is clear: For his legions of adoring supporters, they would also never believe that Biden had won -- or that he was the recognized president, whether or not the electoral map or the popular vote proved it. Which would mean that for a decent-sized chunk of the country, Biden would be viewed as an illegitimate president and, therefore, not someone who needed to be listened to.

And it's very easy to imagine Trump -- with his 80-plus million Twitter followers and the potential that he would be the head of a TV network post-presidency -- beating the drum of illegitimacy day in and day out. Because, well, it is in his interest to do so and, as he has shown repeatedly during his presidency, he has very little regard for either the office or its status as a moral beacon within the country and the world.

The result isn't hard to imagine: An even deeper divide within the country between the Trumpists and everyone else. A divide that would make Biden's pledge to create "One America" again an absolute pipe dream.

Trump is a White Supremacist, always has been.  His father was arrested in 1927 in Klan robes.  Don and Fred were sued by the DOJ in 1973 for refusing to rent to black folk.  Fred Trump was arrested in 1976 for failure to correct code violations in low-income housing.

So it comes as no surprise that he opposes the widespread move to rename the ten military bases named after Confederate generals.

Donald Trump wrote:

"These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a... ....history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom. The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations."

To which General David Petraeus responded:

David Petraeus wrote:

The irony of training at bases named for those who took up arms against the United States, and for the right to enslave others, is inescapable to anyone paying attention.

And now The Lincoln Project, an organization of anti-Trump Republicans, has put out the following:

The Lincoln Project wrote:

We never imagined ... that the president would go as far as honoring the Confederate generals who fought against the United States of America to preserve slavery and uphold White Supremacy. For all intents and purposes, Donald Trump today became the Confederacy's second president.

Luckily(?) it appears Republican Senators MAY have grown enough spine to defeat Trump on this.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Trump is a White Supremacist, always has been. 

So is Mitch McConnell.

Quote :

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., noted that the statues in the Capitol come from the 50 states. He argued they should decide which ones they send to Washington. "Every state is allowed two statues. They can trade them out at any time," McConnell told a pool reporter. "I think that's the appropriate way to deal way to deal with the statue issue. The states make that decision."

So, I guess a Hitler statue would be okay with Moscow Mitch?