Yeah, it’s true that his unwillingness to actually pay for anything is a huge counter-indicator. On the other hand, he makes a lot of money running and he doesn’t have to spend it all. I’d guess a lot depends on whether he sees a third-party run as a big grifting opportunity and he thinks he can avoid paying bills, even if he’s delusional. Just because he’s running doesn’t mean he’ll be running a serious campaign - he’s back on Twitter, and I’m sure he’ll have no problem getting people to put money into PACs for him… he’ll do the things that gratify his ego, mainly. And I suspect, even if he’s not officially running as a third-party candidate, he’ll be acting as if he was, in many ways.
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Let. Them. Fight.
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So basically DiSantis is saying,
“Nyuh-huh, I was using groomer as an insult first, you’re copying me”.
Either we will end up with DiSantis and Trump running to split the bigoted whackadoodle vote or we get some new fascist entering the 2024 primary who defeats them both.
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About that…
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You make an excellent point about him using it to grift. I mean, as a third party candidate he stands zero chance of winning but the oversight of third party candidate spending is notoriously bad. Anyone recall all the money Jill Stein raised to investigate issues and do a recount? All gone, oddly…
And is he posting on Twitter? I thought he had his account back but has not posted due to some legal thing that even he is unwilling to break.
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A lot of big-money backers are actively opposing him running this time (but many of them didn’t support him the first time, either, at least until he got the nomination), but he raises a lot of money from individual suckers donors, so…
And given what Trump has gotten away with, with Republican party oversight…
I figure Trump’s motivations in running are: massaging his ego (rallies will largely do that for him), and making money (which, if he’s not serious about taking out ads, would be pretty easy). As long as he has someone else to blame for when he loses, in order to cushion his ego, it’s ultimately all a success for him. If he can derail (or at least take credit for derailing) the Republican nominee in the general election, that’s a win in itself for him.
But even as a “non-serious” third-party candidate, he can do a lot of damage to the Republican nominee.
Right now he’s got an exclusivity deal with Truth Social - which actually just says he has to post there first, and wait six hours before he can post elsewhere. That exclusivity deal ends in June, just as the primaries heat up - and he’s told people he’s not going to renew the deal. Truth was a nice outlet when he was banned from Twitter, but he’s got only a tiny fraction of the reach, so he’ll be back on Twitter as soon as he can - and I suspect he’ll stretch-to-breaking the exclusivity deal even before it officially ends.
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By which time he’s completely forgotten whatever it was he was spewing and has moved on to the next thing someone waved at him.
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Beau has been speculating that Koch bucks might back Nikki Haley
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There is that. But if he was back to using social media in a serious way for political gain, someone could repeat his posts on other platforms. (I mean, how many of his social media posts previously were actually written by someone else - some of which he dictated.) It’s just that right now, he’s mostly shit-posting for his own amusement.
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May not be the best example. We have accounting on most of that and most of it basically went to recounts (yes and some sketchy staff pay). The parts that did fall short resulted in actual fines. It was probably one of the more scrutinized third party funded things.
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And take the cannolis.
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I mean it’s not like you have to look very hard to find pictures of Trump leering at or trying to fondle his teenage daughter. Seems like he’s projecting a little…
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Thanks for that. I missed it in the absolute flood of information and misinformation on it. I’m thrilled that accounting was done on it.
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https://thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/the-desantis-soft-bois-can-dish-it
But what’s particularly galling is the fact that one of the only GOP politicians who has been as wanton in making baseless accusations of pedophilia is Ron DeSantis himself.
And DeSantis’ accusations haven’t even been limited to political opponents! He goes after innocent, regular folks just minding their own business, too. Not to mention public servants.
Recall that DeSantis’ office accused not just every gay teacher in his state of being a groomer, but went so far as to claim that anyone who opposed his efforts to ban teachers from acknowledging that gay families exist was themselves a pedophile sympathizer.
Hopefully the 2024 primary leaves a smoking crater, and no survivors.
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