This. He hated the job while he had it, because it was actual work with measurable accountability, even for delegated tasks. He clearly revels in whining about it. For 45, his best case scenario is to lose again in a way that lets him continue whining about how it was stolen from him. That might even include screwing up his filing so that he isn’t eligible and can blame it on the “Deep State ™” and the evil Democrats and even worse RINOs.
ETA: and no, Biden shouldn’t fucking run, either. He’s done a better job of bridging the gap from the hellmouth of 45’s admin than I’d expected, but we need another geriatric white guy in the office like we need a hole in the head.
With his history of dodgy loans and incompetent business management, I wonder how much of those holdings are left? There’s a reason why he and his minions did as much as possible on the taxpayer dime. He’s still involved in creative use of campaign funds, apparently with the RNC’s blessing. As long as his supporters are willing to buy rally tickets or GOP/GQP merch and contribute based on whatever target they create/use to fuel the fear and rage, he’ll always have funds. Even his sources of dark money are adapting to remain in the shadows despite changes in regulations and legislation designed to expose them.
His power is slowly waning. Once it hits a sufficient decline that he’s no longer attractive to lenders and investors financially or no longer seen as more useful politically than the petulant hindrance he’s frequently recently displayed, his fortunes will fall at an exponential rate.
I’d place the odds of Trump facing wholesale financial ruin barely above the odds of him facing time behind bars. Even if he stopped paying the property taxes on Mar-a-Lago, the idea that local authorities would forcibly evict him is barely more likely than the idea they’d march him out in handcuffs.
The good news and the bad news is that he’s too old and in too poor of health to outlive his remaining wealth and influence, so he’s destined to spend what time he has left living in opulence. The best we can reasonably hope for is that he’ll live long enough to see his business empire humiliatingly diminished.
A stroke rendering him incapable of speech would be a nice touch too.
Absolutely, we’re in violent agreement about the importance of securing the vote. It’s is why we need a national voting act, of course. I’m in GA, so I feel this really acutely. Where I used to live (7th) was reliably red for years and now it’s pretty reliably blue (I’m currently in Hank Johnson’s district, but will likely end up in the 7th. The republicans in the 7th are still pissed about the demographic changes that have happened over the past couple of decades.
I think that’s part of it, but he also really does want that kind of power. He is really setting himself up to run again and win whatever the actual outcome. I also think there are other forces behind him that we’re not clear about yet (and probably won’t be until decades from now). Everyone has been discounting him from the start of all this and we can’t continue to think this way.
I posted this in another thread (I can’t remember where now), but it’s worth about 20 minutes of your time. Barton Gellman lays out why he thinks this is not remotely over and why we should be concerned about Trump:
There is an Atlantic article that goes along with it, I believe…
I mean, trying to throw out a legal election is unconstitutional… Him and his supporters don’t care about the constitution or what’s legal…
Well no… see above
It is?
Seriously people… we need to be vigilant here. His goal is another presidency with the destruction of the constitutional protects that we all enjoy. The GOP wants to create a one party state with minority rule.
Except he hasn’t had those kind of lenders or investors in well over a decade. He’s been running entirely on laundered money and Russian mobsters since at least 2012.
@anon61221983 I’m not talking about Trump as a candidate, and what makes his organization tick. I’m talking about the shitweasel himself. He hated the job of being president, with a passion. I honestly think he doesn’t want to go back to that. He loves rallies and whining. He gets more of that if he’s running but losing.
I really do think it’s a mistake to think he does not want the job or that there aren’t others who want him in the job. I think there is a bigger thing happening here that’s been building for years, prior to Trump, that has found use for him here.
I 99.9% agree. On the outside, he wants the job and people who surround him want him to have it. But it’s well documented he hated the actual job of being president. There are probably people whispering in his ears that he wouldn’t have to do the work; that they will set him up as a figurehead who gets to bark orders but not have to actually do anything. But, and this is speculation, I think he’s already been burned by that (I mean, even in his 2016 campaign he pretty much went through the motions - he didn’t actually think he’d win) and hates the idea of having to do any of it again.
I just gonna have to disagree… We can’t know what’s in his head, but we can know what his actions are and his actions right now indicate he’s going to run again.
One thing that gives me a sense of foreboding about 2024 is the way the media is hard at work on narratives that seem designed to set Kamala Harris up for failure. I mean, Joe might decide not to run, or if (heaven forbid) something happens to him in the next three years, it becomes all the more difficult for Harris to get the momentum that she will need to carry her through the general election.
She’s not perfect, but a lot of the media criticism of her is overblown and troubling, conjuring up images of butter emails.
Regarding the “January 6 was practice” commentary, absolutely yes—just as the April 30, 2020 storming of the Michigan Statehouse was practice for January 6. And you could probably point to violent nuts taking over city council meetings as precedent for April 30. Each one of these attempted insurrections is worse than the last.
Just so folks know where I stand here… I’m just saying that from 2015, people have been discounting Trump and making assumptions about his mindset and motives. All we can really know is what we see in front of our eyes. He made a real attempt to change the outcome of the election, and that speaks volumes to his actual motives, I’d argue. We veer into dangerous territory if we assume that this is just another grift and he has no real interest in power. I think he absolutely does. Sure, he whined the entire time in office about how “hard” he found it be president, but I think that was probably to get his propaganda wing to put out a certain narrative about how “hard” he was working, not to actual express his distaste for the job which he was never really doing in any meaningful way anyhow.
I think what he might want (doing the thing I said we should not do, of course) is a presidency where he doesn’t have to put up with an opposition, and I think there are elements in the GOP who are more than willing to give him that if it means they get minority party rule…
Agreed; everything I read and hear about Trump reinforces the idea that he doesn’t have any complex motives or Machiavellian strategy, he’s just a spoiled child of a man who thinks the world owes him whatever he wants and gives not one whit about the consequences.
Or get legislation passed that would prevent anyone convicted of a felony from running for President, then stand back and watch the New York Attorney General’s office do their fine work.
Changing the qualifications for who can run for President wouldn’t just require new legislation, it would require a Constitutional Amendment. That’s a tall order even for relatively popular, non-controversial policies.
Right. And I do think there are other forces behind the throne seeking to secure power for themselves. If this is the early 1930s in Germany, they are the monarchists and conservatives, and Trump and his supporters are the brown shirts that the conservatives are sure can be controlled.
And given how many states legislatures are run by the GOP, it’s unlikely to pass. We can’t rely on the GOP to do the right thing right now, as there are too many people jockeying for control who are firmly in the authoritarian camp.
