Writes Peter Baker, in "The 'Landslide' That Wasn’t: Trump and Allies Pump Up His Narrow Victory/The latest vote count shows that Donald J. Trump won the popular vote by one of the smallest margins since the 19th century. But Mr. Trump claims a 'powerful mandate'" (NYT).
Saying it's a landslide is the same thing as saying it's not a landslide: propaganda.
It's just a word. The OED traces the figurative use of the geological term back to 1856: "If this is an index of what is going on in Ohio, look out for a landslide here on the 6th of November, for we are all going one way" (Boston Daily Atlas).
The most recent landslide quote in that OED entry comes from The New Yorker in 2012: "In hyper-partisan America, no one wins Presidential landslides anymore." Interestingly authoritative and pre-Trump.
Here's the New Yorker article in question... from happier times:
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123 comments:
The only election landslide of my lifetime was Reagan vs. Mondale 1984, when Reagan won in 49 states. But, Mondale was tone deaf and had baggy eyes, Reagan was charismatic and optimistic, and the "conservative" Reagan actually gave the Democrats most everything they wanted.
Trump 2016, Biden 2020, Trump 2024 reflects the once-in-a-lifetime party rotation. I expect the new factions to settle into their roles by 2028, but those left on the outside are likely to revisit the SLA and Weather Underground activism/terror model of the 1970s.
What's notable is that Republicans have all three branches of the federal government: Article 1, Article 2, and Article 3. And the Democrats are now a minority party. The reason they are a minority party, is they have proven themselves hostile to the Constitution, hostile to free speech and equal protection, and hostile to majority rule.
More resistance from the fucking New York Times. I’m sure they are working on the next Russia hoax right now.
NYT pretending it has any influence over what voters want from their President. Didn’t they endorse the loser? That demonstrates the majority doesn’t care what they say.
The press needs to be loud and exciting in order to attract readers and sell costly advertising ... advertising that is less and less effective in a loud and crowded online market. A market where advertisers monitor clicks by the second.
Everything is "above the fold" ... for a minute or two.
Bill Clinton got 43% of the vote. The only mandate he had was banging interns.
Skipped right over Obama, who took his narrow win and razor thin congress and pushed through society-changing legislation on completely partisan votes and lost congress as a result.
Seems like a perfect example, I wonder why they didn’t mention it.
They got Trump to ditch Gaetz for a lobbyist for Qatar who is in business with Christiane Amanpour's (CNN) husband. It's not going to be hard to roll Donald Trump again.
The author seems to assume that presidents who try to get their agendas through are misreading the enthusiasm of the electorate for either them or those agendas. But isn't it possible that, instead, those presidents recognize that they're likely to have only two years to work with and are actually trying to get things done that they believe are important?
I know that you have to get elected in order to enact your agenda. But given that almost every president's term sees a Congressional reversal, it seems rational to me to try to go full speed ahead - the best case is that your policies and acts bring more voters to your side by the midterms, and the worst case is that you lose one or both houses at the midterms but have managed to get some things through in the meantime. Do things the author's way and the appropriate read of your actions is that you're only trying to stay in power, not actually do anything you said you'd do.
Yes, but he lowered the seas. So we can see Plymouth Rock again.
‘tis but a word, yes but don’t get crazy thinking your words are all powerful. ‘It’s only a flesh wound’ is funny for a reason…
Well, at least it wasn't a bloodbath. Or was it.
They got Trump to ditch Gaetz without a FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT in favor of Pam Bondi, a Qatar lobbyist who's partner is the husband of CNN's Christiane Amanpour. It's going to be trivial to roll Donald Trump again.
Evidence is key. If all your shit gets unwound and high level people what committing real crimes are going away and the propaganda loses funding it will be hard to spin the carnage…
As Jon Stewart recently said, this is an example of the “Audacity of Cope”.
I’m still wagering they let him have a little tax cut but the lawfare and swamp gas stop the rest..
…but they tell me it was the messaging…
Right
Baker is a midwit twit
I noticed that omission as well.
The song "Landside" by Fleetwood Mac is one of maybe hundreds of pop songs I've only ever heard in bits and pieces and have only the vaguest idea what it's about. Maybe it's sort of a love song.
Twice yesterday I heard Democrat influencers or whatever we're calling them name-check Jon Stewart as the candidate for 2028.
“Jon Stewart as the candidate for 2028“
Yikes!
If it is a mid-seventies song by Stevie Nicks you can never go wrong by assuming it is about or inspired by Lindsey Buckingham.
Standard MSM narrative. Any (D)emocrat win, even by the slimmest of margins is an "Unprecedented Mandate for Change" whereas even a Reagan sweep would be labeled a "squeaker" that demands bipartisanship and reaching across the aisle and requiring consensus and compromise.
No leftward lurch is too much and any rightward lean is too far...
Here is hoping that Trump learned his lessons well and will rain hell down upon the deep-state.
Actually, it isn't a love song. It's a lamentation. She and boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham were breaking up and she was facing what she believed likely was the end of Fleetwood Mac.
She was in the Rocky Mountains, Aspen, at a retreat tending to her emotional wounds and wrote the song after seeing a particularly snow-laden mountainside and imagining her life coming crumbling down around her like an avalance - or a landslide if you will.
It's about getting old, losing love, losing at life ... when everything around you seems to be crumbling away.
Quite sad, really.
A large landslide the size of a small landslide.
Trump got more votes than any other person in history by quite a lot.
The real landslide comes in 2028 after Election Reform and Voter ID requirements on registration and voting are implemented.
There is an overriding sense that the country is in a bad place heading to a worse one. Trump’s mandate is not enact specific policies, it is to reverse that sense of decline. It is a tough position to because he will get crushed if the policies make the situation worse.
The one exception I would make to that is that the taxes on tips do need to be eliminated.
Biden’s only mandate was to not be Trump. He was doomed to failure when people convinced him that he should try to be the new FDR.
There is an overriding sense that the country is in a bad place heading to a worse one. Trump’s mandate is not enact specific policies, it is to reverse that sense of decline. It is a tough position to because he will get crushed if the policies make the situation worse.
The one exception I would make to that is that the taxes on tips do need to be eliminated.
Biden’s only mandate was to not be Trump. He was doomed to failure when people convinced him that he should try to be the new FDR.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1859748387291107797.html
Your ignorance is nearly at a galactic level
The left is working overtime to play up the idea that Trump's victory was nothing really. And that the country doesn't really want to back off from open borders, world wars, and national bankruptcy.
They are wrong. But, even if they had a point, the reality is, as Obama once told us, "Elections have consequences."
70% “wrong track” is a mandate for change.
The reason they are a minority party..
is because they have proven themselves hostile to the American People.
When you've lost the American People.. You've Lost America
Not a landslide in terms of absolute numbers of voters or EVs, but in terms of expectations within the leftist bubble, yes.
They feel like a thousand tons of rubble landed on them, so great was their delusion that black is white, left is right, boys are girls, yes is no, and their victory was assured.
It will only get worse for them.
"tax cut" or taxrate cut?
Not the same thing at all. In the 4-5 times we've had tax rate cuts (Coolidge, JFK, Reagan, trump) tax revenues have increased substantially.
John Henry
Winning the "popular vote' is not the same as winning a majority. Clinton beat Bush by 5.6% in 1992, but only actually received 43% of the overall votes (Perot took 18.9%, and if he hadn't run Bush likely would have had a second term). In 1996, Clinton beat Dole by 8.5%, but again only got 49.2% of the overall votes (thanks again, Perot, who took 8.4%).
Reagan won 58.8% of the overall vote his second term, the only real overall vote "landslide" in my lifetime. Bush II took 50.7% on 2004, Obama 52.9% on 2008 and 51.1% on 2012 (the only President who won while taking less of the overall vote the second time around). Trump actually took more of the overall vote in 2020 (while losing) than in 2016 (while winning), and increased it again this last go-round.
"Mr. Trump would not be the first newly elected or re-elected president to assume his victory gave him more political latitude than it really did."
The complexity of the sentence is interesting. Technically it is true. Trump is likely not the first, but moreover he's no different from any newly elected President or future newly elected President. All assume their victory gives them more latitude. "than it really did"? well, perhaps so, considering how most of us rather have a more limited government. But the NYT hasn't been pushing for a more limited government in this century.
So, the sentence makes a somewhat true statement out of an opinion. Except it is also not an exceptional clever statement. It is really banal.
The only people more delusional than Harris voters are Nevertrumps.
All these "not a landslide" articles are ignoring the fact that the media had two thumbs and a foot on the scale. To overcome 85% negative vs 78% positive coverage with a sweep of swing states and a 2.5 million popular vote advantage is indeed a landslide. It's by far the most astounding political outcome of my lifetime.
In my lifetime, we had a VP who became President after an assassination, a President who resigned following impeachment, his VP who had only become VP after the prior VP had resigned following tax fraud allegations, a peanut farmer, an actor, a CIA director, a serial philanderer who was impeached for lying about banging interns in the Oval Office, the kid of the CIA director, the historic first Black president who was going to make the oceans recede, a reality TV star, a senile old man who wouldn't leave his basement, and the same reality TV star. Maybe it is time to stop talking about the "dignity of the Office."
Being called “ignorant” by a tRump Swab is like being told you drink too much by Teddy Kennedy.
Don't forget that in addition to the "razor thin congress," Obamacare only passed because it was rammed through the Senate as a "reconciliation act" because Scott Brown won the special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat in the Senate, and had campaigned heavily on being the last vote necessary to sustain a filibuster against Obamacare.
I seem to remember a very popular President winning 49 states in a re-election. But then he got routed out of office a couple of years later and for some reason, American Presidents haven't been the same since.
It was teh racism/sexism/‘tardism.
So, in other words, a notorious sleazeball associates with other notorious sleazeballs.
Having a picture of Gaetz smiling with Greenberg and Roger Stone is not exactly an endorsement of Gaetz’s character.
“…and that’s the rest of the story… Good day!”
It is certainly up there but I am not sure it beats Reagan’s 1980 victory since it included 12 additional Senate seats.
If it’s Stevie Nicks it’s got a baah-baah backbeat.
Sorry… feeling sheepish this morning…
Good call, narciso. A mouthy prick is a mouthy prick.
was there No Mention of O'Bama's "mandate" to "fundamentally CHANGE America"?
NYT is the clearing house for DNC talking points to the mainstream press.
Latitude schmatitude. What difference does it make how many votes he won by? He won. He has the same amount of power winning by one vote as he does winning by a ten million votes. He won 31 states to 19 (the more accurate measure in a republic), and the best measure of all is that he now controls both houses of congress and the Supreme Court. He doesn't need the NYT's permission or anyone else's to proceed with his agenda.
Given the fact that Trump win is resounding, I'm still skeptical of the high numbers of Kamala's. I have a hard time believing that so few dem voters saw through her atrocious public performances. At their highest point they were an homage to Norm Crosby's and Erwin Corey's comedic rants.
Some voting anomalies exist there IMHO.
Nixon's defeat of George McGovern was a landslide. Clearly there was a close race decided by a few battleground States. However, the fact that Trump won all the battleground States and the Republicans captured the Senate and retained the House of Representatives means that for at least 2 years this administration has a mandate to implement their agenda.
If it is a mid-seventies song by Stevie Nicks you can never go wrong by assuming it is about or inspired by Lindsey Buckingham.
Not necessarily. She was banging Mick Fleetwood for a time in 1977-78. Her song "Storms" is about that affair. Might have had a fling with McVie too, after he and Christine divorced.
What a singularly dysfunctional band they were, but from all the drama poured some really great, memorable songs.
"The only people more delusional than Harris voters are Nevertrumps."
The only people more delusional than Harris voters are the remaining failed Wannabe DeSantis online influencer Nevertrumps.
Like AMDG. who, you will recall, basically completely flubbed every single political prediction re: Trump electoral performance in 2024,
Literally, every single one. Without exception.
AMDG - click here
"It is certainly up there but I am not sure it beats Reagan’s 1980 victory since it included 12 additional Senate seats."
Republican candidates for Senate in 1980 didnt have to worry about a "Republican" Senate Majority Leader actively working to sabotage their campaigns in the middle of battle for the soul of the party.
How did McConnell himself put it? He was going to fight republicans more than Schumer?
Over time there will be one trend that is unstoppable.
Democrats are concentrated in 19 states. Trump won 31 states including 6 that are considered "swing."
There are 25 states that are solid red. The senate will always be Republican controlled once voter ID is implemented.
Maybe its time to accurately capture Trump's background when referencing his lifetime's work.
Shades of democraticals always referring to Reagan as a "failed actor" and nothing else.
Instead of landslide, maybe I'll go with PJ O'Rourke's "Restraining Order".
Case-in-point, Obama gave us systemic progressive prices, celebrated albinophobia, catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform, ethnic Springs, a prelude to a global pandemic, queer sexual orientations (e.g. pedophilia, incest), etc., celebrated by NYT et al with a mandate of democratic providence.
I don't get teh skepticism here. I find it hilarious to watch these people get beaten like a drum over and over again by the Bad Orange Man. Particularly how Trump put the Republican traitors in a box and buried them.
Gaetz was going to resign from congress anyway. Looks like he was doing something scummy. Using him to draw out the traitors and taking their mulligan costs Trump nothing.
Now the traitors have no reasonable way to object to Bondi who is clearly the person Trump wanted all along. They are going to have to just declare as democrats to oppose her at this point. I look forward to the squirming as Murkowski and Collins are forced to support the first female AG.
You don't get any real change in this country because the idiot voters persist in splitting their tickets or voting for RINOs. Utah votes for Trump, then elects Mitt Romney as Senator. Alabama goes for Trump 60-40, then 1 year later votes Leftwing Jones to the Senate. Republicans in red states persist in renominating the same ol' RINOs' that sabotaged Trump in his first term. And so on.
The only time you have minimal change is when the D's sweep in to power - Clinton in 93, Obama 2009, Biden 2021, and with control of congress try to ram through a radical agenda. Some of it gets through, some of it doesn't. But it scares enough people that the R's win at least back one house of congress.
Of course the other reason is moderate R's have no agenda. The 2 Bushes and Ford just wanted to "Reach accross the aisle" and pass Democrat legislation. Nixon bounced around like a tennis ball, first going left then going right.
As the leftwing MSM, this is just the standard play they always run. Once you've followed enough elections, its as predictable as the sun rising in the east.
When the D's win its "Its a landslide, move over R's - you lost. Stop thwarting the will of the people. The filibuster is the tryanny of the minority"
When the R's win its "It was a close election - the R's have no mandate. Stop pushing your far right agenda. And thank God for the filibuster, the bulwark of the Republic"
Nice to see the pivot from “he lost the popular vote” and “the electoral college is rigged and outdated” to “so what if he won the popular vote”
Obama is now the second most effective retail politician in history. He lost to Trump by every objective measure and it wasn't even close.
And Obama had every advantage including the corrupt media, the entire federal government, and way more money in donations from wealthy donors.
Trump destroyed the GOPe. Now he can add the Obama machine as a trophy on his mantle.
“ I look forward to the squirming as Murkowski and Collins are forced to support the first female AG.”
Janet “Waco” Reno?
Starting with election reform and Voter ID requirements in Federal elections.
It is certainly up there but I am not sure it beats Reagan’s 1980 victory since it included 12 additional Senate seats.
While Reagan's was certainly more impressive by sheer numbers, the media was far more circumspect in their support for the Dems at that time. No one calling him "literally Hitler" and bemoaning the fate of democracy itself if he were to be elected.
Meh. Reno was exactly the type of person that confused Justice Jackson so much she couldn't define what a Woman actually was.
The victory was a dramatic reframing of our political and cultural environment. Had Trump lost, he would have faced bankruptcy and prison, and their would have been a pervasive despair. The weaponization of government would have accelerated, free speech rights would diminish, and the many Biden pathways to corruption and decline would have been pursued.
Mandate shmandate.
"The reason they are a minority party, is they have proven themselves hostile to the Constitution, hostile to free speech and equal protection, and hostile to majority rule."
Ha! I would say this perfectly describes the Republicans. To the degree this description may apply at all to the Dems, (not terribly much), it's only because they've been chasing the Republicans for years. As the Republicans have moved to the extreme right, the Dems have moved to the middle.
There was a time when each party contained liberal, moderate, and conservative factions. The republicans are all rabid right now, and only a miniscule cohort within the Dem party can be said to be "left-ish," (and almost none who could arguably be described as "far left").
He could have gone with "professional wrestler"
It’s going to be interesting to see what actually can be done there. The problem is that this is one place under our Federal scheme of government where states still retain a lot of power. On the other hand, there were states forced to register non citizens, based on federal law overriding state election laws. That can be easily remedied. Pretty much anything enacted by statute can be repealed by statute. I expect that most everything else Republicans want here might have to be tethered to the Spending Power - unless it can, for example, be tethered to, say, the 14th Amdt. Maybe under Equal Protection.
Something else that may be tried is federal prosecution of anyone engaging in election fraud, as, say, violating civil rights under color of law etc. I would start with the top three elective offices in AZ, all installed by election fraud two years ago, and participating in it this year. A lot can be done by a vigorous DOJ.
Also, I would ask, WTF did the USPS run ballots through an alternate stream, where they could legally arrive by mail without postmarks and be counted. That means that they also arrived without the normal routing information, and thus facilitated bundles of ballots being mailed and counted from anywhere in the country. In several of the swing states with dodgey elections, that practice is illegal, but almost impossible to detect without postmarks and esp the routing information printed along with the postmarks.
As the Republicans have moved to the extreme right, the Dems have moved to the middle.
I would be VERY interested in hearing even ONE position that is held by the Republican party today that is MORE extremely right than it was 20 years ago. For bonus points, state two.
As Milton Friedman said, --No one wants pure democracy. If 51% of the people vote to kill the other 49%, no one would consider that legitimate. That's why we have the Constitution, to limit the passions of The People causing a usurpation of "that irreducible minimum which time has shown to be necessary to the American people for freedom as they understand it"
But what Trump has on his side is the direction of the election, especially in hard-Blue areas. Voters came out for Trump even when their vote as not going to change their district. And that is not something the current Democrats in those offices can ignore without risk.
All the pundits want to see a big goal change, but Trump seems to be rightly focusing on the system being moved integrally
I think that their margin may be closer to the 62 than 50, if adequate election integrity measures can be enacted. Maybe even higher, since mandatory mail in voting, that facilitates massive election fraud, has facilitated one party (Dem) rule in several states. In any case, the Republican majority in the upcoming Senate would probably be up near 60, absent well documented election fraud in the last three elections.
Assuming the New Soviet Democraticals are able to cheat the census again as they did in 2020/21, thereby stealing about 15 electoral votes and congressional seats, there is currently an unstoppable flow of electoral power flowing to the Red states in 2030 and beyond.
It is imperative that Trump and his team deliver on key promises so that the GOP members who are not utter and complete morons, like say an AMDG, recognize the need to fully consolidate the working class/populist movement amongst no-and-low propensity voters with democratical sliders into the GOP base to ensure continued electoral success that extends below Trump when he can no longer be on the ticket.
Rubio, to his credit, recognized this strongly starting a few years back, probably due to his Florida ties, but Vance will have the inside track come 2028 if it all plays out adequately.
I’m so old I remember when elections had consequences.
No one wins "landslides" anymore. Call it an "earthquake." To go from being thrown out of office four years ago to winning the popular vote and decisively winning the electoral college is something even less expected than a "landslide." Of course, Republicans are going to assume that this win will let them do more than they actually can. That's true of every party that takes over. Both Clinton and Obama overreached in big ways. Bush Jr.'s "plan" to change Social Security wasn't much of a plan if I remember correctly. His loss of Congress had more to do with Bush fatigue and endless wars than anything else.
If you read up on the entire Gaetz story but focus solely on Greenberg's antics and the bizarro FBI connection with Deripaska (yes, him) and Strzok's (yes, him) involvement in this case and how there was a bizarro plot to get some dude out of Iran using cash being extorted from Gaetz' father (yes, its that weird and convoluted), all leading up to Greenberg's convictions for about a hundred different things (including providing false FL state ID's to girls (because in Florida thats something tax commisssioners do)...
....and at this point I'm already prepared to slit my wrists to avoid going into any further detail here because sheesh, bottom line, don't be surprised to see Gaetz either take his seat in the next congress as congressman-elect (which he still is) or take a special adivsory role within the White House or DOJ where he can still rain havoc down on some who deserve it.
Second bottom line: apparently it was Gaetz' father who approached the FBI with the news that he was being extorted by these FBI cats who promised him his son would be pardoned for "crimes" if the elder Gaetz went along with this $25M scheme....and Gaetz' father figured out that it was also going to set up his son for a fall...so it all collapsed without the usual govt suspects being able to pull a Papadapolous/Carter Page setup.
Big difference. Hillary Care was not a popular product that the unelected, unlikeable woman tried to ram down the throats of Americans. Controlling illegal immigration is widely popular as is reducing the cost of goverment and its attendant issues such as inflation.
Professional Wrestler would have been better. Good catch.
WTF did the USPS run ballots through an alternate stream, where they could legally arrive by mail without postmarks and be counted.
Postal employees were instructed to send all ballots through the mail stream to the sorting plants for postmarks. On election night, ballots were to be postmarked at the Post Office and delivered to the local board of elections.
Any without were the result of employees not following procedures or other non-postal shenanigans.
At the state level, red and blue trifectas over the last decade or so have used very narrow/slender majorities to go after their whole wish list.
+1
The Democrats governed very poorly the last two years. Everyone is worse off as a result. Democrats picked an embarrassing candidate through an embarrassing process. The Democrat campaign was inept. They did absolutely nothing right. They committed enormous wrongs.
Where is the Red Wave? Why not 60 Senators? Why not 250 Members of the House? Yes, Trump made historic progress within many groups, but he still overwhelmingly lost each of those groups. 51% of the popular vote is not a landslide.
The time to celebrate is brief. The next two years must produce undeniable positive results. The Democrat iron grip on identity politics means Democrats can still win with poor governance. Republicans can only win with good governance.
G-Pub
"Skipped right over Obama, …"
Whenever the press does this (and they do it a lot) I wonder whether there isn't a single "journalist" involved who's thinking to herself "Are we the baddies?"
The opposition to to Trump is antidisestablishmentarianism at work. I learned that word at the dinner table growing up where it was the final spelling challenge. You worked your way up from "banana" and "Mississippi" to "antidisestablishmentarianism" and then you could hold your head up around adults. When they were being condescending you could always offer to spell that word, knowing that most of them would get a faraway, glazed look indicating that they weren't up on the word and couldn't check what you were doing. Kid stuff. Almost bratty kid stuff because I had no idea what the word meant. It was spelling bee knowledge.
Time marches on and now that word, antidisestablishmentarianism, describes the folly-driven position of the Dems in the wake of Trump's victory. The Dems are the establishment - they own Hollywood, the NYT, Harvard and the UN but they just lost the popular vote in a US election. The voters want to disestablish the Establishment. The thought processes that end in supporting men punching women in the face, men using women's bathrooms, "men" having breasts and babies, and illegal aliens having rights and funding which the destitute of the American black community do not have, these thought processes are the thought processes of the American Establishment. And a majority of Americans are following Trump and his promise to disestablish that Establishment. They are the dis-Establishmentarians. And there is a group which is determined to oppose Trump and his mandate and keep the world safe for the established order - safe for men who punch women and flash them in bathrooms, safe for terrorists who call Jews Nazis and murder them, safe for FEMA workers to discriminate against citizens on the basis of their politics. And this group is the anti-dis-Establishmentarians. They love theory and "isms" and their theoretical postion is anti-dis-Establishmentarianism. Anti-dissers.
There's no advantage to long words in speech but in history long words can sometimes make a position exact and clear. The Dems are upholding the absolutist position in terms of governmental theory as examplified in English and American history. The absolutists always uphold: speech codes, uniformity, propaganda in place of information, enforced adherence on matters of conscience to the King's position or the bishop's or the far left's, the rule of experts or an aristocracy or commissars on economic issues, an overall indifference to the mob or the red necks aka we, the people.
In short, all jokes aside, what's going isn't a sort of tik-tok, a pendulum swing, an accretion of struggles into a long incomprehensible word standing for an incomprehensible struggle, disestablishment vs. establishment becoming antidisestablishment vs. disestablishment, one establishment against the other, WTF.
No.
It's a real issue and big words only mean we've seen this before. It's real absolutism against real democracy in America right now.
"Being called “ignorant” by a tRump Swab is like being told you drink too much by Teddy Kennedy."
Huh? If you're told by Teddy Kennedy that you drink too much, you do drink too much.
They really are the Party of Celebrity.
"Starting with election reform and Voter ID requirements in Federal elections."
It'll never get past the Senate.
"Controlling illegal immigration is widely popular as is reducing the cost of goverment and its attendant issues such as inflation."
Yes. Focus on this, Donald.
BTW, until recently the standard tradition was that the President gets to pick his cabinet. He got elected to be President, not the Senate. Advice and consent was supposed to just weed out unethical or obvious incompetents. JFK appointed his brother AG. Nixon appointed his campaign manager. Holder was considered Obama's friend and "wingman".
But when Trump wants someone, suddenly they have get Susan Collins approval and be pure as driven snow. Insane!
This, exactly. The article has a moronic premise. "I only won by a little bit so I'm going to do nothing". Absurd wishful thinking.
@Drago: The extreme reaction against Trump, aka Trump Derangement Syndrome, revealed more about his opponents than about him. Trump is and was a 1990s-style conservative Democrat. Living a playboy, TV star, multi-wife lifestyle in New York City...sounds like a party-hearty Democrat to me.
The left was undergoing a generational split in 2011 when Occupy Wall St. led to the Bernie Bro rebellion of 2015. If Hillary had won, The Squad and Bernie Bros and ANTIFA would have lashed out against HER and split the party into Clinton/Pelosi/Schumer moderates versus the Woke Equity Revolutionaries. Instead, Trump's rudeness drew the Democrats into an illogical conglomeration that moved so far left that it hates itself (e.g., Jews vs. Palestinians) and was doomed to self destruct.
So, 2016 to 2024 was a disguised war among the Democrats -- all projecting their internal desires on Trump as the Wizard of Oz. SOME of the Democrats will regain their ideals and try to live up to their sense of moral superiority, as that drives change movements. The cheaters may actually be suppressed over time. Unless the mentally ill folks are too far gone and choose dictatorships. Could happen.
Sorry Bob. But you are playing word games.
The extremist party are the Dems who backed 3rd and 4th trimester abortions, massive illegal immigration’ (along with not requiring citizenship to vote, proof of eligibility, or cleaning up rolls of eligible voters),, then giving the illegals preferences,free food and lodging, as well as not requiring a valid ID to fly (despite allowing known terrorists and violent criminals into the country), back males in female bathrooms and sports, bypassing parental consent for sterilizing medical treatments, support raising taxes, waging war - including against the guy who controls roughly half the nuclear weapons on the planet, jailing their political opponents, for being just that, oppose both Christianity andJudaism, etc. The list goes on and on.
So, who really are the extremists?
"As the Republicans have moved to the extreme right, the Dems have moved to the middle."
Sanity from Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx). Personally, I'd shift all the curves to the left, so that the American Voters are centered on "Moderate", but it's still a much more rational take than Robert Cooke's fever dreams.
Trump’s win compares to Muhammad Ali’s comeback.
Grover, Ali, Trump.
We love a comeback story.
It’s the American version of The Resurrection
Reagan was certainly portrayed as wanting to start WW3.
Bill Clinton got 43% of the 1992 vote and claimed a "mandate. Trump got a majority plus both houses of Congress despite being outspent, outcelebritied, outslimed and outmediaed. Not a landslide, but certainly a mandate.
Trump’s victory represents a historic protest vote, no more and no less.
The American people are engaged in a long-term project of disrupting the Washington Incumbency.
The Washington Incumbency has used economic concentration as an extractive tool to raise prices (that's what monopolies do) and concentrate income but particularly wealth at the very top (Fed easy money provides the cheap financing; low interest rates never trickle down to the working class).
Trump is not going to change this; rather he is going to reinforce the wealth concentration.
The next Democratic candidate for president is likely to be a genuine populist, not one of these faux retainer people from the well-lobbied corridors of Washington.
Matt Gaetz announces he won't be returning to Congress.
It’s a political term. The CPA/MST in my house uses it with the clients and so do the clients so I wouldn’t get to worked up over the distinction, John…
I see you have added Peter Baker to the list. I'm not sure that is entirely fair. The screed claims to be "news analysis", and as such, is not necessarily a pack of scurrilous lies, like most of the "news" printed by this degraded and degrading rag. If Baker wants the coveted "lying liar who always lies" designation, he needs to make more factual claims. Of course, he may well have done so elsewhere. I'm not accusing him of being trustworthy.
…get worked up over static scoring…
I’d like to think it’s about his creepiness but why do all the others get off scott free? More likely it was was Gaetz insistence on regular order instead of all the scammy shit what goes on in congress…
“Saying it's a landslide is the same thing as saying it's not a landslide: propaganda.”
Why just two weeks ago Althouse was calling Trump’s win a landslide. Now she’s calling it propaganda. Hoist with her own petard!
Presidents typically lose one to three nominees during the process. Janet Reno was Clinton’s third attempt at getting an AG.
The Senate did Trump a favor regarding Gaetz. Zero experience managing an organization. Zero experience as a prosecutor. Limited experience as a practicing attorney. This one had all the hallmarks of a colossal failure.
Bondi ticks all the boxes with out the baggage.
The last nominee to actually be rejected by the Senate was John Tower.
There was a time when each party contained liberal, moderate, and conservative factions. The republicans are all rabid right now, and only a miniscule cohort within the Dem party can be said to be "left-ish," (and almost none who could arguably be described as "far left").
Word games indeed.
Let me try. It's true that "only a miniscule cohort within the Dem party can be said to be 'left-ish'": my 80yo m-i-l, as apolitical as they come but a Democrat voter thanks to the TV news, believes that "trans rights" is one of the most pressing concerns the American people should consider, that "reproductive freedom" ought never to be restricted for any reason, that Black men are at daily peril of being murdered by police, that illegal immigration is not a problem but is a slur because "no person is illegal," that Republicans as a group (including her son and yours truly) are stupid, racist, misogynist homophobes. Does she actually believe these things? Well, she believes she's a Democrat, and these are the mainstream positions of the party.
So, if the apolitical Democrats continue to vote Democrat when being a Democrat means believing these things, I'd say it's entirely accurate that almost none of them could be called "left-ish." By their voting behavior, they're right smack in the middle of the Democrat party.
Which is far, far to the left of where it used to be, as is obvious.
Good. MTG and Lauren Boebert: Let Gaetz show you the way.
Women don't have petards.
Kammy drank a beer!
“ Meh. Reno was exactly the type of person that confused Justice Jackson so much she couldn't define what a Woman actually was.”
But still, very likely, a XX woman.
absent well documented election fraud in the last three elections.
There was no "well documented" election fraud in the last three elections. So what is your point?
and national bankruptcy.
Funny, I didn't hear Trump talk about the deficit at all. Unlike the first time around when he promised to eliminate the debt (not even the deficit!) by the end of his second term. Even before Covid, Trump increased both the deficit and the debt with his reckless tax cuts. And he has promised to implement all kinds of new tax breaks and keep the 2017 cuts.
Well, Trump still gets to be President of the United States, again. And Hillary Clinton will never be President of the United States (oh, joy), and Kamala Harris can try again (snicker, snicker, guffaw), but hey, that would require letting people vote for her or for someone else, and we already know how that works out for her. Acceptance of his victory is all we ask of the opposition, their willing and sincere help for his administration is presumed to never be happening.
As the Republicans have moved to the extreme right, the Dems have moved to the middle.
Well, that would certainly explain why RFK, Jr, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Tulsi Gabbard, et al have joined the Trump team, wouldn't it?
Just how fucking delusional do you have to be to see what's actually going on and then claim the opposite?
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