We've had politicians with clear signs of dementia still being elected years after those signs show up. Ronald Reagan was said to have very clear signs of dementia in the run for his second term.
The only thing that will keep Trump off the ballot at this point is his death. He could be catatonic in a wheel chair and he'll still be on the ballot. There's simply no mechanism the RNC could pull even if it wanted to to keep him off the ballot.
People should vote even if Biden's election is certain, because the size of the majority matters. Get enough seats and people like Sinema and Manchin will no longer have any relevance, and get large majorities in both houses and you can finally push through the many changes that are needed.
Each day in court brings that reality closer. Trump can’t run. Trump can’t hide. Trump can’t do all the things that have enabled him to thrive as a despotic grifter his entire life. His mind is slipping, his grip on the world is weakening and at the end of the day Donald Trump recognizes it. You can see it in his eyes. His last cogent thought may well be the recognition that he’s the world’s largest loser and everything he’s done his entire life has led to utter failure.
Emphases mine in case anyone needs a little not-quite end of week pick me up.
I don't care if he ever thinks that thought. At the end of of his days he will have left us with a horde of lunatics empowered by his ideals. We are stuck with Trumpism.
Yeah, but the cons have been doing everything possible to manifest someone just like donnie. If it wasn't him, it was clear it'd be someone like him. Just look at Palin....
I wouldn't call it "Trumpism"; it's been the core of the cons and the Republican Party for years and years.
I hope you get to do whatever helps you recover and re-energize, but for me it's unplugging from everything and getting lost in the natural world. Hang in there, buddy.
I don’t think he will ever consider himself a loser. He’s done everything he’s wanted and pretty much gotten away with it. Even if he’s convicted of 100 felonies, he will at the worst have to spend the rest of his life at his Florida mansion tweeting and still doing whatever he wants.
If he doesn’t see the inside of a jail cell, there is no justice in the world.
This will go down as one of the worst, dumbest, most inane and completely retarded political campaigns in history ... a broken immoral illegitimate unqualified candidate supported by an entire sector of the country because they couldn't come up with an actual political leader that could have freely and openly met with far more support. Instead, they took the worst candidate they could find and have poured billions of dollars to drag him up to their leadership and spend a fortune to try to convince everyone that they are right.
You sound like you don't know about the history of politics in the US. Trump's cover-up of the payoff was illegal because it's happened before. That's why there's campaign finance laws. Elections were undoubtedly more corrupt in the past.
The Trump White House was unlike anything I have ever seen — nor will likely see again. It was unprofessional, intolerable, idiotic, chaotic and filled with innuendo. It was a grade-B Hollywood production led by a self-loathing narcissist with delusions of adequacy.
No one in that administration seemed to even understand U.S. law. A quick example: Trump told us he was going to send U.S. troops to the Southern border. He was unaware of the fact that the Posse Comitatus Act precludes him from doing so — unless a congressional waiver is secured. This has been done in the past.
I remember speaking with one of Trump's assistants about this in the lower press offices with another reporter. "Is this like a rule, or a policy?" he asked. I explained it was a law — one heavily supported by Republicans historically. He was unaware. "That's a law?" he questioned. Then we asked a few other questions and at the end of the conversation the man turned to me and said, "I'll get back to you about that Hakuna Matata thing."
A Trump administration official compared the Posse Comitatus Act to the “Lion King,” didn't know what the law was and never got back to me. The next day he seemingly forgot it, so I had to ask another Trump official about it. When I said it seemed like there was some really poor planning at the White House, he just laughed and said, "You give us too much credit. We don't have any plans."
God. That was four years of absolute batshit insanity. Fuck all the journalists that allowed that demented rapist shitstain to ever claim any faculty at all. Talking to you NYT, WaPo, CNN, Chuck Todd, et. al.
And even then, despite mountains of evidence and hundreds of witnesses that come forward, there will be a scary number of people who will still not accept what happened and call it fake news.
What a bizarrely titled article. The entire thing is an opinion piece but I do think there's some legitimacy for thinking that Trump's deteriorating mental state will become harder to hide but to get him effectively off the ballot that slippage will need to be widely recognized before the RNC convention on July 15th. In the unlikely event that he's generally perceived as a gibbering idiot by that date there's pretty much no chance that Lara Trump nor Michael Whatley would consider a super-delegate style override of the primary results... if it was still in the hands of establishment GOPers that might be possible but would still be highly irregular and unlikely.
I am curious to see how public perception of Trump shifts but given the electoral system Trump will be on that fucking ballot in November unless he's literally dead - to do anything else would result in vote splitting that'd guarantee a democratic victory (which would be nice - but GOPers aren't likely to go for it).
If Trump was publicly committed to senior care, openly announced his dementia and endorsed some other candidate (all highly unlikely given the narcissism) he'd still get 20% of the popular vote from the paranoid and low information voters.
If Trump was publicly committed to senior care, openly announced his dementia and endorsed some other candidate (all highly unlikely given the narcissism) he’d still get 20% of the popular vote from the paranoid and low information voters.
Given the narcissism, it's more likely for Trump to come out onstage and say, "Je suis Napoleon, Vote for me over sleepy joe!" Than ever admitting to a personal flaw.
In the unlikely event that he’s generally perceived as a gibbering idiot by that date there’s pretty much no chance that Lara Trump nor Michael Whatley would consider a super-delegate style override of the primary results
They can't, like legally and literally. The RNC rules are setup without super delegates and they can't backport those in right before the convention.
Literally the only thing that would keep him off the ballot is if either he dies (which will be a HUGE clusterfuck) or a court ruling finds him ineligible to hold office (which, he just won cases keeping him off the ballot so that's really unlikely).
He could be drooling on stage while actively shitting his depends, he's still going on the ballot. That was 1000% on display with Dianne Feinstein, for literally years, she showed very clear signs of dementia/Alzheimer's.
And the scary thing is that none of this will stop Trumpers from voting for him. They'd write his name in even if he does die.
"Can't" is a word you should never use when it comes to politics. It's all about costs and while there may be customs and norms and charters and rules... they aren't laws and can be bent - just at a cost. There are no laws about how political parties nominate electors and recent history should tell you that even laws can be bent.
The dementia was Reagan's biggest plank in his platform. Those actually making the decisions found it super helpful. That's why this time they're running 2 demented candidates. Even if they lose they win.
It's also pointless. We all just need to ignore garbage like this and vote. Vote like your life and livelihood depends on it, because it absolutely does.
The good news is I still do not think Trump will be on the ballot this November and this week in court shows why. It’s not his sleeping. It’s not his reported flatulence (which I care little about). It is that Trump is showing undeniable signs of dementia. He seems to be melting into a puddle of his own makeup and sweat. The stress can be seen in the photos and the videotape from New York. If Donald Trump is this stressed out a week into his first trial, how could he possibly be expected to last through three more trials, or lead our country for four more years in what is probably the most stressful job on the planet?
I like this article's sentiment, but realistically it's wishful thinking. Trump will still be the GOP presidential candidate November.
We're too far along in the primary process, there's too much obstruction in the courts, and there are too many people who are convinced he's their messiah (for some inexplicable reason) for him to drop off the ballot now. And let's face it, he's been ranting incoherently and breaking the law for 8+ years now and it only seems to energize his base.
...yeah...it could potentially be a bit worse than that.
And it will definitely be worse the next election cycle. If Trump is defeated, his movement will still go on, and they will learn from his his literal trials and tribulations.
When I said it seemed like there was some really poor planning at the White House, he just laughed and said, "You give us too much credit. We don't have any plans."
Assistant: You can't have poor planning if you just don't have plans
The schadenfreude at seeing Trump decline publically is real, but the opening paragraphs about "Biden's Rise" were everything he said about Pecker several paragraphs later. I'm not impressed that the president can clap back when he is co-signing a genocide.
Acting like he is some heroic figure rising to the occasion is garbage when he seems like he's trying to work his way up to being Blue Dubya. He's a slightly less decomposed corpse, but he's just not even close to adequate for the state of the world. I kinda wish something would fall on both of them before the election so we could choose someone actually good, but it feels almost certain that the DNC would just kingmaker an even more feckless husk channeling the spirit of a Raytheon executive.