Never Trumper Jonah Goldberg recommends 3rd Party because Trump

Hopefully a Time traveler will prevent the Birth of Trump and Newt

thereby preventing the ruin that has happened to our country

 

OK, I flinched.

Lets just use the definition of insanity - voting for the same two parties, election after election, and believe they are going to actually do anything different then before.

 

I'm sure your policy preferences have found a home in the Democratic Party, so enjoy!

 

Heh, you sure wouldn't like what I would do with a time machine then!

 

i don’t think so, they’re just as bad as Republicans.

 

I don't agree, Mike. I think with Mush-for-brains China Biden as President, the Democrats are vulnerable in 2024. So far, he hasn't done anything right. He's a friggin train wreck. The only way Republicans lose is if they beat themselves by nominating Trump. People simply don't like him, and they won't vote for someone they don't like. I'm not saying that's a wise choice; I'm just saying that's the political reality.

Why don't you like Haley? She's experienced, articulate, intelligent, a woman of color, and conservative enough while not being associated with the extreme right. To me, she could be a winner, especially if she is up against Biden, Harris, or most any of the Democrats after this 4-year train wreck.

This is still only 2021. But if things keep going the way they're going in the Republican Party, with Trump loyalists making Trump the Republican nominee, get ready for President Harris (or Sanders, or Warren, or Buttigieg, or O'Rourke, or *shudder* Clinton).

If the Republicans nominate Trump in 2024, at least that will bring an end to the Trump era. Perhaps then the Republicans will move on and do better next time. But 2024 will be lost, and it will be the Republicans who will have only themselves to blame.

 

The thing is, Mush-for-brains amply showed his inability to function as President during the Primaries, so that's kind of built in to the cake. No Democrat refused to vote for Biden because they cared if he had dementia or not. He practically ran his campaign as a "Weekend at Biden's" and it did not matter. In 2024, He can be in a Captain Pike enclosed wheelchair, and will not have to worry about Democrats abandoning him for a Republican.



So although he looks like a train wreck to you and me, Democrats simply don't care; their guys are in charge-end of story.

As for Haley, she is ideologically a neo con never Trumper. The difference between her and a Jonah Goldberg is that Trump brought her inside the tent by making her UN ambassador. The only campaign promise from her I will believe will be that she plans to get us into some sort of war, somehow.

Also, "woman of color" is not, to my mind, an actual qualification for President or any other elected office. I realize others feel differently, but it's silly to me.

 

Mike, you are right that Democrats will not abandon any Democrat.

If the Republicans, the minority party, want to win, it's not a question of winning over Democrats. It's a question of winning over Independents.

According to the Pew Research Center, 38% of voters identify as Independent. 17% of them lean Democratic, and 13% of them lean Republican. 7% don't lean either way.

Democrats are 31% of the electorate, and Republicans are 26% of the electorate.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/15/facts-about-us-political-independents/

Doing the addition, we see that Democrats plus Democrat leaning Independents make up 48% of the electorate. Republicans plus Republican leaning Independents make up 39% of the electorate.

Now I realize that we don't decide presidential elections by majority vote, and the EC system throws some nuance into who will win and who will not win. But ...

If Republicans want to win, they need Republicans to get out and vote, they need as many of the undecided 7% of Independents they can get, they need to get some of the Democratic leaning Independents to vote Republican, and they need to get a few Democrats to cross over.

That's a tall order.

If they nominate Trump, forget it. They will seal their loss the second they do that. In 2016 Trump won the Independent vote by a narrow margin, and he needed their support to win the election. But they voted heavily against him in 2020 because they simply didn't like him, the man. That is not going to change.

If they nominate a staunch conservative like DeSantis or Cruz, they'll lose.

Republicans need to nominate someone who is respectful and articulate and intelligent. It should be a person with some independence of thought rather than a drone for the staunch conservatives or the neo-con establishment types.

Okay, so you don't like Haley. I think she is well qualified and fits the bill pretty well. Btw, I agree with you that race and gender should not matter, but it does matter to some people. If Haley was running instead of "some old white guy", it would take away that criticism of the Republican nominee.

So, if not her, who???

 

Right on target as usual Seth. If the Dems continue to struggle, a reasonable intelligent Republican can win in 2024. Trump is a LOSER for the GOP. Sasse, Hayley, Kasich, even Romney could have beaten Biden in 2020.

 

A reasonable Republican, if the republican based united behind them, will win in a landslide. Well over 300 electoral votes

 

I don’t know about that but they will have a good chance if the economy is bad, Covid is still a factor and the border situation is not under control. If that is the case, the only sure way to lose is running Trump again.

 

I agree. Even Trump could have won if, during his term in office he had shown class and maturity and respect for others. But he didn't, and he has got no one to blame for the loss in 2020 but himself.

I don't know about a landslide, but a good chance if it is a reasonable Republican.

 

Without the anti-trump votes, Biden will get crushed

 

That will depend on how economic, health related and other issues stand in 2024. History shows that incumbents with a strong economy and peace abroad are hard to beat. I would not be surprised if Biden hangs em up after 4 years for health or other reasons and the Democrats run a different candidate in 2024. At any rate, I would be happy to see a contest between two excellent, qualified candidates in 2024. 3 years is an eternity in politics. Hopefully we will not have to suffer through another divisive, dirty turd, throwing contest like the last two elections.

 

You do have this.

Anti-Trump Republicans to back vulnerable Democratic lawmakers in 2022 congressional races

https://www.yahoo.com/news/anti-trump-republicans-back-vulnerable-115315092.html

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a third party on the ballot? You have to fight 50 different state laws each with a different signature requirement and a different time limit. Then you must collect at least twice as many signatures as required due to both parties doing their best to disqualify as many signatures as possible. This doesn't count the start up cost of organizations at state level. there's much more, but getting an organization together is no easy task. All take money. Now your normal folks who donate to the two major parties aren't going to donate to any third party. Corporations, Wall Street Firms, Lobbyist, special interests, mega money donors, no way.

I worked for Perot in both 1992 and 96, if he hadn't been willing to spend his own millions, he could afford it. There wouldn't have been his presidential runs. So in short, one has to have a billionaire as a backer or forget any third party run that might stand a chance of winning a single state.

One thing to remember is Republicans and Democrats write our election laws and they do it as a mutual protection act. If there's one thing they agree on, it's no viable third party will ever rise. They have their monopoly and both are determined to keep it.

 

You've seemed to summarize the problem well; the Republicans are the minority party. The problem is that they become more "minority" every election year, as GOP voters die off and they're mostly not replaced. 2004 was the last time a Republican President won the Presidency with the majority of the vote.

So as you've explained, no Trump or regular conservative can win the Presidency. At this point in history, I agree. But I also think that no GOP candidate can win the Presidency period. You can run as many Haleys, Jebs or Kasichs that you want, and it's probably not going to matter. Since none of those would have the support of the conservative Republicans or pro Trump Republicans in the party, even if they won the nomination somehow the enthusiasm wouldn't be there to get out the vote.

Of course there could always be some black swan event that would put a Republican in office, which is exactly what Trump was, a black swan event. But you can't count on those and Haley definitely isn't it.

 

So you think the Never Trumpers will stick with the Democrats? You may be right.

 

I don't know. This has been tried before. Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps just bluster. What is interesting is that 14% of Republicans now view Trump unfavorably. If these anti-Trump republicans follow through, that is probably enough to keep the Democrats in control of congress. That 14% if up from 7% on election day 2020. We'll see, I usually don't take these thing serious, just file them in the interesting column.

 

My suspicion is that the actual number of never trumpers is smaller than that. In any case, Trump isn't running in 2022 so I think he will be less of an issue.

 

Maybe. But he still seems t have a lot of "influence"..............as long as he keeps having his rallies.........and continue with his "the election was rigged" or "stolen" from him theme .......... he is a distraction from the current administration ............. and perhaps that is his objective.

OTOH......why doe es he not start his own party?? The R's could go back to what they used to stand for........and he can create a party with his values, etc. This would give him all the notoriety he so craves too.

 

I assume your question is rhetorical. Obviously someone with as much influence in the party as Trump has doesn't need to start his own party, which is why Jonah Goldberg is proposing a new new party.

However out of curiosity, what positions do you think the GOP should drop to return to "what they used to stand for?"

 

Realistically........ I don't think it is possible . The GOP has been infiltrated with the "Trump effect" now...........and it is there to stay.

A "new new " third party is worthy of consideration...........as it might reduce the polarization that exists today.....But the current system is to entrenched now to accept /tolerate such a notion.

 

then they need to stop giving in to Trump's bullying tactics ... as it stands now, Trump controls the GOP narrative and possible candidates ... nobody DARES to speak against him ...

 

I think Trump supporters are still living in 2016. Secondly, they are thinking the election is a contest between Republicans and Democrats. They are not realizing that it is really a contest involving Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. Independents comprise 38% of the electorate. Trump won the Independents by a narrow margin in 2016 but lost them by a large margin in 2020. Those Independents are not going to vote for Trump in 2024.

Therefore, Trump could win the Republican nomination, but without the Independents, he would lose the general election by a large margin, possibly a landslide.

The Trump era is over, and the sooner the Republicans realize it, the better off they’ll be. If they don’t, they’ll have to learn the hard way.

 

IMO, Trump would have to come up with a platform that would generate massive public support across the spectrum to get back in the WH. That does not seem very likely - for Trump or the RP.