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CHOO CHOO! TRUMP TRAIN CRUSHING THE "COMPETION"!
(hexbear.net)
I love the current convention where news sources show little pol heads. It makes American politics that much more absurd.
I hope the day Haley starts to lead DeSantis in the pols - somebody snarkily tells him and he tries and 100% fails to laugh it off. He looks utterly dejected. His mask slips and he rages like a wounded predator because he knows his serious injury means certain death.
I don't understand who lied to DeSantis in his life or why he believed he could be president. I guess his fluke governor win, but even then I don't understand why he left congress to run for an executive position beyond just pure evil desire for more power. He's got that ratfucker esthetic perfect for behind the scenes House shit but when light is shined on him everyone can clearly see how gross he is. He's too whiny, he's too petty without the humor that Trump can twist into his pettiness, he's overall just a completely unlikable, gross human. I see some little suck-ass weasel like Vivek getting to be president before DeSantis but who knows. They're both demons so it's not like it really matters
I think there are some players who might be running for "plan B".
If Trump dies, or the legal trouble gets bad enough (i. e. the "we can't put him on the ballot for insurrection reasons/being imprisoned/etc" cases take too many electoral votes off the table), the GOP may have to find someone else to avoid suicide. The campaign would be doomed from day 1, but I suspect running without a presidential candidate in a given state is an easy way to clobber Senate/House/state/local turnout.
DeSantis rode the "I'm almost as Trumpy" dragon, but would it be enough?
Before he bailed, I gave Mike Pence good odds in that scenario: hardcore social conservative cred, explicit break from the election denialism, but more a product of the party itself, so he could draw support from the low-level people who hoped to be career Republican politicians.
Maybe this could be the consolation prize for McCarthy? He spent a few months being a human shield for the zaniest of the GOP, so the party owes him something.
Your calipers are waaaaay off if you think Mike Pence had even a snowballs chance in hell of becoming president. He is probably one of the most actively disliked conservative politicians by conservatives outside of moderates who, incorrectly, see him as a lesser evil to Trump. The activist side though, who are the major drivers of the media consumption, think of Pence as a literal traitor.
Pence was more likely to be assassinated by some lunatic than become president.
Not winning. Just getting the nomination in a hypothetical no-Trump scenario.
Even winning the nomination wasn't in spitting distance for Pence for the exact same reasons.
My word for him is off-putting.
DeSantis had a chance until people started to hear him speak and his voice has too many shades of Waluigi for most people to take seriously.
Sycophants. There is no way this guy doesn't surround himself exclusively with yes-men.
There was a time when leftists really feared him running and believed him to be the competent fascist. He had more of a chance than their previous nightmare candidate, Tom Cotton. But he just has too much of a soft politician personality for anyone to take seriously on the level of Trump. I kind of expected this to happen to him tbh.