US Politics

Trump?

Johnson?

Both?

You and loads of other people, me included.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/21/ron-desantis-drops-out-presidential-race

Mrs DeSantis is going to be very cross with him now...

Apparently he’s planning for a 2028, not 2024, run. Maybe he thinks Biden will win in Nov? Either that or he hasn’t paid enough attention to see that trump won’t be voted out of office if he’s voted back in.

It is 2024.

Time really flies. Cheers.

I'm surprised at how wrong I was about De Santis. I genuinely worried he'd beat Trump. And if he did that he would work intelligently in a step by step fashion towards demolishing democracy.

Instead we'll get Trump and an swift and disorderly collapse of the entire US civil society. Swings and roundabouts I guess.

I'm glad it's quickely become a straight shoot out between the trumpers and the Sane.

All those words written about DeSantis, months of speculation, and he just disappears in a whimper, hardly putting up a fight. Today the bookies have Michelle Obama at 16-1, with Haley at 20-1.

Trump is the favourite at 6-5. Is there an allowance in that number for him being forced to drop out by the courts or a decline in his health? I'm following George Conway on twitter in the hope of a good view of Trump's exit.

It’s like watching a person going through depression and then seriously self-harm but on a country level.

(Didn’t mean to reply to you personally)

Where the swing slams you into a wall and the roundabout will rapidly tunnel its way down to hell.

I think he just run out of money.

Robert Reich is more upbeat than me, but has some good stats to back up his argument at least:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/23/trump-primaries-election-biden-robert-reich

I doubt that a majority of Americans will want for their president a man who has 91 criminal charges against him, who has been impeached twice, who has orchestrated an attempted coup, who has profited financially while president, who has stolen top-secret documents, and who has been judged to be a rapist.

Yep, he's more optimistic than me, too. A majority of Americans may not want him, but an even larger majority may not want Biden, and if enough Dems can't be bothered to vote ...

Hanging out with some Iranians last night. They estimate that only 10 - 15% actively support the regime. Meaning that if you play your cards right that's all you need to crush the remaining 90%.

The big imponderable is whether Trump will be barred from the presidency by the courts. This is the murkiest of issues. There's no legal precedent. Nobody has a clue what will happen. https://www.nytimes.com/article/trump-investigation-conviction.html Perhaps Haley thinks that if she keeps her campaign going for a few weeks more, her opponent will be removed by the supreme court? If that happens, Trump might organise another invasion of the Capitol.

her opponent will be removed by the supreme court

You had a look at the SC lately?

her opponent will be removed by the supreme court

Never going to happen. The majority of the Supreme Court don't even pretend to be impartial any more. They're unapologetic political stooges.

Let's see how unbiased these Supreme Court judges were in 2000 when 'hanging chads' were all the rage:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/17/politics/bush-v-gore-barrett-kavanaugh-roberts-supreme-court/index.html

Betting Clarence Thomas won't even consider recusing himself, despite his wife's mucky paws being all over the insurrection.

Sadly, I wouldn't bet on the SC removing him from the ballot. Even if some of them want to, I doubt they have the bottle to be the ones who decide the election. Politico has a piece about it today. Seems about right: "Most legal observers doubt that a majority of justices will declare Trump ineligible to run. A far more likely result, experts say, is that the court will find an “off-ramp” that will allow Trump to remain on the ballot based on a narrow or technical reading of the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause." https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/24/trump-nomination-supreme-court-14th-amendment-00137484

But they're not elected. They can do what they want. Which makes them an intriguing obstacle.

Here's a different take on it from George Conway: "he's either going to become president or he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison" https://twitter.com/AmanpourCoPBS/status/1749504919269236803

From yesterday’s Popbitch

Bill Clinton was inaugurated as US president 31 years ago this week. And he's still younger today than the two likely candidates for the 2024 Presidential election.

Trump has to pay out $83 million