US Politics: One No Trump

[DMC]

8 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Much like Shaq needed Kobe, Jackson, Fox etc. and of course the King of the dirty Mac himself, your namesake, Mr. Fisher.

Well yeah, much like Duncan needed Popovic et al.  I think you're clearly giving Shaq way too little credit or Newt way too much, or both.

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Maybe another actor would have filled his void, but I think Newt is central to the decline of American politics in the mid-90's.

Again, I don't think it's a "maybe," I think it's essentially a certainty.  Further, as I mentioned, Newt was shunned even by the right/far right after his ouster for a good while.  He had essentially no influence from about 1999-2010.  He eventually came back, sure, but his 2012 presidential run wasn't anything to write home about.  He may have enjoyed a period as the frontrunner, but so did everybody that cycle - including the likes of Herman Cain - as the GOP electorate really didn't want to admit they were gonna have to settle on Mitt Romney. 

For the past decade he's been just another dime a dozen conservative commentator.  I actually saw him at CMU a few years back, and he couldn't even fill up the ~100 seat room.  Maybe 50-60 people showed up, Morris Fiorina got a larger turnout.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Well yeah, much like Duncan needed Popovic et al.  I think you're clearly giving Shaq way too little credit or Newt way too much, or both.

Obviously I'm joking about Shaq. Less so with Newt.

Quote

Again, I don't think it's a "maybe," I think it's essentially a certainty.  Further, as I mentioned, Newt was shunned even by the right/far right after his ouster for a good while.  He had essentially no influence from about 1999-2010.  He eventually came back, sure, but his 2012 presidential run wasn't anything to write home about.  He may have enjoyed a period as the frontrunner, but so did everybody that cycle - including the likes of Herman Cain - as the GOP electorate really didn't want to admit they were gonna have to settle on Mitt Romney. 

For the past decade he's been just another dime a dozen conservative commentator.  I actually saw him at CMU a few years back, and he couldn't even fill up the ~100 seat room.  Maybe 50-60 people showed up, Morris Fiorina got a larger turnout.

I don't think we disagree that much about the sustained levels of his influence, but we seem to disagree about him at the heights of his power. 

[DanteGabriel]

 

[SpaceChampion]

 

[ThinkerX]

Okay...so Trump is facing a number of serious legal challenges, a couple of them serious enough to warrant prison time for ordinary folks.  Now, granted, these legal cases will be moving turtle slow through the system, and assorted 'enablers' will be doing all they can to hinder these cases.  But....suppose that through some bizarre accident one or more of these cases results in a solid verdict against Trump, carrying with it something that could be construed as punishment.  What then?

 

Trump, of course, has an epic meltdown.  That is automatically a given.

 

My concern, though, is the reaction of Trumps dedicated followers, drawn from the same pool that initiated the Capital Riot.  So...would we expect some sort of semi-repeat of that event?  Direct physical attacks on the lawyers, court personal, and jurors involved in the trial, right up to and including kidnapping and murder?  And what of the reaction of official republicans, especially in light of the state parties that condemned their own for voting to impeach Trump?  

[Martell Spy]

3 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

 

Really wish someone had time-travelled and took him out in 1983.

[SpaceChampion]

 

[Week]

I didn't know that Ted Cruz could find a new low. Wow.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

On 2/16/2021 at 9:58 PM, Centrist Simon Steele said:

I think Biden should come out and say that he will provide infrastructure relief to those blue states that have marginally been maintaining infrastructure, but that those red states that act like the free market is good enough--well, they're on their own.

To be like Trump?  Really, that’s who you want a President of the United States to pattern after?

[Centrist Simon Steele]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

To be like Trump?  Really, that’s who you want a President of the United States to pattern after?

Yes that was the joke, Scot.

[maarsen]

2 hours ago, Week said:

I didn't know that Ted Cruz could find a new low. Wow.

I think there is a huge reckoning to come in Texas once the current disaster is dealt with. People expect that those in charge be able to problem solve and when they can't, well time to remove those from power and try a different path. I still find it hard to believe that a state known for energy production has people dying due to an energy infrastructure failure. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

Well, it wasnt the case with COVID and Trump (as in there wasn't a great reckoning even though he lost). Partisanship will win here too, I dont see this disaster having any consequences for the GoP in Texas.

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Well, it wasnt the case with COVID and Trump (as in there wasn't a great reckoning even though he lost). Partisanship will win here too, I dont see this disaster having any consequences for the GoP in Texas.

Indeed, Republicans will blame Democrats for the disasterous response.  Possible that it comes up as an issue for Cruz personally - taking a trip to Cancun is pretty brazen.  Would be a bigger issue if he were up in 2022, but there will still be memories of this in 2024. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

One thing you can count on Cruz for, is not having the courage of his convictions (in this case, his right to take a vacation trip to Cancun in the midst of one of the biggest natural disasters his state is facing).

 

[Fez]

8 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Well, it wasnt the case with COVID and Trump (as in there wasn't a great reckoning even though he lost). Partisanship will win here too, I dont see this disaster having any consequences for the GoP in Texas.

That's probably the case. On the other hand, we have Louisiana post-Katrina as a comparison point. The state was already moving Republican of course, especially at the federal level, but it wasn't as far gone as some of its neighbors in 2005. There was a Democratic governor, Democrats had large majorities in the state legislature, and all but one statewide elected office was held by Democrats. 

Almost all of that ended in the next election, and casting blame for the Katrina response was a big part of Bobby Jindal's election campaign for governor. The current Democratic governor, Kathleen Blanco, ended up not even running for reelection, she was so far down in the polls against him.

Again, Louisiana was already moving Republican, so it's hard to know precisely how much of an impact Katrina had; but it seems to me like it helped accelerate the pace. And Texas has been slowly moving Democratic, albeit its not nearly as far as Louisiana had gone Republican by 2005; it's not hard to imagine that this might accelerate that trend.

One the other hand, one of the other ways that Katrina also helped Republicans was that it caused a huge population decrease in New Orleans, as many residents who evacuated to other states never returned. There's no telling yet if anything similar will happen in Texas; and, even if it does, who is it that leaves?

[IheartIheartTesla]

A lot of the post-Katrina refugees moved to Texas (Houston if I am not mistaken, and the hurricane that hit it in the last decade must have triggered painful memories).

At any rate, what you say may be right, although Katrina and the FEMA botch up finally tanked Bush's approval ratings, or so the story goes. It sounds weird that Louisiana voters punished local Democrats, but Americans everywhere else punished Bush.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Can someone enlighten me what this Raffa Cruz story is about? This feels a bit like the more silly things to go after him for.

He isn't part of the executive branch in Texas, he is not a state legislature. He is (unfortunately) a Texas Senator. Yes, it looks a bit entitled. But apart from the optics, but like in almost any other situation, I fail to see how things would be better with Teddy boy around. I usually follow the rule, the less Cruz the better.

[ljkeane]

Yeah, it looks bad but I doubt Cruz actually has anything to do with the power grid in Texas. There are plenty of things he absolutely is at fault for that you can criticize him over.

[Maithanet]

A senator can help get things done quickly, if that Senator actually knows what he or she is doing and who the right people to call are.  I agree that Cruz is more likely to just grandstand and take up resources. 

In addition, the problem isn't that Ted Cruz is doing nothing, it's that he's vacationing in Mexico while his state is suffering.  If all he was doing was nothing, he wouldn't be in the news. 

[Zorral]

23 minutes ago, Fez said:

On the other hand, we have Louisiana post-Katrina as a comparison point.

You are missing something here: so many of the Dem vote weren't in Louisiana any longer, but had been forced to move elsewhere, and they stayed where they ended up -- better schools had a lot to do with that.  Which is why the rethugs made it, and continue to make it, as unattractive and difficult for African Americans  to move back as possible, including the loss of homes, which only began with the flooding post the hurricane, but targeted specifically the very politically organized, perfectly functional old housing projects -- bulldozed them to oblivion.

Which is exactly how TX will be dealing with the rethug political crisis that grows out of this latest failure of them --  every more repression of voting for everyone who isn't  white man.