Despite the hopes of the Democrats, there is no one who will be able to defeat Donald Trump in the Presidential election of 2020. This observation should be incontrovertible: a Trump-killer cannot exist as he was not elected on policy, but on personality (as in “cult of”). Remember Tom Tancredo? A decade ago, he pitched what Trump is selling, but even as recently as 2018, no one was buying. In the motley collection of charlatans and mountebanks that pass for the Democratic presidential hopefuls, there is no one who can serve as a ideological banner to hoist that the living Rorschach inkblot of a man, Donald Trump, could for the white working class. Even if one wanted to, he or she could not, as the ascension of Trump was as much the product of a very specific set of circumstances as much as any charisma he may possess. Indeed, in this case, Democrats should take notes from we Libertarians in that the best they can hope for in the upcoming election is a protest vote.
Having noted the uniqueness of Trump, the question of 2024 looms large: Who is capable of carrying Trump’s banner? Just as Hillary Clinton wasn’t able to hold together the coalition of voters that Barack Obama commanded, it is highly improbable that Mike Pence, if he chooses to run, will be able to draw the number of voters from the varied demographics that found their avatar in Trump. Again, remember that policy doesn’t come into play – whether or not we see a continuation of the Nu-GOP populist platform or a return to the quasi-free trade imperialism of the neo-conservatives, there is no one who could fill the role that Trump plays in the national epic narrative that unfolds before us with each social media post. At best, Donald Trump Jr. could perhaps pull it off – though, with the exception of the most die hard MAGA-ots, the typical American has shown a distaste for dynasty politics in the presidential arena (Jeb?). Indeed, a son being elected after his father would be unprecedented.
Leaving aside speculation of father passing the baton to son (or daughter?), it is safe to say that Trump will be leaving a vacuum behind for Republicans in 2024 that could be filled by whichever Democratic candidate successfully gains cult status with enough of Generations X, Y, and Z. (As an aside, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turns 35 on Sunday, October 13th, 2024.) Regardless of who fills that role, the Republicans will eventually be forced to answer if 2016 was worth, not only their souls, but 2024 and beyond.
The correct answer is Teanna Trump.
Where is everyone.
Don’t miss out on the Home Page for this one – it’s the bestest.
Seriously, does SF rub off on everyone that writes around here.
EWWWWW.
That phrasal verb should be taken in the literal sense.
In the same place as the apparently-abandoned question mark?
I’m willing to pull the lever for Teanna Trump.
She has the best platform so far.
I could get behind that platform.
I was rubbing one out until the AOC garbage acted on me like a polar bear challenge in Siberia.
Nice. 45 minutes and eight comments. That’s got to be some kind of record, amirite?
Because we are all researching, for educational purposes of course, Ms. Teanna Trump to gain a better understanding.
She does seem nice.
Whee!
I wouldn’t be surprised to see something very bad happen on a cruise ship in the next few years. And by very bad, I mean something much worse than norovirus or leaking sewage in the hallways.
The mega cruise ships are inherently unstable, and when they lose power to critical control systems, they’re basically screwed.
The entire pun subthread about the piano would be entirely at home here.
I didn’t read any of the comments (after all, it’s Twitter).
Just got queasy from the vid.
https://twitter.com/rhbrandon/status/1109542342195843073
– Notice the piano isn’t going anywhere. Yet.
– It’s starting to Liszt tho…
– I hope they get a Handel on it. They seem rather Bizet.
– If it moves I’m sure it will be Bach
– It’ll be baroque though
– See looks very tough… Lots of waves chopin at the boat
etc.
*narrows gaze*
OMG you’re right. Good stuff. I’m impressed, Twitter.
It’s a longish read, but this account of the sinking of The Estonia in the 90’s is really something. It boggles the mind to seriously consider how fucked up it would be to on a sinking ship.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-story/302940/
“During that dash a falling refrigerator nearly hit Sörman, and smashed into a wall. A man emerged from a forward corridor, shouting, “Don’t panic! The crew has everything under control!”
Kevin Bacon?
Need some background music as you read that? My kid and her group rocked so Lupin yesterday.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=muaLs9z1ZiY&feature=youtu.be
It’s like a pint-sized Tangerine Dream.
It was fun. Kids from 4 to 13 did versions of various hits. 3 hours and it went by fast.
Who’s next? Whoever can slice of a chunk of the electorate and cause them to hate the “other”. Team politics.
Pendulum swings: the inevitable course of American politics. GOP puts up W as a response to Clinton, but 9/11 happened and broke lots of people. So, the Dems put up O to counter everything “W!”. That resulted in an honest-to-God cult of personality on a massive scale. So, the GOP ends up getting/offering up Trump.
Yeah, yeah–I get this happens a lot. I’m simply going off our most recent pol cycle(s).
Trump is the best president of my lifetime. By far, and it isn’t even close. Do you know how high of a hurdle that is? Pissants could crawl under it.
I definitely don’t hate the guy, nor, do I really like him. He’s the better President since I’ve been a libertarian–I’ll give him that. And, I like how he has absolute fuck-knuckled the Cult of Obama acolytes without doing much of anything beyond simply existing. Well, existing as President.
But, of course–pendulum swing. He has his own cult of personality, which, I think, is more of a reaction to having Obama’s cult in our faces for the better part of a decade. Apparently, O’s cult has to get as good as they gave, according to some conservatives. I know that a lot is more likely the case of finally being able to relax when considering who’s now in charge. It’s just….stop sucking off politicians and strong men, people! FFS!
He’s kinda like Lt. Drebbin: He stumbles into a lot of things, as part of his job, with some really fucked up ideas. Sometimes, he actually gets it right, and will give himself the pat on the back he knows he “deserves”, while everyone else is either laughing their asses off, or are crying in fits of rage. I tend to laugh. Or, shake my head with some heavy eye-rolling.
I’m installing Metro Exodus right now. Never buy anything from Epic Store, EVER. Or part of you experience will be wishing you were never born and there was an internets. Fuck you, Epic Store, with a rusty chainsaw lubed up with Tabasco sauce, you fucking piece of shit.
Never heard of this. Quick search yields emphasis on “Games as a Service” and quick decision on my part to never interact with that outfit, ever.
I think it is owned by Microsoft. Good gawd, what the fuck are they doing? I’ll never try buying anything on there again. If a company needs to go there and not sell their games on Steam, they can go fuck themselves as far as I’m concerned. Exodus is really not even my type of game, being a pure FPS with a story. But because the graphics are supposed to be good… I mean I didn’t pay almost $1200 for this 34″ 3440×1440 gsync IPS monitor for nothing.
I don’t see any evidence of that. Other than being pretty heavily in bed with them like most of the AAA companies.
I see “The Witness” is free next week. Grab it, it’s pretty good if you’re into puzzle games.
I seriously hate puzzle games. If I can’t kill it, it should’t be in my game…
I have taken to watching a lot of Twitch over the last year. Most of the streamers I watch like playing games on the highest difficulty.
My gaming confession is that I want my game play to be as easy as possible. I want to blow shit up and kill tons of bad guys–for catharsis. Challenge is all good and well, but I want my games destructive and for me to be victorious all the time, since life doesn’t work like that.
Have you considered therapy?
Hey! That’s a feature, not a bug!
OK, a truism about said feature.
/vidya games is therapy!
Yeah. But then I killed the therapist. Problem solved.
Yeah, I figured the not-killing-shit genre would go over like a lead balloon here.
Well, in case you decide to broaden your horizons, it’s fun game. It does require thinking, though.
What is it with you glibs, always wantin’ to make me think?!?
No, I’m good with non-killing games, too.
But, killin’ time is thillin’ time.
My SIL is a conniving fucking bitch. I just spent the evening consoling my wife trying to convince her that nobody is going to take her horse away from her. Aaarrrggghhh!!!!
Sounds like you’re dealing with..
::puts on sunglasses::
a load of horse shit.
YYYYEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHH!
Sorry to hear about the fuckery. Can I ask; how is this a case where your wife is afraid of losing her horse?
She just entered the “severe impairment” stage of Alzheimer’s. She’s 57.
Ah…yeah, I now remember you mentioning it this last week. AS in, I remember it being said, but not who said it.
Sorry that you have all of that to deal with. And, my sincerest apologies if my meme joke looked like I was making light of it-I was thinking your SIL had made a threat about the horse.
No worries. This is my “safe space”. Ironic.
I would definitely say it’s a safe space. If we really are a bunch of assholes, we’re assholes with pretty well-developed ethics and moral codes, and show an incredible amount of compassion.
I pray the “good” days a re very good, and that the “bad” days are bearable. And, that Glibs is here for as long as needed.
Horse? WTF? My wife’s sister is crazy. Seriously. Does every wife have one of those? But there is no horse involved.
related to horses
You guys really shouldn’t be having a discussion about wives and horses on a thread that prominently features images from “Brazzers” at the top.
…. just sayin’
Your SIL told your wife that she couldn’t have her horse anymore or something?
Where is everyone? Oh yeah, it’s 1PM, EST… or real time. Working from home tomorrow… one more shot of cachaca….
Perhaps everyone’s out on the streets celebrating “No Collusion Sunday”.
Maybe everyone is out in the streets–dead, due to the defeat of Net Neutrality!
My neighbors are still trying to figure out why Jeb Bush wasn’t the GOP nominee in 2016.
What, did they want yet another pol dynasty?
They’re life long East Coast democrat voters. I really cannot explain this. I mean, I can try…
No, I think I get it. Maybe something like, “Why couldn’t it have been someone more reasonable on ‘their’ side, that our side could have easily beat, but, would be tolerable to us if he had actually won?”
That’s what I would go with, if I were dealing with them.
At work now. Yay.
Where the fuck are you? I was just thinking about waking up my wife for sex. It’s 2AM here.
Hell, I’m at work, and it’s a quarter to 1.
So, no video games, then?
I worked overnights through most of my 20s. I hated every single minute of it.
Oh, I’ve been a night owl most of my life, and, definitely my working life.
First one in here, during the re-staffing, and I easily picked deeps for my shift.
/I actually hate sunrise, for the most part.
I loved working swing shift on the flightline in the Air Force
I am a night person, actually. The reason I hated the night shift is because it was hotel work. Mostly in sketchy neighborhoods and by myself, and for minimum wage. But hey, it was easy work to get.
Yep, that would do it.
Best Coast. It’s not scheduled. Problems with a router. And card swap isn’t fixing it.
Ozzy man on cat fights.
That was entertaining but only because I cant sleep and no one is around. A lot of those guys with video blogs are difficult for me to watch. They cant seem to just spit it out…they ramble on and on and on taking half of an hour to make their point. The real point of course is that they love the sound of their own voice. Conversation with someone like that isnt bad because you speak too, there is a back and forth but sitting and listening to some guy flap his gums is painful to me.
So Trump is not “exonerated” on obstruction of Justice despite the lack of a crime. What does that mean?
They didn’t get Orange Man this time.
It’s like going to trial. Best you can get (aside from charges being dismissed) is Not Guilty. Innocent isn’t a verdict.
Certainly sounds like it.
It also sounds like he is saying that Trump may have engaged in obstruction-like stuff but hard to prove if that really amounts to a crime. Whatever that means.
The take I was hearing was that there is evidence in favor of obstruction – all gleaned from Trump’s public statements. Stuff like “he needs to wrap this thing up”.
The evidence against is all from actual actions that were taken – which are pretty much the exact opposite of obstruction.
Hillary?
Not sure what “traditional prosecutorial judgment” is supposed to mean either.
It means what ever they want it to, just like Humpty Dumpty. It is sad that our “leaders” and “elites” are now openly acting like cartoon characters from when I was growing up.
Like this
Elite. I have come to hate that word. The people that think of themselves as such are anything but by my measure.
Somewhere around here I have a collection of Samuel Clemens essays and he discusses that subject. He likens them to criminals and people of the lowest character.
The more things change….
Democrats should take notes from we Libertarians in that the best they can hope for in the upcoming election is a protest vote
So true. Also a sick burn.
If someone is going to carry on the Trump political name, it ain’t gonna be the boy. It is going to be the daughter. Ivanka is by all accounts very impressive. She gets high reviews even from many die-hard Trump haters.
Fevrale dostat chernil I plakat
Pisat O Fevrale navsnryd
Poka grohochushaya slyakot
Vesnoyu charnoyu gorit
???