its gonna be a fuckin mess imo. my guess is that Trump is gonna play kingmaker, whoever gets Trump's blessing will win (maybe Trump will pick himself, who knows how he'll feel in a couple years)
Don jr will run against Meghan Mccain(D), and the debates will just be: My father, well my father, yes but my father, well you aren't considering my father
Rough prediction:
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Trump raises a bunch of money early pretending like he's going to run again.
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He backs out cus he's "so busy. Just busy, doing deals. Making deals. The best deals."
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He endorses Kimberly Guilfoyle or someone equally insane and they steamroll whatever dorks just spent 4 years bending over backwards for Trump in order to placate his base.
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Her and Don Jr. steamroll the Kamala/Newsom ticket in the largest electoral landslide win of all time.
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if trump wants it, he gets the nomination easily. the general election definitely winnable if biden doesnt pull a miracle
If he wins again. Could he possibly do 8 years. Like how does that work.
Two terms maximum. Should he win in 2024, he would not be eligible in 2028.
The only way to exceed 8 years in office is to be VP, and have the president die/quit 2+ years into the term. You'd be allowed to run two more terms afterward.
Or just declare yourself president for life, because that would probably work too
Trump will either be dead or totally senile at that point. The GOP base is too rabid for a generic Republican like Nikki Haley to win. Ted Cruz is vile enough for the base but is still too much of a politician which will turn some off. Tom Cotton is vile enough but is too boring. Josh Hawley is vile, has charisma, and is really leaning into that working class rhetoric. Hawley scares the shit out of me. Tucker Carlson has some of the same traits as Hawley but he gives off weird rich guy vibes.
Man, imagine the Hunter Thompson Los Vegas wave breaking moment of your life being 2016, then you phonebank for the levee
Trump acts like he's going to run again, maybe even declares his candidacy in 2021 to freeze the field early. Other candidates still compete in the "invisible primary" (i.e., they do shit like occasionally travel to Iowa or raise money for "the future"). In 2023, we'll know if Trump is serious about running in 2024 or not. It's possible that Trump could have legal issues (from his business, not his presidency - the political class knows not to prosecute one of their own), financial issues (We don't know what his financial situation actually is), or medical issues (he'd be 77) that preclude a comeback campaign. Therefore, even if he declares a candidacy in 2021, it would not guarantee he's a serious candidate in 2023. Likely he is, but you never know.
If Trump runs in 2024, he will win the primary easily and likely unopposed. Anyone who thinks they can beat a man who won 74 million votes just three years prior is an idiot. Plus, all of the "rising stars" in the GOP are young (for a politician). No need to try to challenge Trump when you can just wait until 2028. Maybe some Never Trump stooge with nothing to lose like Kasich or Larry Hogan tries to run against Trump but like GOP primary voters are raving MAGA lunatics so Trump would carry at least 44 states (maybe some new england douchebag wins new england, who cares). Either way a GOP primary with Trump in it is not competitive.
If Trump doesn't run in 2024 or withdraws in 2023, the most likely scenario is the most Trump-like candidate wins. All of the ghouls making moves - Marco Rubio, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Josh Hawley, Kristi Noem, Ted Cruz, Mike Pompeo, maybe Ben Sasse(?) - run their little campaigns. Pence will blow the doors off all of them if he runs IMO, because he's most connected to the Trump brand. Sure, he's a human Ambien pill with the charisma of a brick, but he's the heir apparent. He was Trump's loyal #2 for the term, there are like 20 million people who already have Mike Pence's name on a sign, and ultimately I imagine the average Republican voter sees him as the default. That puts the burden of proof on any other candidate to pull votes from Pence, which is hard.
The only person I could see seriously beating Pence in a primary is Trump Jr. because he's the only candidate as tied to Trump as Pence is. So if Trump Jr runs then it's probably either him or Pence. I just think Trump Jr is a lot less likely to run than Pence is.
Nah Mike Pence will be the Jeb. Everyone will assume he'll win in the beginning while the real Trump like candidate gains momentum. Pence can't carry it.
Good post, reminds me of the tweet saying the first female president will be a smoking hot Republican, and I feel like the most competent woman who meets that criteria will get the nom. Basically Palin pt2
I actually think I read an article saying he had already declared or something.
I think he'll run for like Minnesota governor. He's publicly talked about it and Trump has asked him to do it in the past.
Trump-endorsed Nikki Haley crushing Obama-endorsed Kamala Harris would be a funny matchup, and make every self-respecting Desi sad. TBH Nikki Haley is probably too "normal" to win the increasingly unhinged Republican rank-and file.
Just thinking about Ted Cruz being owned by Trump only to humiliate himself again...
The GOP has, in many ways, created a monster that it cannot adequately reign in by ceding ground to trumpism. The corporate wing (which is all of them, make no mistake) has no meaningful answer now that they're trying to divest themselves of his legacy by going back to decency politics with racist characteristics as they always had. This means they face a difficult choice; divest themselves of their faux populist wing and lose potential trumpist followers, which would be very ill-advised for their electoral chances, or produce new faux populists who may actually have to make token but tangible efforts to reign in monopolies as they so love to claim they want to do, at the risk of harming their capital. It's lose-lose in many ways.
Their true nightmare is creating a schism in the party for real; imagine if someone carrying the name and brand recognition of Trump and a handful of key allies split off into their own party/ran as independents by running wild with the "GOP is RINOS/traitors/liberals/gommies/degenerates/pedos/etc" if they are denied their chances, especially with a second run.
We shall have to see how the future GOP handles this. The voters want Trump and trumpists, the GOP wants to win. These two modes are currently at odds given the result of this election. Trumpism has lost the presidency and failed to materialize significant gains in Congress, and might even face a slim but not impossible chance of losing the senate. Pence's ambitions of using the role of VP as a springboard for a future presidential run are dashed (lol get fucked). The GOP can't depend on gullible fucks like the Dem supporters to pour billions in donations just to lose. They only retain their material benefits and profits by winning, and, paradoxically, you can only win if you cheat, and you can only cheat the system to enable you to win harder by winning legitimately in the first place.
In effect they are between a rock and a hard place in the short term, and may face some sort of new Tea Party coup or a proper schism. In the longer term? Material conditions under Biden's mishandling will create millions more angrier, more fanatical, more openly fraudulent chuds who will manifest their rage at the ballot and in violence.
There are some things to consider: demographics are shifting whether they like it or not. Within 2-3 more electoral cycles I suspect Texas will turn blue. Unless they push for something like an electoral college-in-an-electoral-college for every state (or just their strongholds) to further dilute the power of every vote (after all every tree, fencepost, groundhog, and acre of farmland deserves a vote), this will cause another electoral crisis for them forcing them to either push for the abolition of the EC, adoption of alternative voting systems, or just more ghoulish voting restrictions. If the Senate flips and DC and PR become states, that's several more EC votes to consider and more senators potentially lost. In the neoliberal hellscape that is US politics right now, things are shaky for them. Never underestimate the Dem's ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, however. The Dems WILL fuck this all up somehow.
the only thing i can imagine right now is more trump, and crude imitations of trump. it seems like a dead end, but i thought they hit the dead end in 2016 so idk where it will go
I for sure believe we haven't seen the last of Trump, and once Biden is in office he will be back on cable news 24/7 as he's been the single greatest blessing for shock and outrage addiction media. Trump gets views and ratings, so they'll gladly amplify his voice any chance they get. So I'm not too worried about the names and minutiae of who will or won't run in 2024 because that depends on how the GOP will shift their strategy. If they're willing to let Trump run another soft coup and fall in line like in 2016 then they're playing with fire depending on Biden's performance and shifts in demographics. They'll also a have a "fair" open primary without any incumbent to unseat, so they might rig it against Trump if the corporate wing senses they'll lose again.
Counterpoint: Trump helped win an upset election in 2016 that an establishment republican would have lost. He has given the GOP a lock on the federal judiciary and boosted downballot races this cycle. Republicans have a lock on the senate, courts, and state legislatures that they will keep for a generation. Trump did surprisingly well among Latino voters, so demographics don’t necessarily break against Republicans. Resentment that is directed at the poor and “cultural elites” is a powerful bloc that doesn’t directly threaten capital. And plenty of billionaires are crazy CHUDs themselves who can’t think longterm. There’s no real schism in the Republican party-just an intensification of the pseudo-populist petty bourgeois drive that dates back to Goldwater ‘64.
I think the landscape will have changed enough that predicting is gonna be pretty iffy, but some safe bets Imo are
-Little Marco and Lyin Ted run again and eat shit again
-Crenshaw makes a bid for it, how successful he is depends on what he does the next 4 years
Some things I hope happen but are iffy
-Donald Junior runs as the "owning the libs" candidate
-A rich dumbass like the My Pillow Guy tries to recapture the Trump magic by virtue of being rich and annoying
dunno about GOP aside trump if he lives that long, but It's gonna be kamala v pete v romney on the dem primary
Kamala already won the 2024 primary imo. Its her turn
My dream theory is biden dies sometime before 2023, Kamala becomes president and names Hillary as her VP (which apparently is a thing she could do) and then shortly after Harris 'dies of covid'
AOC could technically run since she'd be 35 by jan 20 2024, though I doubt she'd get much support outside of gen z
I'm highly skeptical that some Trump-like figure will emerge, because that's not a thing. There aren't any analogues like him. He's been a public figure in the American consciousness since the 70s, his name has been culturally associated with wealth, he's been involved in media squabbles forever, and he had already been setting himself up for the presidency since at least the 90s. There's not going to be anyone else like him and aping him won't work since it'll just seem sad and flat.
I also can't see Trump involving himself further with the GOP. He doesn't give a shit about their structured ideological project beyond what sort of attention it brings to himself. The Republicans are disciplined right now, biting their tongues and biding their time, but they don't need to sing his praises for votes once he's out of office. Republican votes are held hostage anyway. Trump's going to set up a media outlet, 100%. Republicans will act as if he never existed 6 months from now, the Republican base will probably get bored and also move onto someone else by then, unless they really drink whatever fever dream conspiracy bullshit Trump's TV channel spews out.
Also, like 1/3 of Americans will be fully Qanon brained by 2024, so who knows what that'll do to the primaries.
GROVER GANG, GROVER GANG, GROVER GANG, GROVER GANG
GROVER GANG, GROVER GANG, GROVER GANG (GROVER GANG!)
SPENT THREE BIL THIRD CAMPAIGN
MY BITCH LOVE DO CAMPAIGN, OOH
SKIPPED A TERM THEN REGAINED
