2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'

[Fitzcarraldo]

Ever get the feeling these guys are out of touch with what is happening in their own country?

They don't care about what is happening in the country. They care about appealing to their base.

[Stavros]

Meanwhile, De Santis is going to get tough on drug traffickers...


"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday promised to send the U.S. military into Mexico to fight the cartels on “Day one” if he becomes the next president of the United States."
DeSantis pledges to send US military to fight cartels on ‘Day one’ | The Hill

I guess he could always have a chat with someone from the DEA who might tell him where most of the USA's supply of Fentanyl comes from, though it ain't via illegals from Mexico slipping across the 'open border'...


"Fentanyl is primarily trafficked by U.S. citizens. The U.S. Sentencing Commission publishes data on all federal convictions, which includes demographic information on individuals convicted of fentanyl trafficking. Figure 1 shows the citizenship status of fentanyl traffickers for 2018 to 2021. Every year, U.S. citizens receive the most convictions by far. In 2021, U.S. citizens accounted for 86.3 percent of fentanyl trafficking convictions compared to just 8.9 percent for illegal immigrants."
Fentanyl Is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens By U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers | Cato at Liberty Blog

[Fitzcarraldo]

Meanwhile, De Santis is going to get tough on drug traffickers...


[FONT="]"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday promised to send the U.S. military into Mexico to fight the cartels on “Day one” if he becomes the next president of the United States."
[/FONT]DeSantis pledges to send US military to fight cartels on ‘Day one’ | The Hill

I guess he could always have a chat with someone from the DEA who might tell him where most of the USA's supply of Fentanyl comes from, though it ain't via illegals from Mexico slipping across the 'open border'...


[FONT="]"Fentanyl is primarily trafficked by U.S. citizens. The U.S. Sentencing Commission publishes [/FONT]data[FONT="] on all federal convictions, which includes demographic information on individuals convicted of fentanyl trafficking. Figure 1 shows the citizenship status of fentanyl traffickers for 2018 to 2021. Every year, U.S. citizens receive the most convictions by far. In 2021, U.S. citizens accounted for 86.3 percent of fentanyl trafficking convictions compared to just 8.9 percent for illegal immigrants."
[/FONT]Fentanyl Is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens By U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers | Cato at Liberty Blog

Again, the Republican base doesn't care about that. But they'll back aggression toward Mexico under any pretense.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Again, the Republican base doesn't care about that. But they'll back aggression toward Mexico under any pretense.

Completely agree they sure don't. And also agree that's exactly what they'll do.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

I didn't see the debate but cull a few remarks from the report in The Guardian

De Santis
"I’m a blue-collar kid. I work minimum wage jobs to be able to make ends meet."

-Then like any other blue collar guy, say, from West Virginia, I went to Yale, then Harvard Law School, then the Navy....keep the dream alive!

Vivek Ramaswamy
"God is real. There are two genders. Fossil fuels are a requirements for human prosperity. Reverse racism is racism. An open border is not a border. Parents determined the education of their children. That nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to man. Capitalism lifts us up from poverty. There are three branches of government, not four. And the US constitution, it is strongest guarantor of freedom in human history."

-No prosperity before the commercial development of oil and gas in the 19th century? What is the nuclear family -three wives and five children? What if parents cannot read and write?

"“Part of the problem is we also have a federal government that pays single women more not to have a man in the house than to have a man in the house, contributing to an epidemic of fatherlessness."

-Not because some guys want to get laid but not be dads? Does this guy actually live in the US?

Tim Scott
"“I had the good fortune to have a mom who worked 16-hour days, making sure we had food on our tables. She taught me that if you’re able-bodied in America, you work, if you take out a loan, you pay it back, you commit a violent crime, you go to jail. And if God made you a man, you play sports against men,” the South Carolina senator said."

-So is he going to ban mixed doubles in Tennis, Badminton, and Squash, and ban sports where men and women compete together, like Horse Racing, Equestrian events, Luge? What about Ice Skating?

Republican debate veers from abortion and fentanyl to Trump and Ukraine as Harris attacks ‘extremist agenda’ – as it happened | Republicans | The Guardian

Ever get the feeling these guys are out of touch with what is happening in their own country?

Yes i do get that feeling that the MAGA Party is out of touch with what happening in their own country,but they don't give a damn about what's going in the country.

[filghy2]

Ever get the feeling these guys are out of touch with what is happening in their own country?

The Republican party is no longer a political party concerned with policy. It has really become a sort of counter-cultural movement concerned with striking poses that appeal to their supporters' sense of grievance and paranoia.

Apart from Trump's continuing ascendancy, the rise of Vivek Ramaswamy is a good demonstration of this. The guy is clearly a policy airhead, but his style seems to be going over well with the Republican base.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/0...ebate-00112752

To me he just seems like one of those annoying overconfident salespeople who won't take no for an answer, but the MAGA crowd loves this sort of brash hucksterism. I think he's been succeeding where De Santis has failed because he comes across as so confident, whereas De Santis always seems to be calculating the right thing to say.

Given Ramaswamy is probably the most pro-Trump candidate in the field the obvious question is why he's running against him. Maybe he's just angling to be VP.

[Stavros]

Given Ramaswamy is probably the most pro-Trump candidate in the field the obvious question is why he's running against him. Maybe he's just angling to be VP.

If he follows the Trump playbook, he will be calculating how much money he can make from this exposure.

[filghy2]

More on RFK's quixotic quest to run for the Democratic nomination by appealing to Republicans. As with Elon Musk, you have to wonder whether the real motivation is just to get attention and to spite those who have shunned or criticised him.

https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/9/...gn-republicans

[Ben]

More on RFK's quixotic quest to run for the Democratic nomination by appealing to Republicans. As with Elon Musk, you have to wonder whether the real motivation is just to get attention and to spite those who have shunned or criticised him.

https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/9/...gn-republicans

[Stavros]

Really, Ben, are you impressed by this incoherent garbage, or do you post this to expose the intellectual vacancy of these people? I don't know who Lee Camp is but his permanently startled mess of half-thought-up phrases signifying nothing may account for the delusions of RFK and like-minded losers that they might actually win, though what they win when they win I doubt they know.

You need only ask yourself how candidates are chosen to find the answer, because the system has been there long enough. You could be a Trotskyist, an Anarchist, a Maoist, a Nazi, a supporter of the Flat Earth Theory, but you can register as a Democrat or a Republican for the sole purpose of voting in a Primary. But even if you had a European style Party system with annual membership fees, party cards and so on, the candidates would come from a narrow field of those who meet the Party criteria, though in some cases indeed quite a few (at least in the past in the UK) candidates were known to local people as they matured from local council office to nomination for Parliament, then a selection panel and so on until they are on the short list for party members to vote for- that was the Labour Party system. The Conservative Central Office has on so many occasions 'nominated' Mrs T or Mr X for a local Conservative Association (as their party is called) that local members often feel they had no choice, because they didn't.

So stop assuming that the selection of candidates is entirely democratic, because it ain't and never has been. Does this mean the selection process is rigged? I doubt it because they don't need to rig it at all -the system is what delivers, so if you are dissatisfied, change the system, abolish these Primary and Caucus processes, and find another way for Parties to choose.

Better still, stand yourself. Find some sponsors, create a following on Tik-Tak, Mammogram or Twinker, get yourself on TV, and so on, and maybe even have a portfolio of appealing policies. Who knows where this might lead?