LegalDrugPusher said:

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Retired FBI Agent said:

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LegalDrugPusher said:

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MemphisAg1 said:

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LegalDrugPusher said:

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I have no way of backing this up with any sources but my gut feeling is is that DeSantis and his advisers maybe discussing with him that might be better to hold off to run for president until 2028.

They obviously know that he has a lot of support, but they're not sure enough if his support his high enough to secure him the 2024 nominee.

They are looking at the polls and they see that Trump has a 30 point lead at this point and yes I think that would go down a little bit if DeSantis declared officially but I'm not sure it would go down that much 30 points is a tough deficit to overcome and they may be telling him Ron if you don't secure the nominee your credibility, your popularity, sours a little bit for 2028 and perhaps could even hurt you just being the governor of Florida in the meantime . This is a big risk that he would be taking as to how everything stands at the moment.

The Trump indictments are not going to hurt him, and more than likely this indictment will be thrown out eventually

I just think right now, DeSantis is still mulling this over if he has not declared by June, then he's not going to declare.

It would be a lot different at the polls, were showing a neck to neck battle between DeSantis and Trump but where we are as of today trumps got this in the bag

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Appreciate your work, but I hope you're wrong.

Trump on the ballot = 4 more years of Biden and Kamala.

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And you're entitled to fill that you hope I'm wrong that's fine. I kind of hope I'm wrong myself, but I look at reality right now. Reality is pointing in the direction that I just mentioned.

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No, you aren't describing reality.

You are describing YOUR imagination.

Hell you just stated above you are using your gut and common sense. Neither of those exist in reality.

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There is no imagine of the rallies. They are what they are in the thousands major thousands of people you can live in delusion and say they're not Ill live in reality because they are.

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Yes LDP, I understand Trump rallies take place on planet earth in reality. I'm the delusional one? Try and read the combination of letters you just wrote. I'm not saying rallies are unimportant. Rally Trump is peak-form Trump.

But you are arguing in this thread something different, that 2024 support for Trump is as strong/significant/etc as 2020 support for Trump. A Trump-to-Trump comparison. How did you arrive at this conclusion? Common sense. Gut feelings. And rallies. Has rally attendance increased? This isn't a matter of whether Trump has support. Clearly he does. It's whether he has more support than 2020. You stated earlier something like "sure Trump has lost some supporters/voters". But you also say now he still has just as much support because he holds big rallies. Trump asks you to tell him whether he has support today like he did in 2020. And that's your answer? "You're Fired!!!"

LegalDrugPusher said:

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Trump support is just as high as it was in 2020 as it is now , has he lost some supporters? yes but not enough to make a dent.

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Elaborate ...

Wasn't CPAC a disappointment this year?

Usually 10k or more and this year a LOLtastic 2k-ish?

It was.

I agree.... Trump is a populist. I just meant if he was the nominee, he'd get plenty of conservative votes..... as well as causing more leftists than ever to go vote against him.

Ballot harvesting and mail-in votes will seal either candidates fate.

BigRobSA said:

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Old May Banker said:

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IMO, Trump's biggest issue isn't popularity with conservatives - I think he certainly has more than ample support there - it's negative popularity with everyone else.

I'm not sure anyone can do a better job of getting the base to vote than Trump... unfortunately, I think he also will drive democrats and independents to the polls in record numbers - to vote the other way.... it's an odd phenomenon that I don't fully understand. He was a media darling, hanging with all the "right people" 6 years ago - and now they have a hatred for him like no other. I don't get it.

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Why would conservatives be his base of popularity?

He's not conservative. He spent enough to make Obama blush, as well as a lot of other things. Better than Hillary, whom he supported for years and years? Yes. Would've been better than Biden, even though he started us down the inflationary path? Yepper.

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1. Kept us out of war
2. Lowered our taxes
3. Nominated conservative judges all over this country
4. Brought back the economy to insane levels
5. Created over 7 million jobs
6. Increased labor participation rate
7. MASSIVE deregulation that actually allowed businesses to grow
8. Incredible turnaround on illegal immigration - built the wall as well as made asylum seakers wait for their hearings outside of the US. Essentially halted 90% of the illegal immigration

Name one "conservative" that did more?

He didn't start anything on an inflationary path. He did shut down businesses for about 7-8 weeks and did compensate them for that. But COVID was totally unknown at the time. That one act doesn't make him "not conservative".

LDP is backing a candidate? Then I know they're probably going to lose. Good sign for 2024.

fka ftc said:

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Very interesting observation and the unending, deepening hate for Trump is unprecedented... maybe in the course of history.

Also agree that hate drives the vote more than any other sort of issue. Why were they, are they and continue to be so afraid of him?

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I do agree. There is alot of Trump hate out there by folks that get their information from what is spoon fed to them.

An 8 year100% all-out negative campaign against Trump did cause some damage. Consider:

1. Two bogus impeachments
2. Several criminal charges that were BS and went away
3. Fake dossier
4. FBI/CIA actively trying to thwart everything he did (remember the insurance policy? The Mueller investigation?)
5. Illegal spying by the government
6. Criminal harassment to everyone that tried to associate with Trump
7. 247 media bombardment by MSM (CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, etc..)
8. Total censorship of Trump to the point he had to create his own social media
9. And now, arrested for a charge that 90% of the country admits is totally bogus.

And yet, he still has double digit lead in the race for the Republican nomination. George Bush was hit with a fraction of those attacks and was made totally useless by the end.

DC wants to control their President. They could NOT control Trump. Thus, the unprecedented attacks started Ahd have been ongoing before he even won the Republican nomination in 2016. Yet, he's still insanely popular.

And massively feared by the left.

If DeSantis decides to actually run, what do you think HE will do if he doesn't cave to the left? Trump has billions to protect himself. DeSantis has been insulated from this national massive attack campaign. He's not faced anything like what Trump has faced to date.

We will see what happens.

Prime0882 said:

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LDP is backing a candidate? Then I know they're probably going to lose. Good sign for 2024.

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Which candidate do you think LDP is backing? Seems to me he's backing a party, not a candidate.

Bonfire1996 said:

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Science Denier said:

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1. Kept us out of war
2. Lowered our taxes
3. Nominated conservative judges all over this country
4. Brought back the economy to insane levels
5. Created over 7 million jobs
6. Increased labor participation rate
7. MASSIVE deregulation that actually allowed businesses to grow
8. Incredible turnaround on illegal immigration - built the wall as well as made asylum seakers wait for their hearings outside of the US.

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An amazing list, and why I so enthusiastically voted for him in 2020 as the alternative was basically the opposite of the above.

But ask yourself, why isn't he running on that record? Why isn't he acting like the nomination is a forgone conclusion, with that record? His greatest weakness, at this time, is independents are leaving him, hard, every week. Isn't the above list a magnet for independent voters? It sure is.

The media has figured Trump out. After seven years of trying to put him down and play gotcha, they finally figured him out. He can be baited into extremely unpopular talking points because he's aggrieved. And when he does that he brings himself down. Trump will never stop trying to make the media like him, it's been his M.O. for 50 years. He's been doing that far longer than politics, and he believes that since they loved him once, they have the capacity to love him again.

The Trump base isn't big enough for him to win the general. It was in 2016 because it included millions of educated whites who 1. Were tired of being called racist by Michelle and Barack, and 2. Couldn't stand Hillary. A significant portion of those whites are off team Trump, permanently. The media can bait Trump with effortless precision to keep those whites off team Trump by just letting Trump talk about a stolen election, Hunter, or talking about his generally likable Republican rivals.

America likes Ron DeSantis. And every time Trump trashed him, independents flee from Trump. If you can't see this, you have a tunnel vision problem.

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He is running in that record. You just don't hear all his message. One ir two posts on Truth social or whatever it's called is hammered to death and that's all you see.

When he routs his accomplishments, he's labeled a bragging ego maniac.

Thankfully, most of his base realizes what is actually going on.

Oh. And he attacks everyone he runs against. But there weee not many that did r like his attacks on Jeb.

Guys, the gameplan for 2024 is simple:

If you don't want a Democrat to win, don't charge the Democratic party/voters.

Trump is the ultimate charge for the Democrats. He is the spinach to the Democrats' Popeye.

People are not really tired of Trump. What they are tired of is the 8 years of 24/7 news cycles bashing on him for the myriad of things as Science Denier laid out and more.

Trump ridiculing DeSantis used to be seen as normal political banter. But when Trump says something its a violation of social norms, interruption of decorum, and brings the hate to the surface from the very left all the way through to the center right.

Just ready the "I'm tired of Trump" as "I am tired of the Dems and MSM beating us up because they associate Trump with R's and I'm supposed to be an R and this all hurts my feelings and I want to go back to the old way when everyone could rally behind Bob Dole and Mitt Romney."

La Bamba said:

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Guys, the gameplan for 2024 is simple:

If you don't want a Democrat to win, don't charge the Democratic party/voters.

Trump is the ultimate charge for the Democrats. He is the spinach to the Democrats' Popeye.

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Dems will harvest their votes if they don't show up. You have to win votes from those in the left that aren't radical.

You do t get over 70 million votes if you don't do exactly that. Trump has demonstrated that ability in a national election. And that's after dominion changed votes.

Not sure either DeSantis or Trump will be able to fix the well established cheating, so it may not matter.

Science Denier said:

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1. Kept us out of war
2. Lowered our taxes
3. Nominated conservative judges all over this country
4. Brought back the economy to insane levels
5. Created over 7 million jobs
6. Increased labor participation rate
7. MASSIVE deregulation that actually allowed businesses to grow
8. Incredible turnaround on illegal immigration - built the wall as well as made asylum seakers wait for their hearings outside of the US. Essentially halted 90% of the illegal immigration

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1 - He gets credit for.
2 - will be gone as they were only temporary so half credit
3 - He gets credit here but any other conservative would have done the same thing.
4 - and killed it with his Covid policy
5 - and killed those with his Covid policy
6 - and killed that with his Covid policy
7- all but gone because it was by Executive order
8- about that wall - it aint done and Mexico didn't pay for ***** any immigration that was halted came back in triplicate. the net amount is nothing because he didn't do anything that lasted.

All in all Trump accomplished the bare minimum of what one would expect a president with an R behind their name but none of his accomplishments are long lasting outside of the damage he did from lockdowns, vaccines, and stimulus helping to set up the inflation of the last few years.

Lots of monday morning quarterbacking on Trump's COVID policies... even though its utterly clear now that he was lied to, misled, deceived, and ridiculed for every twitch of his cheek by Ds, Rs, and the media (hell the world).

And he followed the law letting states decide mostly only their own. The issue with that is many states went way too far, and oddly now people blame Trump for that. Crazy.

And lots of continued excuse making for some who completely **** the bed, when there were others who actually had courage to stand up for what is right. If he was deceived then it was his fault for putting those people in charge of the situation.

You also forget that he had a playbook on how to respond from the study done by the Bush admin that didn't include masks or lockdowns that he let get thrown out the window.

If Fauci and the media could bully him on that, why does he deserve a chance to let it happen again?

fka ftc said:

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Lots of monday morning quarterbacking on Trump's COVID policies... even though its utterly clear now that he was lied to, misled, deceived, and ridiculed for every twitch of his cheek by Ds, Rs, and the media (hell the world).

And he followed the law letting states decide mostly only their own. The issue with that is many states went way too far, and oddly now people blame Trump for that. Crazy.

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Trump was lied to about COVID?? He claimed it was a liberal hoax. Then it turns out he knew COVID was going to be bad, but convinced people that it was nothing and would magically disappear. He then gets COVID himself, and gets the vaccine. How many times did he get booed from the crowds when he promoted getting the vaccine? Remember the look Dr. Birx face when Trump started spouting off about bleach and some kind of magical light to kill the virus in your bodies? She gave him a "what the hell are you talking about?" look, remember? Trump was lied to? C'mon man. And I don't know where you're getting that the states that shut down now blame Trump for that. I've heard nothing of the kind and I live in one of those states. The only thing they blame Trump for was the misinformation at the beginning of the pandemic and how the spread could have been minimized if he had admitted publicly what he already knew. Sadly, the folks that grabbed on to that misinformation still believe it today....they have to, or admit they were duped by him. They won't ever admit that.

fka ftc said:

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Lots of monday morning quarterbacking on Trump's COVID policies... even though its utterly clear now that he was lied to, misled, deceived, and ridiculed for every twitch of his cheek by Ds, Rs, and the media (hell the world).

And he followed the law letting states decide mostly only their own. The issue with that is many states went way too far, and oddly now people blame Trump for that. Crazy.

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Did he or did he not send out 3 giant stimulus payments? The last of which was when COVID was clearly over and was nothing more than an election bribe? Did he not send out hundreds of billions in business loans? Half of which were fraudulent?

Heck his policy to halt student loan interest is still going.

So Trump fires Birx and Fauci. Now he looks like someone who is difficult to work with and playing politics over peoples lives.

Those 2 then go on to be the MSM darlings and heroes. Everything they say will be worshiped. Anyone Trump hires will have their lives and their families lives dug up. Not to mention the problem of all the top bureaucrats in health being of the same hive mind.

Since the Media, MSM and social, were controlled by progressives their was no way Trump could win. Any other take is just wishes. All big business was hitting their employees with weekly propaganda as well. Ivermectin is for horses. Uninvited unvaccinated family members from Christmas. Etc etc.

fka ftc said:

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Lots of monday morning quarterbacking on Trump's COVID policies... even though its utterly clear now that he was lied to, misled, deceived, and ridiculed for every twitch of his cheek by Ds, Rs, and the media (hell the world).

And he followed the law letting states decide mostly only their own. The issue with that is many states went way too far, and oddly now people blame Trump for that. Crazy.

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Setting aside all the emotion and passion with how Trump was treated, the bottom line is he can't get the votes to be re-elected. There are too many people who won't vote for him. That's really all that matters now. It doesn't matter why they won't vote for him... they just won't. He'll get the votes from his hardcore supporters, but there simply aren't enough of them.

If we run Trump as the R nominee, it will result in four more years of Biden and Kamala.

We need to align around a candidate who can get elected as president. DeSantis appears to be that person, but I'm still wide open to any other conservative who can ring the bell.

But it ain't Trump. The sooner we acknowledge that and move on the closer we'll be to taking the White House.

BoydCrowder13 said:

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fka ftc said:

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Lots of monday morning quarterbacking on Trump's COVID policies... even though its utterly clear now that he was lied to, misled, deceived, and ridiculed for every twitch of his cheek by Ds, Rs, and the media (hell the world).

And he followed the law letting states decide mostly only their own. The issue with that is many states went way too far, and oddly now people blame Trump for that. Crazy.

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Did he or did he not send out 3 giant stimulus payments? The last of which was when COVID was clearly over and was nothing more than an election bribe? Did he not send out hundreds of billions in business loans? Half of which was fraudulent?

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BigRobSA said:

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Wasn't CPAC a disappointment this year?

Usually 10k or more and this year a LOLtastic 2k-ish?

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you are correct Sir!

we will get a chance to see if it's LDP or FBI Man who is correct fairly soon

the BS from the Trump campaign lies can't continue forever- they have to report REAL campaign funding raised. so we will see in the next quarter how much they raised from Trump being charged with crimes

and then we can compare cash on hand for Trump in 2023 versus cash on hand for Trump in 2016

texagbeliever said:

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Since the Media, MSM and social, were controlled by progressives their was no way Trump could win. Any other take is just wishes. All big business was hitting their employees with weekly propaganda as well. Ivermectin is for horses. Uninvited unvaccinated family members from Christmas. Etc etc.

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If there was no way he could win then he had nothing to lose by doing what was right.

AgDev01 said:

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texagbeliever said:

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Since the Media, MSM and social, were controlled by progressives their was no way Trump could win. Any other take is just wishes. All big business was hitting their employees with weekly propaganda as well. Ivermectin is for horses. Uninvited unvaccinated family members from Christmas. Etc etc.

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If there was no way he could win then he had nothing to lose by doing what was right.

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Possibly. If this was a 1 turn game. But there are future time scenarios to consider.

What if it caused Trump to lose the election so bad that Biden won outright without any midnight shenanigans. He could then have a near mandate to go to Australia style lockdowns. Forced vaccinations. The will to fight back against covid tryanny would be much lower. However since Trump played along to the mild tyranny it made that issue less of a mandate in the 2020 election. Trump lost because he was mean not because of how he handled covid. So the democrats were left to keep things closer to current policy.

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People are not really tired of Trump. What they are tired of is the 8 years of 24/7 news cycles bashing on him for the myriad of things as Science Denier laid out and more.

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No, people are really tired of Trump. I still have 2016 election night on my DVR. It was glorious. Now Trump is a caricature of himself and a buffoon. At least he behaves like a buffoon often enough that the media (who does have it out for him) has continual ammunition.

Just the contrast of his Easter Sunday message contrasted to DeSantis and whomever wrote Biden's is enough to turn off any voter who saw it. And once you lose one, you're never getting it back. Sure if he's the R candidate I'll vote for him for the third time. But if he actually loves this country it shouldn't come to that.

La Bamba said:

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Guys, the gameplan for 2024 is simple:

If you don't want a Democrat to win, don't charge the Democratic party/voters.

Trump is the ultimate charge for the Democrats. He is the spinach to the Democrats' Popeye.

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Well said. Get DeSantis out there in a civilized debate with Sleepy Joe and he'll run circles around Grandpa and normal people will realize they elected a brain-dead idiot and vote smarter.

Trump goes out there against Biden and it'll be an even more bitter version of 2020 with two grumpy old men pissing themselves and pissing everyone else off. And people will go to extreme lengths to keep Trump from wining, and then your odds skyrocket of President Harris when Biden inevitably falls down the airplane stairs or has a stroke or whatever ultimately takes him out.

texagbeliever said:

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Possibly. If this was a 1 turn game. But there are future time scenarios to consider.

What if it caused Trump to lose the election so bad that Biden won outright without any midnight shenanigans. He could then have a near mandate to go to Australia style lockdowns. Forced vaccinations. The will to fight back against covid tryanny would be much lower. However since Trump played along to the mild tyranny it made that issue less of a mandate in the 2020 election. Trump lost because he was mean not because of how he handled covid. So the democrats were left to keep things closer to current policy.

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So now Trump is a martyr who sacrificed the election to save us from greater tyranny? How much do you have to twist your mind to come up with this stuff?

Lets use an example of what actually happened versus some made up fanfic scenario inside your head.

Trump was bad on covid in every possible manner and lost the election. Comparatively DeSantis actually lead and stood up to the tyrants and won his reelection in a landslide.

AgDev01 said:

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texagbeliever said:

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Possibly. If this was a 1 turn game. But there are future time scenarios to consider.

What if it caused Trump to lose the election so bad that Biden won outright without any midnight shenanigans. He could then have a near mandate to go to Australia style lockdowns. Forced vaccinations. The will to fight back against covid tryanny would be much lower. However since Trump played along to the mild tyranny it made that issue less of a mandate in the 2020 election. Trump lost because he was mean not because of how he handled covid. So the democrats were left to keep things closer to current policy.

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So now Trump is a martyr who sacrificed the election to save us from greater tyranny? How much do you have to twist your mind to come up with this stuff?

Lets use an example of what actually happened versus some made up fanfic scenario inside your head.

Trump was bad on covid in every possible manner and lost the election. Comparatively DeSantis actually lead and stood up to the tyrants and won his reelection in a landslide.

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I didn't call him a martyr. I dont think Trump is the mastermind of his policy decisions. But if you cant/don't take into account future impacts of present actions you are at a significant strategic disadvantage.

DeSantis won a state election 2 years later under different covid circumstances in a state with no mail in voting and no midnight pauses. Its almost like the two aren't the same.

Trump still whinging about DeSantis and attacking him from the left:

https://truthsocial.com/users/realDonaldTrump/statuses/110175970414508728

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JUST OUT: I guess Ron DeSantis is not quite as popular in Florida as people thought. I assume, among other things, that they don't want their Social Security and MediCare cut!


[url=https://static-assets-1.truthsocial.com/tmtg:prime-ts-assets/media_attachments/files/110/175/970/396/564/284/original/4e4da373ce3d48cc.jpg][/url]

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fka ftc said:

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Lots of monday morning quarterbacking on Trump's COVID policies... even though its utterly clear now that he was lied to, misled, deceived, and ridiculed for every twitch of his cheek by Ds, Rs, and the media (hell the world).

And he followed the law letting states decide mostly only their own. The issue with that is many states went way too far, and oddly now people blame Trump for that. Crazy.

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If the election was in 2019 Trump wins easily but it wasn't. It was in 2020 and that Covid response mattered.

Now you may excuse away all of Trump's mistakes during Covid and say that no one could have done better. In the end though he was President. He signed off on the shut downs. He elevated Birx and Fauci looking to use them as cover but in the end Fauci took his power from him almost as much as Sessions did by recusing himself over the Russia probe. When he spoke he was off the cuff and fell into one trap after another because he has zero PR discipline and the reality is message discipline matters for a President, ESPECIALLY a Republican President. Over and over he would get lured into saying something stupid and lose news cycles and after a while people stopped paying attention to him.

He would also jump from one side to the other and one day he was praising Fauci and the next he was decrying him. Yet he never had the guts to fire him even after he lost the election. He feared the backlash and in the end what he got was worse. He put all his chits into Operation Warp Speed and all he did was lose on both ends. Most people don't give him credit for it and those who do now look at the mandates and side effects of a rushed vaccine and give him part of that blame (fair or not).

In the end Trump was President. He made a LOT of decisions around Covid and he had a LOT of power. Some of those were good but many were terrible. He needed to stand up and lead but instead he tried to find ways to get credit for the good and blame others for the bad. Harry Truman was a mediocre President but he did do one thing right, "The Buck Stops Here" is what every President should abide by because it's the right thing to do in the end he is going to get the blame or credit. If you are looking for people to feel sorry for you as President then you are in the wrong job.

The Dems and Media are always going to be unfair and spin. That's just how it is. Either you adjust or you lose and making excuses solves nothing. In fact making excuses just shows why someone isn't the right choice. In the case of Covid it's worse for Trump because he had just gone through basically 4 years of the "Deep State" screwing him over time and again and yet what was his reaction? To completely trust the Swampiest of Swamp creatures in Fauci who literally had been in his role for 40 years. Sorry but Trump has no one to blame but himself on that and it shows why he is vulnerable to continue to make those mistakes.

Still in the end all of that might be overlooked if there wasn't another option that had 90% of the same policies but had a successful approach on Covid along with none of the baggage.

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All in all Trump accomplished the bare minimum of what one would expect a president with an R behind their name

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What President accomplished more? Regan was great, but basically did what I mentioned above, except his failure was not some freak virus released by China. His was self-inflicted, allowing amnesty for illegals without doing anything to protect the border in the future.

Either of the Bushes? LOL.
Ford? LOL
Nixon?