I do focus my energy on the down ballot races, however this thread is about why people vote for DeSantis or Trump. I wish more people would focus on the down ballot races but unfortunately the top of the ticket is what gets the most of the attention,FL_Ag1998 said:Tea Party said:You will have to back up your assertion that I do not want to look at what DeSantis has done as Governor. That is an outright lie.....The same for implying what i am saying is like calling Paul and Cruz as establishment. Nothing that I have said would lead any person to believe that that is what i was implying unless either I relayed my message poorly or the reader was not processing it properly.aggie93 said:If you want to understand who DeSantis is and don't want to look at what he has done as Governor then look at who is writing his plans and are his closest allies, Chip Roy and Thomas Massie. DeSantis FOUNDED the Freedom Caucus with guys like Jim Jordan. He voted AGAINST Ryan as Speaker long ago.Tea Party said:These are all great points, but Trump voters are voting for something that Trump represents and not for the man himself.FL_Ag1998 said:Tea Party said:Interesting that political discussion is shut down if it does not revolve around winning the next election....I won't bother bringing up the effects of voting for third party candidates down ballot and how that effects future donations and entrance in future debates.... Sorry if that came off crude. I'm cranky from our Q2 business cycle.FL_Ag1998 said:Tea Party said:You miss the point. The vote is not FOR Trump or his abilities to do anyting really. It's a vote AGAINST the establishment.Old May Banker said:
Yes.... Trump has really proven his ability to "blow up" down ballot votes. lol
The people voting AGAINST the establishment are the types that are willing to vote against the establishment incumbents down ballot.
The sheep in the general that vote for "whoever is the R" will gladly fall in line for the non-establishment types that make it out of the primary.
And to the poster above about my slightly to the right comment, had you read my entire post you would notice it was not in reference to DeSantis himself. He certainly is more conservative than most, however the down ballot R's are what would cripple him just like they crippled Trump. The overall effect is a slight pull to the right then the inevitable big pull left later if you keep playing the status quo game down ballot.
So here's my first question before I respond further to your argument.
Do you truly believe Trump can win the General? I don't mean win it by some miracle convergence of a half dozen factors, but win it outright.
But regardless, yes I absolutely do believe that Trump can win the general. Do I think the chances are a certainty or even a strong favorability, absolutely not. But I feel the same way about DeSantis although I would venture he has a slight advantage to win the general for all the reasons I posted above. People like the status quo...
But on the flip side, if Trump loses and there are signs of large scale shenanigans like the last election (Russian dossier, ballot harvesting, pipe leaks, etc.), then maybe that will be enough to wake the sheeple up to start caring about how big and rogue our government has become. Again, this conversation stemmed from which candidate is best for the long-game.
Ok, my first counterargument...
IMO of course, Desantis isn't favored more than Trump to win the general because he's "status quo". That's simply you believing the Trump campaign pitch. Desantis is favored over Trump in the General because he's not crude and abrasive at every single turn. He's shown with his actions that he is attacking the far left progressive movement that every conservative and the majority of the "middle" are against. He doesn't just make campaign promises that he fails to follow through on and then blame others. If he were simply "status quo" he wouldn't have attracted all of the Democrats over to his side in the election. Go read articles on why they voted for him; they did so because he actually gets things done, things that most people on both sides agree with.
My second counterargument....
At this point, with the general feeling across the entire American population, Trump losing the general election, even to Biden, will not stir up feelings of a controversy. The only people who believe election shenanigans will be die hard trump supporters. The response by the rest of America will be "well yeah, duh of course trump lost, he's a very disagreeable and old candidate who's under indictment". It's not gonna wake anybody up to anything.
But a candidate like Desantis losing to Biden or even Newsome, after what happened in 2020, will absolutely cause many people to suddenly start questioning what does ANY Republican have to do to win an election against a Democrat? And why do Democrats keep winning office when every poll says the majority of Americans are against their policies?
Voting for Trump is cutting your nose off to spite your face. Its not going to change anything. Truly pay attention to what Desantis has done and his plans. Don't view them through the MAGA goggles. Go read some independent accounts, hell read some liberal leaning MSM articles about him.
And I did not mean DeSantis himself is the status quo. The political spectrum ends have shifted left over time and the pendulum swings harder to the left than it does to the right through it's cycles. DeSantis winning AND the establishment winning down ballot means we get the same slight shift right while the pendulum favors conservative ideology, but it will swing harder left next time like it always does.
The exact same thing happened to Trump in his first term under Ryan's SOTH tenure, so I am certainly not saying Trump is the cure for the status quo. I am saying that DeSantis is more than likely going to have the same issues so we should not pretend that he is capable of breaking the status quo of one step right now then two steps left later.
You do bring up a good point regarding if either candidate loses though and whether people would sheepishly wait until the next election or if they would say it's time to recognize leftism and conservatism is incompatible and cannot coexist under the same government. I think Trump wakes more people up but honestly you may have convinced me DeSantis losing would wake more people up.
But, I would enthusiastically vote for DeSantis over Trump in the primary if he made a stronger push to get rid of establishment types down ballot. He already is making a strong case for it with his recent three letter agency attacks, but maybe the rest is in the works since he is just now starting his presidential campaign. Then I would hope both the Trump and DeSantis supporters can unify around DeSantis.
Edit: I see you added another post which covers a lot of my concerns. I'm not against DeSantis and know he can advance the conservative agenda to the right. I'm just not confident that the voters at a national level will vote the establishment out thus his term may just be one step right before a bigger step left later, like history has shown. I will have to research his efforts at lower levels in Florida like you said. Maybe he already is doing things that I hoped for and I was naive.
It's like saying Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are Establishment.
Again, I am not against DeSantis or any conservative that advocates conservative ideology as I have said countless times.... There are more within the GOP that do not fit that bill than there are that do fit it, which I know is something most here would not agree with but are starting to realize.
I simply said that when the pendulum swings to the right it does not swing hard and that is because of down ballot votes hindering the conservative voices like the Cruz, Paul, Roy, or even Trump in 2016 though he is not conservative. Having a few key people that advocate for the right things is great, but at this point in time with the government as bloated and corrupt as it is, it's like putting flex seal on a sinking ship. It's maintaining the status quo.
We both want a conservative America. You just think that DeSantis can make that happen. I don't think anyone can make that happen outside of a massive awakening of the sheeple. I hope DeSantis can awaken the sheep and there is still time for him to do it, but until then Trump is the unfortunate placeholder for the establishment protest vote though his actions recently are hurting the silver platter the D's are handing him.
So focus your energy on the down ballot races.
Focusing all your energy on and voting for a lame-duck candidate like Trump at the top of the ticket as your way to protest against the establishment but then just complaining about the results of the down ballot vote doesn't make sense to me.
Vote for someone at the top of the ballot who has already shown by his actions as governor that he's not only against the current establishment but more importantly he's ruthless, cunning, and non-stop in either getting it to fall in line behind him or getting it out of the way.
Trump never once during his four years in office showed the type of coordinated and intelligent planning that Desantis has shown in his time as governor. I'm sure someone will respond with the standard line of "he couldn't because he was sabotaged!"....yes, by the people he hired because he did a piss poor job of building his team! That's the point!
aggie93 brought up a very good point, the key point in my opinion. A general election with Trump as the R candidate makes the race all about Trump's personalities and foibles. The D's are salivating over that prospect. But a race with Desantis as the candidate makes the race about the actual issues, and the D's know in their hearts they can't win that race.
We complain on this forum every day all day long about what the liberals are doing to this country...in other words THE ISSUES....yet some of you want to distract the voters from those issues during the election by making the election about the Republican candidate's personality - a self-promoting, philandering, easily detestable octogenarian!
And you and LMcane miss the entire point of what I've been saying. Most people are not voting FOR Trump the person, they are voting against the establishment. Trump the person is just a placeholder that DeSantis can easily take over between now and the primary vote. At this point in time DeSantis has not been public enough going against the establishment to pull the people away from Trump, but given his recent trends now that his campaign has started, I would assume it would happen before the primary starts thus making this thread moot.
Your assumption that people care about Trump making the election about his personality or people wanting Trump types is completely wrong. Trump the person is a buffoon and most Trump supporters would agree with that. However, the system is corrupt and at this point Trump represents the need to drastically fix it rather than work within it. We don't care for who Trump advocates for. We care for who advocates for drastically fixing the system. Trump is not going to fix it, but him getting elected and doing absolutely nothing still rufles the right feathers and sends the message that the people are done tolerating the corrupt gov and the gov should retreat from it's tyrannical trend.
DeSantis represents the strong ability to work within the system and only a slight need to drastically fix it, but he is gaining ground with his recent remarks about three letter agencies.
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