2024 US Presidential Election

[Paul Smeenus]

What is that supposed to mean? Is he lying about his knowledge of, or association to Project 2025?

It means that I don't believe him when he says he wants nothing to do with Project 2025, I thing he says anything that's politically expedient.

[SGR]

It means that I don't believe him when he says he wants nothing to do with Project 2025, I thing he says anything that's politically expedient.

Do you believe him when he says he's going to be a dictator on 'day one'?

[Paul Smeenus]

sure

[SGR]

sure

How can you tell when he's lying vs when he's being truthful, then?

[Paul Smeenus]

I believe he'll say anything that is politically expedient

[SGR]

I believe he'll say anything that is politically expedient

Is saying you're going to be a dictator on 'day one' politically expedient? Does that help him win independents/swing voters?

[Paul Smeenus]

I think he believes it will help him

[SGR]

I think he believes it will help him

You believe that Trump knows enough about Project 2025 and what it contains to realize that denying any association or real knowledge of it will help him politically, but also believe that he thinks proclaiming his intentions for a 'day one' dictatorship will also help him politically?

[Lexi Darling]

You believe that Trump knows enough about Project 2025 and what it contains to realize that denying any association or real knowledge of it will help him politically, but also believe that he thinks proclaiming his intentions for a 'day one' dictatorship will also help him politically?

He's continued to associate with prominent Heritage Foundation members since saying that. He also picked Vance for VP, who from what I've seen seems to parrot a lot of similar weird anti-women bullshit to P25. I'm sure he's not going to follow it to the letter, but I don't believe for a second that there are no direct links.

The dictator comment can be read as Trump just saying his usual exaggerated strongman platitudes, whereas P25 is a detailed 900 page manifesto that I'm sure reading a summary of would actually sway moderates away from Trump if he said he does support it. They're different things to say.

[Jwb]

I think Trump's comments about people not needing to vote in 4 years just demonstrates he really doesn't care at all about the trajectory of the GOP except to the extent that his legacy is tied up in such matters. He is being honest when he says he's only concerned about them voting this time around, for fairly obvious reasons which certainly have nothing to do with this idea that Christians are underrepresented as a voting bloc. If that were the concern then

I think the 2020 coup attempt wasn't even him necessarily trying to set up some kind of dictatorship - he just didn't want to accept the fate of being a disgraced one term president.

[SGR]

He's continued to associate with prominent Heritage Foundation members since saying that. He also picked Vance for VP, who from what I've seen seems to parrot a lot of similar weird anti-women bullshit to P25. I'm sure he's not going to follow it to the letter, but I don't believe for a second that there are no direct links.

The dictator comment can be read as Trump just saying his usual exaggerated strongman platitudes, whereas P25 is a detailed 900 page manifesto that I'm sure reading a summary of would actually sway moderates away from Trump if he said he does support it. They're different things to say.

This all reminds me of when conservatives were railing that Obama was a 'secret Muslim' and was going to institute Sharia Law (during the 2008 Dem primary) after Hillary Clinton's campaign released the following photo and it became known that Obama met with Louis Farrakhan ("Obama knows them", "Obama has ties to them", "Obama is sympathetic to them", etc). Obviously, in retrospect, those fears were baseless and ridiculous.



You're right though, if moderates/swing voters buy into the connections between Trump and Project 2025, they'd definitely be disgusted and turned off, which is why Democrats are trying to push it so hard and Trump/Republicans are trying so hard to distance themselves from it. If Project 2025 was a natural and organic thing, then whoever decided to release it so close to the election might as well be a Democrat/Republican opposition, because it is perfect fodder to tie to Trump and attack him for.

[SGR]

I think Trump's comments about people not needing to vote in 4 years just demonstrates he really doesn't care at all about the trajectory of the GOP except to the extent that his legacy is tied up in such matters. He is being honest when he says he's only concerned about them voting this time around, for fairly obvious reasons which certainly have nothing to do with this idea that Christians are underrepresented as a voting bloc. If that were the concern then

I think the 2020 coup attempt wasn't even him necessarily trying to set up some kind of dictatorship - he just didn't want to accept the fate of being a disgraced one term president.

That's not a wild take. The timeline of Trump's political affiliations provides some context and perhaps reinforcement of your point:



My bet is that if, in an alternate reality, Romney won in 2012, Trump probably would've registered as a Democrat and run for the Democrat nomination.

[DJChameleon]

A little additional context to the 'you won't have to vote anymore' quote. He was speaking specifically to Christians at a faith summit.


There are a lot of Christians who don't vote (slightly less than the general population, if memory serves), and there's also a lot of Christians who lean Democrat (not as many who lean Republican though). Trump's not exactly a role model for Christian behavior (I know, you're shocked), which is why in 2016, he had to recruit Mike Pence, an evangelical to run with him. So essentially, Trump was pandering here to Christians with the ridiculous idea that he'll be able to solve all their problems and concerns so effectively, that Christians won't even feel compelled to vote next time. But yes, it was ripped out of context and played like he was implying that if is re-elected, no one will have to vote anymore after.

I don't know where you get your stats on the Christian voting population but from my personal experience door knocking and doing GOTV. Christians tend to vote in droves once their pastor gets involved. They will take cars of people to the polls to vote. That happened in my city where there are a tons of different churches and denominations. The only accurate thing you kind of said is that most Christians tend to vote Democratic but there are Republican Christians as well.

[Lisnaholic]

Again, Trump lies all the time

^ Yep, that's a good starting point. Somewhere in this thread is a fact-check graphic showing that Trump lies more often than he tells the truth.
As for "dictator on day one", I imagine that was as Lexi said, "an exaggerated strongman platitude". Trump's off-the-cuff comments are  sometimes significant, not because of their truth/falsehood but because of the insight they give to his way of thinking. In the increasingly unlikely case that he wins the election, I bet his "day one" will be spent gloating and threatening: the only actual exec order coming out of the Oval Office will be for junk food.

 

Welcome back to the fray @Lisnaholic! 

By the way, did you take any pictures on your vacation of any beautiful vistas or anything like that? Don't keep me hanging if you did!

Thanks, SGR: It's great to be engaging with you again, especially as the Dems are now on a roll and I hope to be landing a few "I told you so" type posts at your expense.
Sorry, but I don't have many pics: I still haven't worked out how to upload pics from my files to SDC and besides, the pics I have include family members, so I wouldn't like to post those anyway.

Kamala does have an opportunity here to try and define her position on immigration individually/different from the Biden administration's position and record, but it will be difficult. If she goes too far right of Biden, it will come off like she's running against both Trump and the sitting administration (a rebuke of sorts of the administration she's part of, if you will), but if she stays the course and has the same (or very similar) messaging and plans of the Biden admin, she'll basically forfeit the issue to Trump, which also isn't good. It's a fine line she'll need to walk, and much of her success might be dependent on how strong and persuasive Republican messaging about her record on immigration is. This is a weak point for Kamala and the Biden administration as a whole, and if Republicans can't capitalize on it, they deserve to lose.

oops! "We've been to the border" That's a Grade 1 blunder, if she hadn't been there. Shame on you, Kamala.

My own opinion is that the border probs are such lied about, fudged over issues, that there's plenty of wiggle room for KH to find a postion that'll stand up to scrutiny when interviewed, much as I did on her behalf a post or two ago.
I also wonder at this stage how many voters are really going to untangle who has been consistent, who has been effectual ? However inaccurate, aren't they more likely just to go with their gut impression thus far? Dems = open borders, Trump = inhumane policies.

....but there are very real consequences for some of these migrant children once they're in our country and we need to house them.

Largest housing provider for migrant children engaged in pervasive sexual abuse, US says

^ The bold goes without saying really, but thanks for the link: I'll take a look presently.

He's continued to associate with prominent Heritage Foundation members since saying that. He also picked Vance for VP, who from what I've seen seems to parrot a lot of similar weird anti-women bullshit to P25. I'm sure he's not going to follow it to the letter, but I don't believe for a second that there are no direct links.

^ Yep, I've seen enough overlap between Trump, Trump's henchmen and the Project 2025 team to have no doubt that a lot of P25 would turn up in any new Trump admin.
I don't think Trump's connection to P25 should be about scoring debate points about "Is Trump lying or telling the truth then ?" In fact, I suspect
 that it's one of those times when Trump has listened to his advisors and is back-peddling as usual, like he does with all his "I never met X" statements the minute X is in trouble. You can see the same approach on his recent muddled answers about abortion: even he has worked out that proudly claiming to've overturned Roe vs Wade is not the unqualified rallying cry that he first treated it as.

[SGR]

I don't know where you get your stats on the Christian voting population but from my personal experience door knocking and doing GOTV. Christians tend to vote in droves once their pastor gets involved. They will take cars of people to the polls to vote. That happened in my city where there are a tons of different churches and denominations. The only accurate thing you kind of said is that most Christians tend to vote Democratic but there are Republican Christians as well.

Thanks for quoting that, my wording was funky. When I said "Christians who don't vote (slightly less than the general population..", I mean that 'Christians who don't vote' are slightly less than the general population, or, in other words, Christians vote slightly more than the general population. Looking over my wording now, I can see how that could be confusing.

This is where I pulled my stats/conclusion from:

Based on the results of the statistical analyses, I was able to
reject the null hypothesis. Voter turnout is not great in the
United States. There are a myriad of factors that help influence
whether a person takes the time to go to the polls on Election
Day. Both biology and environment have a role, and many other
factors in between. In my examination of voting behavior, I
found that being a [Christian] increases the probability that an individual
will vote.

There's a split between Democrat Christians and Republican Christians, and based on what I've read, Christians lean Republican (which is probably why, or a result of, Republicans pandering to them more)