President Biden and the Democrats MUST tell the truth about Trump being an existential threat to this country and democracy and say it over and over and over and over again.
Some lunatic taking shots at him does not change the fact that Trump is STILL a repugnant con-man, criminal, sociopathic megalomaniac, pathological liar, serial sexual predator and abuser, amoral psychopath who should be kept away from the WH and such immense power....but by VOTES, not bullets.
There's no point in trying to repeatedly tell the truth to people who have absolutely no intention of opening their minds to any information that doesn't already conform to their world view. That's why they watch Fox "News"...
In other words - you can't fix stupid.
HOWEVER - you CAN appeal to the independent voters and persuadable Republicans that will decide the election. Unfortunately, they have made it abundantly clear that they will not vote for a doddering old man in cognitive and physical decline.
So if Biden insists on staying in the race, Trump wins. If Trump wins, America becomes a Fascist kleptocracy. Simple as that.
All of your "Ridin' with Biden" and "multiple blue hearts" won't stop that from happening - you're just preaching to the choir at best. It all rests on whether Biden will overcome his ego and do the right thing for our country.
Sadly, I think you're right. Biden has been a great president. But he's Turn into a doddering old man. I've seen it multiple times now. Trump is an idiot, but he still able to project some form of strength. Biden has turned feeble. He needs to pull over and let the other cars go by.
Trump's idiocy is a FEATURE for his cult followers, not a flaw...
Biden's legacy will be totally trashed if he insists upon running against Trump and loses. No one will remember Biden's accomplishments from decades of public service. The only thing that he will be remembered for is selfishly remaining in the race and allowing Trump to establish his Fascist kleptocracy in the US. Thanks Joe...
Just curious how yall think that happens at this point. Does the Democratic Party declare a primary winner? Does dean phillips get the delegates because he ran against Biden in the primary. It should be Kamala Harris’ shot at the presidency so who would her running mate be? Who makes these decisions. It’s too late for a 2nd primary to see who runs. It’s less than 4 months to the election. So unless the Democratic Party is going to use fascist tactics to push Biden out and insert a new candidate (with no input from voters). Please explain how you think it would work. I’m curious.
I would love to see your data supporting how "Biden has this hands down".... I'll wait...
While you're trying to find any factual information supporting your faith in Biden, check out the latest polls.... and don't forget that the popular vote is meaningless, look at the contest on a state by state level. After the debate debacle, the number of swing states went from 6 to 13 - and Biden is losing in almost all of them. New York and New Hampshire - usually in the bag for Democrats - are now in play....
Not only does Biden NOT have this "hands down", he's going to lose in an electoral college landslide if he remains in the race. And the Democrats will also lose the House and Senate as well... So the Presidency, the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court will all be in Trump's pocket if he wins....
Still want to put the future of our country in the hands of a frail old man suffering from cognitive and physical decline...????
That is not going to happen. Speaking as an independent who despises Trump, I want nothing more than to keep him out of power, and I would vote for the Democratic candidate if it was someone even remotely reasonable. But if you want my vote, it is your responsibility to give me someone that I can vote for (ie someone not in obvious cognitive decline), not my responsibility to vote for whoever you try to shove down my throat.
If not bullets, then "natural causes".... At this point, if either candidate is forced to step aside due to "natural causes" (terminal or not), then the country will be better off for it.
Turn the focus to Project 2025. Several people on podcasts or Substack essays are doing deep dives into it, chapter by chapter. Pay attention to what they are finding (there is a lot more in it than what has been publicized so far) and share it. It was so nice of Republicans to publish their detailed plans to demolish our society beforehand.
Focusing on Project 2025 right now will take the focus off trump and put it on Republicans up and down the ballot, where it truly belongs anyway.
Once trump stops being the hero and goes back to his usual whiny victim, that’s when to put the focus back on his lack of character.
Trump check-mated the Dems, despite my belief that it wasn't planned or orchestrated by the MAGA world.
It is the best possible thing (horribly except for the innocent bystander being killed and the other hurt) that could have happened to their campaign. He's the new Messiah.
Look at the narrative out there:
The Deep State Secret Service (run by Joe Biden) didn't protect their guy. The government failed them once again. It had to be planned!
Trump is instantly the manliest man among all men. The LION from God. Defiant, strong, they are more MAGA than EVER!
Biden is weak and cowardly, he probably is going to hide for the rest of the campaign.
Joe did this by saying we need to put a bullseye on trump. Joe should be prosecuted. (This is the ultimate chutzpah after the Supreme Court decision, but none of them are known for the reflective and deep intellectual thinking)
The Dems planned this because they couldn't get him in the criminal or civil court system, so this is how they tried to rid us of him. (I hear this a LOT.)
If the Dems attack trump, they are attacking a man who was almost assassinated. How could you attack such a warm and loving man of God? ( I know, i want to barf at that one).
If the Dems take the high road, which all elected officials have done, and express sympathy for trump, they will NOT return the feelings or thoughts. (Remember Paul Pelosi? Did any MAGA person express even 1 second of sympathy?)
We're screwed so bad. It's not going to be pretty. I assume we'll lose the House and Senate as well. Sad days. And a poor guy got killed for the simple reason of sitting behind trump.
As soon as Trump starts yapping about retribution, abortion , and prison camps, the gloves will be off. I don’t think that kumbaya lasts through the convention. Trump is utterly incapable of statesmanship.
I've been hearing that for 2.5 weeks. What's happening this week that might change that? All I'm hearing reported now is that the "replace Biden" calls are silenced.
Then attention is off Biden for a few days. If Democrats in leadership want to replace him, it is a cooler time to make their case. The Republican convention is likely to be a hotbed of anger, calls for retribution, firming up of their platform, and generally will make Americans who are not Trumpists aware of must what is at stake in November.. This week may change the calculus. If it does not, I am simply voting for the (D) , because a second Trump administration is unthinkable. So will millions of Americans. Probably enough to keep Trump out of the White House
Hard for me to think of the malevolent orange man as sympathetic. Some PAC should create an ad that reminds voters of his multitude of utterances & images that intended to instigate and support violence & cruelty. From his calling for the death penalty for wrongly accused Central Park Five as recently as 2018; to shooting someone on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue; to encouraging beatings of protestors by campaign rally attendees; to calling white nationalists in Charlottesville fine people; to the cruel plans for Moslems and Latinos; to asking his Presidential legal staff to find a way to jail Hillary Clinton; to encouraging police violence on the heads of those who were being put into police cars; to his family separation policy; to failing to stop insurrectionists invading our Capitol who promoted the hanging of VP Pence; to his plan to pardon insurrectionists; to allowing his lawyers in 2024 to argue before the Supreme Court that the former president had the authority to order the assassination of HIS rivals. This GOP candidate deserves as much sympathy as he has shown millions of other people. None.
Definitely not new information for many of us. Yet for some potential voters who are not always tuned in, or new voters, or some on the fence, a composite review of who this candidate has always been could be a worthwhile introduction or reminder. More than anything, the above were my immediate reasons for having no sympathy for the candidate.
If they're this clueless after years of Trump's assault on America, I'm not confident they're reachable, but we'll find out soon. Dems were handed an opportunity to inject some life and hope into this election and perhaps change the trajectory, but they whiffed.
It will take a couple of weeks and things will return to a degree of normality sufficient to permit Democrats to resume the battle of ideas with the Republicans. As to Biden’s candidacy, I agree that it will put any talk of replacement to bed for now, but if the polls show that Trump has gained any serious mileage out of this, the talk of a replacement will begin anew. We may be fast reaching the point of mathematical impossibility as it is.
The polls ALREADY show that, without any new Trump mileage. Right now it looks as if Biden's electoral ceiling may be 270, the very minimum to win. That's not the hand I would like to be playing. This will be transformative to America, rendering it a completely different country in terms of what it stands for and how it functions - none of it good, particularly for women and minorities. This represents a colossal failure of Democrats to take this threat seriously and respond accordingly. I live in one of those states that don't count (usually!), so the only reason I'll vote will be to try to save my Democratic congresswoman.
I haven't read anything about the shooter or his motives. Sadly, in this environment, I'm not dismissing the possibility that he was someone so completely drunk on the MAGA Kool-Aid that he was recruited to do the shooting (and sacrificing himself) for the good of the movement. And if any of you think that Dumpty-Trumpty isn't sick and twisted enough to implement such a scheme, you haven't been paying attention for the past nine years.
I also don't think that yesterday will be the one and only attempt on the Orange Moron. He's advocating for women losing the right to make their own reproductive decisions. He wants to deport every last non-citizen (even though this will totally destroy the American economy). He wants to enact even more tax cut for the 1 percent, at the expense of the other 99 percent of us. All existing rights for the LGBT community will be eliminated (thanks to our corrupt Supreme Court), and don't be shocked if they're all rounded up and sent to modern-day "retention centers" (the MAGA term for concentration camps). Project 2025 will create a dystopian country with 20 percent of the population controlling the other 80 percent. If that many people are threatened with the loss of their way of life, there's at least a handful that will take steps to ensure it doesn't come to pass.
Lastly, he's determined to pull the country out of NATO and giving Ukraine to Putin on a silver platter. I'm actually a bit surprised that one of the NATO countries hasn't sent in a real-life James Bond to eliminate this threat to global stability.
I get no pleasure from writing the above, and don't condone what happened on Saturday, but it's also a result of the environment that's been created by the Right in the past nine years, in which violence is now an acceptable solution.
Well balanced piece. If Trump and Republicans call for peace and dial down the rhetoric the United States will have its kumbaya moment. If not they will kick off a civil war. Banning abortion and locking 2 million people up in camps won’t help to unify the country. Can someone tell them that?
Wonder how it would be if Biden was the one who got shot at yesterday? Would Trump & the Republicans be being as magnanimous, calling for the temperature and rhetoric to be brought down. Mm mm, color me skeptical. Getting shot in the ear changes nothing about my feelings for this man. Thoughts and prayers🙄🙄🙄
Is there a reason why that nauseating fist pump photo was shown FOUR times in one column? We get it—the trumpublicans are already having t shirts, mugs, and comforters made with that photo of their fake hero on them. No reason why the general public needs to see it again and again and again and again…
They were selling t-shirts today on the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ of the bleeding Trump face with the fist pump. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but.... isn't the timing, 48 hours before the convention starts a little coincidental? He is after all a con man, PT Barnum, Apprentice showman. Just sayin.....🤷🏻♀️
Donald J Trump will be equal parts victim and hero only to Trumpists. It is not likely that anyone who was not going to vote for Trump will be suddenly motivated to do so based on the assassination attempt. It may change the discourse, but Trump being Trump,he will not be able to resist angry and threatening rhetoric toward his perceived enemies. When he starts that (likely at the convention) it will open the door for President Biden to continue to point our his deficiencies and the fact that Trump is, in fact, a threat to our democracy.. If Democratic leadership wishes to change the top of the ticket. They may find that this is an opportune moment, when the chattering classes are entirely absorbed with something else. Or they may figure that staying the course with Biden makes more sense, a steady hand in a difficult time. The next week will be pivotal.
It's not as difficult for Biden as you think. Substitute "Project 2025" for "Trump" and the pro-democracy, pro-pluralism, pro-rule-of-law Democratic campaign can push forward. And I'm very sure that Trump and the "Republicans" can't keep the kumbaya facade going all the way through Milwaukee, never mind a few weeks.
I keep hearing "Project 2025" like a mantra, but if that's going to work, somebody needs to explain what it means. What are the three most evil things it proposes? They'd better be pretty darn awful if you're going to convince anybody.
That's my point, and that of everyone else talking about it - make it the issue with Trump as the avatar. Project 2025 is 900 pages that you can easily download from The Heritage Foundation website, and if that's too many pages (and I empathize), you can find summaries from various credible news, academic, and legal sites.
But here's 3 evil things, none of which is fake news (Kevin Roberts, president of Heritage, has discussed these openly):
1) Mass arrest and incarceration of 11 million immigrants, including legal immigrants, in internment camps for the purpose of immediate deportation.
2) Complete and total illegality of abortion, no exceptions, with penalties accruing to women getting abortions, their doctors and medical and pharmacy support.
3) Elimination of Medicare - for anyone, never mind for all.
You may well find yourself succumbing soon to the Bader-Meinhoff Effect.
2) Trump just explicitly had that removed from the Republican platform. (He has also explicitly disavowed Project 2025.)
3) Not according to MSNBC: "Project 2025 recommends making Medicare Advantage — the private insurance offering in Medicare — the default option for enrollment. Currently, there is no default option, though what’s called “Original Medicare” is presented first." https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/project-2025-trump-medicare-advantage-rcna160896 That's hardly the same as "elimination of Medicare - for anyone".
I agree with point 1, but points 2, 3, and 4 only make sense if Donald Trump has some sort of Road to Damascus moment because of this. But I really don’t think that’s what’s going to happen here.
As you say, much depends on whether Trump takes the high or the low road on this. Still, as one who - just - remembers the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King among others and the shock and horror of those moments, I do feel confident that, however bleak it may look right now, we are not going to plunge into the abyss.
So Rubio and Carson believe that God saved Trump, huh? But the same God was ok with the innocent bystander, a firefighter no less, dying in the process. I don’t understand the mental gymnastics that is necessary to come to that conclusion.
President Biden and the Democrats MUST tell the truth about Trump being an existential threat to this country and democracy and say it over and over and over and over again.
Some lunatic taking shots at him does not change the fact that Trump is STILL a repugnant con-man, criminal, sociopathic megalomaniac, pathological liar, serial sexual predator and abuser, amoral psychopath who should be kept away from the WH and such immense power....but by VOTES, not bullets.
There's no point in trying to repeatedly tell the truth to people who have absolutely no intention of opening their minds to any information that doesn't already conform to their world view. That's why they watch Fox "News"...
In other words - you can't fix stupid.
HOWEVER - you CAN appeal to the independent voters and persuadable Republicans that will decide the election. Unfortunately, they have made it abundantly clear that they will not vote for a doddering old man in cognitive and physical decline.
So if Biden insists on staying in the race, Trump wins. If Trump wins, America becomes a Fascist kleptocracy. Simple as that.
All of your "Ridin' with Biden" and "multiple blue hearts" won't stop that from happening - you're just preaching to the choir at best. It all rests on whether Biden will overcome his ego and do the right thing for our country.
Sadly, I think you're right. Biden has been a great president. But he's Turn into a doddering old man. I've seen it multiple times now. Trump is an idiot, but he still able to project some form of strength. Biden has turned feeble. He needs to pull over and let the other cars go by.
Trump's idiocy is a FEATURE for his cult followers, not a flaw...
Biden's legacy will be totally trashed if he insists upon running against Trump and loses. No one will remember Biden's accomplishments from decades of public service. The only thing that he will be remembered for is selfishly remaining in the race and allowing Trump to establish his Fascist kleptocracy in the US. Thanks Joe...
Just curious how yall think that happens at this point. Does the Democratic Party declare a primary winner? Does dean phillips get the delegates because he ran against Biden in the primary. It should be Kamala Harris’ shot at the presidency so who would her running mate be? Who makes these decisions. It’s too late for a 2nd primary to see who runs. It’s less than 4 months to the election. So unless the Democratic Party is going to use fascist tactics to push Biden out and insert a new candidate (with no input from voters). Please explain how you think it would work. I’m curious.
Omg. Biden has this hands
Down. Glad he will
Stay in now. No ones changing their vote for
Sympathy and the independents know that chaos And From Follows
Him. Time
To Get on the train and stop the negative talk.
I would love to see your data supporting how "Biden has this hands down".... I'll wait...
While you're trying to find any factual information supporting your faith in Biden, check out the latest polls.... and don't forget that the popular vote is meaningless, look at the contest on a state by state level. After the debate debacle, the number of swing states went from 6 to 13 - and Biden is losing in almost all of them. New York and New Hampshire - usually in the bag for Democrats - are now in play....
Not only does Biden NOT have this "hands down", he's going to lose in an electoral college landslide if he remains in the race. And the Democrats will also lose the House and Senate as well... So the Presidency, the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court will all be in Trump's pocket if he wins....
Still want to put the future of our country in the hands of a frail old man suffering from cognitive and physical decline...????
You seem to have absolute faith in polls
I do when the polls make sense. Where’s YOUR data indicating that Biden will win??
That is not going to happen. Speaking as an independent who despises Trump, I want nothing more than to keep him out of power, and I would vote for the Democratic candidate if it was someone even remotely reasonable. But if you want my vote, it is your responsibility to give me someone that I can vote for (ie someone not in obvious cognitive decline), not my responsibility to vote for whoever you try to shove down my throat.
EXACTLY!!!!!!!
As Jay Kuo said, “Ballots, not bullets.”
If not bullets, then "natural causes".... At this point, if either candidate is forced to step aside due to "natural causes" (terminal or not), then the country will be better off for it.
Turn the focus to Project 2025. Several people on podcasts or Substack essays are doing deep dives into it, chapter by chapter. Pay attention to what they are finding (there is a lot more in it than what has been publicized so far) and share it. It was so nice of Republicans to publish their detailed plans to demolish our society beforehand.
Focusing on Project 2025 right now will take the focus off trump and put it on Republicans up and down the ballot, where it truly belongs anyway.
Once trump stops being the hero and goes back to his usual whiny victim, that’s when to put the focus back on his lack of character.
agenda 47 https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47
I believe it is all over for Joe now.
Fini.
Trump check-mated the Dems, despite my belief that it wasn't planned or orchestrated by the MAGA world.
It is the best possible thing (horribly except for the innocent bystander being killed and the other hurt) that could have happened to their campaign. He's the new Messiah.
Look at the narrative out there:
The Deep State Secret Service (run by Joe Biden) didn't protect their guy. The government failed them once again. It had to be planned!
Trump is instantly the manliest man among all men. The LION from God. Defiant, strong, they are more MAGA than EVER!
Biden is weak and cowardly, he probably is going to hide for the rest of the campaign.
Joe did this by saying we need to put a bullseye on trump. Joe should be prosecuted. (This is the ultimate chutzpah after the Supreme Court decision, but none of them are known for the reflective and deep intellectual thinking)
The Dems planned this because they couldn't get him in the criminal or civil court system, so this is how they tried to rid us of him. (I hear this a LOT.)
If the Dems attack trump, they are attacking a man who was almost assassinated. How could you attack such a warm and loving man of God? ( I know, i want to barf at that one).
If the Dems take the high road, which all elected officials have done, and express sympathy for trump, they will NOT return the feelings or thoughts. (Remember Paul Pelosi? Did any MAGA person express even 1 second of sympathy?)
We're screwed so bad. It's not going to be pretty. I assume we'll lose the House and Senate as well. Sad days. And a poor guy got killed for the simple reason of sitting behind trump.
As soon as Trump starts yapping about retribution, abortion , and prison camps, the gloves will be off. I don’t think that kumbaya lasts through the convention. Trump is utterly incapable of statesmanship.
But that's nothing new, and Biden is losing, so what's going to change that?
Biden is:
Not necessarily losing
Not necessarily the candidate
Let’s see what this week brings!
I've been hearing that for 2.5 weeks. What's happening this week that might change that? All I'm hearing reported now is that the "replace Biden" calls are silenced.
Then attention is off Biden for a few days. If Democrats in leadership want to replace him, it is a cooler time to make their case. The Republican convention is likely to be a hotbed of anger, calls for retribution, firming up of their platform, and generally will make Americans who are not Trumpists aware of must what is at stake in November.. This week may change the calculus. If it does not, I am simply voting for the (D) , because a second Trump administration is unthinkable. So will millions of Americans. Probably enough to keep Trump out of the White House
Sorry, Dems are paralyzed and the data doesn't support the outcome you expect, but I hope you're right.
Hard for me to think of the malevolent orange man as sympathetic. Some PAC should create an ad that reminds voters of his multitude of utterances & images that intended to instigate and support violence & cruelty. From his calling for the death penalty for wrongly accused Central Park Five as recently as 2018; to shooting someone on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue; to encouraging beatings of protestors by campaign rally attendees; to calling white nationalists in Charlottesville fine people; to the cruel plans for Moslems and Latinos; to asking his Presidential legal staff to find a way to jail Hillary Clinton; to encouraging police violence on the heads of those who were being put into police cars; to his family separation policy; to failing to stop insurrectionists invading our Capitol who promoted the hanging of VP Pence; to his plan to pardon insurrectionists; to allowing his lawyers in 2024 to argue before the Supreme Court that the former president had the authority to order the assassination of HIS rivals. This GOP candidate deserves as much sympathy as he has shown millions of other people. None.
None of this is new information. If people are unaware or have forgotten, how do we wake them up now?
Definitely not new information for many of us. Yet for some potential voters who are not always tuned in, or new voters, or some on the fence, a composite review of who this candidate has always been could be a worthwhile introduction or reminder. More than anything, the above were my immediate reasons for having no sympathy for the candidate.
If they're this clueless after years of Trump's assault on America, I'm not confident they're reachable, but we'll find out soon. Dems were handed an opportunity to inject some life and hope into this election and perhaps change the trajectory, but they whiffed.
It will take a couple of weeks and things will return to a degree of normality sufficient to permit Democrats to resume the battle of ideas with the Republicans. As to Biden’s candidacy, I agree that it will put any talk of replacement to bed for now, but if the polls show that Trump has gained any serious mileage out of this, the talk of a replacement will begin anew. We may be fast reaching the point of mathematical impossibility as it is.
The polls ALREADY show that, without any new Trump mileage. Right now it looks as if Biden's electoral ceiling may be 270, the very minimum to win. That's not the hand I would like to be playing. This will be transformative to America, rendering it a completely different country in terms of what it stands for and how it functions - none of it good, particularly for women and minorities. This represents a colossal failure of Democrats to take this threat seriously and respond accordingly. I live in one of those states that don't count (usually!), so the only reason I'll vote will be to try to save my Democratic congresswoman.
I haven't read anything about the shooter or his motives. Sadly, in this environment, I'm not dismissing the possibility that he was someone so completely drunk on the MAGA Kool-Aid that he was recruited to do the shooting (and sacrificing himself) for the good of the movement. And if any of you think that Dumpty-Trumpty isn't sick and twisted enough to implement such a scheme, you haven't been paying attention for the past nine years.
I also don't think that yesterday will be the one and only attempt on the Orange Moron. He's advocating for women losing the right to make their own reproductive decisions. He wants to deport every last non-citizen (even though this will totally destroy the American economy). He wants to enact even more tax cut for the 1 percent, at the expense of the other 99 percent of us. All existing rights for the LGBT community will be eliminated (thanks to our corrupt Supreme Court), and don't be shocked if they're all rounded up and sent to modern-day "retention centers" (the MAGA term for concentration camps). Project 2025 will create a dystopian country with 20 percent of the population controlling the other 80 percent. If that many people are threatened with the loss of their way of life, there's at least a handful that will take steps to ensure it doesn't come to pass.
Lastly, he's determined to pull the country out of NATO and giving Ukraine to Putin on a silver platter. I'm actually a bit surprised that one of the NATO countries hasn't sent in a real-life James Bond to eliminate this threat to global stability.
I get no pleasure from writing the above, and don't condone what happened on Saturday, but it's also a result of the environment that's been created by the Right in the past nine years, in which violence is now an acceptable solution.
I’m too depressed to leave a comment here. UGH!
Well balanced piece. If Trump and Republicans call for peace and dial down the rhetoric the United States will have its kumbaya moment. If not they will kick off a civil war. Banning abortion and locking 2 million people up in camps won’t help to unify the country. Can someone tell them that?
Balanced piece??? I beg to disagree
Trump cannot and will not call for peace. It is not what his base wants from him.
Wonder how it would be if Biden was the one who got shot at yesterday? Would Trump & the Republicans be being as magnanimous, calling for the temperature and rhetoric to be brought down. Mm mm, color me skeptical. Getting shot in the ear changes nothing about my feelings for this man. Thoughts and prayers🙄🙄🙄
They would say it was a false flag staged to help a desperate, losing campaign.
Agree with this. Unfortunately we are doomed.
Is there a reason why that nauseating fist pump photo was shown FOUR times in one column? We get it—the trumpublicans are already having t shirts, mugs, and comforters made with that photo of their fake hero on them. No reason why the general public needs to see it again and again and again and again…
They were selling t-shirts today on the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ of the bleeding Trump face with the fist pump. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but.... isn't the timing, 48 hours before the convention starts a little coincidental? He is after all a con man, PT Barnum, Apprentice showman. Just sayin.....🤷🏻♀️
Donald J Trump will be equal parts victim and hero only to Trumpists. It is not likely that anyone who was not going to vote for Trump will be suddenly motivated to do so based on the assassination attempt. It may change the discourse, but Trump being Trump,he will not be able to resist angry and threatening rhetoric toward his perceived enemies. When he starts that (likely at the convention) it will open the door for President Biden to continue to point our his deficiencies and the fact that Trump is, in fact, a threat to our democracy.. If Democratic leadership wishes to change the top of the ticket. They may find that this is an opportune moment, when the chattering classes are entirely absorbed with something else. Or they may figure that staying the course with Biden makes more sense, a steady hand in a difficult time. The next week will be pivotal.
It's not as difficult for Biden as you think. Substitute "Project 2025" for "Trump" and the pro-democracy, pro-pluralism, pro-rule-of-law Democratic campaign can push forward. And I'm very sure that Trump and the "Republicans" can't keep the kumbaya facade going all the way through Milwaukee, never mind a few weeks.
I keep hearing "Project 2025" like a mantra, but if that's going to work, somebody needs to explain what it means. What are the three most evil things it proposes? They'd better be pretty darn awful if you're going to convince anybody.
That's my point, and that of everyone else talking about it - make it the issue with Trump as the avatar. Project 2025 is 900 pages that you can easily download from The Heritage Foundation website, and if that's too many pages (and I empathize), you can find summaries from various credible news, academic, and legal sites.
But here's 3 evil things, none of which is fake news (Kevin Roberts, president of Heritage, has discussed these openly):
1) Mass arrest and incarceration of 11 million immigrants, including legal immigrants, in internment camps for the purpose of immediate deportation.
2) Complete and total illegality of abortion, no exceptions, with penalties accruing to women getting abortions, their doctors and medical and pharmacy support.
3) Elimination of Medicare - for anyone, never mind for all.
You may well find yourself succumbing soon to the Bader-Meinhoff Effect.
1) "Half (50 percent) of Americans now favor deporting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, while fewer than half (46 percent) remain opposed." https://www.americansurveycenter.org/newsletter/get-out-more-americans-support-deporting-immigrants
2) Trump just explicitly had that removed from the Republican platform. (He has also explicitly disavowed Project 2025.)
3) Not according to MSNBC: "Project 2025 recommends making Medicare Advantage — the private insurance offering in Medicare — the default option for enrollment. Currently, there is no default option, though what’s called “Original Medicare” is presented first." https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/project-2025-trump-medicare-advantage-rcna160896 That's hardly the same as "elimination of Medicare - for anyone".
I agree with point 1, but points 2, 3, and 4 only make sense if Donald Trump has some sort of Road to Damascus moment because of this. But I really don’t think that’s what’s going to happen here.
As you say, much depends on whether Trump takes the high or the low road on this. Still, as one who - just - remembers the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King among others and the shock and horror of those moments, I do feel confident that, however bleak it may look right now, we are not going to plunge into the abyss.
So Rubio and Carson believe that God saved Trump, huh? But the same God was ok with the innocent bystander, a firefighter no less, dying in the process. I don’t understand the mental gymnastics that is necessary to come to that conclusion.