TurnpikeRangers

Counterpoint (and please, I am literally begging you to talk me off this cliff): Trump didn't know anything about being President the first time. I believe that he thought Presidents could do whatever they wanted. The team he had around him, while you can call them assholes and pieces of shit and every other name in the book, understood how the government and the Presidency worked and were able to reign him in.

All of those people are now gone and he will be surrounded by purely yes-men. He will promote the Generals who will be loyal to him, not the country or the Constitution. Couple that with the newfound Presidential immunity, and Trump has all but free reign to do whatever he wants. He will also appoint judges, like Aileen Cannon, who are loyal to him. Those judges, thanks to the Supreme Court overturning the Chevron deference, will now be the "experts" instead of federal agencies.

I do agree that there probably won't be a sudden shift, but there will be a shift and we will feel it in almost every aspect of our life. He supposedly promised to put RFK Jr in charge of numerous health agencies and campaigned on getting rid of the Department of Education. And I very much recall at least two instances where he said this is the last election you'll have to vote in. Is he going to find/create a way to suspend the 2028 election and stay in power? Who's going to stop him?

Jesus fucking Christ.

Yep, their plan is to remove all immigrants

The major difference is that he's not president this time, Biden is. Republicans only control the House, and that control is narrow. He will try, but he has very few people in government who support him this time.

As Cady Heron once famously said, "The limit does not exist." Nothing, absolutely nothing, will cause him to lose support. The people who support him love him more than anything, and they will do whatever it takes to support him. They will break their own moral code, they will bend over backwards to make his rhetoric fit their morals, they will turn their back on everything they've ever known or loved if that's what it takes to continue to support him. Because he is the most important thing in their lives.

Idk how old you are but there used to be discussions about how we can beat terrorists, a group of people who willingly kill themselves to inflict damage. How do you beat an enemy in war who views their own death as a victory?

That's what we're up against with trump. There is no inroad, there is no common ground, there is no logic. It's a cult, plain and simple. How do you stop someone who wants to die for their cause? Maybe trump supporters don't want to literally die for him, but they damn sure would give up everything else for him.

I desperately want to believe that about the media, but Tim Miller and the folks at Pod Save America (whom I trust to be brutally honest) are also constantly talking about how close the race is. I'm so fucking depressed about this shit. We are this close to having a literal fascist as President.

This fucking son of a bitch had to ask John Kelly who the good guys were in WWI.

FUCK.

He lied an average of 21 times a day, every single day, while in office. Odds are pretty good that if he's speaking, he's lying.

Why did you cross that last line out? He did say that.

In case you don't actually know, it's a joke/reference to a chess scandal where Hans Niemann was accused of cheating (by using a vibrating butt plug) in a game against Magnus Carlson

They would ABSOLUTELY let him run again in '28 if he wanted to. They won't like it but those chickenshits are too cowardly to stand up to him. He is single handedly ruining the GOP and I'm here for it.

They used to be able to deny or explain away their racism, sexism, xenophobia, and corruption, but Trump has forced them to go full mask off. They can't deny it anymore and neither can anyone else who still calls themselves a Republican. I'm begging the universe to let this motherfucker run again.

I'm in Arizona and was (still am, because absolutely fuck Kari Lake) planning on voting for Ruben. Hell, I was as excited to vote for Ruben as I am to vote for Kamala.

This is extremely disappointing. They call it a shift to appeal to moderates and independents, but that just makes me question how fucked our politics are if someone like Ruben Gallego isn't already considered a moderate. Kamala is a moderate, Walz is a moderate, our entire Democratic party is moderate.

I'm so tired of bowing to right-wing fuckwits. I'm so tired of ceding ground at every damn opportunity. Human rights are not radical. Police reform is not radical. Workers' rights are not radical. Do fucking better, Devil Dog.