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The warning signs are there for the GOP for November’s election – politicalbetting.com
The warning signs are there for the GOP for November’s election – politicalbetting.com
So 49% of Republicans in Iowa, 44% in NH, and about 40% in South Carolina voted against Trump who is essentially running as an incumbent.Warning signs for Trump’s general election campaign. pic.twitter.com/Chjb5GbF18
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Donald Trump’s penalties in the New York civil fraud case for manipulating the value of his properties to obtain advantageous loan and insurance rates were formally set at more than $454m on Friday.
The judgment, which includes $354m in penalties plus $100m in pre-judgement interest following the three-month, non-jury trial that concluded on 16 February, will continue to accrue interest if the former president fails to pay.
Trump has two options to meet the state’s demand: to pay the amount in full, or secure a $35m bond against his assets, which might include the Fifth Avenue Trump Tower, 40 Wall Street, his Mar-a-Lago estate, or a number of golf courses in the US.
In the finalized ruling Judge Arthur Engoron also ordered Trump’s adult sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, to each pay nearly $4.7m, and the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, to pay $1.1 m, all including interest.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/23/trump-penalties-new-york-fraud-case
In fact, I think most of his second term will be devoted toward pursuing personal vendettas.
In any event it really seems that there is some anecdotal evidence that the Republicans are heading for a thrashing in the Congress even though the polls don´t seem to show this (yet?).
Of course if the House swings so strongly away from the GOP, then that could be very good news for the Democrats down and up the ticket.
Liz Truss is also reviving her “fizz with Liz” drinks with MPs in the apparent belief that she can be “queen-maker” in the next leadership contest, though after her trip last week to the United States, where she did an event with Steve Bannon, a former aide to Donald Trump, it is clear she believes she has a more natural audience for her tax-cutting libertarianism there.
Insiders say Truss may back Priti Patel, a third woman from the Tory right. MPs think Truss wants to be Patel’s chancellor or shadow chancellor.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-mps-plotting-replace-rishi-sunak-tqhkxg60s
If this happens, Sir Keir Starmer must be the luckiest leader in history.
1) There's a bit of an enthusiasm gap for the Dems/Bidens from pure lefties who want a more radical agenda which shows up in the polls but these voters when it comes to voting day will take a flawed Dem candidate over the GOP.
2) Abortion, there's a piece out there when abortion is on the ballot paper it boosts turnout which is bad for the GOP.
If the economy is bad under a Labour government all bets are off.
I doubt enough Tory MPs vote for Patel to put her in the final two to get to the membership though
boost evangelical and conservative Roman Catholic turnout for Republican candidates
What I see is that Trump has lost the popular vote twice, but he is still winning the nomination at a canter, and he faces an incumbent President with shockingly bad polling numbers. My American mother-in-law confidently asserted that Trump was finished after the 2020 election on the basis that Americans didn't like losers. Somehow Democrats have failed to make the fact of Trump being a big fat loser stick, and they will pay for that come November.
At least the brexiteers delivered Brexit. Like it or not
The only future for the Tories is right wing populism as is happening everywhere else in europe
The left and centre of the Tory party, in and outside the current cabinet, need to challenge this neo right wing movement sooner or later. Why wait?
Of course it's possible that Labour will screw up so badly that the Conservatives are going to have a gap year before marching back refreshed.
But it's much more likely that the next Conservative PM, Chancellor etc are people most of us haven't heard of.
The trouble now is that after Boris and Liz Truss, Rishi's schtick was that the adults were back in charge but unfortunately he has since been cos-playing Boris and voters see through it.
It’s not about “one nation” Tories it’s about old skool entrepreneurial Thatcherite Tories needing to standup and regain their party from the ideological pop con neo right.
Is Britain really that different? Isn’t this another kind of British exceptionalism?
Besides, the Tories have tried everything else. They will also be fired up by a massive culture war stoked by an inevitably Woke Starmer government, the reaction to that could be explosive
The Tories will never regain power with a promise of “being marginally less left wing than Labour but with just as much migration and all that”
What’s the appeal for the voter? If Labour fail in office and annoy lots of people then the voters will demand a clear alternative
Or course Labour might succeed in office. If so, great - I’d like my country to prosper. I just don’t see it happening
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/25/government-u-turn-on-plans-to-double-number-of-medical-students-in-england
Turns out fixing the doctor shortage was yet another government policy for announcing rather than enacting.
I don't agree that one should polarise for the sake of it, and I do like the idea of a broad consensus, but I think it's even more important to adopt the right positions and argue for them for the right reasons- and that will sometimes mean very Conservative ones.
One is that They're Not Called Wets For Nothing. However agreeable I find that approach to policy, the left of the Conservative Party has been rubbish at fighting for its corner for decades.
The other is... Who is left to do the fighting? By historical standards, Sunak and Hunt are mainstream right wingers; Rishi is Peter Lilley with an Indian heritage after a hot wash. But between them and, say, Ed Davey, the map is as blank as the East German maps that showed West Berlin as a white void.
They’re terrified - rightly - that Starmer will gravely disappoint in office and the pendulum will swiftly swing back to the right except this time it will be a red blooded firmly right wing Tory party ready to do really right wing things
Start with the death penalty. In fact, they should bring back the axeman with his hood, and use the wooden chopping block in the tower of London. Ooooooh
*rubs thighs*
Sarah Smith says Trump received almost twice as many votes as Haley, 60-40 is not nearly twice as many.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68395414
Despite weaponising ignorance and stupidity via moron MPs like 30p on GBeebies, most of the country isn’t as mental as they would hope.
So, of course, the Tories will swing right in opposition, and they'll hope to banish the Farage Self-Aggrandisement Party comprehensively.
The question then is whether Labour can do well enough in government to keep a very-right-wing Conservative party in opposition for long enough that they get bored of opposition and move towards the centre. I live in hope rather than expectation.
Absolutely pathetic when asked about the stain on humanity Braverman and Truss .
It isn't realistic to expect all the parties to be exactly the same, people want a choice. It doesn't take much awareness of global political trends to perceive that the gap is on the right. The tories are trying to play to this (with the 'anti woke' policies and the 'small boats' gimmicks)vat the moment, but they aren't very convincing.
Before you have realised where we are, we have already arrived in Putin's Russia.
Which would definitely be deemed an event that allows the loans on those properties to be called in.
Trump goes on trial on felony charges next month around the Stormy Daniels hush-money payments and consequent false accounting. It could be a really, really bad month for him.
And a really, really good month for Nicky Haley.
I think there is a material risk that a health-related event - actual or contrived - will mean Trump withdraws from the race. The pressure he is under is massive and would fell a guy thirty years younger. And the pressure is taking a toll. His "speeches" have already descended into the weirdest word salad. I don't see that improving.
Deputy PM Oliver Dowden very understanding towards colleagues : Lee Anderson didn’t intend to be Islamophobic and wouldn’t have lost the whip if he’d apologised, Suella Braverman didn’t cross the line with her article about Islamists and Liz Truss may not have heard the words she agreed with from Steve Bannon that Tommy Robinson is a hero.
However, much of it is also simply an anti-Government vote. Sunak may have been simply unfortunate to come to office at a time when it's tough for Governments everywhere and once elected, the likes of Trump, Bolsonaro and dare I say it, Johnson have all come unstuck.
Populism in opposition often bumps up against practicality in power - Orban has a majority, most of the other European populists would be junior partners in a coalition (if they get that far) or are reduced to nodding through centre right policies which they probably don't support.
That's the dilemma - for all the anti-immigation, anti-EU rhetoric, most of these "right" parties are tax and spend social democrats but worse. They offer more public money to their working class and rural bases, tax cuts to their rich allies and have no clue how to square that circle. That's the thing with populism - if you start off being popular with everybody you end up being popular with nobody.
@Parody_PM
Oliver Dowden clarifies the situation: Lee Anderson is not racist, but the words he spoke were, although similar words are not racist when Suella Braverman uses them.
#TrevorPhillips #BBCLauraK
Leon, don't do that.
{/Joyce Grenfell voice}
Actually, the problem with fash-curiousity is similar to the one with drugs and kinks. As time passes, you have to go harder and harder to get the same effect.
I am yet to be convinced, and of course on the Friday of the same week we get to see whether we voted for another five years of populist Conservatism. I suspect we do.
“He was saying the most vile awful conspiracy theories” but the leader “stood by him and sent cabinet ministers to support him" and only changed his mind "under enormous media pressure"
https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1761400438828470782
The Treason Act of course can be replaced with a sturdier Act by a Robert Jenrick Government.
In the words of Alan Partridge, that was just a noise.
Mercifully, I think they're wrong.
The problem now is that Trump has fairly solid leads in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Georgia.
It’s rotten. Both parties position on this is vile.
It’s time for this crap,to be called out for what it is and neither party excuse their bigots and, quite frankly if neither of them are bigots (and it is perfectly plausible) the weaponising it for electoral advantage is little short of disgusting.
It is a battle as when an MP like Robert Buckland rightly calls it out he’s subjected to all,sorts of vile twitter slurs.
I was surprised when I looked at the actual results with 899% of the vote counted it was 1.53 to 1
Getting Jeremy not to say this during the referendum campaign must have been an interesting task.
On Wednesday it is reported that the mob outside Westminster demanded the right to lobby their MPs - and think it anti-democratic not to be allowed into the central lobby as a mob.
Parliament passed a motion calling fort an immediate end to the fighting. Which it would seem isn't good enough for the mob. Perhaps its time we start arresting the more in your face ones - those screaming hate at people inside a Costa in Woking as an example for "funding literal genocide"
It's a weird (but very clear) dynamic given that neither are particularly right wing organisations.
More just another chapter in his all round uselessness than anything.
(Edit: NYT/BBC, not you!)
30p Lee's comments were unacceptable, cos he will never be party leader.
Cruella's comments were fine, cos she might well be.
I'm now planning my next cycling trip in France for the following month. I plan to cycle down (well next to obviously) the Loire. Any tips appreciatively received.
Also, in this case, there's also a factor of having a low opinion of the mathematical abilities of their audience. The margin is 3:2, but that ratio is more complicated than 2:1, and it's closer to 2:1 than 50:50, so that's what they've gone for.
I have just seen the front page of the Daily Mail and whilst I do not agree with Angela Rayner politically, their attempt to smear her over the sale of her home is a complete non story
Listening to Andy Burnham suggesting the whip system should be discontinued is an interesting idea
There are PB comments that recommend something that wouldn’t be to their own taste but they’re few and far between.
For example, there's a recent Today podcast where Amol Rahan and Nick Robinson discuss their near certainty that Trump will be re-elected. It's as though they've assimilated the clickbait.