Veteran Republican strategist Karl Rove wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “Mr Trump can’t come off as unhinged or enraged. The words ‘rigged election’ shouldn’t pass his lips. He has to keep his cool and can’t make it all about himself.”
I can’t believe they defrosted Karl Rove.
Veteran Republican strategist Karl Rove wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “Mr Trump can’t come off as unhinged or enraged. The words ‘rigged election’ shouldn’t pass his lips. He has to keep his cool and can’t make it all about himself.”
In other words, Trump has to be literally anyone other than himself. He might be able to refrain from lying about “rigged elections” but there’s no chance in hell he doesn’t come across as unhinged or making everything about himself.
Which won’t matter at all to Republicans, cause they’re a god damned cult.
Defrosted ham is never good
I think Rove is wrong. He’s like Carville – he used to be a legendary master because he absorbed the shape of the landscape, but then he solidified, and he thinks it’s still 2004 and always will be, and that nothing’s changed since then.
Trump’s base wants to start a civil war with the Democrats. If Trump wants to win, he needs to sound like an angry crazy person. It’s when he tries to be normal that it all goes sour for him. That has no spice to inspire the electorate, and it doesn’t suit him and he doesn’t do a good job with it anyway, and all the people who were looking for a sensible leader have long since left the GOP’s tent.
Yeah I remember when Biden won and like 3-6mo later the TPs on Fox and people on the street were all ‘‘Biden is so boring, wasn’t that nice when everyday Trump made a new gaff or horrifying threat against our existence? That was so fun!’’
I didn’t think that fox used TP, just the tongues of interns to clean themselves.
trump doesn’t need to court the cult. he needs the independents in order to win.
He shouldn’t make it about himself? Has Karl Rove even met Trump? He’s the posterchild for untreated, raging narcissism.
It’s like saying Biden should come in skating and say “hello, fellow kids!”
Rove is one of the old strategists of the GOP. He knows how to play the game the traditional way, and he was pretty successful at it for a long time. He’s evil, but not dumb.
What he apparently still doesn’t get is that Trump took that playbook, noticed it has words in it, shat on it, and threw it back at Rove.
The only voters that matter in this election are the moderates. We will decide the winner in November. The Hard Left and Right will vote for their party’s candidate, but neither can ensure the Oval Office without moderate support. I look forward to the debate, mainly to see how Biden handles himself without a teleprompter. I already know Trump is going to spew word salad.
Maybe someday (in my wet dreams) I’ll have a ranked-choice vote. Then I won’t have to base my vote on the lesser of two evils. That’s unfortunately the way things are in our two party dominated political system. It’s another election where I have to vote to keep the worst contender from winning.
Tell me who the “hard left” is.
I’m curious.
He means people who can hear ‘‘the US is a democracy’’ without shitting their pants.
I don’t need you putting words into their mouth.
I asked OP.
Not you.
OP doesn’t seem to care to answer this question, so other people are trying to fill in answers as best they can.
I like mozz’s answer. The Hard Left is an amorphous concept that depends on the individual and their opinion in general. For some of us, they are the most progressive end of the left-right axis, motivated by working to protect the most disadvantaged in society. Many of these look at Project 2025 and the Trump administration of 2017 through 2020 and come to the conclusion that their priorities are best served with Biden in office and Trump on the sidelines, but quite a few get blinded by the Gaza situation and think that somehow letting Trump burn it all down will help them politically. Unfortunately, with how divided American society is, it won’t take many people voting third party or staying home, especially in Swing States, to swing the election Trump’s way.
Of course, there are people who think that the Hard Left is anyone left of Atilla the Hun, or at least anyone left of the individual in question. OP peaced out so we’re left speculating on them, but I suspect from their wording, the Hard Left is anyone left of themselves. And thus, the OP is being clued in that the Hard Left is NOT blindly voting like Biden like the Hard Right is blindly voting for Trump. Maybe it’ll be an eye-opening experience. Sorry, I can’t wave a magic wand and make OP answer this, though. That would be nice.
HWHAT‽ Biden does not have the hard left. Most of the (hard) Left think Democrats are Republican-lite or less crazy Republicans. Capitalists with some decent social stances.
Please stay away from Fox/OAN/Newsmax talking points.
Who is your parties candidate?
You miss DAMunzy’s point.
Every day we get hard lefties saying they’d rather vote third party, stay home, or even vote Trump because Biden didn’t get them the shiny golden alicorn that farts rainbows that they swear they were promised. All it would take is for enough of them to vote Jill Stein or RFJ Jr. (who isn’t very leftie when you look closely at him) and Team Pepe can steal the election. Biden has to appeal to both the moderates AND the hard left, an impossible proposition, while trying to make the point that both moderates and hard-lefties lose and lose hard if Team Nazi Frog gets into office.
The hard left isn’t voting for Biden lol
They should:
As long as we Communists are unable to take over state power and hold elections, with working people alone voting for their Soviets against the bourgeoisie; as long as the bourgeoisie exercise state power and call upon the different classes of the population to take part in the elections, we are in duty bound to take part in the elections with the purpose of conducting agitation among all working people, not only among proletarians. Lenin
It’s the most pragmatic way to continue the agitation. If Trump wins, it will become more difficult for socialists to gain entry into government.
There’s a world of difference between taking part in the elections and voting specifically for Joe Biden. 🙄
supporting trump lol
Part of the activist left is absolutely voting for Biden; anyone who’s been working for progress in this country and actively working and experiencing success and failure and the hard work that goes with it would I think easily able to see that letting Trump come to power would be such a severe and wide ranging setback to so many of the things they’ve been working for, and the action of just showing up one morning is so trivial in comparison to a lot of the other things they have to do for years to even move the needle by a tiny amount’s worth of difference, that it’s a no brainer.
I think there’s a significant grouping, also, that’s so horrified by his enabling of a genocide that they don’t plan to vote for him. But, their main focus right now is on putting pressure on the Democrats to stop their support for Israel (with apparently a certain small amount of success), and on direct action against the war, not really specifically anything focused on the general election except for a general feeling of disgust at the Democrats.
Depending on what you mean by “hard left,” you may or may not mean those groupings, and may instead mean some other people on the internet who are super vocal (and often seem weirdly fixated on criticizing Biden for a variety of reasons honest or dishonest, not just the war, and on the vital importance of people not voting for him, much more so than other left activist things that they seem not to be as interested in.)
sure, vote 3rd party or skip voting and hand the entire election to Trump on a silver platter.
Cry more and support genocide.
Can’t stand genocide? Vote in the man who will support the genocide with enthusiasm, and try and start a genocide here to match! Good thing you didn’t vote for someone who at least feels shitty about it, then what would have happened? Pressure on Isreal to stop? No genocide in the US? That bastard!!!
Yeah, cause getting Trump elected is going to have SO MUCH BETTER outcome for the Palestinian people. Sure.
There is no option for “not genocide” at this juncture. There’s “genocide with a leash” and “genocide with no leash”. If you want something else, it has to start 2-4 years ago.
Now, I don’t want to keep voting this way. Which means when this election is up, there needs to be a concerted push for more fundamental change. Nationwide ranked choice voting is a start, but that alone won’t be enough, either.
There’s no leash. The choice is between competent genocide and stupid genocide.
You genocide lovers just can’t get enough genocide. The invasion in Gaza isn’t enough for you, you guys just have to get Trump into the Oval office so you guys can really ramp things up.
“Hard left” lol. You’re not a moderate, you’re well to the right. I’m with you on ranked choice or a different sane system, tho.
Nope. I’m a RINO. For LGBTQ+ and women’s reproductive rights. For gender equality. For religious freedom without interference from the government. For supporting our kids’ education and well-being. For reasonable gun control measures that involve training and background checks if that cost is borne by the state. Against banning of weapons or special taxes on guns/ammo. For involuntary psychiatric treatment (commitments). I want single-payer healthcare. I want a vetted method of entry for immigrants that doesn’t take years to complete. I want non-violent convicted criminals to have the option to be surgically “tagged”, then allowed to continue their lives knowing that they’re being monitored. Maybe then they can repay their victims. I want to abolish the death penalty. I want to set fines as a percentage of a person’s wealth. I want all non-lethal drugs to be legalized, including prescription drugs. I want the government to provide an interest-free home loan for anyone who can show they can afford the property, currently owns no other property, and will use it as their primary residence. I want a free path to a self-study college degree, but I oppose paying for others to obtain degrees without some form of payback.
Serious question: do you not already see that trump is a calamity, possibly causing the fall of the Republic? Biden sucks (I’m voting for him), but these two candidates are incomparable. How have you not disqualified trump already?
You don’t live in a rural area, do you? Yeah, Trump is a trainwreck. I won’t vote for anyone so antithetical to what is right. Biden is currently the lesser of two evils. My point is that I’m voting -against- Trump. I’m actually hoping Biden does terrible in the debate, allowing another candidate to become a contender. I’d rather vote for someone I actually want to be president.
Biden is borderline senile. He’s like a well-meaning but incompetent father. His party stands for many things I totally disagree with. I can’t buy gas-powered tools to maintain my orchard because of Democrat “one-size-fits-all” regulations. Instead, I’m paying thousands for electric tools that need multiple batteries. They do the work slower, and that means more man-hours of labor. You see that as higher produce prices.
Every year I torch thousands of pounds of wood from the 3 acres of forest that I’m required to manage. I could use it to heat my home, but CARB (controlled by Democrats) won’t let me have an outdoor boiler. Instead I use electricity that comes from non-renewable resources and burn the wood in a big pile every spring, creating 10 times the pollution of that boiler and consuming 3 days of my time. The only other option for us rural folk is to haul it to the dump and pay $300 a truckload. And Democrats are holding up the biomass power project in my town over pollution concerns. That facility would give us a place to take green waste, reduce our fire danger, and probably lower our electric utility rate.
The fire danger here is directly a result of Democrat-led forest management - or lack thereof. Their anti-lumber industry policies caused the town’s mill to close 15 years ago. Without thinning, the forest was primed for the destructive fires that have swept the area. That has made fire insurance unaffordable. Mine was $800 just 5 years ago. Today it’s $6500. Others in my area are paying a lot more. One neighbor got a renewal letter for $85,000.
Sorry for the lengthy post. I wanted to show that I have legitimate reasons for not wanting a president from a party that is making my life more difficult. But vote for Trump? Not happening.
Edit: typo
These are all small and petty things to worry about. Your orchard maintenance is your biggest problem? Talking about CARB indicates that you’re in CA. You want more people to have wood burning boilers, even though your state has massive annual wildfires? Are you even listening to yourself?
All of your complaints revolve around burning things. I know people who work for CAL FIRE. You are wrong about forest fires. Small trees planted for lumber burn more easily than mature trees with thick bark.
And I’m sure if you ever need to use the terrible big government services you dislike (possibly because of a fire), you won’t hesitate to ask for a handout.
The only thing that stopped the last big fire from burning down my home was a clear-cut patchwork left over from the last logging operation 15 years ago. It allowed CalFire to establish a firebreak. In areas that had not been logged in 50 years, folks lost their homes. I’m a member of my community’s Fire Safe Council. We have retired CalFire chiefs on our board. They were the ones who told me that California’s opposition to logging has resulted in major fuel loads with no firebreaks and a rapidly degrading network of logging roads that are used to fight fires. You can quote articles by tree huggers like the NFF. I see the thousands of acres of dead burned “mature” trees with “thick bark” just up the road.
You say my complaints are petty. People are losing their homes because of the out of control increases in fire insurance. People are worried about what they’ll use to power their homes during our frequent outages when CARB outlaws gas generators. California Democrats want us to go all electric. I’m all electric. My utility bill last month was $500. I’m expecting $700 for this month.
Know what starts big fires here? The electric company. My utility company deferred essential maintenance for over 50 years with the blessing of the California Public Utilities Commission. Camp Fire, LNU Complex Fire, Mosquito Fire, Dixie Fire - those were all major wildfires caused by PG&E. Now they want to play catch up by undergrounding power lines and hike our rates even more to pay for it - again with the approval of the CPUC.
If you believe that outdoor boilers are a fire hazard, you have never seen one. Burning wood waste is carbon neutral, yet the EPA and CARB restrict the use of a method of combustion that’s over three times as efficient and clean compared to a fireplace. They’re one of the safest ways to burn biomass. Safer than a fireplace and much safer than an open fire, which is how most folks in my area dispose of green waste. We had 4 fires this year in my county due to people burning green waste. How many fires nationwide were due to outdoor boilers?
Like if Biden says, “never have I ever committed a campaign finance felony,” and then Donald has to two-hand wobble his little drink up to the sphincter on his face to take a swig.
This is ludicrous. The Republicans have nothing to worry about. It does not matter to their voters at all. He could start shouting “kill, kill, kill” until he has a seizure and craps himself on stage, voters: “just like Jesus”
/s
You sure about that /s?
I think the commenter missed the “rs” after “/s”
Every time you “/s” a baby panda dies. Just say no to “/s”.
Baby pandas? You mean that species that is too lazy to even reproduce? I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think there are any left after you dropped two whole sarcasm indicators like that 😟
You’re making my point for me. Will someone please think of the pandas? Also, the “/s” doesn’t affect pandas when in quotes.
I never liked baby pandas anyway.
/j
I just thought at the last second it was disrespectful to people with seizures. The s probably doesn’t help with that anyway though
Not /s.
Yup, Trump can’t do or say anything wrong. He could literally eat a baby on national TV and his base would search for scripture to justify it.
Please vote for Biden. We’re going to see some serious fucked up shit if Trump wins. Project 25 will make it happen.
Wait til you find out Project 25 is just another Mandate for Leadership put out by the Heritage foundation since 1981. This fascist train has been rolling for a long time, and it’s going too fast for us to get off it now.
Trump is the larger of the two, why shouldn’t he simply eat the baby?
Perhaps they’re saving that for election day
With trump, the trap isn’t his loyal base turning on him, it’s having a motivated population against him. He benefits from apathy. If he falls into traps that cause bubble voters to show up, that’s the trouble for him.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
With just days to go before Donald Trump and Joe Biden face off in the first presidential debate, Republicans are concerned about the possibility of the former president walking into a trap in front of a national audience.
Fearing a repeat of the chaos of the first 2020 debate in which Trump kept interrupting and speaking over both Biden and moderator Chris Wallace, senior party figures are urging him to stay calm and follow the rules.
The issue is clearly on the former president’s mind too, as he asked supporters at a rally in Philadelphia on Saturday (June 22) whether he should be “tough and nasty” or “nice and calm” and let Biden speak.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, once a fierce Trump critic and now one of his staunchest allies said: “The main focus is going to be: is Biden capable?”
One potential Trump running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, recognizes the importance of the debate but is confident that the former president can stick to a theme that appears to resonate with many voters.
The debate will be hosted by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash in Atlanta on Thursday at 9pm est — there will be no studio audience and moderators will “use all tools at their disposal to enforce timing and ensure a civilized discussion”.
The original article contains 1,029 words, the summary contains 221 words. Saved 79%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Is the current president and former vice president capable of being president… tough question.
There will be lots of traps for Trump. Like getting asked questions, and having a microphone. Gotta watch out for those.
Meat hanging over an obvious net trap.
MeatHamberders hanging over an obvious net trap.
