Chairslinger

It will be really interesting to see how things play out if the rightwing media continues to attempt to cut Trump loose. As bad as these midterms have been for the GOP what typically would have happened during the Trump years is that a scandal rocks Trump and the worse it was the longer it would take the media and party to coalesce around talking points that swept it under the rug. But usually no more than a week before Lindsey was making excuses and McCarthy was taking a flight to Florida to kiss Trump's ring. It won't be for a week or two before we really know how serious they are about dumping Trump. And then it will be interesting to see what effect that has on Trump's ability to bounce back without the echo chamber on his side. Right now things looks bad for Trump, but keep in mind that he can absolutely burn the party to the ground on the way out if he really wants to. Not only electorally, though that would be bad enough. He probably knows shit that could get Reps and Senators jail time if he goes full "If I'm going down I am taking you with me" mode.

Kyrie is having a bad enough start to the season right now without you going right at him like that, man. Lower the maximum Twittering age to 50.

Chris Megerian also has a bit of "I started to Keysor Soze a name and just kind of gave up towards the end" sound to it as well.

There are a lot of silent Never Trumpers in the Republican Party. The Mitch McConnells who desperately want to get rid of Trump but don't actually want to effectuate a modicum of the bravery that Liz Cheney showed by actually openly opposing him. It is this wing that dressed up a potato in a suit, hooked up a Trump chatbot to it, and has convinced a good portion of the country that this thing is the Republican party's, and thus the country as a whole, only salvation from Trump. It reminds me a lot of the kneejerk reactions of those who claimed the search warrant on Trump would hand Trump a second term. The thinking was Trump's influence was waning, but giving him this "issue" to rail against has reinvigorated him. But that waning of Trump was always going to end, it's called election season. Whether a Republican primary or general election, you can't fucking tiptoe past Trump to get to the presidency. Sooner or later you are going to have to take him on head-on. 2 years worth of DeSantis's handlers carefully passive aggressively splitting hairs by passing unsourced stories to news outlets about how Ron did this or that better than Trump can and most likely will be completely obliterated in the first 5 minutes of a full frontal assault by Trump on a debate stage.

I am kind of surprised how different my opinion of DeSantis is than a lot of you. Florida is a red state now and was before DeSantis. In fact, Florida was already a red state on the election night when DeSantis BARELY won the first time. Most of DeSantis's appeal is the result of conservative "elite" wishful thinking and training wheels.

The problem with just dumping Trump is I don't think the party knows who they are once Trump is gone. Their policies were already quite unpopular in 2016(which is part of the reason they chose the cult of personality to begin with). By the time 2024 rolls around it will have been nearly a decade since any answer to any policy question put to them was, "Whatever Trump most recently said about that particular topic". The fact that the party has little in terms of future prospects outside of the "Trumpism without Trump" idea shows how rudderless they are right now. I am pretty pessimistic about a lot of stuff in politics, but I remain pretty optimistic about the fact that Smart Trump/Trump without the baggage will be a spectacular failure for them. I despise Trump as much as anyone, but believing you can just plug in a bland politician that parrots his meaningless word salad to take his place is to completely misunderstand the unique appeal he had. Trump is actually more popular than the party. His problem is that he has proven incapable of stirring up that support without causing an even greater political backlash. Keep in mind, Fox was anti-Trump in 2016....until they weren't. I will go on record as saying no. Even the chance of DeSantis taking over in the next 2 years is more about how the party and rightwing propaganda machine present him than the man himself. The question that I don't think anyone has the answer to is if Trump's 4 years in office improved his ability to project his appeal to the base, or hindered it. All the scandals and baggage suggests the latter. The fact that he got 75 million votes in 2020 suggests the former.

The GOP right now as WCW circa 1999 might be pretty apropos if Trump runs and loses again in 2024.

All political common wisdom says that Trump should lose his hold on the party now. 2018 was a disaster for them. Then he lost the presidency in 2020(making him the first one term president in 25 years) and then went on to almost single handedly lose them the Senate runoffs that cost them the Senate. Now this wet fart of a result. Oh, and he's going to be indicted soon. On paper DeSantis should be primed to take over the party for him. In practice, I still think it all too likely that Trump will give DeSantis a goofy nickname at the first primary debate and Trump will yet again be the prohibitive favorite. Part of that is because he is the idiot whisperer of politics. He is the patronus of privileged white grievance in this country. He speaks to them in a way no one else does,. And partly because DeSantis and his ilk are trying to beat him by outTrumping him. Why would they vote for a guy like Trump when they could just vote for Trump. And they have bought into all of Trump's hobby horses as the official party line. Saying that elections are free and fair on a Republican debate stage is nearly the equivalent of saying you are pro-choice at this point. When simply saying that Trump lost in 2020 makes you a RINO, why wouldn't you nominate him again? Every real Republican should just be grateful that circumstances allow for them to run this surefire winner for a third election victory!

Poochie's exit was more natural.

Her political career has really hit an Iceberg.

Dick Van Dyke is nearly 97 and still surprisingly spry. Willie is a relatively young 89, but releasing songs and still touring at a pretty impressive rate for a near nonagenarian.

He looks like someone hit the "stretch wide" setting on their TV.

Fuck man, of all the '10's antiheroes that became so popular Jax may be my most disliked. I totally agree with you. There are straight up villains that I find more sympathetic than little Prince Jaxxy with his alpha dude bro faux depth using phrases like "calm intensity"! Little prince Jax who gets to decide everyone that lives and dies based on his moving target of what is right and wrong. Oh, and while we are on the topic, Shane was not "right". Shane was an emotionally erratic egomaniac who couldn't just rub one out, calm the fuck down, and accept that his month long fling with another guy's wife didn't trump their years long marriage and having a kid together. Any "this is the way the world is now!" reality that Shane might have stumbled upon was totally by accident. He was just using that shit as a juvenile way to make him look like the guy Laurie should pick.

The American right has morphed into the Voltron of all the worst internet discussion groups/styles of the first 20 years of the internet. Conspiracy addled religious zealots gish galloping their way through non-sequetorial arguments and if all else fails admonishing you for being too literal or serious if you pin them down on an argument.

So Punk was still blown up from the match he just had, probably still bleeding, injured, and the Executive Vice Presidents of the company decided to break into his locker room to confront him 3 on 1. I am not saying Punk isn't a dick, but it's crazy that Punk was taking most of the heat for this at first. If anything, the guy has a pretty strong case for an unsafe work environment if he really wanted to be a dick. These guys are supposed to be running the company. It's like if it were the other way around and Vince had tracked down Bret after the Screwjob to punch him...and Vince brought two of his friends.

Maybe someone hid behind a corner and popped out at Liz as she walked by and shouted, "India just passed the U.K. as the world's 5th largest economy!"....

That is one intense game of chicken.

God damn Kushner looks like the creepy kid from some cliche horror movie all grown up. I can't look at him without hearing a eerie high pitched voice imploring us to "come play with me".

How dare you accuse me of cheating on my diet. All you found was empty wrappers!

Reminds me of a gaslighting significant other. How dare you accuse me of cheating, your lack of trust made me cheat! Narrator: Also, they were cheating all along.

Hopefully we don't wind up on some FBI agent's list to question after this dipshit offs himself trying a YouTube DIY domestic terrorist life hack. The brain worms have clearly saturated the brain and infiltrated the brain stem at this point. They will likely gain control of his motor functions any day now.

I will admit, I am a guy who can't grow the fullest beard, but when even your little baby Hitler stache grows in patchy maybe it's time to give up the dream. He looks like he blew his nose and two wooly worms came out.

Remember the days when conservatives would snarkily comment any time something happened with someone with an Arabic sounding name? This is Donald Trump's America now....where Cory, Tucker, and Ricky are the "geez, I wonder why that guy hijacked a plane!" names....

Just razor sharp political analysis here by Comrad Carlson.... Republicans are losing their red wave because they support Ukraine. It is just staggering that this RT wannabe not only has a show but is one of the most watched shows on a(n alleged) news outlet.

Imagine being such a failure that you threaten to crash a plane into a Walmart in Mississippi....and can't even manage to do it.