2024 tea leaves?

It won't matter. He's not important. What he did to transform the country is what matters. Any competent modern Republican can now take his place and do the same thing.

Democrats don't have a plan for all of this. Trump dying or being incarcerated or becoming legally non compos mentis are not plans.

If Democrats think they're facing an electoral dilemma, they're mistaken. Trump changed the entire picture permanently. Winning elections will be insufficient.

 

And some of those humans who used it for Covid it have since run well in the Preakness, Belmont and Kentucky Derby.

 

That's Triple Crown Accreditation.

 

That's about $0.45 in Denmark.

 

That may be. I dunno. But REAL Triple Crown Accreditation is Equis, AMBA and ACCSB. You don't get ANY of that for $0.45.

 

I think Pence is radioactive, actually. His refusal to go along with Trump has permanently damaged his relationship with the average Republican voter and his 4 years of refusing to stand up to Trump until then has permanently damaged his relationship with anyone left of them.

 

Nikki Haley: Would She Run for President 2024?

Long rumored to be considering a 2024 run, former United States Ambassador Nikki Haley last February distanced herself from former President Donald Trump and firmly sided with former Vice President Mike Pence on the matter of election fraud.

She stated:
“Mike Pence is a good man. He’s an honest man, I think he did what he thought was right on that day,”

Her comments came after the former vice president, said that the former president was wrong about his role in the certification of presidential electors.
I had no right to overturn the election,” he told the audience at a Federalist Society event hosted in Florida.

Who is ready to lead in a new global order? The Russian war and new situation in Europe?
Who can keep China out of Taiwan, project strength in a world?
Re-focus on economy, reduce inflation and crime? Decrease dependence on foreign oil?
And other predictable and unpredictable challenges?
The former UN ambassador has skillfully ridden both the pro and anti-Trump horses and kept her credibility intact

 

The thing about Pence is that he isn't really scary to most Americans by which I mean the great mass of voters who don't pay much attention to politics.

 

Actually, I think I was wrong about this. For months after January 6, I had seen things like this from June 2021: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57540611 (Mike Pence: Hecklers brand ex-VP 'traitor' at conservative conference.)

More recently though, https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/09/politics/electoral-count-act-pence-poll/index.html (Most Americans and Republicans side with Pence over Trump)

It seems most Republicans have come around to the idea that Pence couldn't overturn the results, even though many continue to believe that the results were fraudulent.

 

Trump Republicans can largely bury the hatchet with intraparty rivals when it suits them. Several senators come to mind especially who they've warmed to since 2016. Pence wouldn't be the first 2024 choice not named Trump for many Trump Republicans, but most could live with him.

 

Not so sure about the "Handmaid's Tale" argument. Pence stands for a kind of Christianity that is still pretty widespread in Flyover Country. I have no data to support my thinking here but I strongly suspect that there is a lot of resentment against pressure from the so-called "coastal elite liberal establishment" to not only tolerate but celebrate lifestyles and choices that much of Middle America, men and women, deem abhorrant. There is also still much anger over the (correct) perception that the elites bailed themselves out in 2008 at everyone else's expense. That's not been forgotten. I can easily see Pence defeating Biden. (Then again, I thought Trump would win in 2020 so it's pinch of salt time...)

 

Democrats need to stop sneering at these people. Or at least stop seeming to sneer.

 

Is there any real evidence that this is a thing? It sounds like the persecution complex enjoyed by so many on the Right. Which Democrats are actually doing this?

 

Well...going back a ways, there was the infamous "basket of deplorables" and Obama's "Guns God and Gays". I haven't seen anyone walk those things back. Meanwhile, we have some Supreme Court decisions that even I find difficult to justify. The Wedding Cake and Wedding Photographer cases for instance. Add to that a push to teach younger children about sexual orientation in public schools...oh, I think there's plenty of fuel to fire the sense of outrage.

Then there are the endless fights over Covid restrictions and vaccination. Anti-vaxxers predate Covid and aren't by any means all on the Right. But those who are on the Right see mandates as yet more coercion from a deeply distrusted govenment establishment.

Note, please. I am NOT taking sides here. I'm really not. I concern myself with the law and the law generally concerns itself with neither morality nor justice. I am suggesting only that much of conservative Middle America can believe that its values are under sustained attack. That perception carries political consequences.

Pence comes across as calm and competent (whether he actually is or not).

 

Those are some good examples. AOC seems to sometimes troll the right with such an attitude and political pundits on MSNBC and CNN also partake in "sneering" on occasion. Now such sneering is at least as common on the right. It could even be argued that such sneering is the ruling philosophy on the right, at least the way to raise money.

 

Pence apparently thinks he at least has a shot at 2024. That's worth something, assuming they have done some polling. If he did run though I think too many in the Trump base would pull out their long knives and attack him, with Trump leading the charge.

 

That's some pretty weak tea when compared to what the Right has done--and is doing--to our voting and governing.

It all sounds like confirmation bias, and those minds can't be reached, much less changed.

But it's all moot. The Right will govern this country, even from a minority position, even with unpopular agendas. There is a much bigger reason for all of this than Left/Right politics, and that isn't going away except with the passing of generations.

 

Objective truth isn't the point. Perceptions applied to myth drive human judgments about politics in a tribal environment.