GOP loyalty pledge?

This is lovely! To qualify for the first debate the candidate must promise to support the eventual nominee yet the likely nominee stands charged with dozens of felony crimes in four jurisdictions. Not only that, the likely nominee is himself unwilling to sign it and even if he did he's unlikely to keep his promise if he isn't the nominee and everyone with the mental capacity of a Guinea worm knows it.

So it looks like the GOP debate will be the non-event of the election cycle.

At what point will the GOP return to being a political party and not a personality cult?

 

The pledge is, of course, unenforceable.

No one would try to hold Trump to it if he signed it.

No one would try to prevent Trump from debating if he refused to sign it.

No one would take action against Trump if he signed it and subsequently violated it.

It is a desperate attempt to get Trump to refrain from hindering any nominee not named Trump. It also shows how powerless the Republican Party is regarding Trump. Simply put, he has enthralled a significant portion of their base. They won't let go of him, so every other so-called "leader" in the party just appears feckless and impotent.

Their only hope--ONLY HOPE--is that one of these prosecutions moves so quickly that Trump is faced with actually going to trial. I don't think he will, choosing to cut a plea deal instead. But he won't do it until the last minute. It would have to be a Spiro Agnew-type deal, and would have to happen before Super Tuesday (March 5th). I think the actual odds of this are nearly zero.

1. Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.
2. Donald Trump cannot possibly escape 91 felony counts in four different prosecutions.
3. The Republican Party will have as its nominee a convicted felon.

As with all things Trump, it will ultimately be the American people who decide what happens from there.

 

This thread perfectly sums up my thoughts.

One topic not discussed is what about the thousands of lone wolf Trump soldiers, that Trump is enlisting into his criminal enterprise.

Will the FBI be able to stop these threats against the legal system? Unfortunately no.

Will anyone be killed? Probably yes but, hopefully just the Trump soldiers though.

 

Rumor is DJT will appear and will not sign. Hard to see the Party keeping him off the stage. Fiasco.

 

The mistake people keep making is to entertain the notion that Trump does anything ever in good faith. He doesn't.

 

An even bigger mistake is when people assumed Trump would follow expected norms surrounding the presidency and the elective process. Instead, he ratcheted up the pressure to check for leaks (and to see if it would explode). It nearly did. It might still.

 

Trump just announced that he won't appear at the first GOP debate. He's probably wise not to. Why should he?

So instead of Banquo the other candidates will have to deal with Banquo's ghost. Trump will dominate in spirit largely because the others are non-entities even in the flesh.

 

I will say for Joe Biden that he is not a non-entity.

 

Actually, folks have already been killed. I should have therefore said, "If more are killed it will hopefully continue to be just Trump soldiers that are killed."

 

DJT says positively that he will not appear at the first debate. Fox News will be playing to an empty hall. It would be embarrassing if it weren’t so pathetic.

 

He's already done the interview with Tucker. What, 90 minutes? I guess they needed two days to edit out all the stupid stuff. That will leave, what, 5 or 6 minutes?

 

Define "stupid stuff". I doubt there's even one minute of anything else. Besides, what is Tucker Carlson doing interviewing Trump? The whole world knows what Carlson thinks of the former President and his bogus claims. Is Carlson whoring himself out again?

 

It was a joke. It implies exactly what you're saying.

 

The media are doing their best to whip up some excitement as if this were a horse race. It isn't. Only one nag wandered in from the paddock. The rest of the "field" is in the truck to be made into bargain priced dog chow.

 

Meanwhile, Old Joe is smiling broadly. He beat Trump last time both in the popular vote and the Electoral College. He figures he can do it again. I expect so too but the risk has me unable to sleep.

 

"Your winnings, Monsieur."

 

"Honest as the day is long!"

 

Yes, I would guess that every other nominee in the debate would likely have a better chance of beating Biden in November. However, I'd rather Trump not win the Republican nomination because losing our democracy is not worth the risk of Trump getting nominated by the Republican party and being that close to being in the oval office once again.

 

Trump isn't the problem, ultimately. It's a little over 74 million times larger.