The GOP desperately needed a post election autopsy after Trump lost as an incumbent to a buffoon. Stop the Steal may as well have been named Hide the Corpse. 81 million people cast ballots for Joe Biden. The 2018 and 2022 midterms eroded nearly all gains made by Republicans under Obama's tenure. Republicans should want to understand why this happened. Unfortunately, some on our side are so repelled by pop culture as to dwell in escapist fantasy. Trump sensed their vulnerability, first hooking them on birtherism as a gateway drug, and then pulling them down every rabbit hole that would keep them from noticing his inadequacies. Fast forward several years, and the Republicans are still broken.
Democrats have problems of their own. Their economic plans are unrealistic. Their rhetoric is aggrieved, subversive, and race-obsessed. Kamala's public appearances have been carefully managed to hide her incompetence. At some point the general public will be reminded of the past 4 years ... whether it's before or after the election is still up in the air. I find her artificial joyfulness, kindness, or whatever you want to call it creepy as hell. We all have worked with ambitious people, often women at the office, who smile to our faces and shiv us in the back. So I do think their toxicity leaves an opening for Trump to cobble together 270 electoral votes, but quite a few unlikely things need to happen.
Sad that so many are making this about personality and not policy.
I can at least respect and sympathize with
@roamer_1 abstaining over the relative lack of Constitutional Conservatism and the absence of fiscal restraint in Trump's first term, but we have seen even more absence of fiscal restraint from the successor and it was all spent in taking the country in the wrong direction, along with policies that hurt even more.
But because you find the man abrasive? Seriously?
I don't vote for a POTUS because i want to invite them over for tea and crumpets, I'm looking for someone to do a hard job, to face off, when necessary, with others in the same role for their respective countries, to deal with those who are there to deal with us and either hammer out an agreement or reach an impasse and decide from there whether it's ass kicking time.
EVERY decision they make is going to displease someone.
You can't make all the people happy all the time.
But what I want is someone who will at least put the brakes on the destructive policies (and they are going down many tracks at once, it isn't a unified vehicle of state, more like a loose fleet of ships, so some policies will turn faster and better than others) and push policy that will more likely return the country to the original vision of the Founders (a Republic,with strong states and a relatively--to what we have now--weak and limited Federal Government with limited duties and powers.) weak not from the stance of international relations, but for domestic affairs.
Roe being overturned was a step in the right direction. The States should make those rules, not the Feds.
Looking at what we have (Trump vs Kamala), while neither is perfect, the choice is obvious to me, IF for no other reason than the policy of the Biden/Harris Administration is unsustainable, not just fiscally, but in every sense.
We've seen the test drive results. Four trillion new debt under Trump, 8 trillion under Biden, and Kamala isn't about to slow down. At the same time, Biden/Harris decreed policies that made it even harder for industry and individuals to function, making the impact even more severe, and critically, causing inflation when the cause was obvious, and not wholly on a basis of having printed more money than ever done before.
Energy policy is the key to recovery, and Biden/Harris went in exactly the wrong direction, and what's more, spent OUR money (that we don't have) on subsidies to buy more bad policy.
It will take more than one presidential term to recover from that.
