Trump is already #2 in Florida polling. I'll repeat that Trump is already #2 in Florida and sliding.

DeSantis builds and builds- he's a conservative without being "Trumpy" without Trump's personality issues and Trump's foot in mouth compulsion.

And Trump's legal troubles are just heating up. 

Ivanka is bowing out of 2024 campaign.

DeSantis is gonna take that primary, embarrass Trump and run strong nationally. I'm betting DeSantis will shade any Republican such that after his inauguration people aren't even going to remember those other candidates' names. Doubt that? There's hope for conservatism in the Republican Party.

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”

― Abraham Lincoln

Trump's legal troubles are just beginning. There's blood in the water, the sharks and other scavengers are starting to circle, preparing to take their bites from the flailing, failing Mar a Lago Moron.

Former President Donald Trump is giving it another go. He announced last week that he’s trying to become only the second man (after Grover Cleveland) to be elected to non-consecutive terms as US president.

Trump’s move comes at a time when his political brand is at its weakest point since his first presidential bid in 2015-2016. He does remain a force to be reckoned with in GOP circles, and the news that the Justice Department has appointed a special counsel to oversee investigations related to the former president could elicit a rally-around-Trump effect among Republicans. Nevertheless, it’s clear his power within the party has diminished following the 2022 midterm elections.

 

DOJ announces special counsel for Trump-related Mar-a-Lago and January 6 criminal investigations

The easiest way to tell that Trump’s standing isn’t what it once was is to look at the reaction to his 2024 presidential announcement. Many Republican elected officials and conservative media personalities gave it a big yawn.

Trump’s announcement earned him the support of very few elected officials on Capitol Hill. It was much more reminiscent of his first bid in 2015-2016, when Trump initially drew little support from lawmakers in Congress. The difference this time, of course, is that Trump is the former leader of the party whom most Republican members of Congress had endorsed in 2020 instead of a political neophyte like he was seven years ago.

Instead, there seems to be about as many senators (one) already backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as there are for Trump. This is important because endorsements from party officials have historically been correlated with presidential primary success.

 

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I should note that the lack of endorsements didn’t stop Trump in 2016, and it may not this time either.

Trump’s first bid may have been an aberration, though. He was facing off against more than a dozen competitors who split support among the conservative political class. This is especially a problem in Republican primaries, which tend to be winner-take-all (or most) affairs, unlike Democratic primaries, which award delegates proportionally. Trump needed well less than half of the GOP vote to accumulate a lot of delegates quickly in 2016.

He may not get the same divided opposition in the 2024 cycle. The only obvious competitor to Trump at this point is DeSantis.

The Florida governor’s rise is perhaps the most important development in the 2024 Republican field. Trump is still ahead in a number of national primary polls, but DeSantis is polling better in early national polls than any non-Trump candidate did for much of the 2016 primary cycle.

In his home state of Florida, DeSantis is outright beating Trump in almost every poll. In CNN’s exit poll of 2022 midterm voters in Florida, more Republicans wanted DeSantis to run in 2024 than they did Trump.

 

 

As Trump blusters, DeSantis builds his case but tells people to 'chill out' with 2024 talk

DeSantis’ Florida advantage is notable for a number of reasons, besides the fact that the state contains a boatload of Republican delegates, who will likely be allocated winner-take-all.

First, Florida is Trump’s home state too, and it’s the only place where the two men are on equal footing in terms of name recognition. DeSantis’ lead is a sign that as Republicans nationwide get to know him better, they could move toward him. (DeSantis tends to have a higher favorable rating than Trump nationally among Republicans who are familiar with both men.)

Second, Trump won Florida in the 2016 primaries against home-state Sen. Marco Rubio. The fact that DeSantis is now besting him there in the polls is arguably an indication that Trump is in a weaker position than he had been in 2016.

But Trump’s problems go beyond just party officials and polls. Trump was able to defy conventional wisdom in 2016 because he received an outsize amount of media attention. He basically crowded out the competition.

This time, it won’t be so easy. I’ve pointed out previously that DeSantis has shown a knack for generating a lot of media attention on Fox News. Trump’s name wasn’t mentioned until page 26 of the Rupert Murdoch-run New York Post (whose editorial page leans to the right) on the day after his 2024 announcement. Murdoch leads the company that owns Fox News as well.

And if Trump wins the primary, he’ll still have to win a general election. That won’t be easy, as the 2022 midterms showed.

 

How Joe Biden and the Democratic Party defied midterm history

I noted last week that Trump’s presence was one of the major reasons that Democrats did surprisingly well in the midterm elections. By being in the headlines so much and acting like a quasi-incumbent, Trump helped to nullify what is normally a major advantage for the opposition party in midterm elections with an unpopular incumbent in the White House.

Now, you could have envisioned a universe in which Trump’s larger-than-life personality may have been helpful if he were popular.

Instead, Trump’s favorable rating is at one of its lowest points in the last five years: 39%, according to the 2022 exit poll. That compares with a 46% favorable rating in the 2020 exit poll and a 45% job approval rating in the 2018 exit poll.

In a presidential election in which Trump’s name is actually on the ballot, you could imagine his unpopularity being even more of a factor.

We already know from history that it won’t be easy for Trump. While incumbent presidents (like Joe Biden) are at a disadvantage in midterms, they benefit from their incumbency in presidential elections. Elected incumbents win more than 60% of the time when they run for another term.

The bottom line is that Trump’s got an uphill climb ahead of him for 2024 – both in a GOP primary and in a general election. He can certainly win a second term, but the odds are currently against him

You lefties just can't get Trump out of your head!

'TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP' You think you're tired of that vindictive narcissistic sociopath being in the political news? Guess what- America is tired of him, too. 

It takes an especial gift to be a close match for Obama's and Biden's low favorability rating at any point and still trail in the overall historic average.

Trump's highest favorability is within a few points of Joe Biden's average. Obama- yes- Obama blows Trump out of the water.

Donald Trump got Joe Biden elected. Joe's tried for decades to get in the Oval Office but Trump got him elected in one term....

Hard to get him out of our head when

1. Every 5th story on the news is still about him

2. He's responsible for countless deaths due to his "playing down" Covid

3. He attempted an insurrection (and lost) and is still sewing doubt in gullible people

4. He's trying to run again given that the majority of the country knows he's an abject failure and excuse for a leader

So, that's why he's in our head - He's in the airwaves and I can't wait for the day that he winds up in a place where he no longer tweets and just leads a normal life somewhere, wherever that may be ... I know I'm dreaming, but one can dream

1. Every story on the news is not about Trump, just news stations that have Trump derrangement syndrome.

2.  BS, if you want to make that responsibility claim, look at you governor or Fauci.

3.  There was NO insurrection, NO one has been charged,  just more BS from the left.

4.  Compare how well the country is doing, obviously Biden is the failure.

Trump,Trump, Trump all you can post about.  Any and all treads start out about something but end up with Trump, Trump, Trump.  Now, We know he was great and put our country first in his decisions, but he isn't the President anymore.  Post about more current events like the failures in our economy, our borders, the inflation, crime rate in major blue cities, failure of the education of our kids, or any other subject, because We now fail at all of them.

WASHINGTON — In February, President Trump told the public that the coronavirus should “go away” by April. In March, he said that the virus may “wash” away by summer. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump told the American public that the virus “won’t be coming back in the form that it was” this fall or winter. He then mused that it might not come back at all.

What is the point of having state of the art healthcare when you hvae a cheif executive- Trump- who is a tin-pot third world dictator wannabe?

Yeah, America needs another Trump administration, because of.... what?

Disentangle ourselves from international treaties, like NATO? Ukraine ring a bell?

Economic prosperity? Trump single-handed caused the sharpest economic contraction since the Great Depression. The American economy is still recovering from that.

A million+ Americans dead of COVID, 122,000 of which copuld reasonably have been saved without extreme measures. 

Indict the Mar a Lago Moron andf rid America of his influence.

US ranks last among peer nations for COVID-19 mortality: study

More than 122,000 lives would have been saved if all states had the same vaccination rates as the most vaccinated

Anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers gathered at Indiana University's Sample Gates to protest against mandatory Covid vaccinations IU is requiring for students, staff and faculty during the upcoming fall semester. (Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Take a statement he made and dispute it - But when you dispute it, find a factual source that supports your claim. Let's discuss it ... 

Daughter Blames Trump After Losing Lifelong Republican Dad to COVID-19 | NowThis - YouTube

Analysis of Trump's COVID-19 Response Says 40% of US Deaths Avoidable (businessinsider.com) - This is even worse - 40% of US Deaths Avoidable had it not been for Trump

Read it...

Damning analysis of Trump's pandemic response suggested 40% of US COVID-19 deaths could have been avoided

• A report on the Trump administration's policies suggested 40% of US COVID-19 deaths were avoidable.
• Compared with six similarly wealthy countries, the US failed to protect citizens' health in the pandemic.
• Trump publicly downplayed COVID-19 and often undermined health guidelines.

About 40% of US COVID-19 deaths "could have been averted," a new analysis of President Donald Trump's public-health policies found.

The report, published by the Lancet Commission, excoriated Trump's handling of the pandemic and general approach to public health. "He expedited the spread of COVID-19 in the US," the authors wrote.

"Many of the cases and deaths were avoidable," they said, adding that "instead of galvanizing the US populace to fight the pandemic, President Trump publicly dismissed its threat (despite privately acknowledging it), discouraged action as infection spread, and eschewed international cooperation."

The US has recorded about 27 million COVID-19 cases and at least 471,000 deaths, though public-health experts have said those official tallies are likely undercounted.

The Lancet report did not place all the blame on Trump's policies, however; it also pointed to four decades of "long-standing flaws in US economic, health, and social policy" that compounded inefficiencies in the country's public-health systems before the pandemic.

More than 400,000 Americans died of COVID-19 under Trump's watch

By the time Trump left office in January, there were more than 400,000 reported COVID-19 deaths in the US. That's more Americans than the number of US troops killed during World War II.

The US leads the world in total coronavirus deaths, though it does not have the most COVID-19 deaths per capita.

For their new analysis, the Lancet authors compared the US's COVID-19 death rate with the average death rate of six other economically advanced nations: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK. They weighted those death rates by each country's population, since their sizes vary widely.

They concluded that 40% of the US's roughly 450,000 coronavirus deaths as of February 4 could have been avoided if the country had handled the pandemic similarly to its wealthy peers. That's 180,000 lives.

The report added that other countries outperformed the US in other areas of public health. The average life expectancy in the US was 3.4 years lower than in the six countries in 2018. That year, the US had 461,000 excess deaths — more deaths than expected based on historical data. That figure has been rising since 1980.

Trump 'repudiated science'

Trump publicly downplayed the threat of COVID-19 and habitually dismissed policy recommendations from top experts, including some from his White House coronavirus task force. In June, his campaign hosted a rally inside an arena in Oklahoma that could seat 19,000 people.

He "repudiated science, leaving the US unprepared and exposed to the COVID-19 pandemic," the Lancet authors wrote.

 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN last month that a lack of clear messaging from the federal government "likely did" cost lives last year.

"People were not trusting what health officials were saying," Fauci added.

In February 2020, Nancy Messonnier, a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned that the virus was circulating in American communities and that people should prepare for "severe" disruptions in daily life.

But around the same time, Trump said the number of COVID-19 cases would be "close to zero" within a couple of days.

 

Later, Trump privately told the journalist Bob Woodward that he had deliberately downplayed the threat of COVID-19 because he didn't want to cause a panic.

'It's hard to imagine how they could've done it worse'

Two of the Lancet report's authors published a similar analysis of Trump's health policies in 2018. That report said that Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy, challenges to the Affordable Care Act, and refusal to give adequate aid to Puerto Ricans following Hurricane Maria showed that the administration "favors industry and the wealthy and serves to endanger population and planetary health."

In October, the Lancet also published a commentary describing the administration's handling of the pandemic as "disastrous," urging Americans "to embrace change for the better" in the 2020 election.

Other public-health experts have highlighted the ways Trump's approach to the pandemic set a poor example for Americans and contributed to the US's huge case total.

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"It's hard to imagine how they could've done it worse," Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, previously told Insider.

A mostly maskless crowd waiting to get into the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for a Trump rally on June 20. Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images

Fauci criticized Trump's frequent refusal to wear a mask — in a recent interview with The Atlantic, he attributed that to Trump's "macho" attitude.

"To him, a mask was a sign of weakness," Fauci told The Atlantic, adding that "the unfortunate aspect of this is that a lot of people in the country took that on as a mantra."

The Lancet report's authors said Trump's refusal to develop a consistent national pandemic strategy "worsened shortages of personal protective equipment and diagnostic tests."

Once vaccines were authorized, each state was made responsible for its own distribution. The issue boiled down to the philosophy of Trump's White House and Department of Health and Human Services staff, Jha told Insider.

"They believe deeply that it's not the role of the federal government to help states in a health crisis, that it's the job of states to figure this all out on their own," he said.

You never know what's going on behind closed doors.

Trump and DeSantis may be talking and have a plan.

I would hate to see those two debate on a stage.

But if it came down to the two, I would have to lean towards DeSantis.

What would be the perfect scenario would be a Trump/DeSantis ticket. Then the republicans would control the oval office for 12 years.

I think one thing we can all agree on is getting this know-nothing POTUS out of office is the focus for every American.

Getting worldwide respect back is essential. And closing the borders is a must.