The argument can be made this is a good thing because now there's two ACTUAL contenders debating it out, more on the lines of 2016 which sharpens Trump up and gives Desantis experience on a national stage. If Trump f's up the nomination WITHOUT party fuckery, then it's on him but Desantis losing to Trump might still be good as look what happened to Cruz after 2016.
We get a split of the party, this is the risk if the party fucks with Trump to favour Desantis. Trump won't back down from that and we could end up with 2nd Bull moose party situation. If I was Desantis, I'd recind my candidacy if ANY evidence of fuckery from the establishment as even with no involvement from Desantis, it'll leave a black mark against him if he continued under that. If he withdraws after establishment corruption efforts, he looks like a Saint and paints a HUGE target on turtleneck and the rest because they may have fucked over Biden getting a 2nd term with their efforts.
Honestly, the only way this splits the party is if Trump loses. There are "Trump only" voters, and there are a fucking shitload of them. If Trump wins, honestly, most of DeSantis supporters will come on board, same way even Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio all did.
Like I've said before, I'm okay with the debates because I can easily see great moments shifting the overton window to the right for a lot of normies, which is why I really want Larry Elder to be up there. (Frankly, I'd vote Elder more than Trump, but he ain't gonna win)
What I'm much more worried about is that the establishment is absolutely funding DeSantis in order to fucking kill them both. In the event that DeSantis wins, he'll lose the core Trump supporters, and each and every one of his current donors are gonna start making demands that he can't fulfill. The Republicans will get fucking destroyed because they will walk DeSantis off a fucking cliff and claim that "this is unquestionable proof that winning elections with Far Right rhetoric is impossible, and we need to go back to true conservatives like Jeb Bush."
They're not cultists, they were diseffected normies that came out of the wood-work for Trump specifically. You're looking at people in their 40's, 50's, and 60's who never voted until they voted Trump.
As for RFK Jr., He won't be nominated, but I feel like if they treat him badly enough, there will be so many disaffected Leftists that they won't be able to count on a small portion of progressive votes turning out. 2020 got every Leftist voter to vote for Joe Biden. All of them. In 2024, so long as RFK doesn't cuck out like Bernie Sanders did, some chunk of those votes, maybe a million, might not show up.
There's two ways this can go:
The argument can be made this is a good thing because now there's two ACTUAL contenders debating it out, more on the lines of 2016 which sharpens Trump up and gives Desantis experience on a national stage. If Trump f's up the nomination WITHOUT party fuckery, then it's on him but Desantis losing to Trump might still be good as look what happened to Cruz after 2016.
We get a split of the party, this is the risk if the party fucks with Trump to favour Desantis. Trump won't back down from that and we could end up with 2nd Bull moose party situation. If I was Desantis, I'd recind my candidacy if ANY evidence of fuckery from the establishment as even with no involvement from Desantis, it'll leave a black mark against him if he continued under that. If he withdraws after establishment corruption efforts, he looks like a Saint and paints a HUGE target on turtleneck and the rest because they may have fucked over Biden getting a 2nd term with their efforts.
Honestly, the only way this splits the party is if Trump loses. There are "Trump only" voters, and there are a fucking shitload of them. If Trump wins, honestly, most of DeSantis supporters will come on board, same way even Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio all did.
Like I've said before, I'm okay with the debates because I can easily see great moments shifting the overton window to the right for a lot of normies, which is why I really want Larry Elder to be up there. (Frankly, I'd vote Elder more than Trump, but he ain't gonna win)
What I'm much more worried about is that the establishment is absolutely funding DeSantis in order to fucking kill them both. In the event that DeSantis wins, he'll lose the core Trump supporters, and each and every one of his current donors are gonna start making demands that he can't fulfill. The Republicans will get fucking destroyed because they will walk DeSantis off a fucking cliff and claim that "this is unquestionable proof that winning elections with Far Right rhetoric is impossible, and we need to go back to true conservatives like Jeb Bush."
I find this prediction hard to agree with, unless you think "core Trump supporters" are personality cultists.
I'm hoping for the impossible: The DP nominating RFK Jr.
They're not cultists, they were diseffected normies that came out of the wood-work for Trump specifically. You're looking at people in their 40's, 50's, and 60's who never voted until they voted Trump.
As for RFK Jr., He won't be nominated, but I feel like if they treat him badly enough, there will be so many disaffected Leftists that they won't be able to count on a small portion of progressive votes turning out. 2020 got every Leftist voter to vote for Joe Biden. All of them. In 2024, so long as RFK doesn't cuck out like Bernie Sanders did, some chunk of those votes, maybe a million, might not show up.
Some are. And Trump is a loose cannon who will probably denounce DeSantis rather than backing him.