Month: January 2024

Think outside the box

A friend in high state office told a large crowd at a party event over the weekend that this is the most important election of our lifetime. Yes, the last election was too. But really, we mean it this time. (I’m riffing here.)

What’s infuriating about that hoary admonition is that it provokes Democrats into adopting a defensive posture when offense is required. Time and again, Democrats play defense. Their idea of finding a new gear is doing the same thing they’ve always done, the way they’ve always done it, just more of it. When it’s the most important election of your lifetime you don’t take chances, don’t experiment. Also, you don’t change, don’t grow. Worried about taking risks? That’s a huge one.

“Most important election of our lifetime” makes me grind my teeth almost as much as “voting against their best interests” and the jokey “vote early, vote often.” For Democrats of a certain age, they are unfortunate verbal tics.

Democrats may be the party of the left, but thinking outside the box is often in short supply.

That’s why I found this clip Heather Cox Richardson posted inspirational.

Autocrats destabilized democracy through the tools of social media and the internet. It was only a question of time until those defending democracy used the same tools in its defense. And there are SO MANY MORE OF US!!! This clip is inspirational. https://t.co/AxcHVOFcMa

— Heather Cox Richardson (TDPR) (@HC_Richardson) January 24, 2024

“Democracy is just more fun and inviting when you take it into your own hands.” She’s right.

Sofia Ongele’s full November 2023 Ted talk is here. She’s with Gen-Z for Change.

Republican voters come to the light

To no one’s surprise, Donald “91 Counts” Trump handily defeated Gov. Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire Republican primary on Tuesday. The surprise was results were closer than a late poll showing Trump polling ahead of Haley by 18 points among likely voters. The final spread was 11 points. But the Washington Post-Monmouth University poll was taken before Florida Gov, Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race. Haley may have picked up votes there. “Undeclared” voters are allowed to vote in the Republican primary.

Exit polls suggest tepid support for Haley. Aaron Blake notes, “Nearly 3 in 10 expressed some reservations about her, and 4 in 10 said their vote was mostly about dislike for the other candidates — or, more aptly, candidate.” Trump. It is significant “that so many voters who felt so meh about Haley turned out to register what amounted to protest votes.”

Watch that space this November. Trump has been a net plus in elections for Democrats ever since he took office. Even in 2022 when he had left office after fomenting a violent insurrection.

Haley herself made that point to supporters Tuesday night:

Haley: With Trump, Republicans have lost almost every competitive election. We've lost the senate, we've lost the house, we lost the white house, we lost in 2018. We lost in 2020, and we lost in 2022.

Supporters: Trump’s a loser! pic.twitter.com/VxQ3S5k99B

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 24, 2024

New Hampshire exit polls and results seem to confirm what Politico reported Tuesday: “There’s a whole swath of the Republican electorate and a good chunk of independents who appear firmly committed to not voting for [Trump] in November if he becomes the nominee.”

“Being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are.” — Michelle Obama

An NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of Iowa voters showed “that fully 43 percent of Nikki Haley supporters said they would back President Joe Biden over Trump,” Politico reports. That sentiment has carried over to New Hampshire:

“I can’t vote for Trump. He’s a crook. He’s too corrupt,” said Scott Simeone, 64, an independent voter from Amherst, who backed Trump in 2016 and 2020. “I voted for him, and I didn’t realize he’s as corrupt as he is.”

[…]

“I liked him. But he just scares me now. Everybody that has ever worked for him is not any more,” said Lisa Tracy, of Salem. If it came down to Biden versus Trump, she said, “I would go with Biden.”

Hello, Dixville Notch… pic.twitter.com/WlWy3bevBy

— itsallrealitv (@itsallrealitv) January 23, 2024

There are plenty of Trump cultists who will never stop believing Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen. But for other previous Trump voters, Trump’s presidency has revealed who he is. Better late….

This New Hampshire Republican (below) is not an Iowa Republican, but she’s seen Trump revealed. She’s done with him:

“My father fought in WWII to defeat fascism, I want it to remain defeated.” https://t.co/jvdGKtLYi0

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) January 24, 2024

Politico found a young independent, 34, planning to vote for Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), but she was a sidebar to Politico’s principal finding:

Curtis Thornbrugh, 81, an independent from Rindge, had voted for Barry Goldwater, Bob Dole, and both Bushes before casting his ballot for Obama twice and Biden in 2020 (he did not say how he voted in 2016). He was open to backing Haley in 2024 but couldn’t see himself supporting Trump.

“I can’t find anything good to say and I try,” he explained. “He’s dangerous and the people around him are, too.”

Forbes Farmer, 79, a fellow independent from Rindge, also went to view Haley in person at that event. He said he’d lean towards supporting her if she ran against Biden in November.

Could he back Trump should he prevail?

“No, never,” Farmer said. “I absolutely hate Trump.”

It is significant that the “come to the light” former Trump supporters Politico found all seem to be seniors. They form the reliable GOP voter base. Lose them and Republicans up and down the ballot lose in November.

John Harwood reacted to the Politico report with the prediction that “we’re in early stages of massive analytic shift from ‘Biden’s in big trouble’ to ‘Trump’s in big trouble.'”

we're in early stages of massive analytic shift from "Biden's in big trouble" to "Trump's in big trouble" https://t.co/yp3FboUBFu

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) January 23, 2024

How’s that for your daily dose of Hopium?

📌Ruth Ben-Ghiat…talks with Jen Psaki about the significance of massive protests against fascism in Germany over the weekend and countries that have dealt with authoritarian…
Mass demonstrations send clear message to far-right 'tyranny of the minority' https://t.co/6P6oulnJct

— Loreyla D'Orazio 🇻🇪🇮🇹🇺🇸 (@Barlofa) January 23, 2024

German normies took to the streets last weekend. And for good reason. Their right wing is planning mass deportation of immigrants. So is Donald Trump:

Over the weekend, it seemed a nation’s conscience had stirred into action. In cities across Germany, anti-fascist demonstrators took to the streets, protesting against the country’s far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD. The spark to the demonstrations came in the form of an investigate report published earlier this month that revealed how AfD members had participated in a November meeting with far-right extremists where they discussed plans to conduct mass deportations should they come to power.

That’s not the wholly fictive scenario it once used to be. The surging AfD is polling at 22 percent — a level of support greater than what each of the three centrist and center-left parties in the country’s ruling coalition currently command. It seems poised to break the “cordon sanitaire” erected around it by Germany’s more mainstream parties that have so far refused to entertain coalition talks with the far-right faction and possibly shoulder its way into power in state elections later this year.

That AfD officials were openly entertaining the idea of forced repatriation of migrants and even some German nationals of foreign origin horrified many in a country with a deep memory of its dark past. By some accounts, more than a million people participated in the anti-AfD protests.

“In Hamburg and Munich, rallies had to be dispersed because significantly more people than expected attended. Aerial images from across the country showed masses of people braving bitter January temperatures to fill city squares and avenues,” reported my colleague Kate Brady. “According to police figures, in Berlin on Sunday, about 100,000 people gathered on the lawns of the Reichstag, which houses Germany’s lower house of parliament.”

An estimated 1.4 million people across Germany gathered over the weekend to protest the far-right Alternative for Germany party. (Video: Naomi Schanen/The Washington Post)

Signs and slogans at the rallies made clear what many Germans believe is at stake. Banners warned of the return of “Nazis” — and marchers summoned the legacy of the 1930s, when Adolf Hitler and his allies seized control via the ballot box. “Everyone, together, against fascism” was the chant in Berlin.

The investigative report by nonprofit research institute Correctiv detailed the extensive private discussions had between AfD members and a coterie of influential right-wing extremists and wealthy business executives at a November meeting in a hotel in Potsdam, outside of Berlin. This included talk of a “remigration” plan that would deport asylum seekers, non-Germans with residency rights and even “non-assimilated” German citizens.

Martin Sellner, a far-right extremist and leader of the Austrian “Identitarian Movement,” attended the gathering and floated a “master plan” that could even see these deportees sent to an imagined “model state” in North Africa. Whatever the unviability of the proposals, it echoed Nazi deliberations in 1940 to forcibly relocate millions of Jews to Madagascar. Sellner once maintained correspondence with Brenton Tarrant, the white nationalist gunmen who carried out the hideous 2019 killing spree at a set of mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

We are on the verge of this happening here too. Ben-Ghiat says that protests like Germany’s are far more effective when they happen before the actions are taken than after. So….

Is Steve Garvey California’s Herschel Walker?

There was a Senate debate last night in California. It didn’t go well for the aging baseball player whom the Republicans believe will electrify the voters here. The 75 year old Garvey first played with the Dodgers in 1969, moved over to the Padres in the 80s and retired from there in 1987. How many people even remember who he is?

Steve Garvey was less a heavy hitter on Monday night’s Senate debate stage and more often a punchline.

Garvey, a Republican and former Dodgers star, rocketed to the top three in the polls to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein soon after entering the race in October. But his first public debate was a rough showing.

Over the course of the 90-minute debate at the University of Southern California, Garvey struggled to provide details of his policy ideas, was repeatedly laughed at by people in the audience and saw himself ganged up on by his Democratic rivals: Democratic Reps. Katie Porter, Barbara Lee and Adam Schiff.

One of the tensest exchanges of the night came when the three Democrats all pressed Garvey to say whether he’ll vote for former President Donald Trump a third time.

Garvey repeatedly refused to answer, saying he would decide before election day. “At that time, I will make my choice.”

Porter retorted with a zinger: “What they say is true: Once a Dodger, always a Dodger,” she said as the audience howled. “This is not the minor leagues. Who will you vote for?”

Another brutal moment came as Garvey responded to a question about his plan to address the state’s worsening homelessness crisis. Garvey, a first-time candidate, described how he approached unhoused people and “touched them and listened to them.”

He suggested he was the only candidate to approach the issue that way because his opponents are “career politicians” who’ve done nothing to solve the crisis.

Lee, who was unhoused decades ago after she left an abusive relationship as a young single mother, called Garvey’s comment about meeting and touching homeless people belittling. “I’ve just gotta say, as someone who’s been unsheltered, I cannot believe how he described his walk and touching,” she said. The audience burst into laughter.

Schiff couldn’t resist piling on: “This will be my one and only baseball analogy for the evening: Mr. Garvey, that was a total swing and a miss — that was a total whiff of an answer.”

There were also Garvey’s puzzling answers to policy questions. When moderator and POLITICO reporter Melanie Mason asked Garvey to explain why he’s running if he doesn’t have many policy positions, he gave a vague answer.

“I knew I needed to explore California. I needed to talk to the people,” Garvey said. “Policy for me is a position. I’ve taken strong positions.”

He then rattled off a host of general views: “Let’s get back to energy.” “Let’s close the border.” “Let’s enforce crime, crime on the streets. Let’s fund the police.”

It’s pathetic but I would guess it’s the best they can do. California is deep blue and the Democrats have three excellent candidates for Senate, any of whom will be great. Even with our kooky jungle primary I don’t think he’ll make the top two. And if he does, he won’t be elected. California isn’t going to elect their version of Tommy Tuberville.

It’s a good one

It may just be that a meaningful faction of Republicans have permanently soured on Trump:

Donald Trump has a problem no matter what happens in New Hampshire on Tuesday night: There’s a whole swath of the Republican electorate and a good chunk of independents who appear firmly committed to not voting for him in November if he becomes the nominee.

It’s an issue that became starkly apparent in polling ahead of the Iowa caucuses, when an NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of voters in that state found that fully 43 percent of Nikki Haley supporters said they would back President Joe Biden over Trump. And it’s a dynamic that has been on vivid display as the campaign shifted this week to New Hampshire.

“I can’t vote for Trump. He’s a crook. He’s too corrupt,” said Scott Simeone, 64, an independent voter from Amherst, who backed Trump in 2016 and 2020. “I voted for him, and I didn’t realize he’s as corrupt as he is.”

Primary elections can create intra-party divisions that, in the moment, seem impossible to heal. In 2008, a bloc of Hillary Clinton supporters started the PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) movement as a threat to never back Barack Obama after that bruising primary. Bernie Sanders’ supporters vowed to never support Clinton eight years later. In 2016, Trump himself faced pushback to his nomination all the way up to the convention floor.

But 2024 is different. Trump is not making his pitch to voters as a first time candidate. He is a known quantity who is being judged by the electorate not for the conduct of his current campaign so much as his time in office. And that, political veterans warn, makes it much harder for him to win back the people he’s alienated, including those once willing to vote Republican.

The data supports the idea that there are problems ahead for the former president. Even before the Iowa survey, a New York Times/Siena College poll found that — including independents who say they lean toward one party over the other — Biden had slightly more support among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (91 percent) than Trump did among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents (86 percent).

That’s far from a majority of Republicans preparing to pass on Trump in November. But in a close election, it could be enough to tip the scales for Democrats. At a minimum, it is a major liability for the GOP should the party, as expected, push Trump through as its nominee.

“It would be a massively difficult hill to climb, without a doubt,” New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Haley endorser, told reporters of the party’s chances of winning New Hampshire in the general election with Trump on top of the ticket, when asked by POLITICO. “And he’s already proven that. He’s lost before and according to the polls he will lose even bigger this time.”

Sean Van Anglen, a prominent and early Trump supporter in the state who now plans to vote for Haley on Tuesday, said if Trump becomes the nominee, he might have to blank that line on his November ballot.

“I don’t think I can vote for Trump,” he said. “I vote in every election, I’ve never left a box blank. And I might have to this time.”

That sentiment was not uncommon among Republicans here this week, especially among voters who came out to see Haley, the former U.N. ambassador.

“I liked him. But he just scares me now. Everybody that has ever worked for him is not any more,” said Lisa Tracy, of Salem. If it came down to Biden versus Trump, she said, “I would go with Biden.”

These problems are not entirely unique to Republicans. Biden himself is grappling with a Democratic Party where a portion of voters have soured on him and are either leaning towards or threatening to vote for a third party candidate or stay home in November.

“We need to keep showing that it can’t just be two parties that no one fully agrees with,” said Michelle Greene, a 34-year-old registered independent from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who saw Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who is challenging the president in a primary, in Hampton on Sunday.

Greene said it’s “definitely a concern” that a third-party candidate might siphon off votes from Biden in November. But she also wasn’t sure if she’d vote for Biden again, after backing him in 2020, in a head-to-head Biden-Trump rematch, adding that she “morally can’t support the lesser of two evils.”

How big a universe these groups of disaffected voters are could go a long way in determining the next president. But there are signs that, among independents at least, Trump is bleeding.

In the New York Times/Siena College poll last month, Biden led Trump among all independents in the poll, 50 percent to 38 percent.

At a brief press scrum on Saturday before Trump took the stage at a rally, the former president’s top adviser Chris LaCivita downplayed the numbers out of Iowa. A campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

But at events across the Granite state over the past week, surrogates for Trump have stressed the need for Republican reconciliation, depicting Biden’s presidency as an existential threat.

Sununu, for his part, said he was ready to back Trump should he end up being the party’s standard-bearer. While Biden is a “decent person,” Sununu said, “his team is so bad.”

But what was notable about his argument was that it was delivered under duress. Sununu was speaking to a voter who had cornered him while he wiped snow from his car in a parking lot outside a Haley rally. That voter had wanted to know how he could possibly turn around and cast a vote for Trump after being so openly critical of his governance. Others who attended the event agreed.

This makes me very hopeful and it has nothing to do with the election or Joe Biden’s chances in it. Who knows how that’s going to go? It makes me hopeful because it means that a fairly substantial number of Republicans haven’t completely lost their minds. We live among these people. It would be nice to know that not every one of them is now a member of a death cult.

Fingers crossed that Trump doesn’t somehow lure them back in. He’s got a talent for snake oil. And there’s always a chance that events will intrude and who knows what happens then. But right now, I’m just happy to hear that they aren’t all cracked. It’s not much but it’s all we’ve got.

It’s coming from inside the house (and the Senate)

Both oil and natural gas production in the U.S. are at all-time highs. https://t.co/1vpirMzc6V pic.twitter.com/7smaLTwjPb

— Steven Rattner (@SteveRattner) January 22, 2024

That’s a US Senator passing on Fox News lies on twitter. It happens every day on every issue. In fairness, Blackburn may not know any better. She’s very dim.

Maybe you have already seen this, but I hadn’t until yesterday. It’s Taylor Swift telling her father that she’s going to speak out against Blackburn.

Did I mention that Blackburn is dim?

Fmr. GOP Rep. Gowdy on Fox: Americans don’t want women or doctors imprisoned over abortion. Republicans in my state are advocating for the death penalty for a rape victim who gets an abortion. Republicans used to say it’s a state issue, now they want the death penalty pic.twitter.com/JsvSUg0aSb

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) January 22, 2024

South Carolina …

It’s true, by the way:

South Carolina Republican lawmakers are considering a bill that would make a person who has an abortion eligible for the death penalty.

The bill, titled the South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023, would change the state’s criminal code and redefine “person” to include a fertilized egg at the point of conception.

According to the bill, the change would “ensure that an unborn child who is a victim of homicide is afforded equal protection under the homicide laws of the state.” Under South Carolina law, that includes the death penalty.

The bill provides exceptions for pregnant people who had an abortion if they were “compelled to do so by the threat of imminent death or great bodily injury” and also provides an exception if the abortion was done to save the life of the mother. There are no exceptions for rape or incest.

Big of them to allow an exception to save the life of the mother. Anyone else should be killed.

This is what they believe. These throwbacks are just saying it out loud. Kill women. That’s what we’re talking about.

Trump’s act has worn thin

Simon Rosenberg is right:

Trump Is A Far Weaker Candidate Than in 2016 and 2020 – As I wake this morning I keep returning to this:

• In 2022 we were told a red wave was coming – it didn’t.
• In 2023 we were told a recession was coming – it didn’t
• In 2024 we are being told Trump is a strong candidate – he won’t be

In my view Trump is far more degraded, extreme and dangerous than he was in 2020. His performance on the stump is far more erratic, wild, even comically so. He is making huge unforced political errors (coming out against the ACA, WTF?). And there are at least six things voters will come to learn about him that they didn’t know in 2020 that will push him further and further away from an electorate that has already rejected him and his politics in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023:

• He is a rapist
• He committed massive, decades long financial fraud
• He led an insurrection against the US, tried to end American democracy
• He stole America’s secrets, lied to the FBI, shared them w/others and betrayed the country
• He and his family have taken billions from foreign governments
• He ended Roe

All that is sinking in with the voting public, and will as the year progresses. Trump has a political history he did not have in 2016 or 2020.

Reporter: Do believe E. Jean Carroll?

Stefanik : No of course not

Reporter: A jury found that Trump sexually abused her

Stefanik: The media is so biased

Reporter: It’s not the media, it’s a jury that found he abused E. Jean Carroll pic.twitter.com/QYm3wQzjRf

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 20, 2024

Greg Sargent considers it a sign how crazed Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-N.Y.) deflection is over a jury of Trump’s peers finding that he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll. The truth may not set MAGA cultists free, but it is injecting doubt (New Republic):

What’s changed now is that Trump’s legal challenges are unfolding in courtrooms—in public-facing venues—before juries of the ex-president’s peers. It’s becoming impossible to fabricate conspiracy theories around the ordinary Americans whose judgment Trump faces, and the gravity of the proceedings is suddenly getting a lot more real.

Like a battered boxer, Trump is cut over the eye. So work the eye, Democrats, Sargent insists.

But with Trump now being prosecuted for numerous crimes, both the details of these charges and the role of ordinary Americans in serving up grand jury indictments constitute new fact sets of a much more serious nature. These involves concrete, vividly detailed efforts to seize power illegally and steal national security secrets, as well as a jury’s conclusion that Trump committed sexual assault, which is more compelling than his bragging ever was.

[…]

The struggle of Stefanik and other Republicans to address Trump’s legal problems illustrates another rationale for Democrats pressing the issue: It could put GOP downballot candidates on defense too. “Democrats would benefit from having Republicans on record in regards to Trump’s deep ethical and legal troubles,” said one senior Democratic strategist involved in congressional races. Confirming the point, when Stefanik recently described the people who attacked the Capitol as “hostages,” vulnerable House Republicans rapidly distanced themselves from the remark.

Here in North Carolina, Republicans must be made to own or distance themselves from gubernatorial frontrunner Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s (R) remarks:

“Tell our enemies on the other side of the aisle that would drag this nation down into a socialist hellhole that you will only do it as you run past me laying on the ground choking on my own blood — Christian patriots of this nation will own this nation and rule this nation.”

We cannot overstate the fanatical Christian nationalism preached by North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who told a crowd today that "the Christian patriots of this nation will own this nation and rule this nation." https://t.co/XedNV0LHyS pic.twitter.com/2EkibTlro4

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) October 29, 2021

The key to Democrats winning this year in battleground states is to deliver a one-two punch. Shave Trump’s margins in red, rural counties where Republicans eat their lunch; expand vote margins in blue cities by turning out young, left-leaning independents Democrats too often leave on the table.

Easier said than done.

Taxpayer-funded defense for Trump?

They grow bananas in Floridonia, don’t they?

While Donald “91 Counts” Trump is mopping up the remaining 2024 Republican presidential field in New Hampshire this morning, MAGAfied Floridonia officials are hoping to fund Trump’s criminal defense with state tax dollars (Ron Filipkowski at Meidas Touch):

Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis announced today that he is supporting State Senator Ileana Garcia’s bill SB 1740 to create a “Florida Freedom Fighter’s Fund” to provide millions of dollars to fund Trump’s criminal defense legal team. 

One day after Ron Desantis drops out of the presidential race, the push is on to use state resources and funding to finance a private citizen’s legal defense in criminal cases. While tens of thousands of indigent Floridians are represented by Public Defenders with massive caseloads due to limited budgets, Florida’s CFO wants the state to provide millions to Trump, who testified recently that his net worth is in excess of $10 billion and that his Florida home is the most expensive in the world.

Patronis said the fund would initially provide $5 million for Trump out of the state’s Public Campaign Finance program, but that will just be the start. Additional funding would be collected by state agencies from people who, for example, will donate when the [sic] renew their driver’s licenses. So state employees at government offices will be collecting money for Donald Trump’s lawyers.

I’m past being shocked at banana Republican corruption like this. But I’m not past checking the bill itself (emphasis mine):

16 Section 1. Section 17.691, Florida Statutes, is created to
17 read:
18 17.691 Authorized use of Defending Freedom Fighters Trust
19 Fund.—
20 (1) For purposes of this section, the term “qualified
21 person” means a person who:
22 (a) Meets the presidential eligibility requirements of s.
23 1, Art. II of the United States Constitution.
24 (b) Is a legal resident of the state as defined in s.
25 1009.21(1) or has a valid driver license issued under s. 322.18.
26 (c) Complies with chapter 106 and federal election law.
27 (2) Funds from the Defending Freedom Fighters Trust Fund
28 created under s. 17.69 must be used to provide grants to
29 qualified persons subject to political discrimination to pay for
30 legal fees incurred as a result of criminal charges brought by a
31 U.S. public entity as defined in 31 U.S.C. s. 802.243. For
32 purposes of this subsection, the department has the sole
33 authority to determine if a person has been subject to political
34 discrimination.
35 (3) The department shall distribute grants to a qualified
36 person in an efficient manner, prioritizing funding based on the
37 severity of criminal charges and the causal connection between
38 the charges and the political affiliation of the qualified
39 person.
40 (4) Subject to the availability of funds, a qualified
41 person may receive up to $5 million under this section.

♪ And The Grift Goes On

“Political discrimination” is left undefined. Conveniently, the bill filed January 11 awards Floridonia’s CFO “the sole authority to determine if a person has been subject” to it.

In a statement released Monday, Patronis said,

“We’ve got a Florida Man – Donald Trump – running for President, and he’s facing ongoing legal challenges from Democrats in New York, Washington DC, and Atlanta. The Left is really good at weaponizing the courts, and because President Biden is so unpopular, they’re not just trying to beat Trump at the ballot box, they’re trying to throw him behind bars, which is outrageous. We need this Freedom Fighters Fund because as the Free State of Florida, we’re facing an onslaught of attacks from the federal government against the Sunshine State. If we can help and support a Florida candidate for the White House, that’s just good from a dollars and cents perspective.”

Garcia added,

“We’re in the midst of an historic moment where we’re watching an election that’s trying to be stolen by Left wing prosecutors, the Biden Administration and even Blue States. They’re not trying to win at the ballot box; they’re trying to keep President Trump off the ballot by weaponizing the courts. Having a Floridian in the White House is good for our state – and anything we can do to support Florida Presidential candidates, like President Trump, will not only benefit our state, but our nation.”

Not so fast, says “Meatball Ron,” the man who endorsed Donald Trump before Nikki Haley’s political corpse (and his own presidential campaign’s) was cold.

But not the Florida Republican who wields the veto pen… https://t.co/kkc2yyqVK0

— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) January 23, 2024

Also conveniently, Republicans have veto-proof majorities in both chambers of the Floridonia legislature. So Gov. DeSantis can veto the bill if it reaches his desk (is anyone taking odds?) and still have his subjects fund Trump’s legal defense after the override.

Griftopia, as Matt Taibbi once defined it:

There really are two Americas, one for the grifter class and one for everybody else. In everybody-else land, the world of small businesses and wage-earning employees, the government is something to be avoided, an overwhelming, all-powerful entity whose attentions usually presage some kind of financial setback, if not complete ruin. In the grifter world, however, government is a slavish lapdog that the financial companies that will be the major players in this book use as a tool for making money.

They’re coming around to Trump

It’s always better under Republicans, right?

Yes, I know they’re all Masters Of The Universe but they are political idiots. Do they think civil unrest and authoritarian chaos are going to keep the party going? They must. They wanted DeSantis but Trump will do:

As Donald Trump surges toward the Republican nomination, many Wall Street executives have made a calculated decision not to speak out against him, and in some cases they will consider supporting the Republican former president over Democratic President Joe Biden, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the matter.

“A lot of people on Wall Street have been living in this pipe dream of Trump not getting the nomination. People were in the first stage of [grief], denial. Now they’re trying to get their heads around the fact that Trump could be the nominee,” said an executive at a private equity firm. Like others in this story, the executive was granted anonymity in order to relay details of private conversations.

This view reflects one shared by large portions of Wall Street, who are scrambling to come to grips with the idea that Trump is the likely GOP nominee for president and he could beat Biden in November. A Real Clear Politics polling average Sunday had Trump leading Biden nationwide by about 2 points in a general election.

“It’s painful for me to admit this, but Wall Street is basically nonchalant to this election,” longtime Wall Street executive and former Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci said in a recent interview with The Hill.

“I think they view Donald Trump by and large as benign to somewhat beneficial to the economy and business,” he added.

Other financial executives have little appetite for angering the former president, and want to hedge their bets in the race for the White House, where polls show a close contest between Trump and Biden.

“I think unless there is some catastrophic crisis like the [Jan. 6, 2021] insurrection, they think of themselves as stewards of other people’s money and they don’t want to take a position that divides their workforce, their investors and their customers. They are mindful of their different constituencies,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management.

“They are not out there to be political ward heelers. They are not out there doing door-to-door campaign solicitations. They are there to run their companies,” he added. More than practically any other academic, Sonnenfeld knows the pulse of America’s Fortune 500 CEOs.

In the days after the 2020 presidential election, Sonnenfeld convened a storied call of major CEOs, who brainstormed what they might do if Trump refused to accept a peaceful transition of power.

Wall Street’s refusal to counter Trump has grown more obvious as the former president effectively sewed up the Republican nomination in the past week.

This view reflects one shared by large portions of Wall Street, who are scrambling to come to grips with the idea that Trump is the likely GOP nominee for president and he could beat Biden in November. A Real Clear Politics polling average Sunday had Trump leading Biden nationwide by about 2 points in a general election.

“It’s painful for me to admit this, but Wall Street is basically nonchalant to this election,” longtime Wall Street executive and former Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci said in a recent interview with The Hill.

“I think they view Donald Trump by and large as benign to somewhat beneficial to the economy and business,” he added.

Other financial executives have little appetite for angering the former president, and want to hedge their bets in the race for the White House, where polls show a close contest between Trump and Biden.

“I think unless there is some catastrophic crisis like the [Jan. 6, 2021] insurrection, they think of themselves as stewards of other people’s money and they don’t want to take a position that divides their workforce, their investors and their customers. They are mindful of their different constituencies,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management.

“They are not out there to be political ward heelers. They are not out there doing door-to-door campaign solicitations. They are there to run their companies,” he added. More than practically any other academic, Sonnenfeld knows the pulse of America’s Fortune 500 CEOs.

In the days after the 2020 presidential election, Sonnenfeld convened a storied call of major CEOs, who brainstormed what they might do if Trump refused to accept a peaceful transition of power.

Wall Street’s refusal to counter Trump has grown more obvious as the former president effectively sewed up the Republican nomination in the past week.

What fools. It’s not like Biden and Democrats even tried to repeal their Trump tax cuts! WTF do these people want?

Well, ok. I’m sure many of them think they can make money if Trump and the Supremes manage to completely dismantle the federal government and remove all regulations and accountability for killing people. That’s nirvana for pure, unadulterated capitalism. But I just have a sneaking suspicion that the total breakdown in civilization might not be as good for business as they think it is.