Underestimate him at your own peril. 2024 election will be won by trump himself or a candidate he pumps up like desantis or Scott.
I’m not saying they’re automatically wrong, but Rasmussen is right-wing-biased, and everyone has showed themselve corruptible in the Trump era.
I actually think if Afghanistan is going to damage Biden it is equally going to damage Trump in a campaign. I mean the baggage he has from the setup of this mess is damning if the facts are able to be laid out over a span of months. But 2024 probably won’t be about Afghanistan. It’ll be about a FoxNews propaganda response to Biden’s state of America. If Trump captures the energy on the right the best from their perspective they’ll elevate him again. Right now Desantis seems to be rising while Trump is falling. This poll I doubt has any legitimacy. Right now watch FoxNews if you want to figure out where the right is, and it’ll be no shock to see that the “Muslims are coming!!” and “we need to be in the Middle East killing more Islamist groups we don’t understand” message seems to be where the party is at in response to Biden’s current state. That and antivax and Illuminati doomsday mark of the beast prophecy conspiracy theories. It could very well be that Trump does represent whatever that ends up being in a couple of years but if Republicans are back in their natural state of wanting to go kick more brown ass in the Middle East Trump won’t be the guy and it’ll be someone more like a Tom Cotton type who will have an edge with Repub voters. But we’ll see what Biden’s current state looks like in two years. I don’t necessarily underestimate Trump. It’s more important to not underestimate the power of the right wing propaganda machine to shape extremist positions in a highly effective way to inflict maximum damage on the country’s unity for political gain. They are really really good at propaganda.
Foreign policy hasn't moved the election needle since 2004 (or the 2008 Democratic primary). 70% of Americans wanted the Afghan War to end. We will be dealing with the fallout of our 20-year war for a long time, but I don't think it'll be a big election issue when the counter to Biden's decision is "Well, we should've stayed longer" or a debate about evacuation details (and God help you if you're looking to Trump for details).
I completely agree. If the election was tomorrow maybe this hits a bit, but probably not long term. I think the strength that the right wing propaganda machine has is taking an issue in the news like this, and rolling into the snowball that is their central message of "Vote for Republican's because brown people are coming" which of course is focused on striking fear to drive turnout. It's the central theme that extends from Trump to Tom Cotton to Marco Rubio. I didn't watch it, but I bet you 100 bucks that the A block theme for Tucker, Ingrahm, and Hannity last night was "Refugees!!!!... they are coming because of Biden." The Republican debate in 2022 and 2024 won't be an objective debate about should we have stayed in Afghanistan, and do we support forever wars. It'll be focused squarely on immigration at Biden's hands. If they mention Socialism... it'll be focused on Castro, or Venezuela... not Norway or Canada. Thats the one issue that they know threads the needle through issues like Medicare for All & AOC/Bernie and Biden/Afghanistan. It worked big time back in 2010, 2012, and 2016. It didn't work in 2008, 2018, and 2020. Hard to tell what the reaction will be in 2022, and 2024. My gut instinct is to say that it's going to be a question of Dem turnout, and this fear based messaging will work to get their base out like it usually does, but in the end the election is resolved by Dem turnout.
I would push back a little bit on the point that it didn't work in 2020. I've seen reports (Politico and NY Mag among others) that pointed out that the "socialist" smear against Democrats like Biden does work in states where there are large populations of Venezuelan and Cuban immigrants. It's one reason among many that the GOP has been so eager to make AOC the face of the DNC to these voters. She and Bernie can try all they want to make it sound like their preferred democratic socialist label doesn't mean the same thing that these immigrants fled from, but including the word "socialist" at all is dangerous. Most voters aren't going to look into their proposals, read about the history of their party and how they want to follow a more Northern European social contract; instead, they're going to see that word and immediately make assumptions that are very hard to overcome.
Well duh swamp has med-medi-uhh skin goodness. I took a dip and checked it out, so I could protect you all.
That's some wishful thinking. There is video of people falling from planes. There are (still) thousands of Americans stranded in Afghanistan. There is video of our allies bashing Biden and his comments. This isn't just some one off...
You cut out the part where I was talking about in a long term campaign. Not talking about tonight's round table fest on CNN or Hannity's A block where he might or might not blame Biden for something. -Do you seriously think that Trump wants to be talking about Afghanistan during a campaign? -Do you think he wants to be asked why he negotiated for 5,000 of the Taliban's fighters to be released? -Do you think he wants to talk about why the leader of the Taliban was released at Trump's request? -Do you think he wants to talk about how his own DNI just this morning admitted that they projected the Afghan government to fall within 2 days of withdraw but yet they still planned a full withdraw? -Do you think he wants to be asked why they had to scrub everything about Afghanistan off of his website and the RNC's website? Like why someone who is a Trump supporter thinks that they have some sort of reason to dunk on Biden here is beyond me. Yes the videos of people on the Tarmac are bad. Yes Biden should have pulled people out sooner. No he shouldn't have stayed indefinitely especially given the circumstances that Trump laid out that he inherited. It's not TDS... it's logic and the facts of the situation. Also, I'm on record here casting much much harsher blame on George W. Bush, and agreeing with Trump on the basis that we do need to exit Afghanistan. That was a central Trump position that in principle I did agree with. This is like blaming Trump for Obamacare website performance. Yes Trump was responsible because he inherited it, and he should be blamed if he sabotaged it (which he did try to). However it was Obama who created the ACA. Bush created the war in Afghanistan, and Trump negotiated the withdrawal. Over the course of history, if there's negativity around the withdraw of Afghanistan, I stand by my previous statement that Trump will be harshly judged just as LBJ and Nixon are judged on Vietnam even though the fall of Saigon happened when Ford pulled out. When people talk about Vietnam now they go right to LBJ, and I believe over history George W. Bush should be the first person that gets the blame, but Trump is going to have a very very negative chapter in the history books too if Biden is going to get one.
Big time it is so sad that these people have reproduced and teaching their kids to be like this the cycle needs to stop.
Yeah I mean the term "worked" really is subject to results only. Winning the White House, and control of the Senate and House is a win any day of the week for either party. However when you dig into the data to see drops in certain areas with certain people there is alot more than the Dems should have won because of Republican propaganda efforts. I would say the main thing though in Florida that you are referencing has to do with the huge investment in Spanish speaking AM radio. The GOP has just dominated in radio, and specifically targeting these areas did real damage to Democrats in Texas in Florida. So the message IMO is probably less consequential than the overall volume of communicating a message... any message to your target audience. So I think I'm less concerned with the particular messages as much as I am about how much access they get to the audience that Democrats just don't get. I think the past week has proven pretty clear that CNN even will dunk on Democrats any chance they get, and I really can't tell you the last time I've heard an AM radio show that is Left leaning. Left leaning content exists mostly through Podcasts, and some other online content, and then you are reliant on CNN and MSNBC to carry what they carry in a way that helps more than it hurts. That's why turnout IMO is the key regardless of the right's particular messages... even though their issue is simple and effective at turning out their base, and as you pointed out... can eat away some important areas.
It's even more insane that after 2 election cycles anyone could stand by that golfing, grifting, narcissistic con man. He's a damn sociopath. He led the charge against masks, lied his ass off about the risks of Covid, and is directly responsible for millions of dead Americans who believed his BS. To top that off he led the charge of insurrectionists. Trump doesn't give a damn about anyone but himself. A leopard can't change his spots. He hangs out with with low life's, sexual predators, and white collar criminals. Always has, always will. Everyone else is just a mark.
