I expect a 2nd trump term to be far worse than the first (ignoring covid which might go either way). I hope we never find out how it goes but on this in particular
I'm sure he will be focused on that but so much will be about who is to follow. That is the most dangerous thing of all, among many horrors, about a 2nd term imo. There will be some very dangerous people looking for their chance to be king or the power behind the throne, and some of them might even be very smart.

Clinton had the charisma/popularity with regular people--but he was essentially the 1.0 version of that.

Time for a bump of this prognostication thread as Biden is indicating he will enact what I highlighted at Marker 2 in my OP.


Biden eyes GOP candidates for Cabinet slots


If he gives Bernie a powerful role that would offset a move like this but leave Bernie out and put top Republicans back thus helping them gain legitimacy and help them build their path back to being relevant and a power again would show, IMO, that he is solely looking out for the Donor's interests. They would want a healthy and relevant GOP again where the battle is between Establishment Dem's and even further right GOP candidates with all compromise being 'right' of the Establishment Dem platform.

That is the only dynamic they want in play and not battles between Establishments Dems and the Progressive wing, where all compromise is farther 'left' that the Establish Dem platform.



If GOP in and Bernie is out, I will look to bet money on an eventual split in the Dem party.

Cuepee:

I've (carefully) read this interesting article you've posted. I consider myself a pragmatic liberal whose heart (like yours) is in the right place. As such, I'm going to offer what (I hope) you will interpret as constructive criticism. You may not like or agree with the following, but think of this as a sober assessment of what is [politically] achievable versus progressive fantasies that will never see the light of day.

After President Obama, Joe Biden and the Democrats managed to get the Affordable Care Act passed into law - against intense Republican opposition - this interesting article:

https://www.politico.com/story/2013/...are-aca-097687

appeared in Politico. (This is not the first time I've linked to this article.)

To their credit, Obama, Biden (and the Democratic party) managed to get this landmark legislation passed into law, but it's been tough sledding ever since. To this day, Republicans have continually tried to emasculate and destroy the ACA. (To some extent they have certainly succeeded in weakening the ACA.)

Joe Biden recognizes the wisdom (and the truth) of what Todd Purdam penned back in 2013. Biden understands that truly significant legislation - legislation like the ACA - cannot succeed unless it has [true] bipartisan support. This is why the ACA has been subjected to continued attack and attempts to undermine and dismantle it. (The latest attempt by the GOP to eviscerate the ACA will be heard before the Supreme Court a week after the election. If a calamity occurs and Trump manages to get re-elected, we can probably kiss the Affordable Care Act goodbye.) Whether justified or not, Republicans feel that the ACA was shoved down their throats by Democrats - with little or no input from them. They are determined to right what they perceive as a wrong. That's just the plain simple [political] reality.

Joe Biden knows that the ACA is on life support in desperate need of shoring up. Getting the ACA on solid ground - and stopping continued efforts by Republicans to kill it - is going to require compromise with the opposition. It's going to be hard (unappealing) work. More strident liberals and progressives such as AOC and Bernie Sanders will gripe and complain, arguing that there should be "no compromise" with Republicans. That's a view that plays well in Vermont and parts of New York, but it doesn't work in much of the rest of the country. (If the more strident progressive views were the norm, Bernie Sanders - not Joe Biden - would be the Democratic nominee and favored to win against Donald Trump.) The cold hard political reality is that ultra far left "progressives" don't have the power - they're a minority. They don't have the votes and the widespread public support required to enact their agenda. (If progressives did have the power and the votes, we wouldn't be having this argument - their agenda would be the law of the land.)

Joe Biden knows that the art of politics is achieving the possible - not wasting time and political capital pursuing efforts that are (more likely than not) doomed to failure. In the end, what counts are results. Progressives can insist that Joe Biden must remain "ideologically pure" - and threaten to withdraw their support if he doesn't meet their lofty standards. Biden could go down that road, refusing to reach out to Republicans while remaining true to the Bernie Sanders wing of the party. What would Democrats get four years from now if Biden made that choice? Answer: Defeat and yet another Republican in the White House.

To protect and salvage the ACA, get a major infrastructure bill passed, (and somehow find the money to do all these things), Joe Biden and the Democrats are going to have to find support and votes from across the aisle. (If Democrats could achieve all these things without Republican support, we wouldn't be discussing this as it would already be in process.) AOC and Bernie Sanders may blanch and vocally express their displeasure, that's their right. Joe Biden knows and understands that nothing good will be accomplished without compromise with the Republicans. (Biden's "strategy" is actually smart as he knows he doesn't have to win over that many Republicans in order to get bills passed. There are still [a few] "moderate Republicans" who can be won over. A few will probably be enough.)

A lot of the "stuff" Republicans believe turns my stomach, but I recognize that many of my fellow citizens agree with the GOP and their philosophy of government. And, to be quite frank, we liberals and progressives don't have a monopoly on wisdom. If you are a self respecting "librul" who believes that the only good Republican is a dead Republican - and "compromise" with same is heresy - you should get accustomed to the taste of disappointment as that will likely be the dish you'll be eating.

Joe Biden can't be faulted for trying to reach across the aisle and find common ground - some give and take - with the loyal opposition. He knows the only way to get anything accomplished in this hyper partisan environment is to attempt to find common ground. He knows he (and the Democratic party) won't get everything they want, but he also knows they'll at least get something. Such a result is only possible with compromise. In the final analysis there has to be compromise. Our Government cannot function without give and take between the two political parties. The one time our nation nearly came apart, (i.e. the 1860's), was due to the fact that we either couldn't - or wouldn't - compromise.

For the past four years Donald Trump has insisted that it must be his way or the highway - no compromise. We'll see where that stubborn mindset gets him eight days from now.

May as well fire it all on the Dems splitting, it’s basically already happened but currently the establishment allows the fringe to exist because they take advantage of their stupidity. You don’t have to worry about leaving Bernie out, though. He’s in, he just has an orange tint to his skin now.

@Former DJ, with all due respect nothing you wrote there really addresses my theoretical in this thread.

The potential battle I am laying out in the Dem party is between Establishment Dems who take mass amounts of corporate and special interest money and Progressives who take none of that.

There is almost no way around this tension. Progressive small money donors require their politicians fight against all Establishment Politiicans taking corporate and special interest money. That means more and more primaries within the Dem party. Why?

The Establishment Dem's won't stop taking that money as many of them cannot. They cannot just switch to a small donor base and thus there only option is to fight back. If Progressives STOP fighting them, then their donor base will die and go away. They will then lose elections. So the Progressives will not willing quit the fight and thus retire from politics.


So nothing you say about the pragmatism of Joe Biden or his positions will impact what I say. Progressives will not stop going after Establishment Dems and just retire.

Small donor base politicians must fight against Establishment politicians by definition or they retire and go away as they will have o base of support otherwise.

Trump Telling Friends He Intends To "Destroy" Fox News

https://www.axios.com/trump-fox-news...0ffa42420.html

Looks like Dems are not the only party facing a great divide ...

This sounds really dumb on Trump's part as Fox News - and Rupert Murdoch - did everything possible to get Trump re-elected. He could not have asked for a more "Trump friendly" media operation - and now he wants to reward them for their loyalty by trying to screw them.

Well, if it's war, Trump should keep in mind that bullets fly in both directions. Thanks to folks like Cyrus Vance Jr. and Letitia James, The Donald is going to be spending a lot of time with his lawyers trying to stay out of jail. If he really goes after Fox, they'll be sure to report on every detail of his legal travails - not to mention all the "financial difficulties" (i.e. debt) he owes. If he needs financing to get his streaming channel off the ground, I'm sure Deutsche Bank will be only too happy to loan him another $100 or $200 million dollars. (If he can't get the money from Deutsche Bank, I'm sure his old friend Vladimir Putin will spring for it.)

For "libruls" (like me) it will be popcorn time indeed if Trump and Rupert Murdoch go to war. This is just a guess on my part, but I suspect if the legal currents swirling around Trump get really hot, it won't be a big surprise if he suddenly leaves the United States opting to live in a country that has no extradition treaty with the United States.

While thus far not all has come to pass as prognosticated by me in the OP, I think generally speaking we can see some of these lines being drawn.

I give myself 6 of 10 stars for the OP :} But as a betting man I am not betting on a split this term. A split requires the 'collapse' of the GOP party (in progress) and a passionate leader in fight mode on the Progressive side and Bernie is in 'support mode' generally at least for now.

Key OP points...

Point 1:
- Signs of GOP collapse are still hovering. GOP is being forced to bend the knee ever deeper to Trump to hold party together. I think Trumps move now to disassociate all campaigns from their fund raising and to consolidate it all through his apparatus so he can then dole it out to those who 'deserve it' will be the last straw. If he gets a few lackeys like Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan to start supporting the idea and to be first to allow Trump to be the face of their fund raising and then going after, one by one the weaker members first with a 'give us your fund raising or we will come after you', this will, imo force the split.

Conclusion : Republican party in shambles is still a live dog.


Point 2:

- Biden and Dems have done more than I thought they would but still far less than promised and campaigned on towards progressive/populist issues. I think any true revolt is pretty much warded off now unless the Dem leadership clearly has a clear path to get priorities through and simply refuses. But strategically the Dem leadership is smart enough to avoid that by making sure things like filibuster reform happen later in the term when they do not have enough time to really use it to jam populist issues through and thus they can use that to campaign with for NEXT election. We get 'Minimum Wage, etc reform' Redux but now with 'more power' if only you elect us again, and give us all the majorities and power AGAIN.

It is comical to suggest it but I do see the Dem Establishment setting up to campaign on all the promises they failed to deliver (now when they had the power to do so) as being the reason they should be put in again but with more power, now filibuster is reformed.

Conclusion : very low chance of Point 2 providing fuel for a split this term

Point 3:

The Primaries by progressives continue and the Dem Establishment continues to fight against it rather than supporting the emerging voice of the party. In this Nevada change from the Establishment Dems to Progressives they show their disdain for voter will and strip the Party of all resources (cash and people) to try and harm them as much as possible, rather than supporting them and wishing them well in the fights to come against Republicans. Their clear goal is to weaken them as much as possible before they have to fight Republicans in the next election. True scorched Establishment Dem policy, writ large of 'if we cannot keep power, we do not support Progressive Dems keeping it'.

If the Dem establishment continues to not focus on populist and progress legislation I expect these type of primaries to escalate and things like this, entire wiping out of a very established Dem Establishment infrastructure at the local level, to be easily repeated as they are wiped out and decimated.

The Dem Establishment can only hide behind 'oh it is another Dem that blocked the Dem agenda (Manchin), when we had all the levers of power... don't blame us!' for so long.

If a party is given an overwhelming mandate to implement their agenda they cannot point at their members as being the block, after the fact, and expect that to be a winning strategy long term.

Conclusion : this is still a live dog but again goes no where if Point 2 holds. If Point 2 tips to split, Points 1&3 will gain steam.


Again this is not to be taken overly seriously or literal. I do think all the points made could lead to a split but was never betting my personal cash on it, as I do not think it high odds, YET. More so I think these points issue the points of challenge for the Dem party to overcome to harmonize the Progressive voices and will of the voters emerging with a more Establishment side who have ingrained in them for decades now that the voice of the voters means little as opposed to the Donors voice, as long as the party remains the lesser of two evils.

Re Point 1, I do think that if Trump and Co are smart they go after and incentivize a few of the most sycophantic Trump republicans to participate in his 'all funding should flow through TrumpCo' scheme.

In his shoes I would offer a handful of those most sycophantic a good deal for voluntarily allowing all their fund raising efforts to be 'Managed' by TrumpCo and flow through his apparatus.

The pitch would be 'you, Matt Gaetz, will get 110% of all the money that flows through your website and your own fund raising efforts that flow thru the TrumpCo, machine. We will cobrand and take over all your Fundraising donation pages, making it clear the money is coming to us, to then go to you, and Trump will amplify all your efforts while aligning our messaging on your behalf to you and you will end up with 110% of any receipts that come from all of that'.


Trump gives a handful of early adopters the gravy while then using their acquiescence to target and go after all the weaker Republicans already basically coasting on his popularity. They must turn over their fund raising but without the 110% promise. They get no promise. Stay in Trumps favor and Trump will want you in and support you accordingly. Fall out of favor and you get nothing.

Lastly then once the Trump machine has a majority you pick off the stronger members, one by one. The ones first who really campaign on the Trump brand and the rest after.


This would give Trump a near lock on the party for the foreseeable future and also his favorite thing, the ability to grift cash for his own personal use.

And i think it would be not that difficult for TrumpCo to force, if done the way I suggest. I think guys like Gaetz and Jordan would gladly jump, as long as they thought they were on the 'paid' side of the grift. They then would be the voice and ones pressuring and shaming other weaker Republicans to do so, saying they were looking for a 'free ride' using Trump's name while not doing the things to 'Support and Fight For Trump'. Something we know resonates with and motivates his donating base.

Why would these politicians do this when this gives up control over their own fundraising money to notorious cheat and liar Donald Trump?

Well as i laid out, you get sycophants like Gaetz and Jordan to do so by promising them a premium on any money they can raise along with any Trump helps them raise.

So basically anywhere they would generally take in money through (website, etc) is now just a portal to controlled page.

You can pay that premium because you are raking all other republicans.

The other republicans will do so due to pressure from Gaetz and Jordan and then Trump.

The pitch is 'Trump needs you to do this to keep the party strong. He can raise more money than you anyway' with the threat of Trump coming after you in your jurisdiction and telling people not to give to you and instead him and using it to primary you.

Many of the more susceptible ones reliant on being viewed favorably by Trump may then sign on. And the more that do the harder for others to say no.

I think the only fight he would get would be amongst top established guys and you try to pick them off one by one, as he gains more leverage, as others fall in line.

They all would hate it. The question is could all resist the pressure to comply and fall in line?