The law to restore voting rights to felons passed a state vote. But Rhonda tacked on a rule that the felons couldn't owe anything to the state to restore the right to vote. So basically a poll tax that's not applicable to agent orange.
At this point, the race from the Republican side seems like Trump versus his own mental illness and cognitive deficiencies. And it’s only going to get worse the more he realizes he’s heading to defeat.
Coney didn't fuck everything up, the DNC did. The DNC pushed a wildly unpopular, and unrelatable candidate, while sabotaging Bernie, because they'd rather have trump than a socialist in charge.
Imagine being a 25+ year career Republican who only has to worry about passing tax cuts to the rich, and suddenly these weird ass trailer park folk smelling of meth show up and they have total control over you. You step out of line? Primaried! Criticize trump? Believe it or not: Primaried! You now have to bend and grovel to illiterate conspiracy freaks. The republican party, folks.
Republican who only has to worry about passing tax cuts to the rich, and suddenly these weird ass trailer park folk smelling of meth show up and they have total control over you
Trump is un-mutual. You kiss his ass, you give him money and in return, he gives you . . . nothing. Trump doesn't care about anything except Trump. I don't know why people took so long to figure this out. He's been doing it for at least 40 years.
The GOP has chained itself to the MAGA cult. Without Trump, they would turn against the Republicans. With Trump, they have at least a chance to win (even if they have to cheat harder than ever before).
I'm hoping trump runs again in 2028 when he's like 86, then again in 2032, etc. just to make sure the Republicans never get a shot of actually having a potentially decent candidate.
He is a former president and endorses himself, very much so actually. I don't think he cares much about any other former president, nor any other human being tbh.
Trump describes all the problems with the world. We have a significant portion of our population that will continue to support him despite no discernable good reason to. They would rather believe in the word of a crusty weird old man that was born rich then just evaluate any of his faults.
It illustrates the dynamics of the last eight years. 2016 Trump surrounded himself with Bush Era corporate flacks, more interested in tax cuts and conquered oil wells than appeasing the fascist base of the party. 2024 Trump has shed the husk of old southern neoconservative corporatism and fully emerged as a California Techbro-endorsed Fascist.
And the party is moving with him, farther away from the old Reagan business coalition and closer to the modern Silicon Valley police state.
Democrats are picking up the pieces behind him, but that just means becoming bigger war hawks and shameless corporate shills, as both parties move farther and farther away from the electoral mainstream.
And then people wonder why democracy is increasingly seen as a dirty word.
Now that I think about it, many people see Trump as anti-establishment. Never mind that he did many establishment things anyway; but that initial image is imprinted on so many people that no endorsements from any former presidents-- all of whom are seen as establishments-- would not matter to them. "Clinton, Bush and Obama. You are all part of the establishments so it doesn't matter to us MAGA whether y'all endorse Trump!"
It's sad, cause I empathize with the Republicans who supported him in the first election. Not having these endorsements and still being able to win should be an excellent thing. I mean, I want a candidate that's so far out of the mainstream that it makes the establishment scared. The establishment sucks and is doing a lot to ruin the country, being in the pocket of the oil lobbies, never even criticizing how we spend our taxes on our military and being so bought by the medical companies that we are quickly becoming one of the last countries to make the obvious choice to fund healthcare with taxes.
Unfortunately, Trump ended up being just a spineless strong man that only made these problems worse.
But the truth was evident also before the first time he was elected. Trump was a high wealth grifter and everyone knew it. They just expected him to hurt the right people. In the end he ended up hurting everyone except the filthy rich.