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Grover Norquist once quipped that the GOP didn't need anything from a president other than the ability to sign his name. Both GW Bush and Trump filled that bill perfectly. I didn't think we'd have to suffer a president who was more ignorant and inarticulate than W, but Trump made Bush look like Churchill. Add the blog endeavor to Trump U, Trump steaks, Trump vodka and all of his other cons/frauds/grifts.

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and Trump enjoy signing his name!

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I agree wholeheartedly. W looks like a brilliant, humanitarian mastermind compared to the former thug.

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I have no love for the B-hole who lied us into a war that killed my son.

I call Dumbya a B-hole because he does not have what it takes to be an A-hole.

As for Trump, I truly fear that he will start up his Nuremberg rallies when the Arizona FRAUDIT is finished and he will use their lies to trigger another coup attempt.

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I’m predicting his rallies will be a big flop IF msm doesn’t cover them.

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Let's hope they're a flop because his followers have seen he won't stand by them when they follow his orders. The proud boys are discussed with him how many others facing charges.

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First of all, my condolences to you regarding the death of your son, who became a true victim of that neo-con plot. I simply do not know what was gained in that unholy mess and frankly, with the exception of the help for women in Afghanistan, Afghanistan as well. As to your second remark, I too, worry about the former thug because as we all know, he needs ATTENTION all the time, positive or negative, does not matter, because he has a psychological illness called malignant narcissism. I pray daily to God to take him. For real.

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Granted Trump is a worse human being than W but the only reason W looks brilliant or humanitarian is that the media has decided to bury all the terrible things he did. The one thing you can say about Trump is that he wasn’t big on getting us into stupid wars like Bush so eagerly did. Trump may like the idea of using torture but it was Bush who allowed it to happen.

The media go on and on about Republicans pushing fake voter fraud claims, pretending that this was started by Trump. They have completely buried the Bush adminstration’s DOJ firing of Bush-appointed US attorneys because they refused to bring fake voter fraud cases against Democrats — blatant proof that voter fraud fraud is a standard Republican tactic, as is making it harder for minorities to vote. It was W’s sainted father who refused to sign the very popular “Motor Voter” bill because letting people register to vote at the DMV made it too convenient. Luckily Bill Clinton later signed it into law which I appreciated when I moved to North Carolina. I registered when I got my drivers license instead of having to bother making a separate trip to the Board of Elections. That would have been a minor inconvenience for me but not for people who can’t take off work or who don’t have transportation.

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Trump is lazy. It is a central characteristic that assured his blog venture, just as his attempted coup, would simply join the list of his sloppy failures.

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yep, which is why I always chuckled reading press accounts abt him launching big media company

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He's not only lazy but cheap, egotistical and shitty to employees. He MIGHT have hired someone to handle his blog but probably didn't want to spend the money or listen to advice from an expert.

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He also screwed himself by portraying main stream media as the enemy of the people. WHY would any of his followers want to watch an ABC special about him?

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The big question of course is how a guy so patently lacking in popular support can continue to exercise such dominance over a major political party in a democratic system. The obvious answer is that the party isn't planning on HAVING a democratic system. Authoritarianism by definition is coercive, not democratic, and authoritarianism is the prize they're keeping their eyes on. Lack of majority support starts to be a feature, not a bug. What's the fun in having all those guns in your basement if you don't finally get to use 'em for something? Trump may not end up being the American Putin they were dreaming of, but American Putin is still the dream.

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Don't underestimate the power of the Religious Right to keep the Republican base in line.

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Just read that that’s dwindling too. If only ....

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exactly.

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Trump cannot grasp the fact that most of his followers are not engaged in the art of reading. That is my guess.

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and neither is he.

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IMO, Trump's blog failed because it lacked the opportunity for engagement. When Trump was on Twitter, no one cared about his policy pronouncements. The only things his supporters cared about was the culture war that Trump was in charge of. And "owning the libs" is only fun when you can celebrate it collectively.

Not being able to comment on Trump's posts, and more crucially, to read others celebrating Trump's latest insult to civilized society, left those posts hanging out in the void of their own ridiculousness and absurdity. If you could read the comments, you didn't have to think about what Trump had written. Without the comments, Trump's posts no longer represented a reiteration of collective concern, but merely a repetition of Trump's own obsessions.

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Trump's racism, nationalism, sexism and populism obscures the underlying truth about him--he began as a TV reality star. And that show was his only success. His business ventures failed, even though he inherited $413 million from his father.

But 2020 diminished him and his access, while introducing us to new reality stars, all playing to the base with full access to social media, TV and the DC press. These new stars brandish the same confused patriotism that rejects democratic values like fair elections, equality and a shared sense of reality. And who has the desire to find a page that won't let a follower spout victimhood in the comments?

I don't believe the Republican Party's loyalism is to Trump, but to the donors sponsoring him and other authoritarian-minded politicians. Tell a lie get a dollar. Well, hundreds of thousands. These donors, as well as established criminal authoritarians like Putin, are playing the long game--the gradual destruction of democratic norms and institutions. There is simply no way Trump understands this long game, or any complicated ideas, and so no way the donors will remain in his corner. It's not loyalty to Trump the donors want, its loyalty to destroying democracy.

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His lack of popular support coupled with the eager and vociferous support he gets from Cruz and Graham strongly suggests that he has some serious dirt on them.

This is independent if the GOP shutting g down the Jan 6 commission as that is about the inevitable demise of the party when how they enabled that situation is revealed. I have faith that the truth will come out, commission or not.

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It's distraction. Keeping the focus on him means the media ignores the elephant in the room, which is that the GQP is done with trump, but down with what he started.

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He gave them permission to use their outside voices. They will always love him just for that.

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TRUTH

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I think Graham and Cruz are wanna bes, needy men selling their souls for power wherever and however they can get it; toadys to FG. I really can’t see the influence you suggest they have on the Rs w/o FG in the WH.

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You can count on the Republican 24/7 BS Machine to crank up to 12 to whip up the MAGATS to shut any investigation down.

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It's all about money and power with the GOP.

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I always thought people would just get exhausted by him. I thought it would happen sooner, of course; it’s not like he ever has anything actually new to say.

His blog did serve one purpose: It showed he wasn’t hampered by Twitter’s character limit; he just actually is illiterate.

Any truth to the rumor he’s back on Facebook though? I can’t bear to look.

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good pt abt Facebook, they simply punted the decision abt reinstating him for later this year

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"the aging Florida blogger" well played, sir.

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Something is not lining up. Trump’s blog failed, his television interviews get pitiful ratings, he has no online presence yet 73% of Republicans believe the election was stolen from him, 66% want him to run again, and 46% would leave the GOP to join a Trump political party. Go figure.

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The media keeps ignoring the fact that Republican Party membership is near an all-time low because so many have fled the party. They pay far more attention to Trump supporters than to all the Republicans, mostly in the suburbs, who voted for Democrats in 2018 and Biden in 2020. Attention confers influence and the media keeps giving Trump and his supporters a lot more attention that is warranted.

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I do believe that a large number of his Twitter followers were not his fans. "Know thy enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated."

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A boatload of his followers were media members waiting for him to point them toward a shiny object.

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While I am happy that Trump's popularity is dwindling, the Republican Party, using the "Big Lie" as fuel, is in the throws of a major coup in this country. So yes, good news, Trump is fading, but the apathy among Democratic voters, believing that Trump is gone, will play into the Dems losing the Senate and perhaps the House next year with democracy falling for good shortly after. We don't learn from history and history shows that most coups fail in their first attempt. However, a subsequent attempt is usually successful. The idea that Reps are afraid of the Trump voter is just a cover while they pass bills at state level to suppress votes and use a corrupt census to gerrymander districts. I believe our democracy is in a more perilous state than it was when Trump was in office. Trump is yesterday's news. McConnell, McCarthy and the Republican Party is the current clear and present danger.

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Why do you describe D. voters as apathetic? I don’t see any evidence of that now and hope they/we come out in droves as we did in 2020. Speaking only for me and pals, apathy is the last thing we feel. We know what is at stake.

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Because of history. Typically Dems don't show up at the midterms. Yes, they did during Trump and I certainly hope you are correct, that Dems will remain engaged and will vote at all costs. But understand we are up against voter suppression, gerrymandering and now new laws in 47 states that will challenge the results. If Biden is unsuccessful in passing voting rights legislation, our votes next year for a bigger majority in the Senate and House must be insurmountable otherwise the crooks that call themselves Republicans will steal elections.

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oh duh....everyone knows that his followers do not read.

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I wonder how much of the genuflecting is the thinking, if we keep saying we have to get along with him, the diseased millionth-of-a-cent streetwalkers who comprise the DC political media brothel and its satellites won't notice that this is who we actually are. Which, indeed, members of the republic party actually are.

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One of the FEW pieces of good news is the Stansbury win in New Mexico, for the special election in the seat vacated when Deb Haaland left to join Biden's Cabinet. Theturnout by Dems was great...and I pray this is an omen for 2022, pundits be damned. " Early and absentee voting was promising for Stansbury. After in-person early voting ended on Saturday, 93,563 ballots had been cast, 58 percent of them by registered Democrats and 30 percent by registered Republicans. "

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I’m figuring/hoping the Dems will come out to vote in large numbers in 2022 as we did in 2020 and prove the conventional wisdom of pundits everywhere wrong about off year losses.

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Is he saying anything new? He's old news now with nothing to offer. I just wonder when the Republicans will wake up and smell the coffee. Everyone else is moving on in a positive way and the Trumpers are being left behind. What about the "Rallys" he was going to be holding? What's happened to those? My guess is mayors and city councils want cash upfront unless the party is now going to pick up the tab. I happily envision money troubles. He's got nothing but lawsuits in the future. And he's the pathetic con he's always been.

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Republicans have been planning a coup since all the way back when they tried to overthrow FDR in the 30s.

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Nixon sabotaged the Paris Peace Talks in 1968 and Reagan undermined Carter's attempts to negotiate hostage release in 1980, which gave birth to a bouncing baby Iran Contra debacle. And this is just the stuff we know about.

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Most people today have either forgotten those things or have never heard about them because the media loves to pretend that Republicans were respectable good guys back then who only went off the deep end when Trump came along. I strongly believe that the media’s normalization of decades of mainstream Republicans’ anti-democracy, racist, sexist, theocratic, plutocratic actions is the reason Trump was able to gain traction. By that time those things were no longer shocking.

The fact that Republicans paid a price for insane things like spending millions on investigations of the vicious lie that the Clintons had had their good friend Vince Foster murdered shows just how much the media was willing to ignore. When Kavanaugh was nominated for our highest court most of then couldn’t even bother pointing out he was a major player in that completely bonkers lie.

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You are 100% correct! That's why I find the media's current narrative ("Gadzooks! Democracy is in danger and why can't Democrats figure out how to save us") so risible.

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St. Reagan -- didn't he have 3 miracles attributed to him?

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Ha ha! Why yes! He magically made the pesky useless Federal government disappear! Huzzah!!!

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All those fake scandals they investigated Clinton for — Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, Chinagate, Vince Foster’s “murder” — were a blatant attempt to overthrow him. The mainstream “liberal” media led by the NY Times aided and abetted those attempts just like they later did with Hillary’s emails and the bogus Clinton Foundation scandal.

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Oh yeah. NY Slimes has had it out for the Clintons from Jump Street.

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