Did Trump actually execute those plans?
I perceived it as Trump providing cover / going along with the action plans some GOP strategists were finally able to act upon.
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No, he didn’t. He did several things on his own. His handling of the Palestinians, certain cabinet positions, for instance. But most of his administrations actions were carried out by R operatives in areas Trump didn’t care about. He farmed out judges to the Federalist Society and McConnell. He did want regulations reduced, but that was in line with party objectives anyway.
About 65-75% of the stuff he took a direct hand in blew up. Most of the good that was done was not done by Trump. I will say that his lack of diplomacy allowed him to say some things that were long overdue. (NATO spending, Germany dependency on Russian gas, not allowing the Pals an automatic veto on everything in the ME, going after Iran again.)
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That was what i was trying to say.
The damage Trump did to the country was what the republicans wanted.
The complete shift of the Judiciary to the right with young, under qualified judges is going to do lasting harm for decades.
As will the tax cuts and growth in unfunded liabilities.
The gross cronyism and using the office for personal gain at levels never seen before is likely something that will stain the presidency for years.
And those things would have happened no matter what republican was in charge.
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A lot of what you said is undeniable, but I’m not sure this part is true. Not to the level that Trump did. I don’t think Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush would have been anywhere close to Donald Trump in this particular regard.
Yeah, we would likely have the same Supreme Court, or at least a very similar one. Maybe Bush or Rubio would have picked different names off the Heritage Foundation & Federalist Society’s lists of potential nominees, but the ideologies would probably be pretty similar.
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I think Rubio and Bush would have been competent enough to push their own agendas, whereas Trump was such a sh-tshow as to allow a particular set of Republicans to proceed as they wished.
Admittedly, it’s entirely possible that Rubio/Bush could have adopted that agenda as their own, so the end result in this regard could have been the same.
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Political connections, even if not directly Political
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lol…it was just a couple weeks ago that Musk buying Twitter was a game changer for Republicans in the election. MAGAs are just showing how much they depend on a supportive media to allow them whatever lies they want to push today.
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Do you really want to send the werewolves to the same polling place as vampires?
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Trump’s announcement landed surprisingly flat to me. There was virtually no hype whatsoever. When Fox News turns you off it’s over with Republicans I guess. Ironic since everyone else is supposedly the folks who are brainwashed by the media.
This is what I was about to point out until I saw your post. The second most damaging legacy of Trump, after the abject contributions to polarization and cheapening of politics and media (even more than before) is the appointment of not only SCOTUS judges but hundreds of other partisan judges across the country.
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Well the problem here is that I’m an originalist. I also happen to believe in separation of powers, limiting the regulatory state unless the legislature specifically designates powers to the regulators, and that the Federal Government’s powers are limited to those designated in the Constitution, all others devolving to the States.
I don’t care for judges twisting the law into pretzels to accommodate political views no matter which side they take. Most of the Federalist approved judges act in a manner consistent with what I consider to be correct legal theory.
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It will be interesting to see how the party treats his 2024 run.
Will they throw everything they’ve got behind DeSantis? Trump? Someone else? Let the chips fall where they may and we’ll have double digit candidates like we did in 2016?