United States Presidential & Congressional Election 2024

I agree. I would view Trump as a much worse alternative than Desantis.

Unfortunately, when comparing Desantis to Biden, I view Desantis as a much greater evil, even with the misgivings I have towards Biden.

Thus, in my hypothetical GOP primary vote, I’d be inclined to gamble that Trump is more likely to lose to Biden than Desantis, and vote to set up that contest for the general election.

If I viewed Desantis less unfavorably than I actually do, I wouldn’t make that gamble. Unfortunately…

I had a similar line of thinking when I voted for Trump in the 2016 GOP primary. I didn’t want Cruz in the White House either (and, at that point in time, I was still hoping that Trump’s Trumpishness was mostly an act), but thought he’d have a chance of beating Hillary. Voting for Trump seemed like the best chance to avoid a miserable outcome. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way.

It’d be harder now for me to vote for Trump in the GOP primary, having had some of my fears about his character confirmed. But I really don’t want a President Desantis, and I suspect there’s a pretty good chance he could win the general if he got the nomination.

It’s still early, but so far we have Trump and Kanye West running for the R nomination. How do I get off this timeline?

It’s just “Ye” now.

I mostly vote D at the Federal level and I definitely disagree with this sentiment. Trump is a straight up risk to the continuation of democracy in the US. You can dislike DeSantis for all the culture crap but he’s not a threat to democracy itself. Hoping for Trump for a more favorable matchup is flying too close to the sun.

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Ye Yo

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You must have missed where he single-handedly gerrymandered Florida. You’re kidding yourself if you think any republican is interested in democracy right now.

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And you cannot forget the damage down to democracy by the continued disenfranchisement of felons in direct opposition of a constitutional amendment passed by the voters

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Right because gerrymandering is a Republican phenomenon. They both do it as much as their power allows.

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Seems like the courts upheld the law as Constitutional in the end?

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Sorry, I should have been clearer with my statement, which i thought was pretty damn clear. But, i will try again.

DeSantis SUCCESSFULLY took actions to continue to disenfranchise voters(determined to be legal by the courts, much like most Republican actions to disenfranchise), by passing a law that effectively blocked the intent of the Constitutional ammendment. The law created an additional hurdle, effectively a poll-tax for felons to have their voting rights restored.

If you think that was has occurred was the intention of the Florida voters that passed that amendment to allow Felons that had served their sentence to vote, then i don’t know what i can say.

Just because something that disenfranchises voters was ruled Constitutional does not mean it doesn’t disenfranchise voters or go against the will of the voters.

Felony Disenfranchisement in the states was direct result of the african americans receiving the right to vote. The intent was always to disenfranchise them, but wrap it in a very simple minded “well, the broke the law, so the can’t vote” wrapper, and then ramping up felony conviction of black people.

Court fees have been added to this ovet the years. Adding court fees and charging interest/late fees when these fees are not paid because people are either destitute, still in prison, or unable to find meaningful employment because of the felony evon aftrr serving their sentence.

This is all well documented and should not be news to anyone here. I am shocked that anyone is still defending Felony Disenfranchisement and Court Fees by saying “Well, it is the law so it is legal. Nothing wrong with enforcing an unjust law against the will of the people*.”

*And this wasn’t some CA 50% majority crap, this was 65% of the voters that had their will subverted by DeSantis.

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:roll_eyes:

I dunno, pass an amendment that the courts agree does what apparently the voters intended it to do?

I’m also not a fan of Gerrymanders and bullshit maneuvers to undermine voters… but I would say they’re both in line with what to expect from our crappy system and crappy leaders…

And not in the same ballpark as the Big Lie.

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I brought this up because you claimed that DeSantis was “not a threat to Democracy”

I will stand by my claim that DeSantis’s quest to continue to disenfranchise voters, using all legal routes to thresd that needle in direct opposition of what was voted by the state is huge Threat to Democracy.
It has maintained the racist status quo in Florida, and allows his current state of "Minority Rule "

But, your response of “he played by the rules that i agree with, so it not undemocratic” is what i expect to hear.

I wouldn’t go quite that far.

Like so many things these days, being “constitutional” comes down to which president got to pick more judges.

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by “rules that I agree with”, we’re referring to the FL state and US supreme courts, to be clear.

TLDR:
(Bush, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump) vs (Clinton, Obama, Obama, Obama)

Yeah, I’m a bit cynical.

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Exactly.

If you cannot see that the courts at times allow horrible people to exploit the rule of law to do horrible things, then yeah, i think you are in the correct profession.

This is one of the many courts that is McConnell’s legacy.

And they did their job, handing Trump Florida with this decision.

Disgusting mockery of the judicial system

And also why sitting back and saying “well the courts say it is constitutional, so there is nothing wrong with his actions” is just a bullshit answer.

But the rule of law can clearly be changed, as evidenced by the first law being passed by the people to begin with? This isn’t like the 2nd amendment that has no chance of change. The rule was written and interpreted, all of that seemed to work as the system intends. Laws are often written not quite as intended so they can go ahead and fix it with another vote.

And you’re projecting, I think former felons should be able to vote, but you have to have an arbiter of what the law says or you don’t really have a system anymore.