• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

How much would Republicans love Trump now if he’d lost the election?

madasheck said:
It’s funny what winning an election will do. During the 2016 campaign, there were R’s who were tepid in their support for Trump like Colin Powell, Jon Huntsman, Jeff Flake, Carly Fiorina, Jason Chaffetz, Ben Sasse and numerous others ( **all mentioned in this NBC story** ) who called for him to drop out or they changed from deciding to vote for him before the election.

But some of those named above who said they wouldn’t support him or were lukewarm sure changed their minds after the election. But I’m wondering how much love Trump would have now if the election had reversed itself and Hillary had won by the landslide people had predicted.

What do you think? I suspect the fickle finger of elections would have been wagging and he’d have been just another loser. I think winning the election did everything to boost his love within his party and they would have all but abandoned him otherwise.
Click to expand...

It was only for their party, not their admiration of Trump that made them follow. They got out of him all they wanted, so he's pretty useless to them now. If something happens as a result of any of these investigations that prove some type of criminality by Trump or a family member, those Congressmen are going to bail faster than you can blink your eyes.
 
Felis Leo said:
Well, madasheck, I can only speak for myself: I do not love Trump, nor do I even like him. I find the man rather repugnant on a personal level, but I am altogether indifferent to him. I support him and his administration in some areas of his governance, but that is because in those areas the administration's policies align with my political positions and principles.* If he had lost the election, I would imagine there would be a wing of right-wing populists who would claim that the system was rigged against him, similar to the contingent of far-left populists who claim that the Democratic primaries were rigged against Bernie Sanders. But if he had lost, my feelings towards him would probably be the same: near-total indifference.

*EDIT: And I am driven to support Donald Trump against the current incarnation of the Democratic Party because now mainstream Democrats, in a bid to attack Trump, apparently seek the total abnegation of aspects of American society and its economy that had hitherto enjoyed bipartisan acceptance or at the very least tolerance simply on the basis that Donald Trump supports them as well.
Click to expand...

What's the trade-off for a healthy economy and in the long run, will it all be worth selling out our democracy to foreign interests for? Was it okay to turn a blind eye to corruption, defiance and abject rejection of what our intelligence agencies and military advisors have counseled and recommended?

No, it's not worth a small tax reduction that expires in 9 more years. No, it's not worth losing our long-time allies. No, it's not worth pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement. No, it's not worth losing our standing in the world by embracing our enemies. There's much more, I can go on, the list is long. Ultimately, the balance sheet is still far into the red.
 
Perotista said:
Very few in my opinion. that is true Republicans. You seen how McCain and Romney were and are treated. If Trump lost, he would just be another name in the history book. Only one candidate that I remember really remain active in politics, helping his party with appearances, speeches and more, then was nominated for a second time and won. Richard Nixon. Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, all sort of fell off the face of the earth political wise. I mean in helping their party. Sure, some went back to the senate, some wrote books, but none did what Nixon did. Continuing to be very active in his party's politics, helping out whenever he could.
Click to expand...

There is no papering over the coverup, his antisemitism or his criminal activity, but if you strip that away, you do NOT wind up with "just another Trump".
Trump may well indeed be making the same mistakes and be suffering the same hubris as Nixon, but that is where the similarities shall end until the day comes for Trump's career demise, should it happen.

Nixon worked hard to deliver for all sides of the political spectrum. Nixon wasn't immune to facts. So while it is true that facts often upset him, even enraged him, he was willing to face certain realities and act to do something about them.
Sometimes his actions yielded constructive results which any American, liberal or conservative, should respect.

Ending the Vietnam War, opening China, establishing the Environmental Protection Agency, reinforcing public education, and even supporting the Equal Rights Amendment, all are hallmarks of Nixon's work to establish stable foreign policy, social justice and economic growth.
Nixon was in many ways a well balanced Republican.

I have searched for something, anything, in Trump's record, and have come up empty.
It's not a liberal problem, it's not a conservative problem, it's a Trump problem.
The man is simply an empty-headed reality TV host who is utterly divorced from reality, and morality. He has NO conscience whatsoever.
I doubt Nixon would forgive him or speak of him fondly.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
There is no papering over the coverup, his antisemitism or his criminal activity, but if you strip that away, you do NOT wind up with "just another Trump".
Trump may well indeed be making the same mistakes and be suffering the same hubris as Nixon, but that is where the similarities shall end until the day comes for Trump's career demise, should it happen.

Nixon worked hard to deliver for all sides of the political spectrum. Nixon wasn't immune to facts. So while it is true that facts often upset him, even enraged him, he was willing to face certain realities and act to do something about them.
Sometimes his actions yielded constructive results which any American, liberal or conservative, should respect.

Ending the Vietnam War, opening China, establishing the Environmental Protection Agency, reinforcing public education, and even supporting the Equal Rights Amendment, all are hallmarks of Nixon's work to establish stable foreign policy, social justice and economic growth.
Nixon was in many ways a well balanced Republican.

I have searched for something, anything, in Trump's record, and have come up empty.
It's not a liberal problem, it's not a conservative problem, it's a Trump problem.
The man is simply an empty-headed reality TV host who is utterly divorced from reality, and morality. He has NO conscience whatsoever.
I doubt Nixon would forgive him or speak of him fondly.
Click to expand...

I didn't mean that the way you took it. I meant the others didn't work hard for their party and for their party's candidates after they lost their elections like Nixon did. I wasn't referring to Watergate. You didn't see Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale and the rest out traveling around the country working hard to get candidates of their party elected after they lost the presidential race. That was what I meant.

Yes, Nixon accomplished quite a lot. I agree with your post on what he did. All of Nixon's accomplishments gets ignored because of Watergate. You can add OSHA, the Endangered Species Act, detente and more. Without Watergate, Nixon probably would have been a top 10 president.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
*Honest question: Which ones, specifically, because I cannot think of a single thing Trump has done which would align with your positions.
Click to expand...

Good question, Checkerboard Strangler. First, the nomination of solid conservative justices at all levels of Federal government. Leaving aside Kavenaugh for a moment, I think Justice Neil Gorsuch was a fantastic pick for the Supreme Court. I realize that this is an issue where we will find the most disagreement, but from my perspective, I feel confident that the First and Second Amendments will be safe for at least a generation.

The second set of things are relatively minor, but mean a great deal to me. He actually moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv recognizing the City as the capital of the Jewish state. Now, that is largely unimportant but for me it signals a greater solidarity with Israel that is of great importance to me. Even though I am no longer a Baha'i, I still maintain a strong emotional tie to the faith, and the Baha'is main holy site of worship is in Israel (in Haifa, specifically). If Iran or its proxies had it way, it would be erased from existence along with its congregants.

Finally Trump tore up the ridiculous Iran Nuclear Deal, a deal which Obama never should have made, and is reimposing sanctions on the Revolutionary Regime of Iran. I realize one of the big talking points of the Obama years furthered by Ben Rhodes whom I loath is that by freeing up the Iranian economy, the Iranian Regime would rejoin the family of nations and would be forced to moderate. However, because the majority of the most lucrative sectors of the Iranian economy are directly owned by the Mullahs and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, they simply took the money that came in and poured it into their organs of terror and worked to establish regional hegemony. Trump recognizing that fact (or at least having people working for him that do) and seeking to sever their arteries is an important policy change and one that I can only hope is pursued after he leaves office.
 
Perotista said:
Yes, Nixon accomplished quite a lot. I agree with your post on what he did. All of Nixon's accomplishments gets ignored because of Watergate. You can add OSHA, the Endangered Species Act, detente and more. Without Watergate, Nixon probably would have been a top 10 president.
Click to expand...

Yes, he was the emeritus, you're right.
The other stuff you mentioned just put me in mind of the rest, that's all.
Call it contrition if you like.

I hated Tricky Dick, I truly detested the man back then.
As an eleven year old I was nevertheless nose deep in the paper every single morning, and it was one of the few things my somewhat cold and distracted father and I could relate to together, me waiting patiently for him to hand off section after section. I read the funnies but they were not as important to me as the news.
I was still smarting over the loss of Kennedy and LBJ jumping ship.

By the time I got my learner's permit I was nose deep in following his crooked misadventures and ignoring the stuff he tried to reach across the aisle with. My father voted for Kennedy and Johnson, but jumped back to his Eisenhower Republicanism the moment Johnson abdicated. He said he would have voted for RFK but he wanted no part of Eugene McCarthy and felt HHH was too weak as a replacement, so for him, Nixon was "the One".

15220a_med.jpeg


At least the Republicans had enough sense to reject the angry longhairs and the freaks. He chose to ignore the fact that his own son was marching downtown with those freaks.

JeffHVWBugAVATAR.jpg

So here I am, hat in hand...acknowledging that once upon a time we did have folks on both sides of the spectrum who wanted the best for our country at least as much as they wanted what was good for the party. Perhaps they sensed a dividend in such notions.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Yes, he was the emeritus, you're right.
The other stuff you mentioned just put me in mind of the rest, that's all.
Call it contrition if you like.

I hated Tricky Dick, I truly detested the man back then.
As an eleven year old I was nevertheless nose deep in the paper every single morning, and it was one of the few things my somewhat cold and distracted father and I could relate to together, me waiting patiently for him to hand off section after section. I read the funnies but they were not as important to me as the news.
I was still smarting over the loss of Kennedy and LBJ jumping ship.

By the time I got my learner's permit I was nose deep in following his crooked misadventures and ignoring the stuff he tried to reach across the aisle with. My father voted for Kennedy and Johnson, but jumped back to his Eisenhower Republicanism the moment Johnson abdicated. He said he would have voted for RFK but he wanted no part of Eugene McCarthy and felt HHH was too weak as a replacement, so for him, Nixon was "the One".

15220a_med.jpeg


At least the Republicans had enough sense to reject the angry longhairs and the freaks. He chose to ignore the fact that his own son was marching downtown with those freaks.

View attachment 67249889

So here I am, hat in hand...acknowledging that once upon a time we did have folks on both sides of the spectrum who wanted the best for our country at least as much as they wanted what was good for the party. Perhaps they sensed a dividend in such notions.
Click to expand...

I think the cold war had a lot to do with country over party. I was born right after WWII, grew up under Eisenhower. I still rank him as the best president I ever personally experienced. JFK is number 2. I was too young to have personally experienced Truman. Six when he left office.

But yes, I think IKE, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford for what little time he was president, Jimmy, Reagan, the first Bush, Bill Clinton all put country above party politics when push come to shove. That isn't meaning on something party came first. I do think we were all more united facing the threat of the USSR. Domestically, not so much on some issues. But the ever presence of the USSR and WWIII, nuclear war, was the uniter.

I think after Bill Clinton, the Republicans took a far swing to the right, the democrat to the left. Leaving many Americans without a political party to call home. Both parties abandoned the center, center right and center left. This is why the number of independents rose from 30% in 2006 to 43% today as the two major parties have shrunk.

But they, the two major parties still control whom gets nominated for elected office. I don't think either one cares one iota that they have lost a lot of folks who once affiliated or identified themselves with those two major parties. It's like, good ridence to those in the middle, now we on the extremes can control party politics and determine our wacko nominees. Nothing proves this more than the Trump vs. Clinton 2016 presidential race.
 
I just really don't think that Obama and Hillz are really all that far to the left at all.
Bernie and AOC are a bit over there, but when you compare their policies to FDR's, maybe not so much.

I'm sure that both Bernie and AOC could be further to the left than Roosevelt but in the end they wouldn't have a chance in hell of doing anything about it. The funny thing is, I can handle a conservative foreign policy, but by that I don't mean Trump conservative, closer to Nixon or Ike.
 
OrphanSlug said:
I equate all of this to buyers remorse.

Trump did not win on establishment, he won on being a bull in a china shop with the absolute intention of going against the norms. The issue became how Trump decided to conduct himself going up against establishment right and left, starting an intentional holy war with the media, appealing to Twitter, etc.

Republicans should now be realizing Trump is damaging their party far more than he intended to do to Democrats.

So now we look to 2020, and it will probably be another **** show as well.
Click to expand...



The bold letters are correct, he did NOT win. He was appointed by the Electoral College which is a big difference. In a real democracy he'd be screaming for someone's birth certificate.
 
madasheck said:
It’s funny what winning an election will do. During the 2016 campaign, there were R’s who were tepid in their support for Trump like Colin Powell, Jon Huntsman, Jeff Flake, Carly Fiorina, Jason Chaffetz, Ben Sasse and numerous others ( **all mentioned in this NBC story** ) who called for him to drop out or they changed from deciding to vote for him before the election.

But some of those named above who said they wouldn’t support him or were lukewarm sure changed their minds after the election. But I’m wondering how much love Trump would have now if the election had reversed itself and Hillary had won by the landslide people had predicted.

What do you think? I suspect the fickle finger of elections would have been wagging and he’d have been just another loser. I think winning the election did everything to boost his love within his party and they would have all but abandoned him otherwise.
Click to expand...


This is the truth that neither party wants you to know. No one sticks to their public ideologies when it comes to being near or in power. As soon as the vote is certified those "insiders" who have held great sounding positions drop to their knees and gravel at the new king of 1600 Pennsylvania.

There is only a thin veneer of difference between them; the last of the ideological battles died when FDR won his third term,. after that everyone, including Dwight Eisenhower had come to support the New Deal, and quietly acknowledged that the hated Social Security program was a fact of life. They swallowed hard just as Trump did when he caved on "The Wall". Watch, its been a national emergency for three months, but we won't be hearing any more about it. The Republicans lost, so there won't be a wall until Democrats see a need to keep them in office.

I swear I long ago thought Americans would twig to the fact they are being played, especially when Trump lost on Obamacare. The only reason we're not hearing about it is Trump thinks he won.
 
Fearandloathing said:
I swear I long ago thought Americans would twig to the fact they are being played, especially when Trump lost on Obamacare. The only reason we're not hearing about it is Trump thinks he won.
Click to expand...


So you're not laying any odds that a second shutdown is coming?
 
smallvoice said:
I'll keep him. I'm not worrying about Trump, I'm looking at who you libs want to replace him with. After the second term, there will be another election, and if you libs can't come up with a real candidate, I'll probably vote for the R. Again, just like the last time.
Click to expand...

Well, I sincerely hope that the "libs," meaning I suppose, Democrats, can come up with a candidate worth voting for. It doesn't look as if the Republicans will. Last time around, neither one did.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Only much worse. Dubya lost support due to the war in Iraq, which lots of people on both sides of the aisle supported before it became obvious that the war was a complete disaster. Had W not listened to Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld, he might have done a decent job as POTUS. Now, the same "my country right or wrong" people who support Orwellian wars are backpedaling and trying to pretend that they didn't support Bush or his war. Trump, on the other hand, is not a one issue sort of president. He's turned the Republican Party upside down. It will take a while for it to recover. When it does, the Trump supporters will never admit to having been Trump supporters.
Click to expand...

Absolutely this.

Just like the Iraq war supporters, who are stunningly silent on the issue now, they will focus on "state's rights" and "deregulation" after Trump is gone. Unfortunately for them, the GOP has lost a generation of voters because of him.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
So here I am, hat in hand...acknowledging that once upon a time we did have folks on both sides of the spectrum who wanted the best for our country at least as much as they wanted what was good for the party. Perhaps they sensed a dividend in such notions.
Click to expand...

Yes, we did at one time have politicians who were Americans first, and Democrats or Republicans second. That no longer seems to be the case. Congress has been dysfunctional for some time now, certainly before Trump, probably before Obama. Partisanship rules these days, and the nation is more divided than it has been since the height of the Vietnam war.
 
Fearandloathing said:
The bold letters are correct, he did NOT win. He was appointed by the Electoral College which is a big difference. In a real democracy he'd be screaming for someone's birth certificate.
Click to expand...

That is another conversation. We can have that for the umpteenth time but your comment and what you quoted have nothing to do with this thread.

For now Trump is President, and my comments were about what his supporters elected.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom