I heard a story about how Sailors did swim call, in the middle of the ocean, with man eating sharks not that far away. The claim? They would locate a shark and then shoot it. It bled. Eventually, the blood attracted other sharks.
The other sharks came in and ate that bleeding shark. In the feeding frenzy that followed, sharks ripped each other up and created more bleeding. Result? More sharks joined the frenzy. The turbulence, occurring in the water, ended up masking the turbulence created by sailors swimming near the ship.
I never saw this play out while I was in the Navy. Safety was paramount. Whether this is urban legend, or has actually been tried before, it’s underlying concept relates to President Trump’s apparent strategy.
Throughout his campaign, and then into his presidency, President Trump utilized his understanding of the media, and its audiences, to “shoot sharks”. The media goes into a frenzy every time he does this.
During this frenzy, President Trump continues forward with his objectives.
He knows that he has not done anything wrong. However, he also knows that his detractors will stop at nothing to follow a fool’s errand. Their “El Dorado” and their “Fountain of Youth” happens to be President Trump’s removal.
The left is blinded in their drive to portray President Trump in unrealistic terms. These efforts, driven by emotion, ties up energy that otherwise could be used to derail President Trump’s plans.
From CNN:
While Democrats publicly talk up their interest in focusing on legislative priorities like health care and voting rights — not to mention ending the ongoing partial government shutdown — they are quietly preparing for what will likely be the largest congressional investigation of a sitting president in recent memory. Party leaders and committee chairs have spent months ironing out potential targets, from President Donald Trump’s taxes and business dealings to the conduct of current and former Cabinet members.
Just like the Mueller investigation, a soon to be Democrat-controlled house is going to spend a lot of time investigating. However, they will turn up shorthanded. By then, President Trump will have paid out enough rope for the Democrats to hang themselves with in the 2020 presidential elections.
Take this fiasco with regards to his tax returns. This could be something that he could’ve released without worry. However, he has a background in entertaining audiences. A part of that equation involves knowing viewer psychology.
His refusal to release his tax returns could be a ploy… A trap. Refuse to release, and watch your adversaries stumble over themselves trying to force that release.
If the House succeeds in getting his tax returns, what the Democrats discover may prove embarrassing to them and beneficial to President Trump.
More from CNN:
Neal — a business-minded Democrat who has earned a reputation as a willing negotiator — had hoped Trump would be willing to negotiate and turn over his tax returns without a fight. But in recent weeks, comments from Trump’s allies have made it clear that asking nicely would be a waste of time. A source close to the process told CNN that Neal was prepared to make a formal request to the Treasury Department in the new Congress. When that would take place was still undecided.
The mainstream media, and the Democrats, continue to refuse to learn from their mistakes. With all other things being equal, they’re looking for a repeat of the disappointment they felt when the last presidential election was called for then candidate Donald Trump.
You can read more here.
The saying “people that live in glass houses…” comes to mind.
I believe I read a while back that dTrump gives his monthly pay to a nonprofit or charitable organization, different one each month.
Obviously, he doesn’t need the money, so if Neal wants dYrump’s tax returns, then he should fork over his own. Fair is fair, right?
Also, I’m sure that dTrump has far less to hide than either of the Clintons did, or for that matter, Lyndon Johnson, or Roosevelt, or… well, the list is nearly endless.
“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
Burke
Good post, T.
Indeed. These witch hunts are reminiscent of the extra-constitutional tribunals instituted by the Roman Senate (the entrenched ruling class) against anyone who supported or was suspected of supporting the popular Gracchus brothers in the late second century BC. That time proved to be the beginning of the end of the Republic.
Ah, another victim of a classical education. My Mom was a journalist and Auntie a librarian- I was doomed.
Can we get that kind of education back into public schools before the world collapses into chaos?
There are a few schools that still teach that, but if you want to send your kids to them and you aren’t in those districts, the tuition fees are stiff. On the other hand, they are NOT the SJW/snowflake schools.
Trump does not have to turn over his taxes. Just like the Odumba did not have to turn over his college transcrips. Ole Barry Sotero got himself a free ride.
That should be Trump’s offer to the Dems:
“I’ll turn over my tax returns when Obama releases his college transcripts.”
And that will happen precisely when Hell freezes over.
I have heard a rumor that 0bama, despite being born in Hawaii, lied and claimed to be a foreign student from Indonesia to get a scholarship.
I don’t know and I don’t care.
But I suspect there is reason for hiding everything the community organizer in chief did in college.
This fascination with tax records baffles me (OK, not hard to do, but..). Revealing them is not a requirement for public office. Trump has the best tax attorneys money can buy, and he knows the status of his taxes, as does the IRS.
If there were anything amiss with his taxes, are there any rational folk out there who think he’d willingly hand them over to SanFranNan?
The fact that he hasn’t drives the Dem’s nuts, and proves in their minds there is dirt there.
After all the Sturm und Drang of the Dem’s Congressional investigations are done, and have come up essentially empty, Trump is all but guaranteed another four years.
“If there were anything amiss with his taxes, are there any rational folk out there who think he’d willingly hand them over to SanFranNan?”. Is there anyone on this board, other than Lars, who doesn’t think that an employee of the IRS, from the janitor to the highest level of admin, who wouldn’t have already leaked those returns as soon as they found them if there was even a hint of something amiss?
That’s a good one.
However, as Poe stated, about as likely as an ice storm in the Hot Place.
The Feds couldn’t get Al Capone for his bootlegging or speakeasies, and not even for running prostitutes.
But they DID get him for tax evasion.
Now if a smart and clever crook like Al Capone got caught for one little thing, what makes these braindead Congress critters think Trump wouldn’t have been caught by now?
I’ve told a bunch of my friends every time I saw one of those “Trump doesn’t pay his taxes” memes or messages.
Trump has a whole floor of accountants who deal with tax law for his business and his own income. They find any and every tax loophole possible, just like every other rich person does (including members of Congress). He doesn’t need to be smart about taxes, he has CPAs who are smart on taxes for him.
If Trump wasn’t paying the required amount of income tax, the IRS would’ve crawled up his ass decades ago and taken every dime he has access to. Plain and simple.
Interestingly enough, I make less money in a year than Trump carries in his left pocket, and I also pay a CPA to find every possible loophole in the tax laws for me. Despite the monetary disparity, Trump and I both pay for the same service every year. Some will say “But he’s rich!” Yeah, he is. So are Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Steven Spielberg, Chris Matthews, Katie Couric, and George Soros. They also pay CPAs to find every possible loophole in the tax laws for them. How is it okay for all of them, but not for Trump?
I’m mystified by this ‘Trump doesn’t pay his taxes’ stuff.
The idea behind having a CPA go over your income statements is to find ways to make sure that you are NOT going to be fined for missing something. If Trump gets audited by the IRS every year, as someone else said, then HOW is he NOT paying his taxes?????
There is a difference between earned income and unearned income, which is something that these ninnyhammers who complain don’t understand.
Earned income is subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes, regardless of your age. If Trump receives EARNED income, it is taxed before he ever gets it, and since he’s self-employed, he gets 1099s from his businesses which those accountants use to determine how much is EARNED and how much is ORDINARY or UNEARNED.
His paycheck for President of the USA is taxed for Social Security and for Medicare, as are the paychecks of all Congress critters. This was started back in 1983.
He still has to pay federal and, if any, state taxes on his income. He has to pay New York state income tax as well as New York City income tax.
State income tax: 4% – 8.82%
NYC income tax: 2.907% – 3.876% (in addition to state tax)
And that sucks, so I’m glad to know about it and glad I don’t live there.
What is called UNEARNED or ORDINARY income tax is mostly interest and dividends plus other income, and it is NOT subject to SocSec or Medicare tax, but is still subject to federal and state income tax, at a different rate.
If Trump decides to declare any of his business income as EARNED income, which he CAN do, then he has to file a quarterly self-employment tax statement and later on at year-end pay the aggregated self-employment tax, which is Soc Sec and Medicare, for the full 12-month period. Soc Sec is taxed on income up to $118,000++, and Medicare is taxed on ALL earned income.
That’s why he pays CPAs galore to do all that accounting for him. You can go absolutely mad trying to do it yourself. NONE of it means he does not pay any income tax.
There’s another thing: since his income is derived from his business, some deductions are valid and some are not. His accountants look for every legal deduction option they can find. That’s why he gets audited regularly.
Therefore, all the screeching and howling about him and whatever it is that anyone thinks he’s hiding is based on ignorance of IRS rules and how state and Federal tax schedules work.
It’s like I said: if a clever fellow like Al Capone got snagged for income tax evasion by the Feds when they couldn’t get him for anything else, how come Trump hasn’t been busted for some undefined something by the Feds so far?
Why? Because there is NOTHING to bust him for. If there were, it would have been in the tabloids and idiot newspapers long before he went into politics.
This story is very taxing due to the way the demorats atax the Pres. every day.
Eeeewww!
Please provide butter with your puns, willya?
Ex;
Well those puns were butter than nothing. I’ll just pun along now and read the other comments.
Keep it up, laughing boy.
Do I know that sunken chested CPO from somewhere? He looks familiar.
The fact that dTrump donates his monthly pay to nonprofit/cheritable orgs every month, does not mean he doesn’t get taxed for it. He still has SocSec/Medicare deducted from his paycheck, as well as income tax, which is all automatic. That’s been in effect since 1983.
So the issue for these bozos is not really his taxes, it’s that he doesn’t have to hand over any of that unless he feels like it. The Clintons did a lot of virtue signaling about it, and we all know just how genuine it was.
I’m sure that they’ll complain bitterly if or when they get their grungy paws on copies of stuff like that, because he operates within the law.
Entertaining. That’s for sure. And keeping them busy doing stuff which isn’t advancing their agenda? Yeah. That’s about as good as it gets.
Have fun in the new year, lefties. We’re having great fun watching you self-destruct. Too bad (for them) that they don’t understand simple things like Newton’s Law. Their delusions keep getting in the way of any ability they might still have to correct their mistakes for better outcomes.
Yeah, but they didn’t self destruct during the last midterms, and instead gained enough seats to gain control of the house.
President Trump didn’t become a multi-billionaire Business Mogul by accident, he had to cut his own swath through the proverbial shark pool and he obviously isn’t having much trouble slashing through the swamp due to the fact that most politicians are self-centered idiots and will waltz straight into every ambush he sets up for them!
And somehow they still don’t get why so many of us respect and appreciate the man. You betcha, we still support him, and in some cases, more than we did to start with.
PETA would like you to take down this post because it encourages hateful actions toward our shark brothers.
Please stop using “Shoot Sharks” and replace with “Pet sharks” or “Hug sharks” as I think they would be much more understanding of our being in the water if we would only pursue a path to peace and understanding.
Thank you.
https://pleatedjeans.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/shark-hug.jpg
PETAites would have a s&!t fit if they saw what is left of bambi’s mom hanging in my beer fridge right now.
My son said it was like shooting “fish in a barrel”.
One would think that the same IRS that was targeting Conservative groups would have no problem leaking Trump’s taxes if anything nefarious was going on.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn’t Congress have to change the law in order to get access to Trump’s tax records?
Apparently, there is an obscure law on the books that allows Congress to demand tax records.
Not sure they should open that can of worms, because they are also subject to it.
“Not sure they should open that can of worms, because they are also subject to it.”
Now, that would be interesting.
I would like to see a forensic analysis of Maxine’s finances.
Mr CiC TRUMP gets audited annually by the IRS. Some little scamp appears to be passing information to the Slave Party…
What I want to know is what sick puppy drew those eyebrows onto the skull at the head of this piece.
What I suspect the Donks may be forgetting, is that the President directs the Federal law enforcement folks. He can direct some pretty heavy-duty investigations of Congresscritters.
-no one- can experience such without -something- coming up. Guar-an-teed.
He can also pardon any “whistleblowers” that leak really juicy stuff about Congresscritters.
If he says “screw reelection, the People need to know…” he could likely destroy most Congresscritters, well before he could be impeached.
They really haven’t grasped just how much power is there, if one is willing to say “F### politics, and f### elections, and f### party loyalty.”
Trump knows how to game systems. Has to to have survived and thrived in Real Estate, especially NYC.
“Nuclear option ? Hold my Diet Coke and watch -this-!”
This is gonna be -epic-.
Trump should just announce that he will gladly make his tax returns public as soon as Obama releases his college/university records – including transcripts, applications, scholarships and grants. Rest assured, neither will be done.
Trump’s approval is dismal.
Trump is not playing 3 dimensional chess and he is not setting a trap for anyone but himself.
The percentage of Americans that want him impeached is now nearly equal to the percent that approve of him.
2/3 of Americans blame the shutdown on Trump or the GOP. Only 1/3 blame dems.
Less than 40% want a wall.
Less than 30% think the wall is worth a shutdown to get.
Much like Trump is appears you all don’t give a damn what the American people want.
The GOP is less than 6-8 months from turning in Trump. And the dumb shit he has pulled in the last few weeks accelerates that timeline.
The guy openly lied to troops overseas completely making up a 10% pay raise just so that he could go overseas and rather than show appreciation to the troops for their service he tried to convince them that they owe him their appreciation.
Like everything he ever says publically it was about telling people how great he is.
That’s a 4th dimensional pay raise – not visible to us lesser 3D beings :>
Happy New Years, All!
Nice lies Lars…
Sources? Links?
The voices in Lar’s head sez it’s all true
Trump’s approval rating is substantially higher than Congress’ approval rating. Though theirs has sucked donkey balls for multiple presidents.
Them talking about the President’s approval rating, ever, is laughable since theirs is atrocious.
I told the folk at TAH HQ that I was going to do something like this in response to complaints about you. Time to deliver on what I said.
To everybody else, this is how you handle “Cthulhu”…
Commissar, aka Cthulhu: Trump’s approval is dismal.
False. Even with attempts to stack the cards against him in polling, he’s still doing better despite the NPC media “Orange Man Bad” propaganda. He’s still polling strong among the conservative base, something that one of the CNN hosts complained about.
Commissar, aka Cthulhu: Trump is not playing 3 dimensional chess
Apparently, you don’t play chess and, if you do, you must suck at it. I’ve been a chess player since the mid-1970s. I recognize a concept, related to chess, when I see it. President Trump is consistently playing the political/showbiz version of chess.
Likewise, you don’t appear to have that much corporate or white-collar experience and, if you do have such experience, you must be mediocre at it.
President Trump attempted to run for president before. That was a trial run, to test the waters, to see how the political winds go… especially with regards to human psychology. He also entered showbiz partly to understand this psychology better.
On top of that, he has upper management experience at the corporate level… Something that you don’t appear to possess.
In order to get that far, and to expand your business reach, you have to not only know human psychology, the different personalities, etc., but you have to be able to be able to “play chess” that involves multiple people and their different psychological makeup.
Judging by the number of people we have, with upper corporate management experience, compared to that of the general population, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that not many people possess a working knowledge on how to get a human organization, of the scale that President Trump managed, to operate and remain viable.
Yes, a part of President Trump’s strategy involves him playing “three-dimensional chess”. It also involves applying similar concepts to successful golf games to the real world. The fact that he swept aside career politicians during the primaries, then defeated a favored opponent while spending less than her, speaks volumes to that fact.
I’ve been a news junkie since 1982. I’ve lost count of how many times the liberal media attacked a conservative president’s initiatives… Enough to get momentum going to kill that initiative. President Trump? He’s getting one policy after another into practice that he otherwise wouldn’t succeed in implementing if the media focused on derailing those initiatives.
Nope.
They’re too busy trying to make him look bad, and chasing a fool’s errand. President Trump studied the golf course terrain, his detractors showed up to the course both unprepared and having no clue about the terrain environmental variables that’ll affect their score.
Commissar, aka Cthulhu: and he is not setting a trap for anyone but himself.
False. Others have pointed out one example of how the President has set a trap up… See the explanations with regards to the tax returns.
Another example can be seen with the meeting that President Trump had with the Democrat leaders. President Trump looked confident, in control, like a leader, etc. The Democrats? They look like they came unprepared beyond their usual talking points, they looked submissive, they looked reactive, they looked like they were pulling crap out of their rear ends, etc.
President Trump came across as a mentor in control of the discussion, and the Democrats looked like they were pulling straws. A reading of that thread, on this site, shows how President Trump sprung a trap on the Democrats in that area.
Look back at his successes and you’ll see how he played the opposition like a fiddle. The fact that you don’t see this speaks volumes to the fact that he’s so good at this that the opposition doesn’t see, or refuse to see, that he’s leading them by the nose-ring.
Commissar, aka Cthulhu: The percentage of Americans that want him impeached is now nearly equal to the percent that approve of him.
First, the polls say different things with regards to this question.
Second, article titles that argue that a big percent of people want him removed are misleading. For example, in one article where the title hinted that most wanted him impeached, a reading of the actual article showed that a minority, or a plurality that was a low percent of the total, wanted him impeached.
Not mentioning the total percentages, in your comment, speaks volumes to the academic dishonesty that you’re engaging in to paint a false narrative.
Commissar, aka Cthulhu: 2/3 of Americans blame the shutdown on Trump or the GOP. Only 1/3 blame dems.
Again, going back to survey question validity, as well as survey methodology. When you stack the polling population with Democrats, what do you think the results are going to say? If you’ve taken a research methodology class related to a master or doctorate degree program, you’d be familiar with the respondent qualification process… and the response processing that results in respondents being rejected and not included in the overall results.
Plenty of opportunity to get the numbers to read what you want them to read, and if they don’t say exactly what you want them to read, then play voodoo literature to get the explanation of the study/survey to say what you want it to say.
President Trump did say that he’d own up to the shutdown. Most critical thinkers are not only proud of the fact that we’re in a shut down, but don’t care if the low information voters don’t approve of the shutdown, or if they blame one person or the other.
As with everything else that President Trump has done, he has shown that there’s a method to his madness, and it’s his opposition that are in the wrong.
Commissar, aka Cthulhu: Less than 40% want a wall. Less than 30% think the wall is worth a shutdown to get.
A look at the survey questions would tell you why those numbers came about. Those that created the polls deliberately worded the questions to get a specific response, a favored response that they could subsequently use as part of their anti-wall propaganda.
Commissar, aka Cthulhu: Much like Trump is appears you all don’t give a damn what the American people want.
First, your leftists in Congress shoved a monstrous health law down our throats against our wishes. You don’t have a leg to stand on complaining about our alleged “not caring what Americans want.”
Second, we don’t give a damn about what clueless, misinformed, NPCs want. Much of what they want spells the erosion and destruction of the concepts that made the United States rise to greatness. What of what the liberal zombies want amounts to culture/civilization suicide. We definitely don’t give a damn about “wants” that’d lead to that, and we most certainly hope that any politician that attempts to make those policies real would fail.
Commissar, aka Cthulhu: The GOP is less than 6-8 months from turning in Trump. And the dumb shit he has pulled in the last few weeks accelerates that timeline.
Then you don’t understand us conservatives. Just as importantly, you haven’t been paying attention.
The conservative base is behind President Trump. It is this same conservative base that the GOP needs to win election or re-election. Any GOP politician that turns against President Trump is a GOP politician that’s going to lose his/her seat the next time they run for re-election.
Turning against President Trump risks the end of their political career.
This so called “dumb shit” that you say he pulled is exactly what the conservative base wants him to do. It’s not “dumb shit”, but fighting back against NPC attempts to destroy our country, NPC attempts to neglect what needs to be done, etc.
It’s not “dumb shit”, but shit that needs to be done. Most conservatives are glad as f(beep) that President Trump is fighting back and refusing to cave to the dims… While doing the things that he needs to be doing.
Commissar, aka Cthulhu: The guy openly lied to troops overseas completely making up a 10% pay raise just so that he could go overseas and rather than show appreciation to the troops for their service he tried to convince them that they owe him their appreciation.
Anybody paying attention to what President Trump said, regarding the “10%” would know that he was talking about the negotiation process involved with giving the troops their pay raises. President Trump wanted to give them more than 10%. He didn’t tell them that they received a 10% pay raise.
He told them that they got one of the biggest pay raises in 10 years. Yes, when previous pay raises were smaller in comparison, his actual statement regarding their pay raise is fact.
The liberal media, and even Politi”fact” jumped into the fray. But, guess what? Anybody that listened to the speech, or even read the transcript of the speech, would not only know that President Trump didn’t tell the that they received a 10% pay raise, and not only know that he was talking about what he tried to do, but would also see how partisan Politi”fact” and other fact checker sites are.
The only lying that I’m seeing is the lying coming from the leftist media and their allies.
Commissar, aka Cthulhu: Like everything he ever says publically it was about telling people how great he is.
False. Critical thinking people would know that President Trump is taking every opportunity he can take to get his side of the argument out… Especially given how the NPCs running the leftist media distort and lie to program their NPC audiences.
Also, the actions of the troops that were actually there, as the audience, speaks volumes about how service members see this. It didn’t appear that you were over there.
If you read the text of his speech, you’d see that he’s presenting a valid argument against the NPC media’s “orange man bad” narrative.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-troops-al-asad-air-base-al-anbar-province-iraq/
You’re holding out hope on somehow the Republicans are going to get their shit together and come back in 2020? Yea, so far Trump has avoided getting pinned down on anything, but the Democrats made huge gains in the midterms. Keeping the Presidency is a lost cause if the Democrats continue to gain seats in the House and possibly overtake the Senate.
What exactly are you predicting will happen that will reverse a shift to Democratic votes in 2020? The Republican Party is more than just Trump. The Democrats have populist, young candidates like Beto and Ocasio-Cortez to rally the party in 2020. Who the fuck do we have?
Well, pretty much every time a particular party is in the white house, their party loses control of Congress to the other party. The Republicans actually gained seats in the Senate, which is a very rare occurrence. Obama and the Democrats lost over 1000 elected seats during his tenure between Congress and state legislators and Governors. That’s pretty much a record as far as I know.
Beto O’Rourke, the fake Hispanic, lost to a real Hispanic. Ocasio-Cortez represents a particular district in New York that are heavily liberal already. Yes, she beat an incumbent Democrat to gain the seat. But, she’s going to turn into just another incumbent democrat, or she will keep saying dumb things and someone will come along and whip the snot out of her for being so looney tunes. Although, Pelosi has been batshit crazy for decades and she still maintains. (But, she does represent San Francisco, so she’s a great example of their level of crazy.)
As far as “new” people, we do have a few, including a couple new veterans in Congress from this cycle. But the Democrats have been trying to come up with someone “new” since Obama won the second time and haven’t had much success. The thing Trump will enjoy is that for the 2020 campaign, he’ll get to watch 20-30 Democrats trip all over each other trying to get their party’s nomination, which will be entertaining at the least.
Historically, the two parties help the other party as much as themselves stay in power. They just have to wait a few years to be the leading party in Congress or the White House because it is a constantly cyclical process.
LCpl Rhodes: You’re holding out hope on somehow the Republicans are going to get their shit together and come back in 2020?
There’s no “holding out hope” here. I’ve been following the news since 1982. Midterms don’t always go well for the party that has control of the White House. President Trump was fighting an uphill battle in an election where the Democrats were poised to take back both chambers of congress.
Trends dictated that the Democrats were supposed to take both chambers.
I remember, back in 2006, where confidence of this happening was not as strong as it was this year… Yet they took both chambers back in 2006.
LCpl Rhodes: Yea, so far Trump has avoided getting pinned down on anything,
Because there’s nothing to “pin him down” with. The Democrats, and the leftist propaganda machine, are chasing a fool’s errand. What they did, during the Kavanaugh hearings, spoke volumes to that.
LCpl Rhodes: but the Democrats made huge gains in the midterms.
When compared to the gains made during previous midterms, ummmm NO. The gains they made were smaller than gains made by the opposing party under some of the previous administrations.
Also, historical trends favored them also taking the Senate, not just the House.
Had it not been for the Kavanaugh hearings, they could very well have taken the Senate in addition to the House. The confidence level of the Democrats taking back both chambers in 2018 was stronger than what it was in 2006.
The Democrats were supposed to “clear the board” and make gains in all fronts. Guess what? They didn’t. The Republicans made gains in the Senate when they were initially expected to lose that chamber.
It also speaks volumes when the Democrats overlooked their gaining the House by being disappointed that they didn’t get the Senate.
LCpl Rhodes: Keeping the Presidency is a lost cause if the Democrats continue to gain seats in the House and possibly overtake the Senate.
First, this fails to take historic trends into account.
The dynamics at play during a presidential election, when a larger percent of the electorate is engaged, is different from that of the midterms, when a smaller percent of the electorate is engaged.
The Republicans steadily made gains in the last decade, despite President Obama handily winning re-election. Even if the Democrats take both chambers in 2020, that’s not going to hamper President Trump’s chances of winning re-election.
Second, you fail to factor in President Trump’s track record of coming out on top against predictions. These aren’t accidents, but planed and deliberate on President Trump’s part.
LCpl Rhodes: What exactly are you predicting will happen that will reverse a shift to Democratic votes in 2020?
Based on what has happened so far, President Trump will have a positive effect on the other races. Again, more voters will be involved, and President Trump will bring his full campaign to bear. He has proven that even when the Democrats are favored, he increases the odds of winning individual races in the House or Senate.
In fact, he succeeded in helping get someone in liberal Minnesota to winning a House seat in favor of Republicans.
President Trump reversed the expected trend in the Senate, and kept that chamber for the Republicans when he should’ve lost it. With that kind of luck, what do you expect would happen when he, and the Republican Party, are in full campaign mode?
A big reason to why we have these video clips of disappointed leftist talking heads, in the evening of the 2016 elections, is because many expected President Trump to lose handily.
They under estimated President Trump while being blinded by the fact that he had a plan, a working plan, and he put it to work. He “shot sharks” then, he continues to “shoot sharks” now. Historic trends indicate that his continually shooting sharks is going to keep his detractors off balanced.
LCpl Rhodes: The Republican Party is more than just Trump.
And a key to being able to remain in the running, in a GOP favored district, is to be supportive of President Trump. Yes, there are more people in the Republican Party than President Trump. But, guess what? The conservative base is behind President Trump. The real conservatives are behind President Trump. Republicans that turn away from President Trump risk ending their political career.
LCpl Rhodes: The Democrats have populist, young candidates like Beto and Ocasio-Cortez to rally the party in 2020.
I’ve been a news junkie since 1982. The first presidential election that I followed, on the news, was the 1984 Presidential Election. Ronald Reagan was over 70. His opposition? Walter Mondale, who was in his 50s. Mondale’s running mate was in her late 40s, a woman… Only a heartbeat away from the Presidency… Talk about a “double young people deal”.
Yes, the Democrats tried to run a “young and vibrant” pair of candidates compared to Ronald Reagan’s “old ass”. Bush Senior was also older than Walter Mondale. You get the picture.
I lost count of how much the media bombarded us with doubts of Ronald Reagan’s health, and mental capacity, and questioning his age to effectively be president, while parading Walter Mondale and his running mate as younger, stronger, and “more in tune with the times”, etc.
Now, why do I mention this? Despite decades of Democrats doing well in elections for one or both chambers of Congress, there were undercurrent events that were destined to favor Ronald Reagan.
The economy was one of them. By the time Ronald Reagan ran for election, the economy was on a roll, a good one. His getting results with his military intervention was another. Ronald Reagan talked a big game about jobs, and more jobs.
I see similar undercurrent themes with Donald Trump. In fact, the last time I witnessed today’s GOP enthusiasm, for the President and the results of his actions, Ronald Reagan was in the White House.
People repeatedly chant, “USA” during many of President Trump’s speeches. You know who else I heard that under? You guessed it, President Ronald Reagan when he made his speeches in 1984.
Had you listened to the mainstream media talking heads back then, you would’ve thought that Ronald Reagan’s goose was cooked, that he was done, that he was going to be a “one term president”, that his age was a weakness, etc.
The media lacerated him frequently. Going by what the mainstream media wanted people to know, you’d think that President Reagan was going to die in office, do something crazy like get us all killed, secretly unfit for office, etc. They implied that we could replace the “out of touch old man” with an “in touch, young, Mondale.”
The difference is that Donald Trump didn’t just study Ronald Reagan and his circumstances, but he studied all of his experiences relevant to what he’s doing now. He studied that of other politicians. He’s also using more tools, and strategies, against his detractors than what Ronald Reagan had at his disposal.
Not only is he playing chess, he’s playing golf. Just as a successful golf player studies the “lay of the land” and other environmental variables related to a golf course, President Trump is continuously studying the changing landscape of the political “golf course” with one objective… using the lay of the land and environmental variables to his advantage.
His campaign activities in 2018 was him getting a feel of shifting variables. Guaranteed, he’s learning from this year’s efforts in order to prevail in 2020.
LCpl Rhodes: Who the fuck do we have?
Someone who’s intimately knowledgeable with the lay of the land. Bato (tonto) and Cotex are going to be playing on a political gulf course that President Trump has memorized and knows like the back of his hand. They haven’t even bothered walking said golf course.
Like I pointed out above. With all other things being equal, we could get a repeat on the evening of the 2020 Presidential Election that we had on the evening of the 2016 Presidential Election.
His tax deductions/credits from donating his salary would be…..how much?