What does the future hold for Donald Trump? - threadbans in OP

Ex-Presidents in the US are technically allowed to hold onto their "President" title and use it. I think they might even be allowed to still use the Presidental Seal too.

Normally this seems fine...but the Orange Dimwit barely made sense as a "President" even when he actually held the office. He held the office of a President, but he never seemed to assume the mantle of a Head of State, especiallty not of a state like the US. A US President needs to actually work in their job, while Trump found any and all excuses to not to do most of it.

I feel that Biden is just ok as a President, but he is at least a President. You don't see him fecking off to Biden-rallies every other week, or fobbing off his intelligence briefings or having to have "executive time", which for Trump I imagine was a combination of stuffing his gob with fast food, watching cable TV and tweeting off nonsense (or a combination of all 3).

You don't even see the current US President ruling by Twitter-decree. Trump swapped the Oval Office for a unsecure app in his smart phone while just continuing the regular cavalcade of lies and bile that made him the darling of the very worst of American society. He couldn't even call out Nazis when they marched though a town. Easiest thing in the world for a US President to say: "Nazis = Bad", but no he couldn't even do that like a President would.

So yea, technically Trump gained the title of "President", much in the same way that Boris somehow gained the title of "Prime Minister", despite their true titles being "Unhelpfull Bell-end" if the laws of reality had anything to say in the matter.

One useful thing with all of this, is that you can now easily spot a MAGA-centric person by their current use of "President Trump". The rest of the world might use "Former-" or "Ex-" before that, or simply "Mr. Trump". Donnie has got to get used to that....not that I expect him to.

Extremely well put.

You could almost describe Biden as the hangover cure the US needed after 4 years of Trump. The "flat 7-up" of Presidents who'll settle your head but not be all that exciting. I would rather the Dems find a younger & more energetic person to be their canditate. If they could find an American analog to Zelenski, the GOP would be toast in the General Election for many years to come. But I'll save this wishful thinking is for another day...

It is disheartening and frustrating that the sidestepping as you describe it, has become such a norm. That thanks to him, Trump's supporters (and potentially near all of far-right politics) build their arguments on blatant and obvious lies. That the rest of us have to use so much energy to describe how things that are clearly false, are not the "truth".

Trump must be held accountable, if anything for the sake of those who are not yet stuck under the red-haze of MAGA. Those who are...have a much longer and more difficult path back to normal life...if they ever get back it.

It's a fascinating insight in to human nature and how we accept some things nearly like it is an act of God and not something that should be seen as totally unacceptable. I think it boils down to a changing of what constitutes acceptable behaviour and unfortunately that is a slippery slope when it comes to where the bar is at.

The first time this was evident in the context of Trump was when the Access Hollywood tape was released where he explicitly described how he could get away with sexually assaulting women and it didn't result in a backlash against him from those who had been supporting him. It was continually evident he was moving the bar downward of what constituted acceptable 'Presidential' behvaiour during his Presidency but this was widely ignored as his acolytes and media admirers blatantly ignored the facts of his words and actions to paint him as something that he was nothing like. Stephen Miller describing him as the best orator of his generation on Fox news was just a jaw-dropping mistruth in that it wasn't laughed out of town.

We've been in that place ever since, where we have been 'told to reject the evidence of our eyes and ears' and that Trump is competent, capable and focused on what is best for the American people. And that he is only being charged because of Joe Biden/Democrat activists. All this despite the absolute volumes of evidence that we all have literally watched and heard with our own eyes (events of Jan 6th / Call to Brad Raffsenberger etc)

Watching the crimes of Trump and his associates being processed in parallel with Republican and their own chasing of Hunter Biden and seeing how on one side of the fence the investigations are accompanied with co-operating witnesses, grand-jury indictments etc etc whereas the other has laptops and hard drives that were passed around more than a skin magazine in an 80's school yard, whistle blowers who turned out to literally be working for china and dick picks being shown in Congress makes me stop and think 'WTF has happened to society?' every couple of weeks.

To see the unmitigated BS we saw here yesterday with the expressed view that 'Trump is a winner' was another one of those WTF moments. To describe the man with several bankruptcies, with 2 divorces, who used an escort while his wife was pregnant, who failed to win the popular vote twice, who was impeached twice during his Presidency, who failed to be returned as President, who a court has said can be called a sex predator who has been indicted on Federal charges both for his actions as President, and for his actions after being President as a 'Winner' is such a blinkered view, anyone who holds it has seen no glimpse of reality any time recently.

7 years ago now, I was arguing with a friend who was (probably still is to some degree) a fan of Trump and he asked me why I had such a problem with him. My answer then has played out to be uncomfortably correct. I told him that Trump would dramatically lessen what should be seen as acceptable behaviour by those in high office. And I'm not pretending that all other leaders have been angels, or haven't been responsible for incredibly horrific or impactful things, but well in to 21st century, I would have hoped we'd have a much stronger expectation for those who lead our societies.

Trumps victory and behaviour since paved the way for other populist charlatans to have way more power and influence than they should ever have come within a mile of. And we are now living in societies where the impacts of not calling out such behaviour loudly and clearly early on leads to negative impacts in many different ways. Whether this is the Nazification of policy as is happening in places in the US, the awarding of peerages to woefully unqualified people in the UK, or libraries in Cork being shut because 'activists' have an issue with a book. I'm not blaming Trump directly for all of these, but he has had a big influence on why we accept things now that in the past would have been called out/shut down before it became anything like an accepted position as happens all too often now.

TLDR: When Lyndsey Graham said 'if we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed' he was correct. But the 'us' was big parts of society not just the Republican party unfortunately.

Fate has nothing to do with it.

People have always been somewhat partisan when judging their opponents versus their own side. That's human nature and even subconciously it is understandable that there will be some sort of bias or inclination to look favorably on things.

But what we've seen is the collapse of a minimum level of decency that could be expected to be upheld.

Many people who achieve powerful positions are known to be promiscuous. I'm sure there's a biological link or the self-confidence in a part of ones life exists in another. Trump isn't to be ridiculed for that, nor Johnson in the UK. And several prominent Left wing Presidents were so inclined. Particularly Kennedy and of course Clinton.

But the significant difference there is that while their relationships were inappropriate, their endeavors in as much as was ever proven to any meaningful sense is that they were consensual.

In recent times, Al Franken, a Democratic Representative (and radio host and comedian) was accused of acting inappropriately and resigned his congress seat. Trump is a convicted sex predator, Matt Gaetz was investigated for sex trafficking and yet the MAGA/QANON cult think that they have the righteous upper hand. Like, it just doesn't make sense.

Latest CNN Poll

Thats a heck of a lot of people.

Thats pretty alarming that more people trust Republicans in Congress over Biden to deal with the major issues.

People are basically saying that they dont want Biden and they dont want Trump for the next President but unfortunately it will be these 2 geriatrics on the ballot.

The lesser of two evils.