Can Trump transfer his cult to a successor with a mere endorsement and forever continue a cycle of scrambling to vote for this "last" democrat.
Trump cares about not going to jail and Trump in approximately equal amounts. No way he lets someone else take the wheel. If he somehow became president again he'd start looking at repealing the 22nd before he'd endorse anyone else.
He will never willingly let go of his control over his base. Trump doesn't give a single fuck about the MAGA movement beyond the fact that it is his own personal army of zombie sycophants. His followers may be dogmatic about MAGA, but I can assure you that Trump himself is not. If he dropped dead tomorrow MAGA would instantaneously begin fizzling out, and it would fracture the Republican party.
The greatest gift trump could ever giver america is, when he loses the nomination in 2028, to run as a third party candidate. Hopefully he never lets go of his base.
Based on what my true-crime cult obsessed friend has said on the matter, option 2 is probably the most likely; though the party at large will always rally behind whoever the nominee is, because that's how Republicans operate.
DeSantis already tried to court the cult of Trump, and he failed because these cults of personality are entirely fixed around their leader. As my buddy described it, it's not like a hydra where you can cut the head off and the cult keeps going. Once the leader is gone, they fizzle out. Even in the case of endorsing a successor, I can't imagine the group having the same kind of following for the same reason - without Trump, the Flavor-Aid sours. There will be new leaders, but they'll have to work to sway the core voters in the way that Trump has. And the Flavor-Aid is a perfect metaphor, because Trump sounds exactly like Jim Jones according to my friend.
Doesn't have the same bite after they had their head in the sand for ages and talked about "not voting for the man but the administration" and so on. Would've worked a lot better if they had ran a much younger candidate from the get-go
Because he IS too old. Biden did the right thing. Selflessly put the country before himself and listened to his party. I don't think Trump would ever have enough morals or integrity to do that in a million years unfortunately. So we'll have to beat the old loon and his band of circus freaks at the polls, again.
Biden was never supposed to run for a second term, and then dragged his feet until the very last minute. The selfless thing would’ve been to step aside for someone younger before the race began
I think most people had no idea he was significantly declining, hence the astonishment at the debate. And some people around him seem to have been encouraging the denial (or worse). I'm unclear if he was doing better many months ago before primaries.
I can't imagine how insulated and reliant on advisors and other employees the president becomes. Quickly surrounded by people who have no interest in being the bearer of bad news. Probably akin to billionaires, and we see what they mutate into (some kind of Musk-like creature).
I'm so relieved that Biden was able to come to this painful decision, even if it was late. On the bright side, at least there's less time for the GOP to smear the new nominee. And no more televised convention for them to host the lies for free.
If there's anyway to convince him not to run that'd be wonderful. There are many Maga folks that emulate him but I don't think they're nearly as likely to be able to actually pull off a coup.
Granted, it's a fucking long shot that he'd listen to anyone.
Tbh, as a non-American meme-connoisseur, I kind of want Trump to win again, because, well, of the memes, and his idio(cray)cy. I mean, it would do with the world economy what my wife did to me last night, and it would hurt, and most would cry, but we would have some fun.