Yes - I was an early and vocal Trump supporter in 2015-16.
Yes - It cost me 2 high-paying jobs and I had to rebuild my career from scratch.
Yes - My social network evaporated for supporting Trump.
Yes - I voted for him twice.
But -
I didn't vote for Jared and Ivanka.
He never dealt with birthright citizenship or chain migration.
He threw a lot of prefectly good Republicans under the bus for not fanning his ego (Jeff Sessions).
He knew the 2020 election was ripe for COVID, mail-in ballot fraud and did nothing to deal with it.
He became a lame duck the moment he blinked with Pelosi and Schumer during the federal shutdown and signed away the wall.
He had some great executive orders but didn't build coalitions to get legislation passed and they were easily wiped away by Biden.
He did nothing while his hard-core supporters were fired, bloodied, deplatformed, and unpersoned.
He was a fool for holding a massive rally in DC on January 6th after 4 years of media-sanctioned, left-wing violence pinned on conservatives.
Republicans have to go into the primary stone-cold sober about our options and not get swept up in Trump's personality circus. We've been living with that hangover for 2 year.
Something very slimy happened with this election - within Republican leadership. In the 2018 CA midterms, R's were squashed through ballot harvesting. This year, they played the ballot harvest game and won nearly all seats back lost in 2018 . I'm supposed to believe that they - and only they - had knowledge of how to harvest votes? Just in California? Our losses feel deliberately done. Trump is not our biggest problem. Leadership undermining it's own party is far, far worse.
Don't ever come at me with we need "quality" candidates. Fetterman proved the opposite.
I am probably one of Ann's biggest and longest serving fans, using articles of hers from the Clinton era in my political science class at the University of Saskatchewan way up here in Western Canada to make the argument of why Clinton needed to be impeached and removed from office.
I was thrilled when, in 2017, I was finally able to get decent flights to be able to see her speak at the Pacific Club in Newport Beach. I was further thrilled when her purplish dress matched my purplish dress shirt and I was able to ask her a question after the speech. My Super Grover stuffed animal asked for and got a photo with her.
I watched with delight her interview with Neil Cavuto before the 08 election when McCain visited a solar panel plant with Arnold. "Why not an abortion clinic?!" she exclaimed, much to the delight of the camera crew on the floor, who could be heard to burst out laughing.
I laughed out loud when she wrote how Bob Dole had loaned some money to Newt to help him in his ethics fights. "It is the first time in history that a human being saved an airbag."
Through all the years, I have, and still, maintain that you can argue with Ann's opinion but you can't argue with her facts. So I add my comments with the understanding that I am no contest for her and her facts, but with the understanding that I find myself in the uncomfortable position of disagreeing with her opinions concerning Trump.
In my opinion, Trump is the only one who has (what we used to call) a Chinaman's Chance of winning in 2024. Absent Trump, the MAGA movement wouldn't exist and the current argument in the GOP would be not if there should be a wall, but rather how the wall should be dismantled and thrown into the desert or the ocean. No other GOP candidate then or now has the political acumen, animal cunning (VDH's characterization), the ability to think IMMEDIATELY on his feet and the balls to fire back at Hillary "because you'd be in jail."
Would any other candidate have responded to criticism of 'grab them by the....' by calling a press conference (which the press undoubtedly thought would be one where Trump groveled for forgiveness) in which Bill Clinton's accusers were waiting for them at the table....?
Without Trump, there is no DeSantis, no Karizona; the GOPe would have already done to the MAGA movement what they did to the Tea Party. The Dems and GOP would be, as radio host Jason Lewis used to say, playing between the 40 yard lines. At least with Trump, there is a single receiver running down the field, wide open at the ten.
Unfortunately, the refs all tripped at the same time looking the wrong way in 2020 when Trump caught the pass and got into the end zone. Review of the play was inconclusive, the testimony of a truck driver who drove ballots across State lines was not enough, the video of ballots being pulled out from under tables was not enough, the papering over of windows in counting rooms was not enough, nor was the exasperated words of a Dem poll worker in Philly saying what he was witnessing was abhorrent, testimony of statisticians to the impossibility of ballot counts in large dumps was not enough, so the call on the field stood: no touchdown.
And the refs have only improved upon how to synchronize their slips; 'lets not print enough ballots, lets use wrong size paper that won't fit into the machines', and of course 'let's wait until the polls close to see how many votes we need to barely win so that we can say there is no evidence of WIDESPREAD fraud.' (read today's article by Sundance at Conservative Treehouse, then go to the first tranche of comments to Astra, who details how elections are being stolen without the possibility of detection of fraud because Dems have assembled a list of millions of names of people who are registered to vote but never do).
Not to mention how they replaced Zuckerstein bucks with FTX bucks, laundered through Ukraine and back to the DNC. THAT is why endless funding for the Ukraine 'war' was deemed necessary by Xiden. Just another example of the Dem kickback method, such as giving Obama a big book advance in return for favorable policies he enacted. Money doesn't matter, as Trump proved in 2015; what matters is who counts the votes, and Dems come up with new and exciting ways to cheat while conservatives gird their loins for battling the last war, hoping that by sheer turnout on voting day they will overcome the cheat (as Trump did in 2016).
Perhaps a final reason for supporting Trump is that he is hated by all the right people, which should tell you something. The GOPe and Dems and media are already batting their eyelashes at DeSantis.
Supporting Trump might be the hill on which to die because if he loses, the GOP has no chance of winning (Fetterman won, REALLY?! Karizona lost to the person in charge of overseeing elections...really?!) ) and the country is going to die, anyway.
I just think Trump has alienated too many supporters and political allies other than his diehards who show up a week early to his rallies. It seem like Trump has lost the independents if polling is to be believed. The 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections seem to bear that out.
Ivanka said she is not getting involved in politics but Jared Kushner has been quiet as a mouse. I don't like the very liberal Kushner and felt he was a bad influence on Trump with his First Step Act and many other left of center policy proposals. But he's Trump's security blanket. The only upside to a second Trump presidency would be a return of Stephen Miller.
The Democrats and establishment types constantly calling Trump supporters terrible names have caused them to cling to Trump and wear the insults with a badge of honor. Biden probably could have ended Trump by treating Trump supporters with dignity and following through on border control and wall building but the political left wing is so insane and hates white people so much that that is not possible anymore.
The only question I have is - Why is it the establishment candidates won all the important Secretary of State positions? By HUGE margins, above most other races. And, in every one of those important states there are close races with Governor and/or Senator where the left picked up enough to save themselves.
The only issue that matters is who counts the vote and the vote counters showed us that by protecting themselves in those races and taking enough of the Senate votes to secure that for 2024.
Donald Trump isn't perfect, but he is the only GOP candidate who wasn't afraid to hit back at his opponent, that was the major reason why he won 2016 campaign. I doubt that Ron DeSantis will follow the same suit. It's more likely that he'll surround himself with neocons who will advice him to campaign in "responsible" manner, in the same mode of Romney and McCain. We're all know what the result will be.
Well . . . Ann is close on the description of medical leeches, but it is not necessary to "remove them." They normally eat their fill and just drop off, totally satiated and bloated. As they "suck" their meal, then inject a sort of anticoagulant called hirudin, which promotes blood flow (the leeches are used a lot in re-attaching fingers, etc, in trauma situations). Trump, however, to continue the analagy, has apparently not reached satiety in his role of the traumatized America, as he has returned for another "meal." HE feels there is more he can accomplish. We shall see what the voters have to say. I am still reeling with the shock of Fetterman. I hate to think we could lose to Biden again. We need a better leech?
Ann, understood that you don’t like trump and that he has issues.
But Desantis will attract same media opprobrium if he’s the nominee. Biden will savage him for his congressional record on entitlements. He won’t win the Midwest as a result. And he has no charisma.
Still don’t see how Trump isn’t the best nominee. This didn’t convince me otherwise
It is over, but I’m afraid he will make it over for everyone else too. He simply cannot repeat his Electoral College victory because he turns off too many demographics. Some of it deserved, some if it not, but his speech was filled with lies & exaggerations, or maybe he actually believes what comes out of his mouth. Simply comes down to numbers.
Although I was glad Trump beat Hillary, and disappointed but not surprised he lost in 2020, I think Trump is now net, a liability for the GOP.
I do think Ann should have alluded to the reduction in the corporate tax rate as another accomplishment under President Trump. "Corporations don't pay taxes; people do." Admittedly, those rate cuts did not "pay for themselves." Either cuts in government spending or an increase in taxes on something else could have been used to offset the revenue lost by reduced corporate tax rates.
Trump made zero impact on the deficit pre-pandemic after telling people he'd balance the budget but that it might take two terms. That he desperately proposed his Platinum Plan, in which $1/2 trillion of taxpayers' money would be used to try to buy the votes of black people, certainly wouldn't have reduced the deficit.
Ann's insights and humor justify paying for access to her site. I only hope something close to the essay here appears at Townhall so I can read the lame, evasive, nonsensical retorts by those who refuse to accept the "huuuuuge" downside of Trump.
Thank you for your perspective Ann. Agree with the second to the last paragraph re: 2016 and clear-eyed persons. (Personally, it was both clear-eyes and a bad feeling about the country’s direction)— If memory serves me correctly it was shortly around that time we began hearing louder murmurings about our strong institutions of FBI, DOJ CDC etc. perhaps not being on the straight and narrow. Point forward think it best we all pay close attention to the ups and downs of both sides—as they come, and as they fight. With the outcome (with a prayer) of the best and least agenda-ed individual to lead our great country. Thank you again Ann.
I love it, Ann. Great take.
Yes - I was an early and vocal Trump supporter in 2015-16.
Yes - It cost me 2 high-paying jobs and I had to rebuild my career from scratch.
Yes - My social network evaporated for supporting Trump.
Yes - I voted for him twice.
But -
I didn't vote for Jared and Ivanka.
He never dealt with birthright citizenship or chain migration.
He threw a lot of prefectly good Republicans under the bus for not fanning his ego (Jeff Sessions).
He knew the 2020 election was ripe for COVID, mail-in ballot fraud and did nothing to deal with it.
He became a lame duck the moment he blinked with Pelosi and Schumer during the federal shutdown and signed away the wall.
He had some great executive orders but didn't build coalitions to get legislation passed and they were easily wiped away by Biden.
He did nothing while his hard-core supporters were fired, bloodied, deplatformed, and unpersoned.
He was a fool for holding a massive rally in DC on January 6th after 4 years of media-sanctioned, left-wing violence pinned on conservatives.
Republicans have to go into the primary stone-cold sober about our options and not get swept up in Trump's personality circus. We've been living with that hangover for 2 year.
Something very slimy happened with this election - within Republican leadership. In the 2018 CA midterms, R's were squashed through ballot harvesting. This year, they played the ballot harvest game and won nearly all seats back lost in 2018 . I'm supposed to believe that they - and only they - had knowledge of how to harvest votes? Just in California? Our losses feel deliberately done. Trump is not our biggest problem. Leadership undermining it's own party is far, far worse.
Don't ever come at me with we need "quality" candidates. Fetterman proved the opposite.
Woo-hoo!
My favorite writer is on FIRE 🔥
I stand with you, sister.
Let me know when you're ready for DeSantis.
I remember you writing that you did not him to think that us conservative, women were cheap dates.
I am still lmao 🤣
All of that said- I myself am ready for the young , ivy league, military trained, proven leader to be brought out.
Let Trump bitch 😱 but we gave him a chance and he made it all about himself.
I am probably one of Ann's biggest and longest serving fans, using articles of hers from the Clinton era in my political science class at the University of Saskatchewan way up here in Western Canada to make the argument of why Clinton needed to be impeached and removed from office.
I was thrilled when, in 2017, I was finally able to get decent flights to be able to see her speak at the Pacific Club in Newport Beach. I was further thrilled when her purplish dress matched my purplish dress shirt and I was able to ask her a question after the speech. My Super Grover stuffed animal asked for and got a photo with her.
I watched with delight her interview with Neil Cavuto before the 08 election when McCain visited a solar panel plant with Arnold. "Why not an abortion clinic?!" she exclaimed, much to the delight of the camera crew on the floor, who could be heard to burst out laughing.
I laughed out loud when she wrote how Bob Dole had loaned some money to Newt to help him in his ethics fights. "It is the first time in history that a human being saved an airbag."
Through all the years, I have, and still, maintain that you can argue with Ann's opinion but you can't argue with her facts. So I add my comments with the understanding that I am no contest for her and her facts, but with the understanding that I find myself in the uncomfortable position of disagreeing with her opinions concerning Trump.
In my opinion, Trump is the only one who has (what we used to call) a Chinaman's Chance of winning in 2024. Absent Trump, the MAGA movement wouldn't exist and the current argument in the GOP would be not if there should be a wall, but rather how the wall should be dismantled and thrown into the desert or the ocean. No other GOP candidate then or now has the political acumen, animal cunning (VDH's characterization), the ability to think IMMEDIATELY on his feet and the balls to fire back at Hillary "because you'd be in jail."
Would any other candidate have responded to criticism of 'grab them by the....' by calling a press conference (which the press undoubtedly thought would be one where Trump groveled for forgiveness) in which Bill Clinton's accusers were waiting for them at the table....?
Without Trump, there is no DeSantis, no Karizona; the GOPe would have already done to the MAGA movement what they did to the Tea Party. The Dems and GOP would be, as radio host Jason Lewis used to say, playing between the 40 yard lines. At least with Trump, there is a single receiver running down the field, wide open at the ten.
Unfortunately, the refs all tripped at the same time looking the wrong way in 2020 when Trump caught the pass and got into the end zone. Review of the play was inconclusive, the testimony of a truck driver who drove ballots across State lines was not enough, the video of ballots being pulled out from under tables was not enough, the papering over of windows in counting rooms was not enough, nor was the exasperated words of a Dem poll worker in Philly saying what he was witnessing was abhorrent, testimony of statisticians to the impossibility of ballot counts in large dumps was not enough, so the call on the field stood: no touchdown.
And the refs have only improved upon how to synchronize their slips; 'lets not print enough ballots, lets use wrong size paper that won't fit into the machines', and of course 'let's wait until the polls close to see how many votes we need to barely win so that we can say there is no evidence of WIDESPREAD fraud.' (read today's article by Sundance at Conservative Treehouse, then go to the first tranche of comments to Astra, who details how elections are being stolen without the possibility of detection of fraud because Dems have assembled a list of millions of names of people who are registered to vote but never do).
Not to mention how they replaced Zuckerstein bucks with FTX bucks, laundered through Ukraine and back to the DNC. THAT is why endless funding for the Ukraine 'war' was deemed necessary by Xiden. Just another example of the Dem kickback method, such as giving Obama a big book advance in return for favorable policies he enacted. Money doesn't matter, as Trump proved in 2015; what matters is who counts the votes, and Dems come up with new and exciting ways to cheat while conservatives gird their loins for battling the last war, hoping that by sheer turnout on voting day they will overcome the cheat (as Trump did in 2016).
Perhaps a final reason for supporting Trump is that he is hated by all the right people, which should tell you something. The GOPe and Dems and media are already batting their eyelashes at DeSantis.
Supporting Trump might be the hill on which to die because if he loses, the GOP has no chance of winning (Fetterman won, REALLY?! Karizona lost to the person in charge of overseeing elections...really?!) ) and the country is going to die, anyway.
Signed, Ann's number one Canadian fan, for sure.
I just think Trump has alienated too many supporters and political allies other than his diehards who show up a week early to his rallies. It seem like Trump has lost the independents if polling is to be believed. The 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections seem to bear that out.
Ivanka said she is not getting involved in politics but Jared Kushner has been quiet as a mouse. I don't like the very liberal Kushner and felt he was a bad influence on Trump with his First Step Act and many other left of center policy proposals. But he's Trump's security blanket. The only upside to a second Trump presidency would be a return of Stephen Miller.
The Democrats and establishment types constantly calling Trump supporters terrible names have caused them to cling to Trump and wear the insults with a badge of honor. Biden probably could have ended Trump by treating Trump supporters with dignity and following through on border control and wall building but the political left wing is so insane and hates white people so much that that is not possible anymore.
I get it.
We all lost people because we voted in 2016.
We all have been called fascists by green-haired, nose-ring bearers.
It’s been draining and demoralizing.
I get it. I get it all.
But, if you try to make me vote for Pence, I’m taking a hostage.
Trump won by rousing disaffected non-voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
DeSantis can’t do that.
Nicki Haley can’t do that.
Only one person has the wealth, charisma, and super-human ego to battle the entire world for 24 months and win.
His name is not Pence.
The only question I have is - Why is it the establishment candidates won all the important Secretary of State positions? By HUGE margins, above most other races. And, in every one of those important states there are close races with Governor and/or Senator where the left picked up enough to save themselves.
The only issue that matters is who counts the vote and the vote counters showed us that by protecting themselves in those races and taking enough of the Senate votes to secure that for 2024.
Donald Trump isn't perfect, but he is the only GOP candidate who wasn't afraid to hit back at his opponent, that was the major reason why he won 2016 campaign. I doubt that Ron DeSantis will follow the same suit. It's more likely that he'll surround himself with neocons who will advice him to campaign in "responsible" manner, in the same mode of Romney and McCain. We're all know what the result will be.
Btw, you get free shipping with Amazon Prime? 😎 I’ll make a deal Ann, you sign In “Trump We Trust,” and I’ll complete the collection.
Well . . . Ann is close on the description of medical leeches, but it is not necessary to "remove them." They normally eat their fill and just drop off, totally satiated and bloated. As they "suck" their meal, then inject a sort of anticoagulant called hirudin, which promotes blood flow (the leeches are used a lot in re-attaching fingers, etc, in trauma situations). Trump, however, to continue the analagy, has apparently not reached satiety in his role of the traumatized America, as he has returned for another "meal." HE feels there is more he can accomplish. We shall see what the voters have to say. I am still reeling with the shock of Fetterman. I hate to think we could lose to Biden again. We need a better leech?
Ann, understood that you don’t like trump and that he has issues.
But Desantis will attract same media opprobrium if he’s the nominee. Biden will savage him for his congressional record on entitlements. He won’t win the Midwest as a result. And he has no charisma.
Still don’t see how Trump isn’t the best nominee. This didn’t convince me otherwise
Witty and informative as always but I have a question. Why did you give Amy Barrett a middle name?
It is over, but I’m afraid he will make it over for everyone else too. He simply cannot repeat his Electoral College victory because he turns off too many demographics. Some of it deserved, some if it not, but his speech was filled with lies & exaggerations, or maybe he actually believes what comes out of his mouth. Simply comes down to numbers.
Although I was glad Trump beat Hillary, and disappointed but not surprised he lost in 2020, I think Trump is now net, a liability for the GOP.
I do think Ann should have alluded to the reduction in the corporate tax rate as another accomplishment under President Trump. "Corporations don't pay taxes; people do." Admittedly, those rate cuts did not "pay for themselves." Either cuts in government spending or an increase in taxes on something else could have been used to offset the revenue lost by reduced corporate tax rates.
Trump made zero impact on the deficit pre-pandemic after telling people he'd balance the budget but that it might take two terms. That he desperately proposed his Platinum Plan, in which $1/2 trillion of taxpayers' money would be used to try to buy the votes of black people, certainly wouldn't have reduced the deficit.
Ann's insights and humor justify paying for access to her site. I only hope something close to the essay here appears at Townhall so I can read the lame, evasive, nonsensical retorts by those who refuse to accept the "huuuuuge" downside of Trump.
Thank you for your perspective Ann. Agree with the second to the last paragraph re: 2016 and clear-eyed persons. (Personally, it was both clear-eyes and a bad feeling about the country’s direction)— If memory serves me correctly it was shortly around that time we began hearing louder murmurings about our strong institutions of FBI, DOJ CDC etc. perhaps not being on the straight and narrow. Point forward think it best we all pay close attention to the ups and downs of both sides—as they come, and as they fight. With the outcome (with a prayer) of the best and least agenda-ed individual to lead our great country. Thank you again Ann.