Trump is conducting presidential business while golfing! He was so busy presidenting they couldn't even reach him about a certain tweet.

Uncle Milty wrote:

pacino wrote:He's gonna fire Fauci, isn't he

Only if the smear campaign works. They know it's a net loss otherwise.

Define “works.” His base will believe anything he says, so any campaign he wages always “works” by that measure.

Uncle Milty wrote:Trump is conducting presidential business while golfing! He was so busy presidenting they couldn't even reach him about a certain tweet.

do they even realize how fast he plays though? That’s how he hits his cardio sweet spot out there - would be playing through Obama’s group by 4th hole

Wolfgang622 wrote:

Uncle Milty wrote:

pacino wrote:He's gonna fire Fauci, isn't he

Only if the smear campaign works. They know it's a net loss otherwise.

Define “works.” His base will believe anything he says, so any campaign he wages always “works” by that measure.

Something approaching 50% approval. Essentially any net gain over his standard base.

I think Fauci is more useful to Trump in his job than out of it. Firing him will "deeply trouble" the "good" suburban Republicans who are "concerned" about Trump's behavior and might make a few of them sit out the election or vote for Biden. Keeping him around lets the base continue to run wild with the deep state conspiracy theories, whereas if he's replaced with a Trump appointee and covid somehow still exists they'll be confused.

Uncle Milty wrote:

pacino wrote:He's gonna fire Fauci, isn't he

Only if the smear campaign works. They know it's a net loss otherwise.

Zero chance. They lose all control on where he goes, and the American public widely trusts him. Cuomo and Murphy could immediately snatch him up and put him on TV every day.

I think Trump people hate him and people who hate Trump love him. This has been a rumor for at least a couple months now, too. I don't see a big ripple effect if he's fired. He already does a ton of interviews and says everything that goes against the administration's message so I'm just not sure this would result in anything significant

The Dude wrote:I think Trump people hate him and people who hate Trump love him. This has been a rumor for at least a couple months now, too. I don't see a big ripple effect if he's fired. He already does a ton of interviews and says everything that goes against the administration's message so I'm just not sure this would result in anything significant

He hasn’t been in network TV in weeks despite requests. Tells you that WH does not want him voicing truth to power.

But he's still doing tons of interviews. He's doing a live Q&A tomorrow online. I think there are more people checking those out than the failing CNN

It’s a big deal if he’s fired if for no other reason that Trump will replace him with yet another incompetent, sycophantic toady during a pandemic which is raging out of control. If we have yet another person — especially in Fauci’s position — parroting Trump’s nonsense and pretending everything is good still more lives will be needlessly lost.

The context is the election, not the horrible effect it will have on human lives. Totally agree with you there

In the context of the election, needless lives lost ARE hurting Trump.

His numbers go up and down. Not down as far as I think anyone who posts in this thread regularly would anticipate, but they move. And he's at a relative low point right now, and think he would fall further if Fauci got the ax.

I think it's easy, and wrong, to look at the electorate as being divided between people who are pro Trump no matter what and anti Trump no matter what. A question we've asked a lot (that we actually saw first asked by a Dem firm) and has helped ID swing voters up and down the ballot is asking Trump's job approval 3 ways instead of 2. I approve of Trump and his policies; I disapprove of Trump personally, but like a lot of his policies; I disapprove of Trump and his policies. If his overall JA in a state is at like 45/55, then he'll be at like 30-35/15-20/50 on that question, depending on how racist he's been that week. It pulls some folks from the disapprove side, but more from the approve. The middle group breaking almost entirely for Trump lets him win the election. It breaking less than 2-to-1 in his direction means a Biden landslide and 52+ Dem senators. And these voters are soft Republicans and conservative/moderate Independents for the most part, many of whom aren't voting for Trump or down ballot Republicans right now, but are more likely than not to come home before November. But if he keeps going out of his way to alienate them, which seems to be the only thing he knows how to do at the moment, they probably won't. I would bet anything Fauci's approval rating with those voters far outpaces Trump's. And these aren't people who are drinking the Kool Aid, watching Hannity every night. There is no spinning them.

The things Trump does matters. He has hurt his chances of winning reelection dramatically over the past four months because, as a person fundamentally unfit to be president of the United States, he has demonstrated he's fundamentally unfit to be president of the United States. Firing Fauci would just be another move in a long series of him doing exactly the opposite of what a person primarily interested in winning reelection, rather than doing what is immediately most satisfying to one's narcissistic ego, would do.

All of that rambling aside, I'd be shocked if he did it. I think even he grasps how bad of an idea it'd be for him.

Headed to the Convention? Not I, More Republicans Are Saying

A lot depends on if things start to get better in Jacksonville over the next month or not, but I wonder how bad things would have to get before it got actually cancelled. Doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility. Or it being extremely scaled back.

What is it about science that MAGA people don’t like?

Stay_Disappointed wrote:What is it about science that MAGA people don’t like?

Whether it's climate change or COVID, science challenges the distinctly American perspective that we can do or consume whatever we want and that our choices have no consequences. It's what allows America's founding creeds of fundamentalist Protestantism and cutthroat capitalism to co-exist uneasily. If I'm saved and I'm rich science doesn't apply to me. I can drive my gas guzzling SUV on the highway to go into the Cheesecake Factory the next suburb and enter sans mask and none of it matters.

The Justice Department released President the Stone clemency order which wiped away Stone’s prison sentence, supervised release and a fine.

Stay_Disappointed wrote:What is it about science that MAGA people don’t like?

If you grew up being told that everything in the Bible is literally true, and your eternal salvation depends on you believing it fully, then adhering to these core beliefs requires you to suspend support of science. The scientific method has no place, and objective truth cannot change with new evidence; that's moral relativism, and can be used to justify anything (and that's bad).

Science says that the earth is more than 6k years old, contradicting the Bible. Science says that evolution is a complex process occurring over millions of years, while the Bible says we are all created in God's image. Science says that the oldest humans have reached is around 120 years old, while the Bible says early humans were 800+ years old.

Even non-religious folk have often grown up in this culture. You can't trust government to tell you about eternal truths. So-called "experts" are biased in group-think. Basically, people don't want to challenge their own core beliefs.

JH: I thought your analysis above was really good. Thanks for sharing it.

Dan Scavino showing all the political acumen of a caddie turned deputy WH Comms director

Gates Foundation is a nice touch on that fine art