If Republicans pulls this of somehow the following week-

[Person Man]

This question is burning in my mind.

[Joe Biden 2024]

America will be made Great Again and the Left will be relegated to the sidelines, unable to stop America's resurgence.

Trump voters said this right after the 2016 election: "step aside, liberals.  We're driving the bus now!"

Yet across two years of complete government control, the Right hasn't stopped complaining about "Democrat obstruction" and "we can't get anything done because the left keeps getting in the way!"

Which is it?

[Hollywood]

America will be made Great Again and the Left will be relegated to the sidelines, unable to stop America's resurgence.

Trump voters said this right after the 2016 election: "step aside, liberals.  We're driving the bus now!"

Yet across two years of complete government control, the Right hasn't stopped complaining about "Democrat obstruction" and "we can't get anything done because the left keeps getting in the way!"

Which is it?

Both can be true.

[pbrower2a]

Trump was lucky in 2016. Note well that luck is not a tangible quantity. Nobody invests in a pure gambler who has the delusion that he can make money off pure luck.  

[Hollywood]

Trump was lucky in 2016. Note well that luck is not a tangible quantity. Nobody invests in a pure gambler who has the delusion that he can make money off pure luck.  

Trump faced enormous odds, but I wouldn't call him lucky.  Focusing on WI, PA, OH, MI, and FL was part of his overall strategy.  He constantly visited those states and worked for their votes. 

[Virginiá]

Trump was lucky in 2016. Note well that luck is not a tangible quantity. Nobody invests in a pure gambler who has the delusion that he can make money off pure luck.  

Trump faced enormous odds, but I wouldn't call him lucky.  Focusing on WI, PA, OH, MI, and FL was part of his overall strategy.  He constantly visited those states and worked for their votes. 

Rallies don't win elections (neither do ad buys either for that matter, at least in presidential elections). I suppose you could say you need to hold them just to avoid developing an image as someone who doesn't care, but as an electoral tool, they aren't very effective on their own.

Trump was effective for other reasons, but also in large part because Clinton was so unpalatable to so many people.

[Hollywood]

Trump was lucky in 2016. Note well that luck is not a tangible quantity. Nobody invests in a pure gambler who has the delusion that he can make money off pure luck.  

Trump faced enormous odds, but I wouldn't call him lucky.  Focusing on WI, PA, OH, MI, and FL was part of his overall strategy.  He constantly visited those states and worked for their votes.  

Rallies don't win elections (neither do ad buys either for that matter, at least in presidential elections). I suppose you could say you need to hold them just to avoid developing an image as someone who doesn't care, but as an electoral tool, they aren't very effective on their own.

Trump was effective for other reasons, but also in large part because Clinton was so unpalatable to so many people.

You may be right.  I hear a lot of people calling Trump lucky cause they are trying to rationalize his success as meritless.  I see people doing this in regular conversation. It's a pet peeve.  Definitely a "Me" problem.

To address your point, I feel like those rallies were incredibly effective, especially with packed stadiums and constant media attention.  If Bernie had received 10% of the attention Trump or Clinton received from the the media, Bernie would have been President.  I guess you can consider Trump lucky that the Democrats and establishment media decided to tear him down.  MSNBC refused to air his presidential announcement live.  

[Badger]

America will be made Great Again and the Left will be relegated to the sidelines, unable to stop America's resurgence.

Trump voters said this right after the 2016 election: "step aside, liberals.  We're driving the bus now!"

Yet across two years of complete government control, the Right hasn't stopped complaining about "Democrat obstruction" and "we can't get anything done because the left keeps getting in the way!"

Which is it?

Ronald Reagan didn't change the course of this country in two years. America was begun to be renewed after the disaster of Jimmy Carter. It's gonna take a bit to repair America after decades of cultural (Roe) and economic stagnation.

Did you know your posts are is uniformly bad as the failed president you unironically name your screen tag after?

[Hollywood]

Yes that President was a failure. Oh wait, no. That's why we call it the Roaring Twenties.

Don't @ me for the Federal Reserve's stupidity after he left. He did a great job.

I have no idea what you're trying to say. 

[Badger]

I voted for the last two. The house is going down by a significant margin to the Democrats, so they're not that popular. The principled stand against sexual battery Brett fired up the opposition who suddenly saw their own frat boy kids possibly being held to account for a little drunken groping #boys will be boys. But nevertheless, it's going to be a bloodbath for republicans in the house specifically because Trump is so gross and unpopular. LOL! I meant to say grossly unpopular but my voice to text put those words instead, but I'll keep them as it's equally appropriate.

I also voted other because between gerrymandering and the increasingly polarized rural versus Urban divide makes the Senate and increasingly Republican friendly, but likewise increasingly unrepresentative body. It's only because of the former that the Republicans are going to escape and absolute historical tsunami in the house, and only because of the ladder and they will in all likelihood naturally keep the Senate by one or two votes.

So in some, It's a combination between a temporary bump of, not so much jaichind and Tori types, as the former has literally said he would invest into underage Asian brothel if it made him money and is not likely to be too turned off by Trump, and Tori is in fact. We're never Trump Democrat from the local level up to the White House. It's more the old school Republican types who dislike Trump for what he says, not comprehending that also includes what Trump actually thinks, and that it affects his presidency in every conceivable aspect, but will dutifully vote Republican in order to get high income tax cuts for Daddy and, by lacks inheritance tax laws, eventually himself. Good people who do awful things for money inshort is keeping the Republican Party a float and before I get to preachy, that includes my own father, fwiw.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

It's the economy and the way the left is going off the Marxist/socialist deep-end, more and more in the middle are becoming alienated as the Ocasio-Cortezes of the world come rise in the party.

[Badger]

Yes that President was a failure. Oh wait, no. That's why we call it the Roaring Twenties.

Don't @ me for the Federal Reserve's stupidity after he left. He did a great job.

Uniformly. Bad. Posts.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Catering to idiocy and hatred is easier that running a civilization on knowledge and respect.... until the bottom falls out, and that can take a long time.

The GOP spent decades building a machine - raising crops of idiots, systemically denying the vote to anyone to those who oppose them,  corrupting the electoral process. And then Trump came along and stole their machine right out from under them. And like a kid on a joyride in the car he's just stolen, he's pulled out all the stops, and is running it without a care.

[Xing]

Because of polarization, and Republicans are treating politics like a sport. It's all about "winning" and seeing as much of their favorite lette(R) and color as possible, no matter what the cost. They are not interested in "checks and balances", they're interested in winning, gaining more power and teabagging the left. The rest of the county, world and the future be damned.

You know that annoying fan of a sports team who thinks their team is the best thing since sliced bread and is the biggest sore winner in the world and an enormous tool to anyone who dares to support a different sports team? That's the Republican Party now.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Because of polarization, and Republicans are treating politics like a sport. It's all about "winning" and seeing as much of their favorite lette(R) and color as possible, no matter what the cost. They are not interested in "checks and balances", they're interested in winning, gaining more power and teabagging the left. The rest of the county, world and the future be damned.

You know that annoying fan of a sports team who thinks their team is the best thing since sliced bread and is the biggest sore winner in the world and an enormous tool to anyone who dares to support a different sports team? That's the Republican Party now.

(I'm looking in your direction, Penn State)

I kid, I kid.  Seriously though, even though I've been an independent from registration and consider myself something of a left-leaning Independent (though more of a blue-dog Dem if I had to put a more specific label on it), I've been driven slightly more leftward since the 2016 election.  A good number of Republicans seem to think that the GOP will forever control everything -- and that's not a shot at anybody on this board, I'm mainly talking about those who only see politics as either winning or losing.   

Very true.  This is something that's always occurred in politics; after an election, the winning side in a change election tends to feel like they've changed the direction of the country forever.  (This is somewhat understandable; after all, they've just been validated by the voters!)  How many times in the last few decades have there been announcements of a permanent Democratic majority or a permanent Republican majority?  What these people don't realize (or choose to ignore) is that the most powerful long-term trend in politics is reversion to the mean.  The pendulum will swing back the other way.

[I Can Now Die Happy]

America will be made Great Again and the Left will be relegated to the sidelines, unable to stop America's resurgence.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Polarization and the fact that the GOP have controlled the country's narrative on issues for decades.

[pbrower2a]

America will be made Great Again and the Left will be relegated to the sidelines, unable to stop America's resurgence.

Trump voters said this right after the 2016 election: "step aside, liberals.  We're driving the bus now!"

Yet across two years of complete government control, the Right hasn't stopped complaining about "Democrat obstruction" and "we can't get anything done because the left keeps getting in the way!"

Which is it?

Trump is not making great again; if anything he seeks to dismantle the checks and balances that we used to rely upon and replace them with extreme partisanship. Partisan loyalty is the definitive democracy? Nope.

Obstruction of despotic tendencies is precisely what checks and balances were set into our system for.