POINT/COUNTERPOINT - Now Playing: Trump Scandal #9,264,593

You really will go to any lengths to say Orange Man Bad, won’t you? Just because Trump meets with someone doesn’t mean he supports their views. He’s met with Kim Jong Un as well, pretty sure he doesn’t support juche authoritarianism.

Eh.

Re: Trump's Jewish/Republican allies turning on him over this:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-s-jewish-allies-denounce-dinner-with-kanye-west-and-nick-fuentes/ar-AA14Ffzx?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=d9a7c402f17c404b8a5c771ab2a0e81d

lol that's such a wild comparison. World leaders and 24-year-old online provocateurs aren't equivalent.

Also: The diplomatic obligations of a sitting President vs. the electoral ambitions of a mere candidate aren't equivalent. I would agree that Orange Man's famous presidential meetings with Kim Jong-Un were Not Necessarily Bad. Nor was Biden's meeting with the Saudi prince Khashoggi necessarily bad. They're horrible leaders, but it's understood POTUS is attempting to advance American interests and isn't endorsing them.*

*Caveat: Unless there's some kind of breach of regular diplomatic protocol that normally keeps other leaders at arms-length. Not going to go down this rabbit-hole, but such breaches certainly happened a few times when Trump met with Putin.

Anyway. Orange Man having someone like Kim Jong-Un over for dinner at Mar-a-Lago *now* would be highly suspect. Whether or not it means a flat-out endorsement, such a meeting would suggest at least a mutual interest, common goals, and that a transaction may be occurring.

Bottom-line: Trump amplified both Nick Fuentes and Kanye West, and signaled willingness to listen to their following of anti-Semites. This one is not hard, really. Even Republicans who have historically defended Trump over many other things know this was bad.

You do realize Kanye also announced a run for the presidency, right? He wouldn’t be doing any recruiting for Trump like you seem to be claiming. I agree Nick Fuentes is an idiot, but they’re not even campaigning for or supporting Trump.

Next to certifiables like Fuentes and Kanye, Trump actually does look like the stable genius he says he is. Next to those two, he really does have the best words, and the biggest brain.

If they were the only 3 on the ballot then I’d be voting Trump all day long.

But if I invited Himmler to dinner and he brings his friend Hitler, I don’t think I get any credit for being the least-Nazi person in the room. That doesn’t make me look less Nazi. It actually makes me look more Nazi!

That’s why his reputation for both stability and for genius have taken a hit

-- STRATEGIC THOUGHTS --

Before we dismiss Trump's latest anti-Semite troll meeting as simply being moronic (even Trump, a notorious double-downer, backpedaled on having agreed to it), let's consider the possible strategic implications here.

After the '22 midterms, where Trump's handpicked candidates disproportionately lost, Donald Trump is bleeding support from:

--Most mainstream Republicans,
--Rupert Murdoch's conservative media empire,
--Evangelicals (yes, some of them are finally waking up to the fact Trump is a heathen), and
--Many of the independents/libertarians who supported Trump's first run back in '16.

Most of those GOP-allied groups are now ready to support someone like Ron DeSantis: A combative culture-warrior, but without some of Trump's more appalling features.

So, Trump's looking for fresh blood. To that end, Trump has been more explicitly cozying up to QAnoners, and otherwise signaling his willingness to actively court the very most fringe people out there, as a way to shore up the support that he still retains from his diehard loyalists.

It's hard to know just how effective this might be, as it's hard to gauge just how many true wingnuts are out there. They're irregular voters, they're hard to reach in polls, and their beliefs aren't easily polled, either. Few people are going to honestly answer questions like: "Are you a Nazi?" "On a scale of 1-10, how much do you believe Hitler was right?" "Do you think the Jews should pay?" etc.

Being the front-runner for the '24 nomination - and I still think that Trump is (he is at least the only formally declared candidate at this point) - gives Trump more pathways to victory, even seemingly-insane ones like this.

Example: If Trump already enjoys 33% support from the "always-Trump" diehards in the GOP, then all he needs is to scrounge up another 17% from *somewhere,* and then he can already win an outright majority (50%+) of GOP primary votes, and that's before you account for other candidates dividing the field.

So: Could the anti-Semites, QAnoners, and other paranoid-schizophrenic political lunatics put him past the post? Quite possible.

Appalling as this is, don't count Trump out yet.

This is part of our Point/Counterpoint series and is intended as a forum for enlivened, elevated political discussion.

Unfortunately, your raging case of TDS leads you to reject my conclusion (based upon facts & logic, naturally) that Trump could still win. Typical.

Sad!

I know that’s what the front page of Gab thinks — but you may be shocked to find that’s not, in fact, a mainstream viewpoint

Huh. Never heard of Dave Rubin. Now we're out in the deep end of right-wing lunacy and I'm officially out of my depth.

Please, go on

Didn't ring a bell with me. The floor is yours. Womb rentals? Wha?

Surrogate

He’s a gay republican

Yeah. Describing the surrogate-mother process in a purposefully twisted way.

Typical homophobe

Lol

I can't use Google search to inform myself of why you - specifically you, the Imgflip user currently known as BritishMormon - have a problem with Dave Rubin.

Okay. So he's gay. He utilized a surrogate mother so he could have kids. You don't like that he called out anti-Semitism. Anything else?

When I asked you to elaborate, I was referring to the homophobic diatribe knocking around in your head that you would like to give, but that Imgflip rules prevent you from doing.

You didn’t take the bait this time. Well done. You survived the challenge. Have a new temp

Nick Fuentes is cringe

Do you have an actual coherent argument to support Nick Fuentes and the viewpoints he advocates for?

1. He’s an anti semite
2. He got triggered when Tim Pool actually put up a challenge to his antisemitism and walked off of Timcast IRL like a bitch.

Then let’s see you come up with a better one

Still doesn’t change the fact Fuentes took a massive L when he walked off of Timcast

trump is good biden is bad👎🏻