It will eventually come out how Levin has had massive influence on the current presidency. This is neither to antagonize nor defend anyone, but it cannot be denied that his influence has been disastrous for all involved.
M. de Maistre retweeted
So Trump designed his military strategy explicitly around knowledge that the war was going to harm the GOP's chances in the mid terms. You don't need more proof than this. Reaganites don't have a stool leg to stand on. The Iran war lost the midterms. Full stop.
Further detail from @WSJ on how the US has been carrying out small-scale strikes on Iran for weeks, but has avoided drawing attention to them, for fear of impacting the midterm outcome.
M. de Maistre retweeted
If you think Trump wouldn't cut a deal with Dems on amnesty, you weren't paying attention during the first term, and that was before all the corruption charges that are coming youtu.be/2nIiu-C9M7U
I never paid attention to gas prices.
The last couple months upon US return - I started noticing $$.
You can already sense it a bit this year.
Immigration is no longer taboo, but because nothing has changed, and living standards have worsened, people are looking for next subject.
M. de Maistre retweeted
Solving immigration is simply not enough and will end up dead end for populist right.
In France, there's a possibility the RN might obtain mandate precisely for this. Except our circumstances will force them into financial deadlock and deeply unpopular measures to face this.
M. de Maistre retweeted
Besides a quite extensive list of impact on overall culture etc, we should find Trump as a consequential historical character just for this reason.
However, there is also a very important lesson for us across the board especially in Europe regarding this immigration issue.
M. de Maistre retweeted
When I saw Trump come down elevator, the immigration discours was confined to online spaces and it was not polite conversation anywhere let alone political program.
Trump single handedly made immigration a solved topic in terms of political discourse, across the world.
M. de Maistre retweeted
People should be very concerned right now at the rhetoric coming out of Levin re: purging non-idealogically aligned rightists.
It's going to create a schism in the next couple of years.
Additionally, only upside for GOP contender in 2028 is that new Dem crop cannot control itself, ie old guard eg Schumer is almost gone.
M. de Maistre retweeted
This isn't true. The tariffs caused a drop in his support but Iran was the proximate cause. More importantly, the tariffs were an extension of foreign policy and not advanced with any sincerity.
They were used as a foreign policy cudgel and to shake out business bankruptcies across a longer time horizon, to attenuate the harmful economic effects of the planned war.
This observation is buttressed by the fact that the original Graham bill that would've *mandated* tariffs as high as 500% on countries doing business with Russia (China) passed the Senate with the support of more than 80% of sitting Senators. That means Reaganite stool respectors and Democrats strongly supported catastrophic tariffs as a foreign policy tool.
Also recall that Trump was forced to disgorge collected tariffs back to American businesses: a kaldor-hicks efficient move that fulfilled the "free market" leg of the Reaganite stool.
Don't let Reaganites conceal the failure of their ideology by diluting responsibility across voter concerns like the economy and gas prices. This election was directly caused by the "National Security" leg of the Reaganite stool.
M. de Maistre retweeted
archive.is/vmsnt
"In sharp contrast to the dignidad backers, GOP Rep. Brandon Gill — a leading opponent of mass migration — won his TX district, even as his voters also supported far-left James Talarico for governor....Republicans outpolled Democrats on immigration 44 percent to 40 percent, according to exit polls on Tuesday.
M. de Maistre retweeted
Heightism is one type of bigotry that has grown, especially since women got Tinder.
Ron DeSantis isn't even particularly short.
Amen, brother. Some of us saw this two years ago.
We had a 78-year-old Trump, who had never shown much interest in the details of governing and was limited to just one more term, and a 46-year DeSantis who had turned a purplish state into oxblood red.
We picked the old controversial guy who was uninterested in governing because Ron is short.
Trump was always a proto candidate. The problem is that in first term he cared too much about NYT Editorial Board.
Second term he cared too much what Levin and ConInc. thought of him.
A man must forge, not appease.