erik-k: Billy Bathsalt: I don't agree.  I think T***** makes just as much sense as he ever has.

Look up an interview of him from the 90s. Or even the early 2000s.

He's obviously exactly as much of a narcissist, megalomaniac pig, but he does actually exhibit the behaviors of someone who heard the question, and understands enough to give roughly on topic and grammatically parseable replies. He's even a mild degree of clever in terms of steering away from things he doesn't want to talk about.

Compare that with the random incoherent babbling today... The drug-addled syphilis-eaten remains of his swiss cheese of a brain can barely stay on target for two adjacent sentence fragments before some new babble takes over.

If he weren't one of the most fractally despicable people in living memory, I would feel sorry for him. As it is, all I have is my most sincere wish for him to die, preferably in a humiliating manner involving involuntary defecation in public.

erik-k: fruit flies like a banana: erik-k: Billy Bathsalt: I don't agree.  I think T***** makes just as much sense as he ever has.

Look up an interview of him from the 90s. Or even the early 2000s.

He's obviously exactly as much of a narcissist, megalomaniac pig, but he does actually exhibit the behaviors of someone who heard the question, and understands enough to give roughly on topic and grammatically parseable replies. He's even a mild degree of clever in terms of steering away from things he doesn't want to talk about.

Compare that with the random incoherent babbling today... The drug-addled syphilis-eaten remains of his swiss cheese of a brain can barely stay on target for two adjacent sentence fragments before some new babble takes over.

If he weren't one of the most fractally despicable people in living memory, I would feel sorry for him. As it is, all I have is my most sincere wish for him to die, preferably in a humiliating manner involving involuntary defecation in public.

Does it matter though? The early 2000s didn't have Bobert, or MTG or QAnon either.

You're not wrong about his decline, but I still think he's the most likely GOP nominee.

I don't think it particularly affects him in the primary, in that anyone who is remotely capable of recognizing a leader or who wants competent governance was never supporting him anyway, period.

There are different reasons for which I honestly don't think he'll be the GQP nominee though... He wants it, and a shrinking number of GQPers like BoBo and MTG who depend on his cultists for support want it. But the truth is, which none who fear his extremely LOUD die hard cultists will say (and that's most elected GQPers, who would assuredly lose if the Dump cultist vote stayed home), that his popularity is fizzling out. The loser was recently actually bragging about filling a freakin' high school basketball gym, limit 200, "to capacity." I think it's clear he failing to garner support (c.f. the media jizzing themselves when he rode down that stupid escalator, when the despicable words out of his mouth should have gotten him instantly blacklisted by every channel and newspaper), but why?

Thesis: His central paean in 2016 was that the white working class aren't getting a fair deal and the system is rigged against them. And it resonated so hard because HE WAS RIGHT (I mean, it's also rigged against everyone else in the working class and everything the GQP proposed was to actively help the .01% rig it, but that's neither here nor there). Even her stupid emails were part of that because the fascist lie machine had spent 25 years programming its drones to believe the Clintons "got away with" things we wouldn't. Remember how he turned the discussion completely away from his tax criminal behavior by pointing out of course I know the tax system is rigged against you, I take advantage of it!

Well after 4 years of doing nothing to fix either elite criminal impunity or the ongoing rigging of America's economy (and of actively making both worse), and then 2 years of nothing but 2020 Election Festivus on loop, he's lost 'em and isn't getting 'em back. Now they'll never, ever admit they were fooled - if you push it they're more likely to become physically violent than admit it - but down inside they KNOW it and they aren't supporting him. We know this to be true. Because if they were, Dump would be able to fill a venue larger than a high school gym.

As for the business conservatives... Well the faschie money behind the GQP never wanted or liked him. Like everyone else they reluctantly tolerated him as long as he provided useful material for the prolefeed and kept illegal Rubles going to GQP candidates. But his prolefeed is stale and the Rubles are for some reason not flowing, and so his use is at an end. They will happily help knife him in favor of a less incompetent fascist scum like Deathsanta.

The best case scenario, he eats shiat in early primaries and goes independent (because the alternative is admitting he's a LOSER) and takes his cultist core away from the "mainstream" GQP candidates. Even if sore loser laws keep him from appearing on ballot directly, he tells his supporters to stay home. The GQP is torn apart, and all the "respectable" GQPers lose the general without Dump cultist votes, even if those votes amount to only 3-6% staying home and it's a blue tsunami. Exactly as Ladybugs predicted, Dump destroyed the GQP and they deserved it.

/the worst case scenario, Biden has a major health event on the campaign trail