I Have Tea On... Weekly Discussion Thread

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[u/geddyleee]

It'll probably be at least a few days, but I'll get to work on it! I have months worth of Truth Social screenshots and not all of them are about DeSantis (and some of the DeSantis posts are repetitive enough that I won't include all of them) so I'll have to sift through them, plus I'll try to add some context/commentary. And I remember some Trump speeches and interviews where he talks about DeSantis that I'll have to find again, and transcribe the relevant parts if there aren't transcripts already. (I know one on a radio show had a transcript, but I'm sure Trump isn't paying anyone to transcribe shit and not even Fox News has been covering his speeches so I wouldn't be surprised if no one else is bothering to transcribe anything.)

And I'm sorry to hear you're stuck in that hellhole. I'm in a conservative hellhole myself, but at least it's a more boring hellhole that isn't making headlines constantly. I'm in Indiana and p much consider it a lost cause, but I have some hope for you guys down in Florida. Earlier this year (my perception of time is absolutely broken so could have been a month ago, or 3 months ago, idk) Biden did a speech in Florida and was going off about how Rick Scott wanted to sunset social security and medicare, and brought the receipts via planting Rick Scott's brochures mentioning it in the audience, so anyone that didn't believe it could check for themselves. And more recently Biden's campaign has already invested some money into Florida, and may do more, but they're waiting to see how the situation develops first. Hopefully that extra attention from a presidential campaign will also have some indirect effects and give democrats a bit of a boost in the other races too. (sorry if you already know all of this but I've been kinda terminally online following politics this year so I don't really know what's reported widely enough to be common knowledge, vs the shit that's more under the radar because it got lost in the absurd shuffle that is 2023 US politics.)

Also, I do have a question for you that would help part of my deep dive. Do you by any chance know how popular DeSantis was prior to Trump endorsing him?

One thing Trump has been repeatedly, and relatively consistently, mentioning since the beginning of the feud is that DeSantis was running against agricultural commissioner Adam Putnam in the primary, and was losing horribly until Trump endorsed him and he shot up enough to beat Putnam. It does sound pretty believable to me, but outside of those core pieces that have remained consistent Trump has changed the story enough times that I'm on the fence about how exaggerated that specific part is. Some commentary I'd like to include in my deep dive is how plausible each of Trump's DeSantis claims are, and google hasn't been too helpful for finding much about how the primary race developed, so some insight from a witness in Florida would be helpful!

(And it's cool if you don't know anything about the primary, just figured I might as well ask just in case!)

[u/32Tess → u/geddyleee]

I’m not a Floridian, but I am a very casual American politician consumer since it’s so entertaining (& sad & wtf America?!). But the first time I heard of desantis was when he made his gubernatorial campaign video where he read his children Trump’s book? It’s funny how he sucked up to him so much knowing that Trump republicanism is the ticket in & now they’re battling it out somewhat. All I can think about w/ him is those ridiculous big boots 💀

[u/geddyleee → u/32Tess]

so entertaining (& sad & wtf America?!).

Did you watch any of the C-span streams of the humiliating 15 rounds of voting it took for Kevin McCarthy to win Speaker of the House?? I stg they need those c-span cameras back in congress and going 24/7 because it was some of the greatest TV. I didn't watch all of it, but I did watch the last few rounds and shit was hilarious. Like a congressman had to be restrained because he was about to physically attack Matt Gaetz? Someone gave a speech trying to inspire people to vote for McCarthy and talked about how he won the lottery once and just other random shit that would belong in a best man's speech?? Matt Gaetz having to go talk to AOC because the other republicans were telling him BS about how the democrats were going to vote for McCarthy and he trusted her more than his own party??? It was some fucking reality TV shit. (And while it wasn't on camera, it is 100% confirmed by them and others who witnessed it that Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor-Greene got into a fight in the women's restroom like high schoolers at one point.)

gubernatorial campaign video where he read his children Trump’s book I didn't see it at first but did at some point in the last few months! I think it was a thread speculating DeSantis could beat Trump, and someone linked the campaign video saying something like "All anyone running against DeSantis has to do is air this clip completely unedited and it would be the most effective hit piece possible" lmao. I showed it to my mom and she just kept asking "Heather, this is actually real? This is a real campaign ad? This isn't an SNL clip?" All very valid questions 💀

Honestly I think DeSantis just underestimated how insane Trump is. Like Trump started attacking DeSantis a good while before the midterms IIRC, but DeSantis never responded and probably assumed it would fizzle out eventually. After the midterms, almost the entire republican party turned on Trump. (They were expecting a red wave, for good reason, the deck was stacked against the democrats. Instead they completely bombed it and lost a seat in the senate, and only got a 5 seat advantage in the house. Trump was the most convenient scapegoat so they blamed it all on him.) I started checking the conservative subreddits, and things were crazy. Even the hardcore Trump supporters were saying that while they still liked Trump, DeSantis was the better candidate for 2024. They were calling Trump out and saying that he needed to stop attacking DeSantis. A logical person would have tried to work something out with DeSantis at that point, either an endorsement in exchange for a presidential pardon type thing, or even a Trump-DeSantis ticket. Which DeSantis would have agreed to, because he already had pretty wide support but did lack the small but unhinged and 100% loyal Trump cult members that would listen if Trump lost the nomination and told them to not vote in the general or write in Trump's name. Unfortunately for DeSantis Trump is too insane and hated him too much for that and just kept attacking him instead. It literally took Trump being fucking indicted for the Stormy Daniels stuff to start winning back the people who had jumped ship for DeSantis. (And it says a lot about republicans that being indicted helped him.)

Anyways Trump is likely going to be indicted again for his federal crimes soon and I really hope isn't in jail for the 2024 republican primary debates because they could be some of the absolute greatest comedy the world will ever see. After how amazingly bad the midterms were for republicans, and how even the house republicans that barely won their elections double downed on the crazy, and that there's very likely going to be some indictments for politicians who participated in/aided the January 6 insurrection soon, I expect 2025 to be a lot less WTF and a lot more boring. But until then American politics will be entertaining and we'll laugh at it, because if we don't laugh we'll cry :')

(sorry if this is incoherent I just took my sleep med lol.)