NYPost

But if the focus is on Trump instead, enraged Democrats will unite, pause their intercine warring while independents will abstain or vote against the GOP.

Yes, Trump still has most of his true believers. But most Republicans would rather the ex-president went away, so the party can figure out where it's going in the post-Trump future.

Those GOPers know Trump's already an albatross: His "stolen election" derangement in late 2020 is why Dems control the Senate now, and his endorsements in this year's primaries have helped saddle Republicans with enough weak Senate candidates this year that retaking the chamber seems increasingly out of reach.

Plus, for all the tens of millions Trump has raised since leaving the White House, he hasn't yet spent any of it even to help the candidates he's endorsed.

We had a very nice day on Sunday, as he walked around his yard and got a final opportunity to putter around with all his plants. Then we went out to dinner at his favorite restaurant.

Yesterday morning, I heard him talking in his bedroom and he was having a very vivid conversation with his late wife, who had passed ten years ago. (He had started a morphine regimen for the pain a few days earlier.) When he said, "Okay, I'll see you soon," I came into the room and he said, "You just missed your aunt. She said she'll be back soon to get me."

I guess my aunt kept her promise, at that. I've never been around someone for an extended period of time just prior to their passing, so it's weird how my own instincts told me immediately yesterday after my uncle's visit with his late wife that he was ready to let go and that this was it.

I'm so glad I called my mother right after I heard him talking to his wife's ghost / spirit. She and my other aunt (their sister) immediately drove down from Pasadena and arrived in the late afternoon. They got a chance to talk with him one last time and then stayed until he lost consciousness about 10:00 p.m. and died at 5:30 a.m.

We called the hospice nurse, who came over a few hours ago, pronounced my uncle deceased and called the mortuary to come pick up his body, which they just did. I've been on the phone all morning letting his friends and other family members know that he was gone.

My mother is going to drive back up to Pasadena after rush hour this evening, and my aunt is going to stay and help my cousins and me as we start to inventory my uncle's array of possessions. Actually, my uncle and I had already done a lot of that work when I was here a few weeks ago, and he had meticulously labeled items with the names of their intended recipients.

Now, it's down to just sorting it all out before everyone starts arriving in a few days for his services and burial at Miramar National Cemetery. I will say, he had accumulated an awful lot of stuff in 96 years of living.

How Many MAGA Republicans Are There?

September 2, 2022 at 2:53 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 147 Comments

Philip Bump does the math and finds that about 10% of the U.S. population -- plus or minus a few percentage points -- favor of the positions of what President Biden called "MAGA Republicans

The Achilles' Heel of Putin's "Special Military Operation" has always been the Russian military's longstanding ineptitude in the art of supply and logistics, a weakness which is being further exacerbated by widespread and devastating Ukrainian HIMARS missile attacks on Russian munitions depots that were conveniently located just behind the front lines.

Moving those munitions depots farther to the rear, out of HIMARS range, means that munitions and supplies must now be relayed to the front by truck convoys traveling up to 15 hours one-way. These convoys also present more tempting targets for Ukrainian artillery once they're in firing range.

Anyway, speaking as a historian, I appreciate the U.S. media's coverage of Queen Elizabeth II's passing. There's no question that, as the longest-reigning monarch in British / English history, her inevitable death from old age is a sincere and emotional milestone for many British and Commonwealth citizens - not to mention for the rest of us, because she was until last week the only British monarch we've known in our own lifetimes.

But that's no reason for the networks to subsequently drown us in royal nostalgia p0rn at the expense of other important events taking place elsewhere - particularly for Queen Elizabeth II, a rather sensible and practical monarch who generally eschewed such overt expressions of sentimentality as both non-productive and unhelpful.

In fact, Trump is on record as having wanted to withdraw the U.S. from NATO during his second term. Der Trumpführer was, and always has been, an agent - unwitting or otherwise - for Russian interests.

There's no question that a Ukrainian military victory over Russia and a renewed NATO comraderie amongst the Allies would represent a huge foreign policy triumph for President Biden.

In fact, Trump is on record as having wanted to withdraw the U.S. from NATO during his second term. Der Trumpführer was, and always has been, an agent - unwitting or otherwise - for Russian interests.

There's no question that a Ukrainian military victory over Russia and a renewed NATO comraderie amongst the Allies would represent a huge foreign policy triumph for President Biden.

The denizens of Trump's Emerald City Resort and Casino better stop laughing the day away in the merry old land of Oz, and heed Liz Cheney's warning. It's always been fun and games to these people - that is, until the feds get involved.

But I think right after the election the bottom is likely to finally drop out for Donald.    The work to fumigate the place before 2024 will be urgently addressed.

And if by "worries" you mean phobias hate and prejudices, well, yeah.

The secret of Trump's magic, if you want my opinion,  has less to do with Trump than with the hate and fear and envy he chose to exploit.

IMO he is the inevitable end product of the decades of a republican strategy of division and manipulation of education and society to produce stupid easily frightened angry and aggrieved people.

For decades they have greased the skids for this.  It just took someone and hollow and ruthless as Trump to kick out the guardrails and fully and shamelessly exploit the landscape.

Eventually it would have been someone.  Others have tried.  Wallace, Buchanan various others.  It took a games show host to pull it off.

In a way I think this might save us.  If he had been a tiny bit smarter and less narcissistic ......