2024 US Presidential Election Thread

[Scaff]

All you have to do is find something that he likes that will cost a lot more and he will change his mind.

That's the problem, he wouldn't even notice, the tariffs will have almost zero impact (on a personal level) on those at Trumps' wealth level. It's the working and middle-class dolts that voted for him that are going to be hit hard.

It's back to that old Brexit saying (and yes I am going to reuse this going forward), 'the dildo of consequence rarely arrives lubed'.

 

[UKMikey]

All you have to do is find something that he likes that will cost a lot more and he will change his mind.

Begun, the bronzer wars have.

 

[Joey D]

Bubba T. Dumbass is about to find out that their trucks are made in Mexico and Canada. And the ones that aren't often have a ton of Canadian and Mexican made parts in them. I can't imagine the automotive lobby is going to like that.

It's going to be really, really funny when all these lobbies pull their funding from Republicans who support Trump's tariffs and then they have a shocked Pikachu face when they lose their reelection.

 

[GranTurNismo]

Kamala Harris teases 2028 run, tells allies that she is "keeping her options open".

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/25/kamala-harris-advisers-options-open-00191393

The Democratic Party ought to listen to Bernie Sanders for once. The message Harris is sending by spending her time relaxing in Hawaii after losing to a fascist, as we really haven't heard anything from her since she lost three weeks ago, is rather unfortunate. Speaks volumes that immediately after Sanders lost in 2016 and 2020 (and when the Dems lost in 2024), he immediately hit the ground running on how to keep his coalition together, with messages such as "not me, us", articulating what to do and what the best shot is moving forward. Because he understood that he ran a political movement, and wasn't just an interchangeable pawn with no real positions that was fronted by the DNC. He recognizes that just because you lose doesn't mean the job is over. Harris knows at this point she doesn't have her own, unique message and her own popularity largely relies on the salience of the Democratic party; she lacks a selfless interest in the public good that we need to overcome fascism. While Sanders is sometimes accused of sounding repetitive in his speeches, this can actually be a virtue, as it demonstrates that he has a consistent message he believes in, unlike Harris' campaign in which her messaging seems to be constantly tested and refashioned by party consultants and focus groups to in a lofty attempt to be perfectly tailored to a given audience. It would be nice to see her continuing to be a loud, aggressive advocate for the political positions she ostensibly believes in, but she walked back a bunch of these during her campaign and mostly ran on the status quo. If Harris' bid of public service ends once her campaign does, yet she still has future ambitions, then quite frankly she doesn't have what it takes to be the candidate. Sanders didn't let it stop him; heck, even Trump didn't- he leveraged very famously not shutting up after decisively losing an election to win again in 2024.

The party ought to accept that the entire political climate is trending populist, not just the GOP, and the "adults in the room" or "back to normalcy" approach just won't be enough for long term victory. In the long term, the Democratic party will not be able to keep ahold of the country and its whims unless they understand that what people want to hear is bold, populist, transformative messaging. Part of where the 2024 campaign went wrong was that it wasn't fundamentally different than Biden's 2020 campaign, and Biden won in 2020 mostly because of Trump's own incompetence and unpopularity especially brought about by COVID, not due to the people so fervently longing for octogenerian, milquetoast centrist leadership. If nothing changes, this is the only way Harris would eke out a victory in 2028, Trump once again damaging the country so dramatically that the GOP becomes deeply unpopular, and while a Democratic victory would be great under any circumstances, I fear the party will continue to learn the wrong lessons and become utterly inept at defeating fascism. Additionally, it would be beneficial for the Democrats to poll candidate favorability based on popularity of the entire population- another area where Bernie shined, as he was favorable not just among Democrats but also independents and even some Trump voters, while Harris did not perform any better with these groups.

 

[TheCracker]

Kamala Harris teases 2028 run, tells allies that she is "keeping her options open".

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/25/kamala-harris-advisers-options-open-00191393

The Democratic Party ought to listen to Bernie Sanders for once. The message Harris is sending by spending her time relaxing in Hawaii after losing to a fascist, as we really haven't heard anything from her since she lost three weeks ago, is rather unfortunate. Speaks volumes that immediately after Sanders lost in 2016 and 2020 (and when the Dems lost in 2024), he immediately hit the ground running on how to keep his coalition together, with messages such as "not me, us", articulating what to do and what the best shot is moving forward. Because he understood that he ran a political movement, and wasn't just an interchangeable pawn with no real positions that was fronted by the DNC. He recognizes that just because you lose doesn't mean the job is over. Harris knows at this point she doesn't have her own, unique message and her own popularity largely relies on the salience of the Democratic party; she lacks a selfless interest in the public good that we need to overcome fascism. While Sanders is sometimes accused of sounding repetitive in his speeches, this can actually be a virtue, as it demonstrates that he has a consistent message he believes in, unlike Harris' campaign in which her messaging seems to be constantly tested and refashioned by party consultants and focus groups to in a lofty attempt to be perfectly tailored to a given audience. It would be nice to see her continuing to be a loud, aggressive advocate for the political positions she ostensibly believes in, but she walked back a bunch of these during her campaign and mostly ran on the status quo. If Harris' bid of public service ends once her campaign does, yet she still has future ambitions, then quite frankly she doesn't have what it takes to be the candidate. Sanders didn't let it stop him; heck, even Trump didn't- he leveraged very famously not shutting up after decisively losing an election to win again in 2024.

The party ought to accept that the entire political climate is trending populist, not just the GOP, and the "adults in the room" or "back to normalcy" approach just won't be enough for long term victory. In the long term, the Democratic party will not be able to keep ahold of the country and its whims unless they understand that what people want to hear is bold, populist, transformative messaging. Part of where the 2024 campaign went wrong was that it wasn't fundamentally different than Biden's 2020 campaign, and Biden won in 2020 mostly because of Trump's own incompetence and unpopularity especially brought about by COVID, not due to the people so fervently longing for octogenerian, milquetoast centrist leadership. If nothing changes, this is the only way Harris would eke out a victory in 2028, Trump once again damaging the country so dramatically that the GOP becomes deeply unpopular, and while a Democratic victory would be great under any circumstances, I fear the party will continue to learn the wrong lessons and become utterly inept at defeating fascism. Additionally, it would be beneficial for the Democrats to poll candidate favorability based on popularity of the entire population- another area where Bernie shined, as he was favorable not just among Democrats but also independents and even some Trump voters, while Harris did not perform any better with these groups.

I feel Harris was maybe too close to the Biden presidency, to offer anyone undecided anything new. In retrospect, she was perhaps seen as 'more of the same'.

The UK bucked the current political trend a bit by voting in Starmer, who's pretty 'grey' politically, but the torys were so awful that Labour could have put almost anyone forward and still won a landslide.

What the democrats need is their own Trump. Terrible concept that populist politics is, you need to beat them at their own game. Unfortunately.

I've said it before, but i think Gavin Newsom is enough of a firebrand to take the fight to them.

 

[Famine]

The UK bucked the current political trend a bit by voting in Starmer, who's pretty 'grey' politically, but the torys were so awful that Labour could have put almost anyone forward and still won a landslide.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell...

... the reality of our election is that Labour gained one percentage point but lost half a million votes. It was the Conservative vote that cratered - down 7m and 21% - so really, along with a turnout drop of 3m, they lost it by a landslide. The current government is "they'll do instead" rather than one with an overwhelming mandate.

It puts a different complexion on it, because if the Conservative competent it up a bit (which currently looks like a massive step to the right, under a birth-tourist, Nigerian sort-of-immigrant), Labour is screwed.

 

[Joey D]

Harris is also a woman of color, which doesn't sit well with older voters. To them, women still belong in the kitchen or caring for children, not running the country. There's still deep-seated racism, too, since growing up, these voters were consistently told blacks are the problem. I know many liberals seem to think that this is a conservative ideology, but it's a boomer and older way of thinking across the board. They grew up and had decades of being told where a woman's place was and why blacks are the problem for everything. It's not an excuse because people should be able to change, but older people get set in their ways and don't change.

I've said it before, but i think Gavin Newsom is enough of a firebrand to take the fight to them.

Newsom's problem would be that the Republicans would pick out every bad thing that happens in California and say, "This is what he'll do to the entire country." Anti-California rhetoric is strong in many areas because people see Californians moving away from California due to high prices and coming to a different state, driving up the prices. It doesn't happen nearly as much as people believe, but it's a real problem in some areas. Salt Lake City experienced a boom in population because Californians are moving to Utah, but I don't think many Californians are moving to places like Arkansas or South Dakota. But go pretty much anywhere in the US, and you'll see some douchecanoe with a bumper sticker that says, "Don't California My <Insert State>!"

I know people have said Pete Buttigieg, but there's a zero percent chance a gay man gets elected in this country for the foreseeable future. Josh Shapiro is a Zionist who will suffer the same problem Harris did with Arab and student voters. Gretchen Whitmer would be good, but I think she would ultimately fall into the "woman can't be president" way of thinking. I'd gladly vote for Buttigieg or Whitmer though. Shapiro can go to hell though.

I still like Hakeem Jeffries, but he'll have the same issue as Newsom, just with New York instead of California. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper could be options.

 

[DK]

Trump seems to be used the impression that Canada is now a major source of crime and drugs to the US? I know attempted crossings have increased, but it's a fraction of that in the south.

Clearly you aren't aware of this criminal mastermind:

 

[McLaren]

I've said it before, but i think Gavin Newsom is enough of a firebrand to take the fight to them.

I think I've mentioned it before, but I think Newsom or Whitmer will be Dem's 2028 nominee. I think Joey is spot on with Newsom having to overcome the stigma of "Commiefornia", but I also think that's why he didn't make any moves to be this year's nominee after Biden dropped out; 4 years to build a campaign than 4 months is a much easier task.

 

[Scaff]

Clearly you aren't aware of this criminal mastermind:

You'd be right...

 

[FPV MIC]

Harris is also a woman of color, which doesn't sit well with older voters. To them, women still belong in the kitchen or caring for children, not running the country. There's still deep-seated racism, too, since growing up, these voters were consistently told blacks are the problem. I know many liberals seem to think that this is a conservative ideology, but it's a boomer and older way of thinking across the board. They grew up and had decades of being told where a woman's place was and why blacks are the problem for everything. It's not an excuse because people should be able to change, but older people get set in their ways and don't change.

You keep saying this as if it's a reason Harris lost but I'm yet to see any proof of it having anything to do with boomers. The largest group I've seen that backs Trump is the 45-64 age group of which there would be more Gen X'ers.

The largest swings to the right, from what I've seen (which admittedly isn't that much), have been among the young, Latino votes, Asian Americans, highly educated and young Black voters.

Everything I've seen has older Americans voting pretty much as they always have, and it's not that far off a 50-50 split. It seems to be far more likely that a lot of small shifts from the traditional Dem voters to the right was more likely the cause of her loss.

You seem to have this odd obsession with blaming boomers.

 

[Joey D]

You keep saying this as if it's a reason Harris lost but I'm yet to see any proof of it having anything to do with boomers. The largest group I've seen that backs Trump is the 45-64 age group of which there would be more Gen X'ers.

The largest swings to the right, from what I've seen (which admittedly isn't that much), have been among the young, Latino votes, Asian Americans, highly educated and young Black voters.

Everything I've seen has older Americans voting pretty much as they always have, and it's not that far off a 50-50 split. It seems to be far more likely that a lot of small shifts from the traditional Dem voters to the right was more likely the cause of her loss.

You seem to have this odd obsession with blaming boomers.

The Boomer age range is fuzzy since there's overlap, but Boomers right now are in their late 50s through early 70s. That's often the age group that has the highest turnout in an election. Of that 45-64 age group I'd be curious to see it broken out a bit more using 55 as the line rather than 64. I'm willing to bet the 44-54 age range isn't nearly as pro-Trump as the 55-64 range. Also, it's worth noting that the Fox News viewership is something like 70% over the age of 55, and that's not a channel that free and independent thinkers are watching. That also leads me to believe that the 45-64 age range should be split elsewhere.

It would probably be worth splitting out Boomers even more, too, since I'm guessing the closer you get to 75, the more even the split is. I'm guessing that 55-65 range is heavily in favor of Trump. Apparently, they've taken to calling themselves Generation Jones too and they set themselves apart from the Boomers.

You also need to look at what Boomers grew up with. America had a strong manufacturing economy where jobs were everywhere and you could make a ton of money while your wife stayed home with the kids. They didn't need college to build a career and could get out of high school, turn up at a factory, and make bank. They want that back because, to them, that signals prosperity. They also have this idea that "I pulled myself up by the bootstraps so why can't everyone" when it comes to any social change. Trump, by and large, exemplified that idea more than any other candidate. Even his tagline, "Make America Great Again," paints a picture of the post-war boom that carried into the mid-1970s.

Boomers and I suppose older Gen Xers grew up in a time period where women weren't in charge and neither were minorities. The world was dominated by white men for the most part. That's what they're used to and even if they were a Democrat, they might not have voted for a black woman. I think back to my grandpa who was about the most loyal Democrat imaginable, however he refused to vote for Obama because Obama was black. I used to work with a lot of union guys who were the same way, all diehard Democrats who refused to vote for Obama because Obama was black. It's not that they voted for McCain or Romney, but rather they just didn't vote.

 

[FPV MIC]

The Boomer age range is fuzzy since there's overlap, but Boomers right now are in their late 50s through early 70s. That's often the age group that has the highest turnout in an election. Of that 45-64 age group I'd be curious to see it broken out a bit more using 55 as the line rather than 64. I'm willing to bet the 44-54 age range isn't nearly as pro-Trump as the 55-64 range. Also, it's worth noting that the Fox News viewership is something like 70% over the age of 55, and that's not a channel that free and independent thinkers are watching. That also leads me to believe that the 45-64 age range should be split elsewhere.

It would probably be worth splitting out Boomers even more, too, since I'm guessing the closer you get to 75, the more even the split is. I'm guessing that 55-65 range is heavily in favor of Trump. Apparently, they've taken to calling themselves Generation Jones too and they set themselves apart from the Boomers.

You also need to look at what Boomers grew up with. America had a strong manufacturing economy where jobs were everywhere and you could make a ton of money while your wife stayed home with the kids. They didn't need college to build a career and could get out of high school, turn up at a factory, and make bank. They want that back because, to them, that signals prosperity. They also have this idea that "I pulled myself up by the bootstraps so why can't everyone" when it comes to any social change. Trump, by and large, exemplified that idea more than any other candidate. Even his tagline, "Make America Great Again," paints a picture of the post-war boom that carried into the mid-1970s.

Boomers and I suppose older Gen Xers grew up in a time period where women weren't in charge and neither were minorities. The world was dominated by white men for the most part. That's what they're used to and even if they were a Democrat, they might not have voted for a black woman. I think back to my grandpa who was about the most loyal Democrat imaginable, however he refused to vote for Obama because Obama was black. I used to work with a lot of union guys who were the same way, all diehard Democrats who refused to vote for Obama because Obama was black. It's not that they voted for McCain or Romney, but rather they just didn't vote.

Boomers are all 60 or over .

And also, as I said, older peoples voting didn't seem to change, so her being a woman and 'of colour' didn't seem to change anything.

Edit: I do agree with some of your rationale but I think it applies more to The Silent Generation.

Edit 2: The more I think about it the more I think it's the Silent Generation you're describing. Boomers was the time for change. Protests and protest songs, hippies and free love were all the rage for the older ones, and by older I mean ones who were just turning 20 in the mid 1960's, and skyrocketing interest rates on house loans, and inflation were the young ones lot* (born in 60's like myself and my friends).

Sure there were some Boomers that weren't very progressive in their thinking, but it was nothing like the "I pulled myself up by the bootstraps so why can't everyone" generation that you describe. That started petering out in the 50's and was far more common among Boomers parents. It was also when Boomers were only 5-15 at most. I was only 14 at most in the period you describe here; ''Even his tagline, "Make America Great Again," paints a picture of the post-war boom that carried into the mid-1970s.''.

Then again, maybe things are a lot more different in America to Australia than I'd ever imagined. ¯\(ツ)/¯


*I'm not saying we had it as hard as it is now, just that it wasn't as rosy as you paint it. Two working parents to afford a house was very much a thing back then.

 

[GranTurNismo]

Kamala Harris teases 2028 run, tells allies that she is "keeping her options open".

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/25/kamala-harris-advisers-options-open-00191393

The Democratic Party ought to listen to Bernie Sanders for once. The message Harris is sending by spending her time relaxing in Hawaii after losing to a fascist, as we really haven't heard anything from her since she lost three weeks ago, is rather unfortunate. Speaks volumes that immediately after Sanders lost in 2016 and 2020 (and when the Dems lost in 2024), he immediately hit the ground running on how to keep his coalition together, with messages such as "not me, us", articulating what to do and what the best shot is moving forward. Because he understood that he ran a political movement, and wasn't just an interchangeable pawn with no real positions that was fronted by the DNC. He recognizes that just because you lose doesn't mean the job is over. Harris knows at this point she doesn't have her own, unique message and her own popularity largely relies on the salience of the Democratic party; she lacks a selfless interest in the public good that we need to overcome fascism. While Sanders is sometimes accused of sounding repetitive in his speeches, this can actually be a virtue, as it demonstrates that he has a consistent message he believes in, unlike Harris' campaign in which her messaging seems to be constantly tested and refashioned by party consultants and focus groups to in a lofty attempt to be perfectly tailored to a given audience. It would be nice to see her continuing to be a loud, aggressive advocate for the political positions she ostensibly believes in, but she walked back a bunch of these during her campaign and mostly ran on the status quo. If Harris' bid of public service ends once her campaign does, yet she still has future ambitions, then quite frankly she doesn't have what it takes to be the candidate. Sanders didn't let it stop him; heck, even Trump didn't- he leveraged very famously not shutting up after decisively losing an election to win again in 2024.

The party ought to accept that the entire political climate is trending populist, not just the GOP, and the "adults in the room" or "back to normalcy" approach just won't be enough for long term victory. In the long term, the Democratic party will not be able to keep ahold of the country and its whims unless they understand that what people want to hear is bold, populist, transformative messaging. Part of where the 2024 campaign went wrong was that it wasn't fundamentally different than Biden's 2020 campaign, and Biden won in 2020 mostly because of Trump's own incompetence and unpopularity especially brought about by COVID, not due to the people so fervently longing for octogenerian, milquetoast centrist leadership. If nothing changes, this is the only way Harris would eke out a victory in 2028, Trump once again damaging the country so dramatically that the GOP becomes deeply unpopular, and while a Democratic victory would be great under any circumstances, I fear the party will continue to learn the wrong lessons and become utterly inept at defeating fascism. Additionally, it would be beneficial for the Democrats to poll candidate favorability based on popularity of the entire population- another area where Bernie shined, as he was favorable not just among Democrats but also independents and even some Trump voters, while Harris did not perform any better with these groups.

I'll also add that another lesson to be learned from Bernie is that ultimately, his strongest desire has always been to get regular people to be politically engaged. This was one of the biggest issues this election. The fact that Kamala Harris was MASSIVELY favored by those who already follow politics, combined with the shocking number of people who apparently didn't realize that Biden wasn't running anymore is a huge indicator of what we should be focusing on. Trying to appeal to conservatives or "moderate Republicans" who are almost always going vote red has lost the Dems two elections now. A better way to win elections is to actually provide progressive change accompanied by a compelling narrative and reach out to ordinary people who don’t participate in politics much, or at all.

 

[Biggles]

The Boomer age range is fuzzy since there's overlap, but Boomers right now are in their late 50s through early 70s. That's often the age group that has the highest turnout in an election. Of that 45-64 age group I'd be curious to see it broken out a bit more using 55 as the line rather than 64. I'm willing to bet the 44-54 age range isn't nearly as pro-Trump as the 55-64 range. Also, it's worth noting that the Fox News viewership is something like 70% over the age of 55, and that's not a channel that free and independent thinkers are watching. That also leads me to believe that the 45-64 age range should be split elsewhere.

It would probably be worth splitting out Boomers even more, too, since I'm guessing the closer you get to 75, the more even the split is. I'm guessing that 55-65 range is heavily in favor of Trump. Apparently, they've taken to calling themselves Generation Jones too and they set themselves apart from the Boomers.

You also need to look at what Boomers grew up with. America had a strong manufacturing economy where jobs were everywhere and you could make a ton of money while your wife stayed home with the kids. They didn't need college to build a career and could get out of high school, turn up at a factory, and make bank. They want that back because, to them, that signals prosperity. They also have this idea that "I pulled myself up by the bootstraps so why can't everyone" when it comes to any social change. Trump, by and large, exemplified that idea more than any other candidate. Even his tagline, "Make America Great Again," paints a picture of the post-war boom that carried into the mid-1970s.

Boomers and I suppose older Gen Xers grew up in a time period where women weren't in charge and neither were minorities. The world was dominated by white men for the most part. That's what they're used to and even if they were a Democrat, they might not have voted for a black woman. I think back to my grandpa who was about the most loyal Democrat imaginable, however he refused to vote for Obama because Obama was black. I used to work with a lot of union guys who were the same way, all diehard Democrats who refused to vote for Obama because Obama was black. It's not that they voted for McCain or Romney, but rather they just didn't vote.

The Boomer generation is entirely in their '60's (more mid '60's actually) and '70's now. Boomers belonged to the most revolutionary generation in the last 75 years. Boomers pretty much created the socially progressive movement: feminism, anti-racism, civil rights etc. But, obviously, they weren't a single monolithic block and depending on geography, education and class, Boomers, like every generation had a whole range of political positions.

What I understand about this election (from exit polls), is that the vote of Boomers was more or less 50/50 but there was a modest shift towards the Democrats. There was also a modest shift towards the Democrats among white voters - both men and woman. The vote of young people (18 - 29) shifted fairly significantly towards Trump. But the most significant shift in voting occurred among Latino voters, both males and female, where there was a large increase in the percentage of votes going to Trump (sian voters also moved towards Trump). Along with the Latino vote, the other very significant shift was the continued erosion of support for Democrats among non-college educated voters.

How voting demographics changed between 2020 and 2024 presidential elections

NBC News' exit polls show the differences in voting among various demographics from 2020 to 2024.

www.nbcwashington.com

 

[GranTurNismo]

Biden pardons his son Hunter:

President Biden pardons his son Hunter Biden | CNN Politics

President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who faced sentencing this month on gun crime and tax convictions, marking a reversal as he prepares to leave office.

amp.cnn.com

 

[Kriptical]

Biden pardons his son Hunter:

President Biden pardons his son Hunter Biden | CNN Politics

President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who faced sentencing this month on gun crime and tax convictions, marking a reversal as he prepares to leave office.

amp.cnn.com

Good for him.

 

[McLaren]

I'm pretty sure he said he wouldn't but since Trump has shown since becoming President-elect that he's still got going to show any sign of respect towards the office, I think Biden's more than right to decide to actually pardon Hunter.

 

[MisterWaffles]

I mean considering Trump has stated he plans to pardon literal insurrectionists, this is very small fish. But nope, Biden is the corrupt one for pardoning his family members, which Trump TOTALLY wouldn't do if his children were caught committing crimes... Totally.

Remember, the Biden crime family has one member facing tax and firearms convictions, while the Trumps are literal saints and have never done anything wrong or been convicted of any crimes before, ever.

 

[GranTurNismo]

Trump nominates Kash Patel for director of the NSA, and this is undoubtedly one of his most dangerous picks. Here's why:

Kash Patel was dangerous. On this both Trump appointees and career officials could agree. A 40-year-old lawyer with little government experience, he joined the administration in 2019 and rose rapidly. Each new title set off new alarms. When Patel was installed as chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense just after the 2020 election, Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, advised him not to break the law in order to keep President Donald Trump in power. “Life looks really ****** from behind bars,” Milley reportedly told Patel. (Patel denies this.) When Trump entertained naming Patel deputy director of the FBI, Attorney General Bill Barr confronted the White House chief of staff and said, “Over my dead body.” When, in the final weeks of the administration, Trump planned to name Patel deputy director of the CIA, Gina Haspel, the agency’s head, threatened to resign. Trump relented only after an intervention by Vice President Mike Pence and others. Who was this man, and why did so many top officials fear him? It wasn’t a question of ideology. He wasn’t a zealot like Stephen Miller, trying to make the bureaucracy yield to his agenda. Rather, Patel appeared singularly focused on pleasing Trump. Even in an administration full of loyalists, Patel was exceptional in his devotion. This was what seemed to disturb many of his colleagues the most: Patel was dangerous, several of them told me, not because of a certain plan he would be poised to carry out if given control of the CIA or FBI, but because he appeared to have no plan at all—his priorities today always subject to a mercurial president’s wishes tomorrow. (Patel disputes this characterization.)

Such is the present dynamic of Kash Patel’s life: marketing “Orange Man Bad” Punisher-skull license plates and dubious supplements while fielding questions about which major national-security or law-enforcement agency he might soon like to run. “Kash, I know you’re probably going to be head of the CIA,” Steve Bannon said on his podcast, War Room, this past December. “But do you believe that you can deliver the goods on this in pretty short order, the first couple of months, so we can get rolling on prosecutions?” Bannon was talking here about “receipts,” the supposedly incriminating documents and emails that a second Trump administration would use to bring cases against deep-state dwellers and members of the press. Patel expressed no doubt about his capacity to deliver the goods. “We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media,” he said. “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections—we’re going to come after you.” “A lot of people say he’s crazy,” Trump once said of Patel, according to the longtime adviser. “I think he’s kind of crazy. But sometimes you need a little crazy.”

By the winter of 2018, Republicans had lost the House, and Schiff was set to take over the intelligence committee. Patel later wrote that Nunes, as promised, urged Trump to hire his protégé onto the National Security Council. According to Patel, when Trump realized just whom Nunes was referring to—the man who “had saved his presidency by revealing the unprecedented political hit job designed to take him down”—he ordered his chief of staff to onboard Patel at once. Former administration officials told me that, from his first days as a staffer on the National Security Council, in February 2019, Patel was fixated on trying to get face time with Trump. He had a script, and it wasn’t long before many of his colleagues could recite it themselves: “Mr. President, the deep state is out to get you,” as the longtime Trump adviser paraphrased it, “and I’m going to save you from it.” Five months into his tenure, Patel was made the senior director of the NSC’s counterterrorism directorate. Much has been written about Patel’s year on the National Security Council, including the early suspicions among his colleagues that he was funneling information about Ukraine directly to Trump, outside official channels. In the former president’s first impeachment inquiry, the NSC official Fiona Hill testified about learning from another colleague that Trump apparently viewed Patel as the council’s director on Ukraine policy, though his portfolio had nothing to do with Ukraine. Hill said she had been sufficiently alarmed to report the conversation to her superior and then warn her colleagues to be “very careful” in their communications with Patel. “Let’s just say it’s a red flag,” she testified, “when somebody who you barely know is involved on one of your policy issues” and “clearly providing materials outside of the line”—particularly when she didn’t know what those materials were. Patel has repeatedly denied ever discussing Ukraine with Trump. In his rendering, his colleagues were jealous of his close relationship with the president and still hated him for the Russia investigation. Not only was the deep state’s plot against him still in motion, Patel seemed to decide, but it had expanded. For the most part, this is how he explains the rest of his time in the Trump administration, why it is that at virtually every turn—from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to the Department of Defense to very nearly the FBI and CIA—there emerges yet another crop of officials who object to his accrual of power. It could not possibly be the case, for example, that Bill Barr harbored genuine concerns about Patel’s qualifications to serve as deputy FBI director: In Patel’s version of events, Barr was simply one more top bureaucrat bent on foiling Patel’s success as payback for the “mess” he’d exposed in their agency. And if this narrative begins to feel less and less plausible, if Patel’s latest detractors have to date seemed as reliably pro-Trump as Patel himself—well, that just goes to show their cunning.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazin...patel-trump-national-security-council/679566/ (paywalled)