To me, the 'close win' was an indication of things to come. If you look back the same locales that provided the late nite miracle of 2020 were also very late in returning their totals in 2016. To me, that means they were trying desperately to accumulate enough 'ballots' via their historical fraud schemes but had not prepared for the tsunami of support Trump amassed with his populist campaign. For once they were unprepared - and vowed to never allow that to happen again.

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constant staffing chaos,

ok - fair enough - but Trump was a real 'rookie' at knowing the depth of the swamp he planned to drain - and there are MANY 'gopers' who arr wholeheartedly or significantly compromised with the history of that quagmire. Being an outsider, he did not know the 'lay of the land' sufficiently to weed all this out in the initial staffing. I was as surprised at the many duds as he was - I was in agreement with most of his initial choices, and dumbfounded when they didn't deliver as needed.

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embarrassing tweets, infighting

totally agree - he is not a statesman - he is a warrior. Wish he could be both. those are very rare and certainly none anywhere in the opposition camp.

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incompetence in getting his agenda passed

thank you Paul Ryan (another huge disappointment) and John McCain (once revered, long known as a piece of shite) Without those two, I think the first two years would have been even greater.

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complete unwillingness to appeal to anyone except his hardcore base

I call that sticking to his principles. He pursued what he promised in the campaign with a dogged concentration I've not witnessed in my past 6 decades of political awareness. And, I might add, with the concentrated opposition never before witnessed in the history of the nation outside of Lincoln. Trumps 'appeal' was that he wanted America to fulfill its destiny, not become another cog in generating an ever-growing bureaucracy. I still admire him for that. That 'hardcore base' is the very soul of America. The fact there are so few is testament to the insidious inroads the opponents of freedom have made over the past half century.

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40 seat loss in the 2018 midterms

Surely a disaster - and it is testament to the power of the journaiists in shaping public opinion. The "russia

oh hell - I just deleted the remainder of this because of my 'thumbs on the keyboard'

IF you are interested, I;ll pick it back up and try to recreate -

but if not = this is enough for now

times for a coffee refill -