US totalitarian thought police have been shocked and driven mad enough to incinerate the planet simply because it doesn't occur to millions of Russians that they should be forced to be a US colony-Alastair Crooke, 8/20/2018

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Russia’s “‘return’ is driving men and woman literally mad–mad enough, even to risk a catastrophic war, rather than to relinquish the myth of America’s Manifest Destiny.…The United States must lead–or more properly, has the duty to coerce–mankind toward that future.”…The Deep State considers “global conflict as the price to pay for maintaining its largesse from the US taxpayer. Continuous warfare is its only business product.”

Aug. 20, 2018, “The Metaphysics to Our Present Global Anguish,” Alastair Crooke, Strategic Culture

“James Jatras, a former US diplomat poses a highly pertinent question in his piece Lenin Updated: Firstly, he says, President Trump meets with President Putin and appears to make some progress in easing bilateral tensions. “Immediately all hell breaks loose: Trump is called a traitor. The ‘sanctions bill from hell’ is introduced in the Senate, and Trump is forced onto the defensive”.

Next, Senator Rand Paul goes to meet with Putin in Moscow, Jatras notes. Paul hands over a letter from the US President proposing moderate steps towards détente. Rand Paul then meets with, and invites Russian Senators to Washington, to continue the dialogue: “Immediately all hell breaks loose. Paul is called a traitor. The state Department ‘finds’ the Russians guilty of using illegal chemical weapons [allegedly on a doorknob] (in UK)…and imposes sanctions. Trump is forced even more on the defensive.”

Clearly, from the very outset, Trump has been “perceived by the globalist neo-liberal order as a mortal danger to the system which has enriched them” Jatras observes. The big question that Jatras poses in the wake of these events, is

how could such collective hysteria have blossomed in to such visceral hostility,

that parts of the ‘Anglo’ establishment are ready to intensify hostilities toward Russia-

even to the point of risking “a catastrophic, uncontainable [nuclear] conflict”.

How is it that the élite’s passion ‘to save globalism’ is so completely overwhelming

that it demands their risking human extinction?…

The Jacobin revolutionaries launched the Terror as a violent retribution for élite repression–inspired by Rousseau’s Enlightenment humanism; the Trotskyite Bolsheviks murdered millions in the name of reforming humanity through Scientific Empiricism; the Nazis did similar, in the name of pursuing ‘Scientific (Darwinian) Racism’….

World redemption from its state of corruption was to be brought into being through Enlightenment

principles of rationality and science.

Peace was expected to ensue, after the End Time….

The American millenarian ‘myth’, then and now, was (and is), rooted in the fervent belief in the Manifest Destiny of the United States, ‘the New Jerusalem’, to represent humanity’s best hope for a utopian future. This belief in a special destiny has been reflected in

a conviction that the United States must lead–or more properly,

has the duty to coerce–mankind toward that future….

[6/2/2007, “The beginning of my own sense of separation from the Bush [#2] administration came in January 2005, when the president declared that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation. This was at once so utopian and so aggressive that it shocked me.” Peggy Noonan, Wall St. Journal, “Too bad.”]

(continuing): “The aim is a global, cosmopolitan society disembarrassed of religion, national culture and community, gender and social class. Processes of

toleration that, formerly, were construed as essential to freedom

have undergone an Orwellian metamorphosis to emerge as their antonyms: as instruments, rather, of repression.

Any national leader standing against this project, any contrary national culture, or national pride displayed in a nation’s achievements,

plainly constitutes an obstacle to this prospective universal realm–

and must be destroyed.

In other words, today’s millenarians

may eschew the guillotine, but they are explicitly coercive–

albeit, in a different manner—

through the progressive ‘capture’ of narrative,

and of state institutions.

In short, a global space is being sought that would recognise

only an international global humanity–much as the Trotskyites wanted. 

So, how is it, precisely, that Russia and Mr Putin has come to constitute the antithesis to the utopian project, and

the trigger to such fear and hysteria amongst the globalist élites?…

Henry Kissinger says the mistake the West (and NATO) is making “is to think

that there is a sort of historic evolution that will march across Eurasia –

and not to understand that somewhere on that march

it will encounter something–

very different to a Westphalian [western idea of a liberal democratic and market orientated state] entity.”…

But what really riles the globalists is the contemporary trend,

manifested most particularly, by Russia,

towards a pluralism which privileges one’s culture, history, religiosity

and ties of blood, land and language –”…

[7/3/2013, “WSJ Attacks ‘Blood-and-Soil‘ Republicans over Opposition to Immigration Bill,” Joel B. Pollak, Breitbart…

July 4, 2013-If you merely want a US southern border to exist, Wall St. Journal labels you a member of the “blood and soil” wing: “The Wall Street Journal editorial page has attacked opposition to the immigration bill that passed in the Senate last week, urging the Republican-led House to “improve” the bill, “not kill it.” The bill’s border security provisions, the Journal argued, were not weak, as conservatives had charged, but were “wretched excess,” the result of “the Republican party letting its blood-and-soil wing trump its supposedly free-market principles.” It might seem odd to attack “blood-and-soil” conservatives (a phrase of Nazi provenance, evidently) on the eve of July 4th. But one need not wave the American flag or protest the obviously offensive connotations of the insult to defeat the Journal’s arguments for the Senate bill. By arguing that economic growth should drive immigration reform, the Journal actually undermines the “Gang of Eight” legislation it attempts to defend.”…

July 3, 1984, “In praise of huddled masses:” “If Washington still wants to “do something” about immigration, we propose a five-word constitutional amendment: There shall be open borders."…Wall St. Journal Editorial Board]

(continuing): “and which sees in this

re-appropriation of traditional values, the path to the re-sovereigntisation of a particular people.

The Russian ‘Eurasian’ notion is one of different cultures, autonomous, and sovereign, which, at least implicitly, constitutes a rejection of the Latin theology of equality, and reductive universalism (i.e. achieved through Redemption.)

The idea rather, is of a grouping of ‘nations’, each reaching back to its primordial cultures and identities –

i.e. Russia being ‘Russian’ in its own ‘Russian cultural way’ –

and not permitting itself to be coerced into mimicking the westernisation impulse.

What makes a wider grouping of Eurasian nations feasible is that cultural identities are complex and storied: It escapes the prevailing obsession to reduce every nation to a singularity in value, and to a singularity of ‘meaning’. The ground for

collaboration and conversation thus widens beyond ‘the either-or’, to the differing strata of complex identities–and interests.

Why should this seem so ‘diabolical’ to the western global élites? Why all the hysteria?…

What had been imagined as defeated, beyond recovery, is cautiously arising out from our crumbled ruins. The wheel of time turns, and comes around, again. It may all fare badly–the mode of linear

one-track thinking implanted in the West does have an inbuilt

propensity towards totalitarianism. We shall see….

Today, we have a wave of still inchoate ‘otherness’ emerging from the deepest levels of human psyche to hurl itself onto the rocks of Enlightenment self-certainty. The tensions and the hysteria, follow in a similar way.

Its ‘return’ is driving men and woman literally mad–mad enough,

even to risk a catastrophic war, rather than to relinquish

the myth of America’s Manifest Destiny,

or even to acknowledge the flaws to their radically disjunctive way of thinking

about a world that must be brought to some global convergence.”

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Representatives of US military dictatorship grotesquely cheer Zelensky, just another guy they’re using to bleed US taxpayers to death along with labeling millions of innocent Russians “inhuman”

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“In remarks at a press conference with Biden earlier in the day, Zelensky, using Nazi-like language, referred to the Russian people as “inhumans.””

[Image: 12/21/22, To our great embarrassment, representatives of US taxpayers wildly cheer Zelensky. “Zelenskiy tells US Congress Ukraine is ‘alive and kicking’ despite Russian ‘tyranny’,” UK Guardian]

12/22/2022, “Biden uses Zelensky to whip up pro-war frenzy,” Andre Damon, wsws.org

“On Wednesday [12/21], a US military aircraft flew Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Washington to meet with US President Joe Biden and address a joint session of Congress, where he called for [US taxpayer funded] “absolute victory” against Russia.

The prime-time speech, broadcast on all the major networks, was

a massive exercise in war propaganda. Biden invited Zelensky to Washington as part of

an effort to condition American public opinion

[Image: 11/5/22, Texas border: “For the fifth day in a row, our thermal drone team witnessed another huge group of migrants crossing illegally into Normandy, TX before sunrise this AM. Same spot & time, every day. No resistance on MX side, & on U.S. side, they crawl under a chain fence TX put up"]

to accept the White House’s escalation of the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine.

Zelensky gave a proxy speech, scripted by the White House, for a proxy war.

The speech aimed to tug at the heartstrings of the American public,

even evoking the Revolutionary War battle of Saratoga—

about which the former Ukrainian comedian certainly had never heard of before reading the address that had written for him by a Biden administration speechwriter.

Such appeals were accompanied by racist incitement against the Russian population, the likes of which were never heard in Washington even during the Cold War. In remarks

at a press conference with Biden earlier in the day, Zelensky, using Nazi-like language,

referred to the Russian people as “inhumans.”

Before Congress, he declared that they were “poisoned by the Kremlin” and proclaimed Russia a “terrorist state.”  

This language was greeted with effusive cheers and multiple standing ovations

by the vast majority of members of both parties.

The entire speech was cynically staged

to evoke UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s December 1941 address to Congress,

with Russian President Putin cast as Adolf Hitler and

Zelensky playing the role of British prime minister.

The US media played along with and promoted this degrading and reactionary spectacle. In the extensive commentary before and after the address, none of the media pundits mentioned

the fact that “absolute victory” over Russia can only be achieved through

a full-scale war by the [taxpayers of ]United States against nuclear-armed Russia.

The purpose of this spectacle was to market the US-NATO war against Russia

as a redux of World War II, a new “good war.” 

Not a single question was asked about the dangers of relentless escalation, or even the financial and social impact within the United States of the massive sums being spent.

Nor did anyone ask why members of Congress shouted “Slava Ukraini,” or “Glory to Ukraine,” a slogan used by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukraine Insurgent Army (UPA),

which were aligned with Nazi Germany during World War II and participated in the Holocaust and anti-Jewish pogroms.

For all the invocation of Churchill, the British prime minister

never got the level of unconditional support that is being handed over to the Ukrainian government.

In his press conference with Zelensky earlier in the day, Biden pledged that

the United States would support Ukraine for “as long as it takes.”

[Image: 12/22/22, El Paso, Texas, near border crossing, CBS News, @camiloreports]

Zelenksy’s trip was accompanied by an announcement that the [US taxpayers] Biden administration will be sending a Patriot missile system to Ukraine, the most advanced weapons deployed to the conflict to date.

Zelensky’s speech was also part of a campaign to justify a massive $45 billion infusion of weaponry to the country, currently waiting final passage by the US House and Senate.

Despite “partisan gridlock,” when it comes to handing out virtually unlimited sums

for war, the entire Congress 

snaps to attention,  

with the Democratic Party in the lead.

The US is drawing ever deeper and more inexorably into war. By deploying Patriot missiles to Ukraine, Washington is

giving Ukraine the ability to strike aircraft deep in Russian territory….

The administration is now plunging the population of Europe, the United States and the entire world into a new “forever war,” with potentially catastrophic consequences.

In the midst of this day-long propaganda barrage in Washington, Biden admitted that some of his European allies are concerned that the actions being carried out by the US could lead to a full-scale nuclear exchange.

Asked by a reporter why the US did not simply provide all of the weapons requested by Zelensky, Biden replied, “The idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO.”

Biden said of the US’s NATO allies, “They’re not looking to go to war with Russia. They’re not looking for a third World War.” Biden’s choice of pronouns is significant. He used “They,” not “We.”

Given that the Kremlin has declared that US Patriot launchers are a “legitimate target,” what will happen if these weapons are attacked on the territory of a NATO country? Or what will happen

if, during an attack on weapons shipments inside Ukraine,

a group of US soldiers overseeing the weapons deployment is killed?”…

 

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In 1995 ‘America First’ Rep. Traficant proposed moving 10,000 US troops from Europe and placing them on US Southern border. 14 yrs later, desperate Americans remembered, shouting “President Traficant!” at 2009 Tea Party rally-Chronicles 1996, Bus. Journal 2009

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Sept. 1, 2009, “Traficant Draws Cheers at TEA Party," businessjournaldaily.com, Traficant spoke at Ohio Tea [Taxed Enough Already] Party rally on issues of the border and trade. “”I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Traficant said as cheers erupted. “I’ve made a lot of enemies, and if I make one wrong move, they’ll put me back in jail for three more years.” The crowd interrupted with shouts of “President Traficant” and “We’re behind you. Jim.“”…(Jim Traficant died in 2014).

…………………………..

In 1995 Rep. Traficant introduced legislation authorizing the Pentagon to redeploy American troops stationed in Europe to the US Southern border to assist understaffed law enforcement in stopping the flood of criminals pouring over the US Southern border:

May 1, 1996, “America First," James Traficant, Democratic member of US Congress, Chronicles Magazine (subscription)

“Protecting Our Borders

Last year [1995] I introduced legislation that would authorize the Pentagon to redeploy American troops stationed in Europe to assist federal law enforcement officials patrolling America’s Southern border. Every day dangerous criminals pour into our country through our border with Mexico—unchallenged.

My bill authorizes the Secretary of Defense—at the request of the Attorney General—to transfer up to 10,000 American troops stationed in Europe back to the United States to assist the Border Patrol and the Immigration and Naturalization Service

in preventing illegal aliens, drug traffickers, and terrorists from entering our country.

The bill would also allow American troops to assist the Customs Service in inspecting cargo, vehicles, and aircraft at points of entry into the United States.

Let’s be candid. The Border Patrol has only 3,800 personnel to guard the two longest borders of one of the largest countries of the world. Reports indicate that, at any given time, only 800 patrolmen are available to protect our 2,000 mile border with Mexico.

Congress has failed to provide funding to enlarge the Border Patrol,

and until Congress can find the money,

this military option is the best short-term way to address this shortage of personnel.

We have hundreds of thousands of troops deployed throughout the world

protecting European, Asian, and Latin American nations.

If the Pentagon can send hundreds of thousands of American troops to protect our allies,

it should be able to spare 10,000 military personnel to protect America….

Foreign Lobbying Laws

Last spring I testified before a House panel on behalf of my proposal to toughen federal registration requirements for foreign lobbyists. The American people have a right to know who is getting paid by foreign interests to influence our government. My bill would close the loopholes that exist in current law and end the secrecy surrounding foreign lobbying.

According to a 1990 General Accounting Office report on the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA), of the thousands of known foreign lobbyists in the country, only 775 foreign agents actually registered with the Justice Department. The report detailed a number of other problems associated with FARA. Unfortunately, since the report was released, neither the Justice Department nor Congress has rectified this breach of security….

The term “foreign agent” was originally used to identify foreign principals in America who were spreading foreign propaganda and organizing political activities. As a result, many individuals and law firms representing foreign interests are exempt from registration under the act. My bill substitutes the term “representative of a foreign interest” for “foreign agent,” thus broadening the definition and closing a loophole. FARA also provides certain exemptions to registration including commercial activities. Foreign agents, for example, are not required to notify the Justice Department’s Registration Unit to claim an exemption, making it difficult for the Justice Department to determine who should be registered.

All such exemptions need to be terminated. My bill also cracks down on those foreign agents who fail to register with the Justice Department in a timely fashion, which is a serious problem today. Of the 28 registration statements reviewed in the GAO report, a whopping 68 percent had not registered on time. My bill would subject any person who has failed to file, omitted information, or lied about the facts of his foreign lobbying to a minimum fine of $2,000 and a maximum fine of one million dollars.

Buy American

In June 1995, the House approved my Buy American amendment to legislation authorizing funds for the Pentagon. My amendment was designed to end preferential treatment in Pentagon procurements

for products made in countries that discriminate against American firms.

The thrust of my amendment is very simple: countries that keep their government contracts off-limits to American firms will get the same treatment from Uncle Sam.

The United States has entered into a number of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA]. Companies from countries that have signed these agreements can get preferential treatment when bidding on American government contracts. Under my amendment, if a country discriminates against American firms, the Pentagon terminates the preferential treatment in procurement for products made in that country.

Fair Trade

I am the ranking Democrat on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee [1996], and last summer the House approved my provisions to the “Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1995.” The bill deregulates the ocean shipping industry and would eliminate the Federal Maritime Commission, the independent federal agency that currently regulates ocean shipping, by the end of fiscal year 1997. The FMC’s remaining functions would be transferred to the United States Department of Transportation.

My provision strengthens federal laws governing unfair trade practices of foreign carriers and governments. It targets foreign carriers that are financially or organizationally affiliated with large, diversified, but vertically integrated interests. Carriers owned and operated in this fashion are like government-owned carriers, in that they may not have a pure profit motive—giving them an unfair competitive advantage. Current law does not allow our government to take action against these types of foreign carriers if they engage in unfair pricing practices that harm American shippers. It also gives the DOT the authority to take action against these carriers.

Some foreign shippers and at least one American newspaper have raised concerns about my provision. They have the mistaken impression that my provision allows the United States government to regulate the rates of foreign ship lines suspected of unfair pricing. This is not the case. My provision allows the U.S. Secretary of Transportation—after an investigation and public hearing—to seek remedies if the secretary finds that an ocean carrier is or has been financially affiliated with nontransportation entities—government or private—in such a way that disadvantages American carriers. The remedies authorized under my provision are the same as currently exist for government-controlled carriers that are engaging in unfair practices. Why should unfair or anticompetitive marketplace behavior by one class of carriers be treated any differently from that of another?

Some have also suggested that my provision was prompted by pressure from the American shipping lobby. Such accusations are insulting, to say the least. Anyone who has followed my career knows that I have been an outspoken and active voice for strong government action to combat illegal and damaging foreign trade practices. In working with my Republican colleagues on this legislation, one of my main interests was ensuring that deregulation of the ocean shipping industry and the elimination of the FMC did not result in a diminished effort by the United States to fight foreign carriers that engaged in unfair and predatory trade practices. That was the only driving force behind my amendment. American carriers and shippers learned of my provision only after a draft of the bill was supplied to their representatives, and to every other ocean shipping interest. I am pleased, however, that they support my provision.

As far as the protests of foreign shipping line executives are concerned, I have this message: play fair and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

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State Dept. sought to get Jack Dorsey to help US build fake “Cuban twitter” during Obama’s first term. US ran fake internet sites hoping to stir unrest against Cuban government-AP, 4/3/2014

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“Suzanne Hall, then a State Department official working on [then Sec. of State Hillary] Clinton’s social media efforts, helped spearhead an attempt to get Twitter founder Jack Dorsey to take over the ZunZuneo project. Dorsey declined to comment.” [paragraph 18]. The project ran from 2009 to mid 2012.…US “recruited CEOs without telling them they would be working on a U.S. taxpayer-funded project.”

4/3/2014, “U.S. secretly built ‘Cuban Twitter’ to stir unrest," Associated Press via Politico

“ZunZuneo’s organizers wanted the social network to grow slowly to avoid detection by the Cuban government. Eventually, documents and interviews reveal, they hoped the network would reach critical mass so that dissidents could organize “smart mobs”--mass gatherings called at a moment’s notice--

that could trigger political demonstrations, or

“renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society.”…

Suzanne Hall, then a State Department official working on Clinton’s social media efforts, helped spearhead an attempt to get Twitter founder Jack Dorsey to take over the ZunZuneo project. Dorsey declined to comment….[paragraph 18]

At a 2011 speech at George Washington University, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. helps people in “oppressive Internet environments get around filters.” Noting Tunisia’s role in the Arab Spring, she said people used technology to help

“fuel a movement that led to revolutionary change.”…

The U.S. government masterminded the creation of a “Cuban Twitter”–a communications network designed to undermine the communist government in Cuba, built with secret shell companies and financed through foreign banks, The Associated Press has learned.

The project, which lasted more than two years and drew tens of thousands of subscribers, sought to evade Cuba’s stranglehold on the Internet….First, the network would build a Cuban audience, mostly young people;

then, the plan was to push them toward dissent.

Yet its users were neither aware it was created by a U.S. agency with ties to the State Department, nor that American contractors were gathering personal data about them, in the hope that the information

might be used someday for political purposes.

It is unclear whether the scheme was legal under U.S. law, which requires written authorization of covert action by the president and congressional notification. Officials at USAID would not say who had approved the program or whether the White House was aware of it. The Cuban government declined a request for comment.

At minimum, details uncovered by the AP appear to muddy the U.S. Agency for International Development’s longstanding claims that it does not conduct covert actions….

USAID and its contractors went to extensive lengths to conceal Washington’s ties to the project, according to interviews and documents obtained by the AP. They set up front companies in Spain and the Cayman Islands to hide the money trail, and recruited CEOs

without telling them they would be working on

a U.S. taxpayer-funded project….

The project, dubbed “ZunZuneo,”...was publicly launched shortly after the 2009 arrest in Cuba of American contractor Alan Gross. He was imprisoned after traveling repeatedly to the country on a separate, clandestine USAID mission to expand Internet access using sensitive technology that only governments use….

USAID told the AP that ZunZuneo stopped in September 2012 when a government grant ended.”...

“Contributing to this report were Associated Press researcher Monika Mathur and AP writers Lara Jakes, Deb Riechmann and Donna Cassata in Washington, and AP writers Andrea Rodriguez and Peter Orsi in Havana. Arce reported from Tegucigalpa, Honduras.”

 

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DeSantis takes 5-point lead over Trump in primary matchup in YouGov poll, Dec. 1-Dec. 5, 2022. Die-hard GOP voters favor Trump while independents and Republican leaners prefer DeSantis. (Trump won in 2016 w. former Obama voters)

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Registered Republicans and Republican leaners choose DeSantis over Trump by 47% to 42% margin. YouGov poll, Dec. 1 to 5, 2022, online poll of 1635 adults, 2.6 error margin, poll weighted 32% Democratic, 27% Republican. No Republican can win the presidency with die-hard Republicans alone, there aren’t enough of them. Trump won in 2016 because of millions of former Obama voters in Rust Belt states. But as of Dec. 2022, these essential non-Establishment voters, “those who identify as “not very strong Republicans” or “independents who lean Republican” favor DeSantis: 

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“DeSantis leads Trump 44% to 32% among those who identify as “not very strong Republicans” or independents who lean Republican (19% of adults).”...“Trump leads among those who identify as “strong” Republicans” 53%-39% (17% of adults)."…

12/8/22, “Poll: DeSantis surges to 5-point lead over weakened Trump in 2024 primary matchup,” Andrew Romano, Yahoo News

“A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll finds that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis now leads former President Donald Trump by 5 percentage points in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

Trump previously led DeSantis by double-digit margins among

registered voters who describe themselves as

Republicans or Republican-leaning independents.

Meanwhile, DeSantis is ahead by even more–a whopping 11 points–among Americans who say they

voted in a 2016 Republican primary or caucus in their state.

The poll of 1,635 U.S. adults, which was conducted from Dec. 1 to 5, is one of the first to confirm how far and fast Trump’s political stock has fallen in the weeks since he announced his own comeback White House bid just days after his party’s historically poor performance in the 2022 midterm elections. During that period, many conservatives blamed Trump for blowing key pickup opportunities — including this week’s Senate runoff in Georgia — and criticized the former president for hosting avowed antisemites at Mar-a-Lago and calling for the “termination” of the Constitution….

When asked in mid-October who they “would rather see” as the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, 45% of registered voters who are Republicans or Republican leaners said Trump. Thirty-six percent said DeSantis.

Asked now which of the two candidates they would “vote for” if their state’s primary or caucus were held today, the same group says DeSantis by a 47% to 42% margin—a net swing of 14 percentage points in DeSantis’s direction over the span of six eventful weeks.

Likewise, more Republican voters now say they want to see “someone else” (43%) as the GOP nominee instead of Trump (41%) — an 8-point decline for Trump (from 49%) and a 6-point increase for someone else (from 37%) since mid-October.

Yahoo News and YouGov did not create a formal “likely voter” model for this poll. Instead, respondents were asked if they voted in their state’s 2016 Republican primary or caucus — one of several possible predictors of future voting behavior.

Among the 24% of U.S. adults who say they cast a GOP primary or caucus vote in 2016, DeSantis already claims majority support (51%) in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, while Trump lags far behind (40%)….

The former president leads the Florida governor 53% to 39% among those who identify as “strong” Republicans (17% of adults)….

At the same time, however,

DeSantis leads Trump

44% to 32%

among those who identify as

“not very strong Republicans” or independents who lean Republican (19% of adults)–

a sign that the composition of the primary electorate may be crucial if the two candidates do wind up duking it out in 2024.

Regardless, the fact that DeSantis has already started to surpass his party’s dominant figure — without even announcing a presidential bid of his own — is an important development.

Even in a more crowded field, the Floridian still performs surprisingly well. When offered a choice of nine potential candidates,

just 35% of Republican voters currently pick Trump —

10 points less than the 45% of GOP primary voters who cast their ballots for him in 2016’s fractured GOP nominating contest.

Nearly as many (33%) choose DeSantis.

Meanwhile, those numbers are just as close among adults who say they are likely to vote in a 2024 Republican primary or caucus: 38% for Trump to 36% for DeSantis. Among those who say they

actually voted in a 2016 Republican primary or caucus in their state, DeSantis is ahead 36% to 34%.

Unlike in 2016–when a succession of Republican candidates split the anti-Trump primary vote, dividing the opposition and enabling Trump to secure the GOP nomination without majority support–there is so far

little indication that any other potential Trump challenger

can compete with DeSantis.

Among all Republican and Republican-leaning voters, former Vice President Mike Pence (5%), former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley (5%), Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (2%), former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (2%), former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (2%), outgoing Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (1%) and outgoing Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney (2%) barely register.

[In chart below, only Democrats show increased approval of Trump:]

All of which underscores how good the last month has been for DeSantis, who won reelection on Nov. 8 by 19 percentage points, and how bad it has been for Trump. In mid-June — the last time Yahoo News and YouGov asked the question–Trump’s favorable rating was underwater by 10 points (43% favorable, 53% unfavorable). Today, it is underwater by 15 (40% favorable, 55% unfavorable). That 5-point shift is almost twice the poll’s 2.6% margin of error.

And the biggest decline

came among those

who say they have a “very favorable” opinion of Trump–

a group that shrunk a full 7 percentage points (from 25% to 18%).

Perhaps most worrisome for the former president as he embarks on yet another run for the GOP presidential nomination is that even most Republicans no longer have a “very favorable” opinion of him. In June, a majority (54%) of them did. Now that number is 12 points lower (42%).

Relatedly, most Republicans said in late October that Trump would be a stronger (57%) rather than weaker (19%) presidential candidate in 2024 than he was in 2020. Today, that 38-point gap has collapsed to 13 points, with less than half of Republicans now saying Trump would be stronger (45%) and nearly a third (32%) saying he would be weaker.

Asked who has a “better chance” of winning the 2024 presidential election,

48% of Republican voters say DeSantis,

compared to just 39% for Trump.

This finding suggests that at least some of DeSantis’s growing GOP support may stem from the perception that Trump is likely to lose again in two years’ time.

The poll itself provides some tentative proof of Trump’s weakness in a general election rematch–especially relative to DeSantis.

If the 2024 election were held today, registered voters

would prefer President Biden to Trump by a 45% to 42% margin.

DeSantis, however, is tied with Biden at 44% apiece.”…

……………………………….

“The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,635 U.S. adults interviewed online from Dec. 1 to 5, 2022. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given prior to March 15, 2022, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time

(32% Democratic, 27% Republican). [32+27=59. This must mean that 41% of voters polled are unaffiliated and don’t lean toward either party.]

Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 2.6%.”

 

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Christmas in Appalachia: CBS News Special Report with Charles Kuralt, 1965

 .

“Christmas in Appalachia: A CBS News Special Report with Charles Kuralt," 1965, Whitesburg, Letcher County, Kentucky

“Describes the hard work, hope and strength of one million people living in the desolation of Appalachia as exemplified by the abandoned coal-mining community of Whitesburg, Letcher County, Kentucky in 1965.” Text from You Tube page

Above map, Appalachian Region of the United States

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