Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Wednesday August 26 2020, @08:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the plans-going-up-in-smoke dept.

Trump Is Petrified That Pro-Weed Forces Will Roast Him:

The president and some of his team, already obsessed with the potential drop-off of various demographic groups that make up his battered coalition, have begun openly worrying that the drive to legalize or decriminalize marijuana might hurt him and fellow Republicans at the ballot box.

According to two GOP strategists who've independently discussed the topic with Trump this year, the president believes that inclusion of marijuana initiatives on state ballots could supercharge turnout for voters who lean toward Democratic candidates and causes. The president, according to one of the sources, asked for updates on critical swing-states that could see such ballot measures in the 2020 elections.

"The president is keenly aware of how presidential elections [nowadays]... can be won at the margins," one of the Republican strategists said. "The pot issue is one of many that he thinks could be a danger... He once told me it would be very 'smart' for the Democrat[ic] Party to get as many of these on the ballot as they could."

Decades ago, Trump had publicly advocated full-on legalization, arguing that "we're losing badly the war on drugs," and that "you have to legalize drugs to win that war. You have to take the profit away from these drug czars." During this iteration of his political identity, he put the blame on politicians who "don't have any guts" to tackle drug legalization.

But by his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had come out "strongly" against legal weed. By the time he reached the Oval Office, he was enthusiastically proposing executing drug dealers by firing squad. And his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, revoked an Obama-era guidance that discouraged the feds from prosecuting marijuana-based criminal cases in states where it was legal.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @07:13PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @07:13PM (#1042321)

    A great statesman, we just didn't know it at the time

    Just because someone much, much worse than Dubya took office doesn't make him less of a war criminal.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @11:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @11:59PM (#1042449)

    I wouldn't say Obama was much worse, only just on par in the evils department.

  • (Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday August 27 2020, @07:00AM (1 child)

    by istartedi (123) on Thursday August 27 2020, @07:00AM (#1042584) Journal

    Indeed. The rehabilitation of W in the minds of so many Democrats is one of the most mind boggling facets of our current politics. I guess political loathing is governed by an inverse cube law over time or something. How many multi-decade, multi $trillion, 100s of thousands of lives lost wars has Trump gotten us into? What kind of TSA has Trump started? Did he sign the Patriot Act, or what?

    Oh, but Trump lacks presidential bearing, so suddenly they miss W. WTF?

    --
    Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
    • (Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Thursday August 27 2020, @11:24AM

      by gtomorrow (2230) on Thursday August 27 2020, @11:24AM (#1042624)

      Nixon was buried as "a great statesman." Trump will (eventually) be interred as "a global peacemaker and a man of the people."

      Draw your own conclusions.