I’m of two minds in writing this post, since anything short of Trump demonization is bizarrely treated as if it were support. And in the closing hours of the 2020 campaign, it’s managing to get even more fever-swampy out there.
One curious element, at least if you are a news junkie, is how Trump fans don’t seem deterred by his poor poll numbers or the way the new Covid wave seems primed to cut even further into his backing.
So the question then becomes is this seemingly misplaced optimism merely diehards being in their own echo chamber, about to have their fantasy fall apart Tuesday or shortly thereafter? Or might there be some factors in play that the media has missed or is underweighing in its calculations?
I know far too few Trump backers to make any generalizations, but one who called Trump’s 2016 victory early is adamant that Trump will win now, despite the polls and the press saying his odds of prevailing are close to zilch. This individual demographically would be presumed to be a huuge Biden backer: a professional with an advanced degree, high income, blue city resident, cultured, female, older.
So why does Zelda believe, despite so much evidence saying otherwise, that Trump is going to pull it off? Her arguments:
The polls are wrong. Well yes, you’d have to have that as a first order belief to be optimistic about Trump’s odds. Yes, the polls were wrong in 2016, but by 2%, which is within their margin of error nationally, and Trump cinched the election by a margin of less than 100,000 distributed across three key states.
But why would the polls be even more wrong now, and all in the same direction? Zelda claims they are push polls, which isn’t at all convincing, if you think of the conventional definition of “push poll”. But Zelda is more referring to a phenomenon Thomas Frank observed with an earlier populist:
I call it, ‘the democracy scare of 1896’, their war on William Jennings Bryan, which is really quite incredible, this airtight consensus among the American elite that this man had to be stopped. He could not become president.
Frank elsewhere applied the concept to Trump.
A better claim is that polling has long been broken due to the death of landlines and the resulting difficulty of getting a decent sample on cell phones.
But Zelda has more specific arguments:
Anti-lockdown sentiment means the young, lower income voters, and minorities aren’t as solidly in the Biden camp as the Democratic Party assumes. By being Mr. Tougher on Covid, Biden will be viewed as favoring lockdowns.
The Democratic party assumes that young people are like the college kids of their youth, and are if anything more left leaning than they like (confirmed by “socialism” being popular with them). But educational attainment has collapsed among the young. Save for those who got into a trade, job and income prospects weren’t great pre-Covid.
Zelda argues that more of the young and middle-lower income workers, particularly minority workers, will either vote for Trump or stay home than the Dems anticipate because many are anti lockdown. Even here at NC, we get occasional claims that only old people should be restricted, when modeling shows that has comparatively little effect in containing Covid 19 spread. There are also plenty of reports of young people disregarding Covid precautions.
So some, perhaps many young people believe that Covid isn’t a serious threat to their health; other workers in fields like restaurants, hotels, gyms, salons, may feel that they are being asked to assume too much of the cost of combatting Covid. We don’t hear much from Biden about what he intends to do to help these types of enterprises and their employees.
I got a weak corroboration of Zelda’s views on a recent trip, where I spoke to cabbies in NYC as well as the wheelchair-pushers in all the airports about what they thought about the election. They were all negative about Trump and only slightly less so about Biden, often with specifics, like Biden’s backing of the crime bill. One even said that no matter who was elected, the US was on its was to becoming like Russia after the USSR fell, with the rich grabbing everything of value. Disliking both candidates isn’t a great motivator for voting, and was surprising to see in ground zero for Covid in the US.
A Bloomberg story last week : corroborated my “mother in law” research:
Senior officials on Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign are increasingly worried about insufficient Black and Latino voter turnout in key states like Florida and Pennsylvania.
The Associated Press tried to counter the Bloomberg story, arguing that black votes were 9% of early votes, broadly in line with their 10% vote share in 2016. But why is 2016 an encouraging benchmark? Black turnout fell in 2016 and was the largest percentage fall for any ethnic group since the early 1990s.
Some states are more solidly Republican than the Dems and pundits think. Zelda contends North Carolina goes for Trump because pollsters haven’t allowed for the fact that out of state college students will be largely voting in their parents’ home state. She also thinks Pennsylvania goes for Trump due to Biden saying he was anti-fracking and the demonstrations in Philly stoking law ‘n’ order sentiments (as well as Biden presuming that being born in Scranton somehow meant he had an advantage, leading him to under-campaign there). Zelda knows more than a bit about Ohio and also calls it for Team R. She is sure that Florida will go for Trump and pretty confident that Texas will because Biden has presumed he deserves the Latino vote. In fact, Latinos are diverse (Cubans are not the same as Dominicans or Mexicans or Puerto Ricans or Hondurans), the church-going Catholics skew Republican, and small businessmen would tend to favor Trump (see lockdowns above). That does not mean the Dems won’t get a lot of Latino votes, just not as many as they need.
Having said all of that, if Florida and Texas go for Biden, it’s game over for Trump. But if Trump has won them or looks like he probably will, we could have the very drawn out fight that everyone save the media dreads.
Despite having way more money than Trump, the Biden campaign isn’t targeting its efforts well. Trump may be running the world’s worst campaign but Biden’s is no prize either. Per above, he’s not spending enough time in states he needs to cinch like Pennsylvania and Texas. He’s running tons of ads in Alabama, a state he will never never never win.
The Biden campaign isn’t acting like winners. Why is Biden appearing in Minnesota, a state the Democrats supposedly have tied up? Why are the Democrats utterly bent out of shape about the Texas bus convoy stunt? Aren’t they clever enough to counter-troll the Republicans, like depicting them as so afraid of having a big Biden sign go through Texas that they had to send 30 cars after it?
Are the convoys evidence of a highly energized Trump base? Lambert has pointed out that the anti-Trump contingent sees this election as existential, yet seems not to consider the idea that the other side might feel that way too. We’ve had convoys springing up, apparently without any Trump campaign involvement, in Florida, Oregon, apparently two in California (one in Marin, another reported by readers in Silicon Valley), and in New Jersey. These may just be teeny outbreaks; after all, the total number of participants isn’t large. But they could be the tip of a sentiment iceberg.
Perhaps I am reading too much into pet peeves, but the smugness of the key faces of the Democratic Party, Biden, Harris, Pelosi, is simply grating. Thomas Frank provided a terrific vignette of elite self-regard in describing their almost constant self-congratualtion and grade inflation. Pelosi’s cringe-making interview with Wolf Blitzer reconfirmed how the party top brass views themselves as not caring about suffering and not even believing they should ‘splain themselves to voters:
The condescension, the contempt for ordinary people is palpable. It’s deeply offensive. And they make clear that they view themselves in a parental or managerial role, and not as equals, let alone public servants.
Worse, you can find examples of elite self-scored superiority in plenty of other venues, like this grotesquerie in The Lancet: Psychoanalysis in combatting mass non-adherence to medical advice. It blame the US’s high Covid rate on the sheeple refusing to listen to their betters, as in doctors. Never mind that nearly all of the early good Covid students ranging from the Czech Republic to France now have Covid infections on a per capita basis that are worse than in the US. And never mind that medicine is a medieval art, with advice and recommendations changing too often to give a lot of people comfort (and that’s before getting to medical-industry-induced death events for profit like Vioxx and the opioid epidemic).
And I am not making this up…the Lancet piece attributes the US Covid fail to mass denial, which needs to be treated by shrinks, as opposed to a lack of readily available free tests, free PPE, and income support so that people who are exposed can stay home until they get a Covid test “all clear”. In other words, a massive public policy failure is being blamed on presumed neurotics who need therapy.
This is before getting to the fact that anyone in the psychology biz has a hell of a lot of nerve recommending mass prescriptions….when propaganda, PR and marketing all came from Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays. And it is conservatives, particularly ones allied with Big Business, who have fully embraced turning “freedom” into a political trump card, and using adept phrase-making, like “entitlements” to either stigmatize or promote pet causes.
In other words, even after Clinton’s loss, the Democrats are still serving up candidates that are so convinced of their superiority that they can’t even recognize how often they sneer at voters. Maybe Trump is now so demonstrably terrible that they’ll get away with their snootiness and lack of concern for ordinary people this time around. But maybe not.
261 comments
Comments are closed.
I’m going to leave this and just slowly back away ….
Mitchell Tsai
·
Sun
Virus researcher at Harvard Medical School in 1980s
“Roughly three weeks ago, I stepped off a plane and into a parallel universe. Here in New Zealand, coronavirus lurks far from the limelight, and the recent election was orderly and uncontroversial.”
https://www.quora.com/q/coronavirus?__filter__=all&__ni__=0&__nsrc__=1&__sncid__=9192762321&__snid3__=13424742209&__tiids__=14488292#anchor
What if America is just another type of North Korea ….
You mean the fondness for family dynasties, right? Ivanka 2024!
The NYT piece is a bit rose-tinted. New Zealand’s ultra-neoliberal ACT party went from <1% to 8% vote based on dog-whistling to pro-gunz and pro-virus voters, proportions unclear. It's not Trumpmania but it's not nothing.
The link is NYT not dependent and irrespective, its about the contrast to say the U.S. or the U.K.
Compared to Keys tenure – ?????
Yeah, Nats + Covid would have been squalid
Nah, go longer term. One of the Clinton / Trump great- or great-great grandkids.
Eventually, some generations from now, a Trump descendant and a Clinton descendant will get married. They will engineer a new last name from pieces of their two respective last names.
The new name for the new dynasty will be . . . Clintrump. Behold! the CLINTRUMPS!
I think Charlotte will marry Barron sometime in the 2040s. It will be the ultimate dynastic marriage.
I’m Australian, which is about as good as an American commenting on Canadian internal politics, but… I’d venture to guess that the 8% for the ACT party in New Zealand is a response to the banning of assault rifles (I believe that was since the last election, so this is their first chance to “react”). I’m more interested in what happens in the next election.
The grass often looks greener. NZ is undoubtedly a well run little country and a vibrant democracy, but it has more than its own fare share of problems, and has elected some pretty nasty characters in the past. They did very well with Covid, but they also had huge advantages most other countries did not, mostly due to their relative geographic isolation and forewarning.
NZ has an advantage that it’s politics is really at the municipal level compared to the rest of the world. Everyone knows everyone, news travel fast, there’s few super-corporations to hide in (and still stay in the NZ), and because the size of the country vs population, it’s still very community based (small communities work, large aggregations of people aren’t communities).
Even Auckland, the largest city, is really a more of a collection of a suburbs (and their communities) than anything else – way more tightly knit than say London (can’t speak about any US cities).
But, as you say, it still has a lot of problems. The fact is, it’s sort of a normal country. But since most of the rest of the world is so f-ked up, even normal comes across as heaven.
I’ve watched many changes happen to NZ since the first of around a dozen visits starting some 40 years ago, and one thing about the place from an outsiders perspective, is it’s a very outdoorsy country-people are encouraged to be active in a way i’ve not noticed in the other 40 or so first world countries i’ve visited.
Religion also means almost nothing there also, its not uncommon to see old churches for sale to be repurposed into homes, etc.
Their turning point politically was when the evangs were starting to make inroads (I remember hearing imported dogma in the guise of James Dobson ‘focus on the family’ spiels on the radio there around 2000-yikes!) and the country could’ve gone the Aussie way where similarly religion was almost non-existent, and yet they ended up with a happy clapper for a PM, who has been the usual sort of useless leader or worse in that regard, but they were lucky in that the head honcho evang in En Zed: Graham Capill, turned out to be quite the molester of young girls under 12, and went to prison for a long stretch.
It’s a whet dream that something similar would happen here with our evangs, but no matter what mischief they get into (Ted Haggard comes to mind) they seem to pretty much get a pass, for we still suffer these fools, on account of needing a bulwark against the godless commies in the late 40’s-enter Billy Graham who was always seen consulting with every President after, and religion is still up there on it’s pedestal-something oddly sacrosanct.
Whether Trump wins or loses is entirely dependent on evang support. How did it come to this?
You’ll be pleased to know NZ has grown its own local evang nutter and brood now, in “bishop” Brian Tamaki. His wife just ran a terrible failure of an election campaign, then claimed after the fact that she’d done her job because the (backbencher, midlist) guy who got into parliament anyway didn’t get in through votes where she was.
I disagree. Mark Hamel (as in Luke Skywalker) had a tweet 14 days out from the election (so nearly 2 weeks ago) saying, in effect, vote Biden so I can go back to not worrying about politics.
To me, this is the worst possible outcome. I’d argue that short of the trade wars, questioning NATO and not starting any new wars in the last 4 years (all good things if one were to ask me), precious little has changed outside of rhetoric. As horrible as Trump is (and he’s horrible), we are all watching.
The Blob coming back in, and the left going back to sleep… this is why this educated individual sees a Trump reelection as a better outcome than a Harris, er… Biden… win.
You’d not worry about the politics – but you’d be engaged in the politics. Because politics w/o engagement of the people is just a game for a few.
That’d be the point regardless of who wins. We’d not need someone like Trump to keep us engaged. If we do, we’ve almost lost already.
The danger of a Biden victory is that the mainstream corporate-funded Democrats will interpret the win as validation of their crap neoliberal politics.
This has been my standpoint for months. Michael Tracy did a good write up today highlighting this as well (and I noticed Greenwald was highlighting similar issues in his write up of recent personal events).
The established order of the Democratic Party will interpret any result whatever as a validation of their crap politics, and any contradictions with reality will be interpreted as Russian intervention. So that’s not a ‘danger’ in a Biden victory, it’s a certainty.
The danger of a Biden victory is foreign war; the danger of a Trump victory is civil war. Since civil war will probably come closer to me than foreign war, I suppose I should support Biden, It’s not a matter of the lesser evil, as they’re both bottomlessly evil; it’s just which evil strikes closest to home. I am really kind of long in the tooth to be fighting in the streets.
Another term in the equation is that while Biden and company are probably moderately competent and rational, once you allow for their fundamental sociopathy, Trump seems to act incompetently and at random. I used to think it was better to have an incompetent fascist than a competent fascist in charge, but COVID-19 wised me up on that score.
The folk seem to agree on the prospects; they’re lined up at Costco again. I haven’t seen that since last March.
I’d more concerned the right starting a civil war. The Left will moan and clutch their pearls, but there simply aren’t enough weapons, enough trained (former) soldiers, etc. for them to start.
Not many left wing militias out there, no left wing militias went with weapons into a state capitol, etc. The state itself, military, etc. is a long way away from actual fighting
And Biden is not competent, he’s a mentally incapable leader by now, which means those around him will reign and they will only reign to enrich themselves as history has shown in this situation. This, and the structural problems the US has with healthcare means there is no difference between Biden and Trump. It doesn’t matter who sits in the white house if you lose your job when you get sick: you don’t get sick and stay at home even when you have Covid, which leads to you infecting others.
Note: I might be biased since I’m a foreigner and foreign politics under Trump is much better for me. Less wars, anyone can disagree with the US without repercussions, etc.
We’ve been explaining for years that the US is going in the direction of individual or small scale acts of violence. Those pot-bellied guys marching around showing their guns aren’t remotely capable of organized action. They’d fall apart if a helicopter gunship showed up. The fear of violence from the right is the same sort of PMC paranoia that has also led to kids not being able to play freely….when crime rates all over the US are vastly lower than when I was a kid.
The right can do some action still while the left has stopped since the 70s. Usually not the potbellies but there has been a McVeigh. Very individual, not so small scale and with the potential to start more.
Those cells can act in the future as well.
Even stuff like Waco you can list in that column: evangelicals of all stripes are on the right side too.
Attacks from the left, as in Europe in the 70s-80s however are so far much less likely to nonexistant, no matter how much the PMCs on the right side cry about Antifa and riots in cities.
Imho it doesn’t matter if it’s individual or not. Arab spring started since a single person immolated himself, not even a terrorist or directly violent act, out of despair. Maybe the US is to individualized or egocentric for this, but the start of a revolution often starts with comparatively small things, like a march to a prison or a local palace.
I have been having this argument with my daughters. I keep pointing out that it was the Democrats, not Republicans, who created Trump because the Democrats doubled down on wealth inequality and protecting the rich from prosecution, among other things, when they had their chances to help solve societal problems.They could have pushed for stimulus after Obama won while doing prosecutions of fraud. They could have pushed for reducing mass incarceration and substantial police reform. They could have re-thought free trade and done some restructuring of it instead of supporting it as an inequality increasing tool.
They did not and let a demagogue steal what should have been their message. He hasn’t delivered on improving the status of the working class but he has delivered on deregulation to increase corporate profits and the conservative court that the Koch Brothers have been working 35 years towards.
Affordable Care Act was better than what existed before (jumping a bar barely off the ground), but they made it into such a Rube Goldberg machine that they ended up pleasing very few and left it open to myriads of legal challenges and political maneouverings. It was so badly structured that the Republicans have not been able to replace it, but still have large support to do something about it despite it giving many people better health insurance.
The young’uns in our family are banking on progressives getting major clout in the Democratic Party if Biden wins and the Dems take the Senate. If it is just Pelosi, Schumer, and Biden doing a re-run of the Obama era policies, then the Republicans would have the opportunity to have another mid-term election win and Trump-like win in 2024 as the young people will be very pissed off.
On the other hand, Saagar Enjeti made the simple but elegant point on Useful Idiots that Trump’s approval ratings were never so low as when he implemented his tax cuts. He then made the point that if you govern like Romney/Ryan, as Trump essentially has, then you’ll lose like Romney/Ryan.
Time will tell I guess. Exciting!
Trump ran against Jeb Bush in 2016. By 2020, he had become him.
Trump loses because 1) He never wanted to win 2) He is who he ran against 4 years ago..
Biden’s favorable ratings will rival Trumps by 2022.
+1
I really think if Trump wanted to win against Biden, he would be clearly winning. I think the fact that Trump turned into Romney/Ryan kind of shows how little he cares. Saagar had some great insite in that interview.
For all the reasons cited by Zelda you will wake up to a second Trump term no later than Friday morning. The “Covid Election” has become but one more exaggeration utilized by the Dems to demonize Trump. Whether it’s Russia meddling, Russia-gate,Ukraine, “Muslim Hit Squads” or attacking Trump for his bungling of the Covid pandemic( have you noted that Europe is now spiking with Covid? Was that Trump’s fault also?) the average person (not the meritocritous few) view the last four years as a furor in a teacup, driven by a Democrat establishment with few ideas and no follow through. Cap it off with a campaign run from a bunker by a 47 year politician with nothing to his credit except the ability to quiet the MSM about his lecherous and well compensated son in order to avoid embarrassing questions and you’re left with a Dewyesque campaign that lacked enthusiasm along with a real plan except to stop fracking (good idea. To say it out loud in Pennsylvania, not so good an idea). Trump supporters surround a Biden bus and are condemned for a brilliant, spontaneous campaign tactic by Dems clutching their pearls and suffering the vapors. This will be close. It probably will depend on Pa. There are too many proper Dem voters who have had it. The suppression of the Hunter Biden story on FaceBook and Twitter and throughout all of MSM is the last straw for those Biden supporters who were ready to hold their noses. They’ll stay home and side with Jerry Garcia who famously noted “The lesser of two evils is still evil”. On the other side, the Trump voter is angry at an extra-Constitutional attempt to remove a sitting President with the Russia-gate noise and a clearly politically motivated Impeachment Interruptus. Why am I quite sure that it’ll be Antifa and the post-BLM protest looting crowd and not the white militias that will be starting trouble beginning Wednesday night. Call it a hunch.
You have to admit though for a so-called pandemic that has so far killed 4x as many servicemen as the Vietnam War that lasted 20x as long, it almost seems real.
not meaning to pick an internet fight—-just bringing up a question to which I have no answer to, but should be explored. And will explain (in the event of a Trump win) why covid is a minor issue.
what is the median age of the 200,000+ deceased? 200,000 dead 40-something moms/dads would cause a furore at whoever was in office. 150,000 dead seniors w/pre-existing conditions? Anger absolutely, but not on the same level as if they were all under 50.
we don’t see any furore when 10,000-50,000 people die every year of the seasonal flu—largely because the deaths are skewed to the elderly.
Yes, this is an awful take. But it is what it is. Don’t shoot the messenger.
I think the anger will build more when the long-hauler health problems increase in number and impact more families. This will especially be the case if the GOP wins their court challenge and the ACA is invalidated and the insurance companies declare Covid a pre-existing condition that is denied coverage.
It is working its way into the white rural communities now instead of just being a disease of nursing homes, minorities, and immigrants. Many of those rural communities have had their healthcare systems gutted over the past couple of decades. Once they realize that THEIR care is being rationed when they can’t get into a hospital ward, it will become much more personal.
The major death rates were happening when the hospital systems were over-whelmed. That is starting to happen in places like El Paso and Wisconsin. It would not take much to do it in the smaller states that now have rapidly rising case rates, esepcially since many of those states have older populations.
In the 1918-1920 pandemic, the spread looked similar. A number of communities, esepcially rural, were able to prevent the first wave or two from hitting, but by early 1920 pretty much every place had it (there were essentially 4 waves in that pandemic in the US). The worst case and death rates were in the cities that did big public events and had little preventive measures (e.g. masks) while other cities had a fraction of the deaths because they took it more seriously. The US has opted to set aside a century of public health learnings and revert back to pre-1918 beliefs.
Europe is spiking again for the same reason the US has never stopped spiking — both places operate in a regime of strict adherence to neoliberal dogma, and you fundamentally cannot tackle COVID under neoliberalism. It is simply impossible.
Which is also why it matters little who wins with respect to the pandemic — both sides fully agree that everyone should get infected so that there be no rollback, even temporarily, of the neoliberal takeover.
Now will a lot of people make the calculation that they personally are better off under Trump’s regime of doing nothing vs. Biden potentially implementing some more half-assed lockdowns that do not eliminate the virus but feature no support for ordinary people and do crush whatever remains of small businesses?
Possibly. We will see.
But please do not use the fallacy of comparing the US to Europe and excusing the disaster in the former with that in the latter.
Both places fundamentally adopted the same approach.
Trump’s secret weapon.
The Democrats.
They put up really bad candidates to help him win.
Hillary “Wall Street” Clinton
Good grief.
How can things possibly get any worse?
The Australian media have noticed Biden has a problem, and it’s not hard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA-GoeFGyIc
If the Democrats found a good candidate they could easily beat Trump, but they don’t bother.
My theory is the Democrats knew they weren’t going to win, so they put Biden up. Sort of like when the GOP put Bob Dole up against an unbeatable Bill Clinton in 1996. Plus, it was Biden’s “turn”.
Then Covid happened. Suddenly the 2024 sure thing win became a probable 2020 win. Harris was going to be the candidate in 2024, so put her in there now and everything moved up 4 years.
That’s completely backwards. If they thought they had no chance to win they would have waved Sanders through. He loses bigly if there is no Covid (Americans are fat and dumb although for some reason not happy) the fact that anybody that isn’t a billionaire thinks that Trump should be President is…. amazing, but there it is.
Everybody gets two terms now unless a meteor like Covid hits. Without Covid, the Dems would have used that to put Sanders and his ilk off the stage permanently. “See, they can’t win”.
Instead, much to their joy, they got a self-regarding idiot presented with a medical crisis. Romney, Jeb, any Rethug would have figured out how to look Presidential and gain popularity, it’s so easy to get the masses to rally round almost any bozo in a crisis. Bush @911, ‘nough said.
So they deep-six Sanders and put in the most Clinton-like member they could find without it actually being Hillary.
Yea. Sigh.
I agree fellow Chris.
Biden was selected for installation because he would allow a return to normalcy. As in, it is normal for a parasite to continue feeding on a properly anesthetized host. It’s difficult to feed off a jumpy host that’s trying to get you off their back. He is the least likely to cause any serious obstacles to prior planning and directions. If he abdicates and Kamala is then further installed as puppet in chief, so much the better.
As a bonus this current program has managed to kill off threats from Sanders and the populist energy that originally propelled Trump into office. I have to believe this is a series of intentional decisions and not a random series of mistakes.
I disagree with the premise that if you aren’t a billion$ dude that you are insane for supporting Trump . NO NEW WARS dude. Good enough for me. Biden wins, media wont miss trump, they will have a new war to cheer on. You know to UNITE the people.
I am a Vet and a trump supporter with a cousin currently serving. I carried water for empire and did to other countries what’s being done to us enough to know it stinks to high heaven.
That’s good enough for me.
PS Nature will make the ki ll regardless of what you do. It’s what it does best.
Move on already.
Trump did, however, relax the rules of engagement. Even though he didn’t start a new war, the wars he inherited are now even more deadly (for the brown people) than before. Doesn’t sound like a win. It’s a win for American soldiers but it might also create some serious blowback later.
There ya go. The Dems are still fighting the deplorables and the deplorables may once again fight back and vote for Trump because he actually likes them. If Biden loses then the Dem refusal to get this message will be the reason. Divide and conquer only works if you have enough people on your side of the divide. The assumption that mere demographics–a growing POC and millenial proportion of the electorate–will be enough to keep Pelosi in ice cream was always a bad strategy. But since they’re unwilling to embrace economic reform it’s all they’ve got.
What economic reform would that be?
The ones we talk about around here. Biden seems to have pre-rejected all of them. In truth his entire pitch seems to boil down to Trump hate.
Agreed. Plus, when Trump goes away, (if Biden wins that is,) where is all that ‘hate’ sloshing around in America going to be focused next? The type of campaign the Democrat Party has been running the last four years will have long lasting effects on American politics.
A really good question.
Is righteous anger on the brunch menu?
I dont see how we go back to business as usual ante Trump given the social forces that the Democrats and their enablers released over the last 4 years.
The idea that Trump cares about anyone outside his inner circle of family and business connections is a non-starter.
The fact that you “believe” that any of them “Care” is staggering.
It’s not about feelings hotrod.
It’s about POWER.
Most people have 0 POWER. That’s why they don’t understand it. Only react to it.
No I think he really does love those hordes who turn out to see him. It’s catnip for an egomaniac. That doesn’t mean that once in the smoke filled rooms he isn’t going to do what the money boys want.
But it may mean that the deplorables are at least getting some love from on high if nothing else. Telling people they are losers and bitter clingers doesn’t make them like you.
What if the “deplorables” are pranking the “front-row-kids,” into imagining that Old Joe is a saleable product? (Joe will make your country, Look Like New Again! Buy buy buy!).
Many are anticipating, rivers of liberal tears, as their dreams of domination, go up in smoke, once again
Dems should have gone with Tulsi Gabbard ……
Tragically, there is no known cure for “The Greedy-Stupid Syndrome” (an ancient, recurring psychiatric affliction of the elite, aka Hubris).
notice how Tulsi Gabbard was distinctly given the media blackout during the primaries, and had to fight for even 30 seconds worth of news coverage.
And how in breach of tradition (she won a couple of delegates) Tulsi wasn’t allowed to give a speech at the convention — unlike the half-dozen or so Bush-era war criminals and neocons the DNC did invite.
Gives one pause.
It’s because they can’t control her. Both Biden and Harris have so many skeletons in their closets they will do whatever the DNC tells them to do. That is why they are put into power.
Tulsi would have chewed Trump to pieces. But the DNC would rather lose to Trump than lose their power within the party. Tulsi (and likely Bernie) would (hopefully) clean house at the DNC.
The current elites aren’t going to go quietly into this good night. They have more damage to do….
The race looks like a fight between two ageing, inept boxers looking for a last payday, each unable to deliver a proper punch, with the winner being the one who manages to persuade at least one judge to be bothered giving a score.
The Biden campaign, like the HRC one, appears to me at a distance to be almost criminally cautious. To overuse a sporting metaphor again, they are like a soccer team that only need a draw, but instead of taking the game to the opposition just refuse to play any strikers and put everyone around the goal. Teams like that usually suffer when a stray deflection goes in, and they suddenly realise they are incapable of mounting an attack to get a goal back.
By all accounts, this should be easy for Biden. Its hard to conceive of anyone who did not vote for Trump 2016 deciding that his record deserves his vote. And its hard not to think that some people who were repelled by HRC’s arrogance and personality not reluctantly coming back to the Dems. So he really only needs to persuade a few tens of thousands of people in key States to switch over. This should be a very easy task, especially as Biden is a far more personable candidate than HRC. But I do think that choosing such a horrible VP as Harris has maybe even wiped out that advantage.
Even without MFA or anything like that, there was a very obvious vote winning stance Biden could have taken – a firm commitment to indefinite financial support for workers suffering under Covid. This would surely create a clear blue line between him and Trump as far as younger working class workers are concerned. I find it baffling that the Dems haven’t firmly committed to this (even if they are lying, it would still be a clincher for many undecided so worth doing). Its hard not to conclude that Democratic strategists don’t actually, deep down, want to win as much as Republicans do.
It looks to me that the worst case scenario, of a mail vote going heavily Biden, with the vote ‘on the day’ going very strongly and unexpectedly towards Trump, could happen, leading to months of chaos and arguments. Its still very hard to see a route to Trump actually winning more delegates, but the fat lady hasn’t sung yet.
I believe Trump will get it to the court even if he loses on the day, possibly even if he loses very convincingly.
Overall, I’m not really sure whose election this was to lose. I’d say that since his election up to late last year, it was really Trumps. CV changed that a lot, but it also gave him unprecedented way of messing with the votes (as in a number of possible challenges to the validity of votes).
Biden’s low key campaign IMO worked better in the summer than Trump’s, as you say, all he had to do is to persuade a number of people who didn’t vote last time, or voted Trump because they hated HRC. But picking Harris. yeugh.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with running a low key campaign – clearly, Trump is well capable of self sabotaging without any external help. It does, however, run the risk of drawing a clear contrast between Trumps energy and Bidens apparent complacency – in times of trouble, there is always a risk of the electorate going on the basis of a gut feeling on who can properly ‘lead’. As you say, it was clearly working in the summer when Trump was flailing. But it should have been obvious that the chaos sown by Covid would give Trump a potential lifeline if people didn’t see a real alternative. Even in a low key campaign, you must give people a reason to vote for you – this should be Campaign Strategy 101, but apparently the Democrats know better. It still amazes me that Bidens campaign cannot see the advantage of picking one key, popular policy and wrapping their flag around it. They don’t even have to mean it, they can just pull the Obama ‘Congress wouldn’t let me do it’ trick later.
This is I think compounded by the choice of Harris. At a distance, I don’t really know how people see this on the ground, but for me the message was that the only ‘left’ thing the Dems care about is wokism, while they are openly happy to throw Sanders and all he represented down the toilet. This seems to be to be a deliberate two fingers to a vast swathe of working class voters, of whatever complexion or politics. The message to me was that what matters to upper middle class educated people is far more important than what matters to everyone else. I think the optics are horrible. Simply appointing a dull white male would in many ways be better, after all, the feminist, woke vote has nowhere else to go.
I agree with both. I did not mean to imply that Biden’s campaing should have stayed low-key.
The question is whether they could sell Biden as a leader, so it may be that low-key campaign was pretty much the only option that didn’t run a risk of blowing up *)
Harris might have been actually an attempt to bring in some energy into it, except it’s exactly the wrong kind of energy. Mind you, he could have selected HRC..
*) If true, and if Biden wins, that will have to grate HRC a lot – because it would show that a tailor’s dummy could beat Trump. But HRC could not.
Because when the Dems tell the truth, they actually tell the truth.
When Clinton told us in so many words that she would manage our decline, she wasn’t lying.
The possibility of someone picking up Sanders banner and trying to make the moral vision / arguments into policy reality… that had to be stopped. Losing those voters is for the best. Assuming of course they are lost. Some of them will still report for duty.
In the end, it’s all about the destination.
From the article:
“…on a recent trip, where I spoke to cabbies in NYC as well as the wheelchair-pushers in all the airports about what they thought about the election. They were all negative about Trump and only slightly less so about Biden … One even said that no matter who was elected, the US was on its was to becoming like Russia after the USSR fell, with the rich grabbing everything of value.”
Well, at least someone is paying attention to where we’re headed.
Agreed to all the above. Trumps strength is that his consistent awfulness makes him trustworthy compared to biden, the msm, and the polls.
Truth is gun sales have been booming since obama with no relief I hear. Biden voters may be better educated but at this point that may mean we arent buying the hype. War. Superpowerdom. And rhe erosion of our rights and futures.
Voting green but cant get behind biden or the super delegate corpos.
trump’s “energy??”
He seems to have un-natural energy for a 74 year-old over the past week, eg ~5 rallys in one day, bursting with energy at every one.
Speaking as a physician, it sure looks like the kind of “energy” people get from taking corticosteroids, or maybe his osteopaths weaned him off corticosteroids and switched him to Dexedrine™ or Methedrine™ ….
In 50 years we may finally see his medical records and find out.
Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa dream ticket?
Baseball cards are interesting in that you get to see the yearly changes on account of steroid use.
McGwire looks like a normal human being circa 1987, and then by the time he retires, more closely resembles the amazing hulk.
yes, I thought corticosteroids too when Trump, barely out of the hospital at a rally, blurted out “I could kiss everyone in the audience” and etc. It was stunning enthusiasm even for Trump. I hope he is not ruining his health, if he wins he’s gonna need it.
Trump will have “family” to deal with the details.
Maybe he is just healthy and good genes.
That would be terrible for modern medicine wouldn’t it.
Wouldn’t have that new hemorrhoid cream to push for 29.99 at the office eh?
Guesswork in a white coat. Go “practice” you’re medieval art some more Doc….
Don’t respond. I didn’t like Mengele either.
Not even wokism. Harris is a textbook example of what used to be, correctly in my view, described as tokenism.
In what alternate universe did the Democrats think black voters would support a prosecutor /top cop and
the author of the 1994 crime bill?
When Obama told them to.
Did you see sanders website earlier in the year?it was nothing but woke on idpol.
The Democratic party’s refusal to even promise any COVID financial relief, along with their rejection of most of Bernie Sanders’ policy ideas is more than a big FU to the working class, it’s blowing off an entire generation of voters, millennials with college debt and no job prospects, and Gen-Xers as well. It seems remarkably shortsighted. I’ve thought for some time now that Democrats absolutely do not care much about winning, how else to explain the party’s near total tone deafness? Being a phony opposition party must be profitable enough.
Even that post sounds arrogant.
I’m putting money on Trump to win. I will bet that he also wins clearly and with enough electoral college votes that it is a CLEAR victory.
Trump’s problem is NOT his policies. 56% of the electorate LIKES his policies. Its HIM they have issues with. Had a great economy until COVID hit. No new wars and started easing us out of the disasters that Bush and Obama gave us.
Biden, people thought he was just crazy uncle Joe. Harmles, kinda nice. Bumbling but decent. They DO NOT like his policies. BUT he is OLD, not just physically but in his head. For the love of GOD he claimed to be wearing an Eagles jacket yesterday when it was a Deleware one AND HE WAS LOOKING at it. Then, he called himself a “grandmom”. Never mind the bizarre stuff from Saturday or the disappearing when Obama introduced him in MI. The man is NOT all there. NOT somebody you want to hand the nukes to.
NOBODY wants a President Harris except her.
The dems are now too closely aligned with socialism. That frightens a lot of Latinos who have come from countries such as Venezuela or Cuba.
The younger you are as a black person the less attached to the democrat party you are. Showing up in the data all over the country.
Fracking is here to stay. It just is. Too many jobs tied to it and too many small towns and cities are dependent on it too even exist. Oh..we will go electric eventually, but not for a long time. Probably not in my lifetime.
That is gonna cost Biden PA. The riots and Antifa and the dems unwillingness to condemn either LOUDLY and to crack down on them is gonna cost them.
Trump 290+ electoral college votes….305 is not out of the question
The dems are now too closely aligned with socialism. That frightens a lot of Latinos who have come from countries such as Venezuela or Cuba.
The younger you are as a black person the less attached to the democrat party you are. Showing up in the data all over the country.
Fracking is here to stay. It just is. Too many jobs tied to it and too many small towns and cities are dependent on it too even exist. Oh..we will go electric eventually, but not for a long time. Probably not in my lifetime.
So you’re saying it would have been much worse if Sanders had been elected by the base and the democrats are lucky the voters choose Biden?
The fact that people actually believe this says it all about how disconnected from the truth and from reality many people are these days. It also speaks to how much more sophisticated, advanced and really vicious the (hard) right’s tactics are. If Trump is to win, then I think it will be because his base has been conditioned to believe things like this by sophisticated propaganda as only the hard right can do it, and so they are very highly motivated to vote for him. Democrats are far behind in tactics, and also they don’t really seem to give a damn if they win anyway. It’s just impossible for almost anyone to get excited about Joe Biden. The truth of course… well who cares about that? It’s fallen between the cracks and forgotten in the dust.
Give the Dems full credit for filling the heads of Americans with propaganda and mush. Dems sell the idea that 2016 is Year Zero, and that the Meritocracy Rightfully Rules, and most Americans are deplorable. It’s the same set of media and consultants that serve the kleptocracy/oligarchy after all, and lobbyists pay their bribe money to both “sides.”
I’d say the Dems are right up there with the tactics— they’ve crushed the social decency proponents and ensured their place at the trough, setting up for the next kayfabe show in two and four years with lots of dollars flowing to their “just not quite good enough to win” efforts, with sh!ts like Pelosi playing “We can’t let Trump send out any checks to the starving with his name on them” games.
The “failed tactics” label belongs, sadly, to the decent people “on the left” who can’t bring themselves to the pitch of righteous anger and readiness to ACT that brought such success as was had by the “labor movement” in “redistribution” of the wealth ring looted from north and South American continents and the imperial colonies elsewhere.
None of all those multi billions are spent to protect a living planet or create a workable social order that is sustainable along with the “economy.”
Find Yuri on You Tube. It’s not the “democrats” its subversion of the institutions.
Democrat’s patsies , think, women’s march, blm, defund the police, Antifa,et al.
Subversion in and of the institutions of the state until it collapses.
Question: Do you believe in the integrity of the FBI?
I rest my case.
And, the Dems fight back against the socialist rap by running from it instead of embracing it in its watered down not very scary (except for libertarians and free market fundamentalists) FDR new deal version.
Although a majority of the population supports Social Security and Medicare along with regulations that protect workers, consumers, and the environment, etc., the entire duopoly stigmatizes “socialism” and people don’t make the connection to the supports and protections they themselves enjoy and do not want to lose.
Gonna be a rude awakening.
Right, and that’s why it is such a cunning, if not brilliant tactic. It boxes the Democrats into the corner of their own hypocrisy, at the same time it reinforces the demonization of the actual left. It’s meat for their own base at the same time that it pushes the wider overton window further right. It quite effectively shuts down any discussion of the kind Sanders was promoting. Witness how many people even here either implicitly or explicitly buy into the Big Lie that the center-right Democrats are connected somehow with radical far left socialist, communist and/or anarchist ideas.
It was the same economy it was was before Trump. Rare to see it described as great.
I don’t want either candidate and wish both would lose but you seem intent on wantng to see Trump win. You say 56% like Trumps’ policies. Where do you get that from? And you say people don’t like Biden’s policies. As far as I can tell he has not said anything about his policies. And fracking is here to stay? Oh really? When all these fracking companies are filing for bankruptcy.
I was also confused about the fracking comment, are you reading the news lol?
I think Assange’s chances are better under Trump than Biden….by far. A vote for Biden as a nail in Assange’s coffin. If I were Trump I would have said that if reelected I intend to lay off Assange. Unfortunately, Trump is a dyslexic and senile. I care about Assange.
I don’t understand people talking about Julian Assange’s chances being better with tRump. True Biden called Assange “a high tech terrorist”, but how does that differ from tRump who is the one who has Julian on trial right now in the UK fighting extradition to the US .
Not to mention the fact that tRump’s administration is currently threatening Julian with 175 years in a SuperMax prison.
That’s not what I’d call a good chance for Julian Assange, nor his wife and two kids.
“Had a great economy until COVID hit.” I needed a good laugh this morning. Thanks. Amazing how the rigged unemployment numbers suddenly weren’t rigged after Trump go elected, isn’t it?
Yes in one sense, but in twisted irony, the 401k tied to the Wallstreet slot machines were doing phenomenal for the average debt slaves. I don’t know what will happen, but this shouldn’t be discounted.
“The dems are now too closely aligned with socialism.”
What?
Yes. I think Biden and Harris won’t talk unemployment relief because two of the plumpest moneybags in the donor seats are the US Chamber of Commerce and Wall St; they would revolt and withdraw financial support if Biden-Harris made those promises — even if lying. Harris was chosen more-or-less by the moneybags. (She didn’t prosecute Mnuchin for bank/mortgage fraud when she was California’s AG.) Warren was anathema to them because in the past she dared challenge bad financial practices. Warren as VP candidate makes more sense than Harris as a vote-getter, but not as a money-getter. That says something about the current Dem party establishments priorities. My 2 cents.
You are completely right.
To shorthand everything, just consider them Reagan Republicans and you can get about 90% there. Remember Reagan was from Hollywood, so he was actually not that keen on the hard Christian right he just used them like every one of their leaders did and do.
Here’s a weird thing – so many people, me include, say if you want to look towards the future then it’s already there, in California. So in Ca, Reagan was Guv, a popular one, but then their Republican party just basically slowly went away. At the same time its basic instincts were taken over by the Dems, yes? Where would Gavin Newsome fit into the political spectrum, especially if you take away the Woke stuff, in the 1980’s.. heck he’d be a good Reagan VP.
So that’s what we’re almost certainly gonna get, despite DanP66’s ravings above, going forward. The Reagan Republicans, dressed up in Woke clothes and with a different base but the same policies because TINA.
” Its hard to conceive of anyone who did not vote for Trump 2016 deciding that his record deserves his vote.”
I know two people – two highly educated well-off older white men – who did not vote for Trump in 2016 but who will be voting for him in 2020. In 2016 they thought he was a freak; now they think he is a regular Republican who says mortifying things. They are registered Democrats, by the way.
I think that the media overplayed its hand in 2016 by saying that the world would end if Trump were elected. When nothing much changed for the upper middle class, some of them decided that that maybe he wasn’t such a dangerous nut after all. The media are now saying that anyone who votes for Trump is a racist, but these people do not consider themselves to be racist, and are just offended by the accusation.
I didn’t try to debate any of these points with them since we are in CA and so it hardly matters how they vote.
Not all states are counting the election day votes before the mailed-in votes. Some are counting them at the same time. Some are already counting mailed-in votes.
Of course, votes can be mailed until election day and arrive later, those votes will be counted later.
Can’t understand why they would pick someone like Biden to be their candidate in the back rooms. Must be some pretty strong stuff that they smoke there. But then again, you should always be careful who does get chosen. So consider what an ideal Democratic candidate would be like to run against a boofhead like Trump. They should be in their fifties so that they have a bit of maturity about them and are not old enough to be chugging geratols each night. They should be able to make a strong speech and be able to inspire action in people. Get voters enthusiastic about them even. They should have a gorgeous wife and a coupla young kids to round them out and make for great publicity. It would help if they had worked in the community with ordinary people to understand their needs but they should also have studied law in a top university so that he will know how to deal with legislators. They should be church-going and be also involved in following sports. Just to make a complete package, it would not hurt to have them come from a minority population.
And that is how you got Obama. As I said, you should always be careful who does get chosen.
To be fair, I don’t think Biden came via the backrooms – he more or less muscled himself into the race (lets not forget that he was pretty much forced out in 2016 in favour of HRC). The backrooms wanted either Harris or Buttigieg or one of any number of identikit ex-Intelligence types. I’m pretty sure Harris’s position as the anointed successor was the result of backroom dealings as it sure as hell makes no electoral sense and I doubt Biden is stupid enough to want a viper like her in his nest if he had any real say in the matter.
It seems to me that the only thing that unites the Democrat insiders is their hatred of the left, and of Trump personally. Outside of that, they are equitably woke in their equal loathing of each other.
Harris is of course the point with the Biden-campaign. Who would believe that he has the physical and mental ability to lead?
Pence was chosen as VP to avoid Trump being couped out. Biden is there to make sure that Harris is phased in when Biden can’t talk anymore.
Wanna know what I find interesting? The lack of comment in the media about how you can draw a parallel between Kamala Harris and Sarah Palin back in 2008. Both Vice-Presidential candidates coming completely out of left field to be paired with a very aged candidate and which served to undermine that campaign. You would think that there would be a lot of talk about that by media pundits.
Sorry, but no. The only similarity between Harris and Palin is the pairing with older white male candidates. Harris has been talked about as a potential national level candidate for a few years and has deliberately built a political career aimed towards reaching the top. High level positions and national visibility. On top of that she ran a credible campaign to win the nomination. Palin, on the other hand, was essentially completely unknown to the public outside of Alaska (which state to most Americans is like a foreign country), had no credible job experience, no obvious ambition for higher officer, etc. No one was more surprised to end up on a national ticket than Palin herself – nor less prepared. Harris was just stepping onto another rung of the ladder she was obviously climbing.
So the real story would be if there actually were talk by media pundits trying to compare Palin and Harris as it would be a false comparison.
Palin was governor of Alaska. Like it or not, she had executive experience.
“Credible campaign”? Harris dropped out of the Dem primary in her own state!
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-12-05/kamala-harris-california-primary
https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/sov/2020-primary/sov/complete-sov.pdf
To be fair, mass media here started laying the groundwork back in 2018ish that if only Biden would’ve run instead of Clinton, Trump never would’ve won. A mini-Dune type seeding.
By the time the actual primaries came around and with their eyes fully pealed first to the Impeachment spectacle, I suspect many believed that Biden was the only one who could win. My sampling was small so grain of salt. Interesting that Sanders’ eventual California win made some of them stop & think for the briefest of moments before going back to Biden Biden Biden. To tell you how big that was a pinprick, Sanders to them was only a single policy platform candidate (MSM 2016 carry-over messaging) and a finger-wagger to boot. They hated that finger wagging. It was like Charlie Brown listening to his teachers.
I have to somewhat disagree here – Biden is very much the product of a backroom calculation, it’s just that he wasn’t the first choice.
Sanders was poised to win the primary back in the spring with all the other candidates dividing the vote, and that of course was anathema to the Blob. He was almost there though, and if he took the next round of primaries, he was in. But next up were the southern states, and the largest Democratic voting bloc on those states was the black vote. Buttigieg and Klobuchar were both polling ahead of Biden at that time, and I believe Warren was too. The party apparatus led by Obama made the very cynical calculation that while Biden wasn’t very popular overall, he was the one candidate who could beat Sanders on that particular day in those particular states, appealing to the black voters as Obama’s former VP. So they forced out Klobuchar and Buttigieg (and it is pretty unprecedented for the more popular candidates to bow out while #5 stays in the race) and made sure Warren stayed in to take ‘progressive’ votes from Sanders on that particular day. As soon as it was over, Warren dropped out too.
The establishment’s first choice has been Harris – since the conventional wisdom is that Obama was popular and all the Democrat party has is idpol, they decided to go with female Obama 2.0. The only problem was that voters hated her, so they’re going to jawbone her in there anyway using old pal Uncle Joe as a screen.
And that gets to the larger point – what the voters actually want doesn’t matter. I think the issue here isn’t whether more voters prefer Trump or Biden and the winner won’t be decided that way. It’s who counts the votes that matters, and as NC readers are well aware, in the US we have lots of places where people vote on machines that are easily hacked and leave no paper trail.
If the people who really run this country decide its in their best interest to have Trump as president again, he will be the president again. I believe Clinton was despised not only by the electorate, but also by the Republican establishment and by the Obama faction in the Democrat party. So we got Trump in 2016. This time around, with so many public defections by Republicans and spooks to Biden’s camp, the worm may have turned. If Trump loses, it will be because those who count the votes wanted it that way, whether that’s in agreement with what the voters actually wanted or not.
Finally, a definition of “electability” that I can live with!
Truth.
+1000
This is a very astute comment.
The vote-cooking thumb on the scale is perceptible when used too obviously. I figure they routinely cook 3-6% of the vote, up to 8-10% in some cases with some more eyebrows being raised. Beyond that and everyone starts seeing things for what they are, with the attendant risk of the proles losing confidence in the system. Nobody wants to be forced to understand they are living in a failed state.
Yes, you make a good point I kind of glossed over above. Forcing out Klobuchar and Buttigieg and backing Biden was done not to produce the results in those particular primaries, but to make the reported results just believable enough to the public. Nobody would have believed that midwestern milquetoast Mayo Pete swept the big block of black voters in the South, but with Harris and Booker both already out of the race IIRC, the black-adjacent candidate Biden was the best they could do on short notice to stop Sanders.
If it had been Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota that week, then they would have stuck a fork in Biden and gone with Klobuchar or Buttigieg. One corporate hack is as good as another.
Biden was the backroom candidate only after the preferred one, Harris burned out, and all the other ones proved incapable of beating Sanders, the DNC’s number one priority during the primaries. If Obama wanted Biden to win, the former president would have (formally or informally) endorsed him much earlier than right before the South Carolina primary.
Let’s not forget it was reported that Obama told Biden: “You don’t have to do this, Joe”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/obama-cautioned-biden-about-running-for-president
Also let’s not forget that Bill Clinton encouraged Trump to run in 2016.
I feel like I’m reading a dystopian novel, there is such an air of unreality about current events… things have become quite tenuous.
I don’t think it’s accurate to say “Harris burned out.” As I recall, she was “dragged” (as the Twitter young’uns say) by being powerfully confronted with her own sorry record by Tulsi Gabbard during a ‘debate’.
I think they settled on Biden after both Mayor Pete and Harris didn’t take. (Pete is still being pushed and groomed as a 2024 or 28 candidate.)
Yes, Biden has traditionally been mere stuffing for appearance only (and possibly prevention/exclusion of others) and perfectly comfortable with the fact, but this time circumstance would have it otherwise. I can’t imagine anyone was thrilled with his fit for the exigency.
Sorry to disappoint but the Trump victory will be solid. Way beyond what is required to overcome the ballot shenanigans waiting in the wings.
Most organic support for Biden is really disgust for Trump. That’s not enough.
Trump will capture the largest percentage of minority vote by a GOP candidate, ever.
In a ‘normal’ year Biden and Harris would been seen as they are = deeply flawed with very little support from the traditional base.
Who is truly motivated to vote ? The tens of thousands who wait in lines to attend a Trump rally or the dozens to hundreds who turn out for a Biden / Obama led rally ? You know the answer.
With respect to YS, who I enjoy reading, the polls in 2016 were not incorrect. They were exactly correct in engineering the theme of the outcome they were designed to influence. 2020 is a repeat. Dems are very nervous already. They can read internal polls.
Prepare your expectations accordingly.
Regards.
“Most organic support for Biden is really disgust for Trump. That’s not enough.”
Could not disagree with this more. See my comment below. In fact, I think it is what will make him lose.
My intuition was right in 2016. It nearly made a woman I was dating almost break up with me that I even mentioned it. :)
This is what Trump’s base believes with great conviction of course, and takes every opportunity they can to say. But there really isn’t much here other than conjecture. I mean I think you are right about some things, but I think you underestimate just how far ‘disgust for Trump’ can go. Voting isn’t that hard to do and there a huge push on both sides to make sure people do vote. I think it’s already confirmed that there is going to be more participation in this election than ever before.
I’m not buying “the polls are wrong.” As you say, the polls weren’t wrong – if people actually understand the polling error. Silver gave Trump 1:3 chances just before elections (down to 28% on the election day though, but there was a clear momentum Trump had until the last few days), which is actually not that bad.
Similarly, Brexit vote tends to say “polls were wrong” – they weren’t, I was saying from early in 2016 it was too-close-to-call.
The problem was not the polls, but their media presentation and interpretation, which in both cases focused on wishful thinking as opposed to reality.
Right now, I’m not going to make any predictions, except that if Trump loses by any margin, on the day or later, it will be a “see you in the court” event. And then we’ll see whether the US is still at least somewhat functioning state, or something entirely else.
I think, to be fair, some of the internal and State level polling was wrong – hence HRC’s campaign’s insistence that places like Wisconsin were not in play. Perhaps its hindsight, but there were lots of reports of democrat campaigners on the ground insisting that things were much tighter than the number crunchers were saying. Lets not forget that the shock and surprise of the HRC campaign and MSNBC seemed to be very genuine – perhaps it was group bias dynamics, but certainly insiders with access to the figures seemed absolutely convinced that Trump had no chance. I have never in my life seen any set of insiders so genuinely shocked at a result. So while the result was within a reasonable margin of error, there seems to have been a consistent bias towards HRC which indicates problems with how the polls themselves were carried out.
But I agree that much of the problem came down to how they were interpreted. Every week I chat with some friends online, and they see me as ‘Mr. US election guru’, so they grill me on the latest figures. I keep trying to persuade them that the reporting they see in the Guardian, etc., is not in any way a realistic assessment of what is happening in the polls or on the ground – its part of a concerted narrative to make it appear that Biden is inevitable (why they think this helps is another matter).
I’m putting it to the “even tailors dummy should have beaten Trump”. I believe Trump was as much surprised he won as that HRC that she lost.
HRC didn’t (and doesn’t) realise how much she was hated. Once you can’t admit that to yourself, all the information coming that implies otherwise will be ignored, it’s just human.
And any media that would push that (and weren’t Republican) would have done it by implication, and you don’t want to do that to a probably future US president, do you?
You can pretty much see the same in the UK, where a non-trivial part of the vote was “we hate Cameron & co”. Who could not, for the life of theirs, understand how could anyone vote on issue A because of B, especially in so important a call. But you get it all the time – see EP vote in the UK in 2019, where Labour was given a black eye (and LD thought it was their chance, missing the point from the other side).
Clinton was certainly a loathsome character, but she did win 3 million more votes than Trump. Our electoral college system has set us up for the use of bad faith tactics in a handful of states tilting a presidential election. Trump is already laying the ground work for a disconnected and undemocratic elite (judges) to toss the election his way. It also means that a candidate not only has to appeal to a plurality of people, they must appeal to a very narrow number of voters in a handful of states that get undue influence on the overall election.
We could see something similar play out in this election with Biden winning millions more direct votes but losing the electoral college. This will further divide political partisans and undermine the democratic process as those voters will rightly see their vote had no effect.
Let’s not forget Hillary had a death-grip over the media narrative. The bias was there because no one dared report otherwise. This was easy when the numbers were presented in Hillary’s favor. But for the polls that showed a tight race, no one dared report it for fear of getting “the call.”
If anything, the media environment is even worse now than in 2016. And not just the media. Facebook and Twitter are swarming with Biden-brown shirts, ready to swarm and “cancel” anyone who isn’t sufficiently anti-Trump.
They have recently gone after Chris Prat (Who plays Starlord in the MCU) for failing to show up at a Biden fundraiser that he wasn’t even invited too. And they are STILL going after him, trying to get him kicked out of the MCU and blacklisted out of Hollywood all together. And they may just succeeded. Mark Ruffalo (who plays the Hulk) is a major Biden backer, and even did the “naked vote” campaign came to Chris defense and is also facing the wrath of the Biden-brown shirts.
And if they are going after celebrities, what chance do the rest of us have? If you are not sufficiently anti-Biden on social media, there could be REAL costs.
So yay, the “shy Trump voter” is a real thing.
Lot’s of little Ike-mans in the Dem party, it seems. ;) (pun intended)
——
US GOP pres Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower’s 1950’s campaign ads used the slogans “I like Ike” and “We like Ike.”
It’s democratic campaigners not democrat.
To bolster your argument, here is a pollster who called the fact that it was too close to call in 2016:
His tweet now:
This guy was looking at the congressional district numbers in 2016 and could see that Trump could win. He’s doing the same type of analysis now. He has a good article at the NYT (no paywall) about the counties to watch:
The 10 Bellwether Counties That Show How Trump Is in Serious Trouble
Right, totally agreed – the thing I find unconvincing about these counter-intuitive “Trump will win” arguments is that they are unwilling to acknowledge the thornier data issues that explain the 2016 errors. At least as far as I’ve seen, there may be a few exceptions. Why would we see district level swings in 2016 but not in 2020? These conservative commentaries are much closer to the myopic 2016 Democrat view that we can ignore the troubling numbers, because The True American is equally as disgusted as me with the state of affairs. Also equally ignoring that just as recently as 2012 the mainstream pollsters also underrated Obama’s popular vote percentage!
I don’t think studying law makes on know how to deal with legislators. From what I read, including posts here, Obama did not do a good job dealing with Congress. Obama told them what they should do, Biden asked what they thought they could get passed.
“Looks like Trump has told confidants he’ll declare victory on Tuesday night if it looks like he’s ‘ahead'”
https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1323054167305248768
Things are going to get very interesting if that happens. Overly dynamic situations and all that.
He’s going to pull a Buttigieg! Well, the Dems implement and the Repubs perfect, eh?
zing
Without wanting to make a prediction on the electoral front, I don’t see this not happening. You can get 2-1 odds at the betting markets on whether he will concede or not.
I placed a wager that he won’t concede. If I win, the money’s going to food banks in the UK which are even more overstretched than ever. Your constitutional crisis is our inadequate charity.
Yup, lemons, lemonade.
I made the same bet on 2016 Brexit referendum (and, at the same time, on Iceland beating England in the Soccer World Cup, except that wasn’t lemons, that was my estimation of the English team capabilities. Won both bets).
Not conceding is costless to Trump, unlike conceding.
Not conceding is different to declaring victory isn’t it? If it’s close but he’s ahead and he declares victory before postals counted? Good luck keeping that situation in control.
I’m not saying the situation will be under any sort of control. I’m just saying I’d not expect him to concede until he has no other option, and even then tell everyone who will listen it was stolen.
Because in all actuality, it will have been …
You mean by Republicans disenfranching tons of voters, and declaring even more of mail votes invalid? Right.
So you think he will do exactly like Hillary? Maybe him and her should start a club?
With all the gerrymandering, running out the clock, list purging, broken voting machines, badly designed voting machines, rigged voting machines, disenfranchising state laws, remote voting without verification which would be needed due to the bad lists, and deity knows what else, there hasn’t been a real election in years.
It’s been a contest which side can rig the system better for years now, never an election. Normally it apparently doesn’t matter since the margins are big enough and no one notices. Last time, maybe this time, in 2000 it did matter.
No matter who wins or loses, they might concede and will always tell how the election was stolen. We had 4 years of that so far and will have it another 4 at least.
I would be very surprised if there weren’t moves to make a backroom deal with Trump to ease him out if its a contested election. The one thing the various blobs must agree on is the need for some sort of stable figurehead to allow them do what they want to do. For all his arrogance, Trump is also a physical coward and greedy, that combination will make him amenable to some sort of a deal to walk away.
That may come – but not immediately. And not if it’s close enough, and Dems won the Senate (I’m assuming they will keep the House).
I do not buy the “Trump will be sued to death”, as, if nothing else, he can pardon himself. While it’d be very controversial, it’s not prohibited, with the current SC I believe he’d get away with it (regardless of the horrific precedent it would set).
The only other real lever they would have over him is the banks, as he has a lots of debts coming due, and if the banks were to start foreclosing on the properties (which right now would have very distressed valuations, given CV), it would be very very painful to him.
I’m sure some debt forgiveness and criminal forgiveness would help Trump into retirement, but I don’t think it will happen. Do you think we will see a forgiveness of crimes such as Obama did with dubya (“let’s move on” etc)? I doubt it…
The longer the chaos, the longer the collective bipartisan “they” don’t have to do anything about local / state governments or give help to those being crushed by the Covid economic fallout that they had a hand in creating.
Plus time will be needed to establish who should be on which battle front and their narratives once the new legislative players are known. Don’t forget if Biden does win, we’ll have battles over cabinet positions too. That can also slow down “for the people” and local government aid packages, assuming there are some.
If local governments get gutted before then, spinning them back up, followed by implementing that “aid package” takes time. Potentially a lot of time depending on how deep the cuts.
Will third party contracting dream team houses have to step in to fills the even more local government voids that get created?
I’m voting Austerity for ALL who aren’t worthy! /s
Trump is also a physical coward and greedy, that combination will make him amenable to some sort of a deal to walk away.
It is often pointed out that he’ll need protection from N. Y. prosecution, for example—an interesting event to try to buy off or “mitigate”?
Ha. That’s a mayor Pete move.
Thanks Yves. I live in Germany and try to make sense of the US. No use reading WP or NYT. Yours is a big, big country and metropolitan journalists seem to totally have forgotten that. Thank you and your commentariat.
I don’t read the WaPo, but there are individual stories in the NYT which are fair. I have seen some which let Trump voters speak for themselves with no snark from the reporter. They also had a very good story on nonvoters. The reporter even pointed out that nonvoters were generally poor and concerned with issues like low wages that don’t much concern the people who do vote. The reactions in the comment section were ugly and self righteous. Liberals in the US have adopted the view that everyone is morally obligated to vote ( for the Democrat) and politicians have no obligation to earn their votes. It’s been this way for 20 years, ever since Nader.
The opinion writers at the NYT are, with few exceptions, a complete waste of time on all subjects. One conservative writer, Ross Douthat, is an exception because he is capable of stepping back and criticizing all factions while making at least some effort to be honest.
It’s interesting. You say NYT, and I know that in FT there’s actually quite high quality journalism going on (see Wirecard for an FT example). What I heard recently from Col Smithers, who has good connections there, is that there’s a massive gulf between reporters (journos) and opinion piece writers.
Unfortunately, it’s usually the opinion writers who get the floor, and thus the limelight and hence sell the subscriptions.
That must be pretty damn irritating to quality journos.
Maybe because Clinton didn’t win by much and the core of BLM & Floyd murder is here so the state is more influx than expected. Actually the entire state’s situation is more much complex than what I just said.
Of course he should be in Wisconsin even more so.
I’ll stick with my prediction that it’s Trump’s to lose, not Biden’s to win.
Either way I think we have 3 more months of the show. Otherwise politicians might actually have to do something real & substantial for the bottom 80%. Bye bye local government & services that I probably took for granted would always be there. You got singed after the 2008 meltdown but you’re about to go through the grinder now. The last of the unions and real pensions. People with the ability to still provide assistance and accountability, especially if they aren’t contractors. Oh well. This will filter out in very dramatic ways. But as they say, opportunity of a lifetime.
Either way I think we have 3 more months of the show.
Think of the fund raising opportunities! Think of the newpaper sales! /s
I think Frank’s main critique of Democrats was that they went ‘all in’ for the polished, educated types who, when given power, would most likely come up with good decisions. Obviously that’s an incorrect assumption. These folks screw up royally and regularly, is Frank’s assessment. They all work for Wall Street and their classmates. The One Percent, in other words. And they promote the ‘Democracy Scare’ as much as Republicans. The Democrats need to return to believing in working families who aren’t earning enough (a majority of them are white, btw) and in helping those hobbled by racism. Couple that with the fact Republicans only like socialism for the rich. But when it comes to SS or Medicare type socialism, forget it! I don’t know who writes for Biden or who selects the best themes for Democrats, but they need replacing. Of course, we are not members of an organized political party, we’re Democrats!
Are you sure that’s only the Republicans?
For the lower classes:
One side will tell you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and that they will help you if you join their tribe (to prove worthiness) and become a believer (or at least pay public lip service).
The other side has no tribal membership requirement. They will leave you to your own devices to fill out paperwork, jump through hoops, and stand on your head as you go through means-testing. If you “qualify” for help and are judged worthy, it will be thanks to the will of the algorithm which they promote as “fairness.”
Both will use shame and finger-wagging as the bestest tools in their toolkits. But one side will be considered mean. I’ve come to think of them perhaps as just more honest about their intents.
Trump gives populism a bad name, but the Democrat establishment will never change. And, even though what happened to Corbyn is a big warning, I doubt there will be a Night of the Long Knives if somehow progressives wrest control of the party. So this election is worthless, and like Taibbi, I just want it to over. Progressives need to ditch IdPol to unite the working class, and that won’t depend on the results of this presidential election.
Professor Helmut Norpoth suggests that a good indicator for election results is the voter registrations and that for many of the swing states the democrats voter registrations are too low. The London School of economics citizen forecasting (voter expectations) modelling suggests Trump could win. Maybe the shy trump voter is a real concept and asking a voter how they think their friends and relatives will vote gives a better answer than asking them how they would vote.
To get a feel for whether the polls could really be that far out I had a look at a number of polls for Florida over time. For instance the Rasmussen Reports has Trump 49% and Biden 46% on the 23rd of October yet on the 1st of November the poll was 48% Biden and 47% Trump.The St Pete polls for Florida had Biden 49% and Trump 47% on the 21st October but Biden 49% and trump 48% on Oct 29th.The St Pete’s poll goes into detail about the shy trumpster and indicates that Trump support is concentrated in certain demographics.The Trump favorable demographics may well be those most likely to actually make a vote.
Florida looks so close you might as well ask Chris Chris the squirrel (Trump win).
The shy voter is definitely real. There are lots of quiet Trump voters. A former friend of mine would not tell his children who he voted for in the election. His kids instinctively dislike Trump, so it’s quite clear that he’s embarrassed to have his children, and by proxy a wider social circle know he voted for Trump.
Biden is going to win. I am calling it here based on my “anecdotes are data” idea.
I know four people in North Carolina. Two of them did not vote for more than 10 years and one voted for Trump the last election and another who voted for Trump voted Libertarian. They are all voting and all voting for Biden. Also, I voted this year only because I am sick of hearing about Trump 24/7.
I think you’ll be in good company. I could not vote for Biden and I refused to vote for Trump. I voted Green. But then I live in state where I could have voted 6 times and it still wouldn’t matter – the state will go deep blue and the result will be known immediately tomorrow night.
There is a lot of support for Biden. It’s not the same as the support for Trump. There is also a lot of support for Trump. But I think the odds are against Trump this time.
I can only speak for myself here. But I must confess, I am not really motivated to vote – at all. If I can’t vote for Trump, then I simply cannot vote for Biden for exactly the same reasons. With all the Biden/Trump discussion, what is not being discussed much are the down-ticket races for congress and the state house. Here in Wichita Kansas, the local races look a lot like the Biden/Trump debate; lots of corporate money sloshing around, accusations of “socialist” and “gun confiscation” made by Republicans (typical) and not one word of real substance. I can no longer maintain the elusion that down-ticket Democrats have any independence from the establishment.
In other words, not only can I not bring myself to vote for Biden, but I also don’t think I can bring myself to vote for ANY Democrat on the ticket. The Democratic brand is just that damaged. And there seems little hope that non-establishment voices will ever make it to the ticket within my life-span. I simply do not have a good reason to vote. And “orange-man-bad” is NOT a reason.
I reluctantly watched Pelosi and Blitzer (both are scumbags) but I could not continue more than half way. Nancy seems to think child care, earned income credits are important in the package. She has no clue about the people who have no job, no healthcare, no food to eat, no place to stay, etc. A fat lot of good these credits will do for them. She is so removed from reality as is most of the DimRat party. Of course, the RePigs have no empathy for the poor and will do nothing to help them.
The money quote from the post:
One even said that no matter who was elected, the US was on its was to becoming like Russia after the USSR fell, with the rich grabbing everything of value..
I wouldn’t be surprised if things slide downhill really fast after the election. The stock market is dropping fast even after trillions have been given to the yuuge corporations. The smart money’s pulling out.
We’re truly family blogged.
I have already voted. I voted for Trump.
This was the first GOP vote for president I have ever cast. 28 years.
I am one of the “tsunami” of Democrats who already cast their ballots. And John Heilemann explained to America that he KNOWS that Trump will lose. He has spoken to the electorate and he KNOWS.
This was on Bill Maher on Friday night. The whole interview with Maher, Lis Smith and Heilemann was just emblematic of the arrogance of all these people. It was quite illuminating. All my lizard brain thought while listening was RUN AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.
The Democratic Party has completely lost its way. When it gets back to helping the families of this country that are working then I will be back. Most of them are white. And law and order is fundamental to a democracy and not to be dismissed.
Talking to my fellow Democrats who are not cultists, many of whom are black and Hispanic, I think we are in for some surprises on Tuesday. I have working class family members back home in Wisconsin literally flooding the polls this year. They have not bothered to vote for years. And , hint, hint, they are not voting for Biden. I wonder how many people who haven’t voted in decades get counted in these pre-election polls?
“The Democratic Party has completely lost its way. When it gets back to helping the families of this country that are working then I will be back.”
I am asking this in all honesty, how do you think Trump has helped “the families of this country that are working”? I understand that the democrat party has not helped the working class, but I cannot see how Trump has.
And in singling out the “the families of this country that are working” are you not missing a large group of people who might need more help?
Absolutely.
I get the people saying Dems are useless moneygrabers, but is Trump and GOP really different? What exactly did he do during his tenure? (one thing I can think of is the CV relieve package earlier this year, but I’m not sure how much Trump had to do with it).
Both Obama and Trump were all talk, no hat. Depending on whether you’re Dem or Rep, you blamed it on the other side/deep state/whatever, even though both Obama and Trump had control of the Congress when elected.
Trump “helped” them by praising them relentlessly….. and then gave tax breaks and massive direct assistance (during COVID) to the Wall Street wealthy class. He mainly gave the little people a fine tongue bath. And in comparison, elite Democrats can’t disguise their contempt for the electorate. Even the most conditional respect looks like a tongue bath in comparison.
One thing a number of commenters have presented as in Trump’s favor is his loud fan base. Who parade around in their large vehicles (always full sized pickups and SUVs, usually late models) bedecked with Trump flags. I don’t know if their braggart, bully style of support is really doing him favors with regular people in the U.S. To me, they looked like bullies aching for a fight long before the campaign bus incident in Texas. Being harassed by bullies right in your neighborhood strip mall, or sneered at by Pelosi types on TV….. it’s easier to avoid the latter. They’re both disgusting, but Pelosi isn’t as in your face as the local loudmouths. You can change the channel to avoid her, but the assclown racing past you in the right lane with 4-6 flags on his truck is right there beside you.
So I guess your “fellow Democrats” who are black and Hispanic are not working then?
Well that could have been typed more tactfully – I apologize –
I am not very good at typing thoughts on the run.
That is not what I meant at all – and I apologize if you were offended.
It’s not so much offense, as I just perhaps question your sincerity. I mean you really didn’t give any reasons for voting Trump, except that “Democrats bad”. And they are, of course. But I wonder about where you are actually coming from here.
And you voted for Clinton in 2016, right?
>Talking to my fellow Democrats who are not cultists, many of whom are black and Hispanic,
Doctors make a lot of money. Minorities are famous for saying nice things to Whites and saying something else entirely behind their back. See Chris Rock for the best elucidation of this.
But we’ll see.
Yes – I voted for Clinton –
And some of the minorities I am talking about are my own family members. I have multiple family members married to Latinos, Blacks, and Asians.
Trust me – they hold no punches.
And – I spend 3 months of the year – in inner city hospitals – Just got done in SEPT this year.
Maybe you do not know – but primary care doctors such as myself – especially those like myself – who have chosen to work in the inner city and among Indian tribes really do not make a lot of money. It is the soul inspiring work that I have been given the privilege to do that keeps me going.
JUST LISTEN TO YOURSELF – I could not have made my point better than your response.
Well I didn’t vote for Clinton so I have that on you.
> I spend 3 months of the year – in inner city hospitals
Thanks and I truthfully appreciate and praise you for it. I suspect the other 9 months of the year bring in 2x *my* annual salary, but whatever. It’s still small potatoes in this world of billionaires.
In any case I’m still not convinced that your hearing the truth. I am a white male and I don’t pretend to speak for Latinos, Blacks and Asians they really don’t like that.
And you haven’t given a reason for voting for Trump.
As other’s have mentioned you gave no reason to vote for Trump – other than ‘Democrat’s have lost their way’ Maybe, well, not just maybe true, I’ll agree it is true, but, as you say, you are a doctor working in inner city hospitals – and what has Trump done to help the inner city hospitals? What has he done to help medical anything? Nothing I can see. He has become a medical threat to so many people. What great shiny plan has he elucidated to replace the ACA? He is all talk no action… except appointing right wing corporate judges.
Please, could you explain your logic, as I am confused by your post. Is it just anger at the Democrats?
The one factor missing in this piece is the extent to which some people when polled are too embarassed to admit that they intend to vote for Trump (I assume due more to the insanity of the media coverage and any TDS friends they may have more than any personal embarassment about Trump the guy or Trump the president). I’m not sure how much of an actual influencing this factor will be (nor how you could measure it), but with with the tenor of media coverage the last 4 years, I would expect the numbers of non-admitting Trump voters that fall through the cracks of the polls to rise this time around.
It may even be worse. I have heard that radical Trump voters (we are talking the Qanon crowd here) are deliberately ling to pollsters, giving them false numbers. I can’t imagen this having much of an impact on the polls, unless the Qanon crowd is larger than we think it is.
I think TDS sufferers come in three forms— Trump opponents and Trump supporters and Trump himself.
Most talk about Trump is deranged. And Trump is deranged.
The PMC liberals are obsessed about Russia and made heroes out of Iraq War supporters and CIA torturers.
Trump supporters still talk like he is an insurgent trying to drain the swamp and end wars, when he is basically a neocon in foreign policy and is part of the swamp. His domestic policies are basically standard Republican. The only reason some Republicans hate him is because he is personally crude and rips the veil away from all the ugliness that generally goes on in DC. The Russiagaters push that issue just to ensure the certainty of a Cold War with Russia. Trump’s actual policies are already hostile towards Russia.
Zelda has not particularly convinced me here. I mean I don’t think that there are very many people in “the Biden camp” at all, but that there are a whole LOT of people who are just tired of Trump being president. It’s been very tiring, these past 4 years and they are ready for anything else. Whether that is because of the mainstream media constantly whining and hammering into their minds that Trump is bad day in and day out, or because of Trump’s own behavior (it’s some combination I’m sure), many Americans are just done. I think that’s why Biden will win however… my data point of my own experience is that I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Biden, and so I voted third party. So my own experience does tend to favor Trump winning, since his base is pretty much religiously, fanatically dedicated to voting for him.
It’s a sad state of affairs all around.
Has anyone considered the possibility that the polls are wrong, but instead of underestimating Trump’s support, they’re underestimating Biden’s support? Both are equally possible, but for some reason so many people only assume that Trump’s support is being underappreciated. Sure, he has very passionate supporters, but how is that perceived by people who aren’t so passionate about him? I’m not sure if blocking traffic in several different cities is going to convince undecided voters to go for Trump, but I could be wrong.
Sure, the polls could be wrong, but my eyeballs are seeing a much different environment than 2016. The Democrats are about as unified as they could possibly be, and early voting has spiked all around the country. It’s possible those votes are being cannibalized from election day, but considering that a few states have already passed 2016 levels (and not all in swing state areas), that tells me that turnout will be much higher than 2016.
The Republicans are not acting like they think they’re going to win – just look at how they’re campaigning in their Congressional races. The Trump campaign isn’t acting like they think they’re going to win legitimately, either. If they did, they wouldn’t already be talking about having to rely on the courts. Besides, 2018 certainly went for the Democrats, and what has happened since then to convince people that the country would be better off with the Republicans running it?
I could be wrong, and that Trump supporter could be right, but the mood that I’m sensing is much different than 2016. We’ll see.
“Has anyone considered the possibility that the polls are wrong, but instead of underestimating Trump’s support, they’re underestimating Biden’s support? ”
Yes, I believe this is the case as well.
Yeah if I could I would just replace all my posts with a link to voteforno6 post. It is exactly my thoughts, and Trump’s only hope is the EC.
But do read my thoughts on how fast the R party is going to throw Trump under the bus if he doesn’t pull out the EC. They hate him almost as much as the Dems hate Sanders.
That’s something I’ve thought is a possibility, since the polling outfits had a lot of egg on their face after 2016 (though to be fair the national numbers were pretty close) and often times the response when missing one way leads to missing the other way the next time. Plus saying Biden will win by 6% nationally and having him win by 10% would be less embarrassing than having said HRC will win by 3% nationally but her winning by 2% and losing the EC.
Well… off the top of my head… riots and general idPol insanity?
Dem party corruption and entitlement seems to only grow worse?
“Dem party corruption”
If you think the Democrats are corrupt, wait until you find out about the Trumps.
Of course, there’s also COVID19, which seems to be the top issue in this election, no matter how much the Republicans want to wish it away.
The Trumps are a family, not a political party. They haven’t been part of the GOP for decades, calling the shots.
I don’t see them supporting the overthrow of states like the Ukraine, or bragging in public about their power to meddle in the politics of the Ukraine, getting investigators fired, etc. I don’t see the Trumps doing what the Democrats did to Sanders. Nor do I see the Trumps selling access the way the Clintons and the Bidens have done. Nor do I hear of the Trumps shilling for banks in the way the Democrats have. Nor do I hear about the FBI sitting on multiple laptops with incriminating emails and photos of Trump family members smoking crack, receiving services from underage girls, etc.
Forgot to add that I don’t see Trump family lawyers at work in Pennsylvania, getting Green Party candidates kicked off the ballot.
Neither are the Biden family lawyers, and not only because the are busy at whatever commercial stuff Hunter’s doing now. It’s because it’s done by the party machinery for them.
Same way, as GOP lawyers are trying to disfranchise tons of voters elsewhere.
So the country would be better off with Republicans running it because of the riots… which have been occurring with Republicans running the country? Oh I’m sorry, I forgot: it’s those “Democrat cities” where the unrest is happening. Riots, protests and other civil unrest are happening because of “Id-pol” and probably socialism as well. They have nothing to do with out of control police departments that keep murdering citizens and minorities in particular. That’s why we need more Republican rule. They’ll bring the crack down to those cities and/or just wipe them off the map by refusing to help them survive the pandemic.
No. Voteforno6’s question was “what has happened since then to convince people“ — sort of implying nothing has happened, when arguably many things have happened.
Do I personally think the country would be better off with Republicans running things? Nope. I didn’t vote for them, and probably I never will.
My point is simply that if we’re talking about what will convince voters in general, obviously there are many widely-noted negatives in the Democrat column.
Well yes, there are indeed.
I just have a different idea about what’s wrong with the Democrats than right wingers.
If you think the Democrats are unified, it’s only because nobody on the actual left is allowed to be part of the Democrat party. So the remaining rump ‘liberal’ political party may be unified under the Democrat banner, but there aren’t all that many people left who will admit to being Democrat. They aren’t the majority, and not even a plurality. If trends continue, unaffiliated independent voters will soon be the majority. And then people might start wondering what the point of these two ridiculous parties is in the first place.
One item that received very little attention is 2016 was that Trump did not run campaign ads until the last week or two of the campaign, and his primary ad was a killer. Its focus was on Soros and had pictures of Albright and others with Hillary and had a definite populist edge that there are dark forces behind the scenes associated with Hillary, and Trump will take them down. At least from an economic policy perspective, Trump running that ad was the biggest load of crap imaginable given his tax policy announced in April 2016 and as later enacted. I expected the Clinton campaign to call out the hypocrisy in a counter-ad but instead her closing ad was people waiving at the camera to a Simon and Garfunkel song (IIRC). Trump finally running an ad, and an effective one, is what I think got him over the edge, not Comey re-hashing what everyone was sick of hearing about, nor were the polling errors as bad as people think (eg,, Wisconsin was rarely polled and HRC rarely exceeded 46% in swing state polls).
Yesterday’s NFL games featured Trump ads with a 1994 Senate speech where Biden was foaming at the mouth that if the crime bill isn’t passed, “they” will be on street and probably attack “our” mothers. And then an African American guy stated the obvious and said “we know who he’s talking about”.
I do not understand why it takes Democrats so long or never to counter Republican accusations like “Soros”.
Soros made Steven Mnuchin , wealthy. Soros does business with Goldman Sachs who does business with Soros. Soros and Wilbur Ross. Soros bailed out Trump in Chicago. Jared Kushner does business with Soros. Etc.
Too easy. Make an ad highlighting Trump Admin extensive ties to Soros and blast it all over the media. Using a 3rd party front group.
MAGA is childishly easy to counter also. Democratic strategists could not figure out how to turn MAGA into a pro-Democratic campaign ad.
Democratic strategists are bland. They rely, ultimately, on simple & neat categories that fail to capture the complex dynamics. What is odd is how they can acknowledge those dynamics in one instance and then revert to pigeon-holing voters and issues in the next
I find this Trump ad absolutely hilarious. Funny thing is my friend pointed it out to me after he saw it broadcast during a zombie tv show (walking dead, I think) .
https://youtu.be/y5KNJrt_DTo
Look, I was right and wrong in 2016. Unlike most people I know, I thought Clinton would win in a squeaker so tight we wouldn’t know on election night. As I said after if I vhad realized her campaign was essentially ignoring the rust belt in the.last month, I would have changed that, but I didn’t.
This time the media love of Trump ratings has been tempered. Trump is always highly edited. He doesn’t have that help. And Covid has hurt him but the lockdowns hold too much pain and our professional class have not had a coherent response in the ever-changing face of the virus. BLM has hurt Biden. I think most people get what have fueled the protests, but the lack of a coherent and simply put list of needed reforms coupled with the possibly ratf*ck spurred violence has lost a great many people. And Biden is Biden in decline, the not so good campaigner has gotten worse. (Covid’s biggest value to the Biden campaign has been giving him the ability to limit actual public appearances.)
Until the last couple of weeks, I was figuring the triumphant polls were optimistic but Biden would pull it out despite all those problems. Close in the states that flipped from 2012 to 2016, but he would flip enough back. But I am not so sure anymore. The reports of increased Republican voter registration throws everything further up in the air. Their ground game is already showing strength. And that is what is the major spanner in the Democratic “dreams”.
Ground games in California and NY mean diddly. And virtual is not as effective as a real ground voter recruitment campaign. Oops.
Edited to add: gaming this out does not mean I think either of these two poor excuses for humanity should win. If we were sane and intelligent Tuesday would find the race between Hawkins and Jorgensen and some write in candidate, Biden and Trump with low single digits in every state.
I agree with Vlade that “see you in court” is high on Trump’s contingency list. I think -if he does- Trump will use it not simply as a tantrum, but as a weapon he has sharpened deliberately. I also think Biden would do the same were he in a position to AND not afraid without a full compliment of bullies behind him. Also, it takes balls. Unlike Trump, Biden is circumscribed by a very conventional view of what he can and can not get away with – a rigged nomination with DNC fingerprints, not his, being quite acceptable, but not stacking the Supreme Court and using it in full view all in the space of a month.
I read the polls only in the last two weeks of a presidential election, so last night I checked in at Real Clear Politics: Biden is ~7 points down in Iowa? That explains why he was there recently. Ditto for Trump. I hear a bell tolling in the distance. For whom is the question.
I am in the PMC but not of it. I have many friends whom I see regularly from “back home” who are for the most part not in the PMC. They have stayed in what was a thriving small city when we were kids in the 1960s and through the early 1970s. Union industrial jobs were there for all. Except for one paper mill, all that is gone. Do these “old” men, most now at Medicare age, think Trump will really do anything? No. But he didn’t call them a basket of deplorables and they also know he isn’t the agent of neoliberalism who is “responsible” for the devastation of their slice of paradise. The only part of that community that thrives today is the tourist component (for now, until sea level rises another foot or the Category 5 hurricane makes a direct hit) and the adjacent Zip Code that is probably in the top-5 in wealth and income in the country. Zelda is largely right. If Pennsylvania is close at 9:00 pm tomorrow, 2016 redux in the making? You cannot beat something with nothing. And Biden-Harris? Less than nothing.
Oh, and that Luntz video from the other day? Finally watched it. He is dead right about the reaction to rescuing the banksters. His later tears (yes, actual tears) at what we have become are affecting. Not. He is the genius who taught Newt Gingrich (not that Newton Leroy, savior of western civilization, needed much teaching) to refer to people like me and most people here as sick, twisted, traitorous, un-American, and suchlike. Also came up with “government control” of health care and the “death tax.” “Energy exploration.” Add to the list at your leisure. What did Dick Cheney tell Patrick Leahy? Yeah, that, Mr. Luntz.
>They have stayed in what was a thriving small city
But here’s Trump’s problem in Pa — the small part.
He loses the Philadelphia suburbs and he can have 100% of Bloomsburg,* it won’t matter.
*and he probably won’t, as it’s a college town…
“If Pennsylvania is close at 9:00 pm tomorrow…”
And I still believe those suburban GOP voters who will vote for Biden instead of Trump are a peculiar fantasy of Chuck Schumer (and the other partners in Pelosi Schumer Obama Clinton & Biden LLC), in Pennsylvania and Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan. They might not vote for Trump this time around, but Biden? Hard to imagine. We do live in interesting times. Alas.
That may be…. would this mean we finally could look ahead to more than 2 parties?
Not gonna get my hopes up, but yeah if a lot of dismayed R’s vote Libertarian and a lot of young voters vote Green… maybe those two parties could figure out how to live together somehow until they’ve broken the duopoly.
Weirder things have happened in politics.
I think that is our only, slim chance. My hope is that if Trump wins convincingly in the EC, the Democrat Party goes the way of the Whigs, with Biden more or less representing Millard Fillmore. I apologize to the shade of VP-Pres Millard, who lost to James Buchanan, the 19th-century Donald Trump (no need to apologize to Buchanan’s ghost).
During my afternoon news break I just saw that WSJ ad with all those Deep State Do-Bees all-in for Non-Trump. Reason enough to vote for DJT, the erstwhile Deep State Don’t-Bee.
From a Republican lawyer Benjamin L. Ginsberg:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/01/ben-ginsberg-voter-suppression-republicans/
Some examples: https://twitter.com/rickhasen/status/1323055904699285504
I can see the polls being wrong, but I have a hard time believing they are that wrong. I will say, that if the polls are so wrong that they are masking a Trump victory right now, polling in the US is so inaccurate that it is basically useless and I will never take them seriously again. I tend to think Trump got really lucky and caught lighting in a bottle back in 2016. I just don’t see it happening a second time.
I think Trump’s most probably path to victory, and I want to add that it’s a longshot, is that he keeps the races close enough in several key states that the victory is contested and he takes it to the courts where he has a pretty decisive advantage. If Trump has an ace in the hole, it’s that. Trump doesn’t even have to win outright per se, he just has to get close enough winning that he can contest the results and win via the judiciary. This is on top of the advantage the Electoral College gives him. It’s remote, but it definitely isn’t impossible.
Maybe, but the courts don’t have the final say – Congress does. Also, if there’s a pretty clear feeling that Trump stole this thing through the courts, how will the country react? Considering what happened this summer, anything is possible.
The S. Court is dominated by Justices with a pro-business, pro-Wall St, pro-US Chamber of Commerce outlook.
Biden is Wall St and the US Chamber’s choice. If it’s a close and contested election and the Court is involved, my guess is they’ll throw it to Biden. Presidential terms are short but Wall St’s time is long.
Yes!
Covid Amy is what they wanted, and she will do as bidden. The R party can re-constitute itself back to where it was, but run a real party candidate in 2024 against a very beatable Harris.
Well, what nobody can possibly miss is the Megaphone: the PMC media’s frantic full court press to literally shout Joe Biden into office, using every channel they can possibly strongarm. And since the media is straining every sinew to will its version of reality into being, why wouldn’t the polling organizations (which depend on these politicized sponsors) also be feeling pressure to ‘shade’ their findings toward the desired reality?
And the Democrats said siddown, siddown yer blockin’ the vote;
And the media said siddown, siddown yer blockin’ the vote;
Cuz’ Joe Biden will save the empire,
Til’ the squillionaires cut his senile throat,
So siddown siddown siddown siddown siddown yer blockin’ the vote!
Three months ago I had to drive through a little town called Linden Tennessee. An accident on interstate caused me to take a detour. As I approached Linden, I saw several of the jacked up, big tired pickups with trump flags. When I got to the town square, there was a BLM protest that was well attended. Needless to say I was surprised. I then passed several more trump trucks driving towards the protest. I want to comment about those trump trucks. Demographically, drivers of those trucks are mostly men doing fairly well for their region. They are also,generally, f-ing assholes. Joe Rogan had mentioned awhile ago how Trump was the king of the assholes. That is entirely true. When I saw that video of Biden bus, the first thing I thought was asshole brigade. I’m not the only one who thinks this. A month ago, I drove through the same area. I was surprised by the number of Biden signs. I asked my sister, who spends a lot of time there why all the Biden signs. She said must be people who got covid. She said plenty of trumpsters there though. Over the past month, covid has raged through that area. Highest rates in the state of Tennessee. It was 207 per 100k people at one point last week. I will be interested to see voter turnout and results there.
I had the same experience and reaction out west, in Reno, NV, and a couple of the rural towns in western NV. The people with the Trump flags all over their trucks are like you describe. They’re big braggarts in smallish ponds who love the man who has given them the okay to be jerks in public.
Thing is. They actually aren’t most of us. You and me “aren’t the only ones who think this”.
And the soundtrack song is surely Denis Leary’s “I’m an A**hole” (NSFW)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_KDAicF0Yo
Ditto here in central WA — lots of a-holes driving jacked up 4WD pickups. Around here I know they have a lot of tacit support, but in general in the US I believe they are a small minority who are very loud.
Trump won in 2016. If you voted for Trump in 2016 you will vote for him again. Why? He kept his promises and about trade deals, immigration, tax cuts, good supreme court pics, getting out of the middle east. On top of that it has been revealed that the Obama/Biden/Clintons were spying on him and the Democrat’s put forth a bad faith impeachment. Plus Hillary was a far better candidate than Biden and she still lost. Plus most associate the riots with the left. The left has shown itself to be very dishonest. And the Hunter Biden scandal is real. I am 52 year old married male with 2 middle school kids in southwest Florida. I have a masters degree in accounting.
In my small circle of friends I know two people who are not voting for Trump again. One is voting libertarian and the other is voting for Biden.
So I believe you are living in the land of hope rather than reality.
I know two people who voted for Hillary who are going to be voting for Trump; they are registered Democrats! I was shocked. There are a lot of anecdotes. I think you are right that Biden will win, but not based on anecdotes.
Nope, not true.. you underestimate how many people were voting “Not Clinton” in 2016.. and the effects of Covid. I know a few septegenarians who have changed their voted because their lives have been touched by death to the virus. And the outright hostility to the medical establishment that this Admin has portrayed has sealed their fate.
You can’t spend tax cuts when you are dead.
I don’t think the impact of covid on the elderly is receiving sufficient attention. Trump/Republicans have been dismissive and creating barriers to absentee ballots and other voting accommodations that would enable older people to vote safely.
All the talk about covid “only affecting old and vulnerable” sounds very cold. Here in the swing states, there’s daily articles about the hospitals being overrun and soon needing to institute triage care. No one wants to be treated as disposable.
I suspect Trump’s abrasive style is more bothersome to older folks as well. Even if they support his policies, they don’t appreciate how he conducts himself.
Maybe one thing could be overlooked, but put them all together, and I anticipate Trump is going to lose a lot of the older folks he got last election.
When did Trump get out of the middle east, I must have missed that part?
This whole thing has such a “who are you are gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes” quality to it that it’s hard to not to believe that Trump will pull it out.
Trump draws huge crowds in PA in bad weather and with everyone so “afraid of covid” while biden, even with obama, struggles to get a few hundred, but biden gets PA because he says “Scranton.”
Trump “trains” spring up spontaneously in many parts of the country, but they are “meaningless” in terms of the presidential race.
biden/obama abandoned card check four short years ago and pushed TPP which Trump shitcanned, not to mention NAFTA, but unions and workers support biden.
Most people supposedly “support” blm, are unbothered by the mayhem, and don’t like Trump emphasizing law and order.
A majority of people say they are “better off now than they were four years ago,” but still want biden instead of Trump.
hunter’s not a big deal.
The democrats and never-Trumpers have been making shit up and the corporate media has been peddling it for four years. This “biden is sure to win” line seems like just more of the same. Or so my own “lyin’ eyes” are telling me.
Thought I would visit 2016 again and reread Lambert’s WC from the day before the election.
Some interesting notes:
● Clinton had solid leads (+4.5%) in battleground states such as Wisc, Mich, and Penn.
● Clinton actually had a slight improvement in the polls from the previous week (very slight).
● A concern of the commentariat was the recent increases in ACA and work insurance plans.
● A general appreciation to the NC writers for all the hard work that went into the election coverage.
So what I’d like to see (though don’t expect) is for Trump to win a landslide, as the electorate calls bolshoi on this whole sickening Vast West Wing Conspiracy donkey show
…. and then drop stone dead at the end of his victory ‘speech’. Leaving Michael Richard Pence as our 46th President! Come on, who’s with me? :-D
Pick up your opiate of choice, comrades, and follow my United Front to Golgotha!
1. With the 2020 candidate bar being set about as low as it possibly could go, a one term Indiana governor and now battle hardened VP to mercurial clown Donald Trump seems to me far better qualified to take charge of a divided nation being run into the ground by a cabal of toads than two mediocre Senators, one visibly senile, the other an empty pantsuit.
2. So what about all that Jesus? Well, fine. But nobody can seriously deny that Pence believes something bigger than just what’s good for Mike. That alone makes him unique among the 4. And unlike most holy rollers, nobody’s caught him yet with a dead woman or a live fly… oh, wait, the debate was a twofer.
Further, I doubt Mike feels particularly Called to hasten the End of Days. But whatever, at this point, frankly, I’d sooner risk Armageddon than 4 years of being talked down at by the Safran Kween and Obama/McKinsey alumni catfood commissions. Either way, the 51st State gets a blank check; so all 2020 roads lead to Megiddo if it is so prophecied.
3. As for the fears of the Atwood brigade: in 2021, the *actual* power of a President to force us all back into nunneries/ kitchens/ uniforms/ cotton fields via executive fiat is pretty much zero. Religious conservatives are, what? about 1/9th of the population? No basis for a dominant bloc in Congress. And the Supreme Court is already fixed, thanks Dems!
4. In fact, as the ‘Indispensable Nation’ continues to rage against its very real limitations and defects in 2021-2022, we might well see Pence dial back the Cold Turkey With Jesus panaceas and walk the Uniparty a few steps back from the abyss. Seek common ground with the minority city machines and what’s left of the old Left (unions) to try to renew our utterly busted social contracts, kicking Idpol nihilists and PMC Darwinists to the curb.
5. …Or maybe I’m speaking in tongues and Pence just ends up being a bland country club Republican. Taking taxes and regs off the American ‘gentry’ so they can make steady bank selling resources to China and groceries to the mopes, while the Republic continues stumbling downhill. But better those shlubs own the Executive than our Tech Overlords.
Winning!
This election is like that feeling when you just can’t stand something one second longer… and that something is the democrat machine. Our elections are usually so agonizing that they can defuse any thought of revolution. 2016 was the craziest thing I ever saw – just plain nasty as well. So I can’t help thinking that Steve Bannon himself has been working behind the scenes producing spectacular agitprop – does anybody else suspect he took Michael Moore’s speech after the 2016 surprise (about it being one big fuck you to the political establishment) and managed to say exactly what most people are still thinking. That the democrats and the vetted pols haven’t had a good idea since 1945 and we’re so sick of all of their betrayal that we could puke. That Michael Moore redux was the best pro-Trump ad the Republicans could ever have imagined. Complete with patriotic music and Trump, in his suit and red tie, looking very presidential.
Yves, it is not curious or even surprising that
“Trump fans don’t seem deterred by his poor poll numbers or the way the new Covid wave seems primed to cut even further into his backing.”
Remember, these are low information people. And what’s more, they do not understand or believe facts and science. This election is just another conspiracy playing out.
All we can do is continue to confront “alternative facts,” as Kellyanne would say, and continue to communicate reality. Thank you American press.
If you are still concerned about the way 2016 went down and the polling for it (which I know you know that the national polls were correct), then consider this: did any of the pollsters factor in the Russian and conspiracy finagle factors? Maybe you know, but I don’t think they sufficiently considered them. Certainly the public didn’t.
“Russian and conspiracy finagle factors”
someone so quick to label others as low information should seriously confront himself with a mirror. Cognitive dissonance much, fella?
And speaking of “Trump trains,” here is what happened yesterday in Louisville: “Louisville protesters block in ‘Trump Train’ at Eastern High School ahead of rally.”
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2020/11/01/louisville-protesters-block-trump-train-eastern-high-school/6117282002/?for-guid=47b205aa-dce8-46ec-b4bf-0eb533f0a510&utm_source=courier-journal-Daily%20Briefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily_briefing&utm_term=list_article_thumb
Welcome to the blog!
“Remember, these are low information people.”
I read the comment section in the WSJ. It is overwhelmingly pro-Trump. You have to subscribe to comment; $45/month. These people may be wrong but they are not “low-information.” And wow, what an demeaning term; you’re sure going to win hearts with that one.
Zelda is the antithesis of a low information votes. She manages to be more of a news junkie than I am and unlike me, also surveys the trashier press like tabloids. And her profession puts her in contact with lots of PMC types outside the blue coastal cities.
I’ve never sought the approval of others. Perhaps that explains why I don’t respond to polls. What does this say with regard to their accuracy?
As for why a journalist these days would be afraid to report on Trump in any form of positive light, that’s between them and their ethics. Speaking to ethics, it’s my opinion they have little to none. Moreover, it’s my further opinion almost 100% of posers pretending to be journalists are in fact weak minded cowards craving attention and approval. Otherwise, why is it they avoided the Hunter story? Why is it they fell in line with regard to Russia, Russia, Russia? And why is it they have this sense of desperation now, at this very moment, for the affirmation of others with regard to whether Biden will thrash Trump or be handed his head?
While I’m sad for them, they only have themselves to blame for being too lazy to make a real job of being a journalist. Incidentally, this also explains why they will live on crumbs for the rest of their days whilst utterly convinced the market doesn’t know their real value (which it obviously does). In short, they are failures by every measure as journos both with regard to the application of their educational attainment (at least I’m reasonably sure prestigious institutions like the Missouri School of Journalism doesn’t teach students to slant the news to suite their personal opinion), and the level at which they actually practice their craft – else they would have absorbed the lessons of Woodward and Bernstein; it takes competence and courage to be a journalist speaking to power.
Had they not abjectly failed at both, they would indeed be remunerated at a level such that they don’t have to eat Ramen or depend on the largess of their parents. Competent and hard working basically describes everything about what the new breed of journalist laying about at home ‘researching’ via the Internet, isn’t.
Worse, they wonder why the people loathe and mistrust them. Seriously? The only protected profession mentioned within the US Constitution and they have given their professional ethics for approbation and a miserly amount of lucre. So it’s more like small wonder they aren’t booed in public by all sides!
Will Biden win, or will leftist’s heads explode soon? Stay tuned!
>Will Biden win, or will leftist’s heads explode soon? Stay tuned!
???? The choice is between Biden and Trump.
I think I can speak for all of my fellow leftists, our heads have long ago exploded. I feel bad for the younger ones, people like me are just watching the car wreck our fellow but stupider oldsters have made.
BTW, I hate to tell you but Joe Biden is basically you in temperament, political outlook, etc. Trump is the guy that is 10x as wealthy as you and you never can figure out why.
Biden is a mountain, Beech is a tree growing off of his shoulder?
No doubt Studebaker Hawk (the super hero of the current economic slump) will be swooping in to deal with them. Yadiyadiyadah.
Either way, I lose. I still think Trump will squeak out the win. I hope for disarray which will further unmask the political and economic systems. One of the causes of the Trump Derangement Syndrome is that Trump let slip some truthful nuggets that the power elites don’t want expressed out loud by their puppets. “We do bad things also.”
Also, the Dems are more likely to stage a coup against Trump than vice versa.
I think there are two points that you omitted in your analysis Yves but which is *essential* to consider which is new voter turnout. 2016 was not just marred by low turnout overall but by low turnout among new voters. Polling historically skews older and addresses people who are on lists and have lived in an area for some time. But in North Carolina for example the percentage of people who cast ballots early and did not vote in 2016 is more than 25%. Many of those may be reliable voters who sat it out but many others will be new transplants or young voters who abandoned Clinton and Trump.
The second of course is about movement. I spent Saturday canvassing and found that about 10% of the people I stopped at were new to the area and had replaced longtime residents. This is not that unusual in my area but it points to fast shifting demographics and residencies that will change how the polls fit.
Wow, yes, anecdotally I’ve noticed the same thing among my friends in North Carolina. There are now three people who I know, including myself, they haven’t voted in over 10 years that voted this year. And they all voted for Biden.
As I said, Biden is going to win the general election, and he’s probably gonna win North Carolina as well..
Yeah, with more than a million voters who did not vote previously (and are likely not included in “likely voter” surveys) it is hard to tell how this will roll. My feeling was more pro-Biden, but that may also just have been the group that was willing to speak to me.
I did address this, with young voters. Those by definition are new voters and the polls indicate those are almost entirely young voters.
Dems assume they skew left, if anything too left but will still vote for Biden out of Trump hatred. Zelda argues that they have economic reasons to be anti lockdown (they are on the wrong end of the so-called K shaped recovery) and that would lead them to be more in the Trump camp than the media assumes.
Yves,
“Zelda argues that more of the young and middle-lower income workers, particularly minority workers, will either vote for Trump or stay home than the Dems anticipate because many are anti lockdown”. Imho her point regarding minority workers sounds plausible for those not from the hood. the hatred of Trump among black and brown people is palpable. Arguably a segment will be discouraged and sit this one out, but other than some hispanic identifying people (such as in Florida who are merged statistically as well as inaccurately in the US mindset due to language) Brown and Black people voting for Trump are a classic outlier verging upon the mythical.
I have to tell you I didn’t get this once from my sample of about 20 cab drivers and wheelchair pushers in mid-Oct. And I even signaled Trump antipathy so they would not feel at risk. And in NYC, TDS would be normal yet I didn’t hear that from my black and other POC drivers (one Bangladeshi).
The corporate/Democrat/CIA/MSM cartel lies about everything. Why would they not be lying about poll results?
So does the Trump faction.
Welcome to politics… this your first go-round?
Fascinating, in a morbid way, to see the full vastness of America on display in the comments here. What one predicts is due to their perspective and justification for one side or another comes from so many Rashomon-style perspectives on the same events. From my perspective, three major issues are driving passionate voters:
– did they benefit or lose due to the lockdowns?
– how did they interpret the BLM protests and police violence over the summer?
– economically, are they better or worse now than they were 5 years ago (Biden being a proxy for Obama Years)?
what I have observed is that people who have been more-or-less fine so far (example: my parents, with social security payments or secure lower middle class jobs near retirement, mortgage paid off, financial assets, good health) the deciding factor is personal hatred of Trump’s personality. They haven’t suffered so far, they think social distancing and lockdowns make sense, and Trump’s personality alone send them over the edge. They voted early for Biden in a state that will go to Trump, purely on factors irrelevant to the issues, so probably their passion doesn’t really matter to the end goal but they are at least watching more MSNBC so that’s a win for the consultants.. The Dem propaganda machine worked on them and I presume many others in their position.
But how many are really in their position? I just don’t think there are enough, compared to people who had a strong response to one of the three points above. I agree with some of the others that the Dem smugness and triumphalism seems a bit premature, and the assumption of minority support for the Dems seems more like hopeful than factual, based on those same smug, paternalistic assumptions driving the triumphalism.
I think we’re going to see a narrow but definitive Trump win via the electoral college and possibly a narrow popular vote win after everything is tallied and the court battles go through. However the victory will be pyhrric and much of the next year will be consumed with election-related court bullshit as an excuse to cover for the loss of the consulting class, to avoid coming up with real solutions to the pandemic, to keep dragging feet and drawing out the dark money/super pac checks. And meanwhile as long as the mainstream media is pushing the perception that anything is ‘illegitimate’ then we could have some truly stupid nonsense, like attempts to recognize second or shadow government while the court battles are ongoing. Anything to avoid dealing with the real, actual problems we’re facing.
I also think 2020 isn’t finished with us yet and we could see something truly wild, like one of the candidates – win or lose – dying between the election and the inauguration, causing other plotlines to spin out and changes in ruling class plans.
I think though there is another factor you omit from your consideration, which is blame. For those who are worse off due to the lockdowns the question is, who do they blame for it? The state or city level pols who pushed for it, the local state and city level pols or “activists” who spiked it and thus made the pain serve no purpose? Or the POTUS who, according to himself and his son in law, decided not to prepare and then to “own the opening.” How people will vote will, I think, be driven by where they ascribe blame, and “vote all the bums out” may in fact be the big winner up and down the ticket.
At this point I don’t have a guarantee either way.
*sigh* What do you claim to know that Team R Senators and betting markets do not? At least you ought to put down a bet and make easy money in a few days.
For that matter, when Trump says things like “we may never know the outcome” – that is not the voice of a man who is confident that he is winning. Otherwise, he would not throw shade on his victory before it even happens.
Please see Barry Ritholtz on betting markets. They are only valid if they truly represent the population deciding. Betting markets had Remain winning by 6%, or did you forget that? Betting markets also predicted a Clinton win. They at best only reflect the popular vote, not the EC breakdown.
Thanks Calypso, I think you are right on.
In my limited experience, the people who are able to work from home and get full salaries are very anti-Trump. This includes teachers, most government workers, high-tech and finance workers, et al.
The people who have suffered economically from lockdowns are much more behind Trump.
The Democrats did lead the way to helping the vulnerable workers last spring with the first stimulus.
But there has not been strong followup. I wonder if Pelosi’s rejection of the limited Republican stimulus in October will prove disastrous for the Dem’s.
Thomas Frank and others have said this time and again: if the Democrats are lukewarm about helping workers, Repubs will capture workers on emotional issues.
Try to get sleep this week everyone. Keeps you sharp.
I have different reasons for thinking that Trump stands a chance to pull off the election tomorrow and some have been already touched upon by other commentors. In any event, whatever happens, I won’t be surprised.
1) This election seems more like a re-call vote rather than a Presidential election. Even the Democrats have played it as a referendum vote. But most, though not all, re-call votes fail.
2) I compare Donald Trump to other one term presidents like Ford, George H W Bush and Jimmy Carter. They weren’t any worse than Trump but they lost because they didn’t have strong energized bases like Trump has. Trump has the capability of generating strong emotions out of his bases and emotion is infectious. We can see that emotion in the elections of Reagan, Clinton, and Obama. Yes, most of that emotion is based on lies, but who cares? He is telling his base what they want to believe and that is all that matters. There is no emotion in Biden’s campaign other than hate for Trump.
3) Most losers of presidential elections gracefully give up the stage. Hillary Clinton and the DNC did not do that. She set the stage for the incivility that is now occurring so I don’t think Trump’s incivility is having much effect on voters – they are already used to it. The Democrats are making a mistake thinking that will help them win the election.
4) Polls? Well, the polls are weighted based on demographics and what people of the same demographic category did in the past. But the world has changed – and demographic groups are more divided now than they have ever been. I’m not sure polling even works any more any better than WAGS. I sure wouldn’t bet my house on them.
Working with the Institute for Social Research – University of Michigan and the Systems theory guys at Santa Fe I hate to tell some of you that trump is going to loose, no doubt about it. I don’t poll I model. However, using Matt Stoller, Thomas Frank, Jared Diamond, Richard Rorty, and climate heating (boiling), as a model, we are toast if we don’t figure how to both work together and work on long term problems, which in 1776, 1860, 1872, 1876, 1918, & 1942 we did, since then not so much. It seems to me we have a real problem dealing with reality. But reality doesn’t have any problem dealing with us, at all.
Is your infallible model anything like the Oxford covid model that predicted 10x more deaths than where we are at today? Or the sea-level models that predicted NYC would be Venice by now?
Day 1 in a modeling class I took years ago at your esteemed university: All models are wrong, but some are useful. Somehow models have assumed primacy over actual research… much to our detriment I’m afraid
I suggest you re-read the post. I clearly signaled that I’m not a fan of Trump and am seeking to understand why Trump supporters, particularly high information voters like Zelda, think he can win.
No he won’t.
Polls can say a lot of things. I’m not impressed. I get if we did the weather that way- Everyday would be a good day.
I run models. So, using Institute for Social Research – University of Michigan
(ISR’s faculty experts conduct groundbreaking and wide-ranging social science research — representing more than 20 academic disciplines) and the Santa Fe, Institute systems models, sorry or not, trump looses. But that’s isn’t much of a victory.
Populism is America has always been strong, actually home grown and always ‘to the ‘left’. I refer all of you to Thomas Frank, Matt Stoller, Jared Diamond, Stephanie Kelton, & Noam Chomsky, to say that democracy & capitalism are kaput, neoliberalism if you prefer (inequality & inequity), American exceptionalism (now a myth). We did turn things in 1776, 1860, 1872, 1896, 1918, 1942, 1976, & briefly in 2008, as in summon the will to make our republic ‘by the people’, but not that is not acceptable to our oligarchs.
If we don’t get our act together climate burning will make of us toast. Rich, poor doesn’t matter. Believing in it or not doesn’t matter. Our problem is humans (most) don’t care about long term events and don’t care about each each other, thus I’d say, we go extinct. Read Nick Bostrom (https://nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html).
Remember we don’t have to believe in reality it still believes in us.
People forget that Kerry had great, enthusiastic, rallies right up to the end… rallies don’t prove much.
You mean the ‘please don’t taze me, bro’ candidate … That Kerry??.
… who didn’t have the presence of mind to walk back into that venue, stop the heavy hand of the ‘security help’ and attempt to right things, by apologizing to the assaulted questioner .. instead of walking off, being his uppercrust dismissive self!
I am so tickled you remembered that!
. . . back when public torture could still elicit surprise . . .
–Gaianne
The best case outcome of this election, IMO, has little to do with which candidate wins. What I want to see is the terminal implosion of either party. Either the Dems *finally* become The conservative party (that they’ve been striving to be since the 90s) and the husk of the GOP wither to a fringe religious cult, or the Dems go the way of the Whigs.
Either way, that should open space for an actual left (or even center-left) party in the US, which would be a huge improvement over this god-forsaken status quo.
One can dream.
So, who am I gonna believe : Zelda or the extensive analysis by fivethirtyeight.com ( Nate Silver) ? I go with 538.com – that Trump has a 1/10 chance to get to 270 or more, whereas Biden has a 90% chance. Now Trump’s 10% isn’t zero, but its not even a 50% chance.
FWIW, I dislike both, but I find Trump repellent, so I want him to lose – but wishes aren’t fishes.
I “don’t vote, it only encourages THEM” – but I take a great interest in this election, particularly whether it will get called on the day since that ought to affect the markets over subsequent days ( as if I really know ). On that aspect Nate Silver gives NOT being decided on Tuesday a 40% chance ( comprising 10% if Trump is going to win, and 30 of the 90% Biden odds ).
Nate Silver does it by the numbers, does it Bayesian style, both of which I respect and use myself.
I find it odd that people refuse to support Trump because they “find him repellant” or similar. Why is it important to you that someone you do not know and will probably never meet is repellant or not? Isn’t it far more important to have a well-run country with a great economy, plentiful jobs, lower taxes, lower regulation, fairer international trade, and proper enforcement of immigration laws?
The lower taxes are mainly lower taxes for the upper class and overclass. They are designed to create more debt and deficit to use as an excuse and a lever to degrade or abolish Social Security . . . the Social Security I have been paying FICA taxes into ever since 1983.
The “lower regulation” is really pro-polluter permissiveness so black hat business polluters can fill the air with cancer gas, fill the water with cancer juice, and pour cancer gravy all over the food supply. That is all bad for my health and survival.
And of course, although hardly discussed, Trump stands for speeding up the rate of man made global warming by speeding up the rate of man made carbon skyflooding. That will be bad for my declining years and worse for my younger relatives who would live most of their lives in Trump’s global heatering future-world.
So for those reasons I will be voting “for” JoemalaBama aGAINST Trump, even though I voted FOR Trump last time in order to prevent Clinton from getting elected. But Clinton is not on the ballot this year.
I don’t know what “will” happen. I’ll just wait and see.
lmao, good one!
I don’t understand what difference it will make whether Trump or Biden wins. A complete re-structuring of the US economy is underway. Big Money is consolidating small business and small landlords into their Corporate megaliths of power and exploitation. As the Corporate megaliths grow Big Money continues feasting on their substance from the inside and moving it to other shores. Our streets are slowly filling with more homeless as the ‘service’ economy transitions to the under- or unemployment economy. Big Money blew further instability into our real estate, bond, and stock markets. Our state and local governments show the gaunt hollow eyes of the starving. Our professional classes have fooled themselves about the permanence of their remote jobs even to the point of buying homes far from their former workplaces. Do they really believe their expertise is so special it has no match in the world? Each day our police forces more resemble a brutal, blood-thirsty occupation army of mercenaries. And there is more … these are only the immediate problems of this moment.
What difference will a Trump or Biden win bring? I doubt it does much more than shift which factions of the Power Elite can seize the largest piece of the American pie.
I live in Austin; married; 3 daughters 30-40 living here, 3 grandchildren. I am that rare unicorn, a True Independent: voted for Ron Paul and Ross Perot back in the day, Obama to keep that shitbag traitor McCain out of the White House, and Trump to keep that murdering psychopath Killary out of the oval office.
From Democrat “ground zero” here, I can firmly state that anyone who thinks Texas is really “in play” is completely delusional – Trump will easily take our 38 electoral votes in a landslide.
My own immediate family is typical of the friends, neighbors and relatives that I have discussed politics with. All 3 daughters were TDS liberals – until this summer. The local “peaceful protests” here were nothing compared to Portland, Minneapolis, etc, but they were enough for 180° attitude adjustments. My oldest daughter is now voting for Trump, my middle daughter has bought a gun, and the youngest simply isn’t voting at all. Another huge factor: all 3 are simply appalled at how mentally impaired Joe Biden obviously is.
It appears that there are a whole lot of similar scenarios playing out all over the country. If so, the Democrat PTBs grossly misjudged the effects of their failure to disavow the BLM/Antifa rioters over the last six months, as well as running such a damaged goods candidate.
As for all the polls: what is it about “secret ballot” that the mediots fail to understand ???
How many PoC do you know? Texas has huge minority population and I doubt very much they will be voting for Mr T.
the Hispanics I know HATE being called brown people by Democrats and liberal activists.
Mexican, Brazilian, etc. first (just as someone would call themselves Irish or Italian first).
Anecdote, not data. your mileage will vary.
Wow! Talk about condescension!!! You assume that all “POC” are still on the Democratic plantation?
I happen to have a helluva lot of Hispanic friends from my younger days working on ranches and in the construction business, and at least as far as they are concerned, you couldn’t be more wrong. They are hard-working, family oriented, religious, fiscally conservative men and women, many of whom own their own small businesses now — and most of them speak very highly of President Trump.
We’ve discussed in passing and Lambert more so that the Dems act as if they get the Hispanic vote by right and have done almost nothing to court it.
I’d rather vote for a chaotic caretaker .. then a caretakered catatonic, bearing a manic dissed-orderedly.
Do we go down the former empiric gorge just a wee bit gracefully .. hoping only to collectively skin our knees and receiving a brusing .. if we’re lucky?? or will it be a fitfully graceless tumble all the way down … breaking our hearts as well as our bones, thus shattering everything in the process?
THAT’S the choice of ‘evils’ laid out, as I see it.
You can count on Bid≡n Harris™ losing/not gaining a ton of voters (not necessarily to Trump, but to write-ins, not voting, etcetera) for issues such as these utterly unnecessary and untimely deaths in pure Blue™ Wealth corrupted areas, in this case Silicon Valley, California and its neighboring metro areas (tried to find a better source, because I find this Mercury piece to be lacking in certain key points which I don’t have the energy, or time to address). Released way late, Sunday, November 1 (so Gavin Newsom could pretend he cared on October 29th?):
The California Democratic Party Electeds own the inhuman and tragic homelessness and deaths above, as do Local Press VIP (the Mercury Snooze Editors, for just one instance, are following Horrid Newsom, et al Electeds and refusing to endorse renter protections (Prop 21), just as it’s always been done; also, notably, the Mercury Snooze is endorsing [Uber, et als’] Prop 22). The homelessness in this area started really ballooning – and kept going – under Obama’s Great™ Recession and his Technocracy Meritocracy (where H1-B Visas for young males exploded, while blacks, hispanics, females and non Ivy Leaguers were not considered worthy of hiring, and 35 is over the hill (per Zuckerf–k); all other – non-tech – vocations were not considered worthy of a livable wage or affordable housing and eviction protections).
Lastly, of course there’s a Fentanyl Explosion (and it certainly started in this Silicon Valley area well before Covid-19), as the above linked article goes on to note (despite hating Pharma™, I’m certainly hoping to find access to some when I’m thrown into homelessness very soon; despite education and a once profession). Who wouldn’t rather nod off permanently versus the horror of homelessness, what the f—is wrong with so many who are given license to opine on it; they’re really so brain dead they can’t imagine how deadly to mind body and spirit homelessness is? Speaking of which, I’m sure there’s at least one major suicide report being embargoed now for the election; much like the major John Hopkins suicide explosion report was embargoed for the November 2012 Election.
(Personally, I’ll be voting on the California Propositions and writing in names and ‘names’: —-, NOA [None Of The Above], etcetera.)
This article is now up on Zero Hedge!
Hmm. With permission?
Help me. I see they made a gesture at being careful and quoted extensively rather than a full repost. I’ve told them they can’t do that.
You know why Trump wins?
Because every President since Bill Clinton has betrayed the people that voted him into office and put Wall St and billionaires ahead of Americans.
You know why Trump loses?
He betrayed his voters and put Wall St and billionaires ahead of Americans.
See a trend?
Interesting comment thread. Gave me cognitive whiplash.
Everyone, stay safe and well. Avoid the Meal Team Six Playtriots.
Great Article! You shared polling research that I had not looked at myself. I normally tend to have my ears to the ground on a daily basis, at work, friends, family etc. I am a Leftie living in one of the Reddest states in the Union. I have called myself a Progressive, but recently decided I could not hitch my wagon to the likes of Pelosi, Clinton, or any of the other political heads that have taken up that mantel. I live just 30 minutes drive over the state line of another Red state, and visit family/stroke victim regularly. All the people I come in contact with are going for Trump. No surprise to me because those that placed all their hope in Obama were fooled in a very big way. Most lost their homes, those that didn’t had to sell everything of value, and try to navigate the fake HAMP thing. When the Affordable Care Act came into existence, they, along with myself found it anything but affordable. Obama let them down in every category of reasons why they voted for him. Now, Trump has been under a FALSE accusation of Russia gate for 3 or so years. Most all of the voters have found out that it was all ruse. They do know Trump is a snake, just like all of the other politicians, but these voters are mad as hell that Russia has scared them, shamed them, and now is mocking them again like Hillary’s Deplorables comment. They are voting Trump no matter what happens. The Media has failed in so many ways that I’ve seen one of those RIghties watching the tv and SCREAMING at it because of the reporting even after the Mueller Reports were made public because they were still saying the same things from months before. I detest Trump, and I am scared of a Biden/Harris rule. But I do understand the Trump voters better than I have ever understood a Republican voter in my lifetime. They all watched the Democrat Party steal another Primary from the most popular candidate ever. They will never swing while the DNC, and DCCC find it perfectly fine to throw the will of the people in the gutter, and place their own choice on the box.
let me address this, since it’s been a pet peeve: She also thinks Pennsylvania goes for Trump due to Biden saying he was anti-fracking
i blog about fracking in Ohio, so my feedreaders pick up a ton of this crap…there were 18 drilling rigs running in PA as of Friday, and probably half as many frack crews…even with generous assumptions, you’re probably talking about 500 or 600 direct jobs…even if you buy the industry assumption that each of those supports 10 others, you might have 5,000 who’d be impacted by a fracking ban (which Biden couldn’t impose on private land anyhow)…the rest of those in Ohio and PA couldn’t give a damn; they’ll vote their prior prejudices… & most of those in the big cities where the votes are don’t even know what fracking is…
Good story and I appreciate that Trump supporters can have valid reasons for believing Trump may win. And he might. But for my two cents anyone who thinks Texas is going to go to Biden and that somehow it must for him to win does not understand Texas. I can say that I was born here. When I was a kid Texas was blue state before they had colors. No way Biden will win Texas if he does Trump has no chance at all.
Biden does not need Texas, Florida or North Carolina. If he loses all those state but wins Penn he can still win. If he losses Penn he has to pretty much sweep the other swing states and he might win.
I live in the County where the Biden bus was barraged with trucks. I see those flag waving nuts all the time. They can be very scary but the local Republicans talk about how walking the streets in big cities is scary and I was never afraid even 30 years living in LA.
Anyway we will see what happens. All I can say about about a democratic sweep across the board is “watch out what you wish for, you might get it.”