Four big things.
Events are breaking bad for Trump. Three things hurt him. One could help.
Disclaimer: Nothing is over until it is over, and it isn't over.
Problem One for Trump. COVID isn't going away. Trump's position on the virus is clear. He has played it down. In the best characterization of it, he didn't want to panic us. A worse characterization is that he lied to us to keep the stock market up, and it killed 200,000 Americans. He mostly dismisses as unnecessary--and unmanly--social distancing and masks. He said the cure is worse than the disease. Trump says not to let the virus "dominate you" and assures us month after month that a vaccine will be here soon.
Problem Two for Trump. His temperament has passed the tipping point of acceptable. Trump has always been Trump. Pugnacious, dominating, bullying, grandiose, an exaggerator, a fighter for his team. Self identified Christians had no illusion that Trump was Christ-like in his character or behavior, but they perceived him to be fighting for Christians. White Christians are a huge demographic. The Access Hollywood "grab them by the pussy" video didn't stop Trump. His supporters already knew he was a womanizing scoundrel and were willing to overlook it because he had the important thing right: he was on the side of White native-born American Christians.
What is different now is that his behavior doesn't just seem like a private matter between himself and his wives, bondholders, bankers, or vendors. He has gotten wilder, more chaotic, more obviously self-interested, and it is clear he is conning American citizens--us. His fight-picking and exaggerations are create civil discord and distractions, and he keeps doing it anyway. His tweeting, name calling, hyperbolic descriptions of others, have ramped up for the campaign.
There is a critical group of voters who generally like what Trump does but have gotten turned off of Trump. He seems distracted and unreliable, and most recently, perhaps under medication, almost unhinged. The polls moved further against him.
Problem Three for Trump. He is over-exposed. There is such a thing as too much publicity. I have experienced it. Back in the days when people used to listen to music on AM radio a song would be a hit, and DJs would play it often. Too often. Alvin and the Chipmunks sang a Christmas song. At first it was curious and fun, then irritating. Trump has become Alvin.
Trump got something very, very right in 2015 and 2016: he was interesting. His Republican primary opponents complained bitterly that he "sucked up all the oxygen." If Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio were finally asked a question by a reporter, the question would be "What do you think about Trump?" Cable news would spend a half hour with the image of an empty lectern. The audience stood by,, not wanting to miss a second of Trump.
As president Trump continues doing something outrageous and interesting every day. Trump brought the instincts of a TV reality show producer to the campaign and presidency. He still gets high ratings. He is, after all, doing the political equivalent of chopping off the heads of Democrats and other opponents every day, and executions draw a crowd. But at some point even a guillotine show becomes tiresome. This, too, moved the polls.
Polls may be missing the potential swing vote among people who don't vote, but could, that non-college White voter. The bottom 20% of the workforce has been hit the hardest by COVID shutdowns. Restaurant workers. Hotel workers. Retail clerks. Many aren't considered "likely voters" by pollsters because they didn't vote 4 years ago. Polls tabulate the shift in the votes of suburban women put off by Trump's drama and seniors worried about COVID, but don't necessarily register the whale under the surface. It is apparent even to the un-engaged "low information" voter which candidate is on their side. Trump is the back-to-work guy, and "it's the economy, stupid." We could be surprised again.
Will these potential voters save the day for Trump? Young, economically distressed voters may not be available to him. Young people grew up amid diversity. They had Michael Jordan posters up in their bedrooms, and Obama was president. Contraception and abortion access are taken for granted. Biden is hopelessly out of touch with them, but Trump actively turns them off.
The 2020 election has a new endgame feel to it beginning this week.
Trump recently amped up the drama with the balcony photos, with 40-minute calls to Fox, with tweets, with stronger comments about Biden and Harris. The White House is a COVID hotspot. The polls look bad. Pence interrupted, mansplained, and talked over both Harris and the moderator. Virus deaths and infections continue. White nationalists militiamen plot to kidnap and kill a Michigan governor. Trump says he won't debate. Trump said he wanted a stimulus deal, then he didn't, and today again said he does. Trump's talk of voter fraud, cheating, illegal voting, and a rigged election telegraph that he plans to disrupt the vote count. Chaos.
Things fall apart. There is a feeling of anarchy and collapse circling in the air.
3 comments:
At the moment only one thing matters: How sick is he?
The behavior in public is deranged, drug fueled, but the question is this someone on the verge of a crash or has the illness passed? At present events point to his becoming infected sometime earlier than the Saturday event. When did they know? It also looks like they hid the information, perhaps thinking he wouldn't have symptoms, until it became necessary to begin treatment, which couldn't be suppressed. In the meantime, others became infected, beginning with Hicks and leading to a full blown outbreak in the White House, which is continuing.
I think it's an interesting tactic that Biden agreed to a virtual debate, in effect teasing him to prove whether he is still positive or not. They took the bait, he still is. Even so, under the circumstances how can we believe them if they claim he is no longer infectious? The doctors are complicit. I would suggest a public test, administered by Fauci, Sanjay Gupta and Dr.OZ.
I don't feel anarchy and collapse in the air. I suspect it is because unlike you and most of my friends I don't watch cable news, no FoxNews and no MSNBC. Cable news is chaotic and intellectually absurd, with pundits and "contributors" and "guests" in a mad competition to get attention, requiring them to make the most provocative statements allowable. I also do not have a Facebook or Twitter account, I shut them both down two years ago for lack of reliable information and again, the cable news sensationalism. The only video content I consume is YouTube to watch the debates and source video feeds.
My news, election data and political analysis are provided by print media from NPR, NYT, WaPo and the New Yorker to FoxNews and Breitbart. I filter out about 60% of it all as fake news, with NYT and FoxNews being comparable as reliable sources. I have to read them all to have an acceptable sense of reliable data. I listen to a wide range of podcasts across the political spectrum.
I also consult the polling outlets that made the top five in 2016. I find polling averages as useless as they were in 2016, and I consider the race to show Biden leading Trump by 2 to 5 points. A tie requires Biden +3. A low level win requires Biden +5. A win that would be safe from the Supreme Court is Biden +7. I see no reason to reject the historical and econometric electoral models showing that Trump will be reelected.
So I just don't see the chaos and anarchy. Instead I see a battle-hardened and high functioning White House that really has only done one thing-- succeed. Mueller probe, Russia hearings and impeachment all slam dunks with Trump and McConnell the victors, Pelosi and Schumer the humiliated losers. I see total GOP success in reshaping the judiciary and Supreme Court. I see the borders closed to illegal immigrants, Obamacare mandate repealed, no nuclear tests in North Korea, ISIS dead and gone, no new Islamic terrorism in the USA. These are all major and astounding Trump wins. I see the riots and looting stopped. I see Covid-19 as still only a moderate pandemic with national agreement that reopening continues, even in the blue states. I am now in Seattle and observe only moderate mask use except where mandatory.
I see a Trump reelection approaching on a reasonably stable glide path, and an army of GOP lawyers and judges to make sure all legal issues in the vote counting are resolved in favor of Trump. I see Biden and Harris trying desperately to just have the media pull them across the finish line. I see neither of them engaging in any significant policy advocacy. What they mostly say the don't support the Green New Deal, reject Medicare for All, and swear hand-to-God that they will not push the Bernie progressive platform.
That's what I feel in the air. I hope you are right and I am wrong. It is a depressing time to be a Democrat.
Thad you’re breathing the air in Florida no wonder you see roses and lollipops, moonbeams and a functioning GOP. Your 60% bias filter rejects anything in opposition to your 8-year cycles between parties. Isn’t there any daylight between your world view and what’s happening. Even a house fly can detect the rot in this administration.
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