Chris Wallace: "Mr. President, please stop."

 Trump was a steamroller. 

Red faced and belligerent, Trump interrupted and heckled and took charge of the night.

Trump's debate performance was no accident. 

We start with a premise that Donald Trump knew what he was doing. Trump meant to interrupt and talk over Biden, meant to  badger Biden and get him sputtering with frustration, meant to tie Biden up in knots and get him to say something stupid or weak or spitting mad, and to make a gaffe.

Overall the game plan was for Trump to be the rule-breaking alpha male. It worked. Trump dominated the room. 

He dominated the room the way an angry screaming three-year-old does. Wallace and Biden were the parents, frustrated and helpless. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't a "food fight" or a "wrestling match." That would imply that Wallace and Biden were there to slug back and did so effectively. They didn't. Biden and Wallace were over-matched.

What could Trump have been thinking?

Maybe Trump is thinking this is a base election and all about turnout. Belligerent Trump may thrill his supporters, but the important job last night was to de-motivate progressives. There are more young leftists up for grabs than there are suburban soccer mom undecided voters. Trump wasn't looking to make friends. He was looking to turn Biden's reluctant progressive friends into non-voters.

Trump repeatedly accused Biden of being a tool of the crazy, job-killing, socialist, police-hating far left. Trump dared him to deny it, and Biden did just that. Trump got Biden to say that he did not support AOC's Green New Deal, or socialism, or defunding the police. Biden sounded like a moderate--a soft spoken, unassertive one. 

Biden attempted to speak directly to the audience, ignoring Trump. That part came across as sincere and earnest. He was constantly interrupted and made to look helpless in getting out his message. No Bernie-loving progressive could come away confident that Biden will be able to implement a progressive agenda. He couldn't even get three sentences out. How could he get laws passed?

Or maybe Trump has a different thought.

Maybe Trump is thinking the election has already been lost at the ballot box, so there is no option other than belligerent rule breaking.  

In politics and life, you take what you can.

Trump communicates profound distrust of the upcoming election, raising the prospect it will be settled amid civil unrest, by the courts, not by counting votes. He is adamant that mailed votes are likely fraudulent, rigged by Democrats to steal the election, at least in swing states, and he specifically pointed to Pennsylvania. His campaign has filed numerous lawsuits to confound mail voting. Trump is laying the predicate for demanding that mailed votes be impounded, disallowed, not counted, or be counted in methods that are too slow to finish on time to render a decision. Amid delays, and violent demonstrations, friendly federal courts would decide a disputed election in his favor. That's the plan outlined in The Atlantic, and which Chris Wallace addressed.

Chris Wallace gave a softball pitch, asking each candidate to assure voters that each would respect the will of the people. Biden said, of course. 

Trump said the opposite. He said that the upcoming election was already fraudulent, that he was being cheated, that mail ballots cannot be trusted. Chris Wallace asked Trump what he meant when he said "Bad things happen in Philadelphia." 

Trump said, "I'll tell you what it means. It means you have a fraudulent election."

Trump said he expected violence from "antifa and the left" and that he wanted White paramilitary support groups to "stand back and stand by" having a presence at voting venues, ready to get involved in the upcoming conflict. Trump is coaching civil unrest in an election he already calls illegitimate. Tuesday's debate wasn't the "shit show" news anchors used to describe the event. The "shit show" comes on election night and thereafter. This is the preview.

Trump's debate performance was a clear signal that the election is not about policy choices. That would take place in a normal presidential debate. Trump sees the election as a cage fight, with no rules other than winning. You don't win cage fights with nice words and decorum. If you can talk during the other candidate's time, you do it. If a supposed referee tries to stop you, ignore him. It is about power. That is the way of the world, now and always. If he doesn't get the votes, he will win by not counting the votes. He can, so he will. 

Only the naive think otherwise.

Trump taxes: "That makes me smart."

Trump's taxes. He looks like a cheater. That's on brand for Trump. That's not the problem.

The problem is that he insulted us by arranging to pay $750 in 2016 and 2017. It's like getting a nickel tip.

The outlaw hero is supposed to make a fool out of the enemy, not us.

Western literature begins with trickery. The Greeks loved it when their heroes employed deception. The Iliad described those gullible Trojans, falling for the Greek gift. Odysseus made his way home fooling and confounding the Cyclops and Sirens, then deceived Penelope's suitors in order to ambush and kill them. Clever.

World War Two--that great morality play of good and evil in American consciousness--involved a "sneak attack" against us in that day of infamy. Our heroic acts include our secret landing at Normandy while creating  the deception at Calais, and Britain having broken the Enigma code but keeping that secret.

We delight when our heroes deceive. Deception isn't a problem--so long as it isn't us being the one deceived.

A big element of Donald Trump's political success is that he comes off as the trickster. He is Mr. Cool about it, a Hugh Hefner type getting what he wants from the ladies, a James Bond type at dispatching enemies, the moonshine running Bandit staying one step ahead of the Smokey at the IRS with their supposed endless audit.

"I'm rich. Really rich," Trump said. Republican voters liked nominating a wheeler-dealer real estate tycoon. That was a feature, not a bug. Withholding his taxes became a positive with his base because it was teasing Democrats and the media. You want it? Sure, soon. Just wait. It was Trump with a twinkle in his eye. Beg some more. 

All in all, it was good optics and positioning for Trump among voters inclined to dislike and distrust Democrat and the media.

Now the news about Trump's taxes. He insulted us. Big mistake.

It is not surprising that Trump has complicated taxes. People involved with real estate know about non-cash depreciation expenses, tax credits, and rules that allow people simultaneously to make money while deducting everyday expenses as "business expenses," to employ one's children, to going bankrupt and then re-negotiate the debt, to take tax losses for money discharged in bankruptcy, and--amid having lots of money to spend lavishly on oneself--for tax purposes have no taxable income!  What a deal!

It is a confusing, arcane game, and Trump played it aggressively. He cites that game in tweets of protest. 

What hurts him is that he got cute. 

His accountants were shifting tens of millions of dollars back and forth between income and expenses, and then Trump came down to a figure he wanted to pay, $750, for each of two years. Exactly $750. He wanted a gesture, a token. Just enough to satisfy the "little people," the people who pay taxes based on W-2 income. See, he pays taxes.

He thought $750 was about right. His New York bathrooms have gold fixtures. 

Had he paid a million dollars in taxes, or paid no taxes, citing a loss carry-forward of millions of dollars, then it would have been an entirely different message. It would have been what everyone knows in the back of their minds, that wheeler-dealer real estate tycoons have incomprehensible taxes with big numbers.

Paying $750 in taxes, though, revealed his character. He is a piker. He is a trickster, sure, but he is tricking us, not the IRS. He wants to pretend to us that he is a taxpayer. He manufactured a number, and he thought about $750 would be about right to satisfy us.  It is like getting a nickel tip.

Paying big taxes is a message of wealth. Paying no taxes is a message of wealth. Paying taxes of $750 is a message that he thinks we are gullible suckers. 

Trump: "strongly demanding a Drug Test"

 Trump tweets about testing Joe Biden for drugs.

Meanwhile, COVID cases are rising, Trump paid no taxes, and unemployment is 8.4%.  

Trump is a genius.

Donald Trump is willing to go on stage and sweat.  He will do anything, anything, to get attention. 

Within circles of standup comics, "doing a sweat show" means a comic is willing to do anything for a laugh. Something outrageous. Something humiliating. Something painful. Something like banging out the William Tell Overture with spoons against one's face. Or eating a live tarantula.  Or smashing watermelons with an oversize hammer. It is so weird and desperate that the audience laughs in some mixture of horror and admiration that the comic did something so outrageous.

 The cliche is to set your hair on fire. That is one thing Trump does not do. He coddles his hair.

He is in the news today for spending $70,000 on his hair in one year, and taking it as a tax deduction, as does Ivanka Trump with her $110,000 in grooming deductions. Trump paid zero taxes most years over the past fifteen, and $750 a year in 2015 and 2016, according to a NY Times report out Sunday. Say what? If voters put their minds on that they would think Trump was cheating on his taxes, living with private planes and gold toilets while the rest of us paid 20, 30, 40% and more of our income in taxes. What a rip-off. What a scoundrel. 

All this would be trouble for Trump if people noticed it and cared. The people whose attention matters, do not. 

Trump supporters don't care; Trump supporters have already decided Trump is a cheater and bully, but he is a fighter on their partisan side and that is what counts. He is trolling Biden, after all, and all is fair. The unengaged, low-information swing voters, and there are enough to swing this election, don't notice because Trump is doing what he does brilliantly. He distracts. He seizes the subject. It isn't COVID, unemployment, jobs, or his taxes. It is Biden on drugs.

In North Carolina Trump said Biden got "a big shot in the ass and he comes out and for two hours he is better than ever before. We're going to ask for a drug test."  The crowd loved this. Trump continued with this theme at a press conference on Sunday. "People say he was on performance enhancing drugs."  Trump had a hit idea in his schtick, and he is running with it.

Amid this, serious things are happening. The Trump policy on COVID has the consequence of making the USA an outlier among developed nations. We have more cases, more deaths, and are facing longer, worse economic shutdown than are peer nations in Europe and Asia. Trump said COVID was a hoax, then maybe not, and that masks and social distancing aren't all that important, then are, then aren't. Trump's unstated policy is one of protect yourself, herd immunity, and fast track a vaccine. This policy has consequences that cannot be said aloud, that herd immunity means lots of people will get the disease, some get very sick and some die, "it is what it is." Take our licks. Focus on the herd immunity, not the extra million--maybe two million--people will die sooner rather than later. The big policy question, whether people are OK with that, isn't actually discussed. Who notices, amid the firehose of news from Trump?

There are consequences for being a sweat clown. Some are good. The outrageous comment makes people think about the underlying premise, that Biden is a doddering senile fool, propped up by drugs. At Tuesday's debate some viewers will be looking for signs of frailty, and if people expect to see something then confirmation bias inclines them to find it. The fact that a drug test challenge is outrageous does not make it ineffective.

Comic, smashes watermelons for laughs.

And it is better for Trump to put attention on Biden's frailty than his own taxes or on COVID. And while Trump may be over-exposed for people paying attention, he may not be for people who barely follow politics. Compared to Trump, any politician would be boring, especially Biden. 

There is the downside for Trump. Trump looks deeply, fundamentally un-serious. He acts like a clown. In the campaign of 2016 voters may have thought this was a campaign act, and then he would become "presidential." It turns out to be the one and only Trump act. Lots of informed, engaged voters, both detractors and supporters, are uncomfortable with that.

But to his supporters, there is a saving grace, this third Supreme Court nomination. He is a clown and a con man, but he (and the Federalist Society and Mitch McConnell) get serious about judges. His supporters can not help but notice that Trump is not reliable on lots of things but by gosh one thing he gets seriously right: appointing very conservative judges and ramming them down the throats of whining Democrats.

And Trump smashes Democrats the way that the comic Galloper smashes watermelons. Fun!

There is a market for that kind of thinking and Trump connects with it. Democrats should not under-estimate that. A slapstick comedy show will get better ratings than does C-SPAN. 

Is Oregon vote by mail corrupt???

 Oregon has universal vote-by-mail elections. They seem to work just fine.

President Trump says they are corrupt.

What say the candidates for Oregon Secretary of State?

President Trump has put mass vote-by-mail front and center of national consciousness. He has said we cannot trust mailed-in ballots, unless they have been specifically requested by the voter. 

In February Trump said "they found a million fraudulent votes in Los Angeles." In June he tweeted "MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!" In August Trump said “Mail ballots, they cheat. Mail ballots are very dangerous for this country because of cheaters." In early September he said mail ballots will make the upcoming election "the greatest scam in the history of politics." Trump is making comments disparaging mailed-in ballots daily now, and in the strongest of terms.

The stakes were raised this week when Trump refused to say he would abide by election results that included mailed votes, especially ones counted after election day--something required by law in some states, including the most likely tipping point state of Pennsylvania. He said because of mailed ballots of unknown legitimacy, the 2020 election would not include a transfer of power, but rather a "continuation," determined by the courts, not ballots. That got attention.

The Atlantic published an article outlining a strategy now underway. It involves lawsuits protesting mailed-in votes, stopping vote counts in swing states with Republican legislatures, and calling on those legislatures to direct their electoral votes to Trump. A compliant Supreme Court could resolve the frozen vote count and disputed electoral college delegations in favor of Trump.

Kim Thatcher, Republican

The strategy hinges on casting doubt on mailed-in votes.

There is an opportunity for leadership by the candidates for Oregon Secretary of State. 

Two State Senators are vying for the position, Shemia Fagan (D) and Kim Thatcher (R). Vote by mail (VBM) has not been particularly controversial in Oregon, and earlier races for Secretary of State dealt with issues like the Secretary of State's audit function, not election security. Oregon began doing VBM in local elections in 1981, in statewide elections in 1993, and in the general election for president in year 2000. 

Now the issue is on the table. Oregon is doing exactly what Trump, Barr, and other GOP officeholders with national reputations are saying creates illegitimate results: mass vote by mail. Oregon mails a ballot to every registered voter, unsolicited, about 3 weeks before election day. In Oregon envelopes get a signature check, are opened as they come in, must be received by 8:00 p.m. on election day, and are counted with preliminary results ready shortly after the election day close. Ballots that come in on the last day or two--but before the 8:00 p.m. deadline, are processed and added to the vote count over the next days.

Shemia Fagan, Democrat

Shemia Fagan's position on VBM is evident from her campaign material urging what would be expected by a Democratic candidate, that every vote should count. Vote by mail itself is so commonplace and expected for a Democratic candidate in Oregon that I do not see in her campaign website a clear announcement that she favors it. For a Democrat it would be equivalent to saying that she breathes air. What else? 

Still, I don't see a clear announcement of support. www.shemiafororegon.com

Kim Thatcher, as a Republican, has a greater opportunity to make a splash. Trump is providing leadership: his position is ALL CAPS opposition to universal VBM. Either way, she sends a national signal. If she agrees with Trump she would be reversing the settled tradition in Oregon--a powerful signal of condemnation of VBM from someone with presumed experience with it, and a strong message of support for Trump. However, she could go the other way, contradicting Trump, saying that VBM can actually be done right, that past election results in Oregon have been legitimate, as would be hers if she is elected. 

It would force her to do something Oregon Republicans have been hesitant to do: contradict President Trump. Either way is newsworthy. If she were to disagree with Trump it would send an important signal that Trump is making a false charge and that GOP officeholders and candidates with actual on the ground experience with VBM won't go along with undermining the election. Or she might agree with Trump. At this point, her website is silent on the issue. www.kimthatcher.com

I have written both candidates asking them to make a clear statement on whether or not they believe voting by mail creates reliable, legitimate election results.

I don't expect Fagan's response to be surprising and newsworthy, but I stand ready to hear what she says. I don't see how Kim Thatcher's response can fail to be newsworthy. I will share what I learn.

Democratic Trap. Don't do another "Kavanaugh."

Judge Amy Coney Barrett has the look Trump wanted. She is the archetypal "suburban housewife" and "soccer mom."

Now Trump needs Democrats to assault her, insult her, and turn her into a victim.

Hint to Democrats. Be careful out there. A confirmation fight could go very wrong.

Let's start by observing the obvious. Amy Coney Barrett has a certain look. Blue eyes, light skin and hair, regular features. This blog has received harsh criticism in the past from female Democratic readers for using the word "attractive" to describe a person with conventional American notions of physical beauty. To observe and publicly acknowledge it is, apparently, misogynistic, sexist, predatory, classist, xenophobic, demeaning, and deeply insulting. I am a very bad person.

OK. So I will tiptoe and describe Barrett this way: She has an appearance familiar to viewers of television commercials for happy users of household products, homeowner's insurance, SUVs, patio decking, fitness and beauty products. She could be cast as the female half of a happy couple in a remake of The Brady Bunch, or Modern Family.

We have seen and heard Trump's inner and outer voice well enough to know his thinking, that she looks really great for 48. He would grab her, no question, if there weren't Secret Service people around him all the time. He understands that Barrett looks a part. She is the White woman in potential peril from MS-13, from caravans from Central America, from people from shit hole countries, from Muslims, from BLM, from Antifa, from secular religion-haters, and from Democrats who defend that coalition of threats. He is hoping Democrats beat her up.

Amy Coney Barrett is no Brett Kavanaugh. The Kavanaugh hearing revealed him to be a pugnacious partisan, which was reason enough to assure his elevation to the court. It also revealed him to have been a privileged lout, a drinker, a grown-up frat-boy, whose connections let him glide upward on life's escalator. The attack on Kavanaugh was a mixed political bag for Democrats. Democrats looked overeager, too quick to accuse and jump to a conclusion, which hurt them. There was the saving grace that they were punching up at self-satisfied privilege, nobody's hero.

Attacks on Amy Coney Barrett would have the opposite feel. She would look like a victim, the nice person attacked by vicious Democrats. It would be another iteration of the frightened St. Louis White couple waving guns at protesting Blacks and Democrats, only this time the victim is more appealing. She seems so nice in a White, suburban way.

Democratic senators may be savvy enough to try to avoid attacks that look personal, but it will be difficult. The issue of Roe is unavoidable. If Lindsay Graham pounds the table and says this is an attack on good honest Christians, and that he "won't stand by quietly while Democrats gut punch Jesus Christ,"  then regardless of what Democrats do, that meme will circulate, at least in conservative media.

Comedian Bill Mahar has already given Republicans something to work with. He called her "a fucking nut" last night. Fox News pounced on it.

This blog again gets criticism, mostly from Democrats, for observing that most voters--especially those lightly engaged people on the margin--do not analyze policy carefully. What? Don't voters have a checklist of policies that they use to evaluate candidates? No, they don't.

Voters get impressions of people based on a few cues, and from that they make gut decisions. Trump picked the person who looked the part he needed. At first and second glance Amy Coney Barrett comes across as a nice person, an attractive working woman and wife. In the battle of good-guys and bad-guys, she is the good-guy.

In the Democratic frame, Mitch McConnell and Trump need to be the bad guys. They are guilty of rank hypocrisy regarding Supreme Court appointments. They said one thing about Merrick Garland and reversed themselves shamelessly with this appointment. Voters don't like high handed hypocrisy, from whatever party. They think it is typical ugly politics. Republicans may accept it as hardball politics, and a victory, stolen maybe, but a victory nevertheless, but no one thinks McConnell is motivated by principle. 

Democrats are going to lose. Republicans have the votes, simple as that. The only thing Democrats can control is what this battle is about. If Democrats attack her, it will be an attack on their own tribe, the educated woman.

But if they attack McConnell for his flagrant hypocrisy, will be an attack on out of control partisanship in the era of Trump--exactly the Biden message.

McConnell is the bad guy here.

COVID: Are you feeling lucky, punk?

 "It will blow your head clean off. You've got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?"

     Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry, to a suspect.

You won't die from COVID, unless you are already old and sick. Well, you might die.  It could happen, but probably not.

People are counting on that.

We would expect about 53,000 Americans to die every week. We are getting about 63,000 deaths. 

Something is going on, and it is COVID. There are some Americans who don't believe it is COVID, because they think the numbers are fudged or exaggerated to make Trump look bad. That idea circulates in conservative cable and social media. That thought is actually more frightening news than thinking it is COVID because that would mean there is some other, completely unexplained reason why the death rate is up about 10,000 a week--1,300 a day--over the trend line. People can question exactly why, but deaths themselves are significant events that get recorded, and the deaths are happening. COVID is what makes sense.

Click: CDC data and chart site

[The falloff on this chart for the last three weeks is not cause for optimism. Data trickles in over three weeks and the drop-,off is an artifact of that data lag. In reality, we are in a plateau. Excess deaths are down from April, but remain 10,000 above the trend line.]

Trump is right when he said at a rally that young people have great immune systems and as of now, they only very rarely appear to die from the disease. He is wrong in saying it affects almost nobody; it affects old people and sick people and they die from it. There are 50 million American seniors, a big population at risk.

In daily life I witness a big disparity in COVID wariness and behavior. Some of it is partisan, which has been widely reported, Democrats being more careful than Republicans. Trump signals that masks are wimpy and useless and a Democratic nanny state thing. People who take leadership from him--lots of Republicans--act accordingly.

Young people of unknown political bent are also more likely to be mask scofflaws, in my observation. Masks and social distancing are a bother. They diminish their quality of life, and--for what?--a low risk, low consequence event for most of them. So they maybe get a little sick, then they get well and, presumably, are then immune. Not so bad. According to this COVID-death-risk calculator, a healthy young person has a vanishingly small chance of dying from the disease. https://calculator.covid-age.com

However, a healthy 70-year-old man who gets the disease calculates to have a 0.7% chance of dying from it. At 85, a woman with a heart condition and a body mass index of 30 would have an 11% chance of hospitalization and a 4% chance of dying. 

Are you feeling lucky?

Every observation and experience I have from a 30 year career working primarily with older people is that most 60 year olds become 70; most but not all 70-year-olds become 80 and have some health problems; and that most 80-year-olds die before they are 90. Moreover, in that process people's quality of life generally diminishes. The 70-year-old who golfs and fishes and travels and thoroughly enjoys retirement becomes the 80-year-old with back pain, arthritis, or a heart condition but who is doing OK, with problems, and a 90-year-old who is happy to be alive but who has significant health problems. 

It would be a perfectly rational decision for a 70-year-old to decide, with cold hard calculation, to recognize that he or she has one sole chance to be 70, and is living it right now, and that he or she is on an inevitable glide path toward being poorer health and death. Therefore, the opportunity cost of staying sheltered and masked and avoiding the social interaction and travel and activities that make that 70th year a good one, might simply be too high. One lost year is 10% of one's 70's, and when they are gone they are gone. Better to enjoy life while you can. The bird in the hand is too good and fleeting to waste on a 0.7% of dying. 

An 85 year old might well calculate that, at best, he or she has 5 more OK years, and the notion of staying cooped up, avoiding grandchildren--those precious grandchildren who grow up so fast--avoiding dear friends, and generally blowing that year in isolation, might well calculate that the now-very-precious 85th year is too wonderful to waste against a 4% chance of dying.

Donald Trump gets poor reviews in polls for his handling of the COVID pandemic. About two-thirdsof voters say to pollsters that Trump should have done more. Yet a hard-nosed calculation of risks could easily lead people to behave, and perhaps in the back of their minds, actually agree with Trump. He downplays the virus and tells people to go back to pre-COVID normal. People do risky things. They want what they want. Gather ye rosebuds. The moving finger writes.

Voters may not be telling the polls how they really feel. They want to live their lives. Donald Trump has a good feel for what a lot of people think, but avoid saying aloud to others. Donald Trump is telling them to roll the dice and come out a winner. The cure is worse than the disease.

Besides, they feel lucky.

Democrats back off vote by mail

An idea has bubbled to top of mind among Democrats: This vote-by-mail thing is a trap.

Reporter question to Trump: 

     "Do you commit to make sure that there’s a peaceful transferal of power?”

Trump answer:

      “Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation. . .. The ballots are out of control. I think this will end up in the Supreme Court. And I think it's very important that we have nine justices."

Reporter comment later:

     "This is the most frightening answer I have ever received to any question I have ever asked."

Democrats had been encouraging widespread vote-by-mail. Seventy-four percent of Republicans and Republican-leaners think vote-by-mail is fraudulent.  That gives Trump a way to bypass voters and win an election where he is fairly sure he has the votes, the Supreme Court. 

Democrats are rethinking their message.

Trump is selling an idea, and selling it hard, doubling down even in the face of rising criticism. He says that Democrats are planning on stealing the election, so he will confound them by making this an election decided in the courts. This year the vote tallies, at least in the critical swing states with Republican state legislatures, will have no credibility, he says, if the vote includes ballots that have been mailed in. Only the election day in-person voting is real and legitimate.

Trump message of upcoming voter fraud has credibility with Republicans, according to a recent Pew poll. Click: Pew The real determinant is one's media habits. Pew found that 87% of Republicans who get their news primarily from Fox News and talk radio consider mail voting fraudulent. Among Republicans who don't watch Fox or listen to talk radio, only 23% are skeptical of mail voting. The core base for Republicans is Trump supporters who watch Fox News. It isn't a majority, but it is enough in the right place.

Democrats are generally more concerned about COVID than are Republicans. Polls show it, behavior demonstrates it. Trump voters and Fox viewers get a very mixed message regarding the virus, and are far more likely to dismiss it, and are far more likely to protest shutdown orders and are more interested in voting in person. Trump says it is the right way to vote.

Besides, maybe COVID is a hoax, maybe masks do no good, maybe it is all overblown, maybe people are dying of something other than COVID, maybe people should just take their chances. Trump said at a rally this week that COVID "affects elderly people, elderly people with heart problems, other problems. . .. It affects virtually nobody, it's an amazing thing. Open your schools, everybody open your schools. [Crowd claps and cheers. Few wore masks.]"   Click: YouTube

Democrats have had their own message, presented diffusively, that maybe voting in person is dangerous, since voting places are hotspots of infection. Democrats had a workaround, mail-in voting. 

The two messages had an effect. The more a voter disapproves of Trump, the more likely is the voter to plan to vote by mail.

Democratic punditry has been gaming out "nightmare" scenarios for several weeks of Trump stealing the election by stopping the vote. Back in August Democrats had been concerned about the Postal Service and ballot delivery. Then the fear became that delivered ballots will be rejected. Significant numbers of ballots are uncounted because of signature mismatches and, in the single most likely tipping point state, Pennsylvania, the rule that ballots must be returned inside a secrecy envelope placed inside the outer envelope. Many Pennsylvania voters ignored the envelope-in-envelope instruction. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court just ruled that election officials could reject those ballots. 

This week an Atlantic article created new fear amplified by Trump's comments yesterday. Trump only needs to convince compliant Republican legislators in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Michigan that the mass of mail-in ballots is questionable, and in politics anything can be questioned, and Trump is doing so loud and clear. State legislators don't need to accept their state's vote as determinative. They can choose the electors themselves, and since the vote is questionable, they should. 

That would create outrage among Democrats, and protests on the street. Open theft, again!  Disruption and opposition from Democrats are features, not bugs. The angrier he makes millions of people, the more likely the plan is to succeed. Without consent that the vote is legitimate--and Trump will never consent--amid disorder, people will look for another source of legitimacy to end the disruption, the Republican state legislature.

This would be the new iteration of hardball, power politics, of the kind that that works for Republicans in the Trump era. As with holding up the Merrick Garland nomination, pushing through a replacement to Justice Ginsburg, or ignoring subpoenas. If you have power--and a Republican legislature would--you exercise it. After all, the game is rigged, so play to win.

Pennsylvania Democrats plan to vote by mail, Republicans not.

Votes in Pennsylvania will trickle in. On a party line vote, guided by the Trump campaign, Republican majorities in the Pennsylvania legislature made what may be a crucial decision. They forbade ballots mailed or delivered to the polling places to be opened prior to the close of in-person voting. (Most states allow delivered votes to be opened as they come in to be prepared for tallying along with in-person votes.) There will almost certainly be an early Trump lead. Democrats see the exposure. Trump has already said those later-counted votes are fraudulent. Pennsylvania Republican legislators have their excuse. 

Democrats woke up and are backtracking on vote by mail. Vote early, really early, says former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper, now candidate for U.S. Senate. Vote early any way you can, say Barack and Michelle Obama. Joe Biden's campaign is saying they have no particular preference for voting by mail; vote however you are comfortable.

It may be too late. Democratic messaging on vote by mail has been overwhelming that it is easy, safe, and the best way to vote. More Democrats than Republicans will vote by mail.

Democrats and the mainstream media hope shame Trump into agreeing to accepting the mailed votes as legitimate. Trump won't fall for that. 

Supreme Court: People want a voice. Too bad.

Fifty seven percent of likely voters in the swing states say Trump should not fill the court vacancy if he loses the election. 

Trump will do it anyway--because he can.

That is how Trump does things. Some people like it, some don't. That style of governing has consequences.

There are two big October surprises, and one came early. The one that Trump is hinting about for October, a vaccine for COVID, will get some sort of announcement before the election. Something might be ready, or almost ready, anything, but whatever it is will be tremendous. Trump will declare victory. A vaccine! 

The surprise that came early is the Supreme Court vacancy.

They are related. Amid the political posturing and hypocrisy and parsing to explain how the non-action on Merrick Garland in 2016 is entirely--absolutely totally--different from filling this 2020 vacancy, there is one solid fact noted by Trump, McConnell, GOP officeholders generally, Fox with delight, and the rest of the media through gritted teeth. If fifty Senators plus the VP want to vote yes, then it will happen. Like it or not, they have the power and the will to exercise it.

By forging ahead they send a message to their anti-abortion base that the GOP gets things done, that they keep their political promises, or at least this one. They also show they don't mind one bit being openly hypocritical and heavy handed for political advantage, and if liberals cry, all the better. Opposition is a feature.

Trump can bend nay-sayers to his will.

It creates a problem with the COVID vaccine rollout. Trump and conservative media are in open conflict with the scientists and acknowledged public health experts regarding COVID. Trump is talking at rallies dismissing the virus deaths as mostly a "blue state" problem that "affects virtually nobody." While the public health people and institutions in his administration are counting deaths and warning that the disease continues to spread, Trump holds mask-less rallies. Trump says kids should be in school; public health officials say it's a bad idea. Trump doesn't like what Dr. Anthony Fauci says, so he swaps him out for a different expert. 

Trump openly contradicted Dr. Robert Redfield, head of the CDC,who said masks might actually save more lives more reliably than would a vaccine. No, Trump promptly said, he made a mistake, he must have not quite understood the question or what he was saying. Under pressure the CDC said asymptomatic people exposed to the virus did not need tests, then questions were raised about their caving to pressure pressure, so they reversed themselves again. 

The pattern and practice is clear: The NIH and CDC are part of the Executive Branch, reporting up to Trump. There is a unitary executive. Whether it be the Department of Justice or anywhere else, Executive Department employees report to Trump. They aren't independent and their employees will say and do what they are told.

A feature in Trump world is that he won't be constrained by "norms." Trump is desperate to have something great to announce regarding a vaccine, whatever its actual status. A vaccine isn't medicine. It is PR. Public health experts are well aware that a rushed vaccine, given to millions of people, might have hidden problems that emerge later. It might not work effectively, for one thing, and people who think they are safe will get exposed, then get sick and spread the disease. The vaccine might have side affects not revealed in early results. 

There are downstream consequences of a big public error on COVID. Heretofore, anti-vaccination sentiment was a fringe idea of people on the conspiratorial right and left. The government--or George Soros or Bill Gates or Jews or Socialists or space aliens--wanted to control our bodies. That sentiment could go mainstream. Spread of anti-vaccination thinking that would have new and persistent ramifications involving measles, mumps, chicken pox, shingles, HPV, the flu, and more.

Thalidomide surprise.

We have not seen Trump riding a horse, but the image of the bold leader, high on a horse,  imposing his will is one that humans build into grand monuments. Trump is on his metaphorical high horse, imposing his will as regards the court vacancy and the creation and approval of a vaccine. It is one thing for Trump physically to step in front of a Montenegrin leader, but in this case, Trump and his allies are rushing to step in front of voters--us. This one is in our faces and we cannot help but notice.

Biden's campaign is on this one.  A theme of Biden advertisements is that Trump doesn't really care about the voters or even his supporters. He cares about himself and his own interests, and he will lie to you. Trump wants to sell you.

Who can trust this vaccine was really, thoroughly, tested and safe? 

 

Biden's log cabin.

 Joe Biden:  

"I've dealt with guys like Trump my whole life."

The White working person has a grievance. It isn't competition from below. It is from the political power--and sneers--from the people above. Biden feels it, too.

Joe Biden campaigned in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. He spoke fluently. He wore a mask throughout. 

Biden is understood within the political left to be Mr. Establishment, the non-populist candidate, and alternative to Sanders. That isn't exactly right. Biden wants to restore "normal" politics in America, where bipartisan solutions are possible once again, but he is not the apologist and defender of an economic status quo that the Democratic left presumes.

Biden speaks to the same frustration and resentment by working class Whites that got Trump the electoral votes of the Upper Midwest. Trump targets down, at Blacks, immigrants, at foreigners, at people and groups struggling to get entry into the American mainstream. Biden targets up, at the wealthy and powerful, both the ultra rich and the professional class of people who serve the interests of the very wealthy.

Watch, or read, what Joe Biden actually said. Click: transcript

Biden positions himself in contrast to Trump, of course. Biden describes Trump as exemplifying the selfishness and ineptitude of inherited wealth. Wealthy people--especially Trump--hold working people in contempt:

     "Frankly, I’ve dealt with guys like Trump my whole life. Some neighbor where I come who would look down on us because we didn’t have a lot of money or your parents didn’t go to college. Guys who think they’re better than you. Guys who inherit everything they’ve ever gotten in their life and squander it. Guys who stretch and squeeze and stiff electricians and plumbers and contractors working on their hotels and casinos and golf courses just to put a few more bucks in their pocket. Guys who do everything they can to avoid paying their taxes they owe because they figure the rest of us, the little people, we can pick up the tab for the country."

Trump's contempt for you is personal, Biden said. He doesn't want to shake your hand. Trump calls you "disgusting." Biden cited Trump's rallies, where Trump protects himself while his mask-less supporters crowd together to cheer, risking themselves. Trump only cares about himself.

     "The simple truth is that Donald Trump ran for office saying he would represent the forgotten man and women in this country. And then once he got in office, he forgot us. Not only did he forget them, the truth is that he never really respected us very much. Oh, he loves his rallies but the next time he holds one, look closely. Trump keeps his distance from anyone in the rally."

Biden is not Hillary Clinton, but she hovers in the background in this speech. Biden criticizes the meritocratic system of occupations and capitalism that assumes the free market on incomes is creating a just society, with people paid what they deserve. No, Biden says. Working people aren't paid enough. That work is underpaid because the educated elite thinks that is a fair wage; after all, you didn't even graduate from college. What do you expect? 

As this blog has described, Hillary Clinton carried the Democratic message on how American workers can afford a decent, middle class lifestyle. It was their silver bullet: go to college, and better yet, professional school. Improve yourself. Get skills that command higher incomes in the labor market. Become a computer programmer or lawyer or marine biologist. For a vast number of Americans, their abilities and life circumstances make this inappropriate and impossible.

Biden understands that the Democratic silver bullet was an insult. It implied that the jobs they are doing don't deserve a living wage. It says that the fact that you didn't graduate from Princeton and aren't making big bucks as an investment banker is your fault.

Some advocates for racial justice will fault Biden's speech. He talked about status and justice but not about the larger oppression of people of color through White racial privilege. Biden spoke from his own experience, the perspective of a White kid. Whites like him don't feel like oppressors and overlords, sitting atop Blacks or anyone else. They don't feel privileged. They feel beat up. They are the people Biden wants back, voting Democratic.

Biden in New Hampshire. White, union, working class.

Biden said:

     "We’re all equal the way I was raised and we should be treated that way. I have to admit, I got my back up a little bit recently about something I saw and was on national television about the race. Some of the national… I don’t think they meant anything by it, but I don’t think they know how insulting it is. It was, Joe Biden, if elected, will be only the first president who didn’t go to an Ivy League school in a long time. Somehow that meant I didn’t belong.

     How could a guy who went to a state school be president? My reaction was the same it has been my whole life and I have to admit it and I’m not proud of it, but you close the door on me because you think I’m not good enough, guess what? Like all you guys, I’m going to bust down that door. My guess is a lot of you feel the same way about a lot of slights you’ve had because of our "standing."

Biden spoke about health care: he wants to expand access. He spoke about income inequality: he wants the wealthy to pay more. He spoke about green energy, and buying American, and unions, and COVID, and more.

But the main theme of his talk was not change in policy. It was change in identity and attitude. It was about respect for the forgotten American, both White and non-White, the working people of America.

Blabbermouth Trump spilled the beans.

"Now we’re counting on the federal court system to make it so that we can actually have an evening where we know who wins. Not where the votes are going to be counted a week later or two weeks later."

Donald Trump, at North Carolina rally

Trump should have kept his mouth shut.

Trump isn't sneaky. He is brazen, and brazen usually works for him. Not this time.

Trump did an interview with NBC reporter Lester Holt. Trump said right out loud that he fired James Comey to stop the investigation of wrongdoing by his campaign.

Brooks Brothers Riot, 2000. Stop the counting!

Compare this with Richard Nixon, who used his power as Chief Executive to stop the FBI from investigating wrongdoing by his campaign. Nixon's words were on secret tape recordings saying that's what he intended and did. Nixon tried to keep that secret, and when the secret was revealed, this was the "smoking gun" that ended his presidency. Americans, the news media, even Senate Republicans, were shocked at the time. By gosh, he was using his power to stop an investigation. That is obstructing justice. It's illegal and immoral. Nixon needs to go. 

Nixon hid what he'd done, revealing a guilty frame of mind. Nixon was sneaky.

Trump, was brazen, communicating that he felt no guilt or shame whatever. He had the power to stop an investigation, and did. Of course. What else? Trump communicated guiltless pride, and Republican officeholders and media allies accepted that premise.

Trump is shameless. That is his superpower. If Trump isn't ashamed then it must be OK.

Click: Oshkosh

This has been a tough period for Trump. COVID. Unemployment. Bad books about him. Bad comments by former top people. Bad polls. He could lose re-election.

Trump is being brazen in his attack on the legitimacy of any election that he does not win. In rallies, in interviews, in tweets, the message is relentless: if he loses, the election was rigged. In Oshkosh, Wisconsin Trump told a crowd "The only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged. Remember that. It's the only way we're going to lose." 

Although polls show him behind in Nevada, at a rally there and on Fox and Friends, he made the same claim. "I’m winning that state easily but the one thing we can’t beat, if they cheat on the ballots. Now [the Democratic governor] will cheat on the ballots, I have no doubt about it."

Trump is focusing on absentee ballots, which in many states cannot be opened and counted until after the polls close. This means that in many states there are, in effect, two electorates counted sequentially, people who voted at the polls and the people who voted by mail. Trump is already contesting the validity of those votes by mail--except in Florida. Trump himself votes by mail in Florida, and there is a Republican governor who prevailed on him to stop the criticism of absentee voting, at least in Florida, since absentee voting was a longstanding GOP Get-Out-The-Vote technique there.

The strategy--unless the vote shows Trump decisively ahead on election night--is to complain bitterly that the election was won by him, based on early returns. The Trump campaign has been filing lawsuits to limit absentee ballot eligibility, and is ready to file them to stop ballots from being opened and counted. Lawsuits could embargo uncounted ballots, amid motions that inconsistent rules regarding signature matches, and the ballot-by-ballot application of those rules, mean that voters are not getting "equal protection." After all, county clerks in some counties may use different standards for a good signature match than county clerks in others. Trump need not win lawsuits, only tie things up in court while the clock ticks, keeping ballots uncounted and throwing the power to name electors to Republican state legislatures, not the electorate. 

And, as Trump said in North Carolina, he is counting on the federal courts to have his back.

Trump's voters are prepared for this. It is a permission slip for disruption, another Brooks Brothers riot, or something more downscale. Amid civil disturbances, somewhere, in some local county courthouse, ballots might be seized for "safekeeping," or be lost, or stolen. There will be questions of the chain of ballot custody. Amid doubt and claims of fraud, who can trust any result from that state?

There is a big problem with the Trump strategy. He announced it. Trump lost the element of surprise and apparent organic spontaneity. The events outlined above are known, a warning and horror story for Democrats. Back in 2000, amid the Florida recount mess, county election offices--and the media--were not psychologically prepared for citizen disruption. The "Brooks Brothers Riot" in Florida in 2000 was astonishingly successful. The county folded and stopped counting ballots. That won't happen this year. Disruption is pre-announced. 

The media is ready, too. In elections past, networks scrambled to be first to "call" a state. Not this time. Fox viewers may well get a full dose of "Trump-won-so-stop-counting" and "sore-loser-Democrats" but they will get this message in the context of learning that all the other media is holding back, that ballots are being counted, that Trump is using the levers of executive power to finagle the election. Trump will not be allowed to start with the presumption of victory in a media that called the election for him.

Instead, the presumption will be that Trump is throwing up every possible obstacle to admitting defeat. After all, Trump's brand is not virtue; it is winning, by whatever means. The quick replacement of Justice Ginsburg would be another, fresh example of brazen self interest, with Trump openly saying he wants the federal courts to have his back, so he is rushing to put into place a federal court that would do so. Trump makes it hard for GOP officeholders to pretend this is about principle, not power.

Trump would not enter a battle of legitimacy with a presumption of good faith. He tipped his hand. This would be a power play. It may work, but at least Democrats see it coming.