Black and Hispanic voters are turning toward Trump
Maybe they are impatient for change and will accept being insulted as the price for getting it.
In 2020 Joe Biden won about 90 percent of the votes of Black voters and 63 percent of the votes of Hispanics. Kamala Harris would have a solid lead in the polls if she had that level of support. She doesn't. She has about 76% of the Black vote and 56% of the Hispanic vote. What more could Trump do to turn off Black voters than to call Harris "low IQ" and "mentally retarded," and use Haitians as the example of a disgusting and frightening "other?" What better way to lose the votes of Hispanics than to describe them as rapists and criminals with "bad genes?"
As Barack Obama said to Black and Hispanic Americans this week: Can't you see that he is insulting you?
Democrats may be missing the target when they complain about Trump's danger to "democracy." They are defending Constitutional process but maybe frustrated voters want tangible results instead. Democrats promise "hope and change" and say that government would bring it. Medicare-for-all, had it been implemented back in 2009, would have been a dramatic, visible change. But democratic process in the form of Republican opposition and health insurance lobbying stopped it. So we got the complicated, watered-down Obamacare. The Great Financial Crisis was a failure of government regulators to stop crazy risk-taking by banks. Government made a problem, and then democratic process caused an unnecessarily slow exit out of it. Republicans wanted to make sure that the "Obama recovery" was slow and unsatisfactory, so they insisted on underfunding it.
Trump says he will enact great medical care, that he will make the economy boom, and that he will intimidate Russia, Ukraine, China, Iran, and Hezbollah into being peaceful. He sounds confident. Who knows? It could happen.
The Democratic reputation as the "can do" party took a blow when cities led by Democrats, including Portland, Oregon let George Floyd demonstrations turn violent, then persist night after night. People see TV images of organized shoplifting in California cities. The Biden administration was slow to address the sharp increase in immigrants claiming asylum at the southern border. All this shaped the idea that Democrats are irresolute and incapable.
Trump openly and proudly says he will be undeterred by democratic process. He says he will be dictator for a day. He says he will direct police to be "very rough" and that they would be immune from any consequences. He says he will invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807. He said he will impose tariffs by executive order. He said he will deport millions of people and use the military to do it. He says he will fill the executive branch with loyal people who will promptly do what he orders.
Trump told Senate Republicans to vote against the very immigration bill they had helped negotiate. They did as he asked. Trump declared Mike Pence, Mitt Romney, George Bush, Dick Cheney, and much of his former White House staff and cabinet officers to be persona non grata. The GOP now shuns them. Even out of office and under indictment, Trump exercises power. The actions he has taken, and the ones he says he will take if elected, are high-handed, but when you are president nothing he does is illegal, he says. Trump made that improbable claim, and even the U.S. Supreme Court buckled to protect him. That is power.
Trump does not take "no" for an answer, even the "no" of losing an election.
Personally, I am disgusted by this celebration of lawbreaking autocracy. It is an assault on democracy and the rule of law. But I recognize that it has appeal to people, especially people who are impatient for change and are frustrated with government.
The awful reality is that autocracy is a feature for Trump. It helps explain why Trump might win.
10 comments:
“Trump says he will enact great medical care, that he will make the economy boom, and that he will intimidate Russia, Ukraine, China, Iran, and Hezbollah into being peaceful.”
Trump lies a lot. He’s such a compulsive liar that even in the midst of a national disaster that’s devastated several states, he couldn’t resist adding to the misery of the survivors by spreading malicious lies about relief efforts. He’s still lying about the 2020 election, seeking to undermine trust in our elections. Yet Republicans trust him to make America great again. The entire political party has obviously caught the same crazy that afflicted Jonestown.
It’s called Republican cancel culture: By supporting Trump, Republicans are teaching their children that morality is an impediment; to succeed in America, they need to cancel their conscience. There’s a precedent for that: the Third Reich.
Your best post in a long while. Marginalized voters are in essence making a risk assessment. Concrete material benefits vs. lofty but phrases about intangible possibilities. Am I better off than I was four years ago? Should I feel shame for voting my pocketbook?
All people yearn for hope and meaning. When they feel like that the current system doesn’t deliver either, then they look for alternatives. What’s interesting to note is that the source of people’s dissatisfaction is almost always “sold” to them. And there is the opportunity for deception.
Trump has figured out that selling discontent is far easier than selling coherent policy, competence, or character. Selling out to autocracy is like selling your soul to the devil. Afterward it’s too late.
What surprises me is how ordinarily, decent and intelligent people are willing to cede unchecked power to anyone, much less someone of his vacuous moral character. His intentions could not be more clear.
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Four years ago, Trump’s clueless mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic had collapsed our economy and contributed to the preventable deaths of countless thousands of people. Then, he tried to overthrow the government. Yes, I am far better off than I was then and yes, anybody who puts their trust in such a malevolent traitor should be ashamed.
Look at the Trump vs Harris Presidential bid as a sport. Trump has turned the election into Team Trump vs Team Harris. We see the division on display each weekend in the fall. Half the stadium is cheering on their team and vice versa. You can visualize that the stadium is evenly divided. A minority of twenty-two players will determine the outcome. Trump has branded his team as the most powerful and rightfully winner. If Team Trump loses for some reason, it will result from cheating and bad officiating. Please note the MAGA moment is right. The challenger is the enemy. Look at the mess they've made with the Porus border and the fentanyl crises. None of the court cases against Trump or his two impeachments move them to switch jerseys. So we are left with four percent undecided about what colors they will wear.
The Democrats were in power for four years. They could have been competent, but instead we got:
* that disgraceful clusterfuck in Afghanistan
* inflation
* military brass concerned with the climate and wokeness instead of lethality
* appointments based on race instead of merit
* an out-of-control southern border
* an anointed cadidaate with no evident political talent
There are lots of reasons to vote against the Democrats this year. I hope Kamala Harris wins anyway, because of how random and unreliable Trump is, but if you look at their record over the last four years, the Democrats kind of deserve to lose.
Germany never thought it could happen there, either.
Don Old cannot sell compentency.
He has none.
Michael, why did not not mention that Don Old was president before?
And he surrendered to terrorists!
Don Old is a loser.
* That disgraceful clusterfuck in Afghanistan was 20 years in the making and negotiated by Trump.
*Inflation comes and goes.
* The military is concerned with the climate precisely because of the lethality of climate change and the threat is poses to national security.
* People of all races have merit.
* It was Republicans that killed the border bill.
* Harris' political talent is that she respects the Constitution and rule of law, unlike the Republican candidate.
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