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.

Court fight makes Biden even less visible

A majority of Americans disapprove of Trump. That may not be relevant.

You can't stop something with nothing. 

Trump looks like the strong guy, and Biden the invisible bystander. That is what is relevant.

The political fight over replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg changes the focus for this campaign. It is still about COVID, jobs, health care, taxes, race, crime, and Trump's personality, but also one big new thing: the Supreme Court. That last point has one other consequence: it makes Biden 

even less visible. 

Gunsmoke. Showdown

Biden says the right things on protests, on violence, on race. He comes across as a center-left moderate guy who wants everyone to get along and to bring the country together, in part by not being Trump because Trump pours gasoline of the fires of controversy. That is a good message, but it is lost in the hurricane of breaking news. Biden is saying that violence is wrong, period. Sensible, but not particularly memorable.

Meanwhile Trump is saying to cheering crowds, repeated in tweets, shared on Facebook, amplified on Fox and talk radio, that Biden loves violence, loves arson, supports killing police, that Biden will bring mobs of people to your home. He says that Biden will willfully and wantonly destroy your suburb, that Biden means the end of American civilization, that Biden wants revolution, that his supporters should be prosecuted for sedition because they will carry out armed conflict to implement totalitarian rule by socialists who will take away your home, your money, your guns, your religion, your children, your life. Watch out!!! Biden!!!

Who remembers what Biden said?

For voters who don’t follow politics closely—which is a lot of people, and likely the marginal swing voters who will decide whether to vote and for whom to vote—the image of Biden is a near cypher, made worse by his decision to campaign from his basement. (What terrible optics. It makes him look like a cowering shut-in. Crazy.) Biden won the primary quietly, by default. After all, the other rivals dropped out and it was a choice between Biden and Bernie Sanders, the guy with bold ideas that he couldn't sell even to Democrats.

Then, for Biden, especially in comparison with Trump, radio silence.

Of course, there is the consolation that Trump is saying such inflammatory things that he is hanging himself and Biden should stay out of the way. After all, Trump is praising a 17 year old who brings an AR15 to protests and shoots people, and telling people that "herd mentality" will cure the virus. Trump is the target of family members, journalists and former top officials sharing evidence that Trump is a selfish, corrupt, utterly incompetent president. Why get in the way of Trump's immolation?

One big reason, and that is the big, meta message that Trump is out there in the arena  leading, while Biden is in Delaware, at home, in a basement, losing in a battle over the Supreme Court.

It creates an easy-to-understand choice between the Bold Leader vs Weak Wanna-be.  

Republican voters have been taught to care about the courts. The average Democrat has other issues, e.g. health care, income inequality, racial justice. Democrats should care about the courts (and reproductive rights activists do) but the court issue is asymmetrical. Republicans care more than Democrats.  

Biden, amid books, at home

AOC is out there doing her part, with faint praise for Biden but strong advocacy for stopping Trump, which means supporting Biden. This may reduce leftist bleed to the Green Party, which is good for Democrats. But in the era of Trump the focus is on Trump, always, and Trump’s schtick turned off some traditional Republicans. The court fight gives those Republican apostates tangible reason to re-identify as Republicans. Net-net, it helps Republicans.

The marginal voters who will decide this election are in the states of Pennsylvania, Nevada, Florida, and Wisconsin. Those states poll nearly dead even. There are inattentive, undecided, indecisive people in those states. They are deciding: Who is the good guy in the drama? If so, can he win in the fights he will face?

So the quick and dirty image of the two characters emerge. Trump is a knave, sure, a con man and self-promoter, a dishonest salesman, maybe more naughty than actually evil, but he is out there, fighting the DC bureaucrats and the obstructionist Democrats. He isn't trustworthy, but he is present. Meanwhile, Biden is a cypher.

In a tough world, you can't stop something with nothing. So, when casting the vote based on gut feel and impressions, go with the strong guy. Things need to be shaken up. That means you need to be out there on the street, fighting.