Yeah, strictly from a cold political standpoint, I don’t think the pandemic has gotten bad enough yet for attack ads to really be effective. Seems to me the best time will be on a downswing in cases, so folks aren’t distracted worrying about themselves and loved ones and Trump has more of a “record” to focus on. Remember, a majority appear to approve of his handling so far. I don’t think that makes for an opportune time for Democratic ads,
True. This crisis is bad for oppositions world over. They are mostly irrelevant. Speak up too much, be accused of politicking in times of peril. If the Government does well, they get a bump. They do poorly, everyone’s fucked anyway.
Dude, that the Black Death, Plague of Justinian level of bad. At that stage, elections and politics will be the last thing on anyone’s mind. At that stage question is not Donald Trump’s re-election, its the survival of the US as an entity.
“Millions dead” could mean *two *million, which would be the same percentage of the population that died from the 1918 flu. That was a tough hit, but it wasn’t the end times and didn’t cause discontinuity in society or government.
2 million means almost every household loses a member or knows someone who did. At the same time.
Again, no one will give a fig about national elections then.
Well I wasn’t sure. But Ok then 
Either way, there is an opportunity here for the Democrats to peel a lot of potential Trump voters away from Trump. Let me just use one example. Due to numerous family friends on FB, people from my parents’ circles (ages 55 - 70, generally), and THEIR mutual friends and all the attendant exchange of ideas, being on there along with all my friends from MY generation, my Facebook feed every day is this weird mix of crazy punk rockers and hippies and drag queens and insane car modders on one hand, and then a bunch of retired Colonels and Lieutenant Commanders and military aviators and mechanical engineers with advanced degrees - guys who were Eagle Scouts at the point in their lives when I was lost in a cloud of weed and booze.
(It’s really funny when I’ll post some video of my band or a flippant remark about daily life, and one of the ‘likes’ will be from a man who flew F-4 Phantoms over Vietnam and attended Naval War College and the other ‘like’ will be from a dude who is basically Badger from “Breaking Bad”.)
I get to see, every day, these very upstanding, flag-saluting, God-and-country, Cold Warrior people talking to each other about the events of the day. They’re maybe 50/50 Democrats and Republicans. Some of them are quite liberal, but some of them absolutely think the world of Donald Trump. It’s not so much that they think he’s a great guy or that he has anything whatsoever in common with them, but they would still rather have a Republican in office than a Democrat, in the final analysis, and that’s just the end of the story.
But that story could have an alternate ending. Could you imagine if Joe Biden organized a press conference where 10 retired combat-decorated military officers and senior NCOs – I mean the most rigid, carved-out-of-stone motherfuckers you can possibly imagine, guys who all look like Charlton Heston and George C. Scott - and throw in a handful of the best surgeons and scientists in the country whose medical credentials are unimpeachable - and simply went down the line and said, in the most dire tone of voice imaginable:
"Donald Trump has absolutely no idea how to be a leader. He is flying by the seat of his pants with no plan and no long-term strategy. I know what strategy is. I know what leadership is. THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF IT."
They don’t need to talk about bone spurs and try to call him a coward. All they need to do is say, “this man is not a leader. He doesn’t know what he is doing. He is disorganized and sloppy.” I am telling you, I know how to read people, and this approach WOULD turn Trump voters into Biden voters.
All BIDEN would have to do is shut the fuck up and let THEM make the point for him.
Personally I don’t see that working. Bear in mind the trump administration has turned on decorated war veterans plenty of times and had little to no blowback.
In your hypothetical, FOX would say “Look at Biden trying to exploit our brave soldiers” then try to find dirt on all of them, maybe find that one of them donated to the DNC once and that would be that. The kind of person who only watches FOX would lap that up and the next opinion poll would again show Trump at 44% or whatever i.e. nothing’s changed.
And that’s the thing – I just can’t think of what could bring Trump down now, apart from truly absurd scenarios like Trump jerking off on live TV. He’s done countless disqualifying things, even before elected. But if one half of the country only listens to propaganda, and that propaganda is not going away, we’re in a sick equilibrium.
That’s not an absurd scenario, regrettably.
Nate Silver uses data to try to start thinking about how the economic downturn might affect Trump’s re-election chances.
“ If I were Trump, I’d want to think six months ahead to the fall. That means I’d want a broad-based stimulus plan that helps ordinary Americans and small businesses to stay afloat during the weeks — or months-long shutdown. I’d want to stamp out the disease as much as possible — even if that means social distancing is in effect for a bit longer. And I’d want to have a Manhattan Project on treatments, testing and surveillance so that the coronavirus is more manageable until a vaccine is developed, which is unlikely until well after Election Day.”
As for Trump’s amazingly consistent approval ratings, that could also hurt him. Nate Silver again:
“ And indeed, Trump’s approval ratings have trended within a narrow range so far throughout the course of his presidency, despite tumultuous events such as the Ukraine scandal and the impeachment proceeding against him.
There is an important catch, however. If the range of possible outcomes is narrower for Trump, that also means the margin of error is lower since the outcome is more predictable.”
It is more complicated than that, if you can’t see why other people would think different, or in spite of agreeing that he is a “bullshit-spewing jackass” would prefer him over the other alternative (and the fact you have a political system were there’s only one alternative is another problem) then you clearly are not seeing things from other people’s point of view, and that was the point I brought up.
Suing for what? It’s literally just his own words superimposed over a graph of coronavirus incidence over time, with the quotes laid out at the date he said them. What possible lawsuit could one file?
Aren’t there supposed to be sanctions on Lawyers who abuse the process in truly obviously frivolous ways?
Why haven’t they been invoked against the Trump legal team? I know even guilty clients deserve representation, but aren’t there supposed to be certain ethical limits?
I’m joking of course. Any statement (or paragraph even) that uses Trump and ethics together should be read as sarcasm.
I was wondering the same thing. Fucking snowflakes.
Trump’s support is baked in. If you like him you’ll see his coronavirus handling as great even if grandma dies. It was the fucking Chinese coverup that killed her. There is virtually no realistic “what if” scenario that’s going to wildly swing these either way.
My bold.
There’s the PASSIVE VOICE again! Nothing WILL BE DONE about anything, because there is no one to do it!
Sanctions?? Sanctions, rules, consequences only matter if someone follows up on them. All have beamed down to the planet and there’s not even anyone left to turn out the lights.
That link in the tweet, the one which starts with assets.donaldjtrump.com/2017/web/hero ? It’s a PDF of a redacted copy of the complaint and contains the same spin which they use to convince their incurious followers.
This.
If you look at 538, Trump’s support has gone UP not down.
Trump was right from day one when he said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose voters. I am shocked how long it has taken people to come to grips with that.
And if there’s widespread looting and crime it will be because of Antifa.
(or more seriously: the fault of anyone criticizing trump. We made people panic. If we all had just been nice to trump, it would never have got beyond 15 cases…)
I was talking with my therapist last night, and he said that he’s been hearing people say they were changing their minds about voting from Trump.
On the other hand, my personal experience with the people on that team is that they have not changed their minds whatsoever. So I don’t know what my anxiety level should be here; “the plural of anecdote is not data” goes both ways.