Obama urges Republicans to dump Trump
Obama Says Republicans Should Withdraw Support for Trump - The New York Times
This is brilliant, because this probably makes it less likely that Republicans in Congress will revoke their endorsement, since they can’t be seen to go along with Obama. And tying them to Trump really, really hurts them in the long run.
The Republicans really are between a rock and a hard place, except for those few (like Cruz) who got out before the convention.
Trump is gonna bail. Media bias, reporters, fraud, we already know the drill. Remember Gatsby? That line about how rich folks just make gigantic messes and then just walk away?
Maybe soon, if the polls keep like they’ve recently been, and people’s first question is gonna be “How come you’re losing so bad?”. He will hit the silk, Geronimo!
And the old punchline was: “The hippy said, don’t worry, there’s a parachute left, he grabbed my backpack and jumped out…”
And his tombstone will read, “I told you it was rigged!”
Hillary raised over $90m in July, dwarfing Trump’s $36 mil.
Clinton campaign reports nearly $90 million raised in July - POLITICO
I don’t think so. Granted, he IS panicking due to this week’s polls. He’s had two responses so far: the first is pre-explaining his probable loss as Election Rigging. This is counterproductive as it’s likely to be a self-fulfilling prophecy (the more he tells his followers that their votes won’t matter, the fewer of them will go to the polls in November).
But the “it’s rigged” ties in to his second response: calling for someone to rid him of this turbulent opponent.
I believe that Trump truly hopes that someone will assassinate Hillary. If not one of his less-stable fans, then perhaps a Putin operative.
Thus the “she’s the devil” tack he’s just started using. If she’s not human, then the righteous, honorable, and patriotic thing to do would be to kill her, right?
Trump is no doubt aware that this is how the anti-abortion folks inspired all those murders of doctors and other clinic workers: tell your followers that they are doing God’s work by killing those who are not really human anymore, given that they do work God abhors.
Trump’s language in the next days and weeks will contain many coded calls for the elimination of the ‘not really human’ Hillary Clinton, I believe. It’s the only sure path to victory that Trump can see.
Trump surely realizes that Joe Biden would be parachuted in as her replacement and would win a crushing victory as the avatar of the martyred candidate?
Surely realizes? Trump?
By predicting the election will be rigged, Trump “can’t lose” by his own narcissistic worldview. If he actually is elected President, it will be because he heroically overcame a conspiracy to deprive him of his rightful place in the Oval Office. And if he loses, it won’t be because of his own glaringly obvious shortcomings or campaign missteps, but because a crooked political establishment robbed him, just as he so astutely predicted it would. Genius!
It’s the Scott Adams weasel prediction method.
Speaking of, the Adams blog has been silent on Trump worship since Adams’s prediction of the DNC causing Clinto to drop in the polls because it would lower the testosterone of male voters has… Uhh… Not exactly come to pass.
Former GOP gubernatorial candidate and big time fundraiser Meg Whitman announced that she will support Clinton and donate/raise money for her this cycle. Whitman makes clear she does not actually support Clinton’s positions, but believes that Trump is far too dangerous to allow near the Oval Office.
The Kochs are concentrating on Senate races, which is good strategy, especially since the GOP is looking more and more like they will keep their majority.
I doubt that he’s smart enough to realize Biden might step in.
In any case, Secret Service agents have had two terms’ experience in protecting someone who’s the object of irrational hatred, so presumably Clinton will survive any scheme that a Trump fan might think up. Putin’s umbrella-wielding ricin assassins are probably a more serious threat.
Oooh! Oooh! Does this go in the adaher prediction thread?
He’s unfortunately right. Bernie or Busters and the GOP deep pockets giving up on Trump have made it increasingly unlikely for the Dems to recover the Senate. But they will pick up some seats, i predict. I give it about a 20% chance the Senate will be around 50-50 next year.
As of today, Sam Wang at Princeton has the single most likely Senate makeup being 51-49 in favor of the Republicans (link), but with a reasonable chance of Democratic control.
The makeup of the Senate will probably be dependent on whether Clinton wins and by how much, especially in many of the battleground states like New Hampshire, Iowa, Pennsylvania, etc. If it’s a squeaker, that’s one thing, but if it ends up being a 7-10 point blowout due to increasingly bizarre behavior by Trump, or impressive performance by Clinton, this is going to hurt downballot Republicans as well. (How could it not? Republican candidates in competitive states have to have Trump supporters on their side in order to win, so they can’t go too far in repudiating him, but they also need Trump opponents to win, and so they may need to make some efforts to repudiate him. Their Democratic opponents, who are looking to win with only Trump opponents, don’t have to walk that particular tightrope in this election cycle.)
If we do have a Republican Senate, though, I wonder how many executive branch nominees and judges that Clinton would be able to get appointed? I’m thinking . . . zero. Probably zero. I can imagine Mitch McConnell’s press conference after the election - “The American people didn’t have the chance to choose between Hillary Clinton and a real Republican, so we are going to need to wait until 2020 and the results of that election to consider any judicial nominees.”
Not sure if that is true or not.
First (and I’d have to search a bit for the cite) I seem to recall that Koch money got amazingly little bang for their buck in election impact the last few cycles.
Second, the relatively few Bernie or Busters who are not coming out to vote if Bernie is not on the ticket were never likely voters in the first place.
Third, several close Senate elections have the presumed GOP candidate triangulated. Embrace Trump and lose moderate suburban voters (among some others). Repudiate him and lose base support. Try to straddle between the two (see McCain) and make neither group happy if not look spineless. Dramatic shifts as a result of that maybe not but a few points one way or the other matters lots in close elections.
Fourth, few have split tickets in recent cycles. One suspects that some Republicans will decide to not vote rather than vote for Trump (and not go so far as to vote Clinton) but once they are not voting they just stay home.
Separate tactical question - almost all the news right now is Trump yes all negative but still all the air time. If you are Team Clinton do you just sit back and let it unwind or do you try to get out there doing something more to build your favorable side with some attention to a particular policy intent, in particular I hope something with (White) rural America in mind to make sure they know that “Stronger Together” includes them?
Also, how much will the Olympics distract from the Trump spiraling into the abyss narrative and give him a chance to regroup?
I would be happy to see you right and myself wrong. And there’s still time for it.
Shit, doesn’t that depend upon Trump? The trendline he is currently on will likely have him come out against *all *incumbent Republicans while still retaining control of the top of the ticket… That may be more newsworthy than the pole vault results. 
Also, only one network has a true vested interest in promoting the Olympics, so it’s not as if all the other networks and media/internet outlets are saying “let’s take a break from Trump reporting so NBC can dominate the news cycle!”