Interesting and believable point.
One factor I haven’t seen in a while, if at all, in this thread is that he actually has four chances to win – for some values of “win.”
- He wins the EC straight-up (shudder).
- In states where he lost well-placed election
officialsminions jigger their ‘concerns’ about fraud to tip the state in his favor. - When the EC votes are counted we get a repeat if J6 only this time the Oathbreakers and Loud Boys are better organized, having learned from 2020.
- Ditto for January 20, 2025.
You skipped the one where the EC ends up in a condition (whether arrived at by means fair or foul) where the constitution legitimately drives the election to the House. Wherein the more numerous R states (remember it’s 1 vote per state) then anoint their king.
All I can think of is Lord of the Flies.
It’s not as significant as I feared. I believe the election would be very, very close even if Biden were still in the race. When Harris took over, I feared as though misogyny and racism would tip things significantly in Trump’s favor. I don’t think it has.
This very much.
No, I would say he changed his mind based on the status of the country. In 2020, he felt defeating Trump would put Trump in the rearview and the Republican Party would move on. That didn’t happen.
He also hoped to restore normalcy to politics, or at least the function of the government. The Speaker fiasco proved that hasn’t happened.
I think he got too caught up in the idea it was his burden to fix everything before handing over the reins. The post-covid and Ukraine War economy needed more time. He needed to fix it.
In my youth, when things seemed sane, voting R here and there didn’t seem so bad. But I decided their allegiance to the religious right was enough to preclude my vote.
Then came the Tea Party and the Ted Cruz’s, the “my primary candidate is too moderate” faction.
Now we have Trump, MAGA, and the nutjobs, dumbasses, and authoritarians in charge of their party. Nope.
I’ve also become more informed on politics and the reality of Party goals. I’ve discovered my identity is much further left than I was aware.
No more R for me.
Could I stand a Romney or McCain type (i.e. normal R) presidency? Yes, because they might push an agenda I disagree with, they still believe in democracy. But I wouldn’t take a certain Romney over the election we have now.
If the election doesn’t work out, I’ll have the consolation that this was all hypothetical and I didn’t have the power to make that decision.
Interesting. I don’t recall the timing but do recall the suggestion he would be a one-termer.
Agree w this take. A LOT.
His “transition” remark was about moving from trump-crazy back to D vs R business as usual with a competent executive and a competent bureaucracy following the law.
Moderating:
You two are far from the only ones engaging in the hijack about what Biden said about running for a second term, so I’m not singling you out. But your posts are carrying the hijack along, so I highlighted them.
Please drop this discussion in this thread. You know the drill.
How to Reply as a linked Topic
Click Reply, in the upper left corner of the reply window is the reply type button, looks like a curving arrow point to the right.
Choose Reply as linked topic and it starts a new thread. As an example, you can choose GD, IMHO or The Pit for it.
That is actually the best method.
Yeah. I think we have good reason to believe misogyny at least is playing a role in how close this thing is. Plenty of polling data shows Harris is way behind with male voters of all races.
Damn. That’s upsetting. She’s handled being a female candidate perfectly, if you ask me.
He can win because he’s the only candidate talking about what’s foremost in the minds of the voters- the size of Arnold Palmer’s penis.
Maybe. But remember that Hillary Clinton won more votes than did Trump.
Due to white anxiety/white supremacism, it’s quite possible that if a man were running for the Democrats (instead of Harris), the polls would be just as close. Because the anxious/supremacist white voters know perfectly well that Democrats are NOT going to put non-whites, non-straights, non-males, and non-Christians in ‘their proper place.’ A Democrat—even if he’s white male straight Christian—is not going to hurt the people that right-wing voters want to see hurt.
And there are millions of those anti-Democratic Party voters. Millions.
Yes, it’s true that there are die-hard misogynists among both Republicans and Democrats. But the Clinton/Trump numbers convince me that they are less a factor than is the white anxiety/supremacy aspect.
Yeah, that’s nucking futs and not the kind of nuts that plays well to his base, I think. Plus, Trump has been cussing a lot lately, which he didn’t use to do. I have heard that such loss of inhibition is another sign of dementia. And of course, those are just two things–there is a lot more I don’t bother to talk about here. The man is fading fast.
But is he fading fast enough?
At the risk of launching a CT, is he being fed stupid pills by Musk / Thiel henchmen intending to finish killing off enough brain cells that trump becomes inert after the voting but before he has a chance to take office? So that their hand-picked minion Vance is the prez from day 1? And maybe they overshot a wee bit on the dose and are now scrambling to keep him coherent enough long enough to not lose the vote itself?
I think this is the crux of the matter. Many voters have a real problem voting for a woman for president. I think this was a large part of the Hillary Clinton loss, and will be a large factor in this election as well.
It doesn’t matter to his voters. He could curse the mothers of every rally attendee in a barrage of profanity, scream “Suck This Rosie O’Donnell,” fall down on the stage, and foam at the mouth—and they would still vote for him.
There is nothing he can do in the next two weeks that would dissuade his voters from making the effort to vote for him.
(Well, not nothing: he could, for instance, come out in favor of reparations to every black American and full health care for every trans person. That would discourage his voters. But there is literally zero chance of that happening, no matter how fast his brain may be shutting down. As his brain shuts down he will become more Trumpy, not less.)
If Trump were to win, I don’t think Vance’s backers would be waiting very long…
Right. His voters. If his base is already putting him over the top, then there is no hope–but they weren’t able to do so in 2020. Thus, Trump’s death spiral can influence voters that are not already “his.”
Many posters here have indicated that they find me irrationally positive. Guys, this is what positive looks like:
Irrational? I’m not sure.
Also, how the polls and Polymarket are being gamed by RW techbros:
Since August, 16 out of 27 polls in PA have been from right-leaning pollsters, according to the article.
I will say again (we discussed it way upstream), it’s a disgrace and a massive conflict of interest that Nate Silver is involved in Polymarket.
How exactly? The Capitol building is going to be an absolute fortress this time around. Even a small army wouldn’t be able to break into it.
Furthermore, merely disrupting the electoral-vote counting process wouldn’t be enough to stop someone from becoming president. It might be interrupted, but one or way or another it would resume and be done. It’s not like some treasure movie plot where if you steal the box containing the ballots, the election result is then up for grabs.