I don’t usually makes sports analogies, but here’s one I think is appropriate.
Say your hometown baseball team is 10 games back in the standings in August. Then they start winning. Three games, five games, nine out of ten, thirteen out of fifteen. So by late August they’ve completely made up the deficit and are tied for the lead.
Celebration time?
No. Statistically, they are doomed. If the other team was a 10-game-better team, they are likely to keep playing great the rest of the year. If your hometown team can only get to a tie after a streak hugely unlikely to be duplicated, they have little chance to be on top at year’s end.
The Democrats have had a historically unprecedented winning streak since late July. Everything has gone right and the fans are going nuts. That’s gotten them to a statistical tie in the polls. I don’t feel good about that.
Sooner or later the Republicans will have another win streak. Sooner or later something will go bad for the Democrats. This happens every election cycle, especially when the incumbent isn’t running. The magnitude of the events, their length, and their timing will determine where the current polling tie will fall.
The Democrats have another break of good fortune that their convention is in two weeks. People will want to be introduced to two new faces. After that, anything is possible.
The big difference this time is that we saw 6 January '21, so we know that it, like an Individual-ONE presidency, is a possible thing. If it looks like we are headed that way again, I find it hard to imagine that there would not be a massive counter-protest assembled around the Capitol. The RWers would not have the grounds to themselves this time. It could be a war zone.
Donald Trump can win because we patiently explain to the Right exactly how he is fucking up, they respond with “Trump owns your ass, and we are gonna win no matter how hard you cheat!”, and the more “enlightened” minds here and elsewhere tell how the problem is that we are just explaining it incorrectly…and they are 100% wrong. The right see “correction” as “capitulation” and are acting accordingly. The ugly truth is not that we are explaining things in a poor manner-The problem is our entire approach.
Using as few syllables as possible, tell them directly that they are bigoted dipshits and that their grandchildren are going to be very ashamed of them…if they are spoken of at all.
Tell them they are gullible.
Tell them them that wishing for things to be real is something normal people just don’t do past the age of six.
Tell them that hints of bigotry will be met directly with direct accusations of bigotry, and that “people are saying” to cover up your own beliefs will be met with a single middle finger raised high in response.
Not going to help. You simply cannot tell them anything. Imagine one of them telling you how fucked-up your mindset is: do you think that would sway you in any way?
Insulting and deprecating them yields no gain, and it some cases might generate sympathy with others that you did not want. The only strategy that seems to have legs is humor and mockery. It is more effective to use words like weird than words like gullible (too subtle, too many syllables) or dipshit. Disarm, rather than antagonize.
You’ve been wildly wrong and overenthusiastic about your predictions (Trump no being the nominee, dropping from the debate). Maybe some humility about your political instincts is in order.
Have you ever tried to argue an alcoholic, and addict, out of their addiction, the destruction they’re inflicting? Even a highly intelligent addict, who you might hope would use that intelligence to grab a moment of clarity will instead strain it to justify the destruction.
You cannot tell them facts and/or figures, and their “humor” is basically “Little Mary fell flat on her face. That’ll teach her to step out of place-Har har!!”
Tell them they are shitheels (go simpler if you have to). Tell them they are scum for what they want to do to others. Tell them they are bigots, in those very words. If they really are proud of being bigots and shitheels, then refer to them using those very words.
I am done trying to help them-They ARE the problem.
I sighed when I heard Harris call Trump “Duckin’ Don” as he wanted to debate on Fox.
In my memory the name/nickname calling was not a thing that high-standing politicians did. I know Nixon was called “Tricky Dicky” perhaps all the way back to 1960 yet it wasn’t JFK.
Let others call Trump the “Fat Orange Felon”. With that quoted diatribe he’s clearly out of his mind. Harris can tell him that in a debate yet for now leave the nicknames to others in the DNC.
I haven’t seen any mention of a ‘Swift Boat’-style attack on Harris, which is certainly a worry when Russian disinformation is such a threat in US elections now.
Or the 2016 ‘investigation’ of Clinton - basically any kind of thrown mud that kills momentum and forces Harris on the defensive right at the point when swing voters might be most heavily influenced.
The best response to that (IMHO) is by having a large enough campaign fund balance available to drown out the lies. But it might only take one meme to stick.
I think they would have to come up with something both real and big for it to do damage. Thus far, they barely seem able to attack her based on her known record.
Then that is the way to go. Be done with them. Fail to engage them. “Sorry, not gonna talk about that, tired of your bullshit.” Shut them down. Like my friends at work who every day were telling me about what Rush said this morning on the radio, until I finally said “Who?” and they got it.
To answer the OP question, polls say that if the election was held today, it would be a tossup. Trump might even win the popular vote.
The likely Trump-Harris debate should give Harris a bump, but, if the only debate is in September, the bump will have gone away before most people vote.
The election will likely be determined by events. There could be a decisive event in a war. There could be positive or negative economic news. There could be a candidate illness. There could be foreign election interference. Trump could go to jail (but it’s unlikely).
As for cheating, this is very hard to do at scale and I would not act the sore loser in advance.
Fortunately, Harris’ late entry probably scuttled a number of the swiftboat mines that they laid for Biden. They are going to have to work quickly if they want to cook a good one up for her.