Man, he’s playing with fire on this one. I’m sure that’s why he made Vance say it. The anti-abortion movement didn’t spend 40 years organizing, fundraising and rallying against Roe out of a passionate dedication to federalism. They see abortion as a moral abomination, and their goal is to end abortion everywhere by whatever means necessary. And Trump needs their votes as much as he needs those of moderate suburban women.
Fair enough, but he has had no coherent set of policies to offer, so does this really help him with anyone? I mean, if it’s like Mitt Romney doing a flip-flop, he’s going to plan it out, game it out, work on his talking points, get his surrogates ready to back him up, and so on. Trump doesn’t seem to be doing anything like that.
Yeah, it’s not like he’s polling these messages, holding focus groups, or anything of that nature. He’s just riffing on the fly. So he doesn’t know how much of his base will ditch him versus what percentage of independents will come to him, etc.
A not-too-rigorous opinion piece, but very much in the spirit of the OP – The Bulwark’s Jonathan Last picks up what @Aeschines is laying down:
Broad points by Last:
"The Trump campaign is restricting the breadth of its appeal in the hopes that it can make up the numbers in depth: Target a smaller slice of the electorate, but try to turn them out at higher rates—and get just enough votes to win the Electoral College while losing the popular vote.
The Harris campaign is a broad-spectrum operation. They are trying to win as wide a swath of voters as possible through their ideological positioning while allowing their turnout to be driven by two other factors: (1) The cultural phenomenon of Kamala Harris [and] (2) Widespread loathing of Donald Trump."
" … the thing about the Electoral College is that while it offers a rural minority party the chance to win executive power, that move is never going to be a high-percentage play."
Yes, but Trump could re-tweet a fake video of himself with stigmata, or claim that he’s the Lindberg baby. I wouldn’t rule out anything at this point.
Haha. Well, you gave me an idea for a new Trump message that I think could be very effective.
“They say that I’m weird. Me? Weird? Actually, I’m very normal. When it comes to politics and views, I’m just like two other great, normal Americans: Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh. Ever hear of them?”
Thanks for the article. Definitely resonates.
From the linked article:
But the thing about the Electoral College is that while it offers a rural minority party the chance to win executive power, that move is never going to be a high-percentage play.
Can someone help me parse this sentence? What does ‘that move’ refer back to?
It seems to refer to either ‘the Electoral College’ or ’ the chance to win executive power’ neither of which is a move. What else could it be? It bugs me not really because of grammar pedantry but because I really want to know the author’s point. I want to know who he is accusing making a low-percentage play and what is it?
Sure, the move is this:
During the Trump years, the Republican party has fully accepted its status as the minority party and focused on maneuvering within the Electoral College, rather than trying to build a national majority.
The move is accepting this new status and trying to game the EC.
So the move is “maneuvering within the Electoral College”? I can see that I suppose, but it still feels sloppily written (or edited) to me. Maybe it would have been better without a paragraph break there? Oh well.
Well, the move to just accept that they are the minority party (instead of trying to regain majority support) and, since they will always lose the popular vote, will need to focus on the EC going forward.
Yes, it could be clearer. Instead of “this move,” perhaps “acceptance of this strategy.”
IMHO Trump’s votes are essentially locked in. He isn’t going to convince people who haven’t already made up their mind to vote for him, and he also isn’t going to lose the votes of those who have already made up their mind that they are going to vote for him. My guess is that fortunately that number isn’t enough to beat Harris at that this point. In other words, he can only win by Harris somehow losing some of the support she currently has. Whatever ways Harris might lose some of her current supporters would do it. This might be a major gaffe, a bad October surprise that comes up and is blamed on her, worsening of the economy, or just a waning of enthusiasm of the Democratic base over the next few months. Anything like that would do it.
Basically agree, but insofar as “independents” actually exist, he can lose them. He would not be polling as high as he is with only his MAGA base.
I over-trimmed the quotes, I think. Mea culpa.
Given that her office has no power and no responsibilities, I can’t imagine what could possibly stick. They already tried the “border czar” smear and it was rapidly debunked.
Well, that’s the thing, innit? The margins are so small. The last 2 or 3 elections hinged on a few tens of thousands of votes in a few different states. It wouldn’t take a lot. 2000 votes here and another 5000 votes there, and suddenly it’s a 30 EV swing.
[quote=“Smapti, post:1235, topic:1005351”]
Given that her office has no power and no responsibilities, I can’t imagine what could possibly stick [/quote]
Her office is branded in the public’s mind as having power, (as part of Biden’s administration), and having full responsibility (for everything Biden has done and will do till November),
So any gaffes, any problems that arise, any dramatic events, any wars, will stick to Harris, so she could lose some voters.
Trump , on the other hand, has no such limitations.
===
On edit:
(Question for mods: what is wrong with my formatting? I quoted smapti’s post above, but it doesn’t display properly as a quote. It looks to me like the square brackets are correctly formatted.)
The ‘[/quote]’ needs to be on a separate line.
On the above quote, I am now removing the line break after the question mark:
[quote=“chappachula, post:1237, topic:1005351”]
what is wrong with my formatting? [/quote]
Whew! What a relief.
That and this sense of “trust me, I’m giving you tomorrow’s news today”. Considering the track record of these demonstrative “predictions” in other threads, color me skeptical.
Especially remembering that this same bizarre overconfidence was one of the factors that fucked this country over in 2016.