I think nobody will make that mistake after 2016.
I really like your optimism. I just wish I could share it.
I’ve said before, I wish we had 4 parties. Center right and left, and far right and left. Depending on the issues, the policy-makers would have to see who they prefer to make a deal with. But our system is so structured against that.
I’ll admit I’m not sure what you’re saying here. I feel you and I are using the same terms but we have different meanings for them.
Liberals is an example. I don’t think anyone who wants to see Reagan or Bush or DeSantis as President is what I think of as a liberal. There are probably a lot of liberals who aren’t happy with Biden (or Obama or Clinton) - they want somebody like Sanders to be President. But most liberals when confronted with a choice between a conservative Republican and a moderate Democrat, have been willing to vote for the Democrat.
Well, the way I see it, I have very little ability to impact the election myself, and I’ve gotten way better in recent years of not letting myself stress or worry about things outside of my control and instead focus on what I can. Maybe I’m using rose colored glasses, but if I’m wrong come 11/24 at least I didn’t spend all my time between now and then worrying about it.
Here are some other polls that may give you a bit of relief (I think that one poll from ABC/Washington Post is listed here and you can see how far off that one is from all the other polls) - President: general election Polls | FiveThirtyEight
I think a key factor is that at the moment the only thing the various factions within the Republican party agree on is that they don’t want Biden to win. But the Democrats don’t know who they’re running against yet.
By next summer, the choice will have settled down on a specific Republican candidate and the Democrats can focus on that opponent. And we’ll see if disappointed Trump supporters will rally to De Santis or if disappointed De Santis supporters will rally to Trump. Or if the typical conservative voter who has never voted for anyone other than a white man will be willing to vote for Haley or Ramaswamy or Elder or Scott.
Thanks, Airbeck, those do give me a little bit of relief, though the fact that trump is competitive in polling at all is still worrisome, even if Biden is still ahead in many of them.
And the recent pretty dramatic swing in this poll really concerns me
Speaking of that, while there was a discouraging poll from ABC for the general election (with Trump ahead of Biden) chances are that it was an outlier, because the most recent battleground polls show that in places like Pennsylvania Biden is trouncing Trump. Still in other polls for the general election, Trump is close to Biden, still a disturbing thing that we can’t ignore.
It’s Biden’s home state, so I would hope so. I wouldn’t give it a lot of weight for predicting the nationwide outcome.
Sorry, I really could have been clearer. What I’m saying is you’re thinking about this in terms of American parties; liberals on the left, conservatives on the right, which is how it’s always been. But the membership of both parties has also always had a big-L liberal worldview, as in, believed in liberalism: democratic representation, free enterprise, civil liberties, whatever. In another country that had a socialist party and a fascist party and a communist party and a green party and so on, all of those people could be in a liberal party, even if they disagree about a lot of individual policy choices. In the US, the window isn’t really that wide, so relatively small ideological differences are the basis for party affiliation. It’s like how our departed Libertarian became Liberal and infuriated SDMB liberals, because he was on the other side of the political spectrum as they saw it, and he thought it was funny to call himself that because he did see himself as a classical liberal.
Anyway, Trump people, who we are calling conservatives because they’re on the American right and that’s how we’re used to talking about, aren’t the people who used to be the average American conservative who still believed in liberalism. They don’t really give a shit about liberalism. That’s one way to look at the January 6 divide; those institutions are supposed to matter, and these people don’t give a shit about any of them. Their response to complaints that they aren’t following norms is that they want the norms destroyed. It is not for nothing we’re always talking about fascists.
So what I’m saying is, when you say conservatives would rather have a Reagan or a Bush, that’s true about the old version of a “conservative” whose ideology fit the 80s/90s Republican party. But that’s not really what right wing America stands for anymore, and when I was talking about “conservatives” I really meant right wing America.
I’ve read, but don’t know if it’s true, that a lot of the hard core Trump followers, the kind who showed up to Washington on January 6, have a few traits in common. Many of them have had personal or business related financial difficulties, including bankruptcies, and have had tangles with one government bureaucracy or another. And I have to admit, my mother fits into that profile. Quite frankly, I think a lot of Trump supporters just want to see the world burn.
Don’t forget how close Pennsylvania was in 2020. It was one of the main states targeted to be overturned by the coup plotters.
If he’s leading there now by a good margin, that is a sign that things have shifted away from Trump.
In this case it does, remember, Trump never won the popular vote (in both elections) he only won the first time thanks to the frat boy electoral college, and this time Trump is behind where it counted before.
I’ll agree with this and I’ll add that one thing the MAGAts seem to like about TFG is that they know he lies, he cheats, he’s RICH and he gets away with it. And they want to have the same situation he has. They know he lies on taxes and gets away with it, cheats on wives and gets away with it. Hell, he doesn’t raise any of his kids, gets nannies or lets the wife do it, and there’s no cases of neglect against him. They LOVE this shit and would love to be able to do the same.
They are bullies, and they vote for a bigger bully.
Trump gets away with it because after decades of political fighting and media amplification, the two sides in America hate each other with a passion and will support anyone who they think can beat (or beat up) the other side, and will justify their choice after thr fact.
So you have a President who is an 80 year old serial confabulator who has already lost some of his never-very-high intellect, vs a despicable serial liar and sex offender.
I wouldn’t let either of them babysit a child, or take a junior management position in my company, let alone run a country.
Trump,is liked by many on the right simoly because the left hates him so much, and he ‘fights’. Shitty criterion to be sure, but completely in line with the tribalism that defines American politics now.
I’d say that it starts with #2. There’s a large group of people who hate the idea of intellectualism and they love that Trump is among their number.
It’s like you go to a city and you see homeless people camping everywhere, crapping in the street and following people with their pants down, screaming, “Suck my cock! Suck my cock!” The intellectual is going to think, “Oh that poor man, we need to do more to help him!” But, then they’ll convince themselves that there’s no moral path to help because you’d have to commandeer the life of the guy, forcibly medicate him, and keep him under the watch and eye of unelected, largely unpoliced medical workers with an economic incentive to keep the guy locked up for all time. The anti-intellectual isn’t going to think that far, they’re just going to think, “These people are crazy allowing this. Lock this guy up and inject his ass with happy juice!”
Hitler was popular because the trains ran on time. The big philosophical things - personal liberty, rule of law, property, etc. - just aren’t that important to the average person. They just want things to be clean and orderly, and anyone getting in the way of that to be hauled off and locked up in a dark hole to reflect on what they did. Whether there was due process is not important. That’s all just intellectualist, overthinkers’ nonsense that screws up the world and puts you in the place where you’ve got crazy people chasing you, with their pants down, screaming to suck their cock.
And, to be fair, there isn’t zero validity to that argument. California just decided to ignore O’Connor v. Donaldson and to start forcibly institutionalizing the chronically homeless because there is a point where you’re being too intellectualist on the issue, just as there is a point where you’re being too anti-intellectualist.
But, regardless, there weren’t a lot of true anti-intellectuals running for office, before Trump. They were all fakers. His followers saw and appreciated that fact and fell in love.
Once you’re in love with someone and like how they treat you, that’s where people start to mess up on looking at information objectively. They’ll accept the word of the person that they like, blame others for not seeing what a great person he is, etc. Probably, somewhere in the back of their head they realize that they screwed up but their fear of looking stupid and of being the person who elected and supported the guy who tried to screw over the Constitution and steal the election - that fear is too great. They’re complicit. It’s real hard to stop when you’re in that position and any excuse - no matter how ridiculous - is good enough to keep you going.
You want to know how anybody can vote R?-the answer is that they are afraid of the Dems.
Everybody is talking about Trump vs Biden, as if Biden is the only issue… But Biden does not represent the entire Democratic party. There is another branch of the party , which scares a lot of people, and may push many of them to vote Trump: the Progressive branch.
The Dems are experts at shooting themselves in the foot, and making the party look bad. Last time, they came up with "Defund the Police " the worst slogan ever.
So this time, I\m afraid that they will do something equally scary, which will motivate swing voters to run away in panic.
I see two possible scary issues:
One is transgender stuff.
And the other is Reparation payments
Lets talk about trans first:
Sure, it’s nice to talk about equal rights, etc…That’s not scary. What is scary is when you start telling people in the hospital that their newborn baby boy isn’t really a boy, and if you really love him, you should cut his balls off.
Yes, I’m exaggerating on purpose.
My point is to scare the Dems into realizing that they might lose to Trump. Because talking constantly about trans issues is SCARY. And it scares some people enough that they will vote for Trump.
. You know how ugly and emotional the conversation becomes if you talk about circumcision? You can understand why cutting off the tip of a penis is repulsive to many people. So please understand that cutting off both balls is even more so. Dems will lose votes over this.
And the second issue is reparations. Sure, it’s a nice concept.
But it’s SCARY to lots of swing voters.
It’s nice to talk about equality. But when headlines scream about giving
1.2 million dollars
to every black person in the country, you’re going to scare away lots of swing voters.
The progressive branch of the Democratic party makes it easy for conservatives to smear the entire party. And that could scare off the swing voters which Biden desperately needs.
And that answers the OP;s question of why Trump is still viable. Not because Trump is so attractive…but because the Dems may well scare away the voters they need to attract for themselves.
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