fans of trump are several kids of nut. He has a way of gathering them all with one schtick, uniting them in service of a common cause: the greater glory of trump.
I did when I was looking but typoed. Still in awe of your Google-fu, though.
Even better.
It’s the lying, and the knowing that he’s lying. He tells every particular nut that he fully supports them, and they believe it, even as they tell each other, “Can you believe that those other nuts actually believe Trump supports them?!?”
They’re not the saltiest nuts in the can, is what I’m saying.
They are, however, the most rancid.
From FiveThirtyEight, a really useful analysis of a polling experiment of focus groups to see what kind of ads actually get Trump voters to reconsider their support.
Highlighting Trump’s rifts with fellow Republicans was one of the few things that worked. Highlighting any issue — ANY issue — didn’t put a dent in his support.
21:00 to 41:00 in this video (scroll down to “Latest 538 Video” — stupid site won’t let me link to the video itself):
The old time-tested ‘divide and conquer’ strategy-- I like it.
In the ‘trumpist headlines that sound like Onion-style joke headlines’ thread, this was posted:
In addition to, yes, it is amusing that the Biden administration is trolling trump’s social platform, it is nice to read that the Biden Admin is doing some of that. From Horatius’ article post:
Biden’s campaign has already made several posts, some which feature Republican politicians such as Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz criticizing or disagreeing with Trump.
“We will be leveraging the fact that Republicans can sometimes be our best messengers,” a campaign official told Fox News.
New poll from NYT has Trump beating Biden in almost all swing states and on track for 300 electoral votes. He is picking up younger voters and voters of color who are blaming Biden for inflation. Meanwhile Trump supporters have taken the opinion that he might be a horrible person but at least he kept his promises and the economy was better under Trump. I just don’t get it. How can so many people be so delusional? I’m definitely back out on the ledge. I don’t know that I can survive another four years of Trump.
I saw the same poll and am reminding myself it is a year out from the election just to keep my sanity. If these results had continue to be the case and people re-elect DJT then the resulting chaos these idiots experience will be deserved. I’m in a solidly Red state so hopefully it won’t have a horrible impact for us.
To quote myself from another thread, it’s a same-shit, different day/been-there, done-that poll:
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State level polling is less accurate than national.
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The poll is a bit of an outlier.
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Only look at persistent polling averages, not single polls.
I’ve posted before why I think Trump is running slightly ahead of Biden, and why, this time, year-before polling is significant. But I don’t think this new polling series makes my case stronger.
However, if anyone does want a reason to panic, 538 gives New York Times/Siena an A+ pollster rating.
But national polling is irrelevant to how a President is elected. That fact must always be kept uppermost in mind.
For the flip side, there’s also the supposed advantage Dukakis had over Bush Sr. back in 1988. Here’s an article about Dukakis advising Biden not to put mucn stock in those early polls (admittedly regarding 2020, not 2024, but the same advice still applies).
This Frum piece claims the Democrats aren’t taking enough advantage of their victories. But that doesn’t fully explain losing five swing states in current polls that Biden won in 2020.
Thanks, but I get a paywall (I let my Atlantic Monthly subscription lapse a year ago). Could you summarize the main points?
On the Biden vs trump point (which isn’t really the main thrust of this thread) the key thing IMO is that trump has been campaigning almost continuously since he left office. And started ramping that up heavily about 6 months ago.
Meanwhile Biden has spent his time and effort being President, not campaigning to become President. As and when Joe gets campaigning in gear the balance of polls and momentum can and probably will change. If he doesn’t wait too long.
If trump’s in prison or 14th Amendment disqualified from serving soon, Biden’s campaigning job gets much, much easier.
I’ll try. Excerpts follow.
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Republicans disagree on many issues, notably aid to Ukraine. But they occupy a much narrower demographic and cultural range than Democrats do. That’s one reason the Republican Party can generate an audience for Fox News and the Democrats have no equivalent: Republicans can converge on a more or less united story about who they are.
Democrats span a much greater breadth of racial, regional, cultural, and ideological identities. They are the big-tent party compared with the Republicans’ little tent. Just consider this question: Who is the Democratic base? Jim Clyburn’s voters or Elizabeth Warren’s? The people who follow “dirtbag left” podcasts or those who listen and donate to National Public Radio? The members of the Sierra Club or the members of the United Auto Workers? Do you find them on a Sunday morning at a church of praise, a farmers’ market, or working an overtime shift?
Among the consequences for the Democrats of this multiplicity of identities is a special vulnerability to partisan attack. Both parties are home to people who espouse unpopular ideas. But the most unpopular ideas associated with the Republican Party—banning abortion nationwide, cutting Social Security and Medicare—actually are official policy. The most unpopular ideas associated with the Democratic Party—defunding the police, opening the border—are not its policies.
In a president’s third-year slump, those not-party unpopular ideas can weigh heavily on Democratic fortunes. The party leader takes a lot of blame for things his party does not intend to do. But this vulnerability also creates an opportunity. A Republican candidate cannot easily escape his party’s unpopular stances. A Democratic nominee can. Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis cannot fight their party’s demons, because their party’s demons are genuinely powerful and scary. But Joe Biden can fight his party’s, because those demons are weak and marginal within the Democratic coalition, to the extent that they even exist.
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For example, did you know that the Biden administration has indicted more than 3,000 people for defrauding COVID programs? Did you know that under Biden, U.S. production of artillery shells will more than quadruple? Were you aware that the U.S. is now the world’s largest producer of oil, producing almost twice as much as runner-up Saudi Arabia, and that U.S. oil exports hit an all-time high in 2022? Did you know that the U.S. has become by far the planet’s largest producer of natural gas, and also the largest exporter of gas in its shipborne liquid form?
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The Trump of 2024 and his party have lost the opportunistic novelty of their 2016 promises. Instead, they have cast themselves as cartoon villains: a House speaker who opens his tenure by defunding the tax cops who catch tax cheats. Republican governors who pass laws to allow child labor by undocumented immigrants. Republican senators whose idea of “America First” is to sell out America’s friends fighting for their lives. A likely Republican presidential nominee who endlessly talks of strength but who couldn’t open a jar of pickles unaided.
Biden is subject to all kinds of unfair and seemingly unconvincing criticisms. This old-fashioned Humphrey-Muskie Democrat is depicted as a socialist, a secret ally of black-masked anarchists, a patsy for extremism of all kinds. Some Biden supporters think responding to such hallucinatory accusations is beneath their dignity. But precisely because the real record is so very different, these bubbles can readily be burst with a satisfying pop.
Picking a fight with Kanye West worked for Obama. Photo ops with cute kids wearing school logos worked for Clinton. Biden needs to make triangulating opportunism work for him [Deleted parts of the article give other examples of the power of defying expectations to gain broader appeal.]. Every day, the furthest fringes of American culture create even more lucrative targets for Biden to whack at.
Though I believe the 14th Amendment provision barring anybody from running for office who promoted insurrection absolutely applies to trump, there’s no provision to enforce it, so that would be a long shot. The Colorado trial to remove trump from the ballot is an interesting experiment, but even if it manages to pass in that one state, a big if with all the complex legalities, it will have little impact on trump’s electability, since Colorado is a hard blue state anyway.
And if trump is convicted and imprisoned, or tethered to Mar-A-Lago, I fear that it may boost the ‘martyr effect’ and help propel trump back into office.
A felony conviction makes him ineligible to be President, doesn’t it? Unless you meant something like “imprisoned while awaiting completion of one of his trials”.
Unfortunately, no.
Honest question from a non-American: isn’t it fairly typical for a government/administration in mid-term to poll badly? That’s what usually happens elsewhere anyway. Usually you get a bit of a honeymoon period, then everyone spends the next three/four years complaining, and finally come the election people think a bit more seriously and make a proper decision.