I’d say what the country needs more than anything right now is for the extreme right wing to discredit itself so badly that the rest of the mainstream right refuses to make common cause with them. Quit dog-whistling those issues and repudiate them in clear uncertain terms. “We Rs believe in bootstraps and merit-based competition for all Americans of all colors everywhere without handouts or favoritism anywhere.” etc.
As much as I’m a leftist I believe the country needs a reasonable force on the right. We certainly don’t have one this time. And arguably haven’t had since sometime around Nixon or maaaybe Reagan.
The obvious worry is that the lesson the mainstream Rs take from this election is that Trump was A) a distracting reprobate, and B) a RINO not a conservative.
So they double down on Big C conservatism and the 2020 clown car has 6 clones of Cruz in slightly different shades of very, very red, plus 6 of Pence in very, very red but with crucifix decorations.
I’m reminded of what John Kennedy said about the charge that his father paid for his election: “I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy: Dear Jack, Don’t buy a single vote more than is necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide”.
No matter the margin, a Clinton victory will be historic for the first woman President being elected. I hope she wins in a landslide, it will be a historic landslide victory. If she wins by a small margin, it will be a historic victory. If she loses, we get a fucking buffoon for President.
Do all those TV ads really make a difference? I would assume that money spent on get out the vote (or prevent your opponent from doing so by putting in laws that limit votes from the wrong side of the track) is much more effective.
That’s the thing. So far, I’ve not seen Trump say anything other than (a) all the polls show that he won all three debates “in a landslide”, and (b) he’s going to win the election. If Trump “knows” these things, then so do his gullible followers. Just like they “know” that George Soros now controls all the voting machines in 18 states (apparently, one of the rubes saw this “on the Internet”, so it must be true). So in a fact-free world dominated only by delusion, a Trump loss by a large margin will just be proof of how far the evil has spread.
They’re not going to reject the extreme right until they have clear proof that the voters themselves (most of mainstream WHITE society) has shoved these rednecks into the closet. If you’re waiting for people like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell to stand up and confront the fascists bubbling underneath the surface, keep waiting.
The worst case scenario in this election is that the republican party fragments into RINOs on one hand and white nationalist fascists on the other, and that this fracture could in turn inspire the Bernie Bros to form their own breakaway republican. If that happens, you could have four-way politics. Read about Germany in the 1920s and tell me that the possibility of this happening doesn’t scare the piss out of you.
TV ads usually don’t make a difference, because both sides plaster the airwaves with ads. All the things that supposedly never make a difference don’t make a difference only because everyone does them and they cancel each other out.
Stein probably won’t, but Johnson does look like a lock to get at least 5%. 538 pegs him at 5.5% as his predicted total. Clinton has a 48.2% chance of getting a popular vote majority.
Much of which kinda assumes that things will not get worse for Il Douche. Which is either a) someone sews his lips together or b) it isn’t possible for things to get worse. However, since some people are still expected to vote for Trump regardless, there is still room for things to get worse. Only twenty days? Look what he accomplished in just a week!
The question that is yet to be answered, and maybe won’t be: how many voters currently polling for Trump are Republicans voting for Trump because he is the nominee, and how many are Trumpiviks who are voting for Republicans because of him? How many of those will turn away from voting for Republicans if Trump continues to whine about his “betrayal” by the Republican Establishment? How best to demonstrate their anger than by voting for Trump, but not any other Republican?
A total creaming for the Pubbies is unlikely. You could even go so far as to say it doesn’t make sense. Taking Texas blue? Nah, that doesn’t make sense.
Does anything about this shit make sense? To anyone?
Locally, the Trumpites will continue to vote for candidates with (R) next to their name, because in really red states, there’s no reason for candidates to start a party, they will win anyway.
So you are going to wind up with at least 3 factions in Congress, Trumps, RINOs, and Dems. So you can do the math on that one, as long as the sum of Trump/RINO is a majority in the House, it’s status quo - naming post offices, repealing Obamacare, and playing chicken with the debt limit.
Everything significant gets done by Executive Order, Dems control the fed judiciary and so win when those orders end up in court. So when the far leftys come in with their demands. we will see if they are smart enough to realize this, or whether Clinton will be able to side step them and get away with blaming Congress.
Ryan would have to abandon the Hastert rule in order to get anything accomplished, because he’ll need Dem votes. I don’t see any reason to expect that to happen.
So the issue of the Bernie bros - it’s a concern. I think it’s less severe than with Trumps, because Trumps can and do bathe 27/7 in their media. You have to make a little more effort to do that on the extreme left. Plus Bernie will be dead soon, and a lot of Bernie bros will age out of it.
I think this forces the stub of the Republican party way to the left in terms of Presidential candidates, assuming they fight for the moniker of Republican.
Because the Trumps, in Presidential elections? They are GONE for Repubs. You think Trump was bad? Wait until you see the next guy.
She is presently losing South Carolina by approximately 7 points, according to 538, with a national margin of six points. So if her national margin goes up to 10, she would still be a significant underdog in South Carolina and a slight underdog in Texas, where the margin is 5-6 points.
She would be a favorite in Georgia, though.
I don’t see that happening though. Everything has smoothed out; the polls have remained steady since Trump fell badly after Debate 2, and Debate 3 appears to have mattered not at all. Things will likely coast into the election as they are now.
Alf Landon, Barry Goldwater, George McGovern and Walter Mondale lost in historic landslides, but somehow their parties survived and even won future elections.
Trump has no chance of winning, but he won’t lose by historic proportions.
Yeah, it depends on the circumstances. Trump is not a typical Republican, just as Goldwater wasn’t, so a recovery is possible and even likely in the very next election.
Then there are situations where a party actually is in severe decline, such as when the Republicans lost five straight Presidential elections, four by wide margins, from 1932-1948. And arguably the only reason they won in 1952 and 1956 was because they made the mother of all outstanding recruitment efforts.
The Democrats had an opening to put the GOP in the wilderness for an extended period starting in 2009, but utterly failed.
