But what you just managed to reconcile is fearing what effect trump would have on the world, and why strategically it would make sense to be friendly towards him. Neither of these statements is what I said though.
I was talking about republicans’ assertions that they fear trump himself, directly, and, at other times, that they are his friends.
And you missed the third part of republicans cognitive dissonance: that world leaders supposedly want Kamala to win.
To paraphrase an old Opus the Penguin line, “Rescued from misogynists by racists, it’s like a dream come true.”
I believe you are saying Republicans believe three contradictory things about Trump’s relation with world leaders. I might be misinterpreting your point. Trump’s foreign policy has caused both his closest advisers and the international community much concern. But I think some contradictions turn out to be ephemeral.
Then I’m your man!
In the same way that everybody wanted abortion returned to the states, but it took great courage for Trump to do it.
Coming back to @Horatius 's point that good staffers and debate preppers will think of the issues that will likely come up:
I think if I were Harris, my initial reaction would have been: “You’re kidding, right?”
Following up on this comment, the Pentagon has released a current breakdown, by state, of where the federal money for arms and materiel has been spent.
The top three states are Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Texas.
Friday’s documents gave a state-by-state breakdown for the $41.7 billion worth of purchases, investments, and replacement spending on all manner of systems across more than 35 states to support Ukraine.
The look on her face very effectively communicated that that was her reaction
So Trump lost the debate, and according to the articles I’ve read and 538, it didn’t move the needle. I’m starting to think we shouldn’t bother with debates, campaign ads, campaign speeches, rallies, interviews, or press conferences. They don’t change public opinion, and they might actually help Trump, in that the more he’s seen, whether he’s waxing idiotic or scowling like the menace he is, the more he seems…familiar?
Maybe people have a “better the devil you know” attitude. It’s the only explanation I can think of why people who are not his core supporters continue to say they’ll vote for him after that crazed rant that was his idea of “winning” the debate.
It could also be there are a lot of really horrible and/or really stupid people among you. I know this is not something pleasant to contemplate, but … look around you.
As the Vox article I linked to in a different thread pointed out when he was in power:
"He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”
I think that is a good point. Folk remain “undecided.” What exactly would it take to convince such a person that one of the candidates is clearly superior to the other in every way - with the possible exception of greed and meanness.
I’m afraid it’s this, as the article Northern_Piper posted underscores. On another platform I asked whether there were any truly undecided voters in the US. A person I respect tremendously responded “I meet apathetic voters all the time. They say there is no difference between parties. I may go home and puke because one actually wants me to die for existing”
I think the needle doesn’t more much because many of the so-called undecideds are people who see that their prejudices must be hidden in polite society.
FWIW, I also think that if the election is as close as the opinion class is saying, the needle doesn’t have to move much to change the outcome. The 400,000 hits on the vote.gov web site after Taylor Swift’s post after the debate is an order of magnitude bigger than the margins in George in 2020 or Michigan in 2016 (for two examples).
Again, as has been reported and posted here many times, those hits aren’t registrations.
It’s exactly this. About half of Americans are truly awful people. It’s that simple.
This has generally been my read as well. There is a disturbingly significant minority in America that legitimately holds racist, misogynistic, and white supremacist viewpoints. And they legitimately support a dictatorship because they want their views forced on the rest of the country. It’s disgusting, but I think it’s real.
It’s one of the reasons I don’t follow daily polls, these polls are measuring something much deeper than simply who supports which candidate. That’s why the numbers don’t move the way we might expect them from previous elections and nothing either candidate says seems to really change anything. Just like on the left we have a sizable “anyone but Trump” contingent, these people don’t care what Trump says. They’re not voting for him necessarily, their voting for what he represents. Some of them may not realize that. But I think a lot do.
I also think there are a lot of people, both here on board and off, who are looking for certainty in an inherently uncertain situation. The stakes are so high that anything less than 100% certainty that Trump is going to lose creates an unhealthy amount of anxiety. No one is going to be happy with the numbers until election day is done and the numbers are official. And maybe not even then given we know the Republicans will be engaging a lot of legal and extra legal BS post-election if they lose.
ETA: We’re at an inflection point in this country right now. We are teetering on a knife’s edge, and I think the poll numbers support that.
It’s a bewildering timeline we’re in wherein that orange asshole adamantly citing some rando on TV isn’t enough to bring him down. Did they let that pass? After all the fake news talk? He gave them a gift, they should take it.
When it comes to Trump, you could tell me the most outrageous thing and I wouldn’t be able to reject it out of hand. Trump has a propensity to spout crazy bullshit about sharks, batteries, and cancer causing windmills, so what’s a little pet eating in the grand scheme of things? It’s on brand for Trump.
Cnn has the numbers:
From 11:00 pm ET on Tuesday to 1:00 pm ET Thursday:
- In Arizona, 1,187 people registered to vote and 3,399 people verified their registration.
- In Georgia, 2,124 people registered to vote and 6,939 people verified their registration.
- In Michigan,1,062 people registered to vote and 3,318 people verified their registration.
- In North Carolina, 2,213 people registered to vote and 5,918 people verified their registration.
- In Nevada, 580 people registered to vote and 1,360 people verified their registration.
- In Pennsylvania, 2,127 people registered to vote and 5,283 people verified their registration.
- In Wisconsin, 1,350 people registered to vote and 1,799 people verified their registration.
It doesn’t say how many of those were Democratic, although it’s likely most were.