I’ll play Devil’s Advocate. So your scenario is “trump is seriously ill through the election but stays on the ticket, which causes the lowest possible probability of a trump / Repub win”.
Or…
trump’s base of deplorables turns out stronger than ever to vote for their ailing hero.
Voters have short memories-- radio silence from trump in the month before the election means no daily outrageous statements from him on the news cycles, and maybe even coverage of existing scandals quiets down. Couple that with blanket “You won’t be safe in Biden’s America” ads in the final stretch which cause traditional Repub or swing voters who were turning away from him to say “at least he’s not that horrible, Antifa-loving Biden”.
McConnell, Barr, Graham, et al use this as another excuse to try to delegitimize or even delay the election.
I think what people with a modicum of sanity and decency do decides the election.
The motivation and turnout of the hardcore MAGA deplorables does matter somewhat, I agree - but again, I think an ailing and weak Trump is the best scenario. Fully recovered and looking like he “beat” COVID is worse, dead and martyred is worse.
The more I think about this, the more I think this will hurt Trump than anything he could potentially spin out of the experience. He and his army of conspiracy theorists have been telling the country for 7 months that this is fake news, that it’s a hoax, and that Democrats are a bunch of pussies for wearing masks. Well, now what? The fact that it’s putting him in quarantine for even just a few days dents his armor a little, I would think.
It is starting to seem significant that the WH have conceded that he has any symptoms; and yet he has not been visible.
Still, I think a reasonable tactic to play if he really isn’t very sick is to let the rumors build for a while, and then appear looking healthy. So I’m not getting my hopes up that he’s really sick just yet.
Like I said, what happens on his twitter feed over the weekend will be telling. If he’s not very sick there’s no way he can keep off twitter for any length of time. And it’s always easy to tell the difference between the real realdonaldtrump and his ghost tweeters, no matter how much they try the random capitalizations and other tricks.
I agree with those of you who have mentioned how unlikely it would be, based on what is commonly known of his character, for Trump to feign any kind kind of public weakness. I would also keep in mind to whom he looks for guidance and inspiration in governing - his fellow authoritarians. Think of those regimes, and then ponder the likelihood of a Putin or Xi or Bolsonaro or Duterte or Erdogan or Orban acquiescing to a display of infirmity…
What I’m wondering about is how withdrawal will affect him, if, as has been speculated, he actually is snorting Adderall. He’s not likely to get it there, and if he’s having trouble breathing through his nose, he can’t snort even if he was given it…
Honest to God while that is a pretty bad scenario, IMHO it would still be a very mild win for this country. I’m not a fan, but I’ll take a somewhat sane plutocrat like Romney over an unstable, irrational plutocrat any day of the week.
They’re already turning out and they have a hard ceiling. You can’t get to 110% no matter how many HS coaches insist otherwise.
