So obviously Trump’s odds are not looking good right now. But there’s a long way to go until the election, and Trump isn’t going to meekly shuffle off into that good night. More importantly, there are plenty of powerful people – both domestic and foreign – who have a strong interest in keeping Trump in office. So something is going to happen as we get closer to November 3 to attempt to fundamentally shake up the race. And given the hole Trump is in, its going to have to be a hell of a lot bigger than some emails on a laptop. So what could it be? The wilder the speculation the better! A couple of possibilities:
Supreme Court vacancy: Maybe Thomas or Alito are talked into stepping down, maybe RBG or Breyer pass away or are forced to retire due to natural (or not-so-natural) causes. Either way, my prediction is Trump states that he will not name a replacement unless he is reelected. If he names a new justice and McConnel gets him or her through in record speed, what good does that do Trump? Trump needs to convince Republicans that their only hope of filling the seat is to reelect him, and that they better get off their asses to make it happen by hook or by crook.
War with Iran: A shooting war with another country is generally a crapshoot for an incumbent – it can get Americans to rally around the flag, but can just as easily become an albatross if things go south. But in my wild-assed scenario, the fix is already in. Putin, Pompeo and Khamenei strike a deal – Iran will give a clear casus belli and agrees to take a few licks before the Russians facilitate a quick ceasefire. Trump gets to trumpet himself as having defeated Iran, hold a military parade down Independence Avenue, the works. And in return, he agrees that after the election Iran gets the store – diplomatic relations, lifting of sanctions, U.S. withdrawal from the region, etc.
October, hell. He’s taking over control of Covid statistics (as someone else noted, he who controls the data controls the story), and his hand-picked Postmaster General is slowing down the mail so mail-in ballots will be delayed, and he’s implementing martial law in Portland.
Things I’ve seriously seen people on the Straight Dope claim, any of them could be a potential October Surprise
Trump pardons the guy who ran over and killed the woman at the Charlottesville protests, due to the fact he claimed there were “Very fine people on both sides” and he would have been one of the very fine people.
Trump orders his civilian followers to find and track down anybody who posted mean things about him on the internet and kill them, including those out of country.
Trump declares war on Russia to make people think he’s not soft on Russia, but secretly allows Russia to do a series of first strikes on military, government and civilian targets in the United States to cripple us and prevent us from responding in kind, all the targets in America however happen to be occupied by those opposed to his rule.
Iran launches a nuclear strike on New York City in response to us killing their top general, and Trump refuses to strike back because they weren’t going to vote for him anyway and potentially allowing New York to go Republican.
A bomb mysteriously goes off during a Supreme Court session killing all 9 judges, giving Trump voters motivation to get out and vote for him so he can immediately fill all 9 positions.
I dunno, I still think the election all comes down to COVID. I don’t see how it can be anything else.
Supreme Court vacancy? Who’ll it excite who isn’t already? The extortion plan seems like an interesting idea, if Trump thinks of it, but somehow I have the feeling that he’ll not be the only one trying to make a deal if it comes to that.
War? With what troops? The risk of them all getting COVID sort of puts a damper on a lot of possibilities militarily.
Portland? I’m not sure public reaction to that is clear cut. I’m actually kind of uncertain how many people actually know what’s going on there.
Statistic-faking could have an effect, since it’s COVID-related, but I’m still not sure how much when the virus is as prevalent as it is. Will anyone but the ones who already like and trust Trump implicitly believe sudden drops in numbers? Or even gradual, if it is contrasted with what folks see locally?
The mail? Maybe. There’s potential there. I think COVID is a factor there too. There are a lot of uncertainties there on both sides, so I’m not prepared to say what’ll happen there.
In the end, I don’t see how any purely political matter can outshadow the virus at this point, apart from the thing that directly relates to the virus and the thing that goes beyond political and into the process itself. Maybe if he does every single thing on the list, it’ll help nudge against the COVID effect, but I’m skeptical he can put in that kind of work.
My own CT is that the integrity of the election itself will be disrupted sufficiently to call the results into doubt. This administration has been removing election security protections steadily over the past few years, and McConnell has been blocking new ones from being put into place. They’re also currently deliberately trying to undermine postal voting by any and all means they can, as well as blocking requirements to report foreign involvement in campaigns.
All told, it doesn’t look like the GOP are planning a normal election. But I really, really hope I’m wrong about this.
He will announce a “cure” for COVID-19, whether is’t legitimately true or not. He will pump up and misrepresent some promising vaccine statistics and order mass production of this “vaccine” over the cautions and warnings from the CDC - who are, according to Trump, all liars anyway.
It will take a week or two, maybe more, for the media to sort out what the truth is, and how we’re still months away from an actual deployable vaccine, but if the timing is right, that won’t be until after the election.
It’s got to be a personal attack against Biden. The Republicans must realize nothing can change people’s opinions on Trump at this point; they need to make people hate Biden.
It’s going to involve Barr–some bullshit investigation, like “Obamagate.”
Why would that be an “October surprise”? That doesn’t fit the definition. There will always be openings on the Supreme Court–everyone knows that’s going to happen. If not in October 2020, then in March 2021, or January 2022.
So if that’s going to motivate anyone to vote for Trump, it will be motivating them no matter what happens, now or in October.
I do feel like he might be holding back another stimulus check as long as possible to get it closer to the election. Did you read the letter that came following the first one? so gross.
It’s not about motivating anyone to vote for Trump, it’s about motivating Trump voters to turn out. A Supreme Court opening would be absolutely galvanizing for Republican base voters, who will be whipped into a frenzy by Fox News. Even if it only increases base turnout by a couple of percentage points, that could make all the difference in those same battleground states where Trump eked it out last time.
I kind of agree that it’s not really a classic “October Surprise”, which generally involves a campaign deliberately engineering some kind of event or reveal late in the game. It’s tough to engineer a Supreme Court vacancy. Still, if RBG does pass on to her just reward before the election, I hope they test her for polonium.
I don’t think so. If RBG died on October 31st and Trump lost the election and the Senate was overwhelming won by the Democrats I would fully expect Mitch McConnell and Trump to push through a Republican nomination.
It’s a given that after the inauguration that justices will retire, so that card is already in play.
Well, since you asked for it. With the rising death count from COVID and civil unrest as excuses, he declares martial law in each and every area he can. The focus will be on what would in a normal world be strongly Republican areas, but he’s now on edge of losing. With the support of the Republican politicians in those areas, the intimidation of Democratic voters, minorities, etc will be more easily accomplished.
I said in another thread that he will be baptized, live on TV, megachurch, celebrity televangelist, including a two-hour campaign speech where he invokes god, declares himself born-again and boosts the evangelical base.
In addition, Republicans were floundering badly in 2018 until Kennedy retired and the whole Kavanaugh confirmation battle took place. That fired up the GOP base and turned what originally looked like a blue landslide into much less of a loss. It’s one thing to say “conservatives care about the courts;” an actual vacancy would hammer the point home in a much more pressing way. The voting wolves would suddenly wake up and bay for red, red, meat.
I’ll go so far as to say that if Ginsburg suddenly dies mere days before the election, what looks at the moment to be an utter wipeout defeat for Trump will become a 50-50 tossup. One can’t underestimate how direly important the Supreme Court is to conservatives.
How about this? The Friday night before the election, Barr arrests Biden on some trumped up charge - handcuffs, perp walk, booking photo in his PJs, weekend in jail, bail hearing in prison garb on Monday, the whole nine yards. Biden will be a free man Monday afternoon and the whole stunt will probably backfire on Trump, but Trump would have the last happy weekend of his hopefully few remaining days on Earth.