My theory is Trump will find a reason to delay or cancel the election in November. He will then be made out as a hero for saving America from the ravages of Covid and try to make himself the president for life. Americans will be rewarded with Trump Bucks, he will have his picture placed on all the currency used in the US.
I really don’t think any measure will be about galvanizing republicans. He still has good republican support. It’ll be to trash Biden somehow. I’m sure he has some trick up his sleeve, but not sure it will make much of a difference. People are firmly entrenched in their own camps right now. It’s just going to come down to how excited they are for their own candidate and how much they hate the other one. I think there is less excitement for Biden, but more hate for Trump, so it will be interesting.
Could be the Durham Report, FB trumpbots are sure that indictments are imminent and people will be going to jail.
Personally, if it could be shown, I don’t think there would be any evidence that a president, any president, would be proven to have ginned up a military conflict where the likelihood of Americans dying was high, just to get re-elected, and I don’t think Trump/Pompeo, et. al. would do it either. So I reject that premise out of hand.
The surprise will be the RNC votes for Romney and Lil Abner (forget his name). They’re back to keep the republican rule but strip all the racism and Trumpisms that happened. Restore balance with allies who now hate us, progressives lose, the rich win, yadda yadda…
This. There is one fairly easy indictment. An FBI lawyer apparently altered an email that was used in the FISA court to renew surveillance warrants against Carter Page. That lawyer will probably be indicted. Trump will play that up and promise more is about to come… but if you elect Biden he will bury the investigation to end it.
Not looking good? You believe CNN? Silent majority, bubba.
Your “silent majority” Doesn’t seem to be too silent…and is not a majority.
October Surprise will likely be an indictment of Hunter Biden. This is pretty much a no brainer. These shitheels aren’t very imaginative. No reason we should let our imaginations run wild.
…We are now learning, via an extraordinary new report in the New York Times, that many scientists fear that Trump will attempt the ultimate “October surprise.” These scientists — which include some inside the government — worry that Trump will thoroughly corrupt the process designed to ensure the safety and efficacy of any new vaccine against the coronavirus.
…
As the Times reports, “experts inside and outside the government” fear that “the White House will push the Food and Drug Administration to overlook insufficient data and give at least limited emergency approval to a vaccine, perhaps for use by specific groups like front-line health care workers, before the vote on Nov. 3.”
Importantly, this is not just speculative. These insiders already see concrete grounds for fearing this is underway, and some are actively working to maintain the integrity of the process.
…
The upshot of the article is that trump will announce a vaccine right before the election.
- Trump told supporters on Sunday night that he expects a vaccine to be available “far ahead of schedule” and “very, very early before the end of the year.” That’s at odds with his own health experts’ claim that the most realistic expectation is early 2021, and Trump also said the FDA has “been great, at my instruction.” His intentions are clear: At minimum, he will try to push up limited approval so it happens before the election, and then take credit for making that happen.
- Trump has explicitly tied the timing of the vaccine to his reelection needs. When he announced a campaign shake-up, he also said he’ll win in part because vaccines will “soon be on the way.”
…Even if Trump does manage to rush forward such an announcement, why would voters trust him to carry forward the long and complex process to follow in good faith or out of any meaningful conception of what’s in the national interest?
Ummm… because they’re stoopid?
Trouble with this idea is that Trump has already spewed a ton of bullshit about cures and vaccines. If he puts out his 112th lie about this in October, it’s not going to move the needle much. Everyone knows he lies and bullshits, even his supporters.
I was thinking along the lines that this one would somehow coopt reporting from a more reputable source than him, say the CDC or HHS concerning successful trials by Company X, that would at least have something of a veneer of believability to it. But to your point, I would agree Trump has already diluted the potential impacts of the news by his many previous unsupported claims and retweets of ‘successful treatments’ and ‘cures’.
You think he can’t find some FDA toady to announce that preliminary approval is imminent? If, after the election, that turns out to be a lie, what are you gonna do about it?
The point of an October Surprise is it has to be a surprise; something new that changes the way people have been thinking.
Anything Covid19 related, including a vaccine, isn’t going to work. People are already aware of this issue and have made up their minds about it. It’s not like a vaccine is unexpected.
The surprise part (that’s not really a surprise) is that he’ll take credit for it. Or at least take credit for the <cough, cough> LEADERSHIP that made it happen in time for people to vote for him. He’ll probably fix up a bunch of pictures of himself in a white lab-doctor-tech-ish coat (sadly, without wraparound sleeves that buckle).
But as you point out, that’s wouldn’t be a surprise. I don’t think anyone doubts that Trump will claim a great victory over Covid19 between now and Election Day. He’ll probably claim several. Maybe we’ll even have a real vaccine.
But it won’t be unexpected. The people who will think Trump has done a great job already think that. The people who will think Trump has done a terrible job also already think that. Nothing Trump is going to do between now and November is going to move any large group of voters from one group to the other. People have already made up their minds on what they think about Trump’s handling of the Covid19 crisis and how it will affect their voting.
That’s been Trump’s blindspot. He isn’t reaching out to people. He just keeps sending messages to his base. Trump wants to appear at events where people are cheering for him when he walks into the room. Trump’s base isn’t big enough for him to afford that luxury. If he wants to win re-election, he should be appearing at events where people are booing him when he walks in and then saying or doing something to make them cheer for him when he walks out.
With early voting, a "October Surprise’ may be too late:
Time is running out on Donald Trump.
While there are still 92 days until Election Day, the president has as little as half as much time to begin closing the gap with Joe Biden, according to interviews with nearly two dozen Republican and Democratic Party officials and strategists…Trump’s window is smaller — and his margin for error tighter — because of an expected surge in mail voting due to the coronavirus and because the electorate this year appears more hardened than in 2016, with fewer undecided voters to peel off in the closing days of the contest.
Voters will begin receiving ballots in key swing states as early as next month. In North Carolina, elections officials will start sending ballots to voters on Sept. 4. Four more battleground states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and Minnesota — will begin mailing ballots or start early voting by the end of September.
When can people start sending them in?
In our state, September 24.
So Trump needs an August surprise for the September votes, a September surprise for the October votes, and an October surprise for the November votes.