rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

i don't think this person's politics are "in the center." i just think there are a lot of people who might not think of themselves as part of MAGA country but who might vote for trump anyway. and this is honestly the central mystery of his entire presidency. i can't believe that after the way trump conducted himself during covid that people aren't fed up with him.

He made overt racism acceptable again, so “centrist” racists can practice covertly and tsk-tsk the lunatic fringe from the comfort of their deniable xenophobia

He also did a terrible job governing the country and we are embroiled in a series of devastating crises. That’s the piece I’d expect people to reject.

he didn't mention these things

And yet these are promises he made and kept. Then again, Trump made lots of nonsensical and impossible promises in 2016, too. Most prominently, having Mexico pay for the wall, which he claimed "got ten feet higher" roughly 50 times during the campaign, because it won adulation from the crowd. A close search of all his rambling, nearly incoherent, improvised speeches would probably yield quite a few more. Along with his trademark 'three lies for every truth' approach to politics.

"there are a lot of people who might not think of themselves as part of MAGA country but who might vote for trump anyway. and this is honestly the central mystery of his entire presidency"

yes

think soda is right, they don't think of themselves as racist but they are racist

Aimless, no argument from me. Since 2015, I am on record on ilx as a person who deeply despises Trump and everything about the way he operates in business, politics, and life in general.

They at least are willing to excuse racism. I don’t know if they care about race issues as much as they do their stock portfolio though tbh.

But again—that is hardly an excuse

The ‘I dislike Trump but the PC/woke left has gone too far’ crowd hasn’t exactly disappeared.

not so much mystery to MOR trump support. there's the old saying "there's none so blind as he who will not see." Or if you prefer the more modern version (paraphrasing) "it is very hard to understand something, when misunderstanding it is essential to maintaining your wealth and status."

the blindness in the face of all of this is what's dispiriting to me, that people aren't more evolved

i mean, i am really annoyed with all of you'al still stumped by and playing bridge and tossing horseshoes with f'ing trump supporters so whate'er.

lol

i just think there are a lot of people who might not think of themselves as part of MAGA country but who might vote for trump anyway. and this is honestly the central mystery of his entire presidency.

How? It’s just the GOP of the last five decades but uncouth. Most people deep down don’t give a shit about the uncouth part.

The ‘I dislike Trump but the PC/woke left has gone too far’ crowd hasn’t exactly disappeared.

This angle is being pushed a lot, especially over the last few months. Enlightened Centrists

He also did a terrible job governing the country and we are embroiled in a series of devastating crises. That’s the piece I’d expect people to reject.

that's the part that gets me too. if you make less than $10,000,000 a year I find it hard to think of a single thing he's done well - even by his own standards, he's a failure. the only thing he's good at is pissing off leftists and I guess when you have no fucking policy goals whatsoever that's enough

xxp re GOP of the last five decades, that seem right, and hoping that it's becoming more clear to the rest of us that racism is central to all of it

While this is true, the early part of Covid this did filter through to the polling and he was heavily underwater. So people did at one time register that he had handled Covid much worse than the democrats would have done. That perception seems to have changed

Nixon courted southern racists as brazenly as he dared to. Reagan's embrace of racism was only covered by the barest of fig leaves. Bush Sr. ran the notorious Willie Horton ads. When was the centrality of racism in the Republican coalition not plain as day?

right now yes but the civil unrest & protests seem to push the pandemic out of the news. I remember when the George Floyd protests were reaching a fever pitch and you had a few broadcasters going "uh hey guys did anyone notice our COVID numbers are worse than they've ever been? shouldn't that be the big story?"

the civil unrest is worse because of trump. he was encouraging cops to shoot looters before there was widespread looting.

It doesn't look that way to everyone. Even some ILX libs have started to get weird about 'riots.'

xp the racism was plain all along, but glad that people are now finally paying attention

As far as COVID, I don't think "Trump fucked up in March/April/May/etc." is all that strong of a play, since it's not March anymore. People want to know what Biden will do going forward about 14% unemployment and he's a void.

A void? The House passed an new $3 trillion aid package for the unemployed in early August that far exceeded anything the Republicans were willing to contemplate. Biden endorsed it.

"Even some ILX libs have started to get weird about 'riots.'"

admit to being queasy about riots

Such strong leadership, endorsing a bill that he had no part in negotiating or passing.

having your candidate associated with people burning down buildings and destroying private businesses isn't really a good thing imo

Joe Biden is very likely to beat Donald Trump in the electoral college

https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/president?gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=CjwKCAjwnK36BRBVEiwAsMT8WD01Z4tnHfdbP8Dj_KSRVoYklUcSD2ualUbh_OB5LVPVg__a4x1FgxoCRlQQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

xps - you said "a void". how is that endorsement a void?

Remember when Trump scrapped a proposal for a national testing program?

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner's team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. "The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy," said the expert.

How is it not a void?

Is he blanketing the airwaves with ads for his plan to rescue the economy (which is part and parcel of a COVID response).

Or is he running on a "Trump suxor" platform?

The claim that he was willing to sacrifice blue states so he could just blame governors hasn’t been proven, but I think it should be investigated. His ambivalence about testing in the critical early months made no sense at all. Testing is the only way you can control a contagious virus.

I’m sorry, but Trump’s response to covid should not be memory-holed. It’s far more significant than “ukraine-gate.”

I think you should investigate that and potentially find out that Trump is a senile, venal monster whose only concern in life is not looking like a loser.

In the face of this it shouldn’t matter that Biden is a dusty old mummy.

How is it not a void?

How is this an answer to my question?

"When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people," Trump said in June at an ill-timed rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. "You're going to find more cases. So I said to my people, 'Slow the testing down, please.'"

Like what is this

dusty old mummy

Because I don't have to accept your premises? Biden is failing to make a positive case for himself or his vision for the near-future of this country (because he doesn't have a vision).

He's a void - he's a hole in which people who agree that Trump is terrible throw their hopes in, because they think enough other people will recognize that to carry Biden to victory. They can tell themselves that it doesn't matter that Biden doesn't have a convincing plan for 13% unemployment in February, that he's completely disinterested in the desires of the Democratic base in general, because surely their fellow Americans will recognize how awful Trump is.

This looked like a bad plan pre-COVID (which is why Biden needed the ultimate rescue), a fine plan with COVID at its worst and now it's looking increasingly dicey.

dusty old mummy

― Dan S, Monday, August 31, 2020 12:15 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don’t really think he is this—his convention speech was good. But he isn’t the most robust candidate—I’m just saying from a voters standpoint who cares.

People - overwhelmingly the young and POC voters that make the difference for Democrats - have been out in the streets for months protesting the existence of a nationwide occupying army and Biden and his cohort do not have a coherent and meaningful response.

Even if you argue they can't jump on the defund the police train, they can do better than defend all the good apples you uppity protesters just don't want to think about.

(Just hope those young and POC protesters don't notice that it's thugs serving under Democratic mayors doing most of the head cracking and starting getting ideas about what that means.)

a fine plan with COVID at its worst and now it's looking increasingly dicey.

Covid is still at its worse!

I think Trump took a big hit over covid and particularly unemployment handling, but then over the following couple of months there wasn't enough from the Democrats on it to reassure they would have better handle

Practically anything would have been better. No democrat would have been complaining about “too much testing” in june.

I was referring more to unemployment, rent, evictions!

Practically anything would have been better.

This is a good phrase though, I think it gets to the heart of situations where in the short term something can benefit without doing anything, but this bump is time-limited until you show something yourself. Not just in this scenario but any

(Just hope those young and POC protesters don't notice that it's thugs serving under Democratic mayors doing most of the head cracking and starting getting ideas about what that means.)

haven't read enough I guess and am not sure what this refers to

That big city Democratic mayors like Ted Wheeler aren’t exactly fighting on behalf of protesters.