rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

the disappointing counterpart to a baker's dozen

I don't necessarily think you should read too much into statements like that

I used the word "appetite" for a reason. Polls questions like that gauge the emotional temperature of the respondents, not their reasoned conclusions. What's disheartening to me is that mass political bodies move upon their emotions, not reasoned conclusions, and if the system denies a redress of their frustrations then those will eventually find an outlet in the act of literally "tearing the system down".

Some people believe that this is the inevitable path to a socialist revolution by the downtrodden, and in some political masses I think that would be correct. I do not see that coming to pass in the US masses, who have been propagandized from childhood to accept fascist authoritarianism in preference to socialist revolution.

New w/ @HansNichols

It’s not just public spin, Biden doesn’t believe his bad poll numbers nor do many of his top aides, per Dems who have spoken privately with the president and his team.

This informs the largely steady-as-she-goes campaign strategyhttps://t.co/Lu7ilWV59l

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) May 14, 2024

polls are skewed, i repeat, polls are skewed

Reasoned conclusions are mostly illusory but I don't think this is necessarily more or less so than at other times. But I'm not sure this is measuring emotional temperature all that highly either (though it might be the case, I don't think its a given)

I think for "tearing the system down" to be more substantive, we'd need a better idea of what people actually mean by that and with how much conviction, otherwise its too much of an abstract signal

Has there been a deep-dive into how much of Trump's base has died over the past 4 years? I feel like that number is not insignificant. Perhaps I just perform a search...

In this cohort study evaluating 538,159 deaths in individuals aged 25 years and older in Florida and Ohio between March 2020 and December 2021, excess mortality was significantly higher for Republican voters than Democratic voters after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults, but not before. These differences were concentrated in counties with lower vaccination rates, and primarily noted in voters residing in Ohio.

src: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2807617

found this from a few years back:

"Excess death rates were 2.8 percentage points (15%) higher for Republican voters compared with Democratic voters (95% PI, 1.6 to 3.7 percentage points)."

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/political-party-affiliation-linked-excess-covid-deaths

xp!!

I posted that Bump piece partly in response to Neanderthal:

None of the things that are true today will change unless massive violence breaks out in the streets because nobody has to listen to the average American anymore otherwise. But few seem to have the stomach because for most, things rarely get bad enough to the point where they feel they have no other choice. It's a persistent state of "wow this is really bad but I still have much to lose and I have family that I can't make these decisions for".

The only major movements in making change have come through civil disobedience, civilian uprising through obstruction, or rioting.

That definition of "tearing the system down" seems more prevalent than, I dunno, a new convention in Philadelphia with powdered wigs 'n' shit.

thanks for that piece, YMP

"Excess death rates were 2.8 percentage points (15%) higher for Republican voters compared with Democratic voters (95% PI, 1.6 to 3.7 percentage points)."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzvk0fWtCs0

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/07/voter-age-biden-trump-2024-election-00150923

fwiw, biden is starting to run away with the 65+ group.

some of that is probably real political realignment (e.g. perhaps people are now getting more small c "conservative" as they age, i.e. preferring the low risk option, rather than more republican per se).

but it's totally plausible that some of biden's improvement in that group is due to the its composition changing because the republican members were more likely to die during the pandemic.

the job creators (*peace be unto them*) are anticipating a january '25 2scoops restoration, merely

https://thehill.com/business/4666442-all-three-major-stock-indexes-close-at-record-highs/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/17/upshot/they-supported-biden-in-2020-what-made-them-change-their-minds-in-2024.html

There are a lot of people who are a) unhappy with the state of the country and the economy, and b) perceive Biden as weak/incompetent/in over his head. They may not personally like Trump (or even hold conservative beliefs), but they view him as strong and able to shake things up.

Cool.

I mean, he will shake things up. The people who voted for him, he'll shake them up as bad as most.

It's possible we're going to see a lot of one-term turnover in the White House as the new norm in the U.S.

That story isn't saying anything we haven't heard repeatedly.

Oh, for sure, I just feel like it crystallizes things. Like, forget about everything else: This is what the election is going to come down to.

I still don't understand how someone who is not insane can look at Trump and see him as "competent".

Shaking things up is always a net positive, just ask any infant

I've not been borderline obsessive w/ the polls like I was in 2012, 2016, and 2020, but shit still isn't looking good. I don't believe the polls are 'fake', and though I think there's probably still some noise from Kennedy's run, frankly it ain't good.

but....lot of time left, and a whole bunch of unexpected shit will probably happen. some recent state polling has been favorable to Biden, but barely, but the amount of state polling is going to ratchet up after the conventions and whatnot.

new chotiner interview: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/is-the-biden-campaign-running-on-false-hope

this guy does not exactly fill me with hope

yeah, the 'they're wrong, the polls were wrong in 2020 and 2022 rawwwwr' people are living in delusionland. first of all, in the PRESIDENTIAL elections of 2016 and 2020, they underestimated Trump support, so they weren't wrong in the direction you want them to have been wrong in.

we don't need our own Unskewed Polls guy, really we don't.

look the polls right now freak me out too but there are reasons for hope

one, and probably the most important thing, we're still six months away, the conventions and debates having happened yet, historically polls haven't been very accurate this far out

two, this guy is right that polls have been underestimating Dem support for the last few years, all the races that polls have as toss-ups seem to go the Dems' way, sometimes by fairly large margins. Dobbs really did shake things up and I am sure the Dems are gonna campaign hard on it

three, Trump is probably going to be convicted of a bunch of felonies next week. there's a possibility of a hung jury I guess but it really does seem like the trial went very poorly for him. despite what Republicans will tell you, being a convicted felon is not going to play well for him.

four, there's still a pretty big disrepency in funding here. Biden is raising way more cash and they've already bought a ton of the cheap fall airtime. Trump's fundraising is accelerating but he's also blowing through a ton of cash with his legal expenses. given the campaigns haven't really "started" yet this seems like a big problem for Republicans.

five, while I think this guy is wrong in the idea that the opinions of the Bushes or Mike Pence or Mitt Romney matter at all, it does beg the question of who exactly Trump's surrogates are right now, and they're all people even more annoying and less well-liked than him.

six, on a similar point, while this polling does look good for Trump it also looks really bad for a lot of the downballot candidates. there's really nobody else in the Republican party who's even remotely popular. you have to think this will dampen enthusiasm, in 2016 you had a lot of "I don't like Trump but I'm a conservative and I want a Republican administration/Congress"...well guess what, they're all Trumpy now. even if he wins they may get their ass kicked in Congress which is gonna hamper his ability to do any of the shit he's promising.

seven, while it is concerning that Trump's approval rating has slowly been ticking up, I don't think the conclusion to be drawn there is that people are cool with the insurrection now, in fact polling has shown a lot of moderates still really really do not like the dictator shit, but Trump himself has been out of the news for a while, so I think it's more that people aren't being reminded of how horrible Trump is every single day anymore. but once things really kick up they sure will.

eight, this guy is right that Trump himself isn't the same as he was in 2016, or even 2020, he's just so fucking boring and whiny right now, his political instincts are also really fucking bad, I mean one day he posts a video with an overt reference to Nazi Germany, the next he starts talking about American hostages in Russia that will only be released if he wins, again I think all of this is gonna play really poorly amongst the people he needs to win over (namely the independants/swing voters who went 2:1 for him in 2016 but 2:1 for Biden in 2020)

nine, I don't think Trump himself has a very good handle of issues driving the Republican party right now, it used to be he would say "build the wall" and the entire party would make that the #1 issue, now the whole party is a lot weirder and focused on culture war issues that I don't think Trump himself really understands, and again this is gonna come down to turnout and enthusiasm and I don't think Republican voters are really enthusiastic about anything Trump is selling right now (other than getting Biden out of the WH)

ten, one guy who DOES seem to understand the freakiness of the average Republican voter is RFK, and while I don't think he's gonna crack 1% it does seem like he's gonna siphon off a lot more Republican votes than Democrat. its probably more likely that he doesn't matter at all but Trump's recent freakouts about him imply that internal polling is showing him something else.

one, and probably the most important thing, we're still six months away, the conventions and debates having happened yet, historically polls haven't been very accurate this far out

honestly this is the most important one, I mean it's not as if races end up where they started

well, the thing about that is that usually this far out people are not already super familiar with both candidates.

That's why you could have Bill Clinton jumping from third place to first after his convention.

ten, one guy who DOES seem to understand the freakiness of the average Republican voter is RFK, and while I don't think he's gonna crack 1% it does seem like he's gonna siphon off a lot more Republican votes than Democrat. its probably more likely that he doesn't matter at all but Trump's recent freakouts about him imply that internal polling is showing him something else.

Apparently Karl Rove, of all people, has noticed this and is freaking out. This is from a piece he wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Kennedy created the largest antivax group in the U.S. and has long argued that vaccines cause autism and needless deaths. On Sunday in Colorado, he offered 1,200 enthusiastic supporters enough weird theories to qualify as a QAnon convention keynoter. He asserted that the CIA is a bigger threat to America than China, that the Seventh Amendment right of trial by jury is routinely violated, and that a “war machine” is working with corrupt U.S. corporations and Washington to enrich itself at our expense.

He has plenty of other moonbat ideas that didn’t make the Sunday rally: Al Qaeda might not have been responsible for 9/11. Agribusiness is waging war on our health through the food pyramid and degrading our soil. The 2004 election was stolen. Wi-Fi and 5G cause cancer. Chemicals in our water may spread transgenderism. HIV may not cause AIDS. Sirhan Sirhan didn’t kill RFK Sr. Antidepressants may cause school shootings.

In a normal election, these wild ideas would devastate a campaign. But this isn’t a normal year. After stunts like Russiagate, decades of mainstream media bias, and years of QAnon nonsense, voters on the right are particularly prone to embrace conspiracies from fringe sources. Mr. Kennedy could use these outlandish claims to pry more than a few wackos off Mr. Trump, perhaps enough to hand the election to Mr. Biden.

The 2004 election was stolen.

Turd Blossom Signal

well, the thing about that is that usually this far out people are not already super familiar with both candidates.

― A So-Called Pulitzer price winner (President Keyes), Thursday, May 23, 2024 2:56 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

true, but even still that's probably not a bad thing. I mean Trump's fundamental polling trait is that everything he does is unpopular, and his ratings tank every time he's on national television. Biden on the other hand has done a lot of stuff that's polled well and generally seems to get more popular as he does more appearances, I mean the reason why things shifted after that first 2020 debate wasn't just Trump being annoying as shit it was the fact that Biden, a guy they spent years painting as senile and doddering, looked basically fine

It’s now 2024 and Biden often looks less fine, but imo Trump is now prone to ever more moments that, if you’re not already diehard MAGA, make you say “what?!”

curious what percentage of elections since 2018 where republicans have beaten democrats, and then again since the republican supreme court outlawed abortion

Karl Rove knows he can't lose the wacko vote

Karl Rove is not saying anything that hasn't been thoroughly discussed by ilxors here on the US Politics threads. He must be a lurker.

Sorry, I am Karl Rove.

I like your rapping

https://i.imgur.com/aDmzepv.jpg

"I am Karl Rove!"

Beginning to think the Trump trial is no slam dunk. It pretty much all hinges on the testimony from Cohen - self-confessed thug, liar, convicted felon who admitted on the stand to stealing thousands from his only client the defendant, who has made a whole career and a pot of money from denigrating the defendant... the defense just needs one wavering juror and the whole thing collapses.

I don't think a conviction would move the dial an awful lot - although maybe just enough to make a difference. But an acquittal or a mistrial would be an enormous boon to Trump, lending credence to all the crooked Joe witch hunt bullshit.

Cohen's not the one on trial though. they had piles and piles of evidence even before he took the stand

yeah, Cohen is slippery but they were mostly using him to bolster what had already been well demonstrated in the docs

it does not all hinge on cohen

Field Commander Cohen!

I have a hard time believing a mistrial would help Trump (an acquittal seems impossible), feel like most of the country has already internalized that Trump suffers no consequences ever

question is how much a conviction would hurt, if it happens and the polls don't shift in the following weeks all I can say is good luck USA

the docs case coulda touched him some i think but we will never know.

Yea sucks that’ll never get prosecuted it’s such an open and shut case

Karl Rove is not saying anything that hasn't been thoroughly discussed by ilxors here on the US Politics threads. He must be a lurker.

RFK JR seems like a pretty big war machine fan to me: https://www.timesofisrael.com/2024-dark-horse-rfk-jr-questions-gaza-ceasefire-defends-israeli-offensive/

i am not a fan of RFK Jr., just noting that the (obviously mistaken) point that Rove was trying to pin to him is objectively correct

I know its dumb to speculate on this but something to keep an eye on is the fact that something seems kinda up with Trump right now. I mean if you can stomach to watch maybe go back and see some 2015 or 2016 footage, he didn't appear smart exactly but he was at least kinda sharp and funny when he wasn't having to bullshit through his answers. but he isn't that guy anymore, in fact you could argue he hasn't really been fully coherent at all since Covid. he just repeats the same shit over and over and has no real train of thought, he keeps saying he's running against Obama, he's confusing Jimmy Kimmel with Al Pacino, he's whining about the courtroom being an "icebox" when it's 79 degrees and he's wearing a suit, maybe he's in really bad health. I mean come on he famously doesn't exercise and eats like shit, he's probably been on stimulents for decades, he doesn't sleep much, he's angry literally always, how many 77 year old men do you see who are like that

of course you could argue he's just getting Trumpier, fair point, but idk imagine if like Nikki Haley said "never fight uphill, me boys", it would be the defining moment of her life. she'd be the next Howard Dean.