rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

An email I received this morning (published by the Bulwark):

What If Trump Is Right About America?
It's time to ask some hard questions about ourselves.

Donny from the Bronx
One of the Trump campaign’s beliefs about 2024 is that the the former president’s criminal indictments will help him with black voters. The theory is, since Trump is an (alleged) criminal, many black people who are also criminals(?), will begin to support him.

This may sound racist, but we know that Trump believes it because he’s said it explicitly. But we also know it because yesterday he held a rally in the Bronx where his campaign handed out posters of his mugshot and welcomed onto the stage two black (alleged) gang members who are currently indicted as part of a criminal conspiracy for crimes that include murder, attempted murder, and a dozen shootings.

These two (alleged) gang members endorsed Trump.

I can’t tell you why Sheff G and Sleepy Hallow endorsed the former president. Maybe they have strong feelings on tariffs. Maybe they believe that NATO membership represents a dangerous entanglement for American interests. Maybe they think that the family separation policy from Trump’s first term was misunderstood and actually represented a reasonable deterrent to undocumented immigrants.

Or maybe they just like Trump because he’s an (alleged) criminal, too. He’s just like them.

What if Trump is right about the black vote? Not that he’ll win a majority, but if he were to take 20 percent—or even 15 percent—of the African-American vote it will hurt Biden. He’s currently polling in the low 20s with blacks.

But more than that, what if Trump is right about America?

Because as unpleasant as it is to acknowledge, Trump has been right about a great many things.

(1) Republican voters. For 40 years it was dogma that Republican voters wanted a president who blended social and fiscal conservatism and waited his turn to run.

In 2016, Trump understood that Republican voters no longer wanted any of those things. They wanted the craziest son-of-a-bitch available.

(2) The Republican party. The GOP looked like a formidable, disciplined gatekeeper. Trump understood that it was weak and would go along with whatever a man of pure will demanded of it.

(3) The Conservative movement. For three generations conservatives pretended that they cared about policy ideas, such as restrained spending, small government, free trade, and robust foreign policy. Trump understood that the Conservative movement only cared about triggering libs and that so long as he made liberals unhappy, conservatives would take whatever he gave them.

(4) Presidential politics. National politics has long been forward-looking and results oriented. Voters liked and rewarded presidents who passed legislation and talked about the future instead of re-litigating the past. As president, Trump was indifferent to legislating—his major accomplishments were a tax cut and criminal justice reform. As a 2024 candidate, Trump has basically no legislative proposals and spends most of his time talking about his personal grievances.

What’s more, Joe Biden dedicated his term to passing a string of bills, all of which were popular and many of which were bi-partisan.¹ Voters seem not to care about any of this governing. At all.

Trump understood that American politics had transformed into an attention economy.

(5) COVID. You really aren’t going to like this, but Trump was right about the politics of COVID. At the end of the day, people cared more about the economy than the deaths.

It amazes me that today when people complain about what went wrong during COVID, they talk about business closures, travel restrictions, remote schooling, and sometimes having to wear masks in public parks.

They never talk about the 1 million Americans who died from COVID during the pandemic.

Trump understood that the living do not care about the dead.²

(6) Taiwan. America has long adhered to a policy of strategic ambiguity on whether or not it would defend Taiwan militarily. In 2019, Trump told a Republican senator, “Taiwan is like two feet from China. . . . We are eight thousand miles away. If they invade, there isn’t a f-—ing thing we can do about it.”

The war in Ukraine suggests that this is almost certainly correct: The American political system can barely do the minimum required to keep Ukraine in the fight and even that aid could end permanently after November.

There is no question that our country lacks the political will to defend Taiwan. I suspect do not even have the political will to give them military aid, should China move against the Taiwanese.

There are other things Trump understood. He figured out that impeachment was a constitutional dead-letter. He knew that criminal trials could be delayed or sabotaged by helpful judges. He pegged Nikki Haley the first moment he saw her on TV.

In each of these instances, Donald Trump understood reality better than most people—certainly better than I did. As Katherine Miller once put it, “Trump is the grinning skeleton in the crowd; what he reveals about other people is the most important thing about him.”

I wonder:

What if Trump isn’t gaming his way into minority rule? What if he’s not trying to draw to an inside straight, like he did in 2016 and almost did in 2020?

What if his theory about who Americans really are, about what this country really wants, is right?

Happy Memorial Day.

He's confusing "Americans" with "Republicans."

I'd be more depressed if Trump had won in 2020 with Reagan's 1984 landslide.

sure, Trump's continued popularity is very much down to a huge amount of Americans having shitty views about everything, I think that's always been the case

xp

I haven't changed my mind. I continue to believe that Trump will lose, and lose badly, in November. I think a lot of pundits view him as invincible because he won in 2016, and because God hasn't struck him down with a lightning bolt. But this writer's larger point — that a lot of Americans are real pieces of shit — is a fair one.

if he wins, then my assumption is that more people than not want what he's selling, and that this is no longer a place for me

this is his base

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/national-international/ufc-fighter-says-hell-home-school-son-so-he-doesnt-end-up-turning-gay/3420021/

Trump understood that American politics had transformed into an attention economy.

Seems more accurate to say Trump thrives in an attention economy and the Internet turned American into one

turned America

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/national-international/ufc-fighter-says-hell-home-school-son-so-he-doesnt-end-up-turning-gay/3420021/

― omar little, Friday, May 24, 2024 12:47 PM

who's gonna save that kid from his dad?

the bulwark.. we’re posting actual republican bullshit here now… ok!!

idk Alfred but that guy is both creepily off-putting and gives me hope that i could also pursue a UFC career.

It amazes me that today when people complain about what went wrong during COVID, they talk about business closures, travel restrictions, remote schooling, and sometimes having to wear masks in public parks. They never talk about the 1 million Americans who died from COVID during the pandemic.

More than one million.

Gee, has the author of that piece talked to the many millions of Americans who lost family members and close friends to covid? Or to the immuno-compromised? Or to health care workers? Seems unlikely. Maybe the author hangs out with the wrong affinity group (hint: MAGA Republicans).

that article is kinda backwards to me. for one I think Mitch McConnell was the one who truly understood what Republican voters were like when he transformed the GOP into a party that didn't care at all about legislation and instead expended all their energy into obstructing literally everything Obama tried to do. that laid the groundwork for pretty much all of Trump's shit. for two I think it's not so much that Trump "gets" America (if he did he wouldn't have lost the popular vote twice nor would he be the only president in history to never log a net positive approval rating) but I do think he gets the media, and he's really good at drawing attention to himself. for three the idea that "he was right about the politics of COVID" assumes this was some sort of conscious decision on his part, as though he's ever cared one bit about what happens to people other than him. it's not like he was even all that vocal about "reopening the economy" the way a lot of his party was, dude never had a clue what to do which was totally self-inflicted given that he disassembled the pandemic response team out of spite.

this feels like the sort of fantasy people like the Dilbert guy would indulge in, this idea that Trump's putting on a calculated act, when there's really nothing to suggest that's actually the case, and in fact there have been dozens of books written about how Trump is very much as dumb as he appears on TV

it gives Trump far too much credit, might be more correct to say he stumbled his way into revealing many awful beliefs held by millions of people

I mean I get that it's fair to talk about the deleterious effects of isolation for a year or more, effects on financial wellbeing, and on children growing up in a time where they can't really live their lives, but like if you asked me knowing what I know now would I do it all again, not only would I say yes, but I'd also say in the US that states "re-opened" much too soon, and that the half-measures that were put in place should have been put in place earlier.

I also don't know how someone who isn't a complete idiot COVID denialist can look at the US and worldwide death tolls, see where it places amongst historical epidemics (and that the ones before it in the list almost all predate modern medicine/vaccines), and say "god we just overreacted to this thing"

Yeah, the subject-verb combination "Trump understood" is implausible. The guy lives for the applause.

the view that experiencing minor inconveniences spurred by a global pandemic is far worse than the possibility of dying a painful and lonely death does indeed seem crazy, but I don't think it is very far fetched to think many people believe exactly this

"the politics of COVID" were 100%, indisputably invented by Republicans, and the media and other social media dimwits helped cement it into place. Trump and his inner circle knew it was a big deal from the beginning, it was leaked countless times that Republicans conceded in private a different message than the one they gave to the public and they spun it as Democratic overreaction before most of us leftists had even come to grips with what COVID was.

I had friends getting harassed on FB by conservative friends talking about the overreaction the liberal media was causing and how more people died of the flu....before a single person had even died from COVID in the US. Like they already had these fully-formed talking points spouted at them by right-leaning politicians. denying they'd take a vaccine that didn't even exist.

quite a brilliant trolljob that all of the action taken in 2020 to combat COVID-19 was done with bi-partisan support or in many cases done outright by conservative politicians and yet became entrenched in public consciousness as some 'liberal' thing. nevermind the fact that prior to the pandemic, the majority of people I knew that were anti-vax weren't Republicans, but weirdo leftists who had brainworms or Libertarians who don't believe in the concept of 'common good', and nevermind of course that the people who acted most histrionically during the Ebola outbreak in the US were conservatives (of course they would be, the outbreak originated in AFrica, and the President at the time was a Black Democrat, two racisms for the price of one).

this should ahve been obvious to everyone and yet all the middle of the road people in America bought it hook line and sinker as well - "you gotta admit the death toll is inflated", meanwhile these same people couldn't explain why the death toll in the US jumped 500,000+ people to over 3 million people dying in 2020, a figure that hadn't ever been reached previously.

people protested measures during the Spanish Flu of 1918 too, sure, and it is true that many epidemiologists like Caitlyn Rivers have gone on record as saying lockdowns aren't really a typical part of the pandemic/epidemic playbook (while acknowledging that it was necessary this time around due to the unique nature of this outbreak), but I feel like decades ago a lot more people woulda just played ball.

diseases that were mostly eradicated resurfacing came from relatively recent growing distrust of vaccination in a post-Wakefield world, i get the impression more of the general public just got them without protest back before social media and the information age distorting everything.

America was just uniquely ill-equipped to deal with a pandemic, not just because of Trump having no plan but because we're so conspiracy brained and distrustful of anyone smarter than us and Covid data was so all over the place that you could believe anything you wanted. for some it was just like the flu, for some it was basically nothing. some people seemed to spread it to everyone they came across and others didn't seem to be contagious at all. medical advice was all over the place, one week it was "masks won't help" and the next it was "you should wear them everywhere". actual reporting on the numbers was generally accurate but they did make some highly publicized mistakes. nobody really understood the concept of "exponential growth". it was easy to point to mitigation efforts and say "see, they don't work" when the reality is if only half the country takes it seriously it's not much different than if no one did.

but it killed so many people, and what's worse they seemed to die such horrible deaths, slowly choking to death all by themselves, the degree which we've just moved past that is really something

and yeah Neanderthal is right back in late 2019 it seemed to be all Republicans freaking out about this, as soon as it became apparent that they'd have to actually do something they all flipped into "fuck you I won't do what you tell me". I mean the idea that Trump "understood" the politics of Covid is just absurd, from day one every single thing he said was centered around the same thing everything is for him, "how is this gonna make Trump look", even at one point saying we should just let an infected cruise ship stay at sea because he didn't want the USA's numbers to go up

The trauma of the 2020-2021 period remains so intense that once in a day in a public space (like now, where I type this post) I realize I'm not masked and panic for half a second.

also this idea that Trump being a convicted felon will help him among black voters is just absurdly offensive, it's worth noting that his prominent black supporters are all total lunatics and grifters and his campaign always makes it a point to bring the two black guys that come to his rallies up to the front in view of the cameras. they've been busted multiple times for sharing images of black people supporting Trump which were in fact generated by AI

Republicans ["the American people"] are Libertarians who don't believe in the concept of 'common good'

xpost

Republicans and Libertarians have pretty fundamental disagreements on many things though. lots of Libertarians and REpublicans would spar over marijuana legalization for example, though the divide is probably not as pronounced as it was a decade ago.

I guess it's down to motivation. Libertarians say "states rights" and mean "states rights" because they live in a delusional state of existence where they think states will uniformly work to protect their constituents' rights without the Federal government to force them to do it.

Republicans say "states rights" as a dog whistle for "we want this shit outright banned because we're racist and homophobic and misogynist and we're also too cowardly to outright speak out against this thing"

(5) COVID. You really aren’t going to like this, but Trump was right about the politics of COVID. At the end of the day, people cared more about the economy than the deaths.

It amazes me that today when people complain about what went wrong during COVID, they talk about business closures, travel restrictions, remote schooling, and sometimes having to wear masks in public parks.

They never talk about the 1 million Americans who died from COVID during the pandemic.

Trump understood that the living do not care about the dead.²

FTR, Trump's Bronx rally appears to have drawn fewer than 1000 people.

https://images.newrepublic.com/646d79ab3d00ab240c4fa8fdef850a8af9855f50.png

...but all of them started a Kid Rock tribute band.

We all know he's not going to flip NY state.

they all carpooled from NJ

Ginni Thomas chartered a bus or three

oh why couldn't there be an armed psycho hiding in one of those trees?

https://x.com/DougJBalloon/status/1793767714823270479

bitter, sad LOLs

they all carpooled from NJ Staten Island

The last time a Republican president won in the Bronx was Calvin Coolidge in 1924. Trump lost to Joe Biden here in 2020 by a thumping 84% to 16%.

You, sir, are no Calvin Coolidge

One of the ways in 2016 that Trump expanded his potential voters / Steve Bannon signalled "there is an actual agenda here" was picking Mike Pence as a more "normal" vice president. Now that he tried to get Pence hung, is there anyone non-crazy that would take the job?

I think there’s a line out the door, for real. Someone like nikki Haley obviously would do absolutely anything for it. Tim Scott, rubio…I don’t know, there are lots of examples. Nearly the entire gop rolled over for trump. A handful left the party; everyone else says stop the steal with a vacant thought police demeanor. They are ready to serve, sir

Basically any Republican who wants to run for President in 2028 would take the job

https://i.imgur.com/Rx7kBq0.png

Don’t be fooled by the stonks that he got

i think he really is worried about RFK lmao

https://i.imgur.com/nF3ue9J.png

Going to announce that he had TWO brain worms.

The best worms, people are saying

“Oh I love the worms… have you seen the Dune? That’s the kind of worms we will have. Big beautiful worms…only the best.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/28/democrats-freakout-over-biden-00160047

the twist ending is that biden will win even with the electoral system but the electoral system will collapse, and maga scotus will confirm potus scrotus.

Politico isn't happy unless someone is freaking out over whatever is happening in politics. It's their bread and butter.

the word "genocide" does not appear in anyones freakout calculus in the piece.