rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

"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.

Sad lol, I just assumed it would be but I'm not sure why I assumed that.

Feel like this thread is not doing a very good job of containing “Trump is gonna win.”

I save my containing talent for this thread, my genius for my life.

trump is gonna win . . . conviction in his campaign finance violation case ;)

Perhaps Lost in the Polling: The Race Is Still Close

By Nate Cohn

There’s no way around it: The news for President Biden hasn’t been great.

He has trailed in national and battleground state polls for months. His approval ratings are among the lowest on record for a first-term president. He’s struggling among young, Black and Hispanic voters. And all of this against an opponent who faces several criminal trials, including one that could have a verdict this week.

But the news is not all bad for Mr. Biden — or, at least, it’s not all that bad. The race is still pretty close. It’s close enough that he would have a very serious chance to win if the election were held tomorrow. And of course, the race won’t be held tomorrow: There are five-plus months to go for a possible Biden comeback.

Together, there’s a case for taking a glass-almost-half-full perspective on Mr. Biden’s chances. Right or wrong, it’s a case that maybe hasn’t gotten quite as much attention as it deserves.

The electoral map
How is the race close? Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

If Mr. Biden won those battleground states, he’d probably be re-elected as president. They would combine to give him exactly 270 electoral college votes provided he held everywhere he won by six percentage points or more in 2020. That means he could lose all of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio and so on, and still win.

Yes, Donald J. Trump does lead most polls of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. But the race is close in all three states.

In our recent New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College polls, Mr. Trump led by an average of one percentage point across the three states among likely voters. The 538 and RealClearPolitics polling averages both show Mr. Trump ahead by just one point across those states, and Mr. Trump doesn’t appear to lead by more than around two points in any of them.

As a consequence, Mr. Biden is within two points in states worth 270 electoral votes. Looking back over the longer run, his two-point deficit in the key states makes this election closer than those heading into Election Day in 2020, 2016, 2012 and 2008. If the election were held tomorrow, it wouldn’t be especially surprising if Mr. Biden won by narrowly sweeping these three states.

In fact, Mr. Biden could win if the election were held tomorrow even if the polls had an above-average year in terms of accuracy, simply because the polls don’t have to be off by much at all for him to prevail.

One reason Mr. Biden’s resilience in these states may be overlooked is that many organizations, including The Times, have been conducting polls of all six battleground states. Mr. Biden trails narrowly in the three Northern states, but Mr. Trump often claims a significant lead in the three Sun Belt states. Together, it’s clearly a bad set of numbers for Mr. Biden. But his overall deficit across these six states may overstate his challenge.

Demographics
Why is Mr. Biden competitive in the Northern battlegrounds? White voters and older voters.

In Times/Siena polling this year, Mr. Biden is running only about a point behind how he fared among white voters in 2020. For good measure, he’s also faring a bit better than he did among voters over 65. Other polls tell a similar story.

Mr. Biden’s resilience among white voters and older voters hasn’t gotten a lot of attention, but it’s very important. White voters will make up around 70 percent of the electorate in November, and their share will be even higher in the Northern battleground states that Mr. Biden will be counting on. And voters over 65 will outnumber those under 30.

In a sense, Mr. Biden has already done what would ordinarily be the hard part for a Democrat. All he needs now is what’s supposed to be the easy part: getting the usual big Democratic margins among young, Black and Hispanic voters.

Turnout
We’ve spent a lot of time explaining that Democratic successes in special elections can mostly be attributed to a pronounced advantage among the most highly engaged, high-turnout voters. As such, Democrats’ big wins in special elections do nothing to really disprove Mr. Biden’s weakness in general election polling.

But his strength among high-turnout voters is nonetheless an important edge. We just wrote about this last week, so I won’t dwell too much on it. But it raises the possibility that Mr. Biden may yet be able to win back many of the less engaged voters who support Mr. Trump in the polls. And if not, perhaps many of his disengaged defectors simply won’t show up.

Many months to go
The polls aren’t perfect — they’ve been off before and they’ll be off again. They wouldn’t really need to be off-target by much at all for Mr. Biden to squeak out a victory.

But even if the polls were exactly “right,” in the sense that Mr. Trump would win if the election were held tomorrow by the precise margins implied by the recent polls, Mr. Biden would still have a very real chance to win in November.

More than five months, after all, is a very long time in presidential politics. A billion dollars in advertisements, the debates, a possible conviction and countless other events are all still ahead. This year, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a large number of so-called “double-haters,” and Mr. Trump’s dependence on traditionally Democratic young and nonwhite voters make it even easier to see how the race might become volatile. The issue of democracy may not dominate the news today, but it will almost certainly be a central theme in the final weeks — perhaps especially if Mr. Trump is ahead.

Mr. Biden may be down slightly today, but there’s still a long way to go.

What a weird moment

You may be down slightly today, but there's still a long way to go.

has anyone read one of those "here's what happens if trump is convicted" explainers?

also i am pretty confident that if he's convicted, that will help him in november. this is, indeed, a weird moment

WITCH HUNT

The liberals and the crooked judges will do ANYTHING to stop Trump from making American great again!

who can even know what the charges are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i understand the eternal pessimism regarding Trump but i do not see any possible way conviction actually helps him

even if that alone doesn't change too many actual minds it still keeps him mad and on the defense which is not where you want your candidate to be, not to mention it might tie him up when he needs to be out on the trail

best i can say regarding the polls is that even if they are more or less accurate as things stand today they do still have RFK getting 12-13% and Trump outperforming nearly every downballot R, while Biden trails a bunch of the downballot Ds significantly. if that was how it actually ended I think it would be one of the all-time strangest results in election history. just saying I think there's a lot of room for things to move and it feels like way more people could be persuaded to vote for Biden than Trump

x-post-He will appeal the NY verdict if he's convicted on any of the charges and who knows when the appellate court will take up the matter

Spoiler alert, the appeals will get kicked down the road until after the election.

Onto the thread topic, I've been surprised to hear some normally optimistic friends who follow politics pretty closely and had been pretty confident that Biden was going to win start to back away from that position and, in fact, a couple of them told me they are steeling themselves for a likely Trump win. I can't tell them what to think or how to prepare, but depressing when the folks who've usually helped keep me from sinking into the despair are even starting to doubt Biden's chances.

that's what the thread is for!

I'm with frogbs: I see no reason to despair yet.

i do not see any possible way conviction actually helps him

Purely in terms of votes cast, as opposed to fund-raising, I agree. Voters who would be outraged at his criminal conviction are already outraged at his indictment and trial. I'm thinking he has maxed out all the value he can derive from the "I'm being persecuted like nobody else in all of history" narrative, except for skimming off some more campaign money. It remains to be seen if more money can translate into more votes. This is such a weird election.