Kamala Harris: “The American people are a good people who care for each other and want what is best for each other!”
American People: “No, we’re not!”
The new statue
Thoughts about the election while under the effects of lack of sleep
The last century was the century of democracy, especially after World War II. More and more countries became democratic, and things looked good. This century has given us the opposite, as the rich and powerful take over control of countries and, often through democracy, turn them into autocracies (Russia, Turkey, Belarus, Venezuela…). Looks like the United States is on that same path. Thanks to Putin and the world’s billionaires, democracy is on the decline.
With Republican control of the Congress and the Justice Department, and with the support of a Supreme Court that allows Trump to get away with anything, it will be tremendously difficult to hold back the corruption and destruction of our civil rights.
The polls were wrong again, as they have been for every Trump election. They undercount him by about 3% each time. I will leave why that is to the experts.
Trump is the Mule of American politics.* He breaks all the rules that those of us who studied political science learned. Any other candidate doing even 5% of what Trump has done would crash and burn long before a primary. It says something about America though that we don’t have royalty but we have celebrities, and for some reason, they can get away with stuff that would destroy any other career. It is the defintion of a cult, really.
And ironically, people are not holding Trump responsible for the things he has done. Abortion was on the ballot in many states, and a majority in those states voted to keep it legal while at the same time electing the guy who was the reason they had to place those things on the ballot in the first place.
Trump proved that fear and hatred and anger generate more votes than optimism, and that is something we Democrats don’t always get. We want to bring everyone together and stop fighting, but there is a core group of Americans that believe in division: That this world is “us” verses “them.” This small-minded tribalism is not new to the world. The distrust of the “other” who is not part of your group has destroyed many cultures and has led to many wars. Republicans rely on this to get elected, warning of immigrants, gays, the transgendered, atheists, non-whites, the “woke” — whoever holds views counter to theirs is not someone who should be tolerated. They’re not someone who can be reasoned with. They’re the “enemy within.” If you disagree with them, you’re not the loyal opposition. You’re the cause of all their problems. And this is not new. Politicians have screamed this crap for years in elections … because it often works.
Trump constantly claimed that he was the subject of a witch hunt and that all the criminal charges against him were politically motivated, and we should have paid attention, because even the pollsters were telling us that his support grew the more charges that were brought against him. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have been brought, but we shouldn’t have thought that arguing that he was a criminal would help us gain support.
Harris ran a great campaign. Don’t blame her. She did everything right, including building a strong ground game, raising money, and beating Trump at their only debate.
My thought was that Trump’s support had not risen since he lost to Biden so I expected Harris to do at least as well as Biden did. However, Trump gained support largely from Black and Latino men. You’d think that wouldn’t happen, given the racist things he has said over and over again, but maybe the real reason is that these macho men can’t stand the idea of a woman being President. I mean, I’m sure that hurt Hillary Clinton as well (yes, she had other problems) but if 3% of the men will never vote for a woman President — well, there’s the margin you need in swing states.
I’ll probably add more to this as I wake up more.
*nerdy science fiction reference
The October Surprise
He doesn’t plan to win the popular vote
Trump doesn’t care. I mean, that’s obvious. But his plan to win back the Presidency isn’t based on “getting the most votes.” That’s why he can have nazi-type rallies where he and his followers insult the majority of Americans.
No, his plan is simple (assuming the Electoral College doesn’t give it to him again): Claim victory no matter what. Plant seeds of doubt in advance, claiming the election is fraudulent, claiming without proof that illegal immigrants are voting, that voting machines are changing votes, that there is a huge, vast conspiracy to steal the election away from him despite the fact that the majority of Americans don’t want him. They’ll be at polling stations, threatening voters and trying to disrupt a free and fair election. They’ll threaten violence and will cause some as well.
The good news is that this time, the Democrats pretty much control all of the swing states, and in Georgia, their Governor has already shown that he won’t put up with Trump’s tricks when he tries to steal votes. I mean, come on, last time, Trump lost every single appeal he filed challenging the election.
Of course, this time, he’s stocked the Supreme Court with justices who have no problem with ignoring the Constitution and the law. Hey, it worked to get George W. Bush into the White House…
It’s not going to be easy when you’re dealing with fascists who care little for democracy. So we have to overwhelm them with such a blue wave that it is obvious they have no chance of success.
Not this again
The choice
Why I expect a blue wave
Everyone is nervous; the election seems so close. What are we going to do?
Well, I’m going to out on a limb and predict a blue wave. If I’m right, I get to brag about what a great Political Scientist I am and if I am wrong, I will act like every other person who makes wrong predictions about the election and pretend I never said this. (wink wink)
I have posted before about why I expect Harris to win, but let me add to that list and explain in a bit more detail. Here are my reasons:
Harris is more popular than Biden. I mean, c’mon, man (as Biden would say). Biden won handily over Trump and Trump’s support has not grown in four years. Oh sure, his cultists will absolutely come out for him, but there’s a finite amount of them. (More on this below.) Here, look at how Biden did four years ago. You think Harris is going to do worse? (She may also pick up North Carolina, which is very close.)
Also, let’s not forget that the vast majority of people who died of COVID in 2020 and beyond were Trump supporters who refused to get vaccinated or wear a mask. There just aren’t as many of them now as there were then. (And many of Trump’s supporters, like Fox viewers, are over 70 and, well, there are not a lot of young people replacing them as they die off.)
Yeah, the polls are close in some of these states, but they have constantly shown Harris ahead. If the polls went back and forth between the two, there may be more room to worry but here in Pennsylvania (for example), Harris has kept her lead pretty constantly.
We can lose Georgia, Arizona and Nevada and still win.
Trump’s support isn’t as good as it seems. The man lost the popular vote the first time he ran, never even reached a 50% approval rating his entire time as President (unlike every other person who has been President), and lost his second election by an even larger amount. A majority of Americans don’t want him.
And a large percentage of Republicans don’t want him this time, either. As a semi-incumbent, he should have gotten the numbers that Biden got in the primaries, but instead, quite often, he was lucky to get more than 50% of the registered Republicans voting for him. Many old-school Republicans (the kind who aren’t part of the Trump cult) can’t stand him, see the harm he will cause, and while they may not vote for Harris, they aren’t going to vote for Trump, either. They’ll probably just stay home. Hell, the vast majority of people who worked for Trump in the White House are out campaigning for Harris.
Harris has enthusiasm. People are excited about her campaign in a way they never were about Biden. Plus, historically, “hope” and “joy” and “optimism” beats “anger” and “fear.” Polling just opened in Georgia and it has already broken records for the number of people voting. Here in Pennsylvania, early voting shows that Democrats are voting more than Republicans in record numbers, and the number of women voting is even higher than in 2020.
Her poll numbers among the young are excellent and way beyond Trump’s. Harris is energizing younger voters in a way Biden couldn’t, and these voters don’t answer polls so they’re not always counted. Their presence, along with people who want to vote for the first woman President, may make all the difference. (Keep in mind many Republican women won’t tell others that they’re voting for her, but in the privacy of the voting booth…)
Trump chose a terrible Vice President. Trump needed to win back those Republicans mentioned above who don’t like him, but instead, he got a guy who is even more extreme and who has a lot of former baggage, not the least of which is being anti-Trump in the past, calling him the “Republican Hitler.” He was right, of course, but that won’t help get more independent voters. There are only so many Trump cultists and the nomination of Vance was what the cultist wanted but it won’t attract others or widen his appeal beyond the cultists.
The Republican party doesn’t have a lot of money. People just aren’t contributing to them in the same way they are for the Democrats. There are stories all over the states where the local parties are going broke. Meanwhile, Harris has literally raised a billion dollars for her campaign, mostly from small donations. Money means ads, workers, mailings, and many other campaign expenses. It’s tremendously important.
Trump has taken over the party. The head of the party is now Eric Trump’s wife. You remember Eric, who took money meant for a children’s cancer charity? Do you know where that money is going? If you do, tell Republicans, because many are worried that it is all going to Trump’s pockets. It certainly isn’t being shared with other candidates (unlike what Harris is doing, to make sure we can win the House and Senate as well). It’s all about Trump, after all.
Moreso, these people have no real experience in running a campaign, and they fired all those who do. The campaign is doing stupid things, like having rallies in blue states that Trump will never win, and insulting the very places he is visiting in red states. (It’s actually fun to watch how incompetent they are.)
Trump’s legal worries may influence the undecided. The Trump cultists will never change, and as Trump once said, he can shoot someone on 5th Avenue and still have their support. It’s difficult to imagine how anyone can be undecided in this election, but apparently there are a lot of clueless folks out there who have no problem voting for a lying, cheating, raping idiot who wants to be a dictator, but perhaps the more Trump spends time in court, the more these undecideds may think that maybe they don’t want a criminal as President.
Trump is old. Hey, if they could spend all their time talking about how old Biden is, we can turn it around on them now and point out that he is the oldest person ever to run for President. He’s showing more and more dementia as he campaigns, he’s refused to do debates (even on Fox!) and his rallies have people leaving as he just stands there and rambles nonsense. There’s no way that will help him.
Everyone hates Project 2025. Republicans can’t run away from it. The more people learn about it, the more they hate it. Democrats are going to constantly remind everyone of what it is and how it is essentially the GOP Platform.
And, let’s face it, there are still some reasonable Republicans and moderates out there who may come out to vote because while they don’t agree with Democratic policies, they don’t want someone in there who has vowed to be a “dictator on day one.” Some patriots will put the country’s needs over the party’s.
Democrats have done better than expected in recent elections. This may be the most important indicator and why I am making this prediction. We’ve managed to win quite a few special elections over the past few years, and in those that we didn’t win (in very red areas) we did much better than expected and much better than the polls predicted. Some of that is because we’re angry, and that gets people to the polls.
And we’re tremendously angry about abortion rights. In red states where this was on the ballot, pundits were shocked to see that even conservative voters voted to keep abortion legal. Many states have the issue on the ballots in November, which should bring more Democrats out to vote to protect this right (and then they’ll vote for the Democrats running as well).
There are more of us than there are of them. Democrats have won the popular vote in every single election except one since Bill Clinton, and the only reason Republicans got into office was because of the electoral college. We can overcome that by showing up in huge numbers in the swing states where our votes are tremendously important, like we did when Obama was elected. A huge turnout will guarantee our victory.
If we lose, it will be because we stayed at home and didn’t vote, or wasted our vote on a third party candidate. And then we can scream and shout all we want as our country moves toward a Putin-friendly dictatorship, but it won’t do any good because it will be our fault.
And now, a caveat: The GOP knows all this, so they are using their secret weapon: cheating. They’ll do everything they can to make it harder for anyone to vote; they’ll use the judges they’ve appointed to throw out ballots whenever possible; they’ll lie in campaign ads and use connections in Russia and China whose goal it is to dismantle American power; and otherwise claim to have won if they lose despite all evidence to the contrary (just like they did last time).
The advantage we have this time, however, is that we have the Presidency, the Department of Justice, and are ready for what they plan. Lawsuits are already filed in some cases and some have been successful (such as the one in Georgia which stopped the Republicans from claiming that the people who man the voting booths have the right to refuse to certify the vote if they feel like it).
So there’s my prediction and the reasons for it. Let’s all hope I’m right.
So what?
An abortion solution for conservatives
Hello, conservatives. I know that you don’t like the federal government deciding abortion issues and you think the states should decide, since the states are closer to the people.
Of course, the problem is that many states are really big, and there’s not one abortion position that fits the entire state. Sure, New York is liberal, but if you go upstate, you’ll find that there are many people in rural parts of the state who do not agree with what their state does (in the same way you don’t agree with what the feds do).
So we should let the individual counties decide abortion issues instead.
Hm, but there’s still a problem, in that not everyone in the county agrees either. Perhaps we should reduce it to individual towns and cities instead. But then even so, there’s no consensus. Maybe neighborhoods or streets would be better?
If your goal really is to “let the people decide” then I guess the only way to accomplish that is to let the individual woman decide. Surely that meets your goals completely without any of the difficulties of disagreements!
There! Problem solved!
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