Trump's secret weapon

[Dr. Jack]

I was reading an article from Harry Enten this morning about the state of the presidential race. He pointed out that Biden's lead over Trump in the polls has been the most consistent of any presidential election since modern polling started in 1940. Biden has, for the most part, been ahead in the polls by the same margin the Dems won the house by in 2018, roughly 7-8 points for over 500 days now. The electorate, he points out, has shifted by 5 points to the democrats since 2016 nationally and in swing states. That has pretty much been the case since early in his term and nothing that has happened since then has changed those numbers. Trump has been sitting at that 7-8 point deficit for years now. Unless he does something in the next 50 days, that he hasn't been able to do in the past 3.5 years, he will lose in a landslide.

However, I read every single day "anything can happen between now and the election!" "the outcome is far from certain!", "Trump can close the gap like he did in 2016!", etc, etc, etc.

So that makes me wonder. If Dems are worried that Trump will close the gap, somehow, in the final 50 days, something he hasn't been able to do at all in about 1200 days, no matter what has happened, and Republicans are fanatically confident that Trump will somehow, in these last 6 weeks, overcome that 7-8 point gap, what is Trump's secret miracle weapon to do that? What is this brilliant, secret Trump strategy that Dems fear and Republicans are 100% confident will come that is going to save Trump's reelection at the last possible second? Because personally I don't see such a secret, miracle strategy existing at all and trump is heading for a significant defeat. But people are still saying Trump can turn things around and if that is the case, his brilliant, super secret plan to win the election has to exist.

So what is it?


https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/09/12/politics/trump-biden-analysis/index.html?__twitter_impression=true

[mzmolly]

1. Russia?

Barr? Local officials in swing states pulling shit?

[Dr. Jack]

2. Any Russian disinformation this year has clearly had no impact

Again, look at the stability of the numbers. And anything Barr has tried in the past has done nothing. I also don't think people trust him. And coordinating local level fraud or suppression on a mass scale would be difficult. Not shooting you down or saying you're wrong. I just can't personally see how those things would make a difference and based on your shrugging emoji, I get the impression you are also not all that impressed with what Barr or the Russians can actually achieve.

[mzmolly]

3. Disinformation - true.

Hacking? Too soon to tell. They are still trying. To what end?

Good point about Barr, but he still has power to wield and misuse.

If the election is honest, I have no doubt that Biden will win.

The thing that worries me most is - https://www.axios.com/bloomberg-group-trump-election-night-scenarios-a554e8f5-9702-437e-ae75-d2be478d42bb.html

[Dr. Jack]

13. The issue with "hacking" is that voting machines are decentralized and

Most aren't connected to the internet to begin with. There just isn't some centralized computer system to hack into, even at the state level.

[mzmolly]

14. Yes. And most states have paper

ballots now, thankfully. But the results are posted on the internet and they can create confusion.

They're also trying to hack the campaigns. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/us/politics/nsa-russian-hack.html To what end? I haven't a clue.

I do think we're better prepared - at least from an information standpoint.

[Baltimike]

18. vague things like "most" etc doesn't mean there aren't any

and hackers infiltrated our election in 2016, so...

[lastlib]

20. My question is whether the tallying/totalling machines can be tampered.

A few spurious numbers could throw a monkey wrench into the works.

[rampartc]

4. fire

can trump burn the electoral votes of the western states and blame the fires on dem led "antifa?" don't bet against his friendly press and loyal trolls.

[stillcool]

5. they do what they do...

stop the American people from voting, and then stop votes from being counted. If there is still too wide of a gulf in the win/lose ratio, they do what they've never done...and there's your secret weapon. ?

[kentuck]

6. If he has some secret plan...?

It is how to steal the election.

It's difficult to see that many voters changing their minds from where they are right now.

Most have already made their decisions.

[Dr. Jack]

9. 538 had an article about "stealing" the election a few months ago

For all of the concern about voter suppression and other tactics, the election security experts they talked to didn't really think any measures Trump and the Republicans will take would have much of an impact unless the election is extremely close. Maybe it would help Trump by a fraction of a point but it wouldn't make up a 7 or 8 point popular vote gap. That is especially true if people are highly motivated to vote. American elections are so decentralized that even the president has little power over how Americans vote or the ability to fuck with the vote. If we are heading into election day with the polls looking as they have for the past 500+ days, all of the suppression and fuckery the Republicans could try wouldn't even come close to saving them.

Not saying none of those things are issues. I'm just saying based on where we seem to be heading, the gap is too wide to just flat out suppress democratic votes to the point where Trump wins.

[kentuck]

15. Yep.

They could affect the vote in a state where it was very close.

I read somewhere that they planned on seizing the votes in a couple of counties in Florida, by taking them to Court, to swing the vote in the opposite direction?

[Tommymac]

7. 50,000 QAnon/Neo-Nazi/KKK Poll watchers with guns stationed at every key voting location.

Plus those corrupt law enforcement officials in Blue who support the Traitorous Killer Clown.

We need our Portland Mom's to become PollingPlace Mom's to counter this effort.

[brush]

8. Agreed. The only way trump can "win" is to cheat, but it won't be close enough...

this time for them to steal it, even with Russian help and their typical dirty tricks and vote tampering.

[Dr. Jack]

11. Right, election security experts think only very, very close elections can be "stolen"

If Biden is only ahead by 2 or 3 points nationally on election day, Republican fuckery with the election process might let trump barely squeak by but not if the poll numbers stay where they are and have been for nearly 2 years now. All of the fraud and suppression possible in the US would only change things around the margins. It wouldn't cause an 8 point lead drop down to 0. US elections are too decentralized and the president has virtually no control over how elections are carried out. As much as we fear Republicans fucking around with votes, it's just not likely to actually have an impact unless Trump can massively close the gap first.

[Drunken Irishman]

10. Trump has never had a plan. Even in 2016.

He won because, at the last minute, Comey's letter leaked and shifted the race in the final days. Prior to that event, he was on his way to a loss similar to Romney four years prior.

But the problems is that the story essentially dominated every second of every day. Then, the Sunday or whatever, before the election, when things were finally played out, Comey kicked it up again by stating there was no opening of any investigation. I believe that was pretty impactful as it brought the emails back into the discussion, even if the news wasn't bad for Clinton.

But the Comey letter clearly turned voters away from Hillary and while some went to Trump, others voted third party and cost her Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania...maybe even North Carolina and probably Florida.

That was out of Trump's control.

But it solidified the narrative about Clinton being corrupt and if there's one messaging that worked for Trump it's that Clinton's presidency would be bogged down in non-stop investigations so nothing would get done (lol funny in retrospect) and the Comey letter fueled that. People got what they thought was a whiff of what her presidency would be like if she won and it turned off an already tepid amount of voters (Hillary always struggled being close to 50% nationally - at least for most of 2016).

That isn't the case with Biden. Biden seems, knock on wood, to be immune to Trump's attacks.

[Dr. Jack]

12. I agree, I think 2016 was a massive, once in a lifetime fluke

I don't think Trump or anyone around him is some brilliant political strategist or that their violation of norms is enough to destroy American democracy. I think Trump just accidentally stumbled his way into office due to a perfect storm of unlikely events that is nearly impossible to repeat in 2020. Trump is like someone who won the lottery, spent every single dollar he got, and now his plan is to win the lottery again to deal with his money troubles.

[brush]

16. Yep, he's been the luckiest, dumb mfer ever, able to get away...

Last edited Sat Sep 12, 2020, 05:16 PM - Edit history (2)

with suing and outlasting those he stiffed with his old man's fortune. That ran out and he had to go to the Russians for funding. They of course helped their investment in him by interfering in the 2016 campaign. As you say, it was a perfect storm with Comey's letter, the Russkies, Cambridge Analytica, vote suppression and all the rest.

And the odds of that repeating again is extremely low. trump's luck has run out.

[Drunken Irishman]

19. Absolutely was the perfect storm.

Two extremely unpopular candidates going head-to-head made this a possibility. There was a joke going around in 2016 that said, of all the candidates running, only Hillary could lose to Trump and only Trump could lose to Hillary and there was some truth to it. Add the sexism of the campaign that isn't there this go around and you can see that perfect storm.

Even still, even with all that luck, Trump still only managed to win this election by just 70,000 votes.

I don't believe one second he's expanded his voting base in the last four years. But I guarantee he's lost support.

[mzmolly]

17. Good

point. They're gearing up to try and pull shit again, but we are wiser this time.