General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEvery ploy Trump has tried over the last two months has succeeded in doing one thing
It has heightened the sense of extreme urgency most Americans feel about the upcoming November election, and that is not at all a good thing for Donald Trump. Everything, from manipulating CDC Covid-19 guidelines, to overtly pushing for approval of a vaccine against it before election day, to sabotaging the United States Postal Service, to declaring municipalities with Democratic Mayors to be "Anarchist Jurisdictions", to his coddling of armed "protestors" with a white nationalist agenda, to his casting doubt on the legitimacy of our electoral system, to attempting to ram through a last second Supreme Court appointment, to his implied threats not to leave office peacefully if he loses the election, all of this has left the American public lodged in a psychological war time footing. Make no mistake about it, that is disastrous for Donald Trump.
Trump is a politician who politically lives or dies by relying on his hard core base to disproportionately engage in November's election. Trump counted on red hot fervor for him from the Right to counter relatively tepid enthusiasm for Joe Biden from the left and center. He long ago convinced himself that he and he alone could benefit by the proliferation of apocalyptic visions of America descending into Hell. He counted on having that playing field all to himself, believing that his unhinged rants about Antifa invading the suburbs would motivate his hard core base to move heaven and Earth to prevent Joe Biden from winning.
To say that Trump has overplayed that hand doesn't begin to describe the depth of his miscalculation. Increasingly Americans are coming to understand that only Joe Biden stands between America and the void. Trump's play book has been turned on its head, it is Trump himself who personifies an existential threat to our Republic. And a growing belief that our very democratic system itself is now gravely imperiled is dissolving the ranks of the previously apathetic, replacing indifferent possible non voters with legions who now understand that November's election is the most important of their lifetimes.
It can not be overstated how extraordinary it is that the United States Senate just felt it necessary to formally proclaim, in a unanimous vote, that the peaceful transfer of power is intrinsic to the fabric of our democracy. It is every bit as unnerving that the Senate felt it necessary to weigh in on that core precept as it would be for the Senate to see reason to bring forth a resolution proclaiming that the U.S. military is subject to civilian command. It is a barely tacit acknowledgement that our Republic is facing an existential threat embodied by the current President. So was the joint letter just released by hundreds of top officials who have devoted their lifetimes to protecting and upholding our Constitution.
Apathy outside the ranks of the Right was always what Trump counted on to win. He thought he could selectively turn up the heat beneath his own supporters while the rest of the nation sleepwalked through politics as usual. But every action has a equal and opposite reaction. Trumps ploys have energized the entire electorate. In trying to squeeze out a few more votes from rural white males with high school degrees, Trump has opened the floodgates of participation by all Americans, and the potential pool of voters now being activated doesn't fit well with Trump's preferred demographics. Trump's autocratic "antics" have already cost him dearly among many white highly educated suburban voters who voted for him in 2016, but now he is driving increased turnout by younger voters, a demographic that cuts deeply against Trump but which has traditionally under performed during previous elections.
Every day with a lead story in the media about how critical November's election will be, is a news cycle Donald J. Trump has lost.
Tanuki
(14,894 posts)Tom Rinaldo
(22,911 posts)abqtommy
(14,118 posts)down here in 2020.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,911 posts)As a known Bernie supporter I am well aware of how frequently some DU posters have blamed "Bernie voters staying home" for Hillary "losing" in 2016. The percentage of non-white voters voting in 2016 dropped for the first time in decades in 2016. Sure, some of that was voter suppression, but not all of it. Republicans did not invent voter suppression for the first time in 2016. We all are quick to decry Russian interference in our elections which we fervently accept happened during the 2016 race. A big part of the Russian play book was to disillusion potentially Democratic voters into not bothering to vote in 2016. They put a lot of evil talent and time and effort into that scheme, and to some extent it worked.
Captain Zero
(6,715 posts)For something else to be possible.
www.votesleuth.org
Pluvious
(4,278 posts)Tommymac
(7,263 posts)I submit his latest 'promises' about Juneteenth and designating the KKK a terrorist orginization are too little too late.
His constant lies and ill informed rage tweets have poisoned that well.
The Killer Clown is toast.
Our real job is to take down his lackeys in the Senate, House, and State offices.
GOTV - BLUE WAVE A'Comin' !!!!
trusty elf
(7,350 posts)Tom Rinaldo
(22,911 posts)Demsrule86
(68,355 posts)dalton99a
(81,091 posts)Larissa
(786 posts)dalton99a
(81,091 posts)The president wants you dead and so do his friends and advisers. It's that simple
It's not adequate to say that Trump's regime is stupid and incompetent. That's true but the malice runs deeper
David Masciotra
September 27, 2020 10:00AM (UTC)
....
Trump's tendency to laugh at inappropriate moments is particularly chilling and revealing.
He has shown little or no concern for the Pacific Northwest, where the worst wildfires in the history of the country are destroying countless homes, incinerating ecosystems and wildlife, and have killed more than 30 people.
When Wade Crowfoot, head of California's Natural Resources Agency, challenged Trump on his refusal to act on climate change during a meeting to discuss the fires, the president turned his head and began to laugh. He chuckled again when he told Crowfoot, in reference to irrefutable evidence that the planet is warming due to human activity, "The science doesn't know."
It's all fun and games for Trump.
Americans can gain similar insight into Trump's homicidal philosophy of political power by observing him defend Kyle Rittenhouse, a self-deputized right wing vigilante who shot three Black Lives Matter protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last month, killing two of them. Trump also brazenly calls for extrajudicial assassinations from law enforcement, recently declaring in an interview that "There has to be retribution" when reacting to the news that federal forces had killed Michael Reinoehl, the left-wing activist accused of shooting a member of the far-right group Patriot Prayer in Portland, Oregon.
Edgar Allan Poe has a story about a man under the spell of the "imp of the perverse." He kills only for the rush of doing something he knows he should not. Poe writes that when "we peer into the abyss, we grow sick and dizzy." The normal human instinct is to turn away in retreat of danger and evil. There are those, however, who "unaccountably remain," guided by a thought that "chills the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height."
Donald Trump has descended into the abyss. He is attempting to take America with him. It is for us to decide whether we will follow.
Upthevibe
(7,884 posts)Excellent analysis...Thank you for this post....