It's official: Trump Is History, Says The Prediction Professor

tassojunior · September 20, 2020

just a quick note, I don't have to look for one in a place like West Virginia, there's a clear one in West Virginia:

On November 6, 2018, Ojeda was defeated in the general election by 12 points, winning 44% of the vote to Miller's 56%. For Democrats, this was a 32-point improvement in performance from the previous election, where the Democrat won only 24% to the Republican's 68%.^[31] According to FiveThirtyEight, Ojeda outperformed his district's partisan lean by 25%, the strongest showing for a non-incumbent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Ojeda

and remember JFK spent half his campaign in West Virginia and carried West Virginia with his biggest margin.

What we better off don't understand is that the underclass cares a hell of a lot less about social issues than we do even though the rich try to divide them off with social fear and hate. Their relative poverty means most to them, from the Black public housing ghettos to the Trump trailer parks. They uniformly know they have the short end of the stick and resent the rich and the elite equally. As the American middle class gets poorer and poorer the "have-nots" are a big majority. Give them a reason to vote (ie: $)(cash) and they will. That may well be why Trump is struggling with Social Security/Medicare recipients this year. Cash $$.

Buddy2 · September 20, 2020

1 hour ago, tassojunior said:

@stevenkesslar

just a quick note, I don't have to look for one in a place like West Virginia, there's a clear one in West Virginia:

On November 6, 2018, Ojeda was defeated in the general election by 12 points, winning 44% of the vote to Miller's 56%. For Democrats, this was a 32-point improvement in performance from the previous election, where the Democrat won only 24% to the Republican's 68%.^[31] According to FiveThirtyEight, Ojeda outperformed his district's partisan lean by 25%, the strongest showing for a non-incumbent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Ojeda

and remember JFK spent half his campaign in West Virginia and carried West Virginia with his biggest margin.

What we better off don't understand is that the underclass cares a hell of a lot less about social issues than we do even though the rich try to divide them off with social fear and hate. Their relative poverty means most to them, from the Black public housing ghettos to the Trump trailer parks. They uniformly know they have the short end of the stick and resent the rich and the elite equally. As the American middle class gets poorer and poorer the "have-nots" are a big majority. Give them a reason to vote (ie: $)(cash) and they will. That may well be why Trump is struggling with Social Security/Medicare recipients this year. Cash $$.

So frustrating.

I have visited West Virginia several times in the last six years. There are few jobs, so many high school graduates enlist in the military.

lookin · September 20, 2020

On 9/18/2020 at 1:35 AM, stevenkesslar said:

My guess is that the Toxic Trumpian types will double down on the idea that masks are bad, guns are good, we don't trust a vaccine if it's a Democrat vaccine, and we'll just obstruct and wait it out.

A Modest Proposal (with props to Jonathan Swift)

Seems the Democrats are constantly under bombardment for "wanting to take our guns away" and perhaps it's time to put that one to bed for good.

I'm thinking of a plank in the Democratic platform promising to put forward a bill that would send an AK-47, complete with a hundred rounds of ammo, to every household in the good 'ol USofA.

For starters, it would deprive the Republican party of one of its perennial pieces of propaganda duping its base that Democrats are "coming for your guns". Not only would the wind go out of that one overnight, but Wayne Lapierre could hang up his bullhorn and spend the rest of his days fighting the insider lawsuit that accuses him of looting the NRA.

As if that weren't enough, such a program would even up the ballistic odds. According to this survey, Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to have a gun in the house, whites are 50% more likely than Blacks and twice as likely as Hispanics. With everybody packing heat, the promise of democracy could finally be fulfilled.

Elections would be fairer too. Anyone concerned that there'd be a militia member at the polls making sure you aren't voting twice would find there'd be at least two well-armed folks making sure you got to vote at least once.

And talk about our right to peacefully protest! Imagine those folks who stay away from protests out of fear of being shot suddenly having enough firepower to shoe away anybody who tries to stop them.

Folks would be safer in their homes too. Far fewer break-ins and unexpected knocks on the door when there was most certainly an assault rifle at the ready.

But, lookin, you say, wouldn't giving every household an assault rifle bankrupt the country? Not by a long shot, you should pardon the expression. Somewhere I read that an AK-47 could be had from Northern Mexica for just over $1200. Add another hundred bucks for ammunition and every one of our 130 million households could be extremely well armed for just shy of $170 billion. Hell, Trump's deficit was four times that much his first year in office, and six times that much last year. If he can spend that much making his fat pals that much fatter, why couldn't he spend a fraction of that amount defending the one constitutional amendment his base can recite from memory? He said he would and now's his chance to stand and deliver.

So to speak. :rolleyes:

PS: I'm aware there may be some Republicans out there who would consider this a bad idea and would come forward to rail against it. I might even send them a modest donation. But it wouldn't stop me from watching them try to squeeze the shoe on their other foot.

Edited September 20, 2020 by lookin

tassojunior · September 21, 2020

If Arizona really is in play, then the good news is that the Dems can lose both Pennsylvania's 20 votes and Florida and still win with exactly 270 votes with AZ. To me AZ being more (D) than Pennsylvania (or even (D) ! ) is hard to imagine. Virginia's shift and Colorado's shift to Democratic states I understood. But other than a lot of seniors, I don't get it. (I've always said the Dem's #1 target this year should be taking Seniors from the GOP). As the SCOTUS fight becomes a culture war on abortion, PA may be at special risk and Arizona could be critical for 270.

EiOCvlbXsAAWLgz?format=jpg&name=small

Edited September 21, 2020 by tassojunior

Buddy2 · September 21, 2020

I agree. The Democratic Party may well lose Pennsylvania. The Trump ads in that state are quite convincing. Ugh.

stevenkesslar · September 21, 2020

On 9/19/2020 at 2:46 PM, tassojunior said:

No wonder they can be so vicious in keeping reformers out of the party at all cost.

And again, the traditional way to unite a political party and win is to take the 2nd place side as VP and bend over backwards to unite the party. That has always been the #1 rule of presidential elections. The surest way to lose is like Goldwater, tell the losing side to fuck off and get out of "my" party. That's the Democrats' 2020 strategy. Maybe Trump is so horrible it will work. This year.

Where do you get this shit from?

I am guessing your point is that not picking Bernie for VP is the same as "keeping reformers out of the party at all cost."

The polling I found interesting is that Warren was more likely to be named than Harris as a favorite VP choice among Democrats. Even among Blacks, it was pretty much a tie. All that changed when George Floyd was murdered and BLM erupted. It would have been interesting to see if there had been push back if he selected a White man, albeit a progressive one like Bernie.

Other articles I've posted talk about how Biden is surrounding himself with Warrencrat economic advisers. When asked about the Green New Deal, Biden says he and Bernie's folks negotiated a plan that is now "my deal" and is in the platform. Of course, Biden will really play his cards when he wins. Then we'll learn whether the Treasury Secretary is Warren, or a progressive like her, or Summers, or a Wall Streeter like him. The verdict is out.

Voting will matter. Biden is a survivor. He'll notice who makes up "the Biden coalition". That's who he'll pay the most attention to, since he'll want them to vote for him or his successor in 2024. My political hack view of the best way for "reformers" and "progressives" to make sure they are at the center of the Biden coalition is to turn out in droves and elect a Democratic majority. But if this is your definition of Democrats being "vicious" in "keeping reformers out of the party at all cost", you may be suffering from the same dementia Joe Biden apparently has. :console:

The immediate question is whether progressive Millennials and Gen Z types are running for the exits, or Canada, or some mythical progressive nirvana. They're not.

Younger voters choose Biden over Trump — but they're not wild about either

Quote

Younger voters have historically gravitated toward Democrats. In 2016, exit polls showed that voters under 30 picked Hillary Clinton by an 18-point margin, while those between 30 and 40 years old selected her by an 11-point margin.

This cycle, according to the new dataset, Biden enjoys an even more robust advantage among younger voters in a head-to-head contest with Trump.

Among Gen Z voters (who make up about 7 percent of the electorate, based on the aggregated data), Biden leads in a head-to-head matchup by 24 points, 57 percent to 33 percent.

Among millennials (who make up about 25 percent of the electorate), Biden leads by 20 points, 55 percent to 35 percent.

younger_generations_overwhelmingly_pick_

It's not a shocker that Millennials and Gen Z are not wild about Biden. My nieces and nephews who wanted either Bernie or Warren can tell you why. They'll also tell you why they're of course voting for Biden, not President Toxic.

My guess is that RBG's death was both horrible timing and perfect timing. It of course would have been better if she'd lived six months longer. That said, there is every reason to think the fight over who replaces her will drive certain progressive types into a frenzy. Just like the idea that Hillary Clinton would decide who replaced Scalia was one factor in why 2 million more Republicans turned out in 2016 for President Toxic than they did in 2012 for Romney.

This time, the shoe is on the other foot. My strong hunch is that lots of Millennials who care about climate change and fair elections and money in politics and abortion and voting rights and all kinds of things will be extremely motivated to vote for RBG - or at least for her legacy.

Biden is doing better than Hillary with two of three key groups: Millennials/Gen Z, and the suburban voters with college degrees. Where he most lags, and in some cases (like Florida) is doing worse than Hillary is with Hispanics.

I've got a theory for what explains part of this. With Millennials, the key things he needed to do play to Biden's strengths. He is a deal maker, and a coalition builder. His survival depended on building coalitions and cutting deals with Blacks all along the way. The best expressions of that were his marriage with Obama, and how Blacks saved his ass in the 2020 primaries. So the idea that Biden may be slowly but successfully weaving activist progressives into a left-leaning coalition isn't shocking. These people are engaged, and they don't support Trump. (Although among White AND male Millennials, there perhaps is a slight preference for President Toxic.)

Biden needs to do the same thing with Latinos. And for left-leaning and engaged Latinos, I suspect he will. That said, Biden has never been and never will be an organizer, a lightning rod, an RBG-like pioneer. So if the premise of Latino activists is right - that there are huge chunks of ambivalent and disengaged Latinos in all these swing states that can be organized into a Democratic majority - Biden was never going to be the best candidate to do that.

This article, which I found while digging around for data on Millennials and Hispanics, provides an excellent set of data that may explain why.

These Are the Voters Who Could Decide the Election

Latinas and ambivalent Latino voters are key to winning back the White House in 2020.

There's a graphic that sums up Latino participation by state I can't cut and paste. it's about "base" voters and "ambivalent" Latino voters. But here's a few examples, based on the data presented by Latino activists.

In Arizona, 31 % of Latinos are Democratic base voters, and 14 % are Trump base voters. Add what Valencia calls "mobilization" voters, Latinos who are Democrats at heart but need a nudge to vote, and you get to 38 % of Arizona Latinos supporting Democrats. Meanwhile, 40 % of Arizona Latinos are "ambivalent". The author implies they are probably more likely to vote Democratic. But that can't be assumed. What can be assumed is that many of them are simply not likely to vote. Here's what she says happened in 2016:

Quote

Latinos who were ambivalent broke for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, but nearly 30 percent ended up not voting. That’s nearly double the rate of nonparticipation as among ambivalent white voters, and slightly higher than among ambivalent black voters. And the Latinos who skipped the 2016 and 2018 elections tend to give Trump worse approval numbers than those Latinos who voted in both contests; they are the rare demographic in which nonvoters are more progressive than voters. If we want to expand the Latino electorate, we need to convince this group to vote in the first place.

Bernie, with the help of the Latino pros, gave a glimpse of what a real effort to engage more Latinos in states like Nevada and Texas would look like. Again, I don't think Tio Bernie or Tio Joe are the right ones. Democrats ought to be looking for Mexican American Tio Bernardos and young Cuban Tia Josefas. The Republicans have Marco Rubio. If Democrats don't do it, Republicans eventually will.

If these numbers are right, Florida is the one state where the Trump Latino base (30 %) is actually bigger than the Democratic Latino base (21 %, which goes up to 34 % if you nudge all the "mobilization" Latino voters). Either way, there's 30 % who are "ambivalent" and could go either way, or just not vote, according to this data.

These numbers make intuitive sense to me based on what actually happened in 2016 and 2018.

In 2016, states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan broke for President Toxic. That was clearly driven by shifts to him from Whites without colleges degrees. Meanwhile, many "natural" Democratic constituencies like Blacks and Millennials just voted less. I've never read anything clear about what Hispanics in Wisconsin or Michigan did in 2016. In 2018 in the same states, higher turnout from Democratic constituencies produced very different results. If this data is correct, Hispanics could be an increasingly important part of El Muro Azul in the Rust Belt. Of those that are engaged, most are Democratic. Only 1 in 10 of them are identified as being in the "Trump base" in these Rust Belt states.

Nevada and Arizona and California were all bright spots for Democrats in 2016 and 2018. In 2016, Hillary won Nevada and held a Senate seat with a Latina. In 2018 we flipped a Senate seat in Arizona. In Orange County we flipped multiple House seats from red to blue. Hispanic candidates and voters had a lot to do with that. In states like Pennsylvania, the challenge is to slow down or stop the drift of White voters without college degrees away from Democrats. In states like Arizona, the challenge is to speed up the movement of Latinos into the Democratic tent.

The one "Latino" stronghold that was the exception, especially in 2018, was Florida. This perhaps helps explain why. According to this data, Democrats have little no natural advantage with Latinos in Florida. In fact, Republicans may have the advantage. Both because they are better at mobilizing their Latino "Trump base", and because they are better at reaching out to ambivalent Latino voters.

One offset is that it seems likely that Biden will do better with older White voters, and Whites without college degrees, than Hillary did. That may be more than enough to offset Democratic problems with Latinos in Florida and all over the US in 2020. But it is not a long term solution.

I don't think this is really a Biden problem. I think it is a huge long term challenge for Democrats.

tassojunior · September 21, 2020

5 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

Where do you get this shit from?

I am guessing your point is that not picking Bernie for VP is the same as "keeping reformers out of the party at all cost."

The polling I found interesting is that Warren was more likely to be named than Harris as a favorite VP choice among Democrats. Even among Blacks, it was pretty much a tie. All that changed when George Floyd was murdered and BLM erupted. It would have been interesting to see if there had been push back if he selected a White man, albeit a progressive one like Bernie.

Other articles I've posted talk about how Biden is surrounding himself with Warrencrat economic advisers. When asked about the Green New Deal, Biden says he and Bernie's folks negotiated a plan that is now "my deal" and is in the platform. Of course, Biden will really play his cards when he wins. Then we'll learn whether the Treasury Secretary is Warren, or a progressive like her, or Summers, or a Wall Streeter like him. The verdict is out.

Voting will matter. Biden is a survivor. He'll notice who makes up "the Biden coalition". That's who he'll pay the most attention to, since he'll want them to vote for him or his successor in 2024. My political hack view of the best way for "reformers" and "progressives" to make sure they are at the center of the Biden coalition is to turn out in droves and elect a Democratic majority. But if this is your definition of Democrats being "vicious" in "keeping reformers out of the party at all cost", you may be suffering from the same dementia Joe Biden apparently has.

The immediate question is whether progressive Millennials and Gen Z types are running for the exits, or Canada, or some mythical progressive nirvana. They're not.

Younger voters choose Biden over Trump — but they're not wild about either

It's not a shocker that Millennials and Gen Z are not wild about Biden. My nieces and nephews who wanted either Bernie or Warren can tell you why. They'll also tell you why they're of course voting for Biden, not President Toxic.

My guess is that RBG's death was both horrible timing and perfect timing. It of course would have been better if she'd lived six months longer. That said, there is every reason to think the fight over who replaces her will drive certain progressive types into a frenzy. Just like the idea that Hillary Clinton would decide who replaced Scalia was one factor in why 2 million more Republicans turned out in 2016 for President Toxic than they did in 2012 for Romney.

This time, the shoe is on the other foot. My strong hunch is that lots of Millennials who care about climate change and fair elections and money in politics and abortion and voting rights and all kinds of things will be extremely motivated to vote for RBG - or at least for her legacy.

Biden is doing better than Hillary with two of three key groups: Millennials/Gen Z, and the suburban voters with college degrees. Where he most lags, and in some cases (like Florida) is doing worse than Hillary is with Hispanics.

I've got a theory for what explains part of this. With Millennials, the key things he needed to do play to Biden's strengths. He is a deal maker, and a coalition builder. His survival depended on building coalitions and cutting deals with Blacks all along the way. The best expressions of that were his marriage with Obama, and how Blacks saved his ass in the 2020 primaries. So the idea that Biden may be slowly but successfully weaving activist progressives into a left-leaning coalition isn't shocking. These people are engaged, and they don't support Trump. (Although among White AND male Millennials, there perhaps is a slight preference for President Toxic.)

Biden needs to do the same thing with Latinos. And for left-leaning and engaged Latinos, I suspect he will. That said, Biden has never been and never will be an organizer, a lightning rod, an RBG-like pioneer. So if the premise of Latino activists is right - that there are huge chunks of ambivalent and disengaged Latinos in all these swing states that can be organized into a Democratic majority - Biden was never going to be the best candidate to do that.

This article, which I found while digging around for data on Millennials and Hispanics, provides an excellent set of data that may explain why.

These Are the Voters Who Could Decide the Election

Latinas and ambivalent Latino voters are key to winning back the White House in 2020.

There's a graphic that sums up Latino participation by state I can't cut and paste. it's about "base" voters and "ambivalent" Latino voters. But here's a few examples, based on the data presented by Latino activists.

In Arizona, 31 % of Latinos are Democratic base voters, and 14 % are Trump base voters. Add what Valencia calls "mobilization" voters, Latinos who are Democrats at heart but need a nudge to vote, and you get to 38 % of Arizona Latinos supporting Democrats. Meanwhile, 40 % of Arizona Latinos are "ambivalent". The author implies they are probably more likely to vote Democratic. But that can't be assumed. What can be assumed is that many of them are simply not likely to vote. Here's what she says happened in 2016:

Bernie, with the help of the Latino pros, gave a glimpse of what a real effort to engage more Latinos in states like Nevada and Texas would look like. Again, I don't think Tio Bernie or Tio Joe are the right ones. Democrats ought to be looking for Mexican American Tio Bernardos and young Cuban Tia Josefas. The Republicans have Marco Rubio. If Democrats don't do it, Republicans eventually will.

If these numbers are right, Florida is the one state where the Trump Latino base (30 %) is actually bigger than the Democratic Latino base (21 %, which goes up to 34 % if you nudge all the "mobilization" Latino voters). Either way, there's 30 % who are "ambivalent" and could go either way, or just not vote, according to this data.

These numbers make intuitive sense to me based on what actually happened in 2016 and 2018.

In 2016, states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan broke for President Toxic. That was clearly driven by shifts to him from Whites without colleges degrees. Meanwhile, many "natural" Democratic constituencies like Blacks and Millennials just voted less. I've never read anything clear about what Hispanics in Wisconsin or Michigan did in 2016. In 2018 in the same states, higher turnout from Democratic constituencies produced very different results. If this data is correct, Hispanics could be an increasingly important part of El Muro Azul in the Rust Belt. Of those that are engaged, most are Democratic. Only 1 in 10 of them are identified as being in the "Trump base" in these Rust Belt states.

Nevada and Arizona and California were all bright spots for Democrats in 2016 and 2018. In 2016, Hillary won Nevada and held a Senate seat with a Latina. In 2018 we flipped a Senate seat in Arizona. In Orange County we flipped multiple House seats from red to blue. Hispanic candidates and voters had a lot to do with that. In states like Pennsylvania, the challenge is to slow down or stop the drift of White voters without college degrees away from Democrats. In states like Arizona, the challenge is to speed up the movement of Latinos into the Democratic tent.

The one "Latino" stronghold that was the exception, especially in 2018, was Florida. This perhaps helps explain why. According to this data, Democrats have little no natural advantage with Latinos in Florida. In fact, Republicans may have the advantage. Both because they are better at mobilizing their Latino "Trump base", and because they are better at reaching out to ambivalent Latino voters.

One offset is that it seems likely that Biden will do better with older White voters, and Whites without college degrees, than Hillary did. That may be more than enough to offset Democratic problems with Latinos in Florida and all over the US in 2020. But it is not a long term solution.

I don't think this is really a Biden problem. I think it is a huge long term challenge for Democrats.

lol. You're adamantly saying the same things I am and making them sound opposite.

The time-honored, successful, traditional way of uniting a political party for the general election is putting #2 in as VP (or a close surrogate}. The reason that would not work this year (unlike 2016) is that Kamala is the president chosen by the country's owners but the people didn't like her so Biden had to be put in as a placeholder. Of course the DNC kept any reformers out as VP in 2016 also. Clinton/Sanders, Clinton/Warren, or Clinton/Gabbard would have won very easily. They decided they would rather lose than give those people power (or even respect) in the party.

The problem is the young people and Latinos (they prefer over "Latinx") you speak of overwhelmingly support those reformers and it's hard enough to make a U-turn for a general and support those you've opposed all year even when your person is on the ticket as #2 and you're honored in the party. But when your favorite bloggers are threatened online routinely by surrogates of the ticket in the general and you are aware you are very unwelcome in the party, it's hard to get any enthusiasm to vote, even against Trump. And enthusiasm counts as much as preference in the US where about half don't participate.

I live in the middle of Millennial central in DC and what I noticed is while the RBG store ( a women's political store) on the block had lines for T-Shirts the Trader Joe's up the block (the Grand Central of Millennials) was plastered with Jo Jorgenson? placards. Even up on U Street the Black Millennial central there were plenty of placards to save Go-Go but zero for the ticket. During the primaries the discussion was Sanders vs Tulsi vs Yang (with a very few Warrens). Now there's just stylish indifference. I read that in Latino areas, especially in Texas, it's even worse. Maybe the DNC surrogates online are making threats against and crude vulgar jokes about Latinos and Latinas online too so they know how unwelcome they are.

Florida is complex on the "Latino" front because there they are equally Cuban, Central American, and Puerto Rican, with a good group of South Americans too. Most Cubans and South Americans are pretty wealthy. Puerto Ricans are more wealthy than Central Americans. Usually. They divide politically more economically than ethically. Texas, like most of the US, is almost pure Central American/Mexican.

Certainly with Texas polling close this year it's obvious that Bernie would have probably been formidable in the EC with a NY/CA/TX combination. Either Bernie or Warren would have probably picked Castro as VP for that reason. And Latinos are , by far, our biggest minority now @ 20% (and growing fast), They deserve a turn in the presidency.

Edited September 21, 2020 by tassojunior

tassojunior · September 21, 2020

duplicate

Edited September 21, 2020 by tassojunior

Buddy2 · September 21, 2020

17 minutes ago, tassojunior said:

lol. You're adamantly saying the same things I am and making them sound opposite.

The time-honored, successful, traditional way of uniting a political party for the general election is putting #2 in as VP (or a close surrogate}. The reason that would not work this year (unlike 2016) is that Kamala is the president chosen by the country's owners but the people didn't like her so Biden had to be put in as a placeholder. Of course the DNC kept any reformers out as VP in 2016 also. Clinton/Sanders, Clinton/Warren, or Clinton/Gabbard would have won very easily. They decided they would rather lose than give those people power (or even respect) in the party.

The problem is the young people and Latinos (they prefer over "Latinx") you speak of overwhelmingly support those reformers and it's hard enough to make a U-turn for a general and support those you've opposed all year even when your person is on the ticket as #2 and you're honored in the party. But when your favorite bloggers are threatened online routinely by surrogates of the ticket in the general and you are aware you are very unwelcome in the party, it's hard to get any enthusiasm to vote, even against Trump. And enthusiasm counts as much as preference in the US where about half don't participate.

I live in the middle of Millennial central in DC and what I noticed is while the RBG store ( a women's political store) on the block had lines for T-Shirts the Trader Joe's up the block (the Grand Central of Millennials) was plastered with Jo Jorgenson? placards. Even up on U Street the Black Millennial central there were plenty of placards to save Go-Go but zero for the ticket. During the primaries the discussion was Sanders vs Tulsi vs Yang (with a very few Warrens). Now there's just stylish indifference. I read that in Latino areas, especially in Texas, it's even worse. Maybe the DNC surrogates online are making threats against and crude vulgar jokes about Latinos and Latinas online too so they know how unwelcome they are.

Certainly with Texas polling close this year it's obvious that Bernie would have probably been formidable in the EC with a NY/CA/TX combination. Either Bernie or Warren would have probably picked Castro as VP for that reason. And Latinos are , by far, our biggest minority now @ 20% (and growing fast), They deserve a turn in the presidency.

Not always. I wish it were true though. I don't know if Barkley was more or less liberal than Truman. Johnson governed as a liberal on domestic policy, so would Humphrey if elected in 1968. I would have preferred Warren to Harris this year.

If Warren was Black she may have been selected, but her age was a problem.

tassojunior · September 21, 2020

and Jimmy Dore finally had enough of the KHivers threats yesterday and went on a George Carlin rant:

They cry about the pimple but not the bag of chips they ate for 8 years lol great Trump/Obama comparison

Edited September 21, 2020 by tassojunior

tassojunior · September 21, 2020

And I understand it's just normal dirty politics but don't think the Wicked Witch of the Northeast, the Snake, will ever again be acceptable again as an alternative to reformers. This is how the establishment got rid of Bernie. She better get a good job as a reward because she'll be primaried out otherwise:

Edited September 21, 2020 by tassojunior

stevenkesslar · September 21, 2020

1 hour ago, tassojunior said:

lol. You're adamantly saying the same things I am and making them sound opposite.

We do agree about most things. This is about something where we have completely opposite views.

I think we both would be just fine if Sanders or Warren had been the nominee. I would have been just fine with Castro as VP. Florida would have been harder with Sanders and socialism. I don't know Texas would be easier. But it could be a realistic target. The type of massive expansion of the electorate Bernie promised didn't quite materialize. So I don't assume for a minute that Bernie would win because all these young progressives would magically appear. The lesson of Bernie is the opposite. Organizing is hard work. And in a state like Texas, where I think Bernie's army organized their asses off, the results were impressive, I though. But it still wasn't enough.

They lost. In others, they lost. But in the larger sense, they lost. Warren lost, too. I'll go to the grave thinking that the only way either could have won is if they'd agreed upfront that they would both fight like hell to make sure one or the other was going to be the nominee, and they would let the electorate decide which one was best. My observation of them in 2019 suggested to me they had actually cut such a deal. When it all blew up earlier this year, we all learned they had simply agreed to disagree.

That decision, or inability build a coalition, may have doomed both of their candidacies. The thing that has impressed me most about Biden this year is that it is obvious that he is not senile, and that his coalition buildings skills after 50 years in politics are actually quite good. He's not the kind of guy that is magnetic like Obama or ground breaking like Hillary was by virtue of being a woman in politics when most politicians are men. Morning Joe keeps saying politics is about addition, not subtraction. He keeps saying President Toxic has no clue how to do that, in part because he doesn't want to do it. Biden is very good at addition. I think part of the narrative is that 2020 happened to be the year that something Biden was offering all of a sudden looked pretty attractive. Especially compared to President Toxic.

My read of Warren's behavior is that once she realized she couldn't win she started playing for influence. She's a "personnel is policy" person and she's getting her progressive pals placed all around Biden. Bernie is doing the same thing. My impression is that Biden is playing with them more easily than Hillary did. We are seeing a "Biden coalition" being built right before our eyes. So this idea that reformers are being driven out is ridiculous. Biden is embracing them, because he obviously realizes the politics of 2020 is not the politics of 1980 or 2000. And he needs them to win.

In an earlier post you cited Ojeda as an example of how you can be a progressive in West Virginia. True enough. But here's the thing. He lost, too. Manchin won. So the example makes my point, not yours. I'm all for AOC and Cori Bush getting elected. Maybe in 20 or 30 years they could be elected President by the 2040 or 2050 electorate. But I don't think they can be elected today, outside very liberal urban enclaves. Again, how well did Cynthia Nixon do in royal blue New York? What does that tell us about what Democrats want, let alone Republicans?

I gave Jimmy Dore a try for a while, and just stopped listening. He's more fun that Saager and Krystal. Mostly I feel they just parrot dumb ideas, that are often enough built on a factually shoddy analysis. Dore just says lots of provocative shit that he doesn't even try to wed to facts, or polls, or complicated analysis. It's just a good old rant. Which is fine. I obviously love rants. But if he thinks it has anything to do with winning, he's full of shit. Sorry, but the kinds of candidates Jimmy defends and lifts up, like Bernie, are usually the ones that lose.

stevenkesslar · September 21, 2020

58 minutes ago, tassojunior said:

And I understand it's just normal dirty politics but don't think the Wicked Witch of the Northeast, the Snake, will ever again be acceptable again as an alternative to reformers. This is how the establishment got rid of Bernie. She better get a good job as a reward because she'll be primaried out otherwise:

There's two things I find scary about that.

The first reaction is it scares me to think of what Democrats/socialists/whatever will be like if Sanders ever wins. Because if Warren, who Republicans think of as a complete fucking bitch, is a "trashy motherfucker" to progressive women, the tent Bernie builds is gonna be pretty small. Warren is on most scorecards as one the of the most liberal Democrats in the Senate, with Bernie only a bit more to the left. So if she's not welcome, who is?

The second reaction is I don't have to worry about the first reaction. Because Bernie can never win. He can't build coalitions. If Warren is a motherfucking bitch and Kasich is the root of all right wing evil, how do you ever win an election outside Brooklyn? I know. I know. Ojeda will wave his tattoo and people in West Virginia will says, "He's my guy." Cynthia Nixon will put on her progressive high heel shoes and give em that old Sex In The City strut, and the next thing you know she'll be Governor. It never actually happens in reality.

My assumption is that maybe 1 % of these people really are Russian trolls who are paid to post this shit. I could care less about that. Because even if I'm right, and ThiaBallerina is a Russian troll, s/he's just echoing what the other 99 % of genuinely purist progressives are saying.

Part of the political project of the 2020's is that the progressive movement is going to have to learn what it actually means to win and govern. They were not ready for prime time in 2020. But they are getting closer. And they are building a bench with leaders like AOC.

Bernie knows all this. After spending a decade losing and losing and losing, he decided to win and became a popular Mayor himself. But a lot of his followers really don't seem to have a pragmatic bone in their body. Like President Toxic and a lot of his Tea Party followers, they see politics as subtraction, not addition. Hopefully when President Toxic learns that didn't work out so well for him in 2020 the progressive purists will internalize the lesson. By the time we elect someone like Bernie Sanders, I hope we've figured out that if we want them to get re-elected they have to govern well and build coalitions that can actually win.

tassojunior · September 21, 2020

@stevenkesslar AOC is still regional/ethnic but Bernie/Warren/Tulsi/Yang showed it's not hard to become national.

1 hour ago, stevenkesslar said:

There's two things I find scary about that.

The first reaction is it scares me to think of what Democrats/socialists/whatever will be like if Sanders ever wins. Because if Warren, who Republicans think of as a complete fucking bitch, is a "trashy motherfucker" to progressive women, the tent Bernie builds is gonna be pretty small. Warren is on most scorecards as one the of the most liberal Democrats in the Senate, with Bernie only a bit more to the left. So if she's not welcome, who is?

The second reaction is I don't have to worry about the first reaction. Because Bernie can never win. He can't build coalitions. If Warren is a motherfucking bitch and Kasich is the root of all right wing evil, how do you ever win an election outside Brooklyn? I know. I know. Ojeda will wave his tattoo and people in West Virginia will says, "He's my guy." Cynthia Nixon will put on her progressive high heel shoes and give em that old Sex In The City strut, and the next thing you know she'll be Governor. It never actually happens in reality.

My assumption is that maybe 1 % of these people really are Russian trolls who are paid to post this shit. I could care less about that. Because even if I'm right, and ThiaBallerina is a Russian troll, s/he's just echoing what the other 99 % of genuinely purist progressives are saying.

Part of the political project of the 2020's is that the progressive movement is going to have to learn what it actually means to win and govern. They were not ready for prime time in 2020. But they are getting closer. And they are building a bench with leaders like AOC.

Bernie knows all this. After spending a decade losing and losing and losing, he decided to win and became a popular Mayor himself. But a lot of his followers really don't seem to have a pragmatic bone in their body. Like President Toxic and a lot of his Tea Party followers, they see politics as subtraction, not addition. Hopefully when President Toxic learns that didn't work out so well for him in 2020 the progressive purists will internalize the lesson. By the time we elect someone like Bernie Sanders, I hope we've figured out that if we want them to get re-elected they have to govern well and build coalitions that can actually win.

I think Bernie is just about proposals and policies and that's it. No personalities. I flirted with Warren as a female Bernie even though I was suspicious about why she simply said she had every policy of Bernie's but didn't back him in 2016 (people warned me). After the Clintonista attack it became obvious others were right. She had been set up in the primaries solely to be a foil to Bernie and split the progressive vote as much as possible. IF she had withdrawn before Super Tuesday and endorsed Bernie who she claimed to agree with 100%, Bernie would have very possibly won. Obviously the DNC programmed that strategy very precisly all the way through. The trouble is it was so obvious in the end it just soured people on the Democratic Party. Sometimes you can be too smart and too clever too obviously. Which is why honesty and candidness is usually the best policy now. People are too smart for the games and manipulation.

But the tactic of harassing and threatening the losing side after you win is a lot worse this year than 2016 and would ordinarily be political suicide if Trump weren't so immensely unpopular. The Dems are spending all their time attacking the reformers and people who advocate for policy change rather than recruiting voters. Last person that worked for was Stalin.

Edited September 21, 2020 by tassojunior

tassojunior · September 21, 2020

3 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

There's two things I find scary about that.

The first reaction is it scares me to think of what Democrats/socialists/whatever will be like if Sanders ever wins. Because if Warren, who Republicans think of as a complete fucking bitch, is a "trashy motherfucker" to progressive women, the tent Bernie builds is gonna be pretty small. Warren is on most scorecards as one the of the most liberal Democrats in the Senate, with Bernie only a bit more to the left. So if she's not welcome, who is?

The second reaction is I don't have to worry about the first reaction. Because Bernie can never win. He can't build coalitions. If Warren is a motherfucking bitch and Kasich is the root of all right wing evil, how do you ever win an election outside Brooklyn? I know. I know. Ojeda will wave his tattoo and people in West Virginia will says, "He's my guy." Cynthia Nixon will put on her progressive high heel shoes and give em that old Sex In The City strut, and the next thing you know she'll be Governor. It never actually happens in reality.

My assumption is that maybe 1 % of these people really are Russian trolls who are paid to post this shit. I could care less about that. Because even if I'm right, and ThiaBallerina is a Russian troll, s/he's just echoing what the other 99 % of genuinely purist progressives are saying.

Part of the political project of the 2020's is that the progressive movement is going to have to learn what it actually means to win and govern. They were not ready for prime time in 2020. But they are getting closer. And they are building a bench with leaders like AOC.

Bernie knows all this. After spending a decade losing and losing and losing, he decided to win and became a popular Mayor himself. But a lot of his followers really don't seem to have a pragmatic bone in their body. Like President Toxic and a lot of his Tea Party followers, they see politics as subtraction, not addition. Hopefully when President Toxic learns that didn't work out so well for him in 2020 the progressive purists will internalize the lesson. By the time we elect someone like Bernie Sanders, I hope we've figured out that if we want them to get re-elected they have to govern well and build coalitions that can actually win.

There are plenty of candidates on the left who don't only stick to the politically correct and cross ideological boundaries (and get shit from the party establishment for doing so). Joe Rogan 100% backed Bernie. Trump, Bannon, and half the GOP Congress were infatuated with Tulsi. Yang draws support from the left and right equally. So long as someone is honest and respects common people they're going to have an advantage over crooks and elitists. That's how rare honest people are and how esteemed they are now.

and btw- AOC can hold her own unlike our glass-jawed nominees:

Edited September 21, 2020 by tassojunior

stevenkesslar · September 21, 2020

3 hours ago, tassojunior said:

She had been set up in the primaries solely to be a foil to Bernie and split the progressive vote as much as possible. IF she had withdrawn before Super Tuesday and endorsed Bernie who she claimed to agree with 100%, Bernie would have very possibly won.

You're sort of the opposite of the Team Toxic Trumpians arguing Biden is senile. They got themselves in this box. It turns out Biden can open his mouth and speak, and move people. Beyond that, it looks like Team Biden won the law and order debate in Wisconsin, and nationally. Too early to tell. But a majority, including Independents, seem to agree that there is a systemic racism problem. And President Toxic is simply throwing fuel on the fire. So now they have to explain how this happened. Are they giving Biden drugs? They must be doing something to make it seem like the senile old corpse has a functioning brain.

Well over 50 % of America observes this and feels the Trump nonsense and toxic circus is exhausting.

You're doing the opposite. I think we'd both agree that the DNC is a bit like the Keystone Kops. They get hacked, DWS puts her foot in her mouth. We'll learn about all the 2020 fuck ups after the election. But in 2016 they were kind of a mess. And yet, these same people came up with a perfectly thought through master plan and executed it perfectly. Elizabeth Warren was set up as the spoiler who could not win but could make Bernie lose. And she fooled tens of millions of followers. Because at one point Biden and her were tied for first. But that was just all manipulated masterfully by these brilliant people who we all thought couldn't organize their way out of a paper bag.

Okay. Whatever.

There are three things that stood out to me about Super Tuesday. The most important one is the opposite of your argument.

The first was that the only logical explanation for the Biden groundswell was that Lichtman is right. People are not sheep. They don't need little pieces of paper on their doorknob or 30 second ads that are intended to emotionally manipulate them. Because Biden had none of that. And in Minnesota and Massachusetts I literally mean none. No money. No ads. No organization. But people looked at the situation and said he's our guy to get President Toxic fired, at least given the choices we have available. So if you are right, and the DNC was behind all this, there surely would have been bread crumbs. Even Putin, a master spy, left hundreds of pages of bread crumbs behind if you read the reports. How did the DNC get away with it? How did they get people to vote for Biden if not through ads, or money, or organization - which is what the DNC does?

My conclusion is not that there is a conspiracy. The opposite. It's that there was a legitimate Democratic AND Independent groundswell for Biden. Carville, as usual, had a pithy line. It was something like this: "The Democratic Party needed an intervention. And the voters, thank God, provided it."

The second thing is that's when I decided that Biden is certainly not senile. And that he is in fact a pretty good manipulator and coalition builder. If I'm right, most of it was going on behind the scenes. But, again, there were bread crumbs everywhere. Pete and Klo and Kamala were persuaded to endorse him. Like immediately. And that was leveraged into a ton of free media. Beyond that, people saw what happened in South Carolina thanks to what Clyburn and Biden managed to do, and thought some more.

You can certainly argue that all this was in a script that DWS or HRC or Biden himself wrote two years ago. (Biden could not, of course, since he's senile.) So the script would be that Biden would lose Iowa and NH and Nevada and look pretty much humiliated, and then have this amazing come from behind victory in South Carolina. That can be organized easy, right? Wrong. It can't be organized easily, or at all.

One of the best descriptions of politics I ever read was by Leon Panetta. Politics, he said, is not about having the best plan to win a war. It's about getting up every morning and figuring out how to take the next hill. Then when you do that you figure out how to take the next hill. Sometimes you will lose the battle. So you have to regroup and recalibrate. The people who do this well in politics tend to be the survivors, and the winners. I like that description. I think it accurately describes how Joe Biden has survived, and how he won the 2020 primary.

This is NOT - by no means - the way most Berniecrats think. They think they need the right plan to win the revolution. How well did that actually work in 2020? That said, so far AOC seems like someone who may end up being quite good at winning her battles one hill at a time.

This may be a good way to think about what went wrong for Elizabeth "I Have A Plan" Warren. I loved her plans. And so did a lot of people. And she's actually pretty good, I think, at rolling with the punches. But Biden's soft attack on her was spot on. We're not electing a planner. We're electing a President. I'm a Warren fanboy, and the idea of a Biden nomination scared the shit out of me last year. So I don't have a deep pro-Biden bias. But if the question is who is better at politics based on Leon Panetta's definition, I think Biden proved he was better. You can argue Leon Panetta is another corrupt party hack who is full of shit. But if the goal is to win and take power, he seems to know some things that accurately portray who is likely to win, and why.

Third, the interesting thing about Warren is that unlike Klo and Pete and Kamala and half of all elected Democrats in America, she didn't endorse either Biden or Bernie. Even though I think we know Bernie begged her to. At the time, my idealistic impulses won out. I thought she should endorse Bernie, if only to go down fighting together. I now feel my impulse was wrong, and I'm glad she didn't. I knew by that point Bernie was dead politically. No poll ever suggested that in a two way race, Bernie would get more votes than Biden. Again, I'll go to the grave thinking that the only math that could have prevented Biden from getting to 50 % is if Warren and Bernie got more delegates than Biden working as a progressive dynamic duo.

This by the way invalidates your entire conspiracy theory. The best thing for Biden would have been a clean one on one race with Bernie. It was always likely, based on just about 100 % of hundreds of polls, that he would win that one on one race. So getting Warren or Kamala or Pete in the mix was not the Biden plan. And it did not help Biden. He needed to get everyone else out so he could go one on one with Bernie. Any hopeful notion that Bernie would win one on one with Biden in states like Michigan died as soon as the votes came in.

The reason I'm glad Warren did not do what my idealistic impulses wanted her to do is it may have reduced her ability to influence what happens down the line. That's a function of Biden, really. If he holds deep grudges, he's very good at hiding it. Warren endorsing Bernie would not have changed the tide. But it may have slowed it down, and given Bernie/Elizabeth a bit more influence. The basic outcome would have been the same.

It's clear to me that Biden, Bernie, and Elizabeth are now all three peas in a pod. Like I said, the real battles will come when Biden wins. But Bernie and Elizabeth are both in positions of influence.

Another logical melt down of the Warren "evil snake" conspiracy theory is this. Anyone who believes that shit should not have been expecting Warren to ally with Bernie. They should believe their own theory. The bitch is an evil snake. So what they really needed to do was expose her for the evil snake she is. Putin could hack the DNC. So some whiz Berniecrat computer geek ought to be able to hack the DNC and get the plan. Show America the conspiracy hatched by the reptiles back in 2019 or 2018 or whatever. This fucking bitch evil snake Elizabeth Warren is being run to stick her awful venomous fangs into Bernie at exactly the right moment. Everything good and righteous will be destroyed. Evil will reign the Earth. And it is because of that fucking bitch evil snake Elizabeth Warren. I'm taking it to the extreme. But if you believe the conspiracy theory, you have to believe some version of that.

I felt sorry for Bernie, who I ended up voting for because Warren would have been a throwaway vote in California. Kute Kyle was fact free on this one. First he argued that this notion that Bernie was trashing Warren had to be a plant from the evil snake herself. Then when it became clear that Bernie did have a script that "trashed" Warren, Kyle shifted to explaining that Bernie said he hadn't been aware of it, he stopped it, and it wasn't really a big deal.

In fact, it wasn't a big deal. Compared to the shit Obama and Clinton threw at each other in 2008, the 2020 primary was kid gloves. It's fair to ask why Warren said anything about it. But she certainly had the right. The amusing thing was all the "evil snake" stuff simply confirmed that everyone spreading the "Bernie Bros." meme had a point. Here you have a feminist champion who gets in bloody fights with any super powerful male bank CEO or Treasury Secretary who disagrees with her. And the Bernie Bros are calling her an "evil snake"??? And then AFTER you do that you expect her to get in the trenches and fight with you? Why would you even want an evil snake in the trench with you? She'll bite you. It makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

The thing that I would compare it to now is President Toxic blabbing his ignorant mind to Woodward. To quote Claire McCaskill, this was just stupid, stupid, stupid. And monumentally stupid. But there's a difference between an old and possibly senile President being monumentally stupid, and young idealists being monumentally stupid. I was once young and idealistic myself. And I said and did lots of things far more stupid than that.

I'll repeat what I said. This is a big part of the political project of the 2020's. More than a few of the Berniecrats are politically immature. And some of them are just immature, period. The ones active in 2008 were arguably too naive. They thought if they just won the battle in 2008, they'd won the war. Now they know better. The 2020 version is more than a bit like Tea Party 2010/Trump Party 2016. Now they are pissed, for good cause. And some of them are lashing out. But as I posted above, and as I would have guessed, they are a gifted and promising generation. They seem to have their eyes on the prize. They want to win in 2020. I obviously hope they elect Biden and do everything they can to hold his aqing ass to the fire.

My worst fear is that the Berniecrats, when they take power, will be like the Tea Party or Trump Party, or worse. Meaning zealots. Incapable of governing. More interested in purity tests than incremental progress.

That is certainly the way they are being portrayed right now. Team Toxic can't make Biden look like a Marxist. At least Kamala is Black, and a woman. That gives them something to work with. (More to come on that in a separate post.) The idea of the President Toxic campaign is that if we elect poor senile Joe all of these dark forces that represent the very heart and soul of evil will be unleashed on America. That's the Bernie Bros/Our Revolution/BLM/Bernie as Che/Elizabeth as Pocahontas stuff packaged in shit and put on steroids. It's fair to say they are using the fear of Bernie and his ilk, and even Kamala and her ilk, to try to scare people into not voting for Joe.

I actually do believe the political evolution of what I'm calling the Berniecrats will be one of the most important trends in the 2020's. And it could go either right or wrong. My main reason for hoping it will go right is that they are the opposite of The Tea Party in at least one important way. The Tea Party was mostly people who think government - like Obamacare- is the root of all evil and is not be to be trusted. While you could not have guessed it in 2010, President Toxic has articulated their philosophy perfectly. Go in, flip over the table, break the glass, and go after the "Deep State" relentlessly. They are more complicated than that. But if their idea is freedom means not wearing a mask, complexity is not their strong suit.

My hope and belief is that the progressives believe the opposite. They actually want a government that takes things like climate change and systemic racism seriously. You can't address climate change if you don't know how to govern. So they will have to figure it out. And they are.

What happened with The Squad this year was a good omen. Yeah, they say some inflammatory things that is red meat for Team Toxic to attack with. Had they all been crushed in their primaries, you could conclude that the voters wanted to send them all back to the shit holes they came from. Instead, the primary voters ratified and empowered them. These are not women that think Bernie and Elizabeth are snakes. These are women who want to be Bernie or Elizabeth in the future. Leaders of the progressive movement.

We - progressives - were not ready for prime time in 2020. I'm optimistic about the future.

Sadly, @tassojunior, I assume you must not be. If you assume the evil reptiles pulled off a conspiracy to block and expel progressives in 2016 and 2020, they will no doubt do the same in 2024, 2028, 2032, etc. If you believe this, you have my deepest sympathies. It must really suck to be you.

Edited September 21, 2020 by stevenkesslar

tassojunior · September 22, 2020

4 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

You're sort of the opposite of the Team Toxic Trumpians arguing Biden is senile. They got themselves in this box. It turns out Biden can open his mouth and speak, and move people. Beyond that, it looks like Team Biden won the law and order debate in Wisconsin, and nationally. Too early to tell. But a majority, including Independents, seem to agree that there is a systemic racism problem. And President Toxic is simply throwing fuel on the fire. So now they have to explain how this happened. Are they giving Biden drugs? They must be doing something to make it seem like the senile old corpse has a functioning brain.

Well over 50 % of America observes this and feels the Trump nonsense and toxic circus is exhausting.

You're doing the opposite. I think we'd both agree that the DNC is a bit like the Keystone Kops. They get hacked, DWS puts her foot in her mouth. We'll learn about all the 2020 fuck ups after the election. But in 2016 they were kind of a mess. And yet, these same people came up with a perfectly thought through master plan and executed it perfectly. Elizabeth Warren was set up as the spoiler who could not win but could make Bernie lose. And she fooled tens of millions of followers. Because at one point Biden and her were tied for first. But that was just all manipulated masterfully by these brilliant people who we all thought couldn't organize their way out of a paper bag.

Okay. Whatever.

There are three things that stood out to me about Super Tuesday. The most important one is the opposite of your argument.

The first was that the only logical explanation for the Biden groundswell was that Lichtman is right. People are not sheep. They don't need little pieces of paper on their doorknob or 30 second ads that are intended to emotionally manipulate them. Because Biden had none of that. And in Minnesota and Massachusetts I literally mean none. No money. No ads. No organization. But people looked at the situation and said he's our guy to get President Toxic fired, at least given the choices we have available. So if you are right, and the DNC was behind all this, there surely would have been bread crumbs. Even Putin, a master spy, left hundreds of pages of bread crumbs behind if you read the reports. How did the DNC get away with it? How did they get people to vote for Biden if not through ads, or money, or organization - which is what the DNC does?

My conclusion is not that there is a conspiracy. The opposite. It's that there was a legitimate Democratic AND Independent groundswell for Biden. Carville, as usual, had a pithy line. It was something like this: "The Democratic Party needed an intervention. And the voters, thank God, provided it."

The second thing is that's when I decided that Biden is certainly not senile. And that he is in fact a pretty good manipulator and coalition builder. If I'm right, most of it was going on behind the scenes. But, again, there were bread crumbs everywhere. Pete and Klo and Kamala were persuaded to endorse him. Like immediately. And that was leveraged into a ton of free media. Beyond that, people saw what happened in South Carolina thanks to what Clyburn and Biden managed to do, and thought some more.

You can certainly argue that all this was in a script that DWS or HRC or Biden himself wrote two years ago. (Biden could not, of course, since he's senile.) So the script would be that Biden would lose Iowa and NH and Nevada and look pretty much humiliated, and then have this amazing come from behind victory in South Carolina. That can be organized easy, right? Wrong. It can't be organized easily, or at all.

One of the best descriptions of politics I ever read was by Leon Panetta. Politics, he said, is not about having the best plan to win a war. It's about getting up every morning and figuring out how to take the next hill. Then when you do that you figure out how to take the next hill. Sometimes you will lose the battle. So you have to regroup and recalibrate. The people who do this well in politics tend to be the survivors, and the winners. I like that description. I think it accurately describes how Joe Biden has survived, and how he won the 2020 primary.

This is NOT - by no means - the way most Berniecrats think. They think they need the right plan to win the revolution. How well did that actually work in 2020? That said, so far AOC seems like someone who may end up being quite good at winning her battles one hill at a time.

This may be a good way to think about what went wrong for Elizabeth "I Have A Plan" Warren. I loved her plans. And so did a lot of people. And she's actually pretty good, I think, at rolling with the punches. But Biden's soft attack on her was spot on. We're not electing a planner. We're electing a President. I'm a Warren fanboy, and the idea of a Biden nomination scared the shit out of me last year. So I don't have a deep pro-Biden bias. But if the question is who is better at politics based on Leon Panetta's definition, I think Biden proved he was better. You can argue Leon Panetta is another corrupt party hack who is full of shit. But if the goal is to win and take power, he seems to know some things that accurately portray who is likely to win, and why.

Third, the interesting thing about Warren is that unlike Klo and Pete and Kamala and half of all elected Democrats in America, she didn't endorse either Biden or Bernie. Even though I think we know Bernie begged her to. At the time, my idealistic impulses won out. I thought she should endorse Bernie, if only to go down fighting together. I now feel my impulse was wrong, and I'm glad she didn't. I knew by that point Bernie was dead politically. No poll ever suggested that in a two way race, Bernie would get more votes than Biden. Again, I'll go to the grave thinking that the only math that could have prevented Biden from getting to 50 % is if Warren and Bernie got more delegates than Biden working as a progressive dynamic duo.

This by the way invalidates your entire conspiracy theory. The best thing for Biden would have been a clean one on one race with Bernie. It was always likely, based on just about 100 % of hundreds of polls, that he would win that one on one race. So getting Warren or Kamala or Pete in the mix was not the Biden plan. And it did not help Biden. He needed to get everyone else out so he could go one on one with Bernie. Any hopeful notion that Bernie would win one on one with Biden in states like Michigan died as soon as the votes came in.

The reason I'm glad Warren did not do what my idealistic impulses wanted her to do is it may have reduced her ability to influence what happens down the line. That's a function of Biden, really. If he holds deep grudges, he's very good at hiding it. Warren endorsing Bernie would not have changed the tide. But it may have slowed it down, and given Bernie/Elizabeth a bit more influence. The basic outcome would have been the same.

It's clear to me that Biden, Bernie, and Elizabeth are now all three peas in a pod. Like I said, the real battles will come when Biden wins. But Bernie and Elizabeth are both in positions of influence.

Another logical melt down of the Warren "evil snake" conspiracy theory is this. Anyone who believes that shit should not have been expecting Warren to ally with Bernie. They should believe their own theory. The bitch is an evil snake. So what they really needed to do was expose her for the evil snake she is. Putin could hack the DNC. So some whiz Berniecrat computer geek ought to be able to hack the DNC and get the plan. Show America the conspiracy hatched by the reptiles back in 2019 or 2018 or whatever. This fucking bitch evil snake Elizabeth Warren is being run to stick her awful venomous fangs into Bernie at exactly the right moment. Everything good and righteous will be destroyed. Evil will reign the Earth. And it is because of that fucking bitch evil snake Elizabeth Warren. I'm taking it to the extreme. But if you believe the conspiracy theory, you have to believe some version of that.

I felt sorry for Bernie, who I ended up voting for because Warren would have been a throwaway vote in California. Kute Kyle was fact free on this one. First he argued that this notion that Bernie was trashing Warren had to be a plant from the evil snake herself. Then when it became clear that Bernie did have a script that "trashed" Warren, Kyle shifted to explaining that Bernie said he hadn't been aware of it, he stopped it, and it wasn't really a big deal.

In fact, it wasn't a big deal. Compared to the shit Obama and Clinton threw at each other in 2008, the 2020 primary was kid gloves. It's fair to ask why Warren said anything about it. But she certainly had the right. The amusing thing was all the "evil snake" stuff simply confirmed that everyone spreading the "Bernie Bros." meme had a point. Here you have a feminist champion who gets in bloody fights with any super powerful male bank CEO or Treasury Secretary who disagrees with her. And the Bernie Bros are calling her an "evil snake"??? And then AFTER you do that you expect her to get in the trenches and fight with you? Why would you even want an evil snake in the trench with you? She'll bite you. It makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

The thing that I would compare it to now is President Toxic blabbing his ignorant mind to Woodward. To quote Claire McCaskill, this was just stupid, stupid, stupid. And monumentally stupid. But there's a difference between an old and possibly senile President being monumentally stupid, and young idealists being monumentally stupid. I was once young and idealistic myself. And I said and did lots of things far more stupid than that.

I'll repeat what I said. This is a big part of the political project of the 2020's. More than a few of the Berniecrats are politically immature. And some of them are just immature, period. The ones active in 2008 were arguably too naive. They thought if they just won the battle in 2008, they'd won the war. Now they know better. The 2020 version is more than a bit like Tea Party 2010/Trump Party 2016. Now they are pissed, for good cause. And some of them are lashing out. But as I posted above, and as I would have guessed, they are a gifted and promising generation. They seem to have their eyes on the prize. They want to win in 2020. I obviously hope they elect Biden and do everything they can to hold his aqing ass to the fire.

My worst fear is that the Berniecrats, when they take power, will be like the Tea Party or Trump Party, or worse. Meaning zealots. Incapable of governing. More interested in purity tests than incremental progress.

That is certainly the way they are being portrayed right now. Team Toxic can't make Biden look like a Marxist. At least Kamala is Black, and a woman. That gives them something to work with. (More to come on that in a separate post.) The idea of the President Toxic campaign is that if we elect poor senile Joe all of these dark forces that represent the very heart and soul of evil will be unleashed on America. That's the Bernie Bros/Our Revolution/BLM/Bernie as Che/Elizabeth as Pocahontas stuff packaged in shit and put on steroids. It's fair to say they are using the fear of Bernie and his ilk, and even Kamala and her ilk, to try to scare people into not voting for Joe.

I actually do believe the political evolution of what I'm calling the Berniecrats will be one of the most important trends in the 2020's. And it could go either right or wrong. My main reason for hoping it will go right is that they are the opposite of The Tea Party in at least one important way. The Tea Party was mostly people who think government - like Obamacare- is the root of all evil and is not be to be trusted. While you could not have guessed it in 2010, President Toxic has articulated their philosophy perfectly. Go in, flip over the table, break the glass, and go after the "Deep State" relentlessly. They are more complicated than that. But if their idea is freedom means not wearing a mask, complexity is not their strong suit.

My hope and belief is that the progressives believe the opposite. They actually want a government that takes things like climate change and systemic racism seriously. You can't address climate change if you don't know how to govern. So they will have to figure it out. And they are.

What happened with The Squad this year was a good omen. Yeah, they say some inflammatory things that is red meat for Team Toxic to attack with. Had they all been crushed in their primaries, you could conclude that the voters wanted to send them all back to the shit holes they came from. Instead, the primary voters ratified and empowered them. These are not women that think Bernie and Elizabeth are snakes. These are women who want to be Bernie or Elizabeth in the future. Leaders of the progressive movement.

We - progressives - were not ready for prime time in 2020. I'm optimistic about the future.

Sadly, @tassojunior, I assume you must not be. If you assume the evil reptiles pulled off a conspiracy to block and expel progressives in 2016 and 2020, they will no doubt do the same in 2024, 2028, 2032, etc. If you believe this, you have my deepest sympathies. It must really suck to be you.

It does indeed suck to know that both parties are evil and stupid and corrupt. Things were nicer when I still believed in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny vs the BoogeyMan, in God vs. the Devil. Sometimes you have to grow up and recognize from experience an obviously too-smart cynical tactic for what it is and when I'm subjected to one it turns me off the candidate or group using it. Honesty and candidness wins me over and I personally think it is the best "tactic" or strategy. Hopefully more candidates will adopt this devious strategy.

stevenkesslar · September 22, 2020

13 hours ago, tassojunior said:

The reason that would not work this year (unlike 2016) is that Kamala is the president chosen by the country's owners but the people didn't like her so Biden had to be put in as a placeholder.

And speaking of cynical.

I ended up having a four hour phone conversation yesterday with a former client/friend and the subject of Kamala came up. It also had a lot to do with all these points we've been posting about relating to Independents. So this is a wandering rant about Independents and the fucked up politics of America Divided 2020.

This guy, who I've known for 20 years, is my poster child for understanding Independent thinking. That said, I think that in part because the tendencies I notice in him match with what I've seen with Independents in poll after poll after poll. When I read polls I pay the most attention to what Independents think. Because usually their views are in between where Democrats and Republicans are, even though they are not necessarily centrists. So they are the ones who more likely than not will determine whether candidates or policies win or lose.

At this point I'd hardly describe myself as objective or dispassionate. But I do try to read and hear opposing points of view. I'm developing an increasingly hardened and pessimistic view about the political era we are in. Which is to say I think the polarization and disunity will remain with us for a very long time, and perhaps intensify. And on balance I think Independents will be of no real pragmatic use in bringing the two sides together. They'll keep doing what they do. They broke for Obama in 2008, Romney in 2012, Trump in 2016, and it looks like Biden now in 2020. In theory you could call that bipartisanship. But in reality it means we're divided, increasingly polarized, and nothing ever gets done unless one party can dominate.

So the goal of the Democratic Party, to me, should be to try to dominate - which includes winning over enough Independents as often as we can. What I told this guy is it means treating him like a lab rat in a maze and just getting very good at figuring out where we want Independents to go with delicious pieces of cheese. He took that as an insult, which is how it was meant. But everything I heard in four hours and in 20 years of knowing him suggests that's the real bottom line. If his job as an Independent is to be thoughtful and more objective than a Democrat like me and help create some stable majority that can solve big problems, he's failing.

Everything I heard for four hours suggested this is probably the most sober view of reality. Politics will be increasingly winner take all, not both sides trying to find a way to compromise. An important caveat: it will also be loser take all, if you are President Toxic and you lose the popular vote by 2 million votes. You still claim democratic legitimacy to invent whatever rules you want and drive through three conservative justices. You argue "the American people spoke" and that's what gave you the right to do it. Fuck Democrats, and fuck Crooked Hillary, and fuck RBG.

My friend told me there's two things he's hearing a lot among his friends. "His friends" would include people like the CEOs of the local banks and hospitals, who are all sort of country clubs friends with their US Senators and House members. He's worked with and served on boards with God knows how many current and former Governors as part of his business. So if there is such a thing as "the country's owners", these are people who either are in that group, or at least know who the group is. (By the way, can you post a list of the country's owners. I'm curious. :blink: )

The two things he said he's been hearing the most are the sense of deep exhaustion with all the antics of President Toxic, which turn him and most of the people he knows off. The other thing is that the concerns are about Kamala, not Biden. Part of the thinking is that Biden has lost a step, and Kamala may be President. That's not viewed as a positive. She may be too liberal. There were some unfavorable references to Black Lives Matter, although it wasn't clear to me whether that sense had anything to do with Kamala herself. At some point I decided I really didn't want to probe his views of Kamala too much, because he'd just be showing me how ignorant he is and piss me off.

In the terms of your comment, @tassojunior, if Kamala is the person the country's owners chose, this guy hasn't gotten the memo. He is pretty much smack dab in the Establishment Center, meaning like people from Democrat Bob Graham on the left to Chuck Grassley on the right. No Bernie, no Tea Party. They are worried about Kamala. Which does not surprise me in the least.

These are the kinds of reactions that probably suggested to Hillary in 2016 that she was better off with Kaine. And at least in my friend's case, it worked. He despised Trump but hated the idea of voting for Hillary, who he has met and worked with. So he planned to vote for Gary Johnson. Before he voted it struck him that President Toxic would be such a disaster that he'd rather be stuck with Hillary. Having Kaine on the ticket rather than Bernie probably made his vote for Hillary easier for him to bear.

There's two ways I have described my friend to his face for years that I think describe two of the best and worst qualities of Indepedents. First, he's an early warning system. That's meant as a compliment. Second, he's a dilettante. That's of course meant, and taken, as an insult. As a result, he's like you. Reactive, and mostly unhappy and negative. The two parties suck, a pox on both their houses, and there's nothing I can do about it.

That's my picture of the environment many Independents have created for themselves. So they'll basically keep punishing any party that does anything. Because they don't like what either party does. At least if you are a Democrat, you liked what your government did in 2009. Republicans mostly liked what their government did in 2017. Many Independents are never happy, and never able to do anything about it. They haven't figured out how to have a party of their own, like the Green Party in Europe. So all they can do is bitch, pick the lesser of evils, and bitch more.

His messages last night fit exactly into my view of what Independents like him add to the debate. It's not exactly news that there is Trump fatigue and Kamala jitters. For me, it was one little piece of data I take as an early warning system. It's another indicator President Toxic will lose, because people in the center of political gravity are sick of him. But there are these Kamala jitters that could blow up. Less likely in this campaign, if she makes some gaffe or says something that sounds too scary to moderates. More likely down the line, if she becomes President or looks like she could become President.

It also was, to me, a great example of being a dilettante. I told him he was feeding me buzz words and bumper stickers from Trump commercials. Biden is senile. He's surrounded by scary socialists. Be afraid. My friend hasn't made any effort I could discern to study Kamala's history or any of the controversies around her positions. At one point I mentioned things Biden is saying about saving jobs in Michigan. He asked me why it would matter what Biden says about what Obama did. I told him that it matters because Obama put Biden in charge of the Recovery Act, and things like working with the unions and auto industry to save and restore manufacturing jobs. My friend knew none of this. So if the job of an Independent is to be objective and knowledgeable and committed to making our politics better, sorry. He fails. He didn't like hearing that. But I didn't hear a good rebuttal.

His main point is that both parties ought to be working to persuade people like him. I get the idea, and he's not wrong. But I couldn't help notice - this has been a pattern for 20 years - that he's making a lot of his decisions based on impressions you get in 30 second attacks ads. During 2014, for example, I got very annoyed with the constant refrain of how Obamacare is "crap, crap, crap". I'm sure he got that from any of the thousands of Republican attack ads.

I stated, and my friend agreed, that it would be better if we could go back to the politics of the 1990's. Back then George Mitchell and Bob Dole met weekly and had a cordial relationship. Bill Clinton and John Kasich are examples of politicians of that time who say that members of both parties could mostly sit down together and solve problems through compromise. By most objective metrics - job growth, income levels, poverty reduction, wealth creation, home ownership, federal budget surpluses - it was a good decade for most Americans.

And in an environment like that Independents could elect Bill Clinton in 1992, then punish him in 1994, then re-elect him in 1996, then punish him in 1998. And it all worked out okay. Because whether the Clinton people or the Kasich people had more or less power, they could still compromise and get shit done. They claimed that they understood their job was to make life better for the American people. Right around then was one of the few times in my adult life when over 50 % of Americans said they trusted the federal government to mostly get things right. I think that's causation.

I also stated, and my friend agreed, that we're probably not going to get back to that in our lifetimes. We even more likely won't get back to the Ike and JFK eras, where 3 in 4 Americans trusted their government. He agreed. Again, if Independents have a plan to get what they want, I don't hear it. He's not happy. But he has no plan to fix it other than, "You guys should make me happy about what you do."

I mentioned Rick Wilson, of Never Trump Republican/Lincoln Project/"Everything Trump Touches Dies" fame. There's two things about him that matter to me. First, I've heard him talk online about how in his GOP days he could get just about any House Democrat fired by checking the gun registrations, cross referencing it with voter registrations, and sending targeted messages to Democratic male gun owners that sent them into a frenzy. ("The socialists are coming for your guns!") I use him as an example of how you find the right piece of cheese to lure the rat in the maze to where you want. Wilson also talks about how the Republicans had to be strategic and thoughtful about cultivating Republicans who could be elected Governor in states like Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maryland. Obviously, they succeeded. And they are not like Republican Governors in West Virginia or Texas or Idaho.

I think that's the challenge for Democrats. I think there is a role for Independents. But it's not a pretty one.

I think Democrats have to be strategic and thoughtful about building a party where we can try to secure at least 270 electoral votes. And get rid of the electoral college as soon as we can. And also try to secure 50 Senate seats and a majority of House seats for several cycles. That involves your dreaded suburban women, and Democrats like Lucy McBath in suburban Atlanta and Lauren Underwood in suburban Chicago. We're going to have to figure out things that both Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin can agree on. That won't be easy. But like I said above, the Republicans could figure it out with red Governors in blue states.

My sense with Independents like my friend and you is you are doomed to political misery. But at the end of the day the Rick Wilson-like political task is to lure you with a nice piece of cheese through the maze to where I want you to go, which is a voting booth where you vote Democratic. Example: you won't like what Joe Biden does on health care. It won't be Medicare For All. But you can decide that in 2022 you want Republicans to win big and start to try to repeal whatever Biden does, like in 2010. Or you can follow that awfully delicious piece of cheese and keep the House and Senate Democratic. That's basically all you get to decide. Cheese, or Tom Cotton? Your decision. If you really don't like the cheese and do nothing, you can have President Nikki Haley in 2024. Or President Don Jr. Wouldn't that be swell?

I said it to my friend and to you that way to sound like an arrogant prick and get a reaction. But I don't think I'm fundamentally wrong. At the federal level, I'm planning on 100 % Republican obstruction. More likely than not, they will fill RBG's seat. That will set the tone for much of what follows, if Democrats take the Senate.

The message to Republicans I like is: "You can sit there for four or eight years and watch us work. We have the minimum votes. Or you can participate and compromise." At some point they might decide to participate and compromise. At least The Squad, which has four votes, is on the team that wants to compromise with each other and have a majority that can legislate and govern.

Edited September 22, 2020 by stevenkesslar

tassojunior · September 22, 2020

@stevenkesslar

On the other board well over a year ago I said that I had heard Kamala was the party owners' firm decision as next party nominee, that the primaries were a formality.

The theme of the DNC to Republicans in 2020 is, "Take our party, it's yours." and the motto is "We won't change a thing".

The charade of democracy and choice gets pretty thin.

JKane · September 22, 2020

stevenkesslar · September 23, 2020

On 9/22/2020 at 8:43 AM, tassojunior said:

On the other board well over a year ago I said that I had heard Kamala was the party owners' firm decision as next party nominee, that the primaries were a formality.

Just out of curiosity, still waiting to see the list of the party's owners.

In case it isn't obvious, I do have an ego. I just hate being the last one to know. :frantics:

tassojunior · September 24, 2020

7 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

Just out of curiosity, still waiting to see the list of the party's owners.

In case it isn't obvious, I do have an ego. I just hate being the last one to know.

Sorry but i'm having to deal with WebOS on my new LG tv until my laptop is connected to it or I'm on my phone long enough to draft. Haven't figured out any cut and paste on this LG but Warren actually has a good article on how the 1% owns more than the bottom 90% of the US now. (We bougies in the other 9% are tolerated for the time being. They could probably manage 95% with 4% what with AI now). If you were unaware McDonnell-Douglas, Boeing, Microsoft, Google, Goldman-Sachs, Time-Warner, Citigroup, Facebook, Amazon, and a very few other international corps and their major owners pretty much run the show, including the entertainment of a "two-party system", I won't try to convince you. Our "leaders" they pay don't get W-2's. They get $50 and $100 million dollar mansions around the country and $250,000 "speaking fees" (often for speeches never given).

But in DC all the thousands of lobbyists (and strategists) know who the big boys are. It used tto be certain politicians were "owned" by this group or corporation or another. Now that it's more concentrated financial power, almost everyone's subserviant to the same few. My friend Jon the Koch lobbyist funnels to both Dems and GOP now. He's pushing hard for Biden now because they think the "centrist liberal" Dems are better Republicans than the Trumpists are and more likely to get conservative things (like wars) done. It's not personal against Trump, it's just business.

Edited September 24, 2020 by tassojunior

stevenkesslar · September 24, 2020

27 minutes ago, tassojunior said:

My friend Jon the Koch lobbyist funnels to both Dems and GOP now. He's pushing hard for Biden now because they think the "centrist liberal" Dems are better Republicans than the Trumpists are and more likely to get conservative things (like wars) done. It's not personal against Trump, it's just business.

On that I agree. Not that the Democrats will give them everything they want. Or even half of what they want. But the big money will try to help elect and then co-opt Democrats more than usual this year, and perhaps in future years depending on how this plays out.

The Chamber of Commerce and I agree. Several moderate Democratic challengers I sent money to in 2018 and that I am sending money to now because they could lose, like Rep.'s Harley Rouda and TJ Cox, are also endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce.

Somebody once came up with a great line about this:

If the Democrats win, The Squad immediately has more power, I think. 4 House votes falls a little bit short of what's needed to get a House majority for a wealth tax. So maybe your "owners" do have the power to block ideas like wealth taxes - for sure now, maybe permanently. I'm not sure what it would take to get to a wealth tax in the US.

I just don't buy the idea that the "owners" are so smart that they can use the media or ads or whatever to manipulate all this from behind the scenes.

It was interesting this year that Billionaire Bloomberg tried to buy the nomination, and failed badly. Meanwhile Biden was broke, and he's the nominee. Sanders and Warren had both money and armies. They could not get a majority, or anywhere close. Maybe when today's 20 year olds are 40, this will change. I hope. Or maybe they'll change.

Something very vaguely related to this struck me today. I was looking at the Florida polls. I was thinking Biden's Florida lead is shrinking, but Bloomberg 's money will help Biden win. Then I thought: What if the $100 million Bloomberg spends to help Biden win Florida helps him lose? People are so turned off by The Establishment or whatever you want to call it that Bloomberg ads could just label Biden as a bought and paid for shill.

I think the conventional wisdom is still that having all that money helps. And so right now all the Biden ads are helping him maintain a solid and steady lead. The polls seem to suggest that.

I agree with Michael Moore that the chances for progressive wins on things like health care and poverty programs and income inequality are greater than they were during all the Democratic debates last year, simply because reality has changed. More people are poor, and without health insurance. It's not inconsistent with The New Deal. More than anything, what really leads to economic change is an economic crisis.

Suckrates · September 24, 2020

The Truth ALWAYS reveals Itself......

Not so fast @stevenkesslar, Trump AINT history yet....... At a WH press briefing yesterday it became apparent WHY Trump and the GOP are rushing RBG's replacement BEFORE the election.... When asked if he would insure a peaceful transfer of power SHOULKD HE LOSE the election, Trump said he would see what happens, and that "the election would probably have to be decided by the Supreme Court" because of fraudulent ballots...

BINGO !! Orange Asshole wants to be CERTAIN he has enough SC votes to insure remaining in power. Its all just a big political scam, and Trump just might "pull it off".....

One thing about Trump, he is stupid, and ends up always telling you what he is going to do..and although he resists transparency, he is always crystal clear !

stevenkesslar · September 24, 2020

10 hours ago, Suckrates said:

One thing about Trump, he is stupid, and ends up always telling you what he is going to do..and although he resists transparency, he is always crystal clear !

Or maybe not.

I think it's better to be alarmed. So let's just assume that he won't be willing to lose and November is going to be a nightmare. I'd rather be safe than sorry.

The thing that is weird about this is that his rhetoric may drive his base into a frenzy, so they walk through the fires of hell to vote. But they were going to do that anyway. The roughly 40 % of Republicans who say they are "party" Republicans rather than "Trump Republicans" are probably turned off by this rhetoric. I also would guess Independents are turned off by rhetoric that sounds like the US is a banana republic. I can't be objective about what Democrats might do, because I'm very passionate about this stuff. But this just seems like more reason that Millennials who are skeptical at best about Biden will go vote.

Today Bernie used this as an opportunity to urge young people to vote. Good for him!

So, yeah. Maybe the best explanation is that President Toxic is just real fucking stupid.

One thing I sure don't believe is that President Toxic is a genius. Exhibit A that he has brains is what happened in 2016. But that could be just as much luck. A broken clock is right twice a day. Lichtman's model of why Presidents win and lose changed my thinking a little about 2016. In September 2016 Lichtman said that this is basically the Republican's election to lose. He also said Trump is such an abnormal and bad candidate that he may lose it. Even though, based on his so far 100 % accurate model, any generic Republican should win. That is a way to think about 2016. Not that he won because he's President Toxic. But that he almost lost (by 80,000 votes) because he's toxic.

Here's what Lichtman said, verbatim, in Sept. 2016:

Quote

“The Keys point to a Donald Trump victory, and in general, point to a generic Republican victory. Still, I believe that given the unprecedented nature of the Trump candidacy and Trump himself, Trump could defy all odds and lose even though the verdict of history is in his favor,” Lichtman said.

Morning Joe was on a fine rant this morning about President Toxic's banana republic rhetoric about not being willing to state he would transfer power peacefully. Joe had a different reading of the subtext. He said he thinks President Toxic knows he is going to lose. They put a few of the latest polls up showing Trump 10 points behind Biden nationally.

I tend to agree with Morning Joe's take on it. He mentioned that no Republican other than President Toxic - like all the Republican Senate candidates in tight races - are going along for the ride on the rhetoric about mailed ballots being vote fraud. Just today Mitch McConnell essentially disavowed Trump and said there will be an orderly transition of power. So President Toxic is off on his own on that. Why am I 100 % not surprised?

So Theory A for me is that he's laying the groundwork for the loss he expects. He'll say he really won, but the election was rigged with all those mail in ballots. It sounds like the basis for a post-2020 TV show on Fox. Or a 2024 comeback. Or maybe a 2024 Don, Jr. run. Or God knows what else? We should probably assume Plan B is to get the SCOTUS to turn the US into a banana republic. But that may be be a little bit above the pay grade of a moron like President Toxic to pull off.

Edited September 24, 2020 by stevenkesslar

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