(10-20-2016, 08:16 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't think either the black man in the white house now, nor the sharp old lady after Jan.20, is going to have much patience for fascist marchers and shooters goaded by the Trumpet. And if Trump incites it, he'll be arrested.
He kind-of walked back his talk about not supporting the election winner today, saying he will sue if it looks like fraud or ask for a recount if its close, or something like that. His debate statement was a major gaffe, according to most of the TV reporters and pundits. I imagine he may lose a couple of points in the polls over it, if even that much.
It is most likely the crotch-grabbing that has pushed many conservatives to decide to split their tickets. Liberals were never going to vote for Trump, anyway; his admissions of sordid conduct were not going to change any liberal votes. It may also get people out to vote who don't usually vote, and those voters are usually Democrats.
The most fervent supporters of Donald Trump can't believe that their candidate can lose. If he does end up short, then it is because Democratic GOTV measures got votes of people not legitimately voting or even non-existence. After all, we know well how crooked the urban areas are from all the apocryphal stories. To them Hillary Clingon cannot have won without cheating; no decent person could fail to vote for the successful businessman.
I look at the poling data and I see Donald Trump doing a mediocre job in getting the votes of what used to be the most reliable demographic of Republican voters (well-educated white people), extremely well among under-educated white people, and badly among just about every other group of people. I see Gary Johnson having pulled much likely support from Trump initially and him losing that largely to Hillary Clinton.
The support for Donald Trump has been pared to a fanatical core beyond reach. That core is extremely delighted with the near certainty that he will be the next President. But that core of support is out of touch with reality. That's the lily-white "Real America", rural America in which people are proud to be able to read and write, believe in Bibles, and keep guns, that Sarah Palin praised in 2008. That "Real America" is reactionary to an extreme degree.
But most Americans don't live in the "Real America" any more. In 2008 Barack Obama lost by all but about 65 counties, independent cities, and the District of Columbia. Those bailiwicks, I found, were the 65 most densely-populated counties in the United States as a group. Obama did not win them all, and some (Fredericksburg. Harrisonburg, and Charlottesville in Virginia) aren't large. But they include such behemoths as counties containing Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, Miami, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, the Twin Cities, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. I look at the Obama maps of victory against the Eisenhower maps of victory and I see Obama winning almost everything that Eisenhower won in the '50s except for the states in which the agriculture is heavily ranching...Texas, Arizona, and several states with few electoral votes.
Eisenhower generally won the best-educated parts of America. That was enough to win him such states as Massachusetts and Minnesota, the two hold-out states in the 40-state landslides of Nixon and Reagan. Obama won that part of America in 2008 and 2012. America has so changed in its partisanship that Obama has won for the Democrats many constituencies that went for Eisenhower.
Rural America knows the cities mostly for violent crimes committed by ethnic minorities. As the saying goes, "If it bleeds, it leads". That's what is on the TV stations that rural America gets, because TV signals in rural America often travel 70 miles or so to get to rural areas. Rural America does not know the reality of the black middle class, a large and inoffensive group of people, or that the rapidly-growing Hispanic populations are making headway into American life. Education, skill, and enterprise -- that's how people get ahead.
Cornfields and cattle pastures don't vote for President. People do, and they are in the not-so-natural places full of asphalt and concrete.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
