06-27-2020, 04:45 AM
(06-26-2020, 03:57 PM)Isoko Wrote: Pbrower,
Very true, he has bad numbers. But we have several factors at play here to contend with and this could potentially tip the balance in Trump's favour:
1) The majority of people are fed up with BLM. This is not just the deplorable crowd but the average Joe. They are fed up of statues being pulled down, the looting associated with it and in general the fanaticism being shown.
Obviously these people won't tell the polls who they are going to vote for but come November, in the privacy of the voting booth, they can vent out their frustrations.
As is so with causes that use a personal grievance as a focus, the Black Lives Matters protests will likely peter out over the most recent disgrace. But note well: this is a protest not against legitimate law and order; it is instead about bad police work and (most likely) bad cops.
Police have a limited role in the system of criminal justice in responding to crimes, seeking and arresting criminal suspects, investigating crimes, and patrolling areas in which laws are likely to be broken. We know what they can do -- but they do not get carte blanche to do horrible things to persons under arrest. They are responsible for those who are under arrest, people to be taken to jail where they are to be held in accordance with decisions of courts of law.
To be sure, attacking a police officer or threatening harm to others puts someone at risk of the definitive act of police brutality -- being killed by a police officer. We all know that, in view of the police use of bullet-proof vests, that pulling a gun on a cop is effectively suicide. We also know that if it is the choice between someone posing a threat of committing a homicide and an innocent person not a cop, then the cop must choose to kill someone committing the overt crime. Every community fears law-breakers and rightly expects the police to respond appropriately. Police error will happen, and when the courts adjudicate that a horrible incident has happened because of an error not by the police (that the officer is sent to the wrong address with a no-knock warrant) that someone other than the police officer deserves the reprimand. Police misconduct is extremely dangerous -- and, one hopes -- rare.
Quote:2) Biden. He is the big one. I doubt he will be in office very long, he is not a strong candidate and more than likely is going to keep losing his mind on the campaign trail, which Trump will exploit.
President Biden and his physicians will know if he is so slipping that he can no longer perform the duties of the Presidency. It is essential that he have excellent staff capable of backing him up and covering for him in the event that his mental health should start to fail. The most fitting analogue will be Ronald Reagan, for whom competent Secretaries and staff were able to reduce his role to one largely ceremonial as the mental state of our 40th President deteriorated. In the event of much the same, I expect a close parallel to Reagan even to the extent of choosing a Vice-President capable of assuming all but the ceremonial roles of President that only the President can do. If the President cannot do the ceremonial roles, then he might as well resign for reasons of health.
Not Trump. Much unlike Reagan, Trump has surrounded himself with flunkies and expected Secretaries to act as flunkies even to the extent of doing crimes on his behalf.
OK, Reagan was a coachable fellow whom competent staffers could guide. Trump acts like a despot, and nobody gets in his way without experiencing his wrath. It is entirely possible that Donald Trump is in mental decline even more serious than that of Ronald Reagan seven and a half years into his Presidency. Competent people could cover for Reagan... and did. Nobody, no matter how competent, can do that for Trump. If Joe Biden deteriorates to the extent of Reagan, than Reagan will be the analogue for how the VP, Cabinet secretaries, and staff operate.
Quote:3) The economy. If the economy starts to pick up after the quarantine, Trump's sins will be forgiven somewhat. If it goes into another major depression however then all bets are off.
Such strength as the economy had is the consequence of policies of Barack Obama. No boom is forever, even if it contains no speculative bubble (really a destructive phase of fake growth... need I cite the arch-conservative late economist Friedrich Hayek on that?)
Trump wanted a corrupt speculative boom, and it is our good fortune that he has been unable to get one based upon privatization of the public sector on the cheap.
Quote:4) Bidens VP pick. If he picks a good candidate, his hand strengthens. If he picks what I would call a BLM candidate, then that will just infuriate people even more.
This goes without saying. He is in a strong enough position that he can seek someone who broadens his support or at the least (think of Gore for Clinton, Cheney for the younger Bush, or of course Biden for Obama) -- ideological constituency. There is no Black Lives Matter party, and Black Lives Matter is more mainstream than you seem to recognize.
Quote:5) Never trust the polls. They predicted at the end of the voting period a strong win for the Remain camp. Ten points ahead if I recall. Shocked them all on election night.
You did not make clear what you meant by the "Remain camp." If you are discussing 2016, polling caught indications of a Trump surge and Hillary Clinton collapse. I may still be bitter about the 2016 Presidential election not so much because a Republican won but because of the way in which Trump won -- debasing the political process by making the electoral process so sordid that many good people felt soiled if they participated. Those good people were largely Democrats and Democratic-leaning people. Trump's fanatics seemed to love his antics and were as excited as ever.
Political life is no better than the people who do the politics -- and those who have meaningful choice in voting. Trump debased the political process as no earlier Presidential nominee -- not even Nixon in 1973 -- had done. He acted as if the only people who mattered were those fanatically in his support. Trump acted much like the leader of a dictatorial regime, if not a despot or dictator himself, in treating his cronies and fanatical supporters as the only people who matter once the election is over. There is more than that, and the 2018 midterm election demonstrates that. Polls so far demonstrate that.
Donald Trump has apparently failed to broaden his support. He has engendered much new or refreshed contempt for him. Unlike Obama he did not begin with a reservoir of support that he could lose to a small extent with impunity. Note well: demographic change (about 1.5% of the electorate in the 55+ age group dying off each year with the new voters, mostly under 40, replacing those alone made a Trump re-election unlikely. Even before COVID-19 scared older voters, the part of the electorate over 55 was about 5% more R than D in its usual voting, and the part under 40 is about 20% more D than R. That's a 25% shift from R to D among incoming voters replacing those who die off, with 6% of the voters of 2020 having not voted in 2016 but voting in 2020. That is a 1.5% shift, and that alone is enough to turn bare Trump wins in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin alone into losses. Before COVID-19, Florida seemed to be getting lots of comparatively old people migrating into the state who might frustrate the trend... but if Florida didn't bite Trump, then maybe Arizona or North Carolina would.
Quote:Overall, I accept a potential Biden win but I'm still cautiously certain that Trump could potentially pull this off.
Basically, to win re-election, President Trump needs a repeat of the political realities of 2016. Nothing has indicated that Trump has gotten into a better better position for winning re-election in 2020 than in 2016. Democrats know his tricks and have discovered how to offset them. Trump has had a stormy relationship with the mainstream news media as no other President facing re-election; in that he is in worse shape by far than Jimmy Carter (to which American news media were at lest friendly).
Polls of course show transitory reality. Two basic polls are most important: approval polls and match-ups. To use a hypothetical case for Ohio (and it really is hypothetical because neither a Gubernatorial nor Senatorial race is being held in Ohio in 2020) in which the incumbent is running, and you see these polls:
US Senate -- approval
Smith (R, inc)
approval 51% (strong 49%) disapproval 44% (strong 31%)
match-up (if the election were held today, would you vote for the incumbent Smith, a Republican, or the Democrat Jones)
Smith 53%, Jones 46%...
then we could assume that the Senator is in good shape for winning re-election.
Now suppose that a Democratic incumbent (Williams) as Governor had bungled the response to COVID-19 and has rumors of a child out of wedlock despite theatrical displays of devout Christianity:
approval 40% (strong 28%) disapproval 49% (strong 45%)
matchup (if the election were held today, would you vote for the incumbent Williams, a Democrat, or the Republican Miller)
Miller 53% Williams 46%
then, barring miracles, I would expect the incumbent Senator getting re-elected and the incumbent Governor being defeated.
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.