. . . and get the hip waders ready.
The next few weeks and months may feel like the longest you’ve lived through. Trump will launch a few more psyops operations against the American people designed to terrify you and make you believe he can cheat and pull this off.
Don’t fall for it. Don’t feed the beast. Keep your eyes on the prize. If you feel that he is controlling your emotions, get away from the screen. Drive people to the polls. Call voters to tell them how to cure their ballots. Anything. (For what I mean by “controlling your emotions, see this post.)
Prepare yourself for the following:
- Trump will claim that he won.
- Trump will claim that there was massive cheating.
- Trump will launch multiple lawsuits to challenge the election.
- He will tell you that the Supreme Court will decide the election in his favor because they are “his” justices. (No, the Supreme Court will not overturn the results of an election and put in their own candidate.)
- Trump will come up with something else that will terrify you.
It’s possible Trump will claim that he isn’t leaving the White House.
It’s just as likely that his health will give out, he will collapse, and he’ll be a puddle by November 4th.
Steve Schmidt demonstrates how to respond to a weakling bully. Click to read this thread and enjoy:
The October Surprise that Makes Perfect Sense
Who expected election season to open with the White Houses as a COVID hotspot, and Trump himself as the super spreader?
If Trump knew on Sat. Sept. 26 he was positive, he wouldn’t have wanted to admit it and cancel the Amy Barret Supreme Court Nominee celebration. This also means that for at least a week, he was spreading the virus to everyone he came in contact with.
The list of people in Trump’s circle and the upper reaches of the GOP leadership who are infected is rapidly growing:
- Trump
- Melania
- Stephen Miller (White House official)
- Hope Hicks (advisor to Trump)
- Kellyanne Conway (who has infected her daughter, Claudia)
- Kayleigh McEnany (WH Press Secretary)
- McInany’s deputy Chad Gilmartin + 3 other staff members in her office
- Ronna McDaniel, Chair RNC
- Bill Stepien, Trump campaign manager
- Chris Christie (helped coach Trump for his debate performance)
- Republican Senator Run Johnson
- Republican Senator Mike Lee
- Republican Senator Tom Tillis
- Nick Luna (body man to Trump)
- Two unnamed military valets who reportedly were in direct contact with Trump
- President of Notre Dame (had contact with Trump)
- Pastor of Harvest Church in Southern California who attended White House events and a prayer march with Pence
- Michael Shearer (NYT White House correspondence) and his wife, plus two others.
Because the White House is refusing to contract trace, we don’t know how many others are in this cluster.
The Republicans are obviously getting hit disproportionally by this virus. Most recently, GOP Craigshead County chair in Arkansas died of Covid after hosting a maskless gathering this month.
The White House COVID Cluster and Trump Super Spreader Surprise is a logical outcome of Trump’s attitude toward COVID. We know from Woodward that his strategy was to downplay the seriousness of the virus. In March, he turned to Fauci and asked, “Why don’t we let this wash over the country?”
Why this particular October Surprise is so bad, #1: Most voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the virus. Nonetheless, even after getting sick, he continued to minimize the virus and encourage community spread:
And here he acts as if being hospitalized with COVID is like a weekend visit to a spa:
#2: It’s the over-65 voters who are pushing this from a close election favoring Biden to a potential landslide. Older voters are not taking kindly to this message:
#3: The Surprise offers proof positive that Trump is irresponsible and doesn’t care who dies.
#4: Everyone knows that COVID is hitting minority communities the hardest. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration’s approach that private industry should step up to handle the problem results in corporations making out like bandits right now:
Trump might strut around like a strongman who is surviving COVID, but most Americans know they can’t ride a helicopter to a top-notch hospital at the first sign of infection and receive around-the-clock care.
On the annoying side: The White House Super Spreader October Surprise is so dominating the news cycle that nobody has time to talk about that tape recording of Melania where she said she couldn’t care less about children being separated from families and the fact that Trump is 400 million in debt to someone, and paid only $750 in taxes.
Part II: Trump is Losing
First, the signs. On Fox News, Carly Fiorina explained why she’s endorsing Biden: “Joe Biden is stronger leader” and has the “character that I think matters in a leader.”
Texas Senator John Coryn, one of Trump’s key enablers who is now in a tight race for reelection, criticized Trump’s COVID policies.
If you feel a bit like the ground is shifting, it’s because of the long lines at the polls, what’s shaping up to be record turnout. Here are the lines in Dayton, Ohio.
We know how most of these people are voting. Trump is getting crushed in the polls. The 538 aggregate for the presidential race:
Nates Silver explains what a probabilistic model means. It means that Trump has a 16 percent chance of winning because his model calculated that there’s a 16 percent chance that the polls are wrong.
For the Senate race. there’s a 32% chance that the polls are wrong:
And there’s almost no chance the Republicans win the House:
Trump knows how to read the polls. When the polls show him doing well, he talks about them constantly. He knows he’s getting crushed.
Other signs that Trump is losing and he knows it: Completely unhinged Tweets, including this one:
More signs that Trump is deteriorating: He is making irrational decisions, like saying no relief / stimulus package until after the election and taking full responsibility for the fact that it won’t get done for at least a month:
(He later tried to backtrack this one, presumably after some advisors told him this would be political suicide):
The reason Trump will lose is because of voter turnout.
I voted, and it felt great. I hope you all have your plans for voting, and you’re making sure everyone you know votes as well
A few final thoughts. Having written a biography of Susan B. Anthony, this brought me a smile:
America, saved by the Nineteenth Amendment. And speaking of Girl Power, in advance of the Vice Presidential debate tonight, I thought you’d all enjoy this:
