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Putting down a marker
Saw this at Instapundit:
Seems to depend on AZ, WI, and PA, again.
I think it’s time for those of us who were certain this would not happen to admit that it could.
I don’t say this to spark a debate about Trump – I think we’ve had one or two of those over the years – but to ask the cohort of NTTTFGSWCOHSNWBA (Not Trump The Time For God’s Sake We Could Have Had Someone New Who’d Beat Biden) whether they’re still convinced of his inevitable and decisive defeat. I was before; now I’m not. And it’s not just this map.
I think it’s inflation, immigration, crime, wokey BS, and general malaise with the ruling class. Trump’s history on COVID and vaccines and spending and the Wall For Which Mexico Would Pay are irrelevant, because all those crimson states are pretty sure he would not pursue Bidenesque policies. Anyway, I lay down this marker to say that my presumptions may have been wrong. I thought he’d lost the middle and the persuadable. Perhaps that’s true and they don’t matter; perhaps that’s wrong when it comes down to push and shove. Perhaps it’s CNN trying to keep the electorate tremulous and angry to beef the ratings. Perhaps the polls show that a lot of people who can’t stand Trump will vote for him anyway because Let’s Go Brandon. I don’t know.
But for fellow NTTTFGSWCOHSNWBAs: if he wins, what does this do to your assumptions? What conclusions would you draw?
Published in General
I have no pickin’ idea what will happen in November…
Yeah, me either.
Remember when Nixon successfully relied on the Silent Majority? This election may be decided by the Really Silent Harvested Plurality. Those ballot printing operations in Long Island may need some additional USPS delivery trucks to get all the content required into Philadelphia to stop Trump this time.
In Maryland, we used to joke about how the Baltimore graveyard that contains the remains of Edgar Allan Poe was a key swing precinct. COVID registration rules in some states have likely created similar voting blocs.
In response to the OP, I am not NTTTFGSWCOHSNWBA. I have been called “Ever Trump” but I am not that either. I am not exactly Reluctant Trump. I have been willing to over look a lot of things I don’t like to vote for him. Then again, I have done that with every GOP candidate, so nose holding seems the norm.
I worry about defeat all the time. The forces of the left are arrayed against all candidates, and with Trump, there are forces on the right arrayed against him too. If Trump wins, I will be happy.
Does the map take into account states with a high probablity of cheating? Just askin’ . . .
The best assumption – or at least the one that seems most likely to be true now and in the foreseeable future: “Perhaps it’s CNN trying to keep the electorate tremulous and angry to beef the ratings.”
Anger as motivation seems to be the aim of both political parties, their presidential candidates, and the press.
Assuming that President LOLEightyonemillion isn’t dragged across the finish line again by the Dem fraud machine, I think the most important question right now is who Trump picks for VP. I’m still dreaming about DeSantis, but I will take anyone who can get the job done in the background while Trump functions as the lightning rod, as is his wont.
I think the map is accurate. It could change; however all the toss up states are in play. I also think VA and NH are in play which are both coded light blue on this map. I also think there is a better than average chance (right now) that Trump wins the popular vote. I did not believe this until recently; however, my view on that has changed after the state of the union and subsequent polling. Also I am not sure the Democrats can parachute someone in to save the election, that a Trump conviction would save the election, or the democrats retaking the house before the election would save them (In fact I think the democrats retaking the house would probably doom them). As Ben Shapiro noted following the SoTU, Trump is the moderate centrist candidate in this election. His affect is off putting; however, his policies are right in the center of the electorate. Biden has spent so much time courting his left flank that he has lost the center. I don’t think he can regain it. I also don’t think there is enough time for a Democratic “Savior” candidate to reclaim the center. The contradictions with the left side of the party are too great and too unpopular. I am not sure a far left candidate, which is what the democrats are at this point, can win a nationwide election.
I hope that the flip-flopping of policy by executive order that went on will be incentive for voters to strengthen the Republicans in the House and Senate.
If a state is safely blue or red, there is no need to cheat unless it’s on the down-ballot races. There is little return on the cheating and more possibilities for being exposed. Check the “swing states” closely. That’s where the cheating matters at the national level.
It depends on which way the chips fall in Congress, doesn’t it? In 2017, Trump was still owed the benefit of the doubt as a newcomer to the Oval Office and with his Article II appointees. He would not get that in January 2025.
If people decide they dislike Biden enough to re-elect Trump, that doesn’t mean they’re ready to do so without hobbling him with a Democratic Congress.
If that’s the case then Constitutional Crises will be the order of the day. We could have multiple cabinet positions be rejected and he could try installing non-confirmed temporary heads. He could try to recycle previously confirmed people from his 1st Administration. Not sure that works. You could get widespread “Orange Flu” among key agencies as a result. You could get a third impeachment that might actually work.
And who knows what the rest of the domestic response will be. If the IDF has dispatched Hamas by then maybe they can do peacekeeping missions within the United States.
The only thing that makes our system work is the peaceful acceptance of election results. If the Left decides to return serve next January 6th it could be “Katy, bar the door.”
The Democrats have questioned every election of a GOP POTUS this century. And let’s not forget about the violence in DC after DJT’s inauguration (seems like we’re all just forgetting about that).
I think DJT wins the EC, but there will be recriminations and shouts of “stolen election” no matter who wins. (See my reply to EJ above.)
The Republic, or what’s left of it, is in bad shape.
We forget about it because it is a “dog bites man story”, what made Jan 6 different was 2 things:
It other words it was convenient and a “man bites dog story”.
Oh, I agree, Raxx. We should still bring it up, not as a “what about” but to remind folks that violence like after DJT’s inauguration and 1/6 are becoming the norm. And it sucks! EJ’s initial point in his comment is valid, after all.
Of course they have and no one has forgotten anything. But at least the violence was confined to areas far away from the Capitol. Inside the Capitol the halfhearted attempts by whack-a-doodles like Sheila Jackson Lee were easily swatted down because they didn’t follow the Constitutional provision of getting a Senate co-objector.
History is not subject to double-blind testing so we will never know the result of what a DeSantis nomination would have brought. But whatever chaos does ensue from Trump II, it will be by choice.
The funniest possible time-line would be for Trump to win the popular vote but lose the Electoral vote. We could power the country’s electrical grid for a decade on the energy generated by advocates for both parties spinning their positions on the Electoral College.
Whose choice?
I still think DeSantis would have crushed either Slow Joe or the San Francisco Twerp.
I don’t see the ballot barrels anywhere on that map…..the ones they put outside so people can come by and stuff them with all sorts of fake stuff………..unless we have a clean election where ID has to be produced to vote and signatures matched, then its going to be a crap shoot and there goes the Republic (not joking)……
It’s not enough to have no idea. You must also assert your prediction, loudly.
Everybody’s.
It would be, but it isn’t really possible for a Republican to win the popular vote they have to run up huge margins in the swing states to offset New York and California, or lose New York and California and every where else by a narrow margin. If they are losing NY and CA by a narrow margin then the aren’t going to be losing everywhere else by a narrow margin. Unless of course there is massive fraud.
Nope.
Good post, but we gotta work on your math a bit, James. You cite a map showing Trump winning without AZ, WI, or PA, and then say: “Seems to depend on AZ, WI, and PA, again.”
The only unusual features of that map are MI and NV in pink. This might not last. Other pink and light blue states are also in play, and a lot can change by November.
Does anyone know what’s going on in NV?
MI is easy to explain. Biden is losing a lot of support there due to his support of the Israeli mass killing and attempted starvation of the people in Gaza. It’s a political bind for him.
He can’t come down hard on Israel, I think, because he’d alienate the pro-Zionist side.
But I don’t think that this explains NV.
I was certainly one who thought Trump didn’t have a chance. I’m still not sure where we’ll be after voting day – that’s still a long way off – but if the election were held today, yeah, Trump wins. I’m not a fan and won’t vote for him, but I would be happy to see him win, for no other reason than energy policy.
What has happened? I think that Biden and his administration have proven themselves to be both spectacularly incompetent and too progressive for most Americans.
I wouldn’t underestimate the effect of the constant legal harassment of Trump and his family members, friends, supporters, and employees on the strength of the pro-Trump movement.
He did a great job. His first two years in office, he wildly surpassed expectations. When he ran for office, he had never held an elected executive office such as that of a governor. He was elected because of his stalwart stand against the Iran Deal and his accurate assessment of the outdated and lopsided NAFTA and other State Department trade agreements, coupled with his determination to cut federal regulations to whatever extent he could. His successful work to level the playing field in our trade with China scared the Chinese in a big way.
He did so well that he scared the heck out of the Democrats, who embarked upon a two-year horrific campaign to oust him. These clowns had to compete with the sound of the change in people’s pockets that was there because of Trump’s fiscal policies.
For these successes, the Democrats have punished him in the courts, personally and politically. It’s very reminiscent of the protracted attack on Silvio Berlusconi in Italy.
Republicans have their back up right now over this legal situation.
We have some amazing Republicans on deck at the moment. I really admire Marco Rubio and Mike Johnson, as well as Ron DeSantis.
But the Trump chapter isn’t finished yet.
Poppycock. He was elected because he wasn’t Hillary Clinton.
A couple of commentators I heard at the time suggested that he won the general election because of the high ObamaCare bills that had gone out in October of that year. That makes a lot of sense to me. Republicans took the House, the Senate, and several state legislatures and governorships as well.
You think a left-run Jan 6 would be unarmed, etc?
If Trump is seen to have won the election on/soon after Election Day, they’ll probably start immediately pre-positioning bricks, molotov cocktails, and other “implements of peace” right away.