The following observation from New York Times columnist Ross Douthat is almost completely accurate:
“There is no strategy that this president could adopt, no policy choice that he could make, no tweet of himself in a mask that he could issue, that would fundamentally alter his political position. Trump is incapable of normal presidential action, and even if his aides and handlers concocted such a strategy, the man in charge would make sure it would fail … ”
“But that doesn’t make his defeat inevitable. It only means that to speculate about a Trump comeback is to necessarily speculate about possibilities that are outside the president’s control.”
I’d say it was 100 percent accurate, but there is always hacking and cheating to consider, and Trump would presumably have to sign off on that, wouldn’t he?
Perhaps not, actually, since he’s no more capable of concocting a sophisticated and successful plan to steal an election than he is of running a honest solvent business. If something like that were to work, it would be executed by people Trump doesn’t control.
Assuming there is an honest count, even taking into consideration all the typical voter suppression shenanigans of the Republicans, it’s almost impossible to conceive of Trump winning the popular vote. It’s also nearly as difficult to see him winning the Electoral College. He isn’t going to do anything to help himself, either, so the odds heavily favor a steady worsening of his position rather than any improvement.
But it’s conceivable that Joe Biden could stumble badly or that the mood of the country shifts hard against the Democrats. Douthat suggests that a sudden improvement in the coronavirus crisis combined with an uptick of social protest could provide this kind of mood change, and I think that’s correct. I also think Douthat is right to be skeptical that urban unrest would be as impactful as it was in the late-1960s, since white flight has already occurred in this instance. It’s probably true, too, that a magical disappearance of the virus through a vaccine or lower-than-expected herd immunity would probably have a calming effect, making widespread looting less likely.
Trump’s biggest problem is himself, but the Democrats knew what they were doing when they chose Biden to run against him. As Douthat says, “There still remains the difficulty that not enough Americans are afraid to vote for Joe Biden, notwithstanding the Trump campaign’s attempt to brand him as the candidate of Antifa.”
Choosing a likable candidate to run against Trump was the magic kryptonite missing from the 2016 election. It renders the president virtually powerless, and now he’s just hoping that Biden’s choice of a running mate will give him a batter opportunity to attack. Preventing that possibility must be part of the thinking behind Senator Tammy Duckworth as a potential pick. A multi-racial disabled woman who was wounded in the line of duty in Iraq is not someone who can be effectively mocked and ridiculed. More kryptonite.
Duckworth would fit a do-no-harm strategy, but Biden probably has the luxury of picking anyone he deems qualified and suitable as a partner. What should keep him up at night are the things he can’t control.
My unscientific diagnosis four years ago was that Trump was a psychopath, but not a nefariously clever one, rather a stupid psychopath. It helps to understand him as a sort of shark – excellent predatory instincts, tiny brain. So any plan that begins, ‘First, Trump changes…’ is a non-starter. Trump only has the one trick, he only does the one thing. He’s Urkel trying to milk his catchphrase long after the majority of the audience is bored.
Trump isn’t the problem, he’s a symptom not a cause. The problem is that 46% of voters in 2016 and 40% of the polled in 2020, are either so filled with hatred and contempt, or else so reckless and foolish (or all of the above) that they support a transparent conman. Trump will be gone soon. The 40% persist.
This is another of your great essays, Martin, except for one thing:
“Widespread looting?” was that a typographical error or something? Whatever is going on on the left, whatever we’re doing that frightens or angers the Right, it’s got nothing to do with “looting” — that’s their odious caricature.
It’s the ice cream. Trump cannot compete.
Running one of the longest serving politicians in Washington against a political tyro seems crazy at first. However, Biden is personally well liked by quite a number of Republicans. And has the tapes time stamped and ready to roll of prominent Republicans saying nice things about him. That takes away a lot of surrogates, or renders them much less effective. Add in all the stories from his VP days saying how he’s such a reasonable and likable person who evolves on issues. For the Beltway media to suddenly turn on him when he knows where their skeletons are buried is difficult. And they like him too! So the stories from camp Trump about Biden being such a crazy guy get nowhere outside of the RW media bubble since the Beltway media knows it’s a lie, and they want to preserve their access to a Biden campaign, hopefully administration.
Tl;dr, the forces that Trump used are now being used against him.
A multi-racial disabled woman who was wounded in the line of duty in Iraq is not someone who can be effectively mocked and ridiculed
They said something similar about Max Cleland, but look what happened to him. If the Republicans had little shame in 2002, now in 2020 under Trump, they don’t even pretend anymore. The major point of Trumpism is to be able to insult anyone they want- the more politically incorrect, the better. But I doubt they could persuade anyone not already in the cult by doing so.
I think I can see the outlines of the right’s plan now. They are going to use federal law enforcement to stir up protests across the country, prodding the cities for over-reaction, calling peaceful protesters rioters, anarchists, pinkos, etc etc , and trying to paint the democrats as enablers of the downfall of western civilization. This is an old storyline that has worked in the past. Portland was a test of this approach, and Chicago looks like its next up. I don’t think it will work this time around, people are better clued in now how the right plays this game, and it certainly won’t work if the people on the streets can keep their heads. But there’s a strong possibility that that’s whats going to happen over the next three months and its not going to be pretty. People are going to get hurt.
Then there’s a possibility that Trump will use these forces to directly suppress the vote in democratic cities. I can’t believe I’m writing that but given whats happened so far this year I can’t put anything beyond Trump and his people, up to and including him actually shooting people on fifth avenue.
The only way we are going to win is if EVERY DEM votes, in overwhelming numbers, and forces the Trumpists out of Washington in an undeniable flood of blue votes. If the election is close at all, we’re going to be in for a bad time.
I think you’re right about the “stir up trouble” strategy–it’s pretty much all they’ve got left and it’s what he does best (and enjoys). The challenge will be to keep our eyes on the prize and not to take the bait.
I truly hope that the electorate has settled and is not very elastic. Mostly we keep seeing reversion to the mean once some crisis passes. In this regard if there’s some decline of Covid in the next three months, or some sudden decrease in unemployment, then the polls could tighten again. I don’t trust the public to have more than a two week memory. The media will play up the horse race like last time too to say things are close even when they aren’t. November can’t come soon enough.