Thursday, September 01, 2016

Let's predict the day Trump pulls ahead

From 538: "Election Update: As The Race Tightens, Don’t Assume The Electoral College Will Save Clinton"

It's worse than you think, folks. Women have turned against Hillary. Headline in The Hill: "Trump has the ball and Hillary can't run out the clock."

Stop rationalizing. Stop kidding yourselves. This is serious. Wake the fuck up.

I have some books out of the library. They're due back on September 6. I predict that on or before that date, one of the major poll aggregation sites -- either 538 or Electoral Vote or RealClear Politics -- will declare that Trump is ahead.

When (not if) it happens, you will all blame Hillary. It'll be an instinctive reaction. Of course, that instinctive Clinton-hate is precisely the reason why Trump will win.

Don't blame her: Blame yourselves. None of you bothered to learn -- and spread -- the truth about the email smear (which I explain at length in the post below) and the Clinton Foundation smear (which I've dealt with in several previous posts).

I got this same sick feeling in my gut back in 2004, when the "Swift Boat" smear hit Kerry. (Also here.) At that time, most Democrats scoffed that such an outrageous lie would stick. Yet stick it did, largely because too few Democrats rose to Kerry's defense. It was easier to shit on Kerry. Dems felt that they gained hipness points when they shat on Kerry.

I also had this feeling in my gut back in 2000, when the many ridiculous smears against Al Gore (the "Love Canal" smear, the "invented the internet" smear" and the rest) stuck. They were absurd and meaningless, but they stuck. They stuck because many smug, arrogant "progressives" refused to defend Al Gore. Shitting on Gore earned hipness points.

Trump will win in November, and God only knows what will happen after. I suspect that the polls will start to turn in his favor within six days. That's just a hunch; it may take longer. But it will happen -- and when it does, you will shit on Clinton. Doing so will make you feel very smug and superior and hip.

No. Blame yourselves.

13 comments:

jo6pac said...

Sadly the smear on Kerry was the truth about him.

Joseph Cannon said...

How very smug. How very hip. Get used to saying "President Trump." Of course, you'll blame Hillary.

Anonymous said...

"Trump will win in November, and God only knows what will happen after."

Let's /also/ not kid ourselves about /this/. We know what will /probably/ happen, even if we don't wanna look too closely.

Civil unrest, to which Trump will respond by lifting the fetters on the police. (Look what he said about Chicago: that a "top" police official told him they could solve the crime problem in a week, if the gloves came off.) A purge of the civil service, just as Christie promised. Hillary in handcuffs, kicking off the de-legitimization of the opposition.

A round-up of all illegal immigrants, with knocks on the door, camps, abuse in the camps, and generalized terror. A lock-down in communities of color. Abroad, an instant unraveling of the world order, as Europe and Japan (the latter will go nuclear) detach from America's security system and Russia and China seize their opening. A devastating fall on the stock market, and a depression, to which Trump will respond with scapegoating and with Paul Ryan's feudal program of tax cuts and budget decimation. A no-holds-barred surveillance state. A day-to-day atmosphere of menace and cruelty, at work, on the streets, and even in the home, in which the dissident American will make a tenuous internal exile.

Nuclear weapons use in Syria and/or Iran cannot be ruled out. Neither can genocidal warfare in those countries, or a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Neither can a Russian invasion of the Baltics.

Martial law is an almost-certain eventuality.

If he wins, Trump will arrive as the equivalent of Stalin or Hitler. What is so terrifying is that there will be no free world /left/ to stop him. I'd say we're staring down the barrel of the end of days, but that's a little too sunny. This approximates the beginning of the world that formed in "1984."

-Pe

jo6pac said...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/01/bob-kerrey-fulbright-university-and-the-neoliberal-erasure-of-history/

Joseph Cannon said...

Pe: Nice to see that someone GETS it.

susan said...

Joseph, I think you are channeling Jeane Dixon in terms of predictions, and therefore I can't take the prediction of Trump winning even remotely seriously.

He. is. not. going. to. win. The numbers are not there in popular or electoral college vote and will be even less than after the debates. This despite the media having built him up since he announced last June.

Joseph Cannon said...

The numbers ARE there, susan. Trump was ten-or-so points behind just a couple of weeks ago. Now he's only three or four points behind.

People have been brainwashed to hate Hillary. And now that I have formed a pretty good idea of what the made-in-Russia October Surprise is -- and how it will be backstopped -- I am confident that a Trump win is a lock.

It's going to happen. I can see it as if it has already happened.

Plan accordingly.

Ivory Bill Woodpecker said...

At the end of the day, all that matters is:

Are the national security institutions, and especially the spook agencies, willing to allow the Orange Grifter--the dude whose stated plans would gut our foreign policy, to the benefit of Tsar Putin--to become President?

If yes, we may have a problem.

If no, we can relax.

Well, I can relax. I doubt our esteemed host will be able to relax unless and until Hillary wins. I just hope his circulatory system can hold out until then.

Ivory Bill Woodpecker said...

What did the Republicans do in 2000 and 2004, that they did not also do in 2008 and 2012?

As far as I can tell, they used much the same strategy in 2008 and 2012, in which they lost the Presidential races convincingly, as they did in 2000 and 2004, in which they won the Presidential races by the skins of their teeth, and may have cheated.

Why did they fail in 2008 and 2012, if not demographics--which have only become even more favorable to the Democrats since 2012?

As for Anon@12:25--Holy Ascended Madoka, I thought our host was nervous, but Anon makes Mr. Cannon seem a model of tranquility.

b said...

A national poll by Rasmussen released yesterday, with fieldwork conducted on 29-30 August, puts Trump ahead of Clinton by 1%.

For some reason RCP don't mention it, although they've taken account of previous Rasmussen polls, including others that have put Trump ahead.

prowlerzee said...

Ivory Bill, where were you in 2008? The media broadcast the election from Obama's POV, and thus the trend holds thru FROM 2000 to now.

Ivory Bill Woodpecker said...

Meh. IIRC, Rasmussen is historically, and notoriously, biased in favor of the GOP.

b said...

@Ivory Bill - On the whole, yes, Rasmussen do give Trump better figures than most of the other pollsters, as can be confirmed here. But that doesn't explain why RCP aren't mentioning their latest poll.