By all rights Trump should be sliding into the low 30s. He shouldn't still be at 40 percent support.
Granted, it is the nature of polling that the results are a week or two behind the current news of the ongoing campaigns. So the results we're seeing now are based on situations two weeks ago, not necessarily within the past week itself (during which Trump switched back to full-on "Build A Wall" anti-Latino bullsh-t). Thing is, two weeks ago Trump wasn't doing any better, having to cope with an organization still a mess and his so-called "pivot" not really moderating anything about himself. The only thing I can think of is that the previous weeks were filled with primary voters getting their groove on at the state level, and a lot of Republican voters getting their "I MUST SUPPORT THE PARTY" mindset into full gear.
I'm not the only one bothered by this. Bob Cesca at Salon.com is worried too:
And the GOP nominee hasn’t really done anything specific to warrant such a change in fortunes. In fact, he’s done almost everything wrong by a factor of thousands. This speaks volumes about the malfunctioning condition of American politics and the news media, and I’m afraid that all of the garment rending over Trump’s individual hourly trespasses is serving to avoid the big picture crisis: Trump shouldn’t even be in the race, much less nearly tied with a far more qualified opponent. He’s marched through a super-colossal loophole in the system, bobby-pins and border walls in tow, while doing everything wrong...I know we shouldn't panic... but...
Panic is a necessity when dealing with this reality: We are one vote away from electing a racist, sexist, ignorant, ill-informed, lying con artist named Trump to the highest office in the land. What Trump can do in the White House is horrifying: subvert existing laws, sign in new laws that will shred our rights (he's openly promised to do this), terrorize our own populace, destroy every foreign alliance that helps keep us safe.
Trump shouldn't be polling at 40 percent. He shouldn't even be polling near 33 percent - if you factor in how the electorate is divided into thirds of Republican-Independent-Democrat - because Trump doesn't hold a near-lock on Republican voters (he's near about 85 percent intraparty support, where Romney in 2012 was near 95 percent). Well, maybe he could be if Trump is pulling any numbers from the Independent Third... but who the hell among the Independent-minded voters ACTUALLY THINKS TRUMP IS A VIABLE CHOICE?!
This is an insane part of an already insane and broken election cycle.
This is where the flaws of the national media - the part of the institution designed to inform the voters as factually and accurately as possible - are striking. The mainstream media has for the past month attacked Hillary Clinton more than they've gone after Trump, all because:
1) the Beltway types never liked Hillary,
2) they're obsessing over getting a BREAKING news story on the Clintons that could FINALLY be a major scandal after 25 years of near-misses and one sex scandal about blow-jobs, yet they keep failing to do so, and
3) they want their damned horse race to make it to the finish line, so they're under-reporting the sins of one campaign (Trump's) and exaggerating the flaws of the other (Hillary's).
This isn't just Fox Not-News: CNN has gone all in as Trump Apologists, and MSNBC has more fanboys in the tank for the RNC than they have actual reporters digging into the serious criminal issues surrounding Trump. Good Lord, so-called Progressive Lawrence O'Donnell argued if Trump was "softening" on his immigration stance: a real Progressive knows Trump has been a real-life racist for so long that he won't pivot on that hatred for anything. This happened not because O'Donnell is Progressive or Left: this happened because O'Donnell is a media talking head, and this is his livelihood of forcing balance (all in the name of ratings and ad space) where there IS no balance.
As a result, our media has pretty much convinced a sizable population that "both sides are corrupt." I'm hearing people now saying they have "a choice between AIDS and Cancer." They're equating a known bankrupt-driven failure of a businessman with a documented history of racism and misogyny who's promising more of the same as President to a long-time political figure with a proven track record of impressing her voters and understanding public administration who just happens to have a dubious reputation all because her haters GAVE her that reputation in the first place.
This is infuriating, bordering on professional malpractice.
This really isn't Panic for me as it is Rage: That my whole nation is collapsing down around ourselves because of bad information, primal emotions, and outright foolishness.
We're supposed to be better than this, America. We're supposed to be better than this anti-immigrant, anti-policy, con artist shilling himself as the Great Orange Hope when he's really a Tiny-Fingered Cheeto-Faced Ferret-Wearing Shitgibbon.
Appealing to the better angels of our nature apparently does not work anymore. Fine. Just gonna have to yell at you.
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?! TRUMP IS A WALKING DISASTER AREA OF A HUMAN BEING WHO LIES MORE THAN A BEAR RUG. HE'S FACING MULTIPLE COURT CASES ABOUT HIS ACTS OF FRAUD AND CORRUPTION, HE WON'T RELEASE HIS TAX RETURNS, HE'S OPENLY CALLING ON MASS DEPORTATION ON A SCALE THIS WORLD HASN'T SEEN SINCE THE HOLOCAUST AND I AM NOT GOING GODWIN HERE DAMMIT THIS IS REAL.
Argh.
Look, you may have your outrage and your hurt feelings and your fears about where "your" nation may be heading, but NONE of that is REAL. You've been fed fear-mongering by a group of media monsters - Hi, Rush! Hi, Ann! Hi, Sean! Hi, Glenn! -who offer you that shit because it makes you buy their books and keep them on the gravy train.
If you think you've got a standard-bearer in Trump that can lead you to your Promised Land of "Whites Only Utopia" you are sadly mistaken. Trump is a con artist who will rip you off - he will rip off the entire nation if he can - and leave you in the dust convincing you that it's still all the fault of Others than himself.
STOP BUYING THE GODDAMN SNAKE OIL, AMERICA.
The Hell. Is Happening Anymore. When will sanity prevail? When the lies stop. When the self-serving bullshit stops.
3 comments:
Even if Trump loses in November, the conditions that allowed him to get this far won't go away. His rise tells us that a significant chunk of the population is ignorant, bigoted, and willing to vote against the best interests of the U.S. That will create problems in the future, and we should be worried.
if you factor in how the electorate is divided into thirds of Republican-Independent-Democrat
Trouble is, "independents" covers a lot of things. Many people who call themselves "independents" are teabaggish types who stopped identifying as Republicans because the Republican party is too moderate / squishy / willing to compromise. That is, a good chunk of so-called independents are to the right of Republicans.
For all I know, some of them may also be to the left of the Democrats for similar reasons. At any rate, the "floor" for either major-party candidate these days is probably closer to 40% than 33%.
But I agree, it's disturbing that this many people can't see the fever swamp they're wallowing in.
This part of the election cycle is always bad for one's nerves. It's not something you go around contemplating all of the time, that such a sizeable fraction of the population has lost its damn mind. But it has. That's what they got for all of that money and effort the right spent building their propaganda machine. Roger Ailes is not a stupid man. Also, Robert Mercer has a lot of money (I'll omit the list of similar characters, with similar fortunes, trying to advance similar interests.)
We can beat them, at least for the presidency.
We seem to have more trouble at the state and local level, and we need to figure out what to do about that. Evidence doesn't seem to work. If it did, all you would have to do to turn all the statehouses and governor's mansions and congressional delegations from R to D would be this: "California, Kansas." Which, now that I think of it, wouldn't be a bad approach to campaigning for the presidency right about now, except that it might not work for the same reasons listed above.
Hang on, we'll make it through this.
-Doug in Oakland
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