My instinct was that Trump could win. The polls, which I came round to believing only on the eve of the election, were utterly wrong. Many, many Republicans do not trust pollsters. They think they are part of the Blob.
I should have trusted my instinct. You always should. In 2016 my instinct told me Trump would win but I let a very intelligent American Democrat pal persuade me he knew better than me. This time, Biden had had a lead in the polls over Trump since September last year but while votes were counted Trump for some time seemed the winner.
Women didn't lose the election for Trump nor did Hispanics or black voters whose votes swung to him. It was white males who lost it for him. BLM riots should have made them flock to him. His Democrat son in law is to blame. Or to be congratulated, depending on your politics.
Thankfully, in my opinion, Biden will not seek a second term and the Senate's Republican. The Supreme Court is no longer the judicial wing of the Democratic Party. It will interpret the law objectively, not treat the Constitution as a living document.
Will Trump win in 2024 or will a new right winger emerge? Whatever happens I hope the Republican Party of the Bushes is dead forever.
Uhhh....Trump didn't lose. The election is not over. Votes are still being counted and there will be a lot of litigation. He is still standing. I'm not counting him out.
ReplyDeletemmmm
ReplyDeleteHe didn't lose. The election is not over.
ReplyDeleteAfter I prophesied a disaster for the Republican Party in 2016, I got out of the prophecy business. Clearly, my example inspired pretty much nobody.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I believe that Trump won in 2016 by not being Hillary Clinton. (In my former capacity as prophet, I thought the Republicans had nominated the one person she could beat.) One can't argue about his success at not being Hillary Clinton.
Clinton's campaign underestimated Trump's chances. (Actually, so did Trump's campaign.) That was not a mistake the Biden campaign made. It turned out an awful lot of voters. Clinton took Michigan for granted, Biden did not.
I would be surprised if the Republican Party gives Trump another turn in 2024. For one thing, he'll be 78, and he does not look healthy. The Republican Party has a long lineup of conservative politicians--a number of whom Trump thrashed in the 2016 caucuses and primaries.
The Republican Party! It is for Free Soil; it welcomes Dixiecrats. It is isolationist; it is annexationist. It is for high tariffs; it is for NAFTA. It embraces multitudes. It isn't going away.
The polls were not “utterly wrong.” It was a closer election than expected, but we are looking at a Biden win, with a strong popular vote margin and a victory in the electoral college.
ReplyDeleteTrump’s legal appeals are not getting much traction. Election boards, some of which are run by Republicans, do not like being publicly accused of corruption. Judges do not appreciate being hustled into making calls when there is no real evidence to consider. News organizations will contradict the angry statements of someone like Newt Gingrich that Republicans were not allowed to observe the count when there is video of them doing exactly that.
Fox News and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal are urging Trump to go quietly. Of course we know he won’t.
I read the source documents, with appeals going all the way up to Pennsylvania's Supreme Court. The observers were allowed in the room (which was a large convention center open space) but kept at a minimum of 18-20 feet from the first table they were supposed to observe (with many tables farther and farther at 6 foot intervals), and a metal barrier partly obstructing the observers' view. The decision went back and forth, but the state Supreme Court decided that "meaningful access" had not been defined by precedent, so the poll workers had no obligation to allow more thorough observation of the process; and that observers did not have the right to audit individual ballots, only to observe the process as a whole. So in a nutshell, observers were only granted a very narrow victory, of being allowed in the general vicinity of where vote counting was going on, in order to satisfy the requirement of having observers, but not allowed to truly observe the process.
DeleteMany new contenders in the GOP are eyeing 2024. As soon as Trump is gone they will pretend this whole distasteful episode never happened, exactly the way they acted as though the Bush administration and the Iraq war never took place. It seems strange to me that that war unfolded not long ago and is practically forgotten. But Americans forget everything, and with the Internet that tendency has been magnified.
ReplyDeletewell Christine, they think it's all over. It is now.
ReplyDelete"They" can think all they want about anything. It is not over. Not one state has been certified. Many are still counting or recounting. There has been fraud. We all know the mail-in ballot situation created ample opportunity for it. It's not as if Dems aren't know for stealing elections! Otherwise Bernie Sanders would have been the nominee twice. And Richard Nixon would have been elected in 1960. Jus sayin'.
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