[update below] [2nd update below]
Ten days to go. I cannot wait for this national (i.e. Trump) nightmare to be over. I have been less riveted to US politics and the campaign over the past week than I would normally be as we enter the final stretch, partly because the outcome is increasingly apparent but also as there are other stories of late that have been distracting my attention and thoughts, notably here in France (which I’ll soon write about inshallah). I did watch Thursday’s debate en différé; as WaPo columnist Jennifer Rubin tweeted when the thing began: “In about 90 minutes you will never have to sit through a Trump debate again. Hold onto that.” How nice it would be indeed if we never had to see or listen to the idiot ever again, period. Sitting through 90 minutes of Trump’s torrent of lies and bullshit, not to mention his ignorant, incoherent blathering, was a trial. Biden’s body language and facial expressions while Trump was talking—as if he was thinking to himself “what a f*cking idiot” or “you are so full of shit”—told it all. The fact that Trump was deemed by commentators and pundits to have put in a reasonably good performance—at least compared to the first debate—shows how low the bar has been set; and how low the level of political discourse in the USA has sunk. What a goddamned disgrace that this sociopath—who is so utterly devoid of humanity and decency—has been president of the United States of America for four years now, is adored by tens of millions of Americans—who would continue to adore him no matter how many pussies he grabbed or people he shot on 5th Avenue—and actually has an outside chance, however minor, of reelection. But I repeat myself.
The debate, along with the dueling town hall meetings ten days ago, were instructive and useful nonetheless, as they so starkly highlighted the choice on offer in this election, but also allowed voters to take the full measure of Joe Biden, who has pleasantly surprised, indeed impressed. I found his town hall performance on the 15th to be very good: he was well-spoken, didn’t miss a beat, and displayed a detailed knowledge of policy on all the issues he was asked about. And he revealed himself once again, this time in his interaction with the town hall participants, to be a genuinely sensitive, caring, and good person. He aced it on both form and substance. The contrast with Trump at his town hall event was like night and day. Biden’s debate performance was likewise solid, even if he had a slight misstep toward the end on fracking (though which won’t matter a whit). The exchange on immigration caught my attention in particular, less on account of Trump’s unsurprising response to the migrant children separated from their parents—which should have him and the other responsible parties criminally prosecuted, if not in a US court of law, then in The Hague—than Biden’s pledge to offer a pathway to citizenship not only for the DACA/Dreamers but also for the 11 million undocumented migrants in the United States, i.e. 1986-type amnesty. Excellent.
So I’m feeling good about Biden right now, not only on his chances for victory but the kind of president he would be (assuming the Democrats take the Senate, of course). For those who still think of him as a faute de mieux, do read Franklin Foer’s article (Oct. 16th) in The Atlantic, “Joe Biden has changed: He’s preparing for a transformative presidency.” Also the one (Oct. 22nd) by Bill McKibben in The New Yorker, “Joe Biden and the possibility of a remarkable presidency.”
On Biden’s chances, the polls have had him in the +10 range for the past two weeks (he is presently, as I write, at +9.1 at FiveThirtyEight). At this point in 2016, Hillary Clinton was at +3.8—and with the polling presumably better this time, pollsters having rectified some of their shortcomings of 2016 (e.g. weighting more for education). As for the Electoral College, the no toss-ups map at Real Clear Politics (which invariably has slightly better numbers for Trump than does FiveThirtyEight) has Biden at 357 EVs. Which is to say, EC landslide. (As for the Senate, RCP’s no toss-ups map presently has the Dems gaining 4 seats, thus taking control).
On Trump pulling a second surprise of the century, Thomas Edsall had another of his rain-on-your-parade columns (Oct. 14th), informing skittish NYT readers that Biden is not out of the woods, and The New Yorker’s Sue Halpern wondered (Oct. 21st) if we can really trust the polls. A black swan October Surprise is, of course, in the realm of the possible, as is the possibility that the polls are understating the actual level of Trump support, e.g. among the masses of rural/small town voters newly registered by the GOP, who are normally apolitical but may be coaxed to the polls by friends and family in their MAGA world. But for Trump to surge in the final stretch and win the EC, he would, as the Brookings Institution’s centrist policy wonk, William Galston, submits (Oct. 19th), have to cut Biden’s advantage by 8 points, “an accomplishment for which,” he says, “there’s no clear precedent in American history.”
Such a calamitous scenario is, frankly, hard to envisage, particularly in view of the massive, unprecedented levels of early and absentee voting we are presently witnessing—and which has led FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver to project a mind-blowing turnout of 154 million voters. Some of these will come from MAGA world but, given how worked up D voters are against Trump and the prospect of being rid of him, more will not. And new MAGA voters will, it stands to reason, be offset by the substantial defections of disaffected 2016 Trump voters to Biden. On this, there have been countless reports; see, e.g., the piece (Oct. 20th) by Politico’s conservative-leaning national correspondent Tim Alberta, who reports on “Trump fatigue” even among voters who are otherwise favorable to him.
Rather than a miraculous comeback, it is more likely that, as The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last categorically asserts (Oct. 22nd), “Trump is toast,” specifying that “[t]wo new pieces of data are the final nails in the coffin.”
Generally speaking, the number to follow is Trump’s approval rating, which remains stable in the 42-43% range. If it starts to move sharply upward over the next ten days, reaching 45-46%, then one can start to worry, even panic. If not, chill. He’s toast.
On the post-November 3rd nightmare scenarios explicated in lurid detail by Barton Gellman in The Atlantic—e.g. of Trump declaring victory on the night of the 3rd, before all the votes are counted—TNR’s Walter Shapiro issued a corrective (Oct. 20th) on “The overblown alarmism about a Trump coup.”
On Trump and the coronavirus pandemic, Robert Jay Lifton offered these thoughts yesterday on his blog:
Killing to Heal
In my study of Nazi doctors I emphasized their reversal of healing and killing. Trump and Trumpists, though not Nazis, are doing the same.
According to Hitler and his inner circle, the Nordic race had once been powerful but had been “infected” and weakened by Jewish influence, so that getting rid of the Jews was required for “healing” the Nordic race.
In the case of Trump and Trumpists, the way to heal society and return it to full functioning is to expose Americans to illness and death. The weak can be sacrificed; the robust will be fine. And when offering up the elderly in particular, Trumpists render them expendable, reminding us of the Nazi dismissal of “life unworthy of life.”
Trump and Trumpists have not only failed to take steps necessary to mitigate the virus but have colluded with covid-19 — holding large rallies, sometimes indoors, in which thousands of people congregate without masks or distancing. Trump himself was entrapped by this collusion, falling ill along with family members and loyalists who have been in contact with him.
Knowledgeable projections suggest that Trumpist policies have resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans, making this an age of presidential killing.
Trump also carries out his version of what the Nazis called Gleichschaltung, which meant the reordering or reorganizing of institutions and professions to conform to the required ideology. The Nazis did not destroy the medical profession but rather removed from its leadership those considered unreliable, replacing them with loyalists, so that the profession itself became Nazified.
The Trumpist Gleichschaltung of medicine during the Covid pandemic has installed the leadership of a neuroradiologist named Scott Atlas, a man with no public health or epidemiological experience. His advocacy – now Trumpist policy – is to invoke the deadly principle of “herd immunity” – encouraging the unimpeded virus to infect everyone and causing an extraordinary number of deaths in the service of a vision of ultimate healing.
Trump himself has resorted to a stance of cult-like omniscience, attacking scientists and physicians who tell us truths about Covid-19, and attempting to criminalize and destroy all who question him.
But Trump and those who follow and enable him are the criminals, agents of presidential killing. American presidents are responsible for protecting their people and enhancing their lives. Trumpists instead kill in the name of the president’s solipsistic (completely self-contained) reality. Their dominant mode has become the reversal of healing and killing.
We must keep that in mind as we vote this criminal administration out of power, remove it if it does not go willingly, and begin the long struggle to reassert truths about, make clear distinctions between, healing and killing.
Robert Jay Lifton M.D.
À suivre.
UPDATE: A faithful AWAV reader has sent a private message praising my analysis above, though takes issue with my “failure to mention voter suppression and intimidation in [my] forecast[, which] suggests [I] think that for the presidential election it won’t count for much, that Biden’s lead is comfortable enough to overcome its effects,” adding that, for his part, he is “cautiously optimistic about that but worried that it’ll keep the Dems from capturing the Senate.”
Valid point. I do take voter suppression seriously, have mentioned it in previous posts, and insisted from the outset that it is the only way Trump can possibly eke out a victory in the Electoral College (no one, including in his campaign, has ever believed that he can win the national popular vote). Of the numerous methods of voter suppression concocted by the Republicans in the states they control—Mother Jones journalists Ari Berman and AJ Vicens have enumerated 29—the main one to worry about is invalidation of absentee/mail-in ballots. This could affect the outcome in swing states (notably PA) if the result is very close. But if Biden’s current poll numbers in the key swing states hold up and are reflected in the outcome—and he wins the national PV by 6% or more—voter suppression most certainly won’t matter.
As for the Senate, it could be a problem in NC and GA (where the two races may both go to run-offs in January), though the D candidate in NC (Cunningham) is currently looking good in the polls.
MoJo’s Ari Berman has a heart-warming report dated Oct. 23rd, “Voter suppression efforts could be backfiring on Republicans: GOP efforts to make it harder to vote have motivated Democrats to cast ballots in record numbers.”
2nd UPDATE: Another faithful AWAV reader, who is nervous about the election, has asked me to comment on a piece dated Oct. 21st in The Washington Monthly, by Steven Waldman—who is president and cofounder of Report for America—entitled “Why Trump has a serious chance of winning. Really.” The lede “Here’s the evidence that Joe Biden isn’t doing that much better than Hillary Clinton.” A few comments.
First, it is untrue that Biden isn’t doing that much better than Hillary in 2016. She never had the sustained leads that he has throughout the campaign. Just look at the numbers. Second, I am not going to wade through Waldman’s interpretation of the swing state data, as I’ve already seen quite enough on this and for many months now (notably from Nate Silver and Dave Wasserman). Go back and reread William Galston’s analysis above. That’s as much as one needs on this particular aspect. Third, on Trump being “actually more popular now than on the day he was elected,” this observation is both gratuitous and irrelevant. Sure, Trump is now 10 points less unpopular than he was during the 2016 campaign—as Republican voters who disapproved of him back then (though who nonetheless voted for him) are now fine with him—but he is still way underwater in his approval rating—and has been for his entire presidency. An incumbent president cannot win reelection—fairly and squarely at least—with 43% approval—unless the challenger is also very unpopular. And on this, there is a big difference between Clinton and Biden: on election day in 2016, the former was at a negative 12.6 points, whereas the latter today has a positive rating of 6.2 (source: RCP). The current spread between Biden and Trump is a whopping 17.7. That on its own should clinch it for Biden. Finally, Waldman cites as evidence the Trafalgar Group polling institute, referring specifically to Rich Lowry’s article in the National Review. On the Trafalgar Group and Lowry’s piece, please read Never Trumper conservative Jonathan V. Last’s comment in The Bulwark’s Triad newsletter, “Conservative make-believe,” scrolling to “2. The pretend polls.” Case closed.
Excellent analysis as always. But I’m wondering how you more broadly assess the Trump phenomena? Certainly it is a eye-opening lesson in the weaknesses of democracy. Or maybe something more — how such monsters as Trump can blossom and bloom in the fertile soil of democracy. But what are the specific mechanisms which enable such horrors to happen? As an example of the operations of opinion formation in this democracy, consider the debate. For 90 minutes, the president mixed together wholesale lies and incoherent arguments with absurd but deeply immoral character assassination. Yet he still retains the undying (or should we say dying) loyalty of 40% of the voters. For example, when asked about the adequacy of his response to the corona virus and his responsibility, he volunteered the ludicrous argument that no one could have done more to stop the entry virus from entering the country. In this way, he neatly ignored the subsequent 8 or so months as if that wasn’t relevant. What are the mechanisms of public reasoning and partisan allegiance that allow voters to ignore such absurd travesties of logic and of course his criminal responsibility in so many deaths?
Rich: Assessing the Trump phenomenon is a pretty big question, which I’ve attempted to do on AWAV over the past four years. I’m as appalled and mystified as you and the next person are over the sheer numbers of Americans who adore him. The fact that illiberalism has deep roots in a part of American society – notably in the South – is a factor. Social media and the emergence of a closed conservative media ecosystem – which presents a completely different picture of reality – is also a big one. Articles I’ve posted by Anne Applebaum (‘A warning from Europe’), Evan Osnos (on the Greenwich Republicans), and Adam Serwer (on cruelty being the point), among others, help in grasping the phenomenon.
What drives the phenomenon, though, is negative partisanship and ressentiment. Here are a couple of passages from recent articles I archived, this by Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic in August, “The facts just aren’t getting through“:
And this by the NYT’s Maggie Haberman in July, “Trump promotes caricature of what conservatives want“:
And see this one posted today by the National Review’s Rich Lowry, “The only middle finger available: If Trump wins, it will be as a gigantic rude gesture to the cultural Left.”
Put simply, supporting Trump is a way of saying ‘fuck you’ to people like us (as if we’ve ever done anything to them). The overriding motivation of Trump supporters is ‘owning the libs’ (I see this a lot on social media).
The bottom line: the MAGA people simply see the world very differently from the way we do.
Well the Biden folks don’t share your take, at least not when pitching to past donors like me. Today They sent me this message: “A lot of pundits are in denial. They think this is going to be some sort of blowout. I’m here to tell you it’s not. It’s going to be very close, probably down to just a couple of points. Just look at some of these new polls:
Michigan: Trump 47, Biden 46 (-1)
Arizona: Trump 48, Biden 44 (-4)
Florida: Trump 48, Biden 46 (-2)
We need your financial support more than ever before”…etc., etc.
I get they want to fight complacency and scare the last dollar out of my pocket. But does this kind of messaging really work?
Ricky: The Biden people are trying to scare Dem voters out of any eventual complacency. They want folks like you to quake in your boots until next Tuesday night.
See this piece by Greg Sargent from last week on district-level polls.
Fine post, Arun, thx. And glad to read Lifton is still around. One would have thought a research focus such as his would not translate to a long life! Lenny
On the persistence of The Idiot’s popularity, I was struck by something I read recently in Levitsky & Ziblatt’s “How Democracies Die” – that McCarthy had 40% support after his censure by the Senate, and Wallace had 40% approval for his third party run in 1968. It seems that we have a baseline 40% of far right thinking in the country. That is troubling. This problem is compounded by the fact that we have a counter-majoritarian system, so there are no political incentives for the GOP to change.
The press and the political class present a further problem. It is rather astounding that it is simply a given in this country 1) that Trump is going to lose the popular vote but might win the presidency again (and somehow this would represent the will of the people), and 2) that it is baked into the calculus of the election that the GOP is going to do everything it can, illegal and semi-legal, including straight out lying and fraud, to screw the vote and prevent or discourage people from voting, and the political class just shrugs it off. The country is sick. Our “democracy” is unhealthy.
I agree wholeheartedly. I hope democratic reform will be one of the first orders of business for a Biden/Harris administration.
DHM: I agree with your every last word, needless to say. I’m familiar with Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s book, though haven’t yet read it. You may have seen their opinion piece in the NYT the other day, “End minority rule: Either we become a truly multiracial democracy or we cease to be a democracy at all.” On the poll numbers on Joseph McCarthy and George Wallace – and the portion of the American electorate that is illiberal right-wing – one may also cite the 53% in 1970, who thought the students who were killed at Kent State got what they deserved.
I did not know that Kent State number. Depressing, and unsurprising. But perhaps the better polling in support for BLM is a sign of hope, or slow progress?
If you look at favorability ratings, district-level polls, Biden donations in the Scranton area, the fact the race has not “tightened”, it all points to one thing indeed: Trump is toast.
At this point, he’s just going around the country talking to his fans, a farewell tour of sorts (not that he knows it, but his advisers are well aware). Rallies cheer up the base and motivate the rank and file, they don’t bring any new voters into the fold.
And with under 5% undecided voters (most of whom are low information voters who typically just follow the flow, hence, are likely to break for Biden) there may not be enough to change the outcome. Even if Trump won 4/5th of the remaining undecided voters, which seems statistically impossible, I don’t see how he could win unless there were also hundreds of thousands of ballots thrown out AND a giganormous polling error.
The size of the blue wave will however matter in giving Biden momentum and in quelling attempts at claiming victory before votes are all counted – Kavanaugh’s decision that waiting past Nov 3 could “flip” the results EVEN IF THE BALLOTS HAVE NOT ALL BEEN COUNTED (it wasn’t about a recount!) is worrisome in that regard. Plus there’ll be lots of shenanigans during the lame duck sessions.
The ideal situation would be for Florida (which counts absentee ballots as they arrive AND is on the East Coast, ie., EST) to flip because Trump has no path to victory if he loses Florida and it’ll be announced relatively quickly, well before Midwestern states, probably before 1 or 2 am French time.
And if Trump wins Florida, it still means he needs to win GA, NC, AZ, Ohio, Pennsylvania to have a shot at winning.
It’d be sweet if Biden won Texas (I’m guessing Republicans would suddenly no longer be gung ho about how the Electoral College is necessary for true representation, Republic not democracy, etc) but I’m skeptical, especially after seeing Nate Cohn’s last numbers. It’s possible, since youth turnout and new voters both add quite a bit of uncertainty to the final result, but it’s still unlikely. However I’m hoping it’ll help with downballot races, especially flipping the State House. It’d be huge for redistricting and ending the totally gerrymandered state map.
Georgia is very interesting, and close in my opinion to both Florida (for educated new arrivals from other States + suburbs+ rural areas+ Old South religion + growing Hispanic population, but without the elderly population and the Cuban/Puerto Rican near majority) and NC (for the mix between rural and urban, Appalachia and Research Triangle, Old and New South). Any of the three would likely correlate with at least another one.
Myos: There is a slight “tightening” of the race as I write (Weds night), with Biden at +8.8 and Trump’s approval rating at 43.2. With 6 days to go, it’s looking good for Biden, particularly when examining the district-level polls as you mention (on this, you may have seen Greg Sargent’s piece last week). And then there’s this by Politico’s right-leaning reporter Tim Alberta. But I’m still holding my breath, particularly after reading Richard North Patterson on “How Trump could still pull it off.” And I’m not overly optimistic for Florida. But if Biden picks off Texas – the probability of which is the same as Florida IMHO – then it will really be ‘game over’ for the Republicans.
3 days.
Being optimistic and hoping Biden will pick up enough states that announce a winner quickly, because they’re EST and/or count ballots as they get them or at least process early ballots before election day: GA, NC (if Trump loses there, game over) would be first; Fl; AZ.
The worst would be for the election hinging on PA.