Vibe Check
How we feeling?
When President Biden stepped aside, handing the reins to Vice President Harris, the whole tenor of the election contest changed. Democrats went from a sense of doom that the old man was going to get crushed to a sense of hope. When Harris greatly surpassed expectations in her early campaign appearances, people become absolutely giddy about her chances of not only sweeping the swing states but actually expanding the number of states that were in play. And, when she tapped Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, with his folksy “Republicans are weird” and “Mind Your Own Business” memes, as her running mate, it suddenly became a “vibes” election.
Despite nothing really changing—Harris has continued to campaign quite effectively, seemingly crushed former President Trump in the debate, and then executed the most on-message Democratic National Convention in ages—that seems like months ago. The race seems right back where it was months ago: a complete tossup.
Frustratingly, while Trump has upped his fascist rhetoric and displayed all manner of signs of mental decline in numerous public appearances, his favorability rating is higher than it was in 2020 or 2016. It’s quite possible that, despite everything, he could become President again.
The public opinion polls remain useful for giving us insights into what people are worried about but they’re increasingly suspect for predicting election results. Because almost all of us have shifted from landlines to cellular phones and screen our calls, telephone surveys have become self-selected samples. And, while pollsters are doing their damnedest to adjust to this using scientific weighting techniques, this is more art than science.
While Election Day is next Tuesday, the election has been ongoing for weeks in some places. Millions of people have already voted. The interpretations of the early voting is all over the place. As are predictions of who will turn out on Election Day itself.
By any reasonable measure, Harris should win this in a blowout. While she wouldn’t have been my first choice had there been an actual Democratic primary, she’s a reasonably normal American politician. By all indications, she’s possessed of her mental faculties and is a non-sociopath. She seems to have a genuine regard for the rule of law and the norms of liberal democracy. Her opponent is a convicted felon, has been found liable for rape in a civil trial, is under multiple other felony indictments, and incited a riot in a failed attempt to steal the last election. He has at the very least implied that he’ll resort to violence if he doesn’t win this time around.
And, yet, by all indications it’s a tie.
I remain unsurprised that the overwhelming number of those who have always voted Republican continue to do so with Trump as the nominee. Those who defected are almost entirely elites who have the luxury of placing a regard for institutional norms above short-term policy preferences. And, indeed, for most of us—overwhelmingly concentrated in the national security sphere—the Democratic alternative has actually been more closely aligned to our preferences than Trump in the last three cycles.
What’s harder to fathom are the Obama voters who have switched to Trump and the “vote for the man, not the party” voters who see Trump as the less-bad alternative. The best I can figure is that, as in 2016, a lot of it is a Screw You to “the Establishment,” whatever exactly that is. There’s clearly a sense that the traditional elites of both parties aren’t looking out for The Little Man and, indeed, for men in general. And there’s also a backlash against cultural change, whether from immigration or from the expansion of LGBTQ rights.
Regardless, I just have no damn idea what’s going to happen Tuesday night. I wouldn’t be at all shocked by a Harris landslide or a repeat of 2016. The only shocker would be if Trump won the popular vote.
The reason truth is stranger than fiction is that fiction has to make sense.
My current mental state is “The Scream” by Edvard Munch
The only conclusion I can come to is that a lot of Americans think that they’re not going to be affected negatively by a Trumpian government. Or that they think it will be fun living in a Mad Max world.
It’ll definitely be either a total blowout or decided by one provisional ballot in Pennsylvania.
Well, prepare your shocked face. Maybe that’s a bridge too far but I do think turnout in deep blue may put the fear of the electorate in many Democrats. Trump has made a play for voters in NY and CA, where many non-Democrats have been disillusioned. But they may turn out this time on principle. And that could rattle House and local elections.
Selena Zito observed that the suburban women may not be as assured to Democrats as they think. She has spoken with quite a few such women who had issues with bio-males in women’s sports for the very parochial reason that they had sacrificed for their athletically talented daughter and didn’t appreciate a trans-woman showing up to kill their daughter’s chance at a college scholarship.
Basically with the parties realigning, the assumptions in polls and models are likely to need realignment.
I’m between disgusted and terrified. Disgusted that my fellow Americans can be this stupid. Terrified that Harris will win both the popular vote and the Electoral College vote and that Republicans will pull some bullshit inside baseball technically constitutional but entirely contrary to the spirit move to install Trump anyway and the Supreme Court will shrug and say “well that’s legal I guess” and suddenly we will be living in an oligarchy/dictatorship. That means I will continue to have serious anxiety another 3 months, which is a long damn time
I feel like I’m in a nice hotel room in a hotel I love. . . but which is infested by bed bugs and refuses to do anything about it.
My preference is to go to a different hotel. There are a lot of other hotels without bed bugs. Or at least with bugs that won’t bite me. I’ve pretty much figured out how to get around the tax issues of going expat. So that’s my vibe: why would I stay in a bug-infested room?
She has spoken with quite a few such women who had issues with bio-males in women’s sports for the very parochial reason that they had sacrificed for their athletically talented daughter and didn’t appreciate a trans-woman showing up to kill their daughter’s chance at a college scholarship.
This is just an admission that none of the anti-trans people have been good at any sport ever. Trust me when I tell you–if your kid is capable of playing at a D1 school, it doesn’t matter who they are playing against. And if your kid didn’t get a full ride, it’s because of their lack of talent. End of story.
All of this nonsense about cultural change and blah blah blah–the majority of these Republicans are just mediocre dumbasses and they blame other people for their own problems.
If Harris loses, it’s not going to be a repeat of 2016. For one thing, if he wins no one’s going to say “didn’t see that coming.” The complete lack of anticipation of Trump’s 2016 victory among the public at large is utterly absent from this cycle.
Also, we can’t forget that Hillary was staggeringly unpopular, something which is very much not the case for Harris. And there was a high third-party vote, which seems not to be the case now, especially after RFK exited the race.
In 2016, those paying attention weren’t blind to Hillary’s weaknesses. They just assumed that Trump was so disastrous a candidate it would override all of that.
Then there’s the fact that the election ended up coming down to states that Hillary was thought to have in the bag, and if she had won those states, she’d have won the election. It’s hard to imagine anything like that happening now (it would be as if Harris were to win enough of the 7 battlegrounds to reach 270, then unexpectedly loses Virginia or Minnesota or New Mexico, handing Trump the election).
We’re in a completely different world than we were in 2016, when Trump hadn’t quite taken over the GOP, and turnout was relatively low. I’m pretty damn optimistic, based not just on “vibes” but on a range of concrete indicators, from the way Dems have been performing in elections since Dobbs to the palpable enthusiasm in the Harris campaign as well her decent favorability numbers. But the stakes are so high I’m still incredibly nervous.
@Kylopod:
Nauseously optimistic?
@Kathy:
Of course, who said those words read most of the stories in the subgenre I write in regularly. Sissys, hotel maids, bimbos, misogyny and sexual intercourse at the drop of a pin.
While my books are sci-fi, I try to have them make sense. Readers have the final vote on that.
I will stand by my prediction. Trump is going to win next week.
If he loses, there is going to be violence.
Feeling good
https://polymarket.com/event/presidential-election-winner-2024?tid=1730303010531
@Michael Reynolds:
Dear Wife wouldn’t mind in the slightest us moving to the Philippines. I’m fine with the country but the barrage of typhoons and needing to check the weather underground make me less keen about it than her.
I feel (and it is just feelings which I tend to be suspicious of) that we have fundamentally broken something. Something that goes deeper than politics. I’m all depressed as hell that folks (and family) I’ve been friendly with all my life, have socialized with, and shared family highs and lows with, may have been, underneath it all, alien creatures. I don’t know if we, as an American family, can come back from that.
Vibe: Cautiously optimistic, anxious about the outcome, and background looking for ways to work outside the US.
Trump’s circle is toxic. His campaign is toxic. His rhetoric is toxic. His actions are toxic. His supporters are toxic. Everything about him is toxic. I can’t fathom how his supporters sleep at night. They can’t offer anything positive about the man, just a constant dribble of hate and fear spiked with hollow lies about the state of the nation and hand-waving “Trump will fix it!” bullshit.
The prospect that a few thousand people in Pennsylvania might stuff everyone’s face into the top of a smoke stack to breathe deep because they don’t want to see a guy in a dress is a disastrous indictment of our society. The further prospect of Team Red blowing up as many backstops as possible to ensure a Trump installation is absolutely chilling. And the bonus prospect that a half dozen corrupt SCOTUS robes could probably be convinced to let the massive minority party occupy the White House indefinitely is just a shit-steeped cherry on top of the manure cake.
The situation shows that the electorate are a box of rocks and blood and soil populism is the easiest thing to sell. I agree with the Ds who say they’re slightly hopeful, or at least would rather be in their position than the Rs’. But I have a huge lump of existential fear in my gut. I take my BP in the morning and it’s been high lately. In a week, or few days longer, I will either feel dread or momentary relief, before I start worrying about 2028. If Trump wins, our only hope is that eventually, maybe, as in the U.K., as soon as fourteen years, the electorate will recognize the fruits of conservative rule. If there still is an electorate. But I fear it may take something like what happened to Germany and Italy.
It’s maddening that we’ve reached this point in our politics and our society, but it’s also entirely believable if you look back 30, 20, 10, 5 years. We’ve been on a particular trajectory, and nothing happened in that time to change it. If anything, it accelerated and Trump was a singular force for multiplying the damage.
My description, after reading it, seems so anodyne, but I wish we all keep in mind the sinister forces (domestic and foreign) who got us here. Craven GOP politicians, rightwing billionaires, social media fame-seekers, Russia, etc.
I hope we escape unscathed.
@Grumpy realist:
That’s my feeling as well. I mean, sure, the white racist crowd are certain they will benefit. But there are a lot of people who don’t believe it will be as bad as it will eventually get. They look back on Trump’s term and think things weren’t that bad (the ability of people to simply forget how he made COVID so much worse for America is kind of astounding). They think he may talk about doing A or B or C, but what actually happens isn’t nearly so bad.
But they forget Trump had people around him who acted as guardrails, as inhibitors to his complete disinibition, as Ezra Klein put it in a recent podcast. But he won’t have that in his next term, should he win. He won’t be surrounded by inhibitors, he’ll be surrounded by enablers, by people loyal to him alone, who are completely willing to translate his most destructive impulses into action.
I do believe Trump can easily win next Tuesday, so I have come to accept that.
I do feel that JKB, The Ry Guy, Jack, and a handful of other folks on this site are in denial that if Trump goes through with his revenge tour that Trump will be goring a whole lot of conservative and MAGA oxen.
Places like FL and TX will remind Trump that he can only go so far when it comes to immigration because the agribarrons and construction/Real Estate Developers would tan his hide if he really does deport millions of immigrants and completely seals off the border, even Trump’s “revenge” plans against his enemies can just make life miserable for the average MAGA Joe. Time spent getting revenge on folks who will do less than nothing to help JKB.
I also feel that there is a better chance that Biden decides to jump on the coup bandwagon if he loses than there is of the U.S. Military or even just regular police being directed to suppress/elimimate/arrest Trump’s enemies. Good luck preventing Biden, Obama, Clinton, Harris, and others from leaving the country if they so desire. That is as much a fantasy pictured in The Ry Guy or Jacks head as it is a fantasy in many liberals minds that we would see Trump perp walked and put behind bars. Not gonna happen.
Replacing the bureaucrats we have with MAGA bureaucrats, okay then. But good luck eliminating certain departments that help keep the trains running, so to speak, as in this case I am talking about schools functioning. There are a whole ton of MAGA parents that already see school as free daycare for their precious spawn, and there will be hell to pay if they cannot foist off their spawn on teachers for most of the day so they can go about their day. Also, plenty of folks in the South do not need more reasons to loathe the DMV, so they are going to expect competence from any DMV MAGA worker.
My sister has definitely hinted that she absolutely hears as much whining from the very well to do at her school (the school she is at is in or adjacent to I believe Bel Air, so very well to do location in Los Angeles), as she would from the working stiff who cannot afford spend all day with their kid as they need to be out cleaning someones office or home. She is also in a school that from a U.S News ranking website with data up to 2022 is considered top 15 elementary schools in all of CA, and much higher ranking for just the LAUSD area.
The wealthy in this country want folks like my sister to keep on trucking and be able to educate/baby-sit their kids.
I am white, what folks now call a cis hetero male (I used to just say I was a White boy with an Italian mother, so a bit of Sicilian in me), so I will not address the things that scare folks who are not in my boat (but I do know folks with kids who are trans or not quite sure yet where they fall on the spectrum of being considered straight, gay, trans, etc..) because I probably do not understand yet how truly bad it can get for some folks under Trump.
Still, folks like Musk will let Trump get away a ton of nasty rhetoric up until he gets the crown. Musk, and many like him have shown themselves to have very fragile egos, and Trump causing the stock market to lose 50% in value would be worse to Musk than having to say hello to President Harris when he visits the White House.
The problem for me is that even if Harris wins, the fact it’s so close makes me feel like it’s still a loss. Instead of saying “no fascism”, the voters would really be saying “no fascism for now”
I’m full blown optimistic. Why be otherwise at this point when the Harris landslide is still a possibility?
If one pulls out from American-only regards, one can note a transveral working class reaction in the higher-income countries – let us say American and European – against the BoBo Left approach – the Bohemian Bourgeousie is the French phrase translated and rather well captures a University degree holding white collar professional class Left across it seems to me a broad range of the West European and America – with the heavy emphases on the concerns and above all the modes of expression of such concerns typical of those who have spent significant time in Uni campus environments. And the rise of reactionary to neo-fascist fractions collecting votes from disaffected – heavily male – labouring class profiles who previously in most areas voted various flavours of Left (of course in my Francophone world often this was even communist but there are other flavours).
The commonalities of timing rather suggest to me that making national specific excuses (Fox News! American Racism in every thing, etc) is losing a singificant commonality – of which on the Right the liberal fraction (liberal in its proper sense not your strange American one) has lost steam and been lost sight of the need for more pragmatic Bismarkian compromise relative to labour and trade.
And on the Left the BoBo Tendency siezing on Cultural and Discourse (I am afraid it is probaby the French academics who gave birth to this but the disease has taken full root amongst you) – and are utterly tone deaf (and aggressively blind and edu-cultural snobbery) as to labouring class – of which men notably – sense of stress. Sneering at their concern and loss of status does not win votes and losing elections rather has a worse result than winning.
@gVOR10:
Bienvenue au monde du réel. Humans are not University academie abstractions. Beni Adam, Beni Adam not imagined novy sovetsky chelovek.
Your lesson needs to be that talking Uni-graduate mode and nigh-uniquely Uni-grad lens to everyone is losing you ground.
One either addreses the electorate as it actually is, not as you wish it to be, or lose and see rather worse outcomes.
Or more generally “disastrous indictment of [your] society” – your society is what it is – so if you wish not to lose and see worse outcomes, you have to deal with what it is.
Against my normal bias towards pessimism, I am actually feeling pretty good about this election.
Some numbers out of AZ, where the polls have pretty much all shown Trump ahead;
AZ registered voters: 36% Republican, 29% Democrat. (the rest independent etc.)
Early votes counted so far: 36% Democrat, 43% Republican (so Dem turnout slightly ahead of Rep relative to registration, bear in mind over 80% of AZ voters are mailed mail ballots)
Votes cast: 55% Harris, 45% Trump. If these numbers are real, this will not be a close election considering AZ has been polling more Trumpy than the other “swing” states.
(Likely explanation, some combination of independents breaking towards Harris and Republicans voting Harris).
ETA: For those watching returns election night, AZ counts as follows:
Votes received by Nov 1 will be the first to be counted. Next counted will be the in person votes on Nov. 5. The last to be counted will be the so-called “late early” votes – the early votes received after Nov. 1.
The vast majority of them are lying about having voted for Obama
@charontwo: where are you getting these numbers?
@JKB: Are these “quite a few women” who’ve lost their college scholarships to trans women athletes… are they here in the room with us?
FWIW, my mood is cautious optimism combined with grim preparation.
My tl;dr: At the very least, the time between now and inauguration day is really going to suck.
I agree that a Harris blowout is highly unlikely. So to is Trump winning the electoral college. Unfortunately, that sets up two bad scenarios (at least from my perspective):
1. Harris wins EV (short term chaos)
I remain optimistic about a Harris win. However, we know PA will not be called on election day due to Republicans blocking the pre-counting of mail-in votes. If the general election results are remotely close, I fully expect Trump to declare victory before all races have been called.
From there, I expect a repeat of 2020. He’s already casting doubt on the vote in PA (a critical must win state for both candidates). There’s no question he will contest any close vote will simultaneously declaring victory.
Unfortunately, due to changes to election boards and Republican strategies, I think there is a greater possibility of actually overturning the votes through EC chicanery (up to and including, “unfaithful” electors throwing the election to the House). Still, I remain hopeful that Hail Mary will fail, but I don’t expect the period between the election and inauguration day to go smoothly.
2. Trump cleanly wins (EV)
If Trump wins, and he follows through on promises like putting JFK Jr. in charge of the HHS and Elon Musk responsible for cutting 2 trillion dollars from the current budget, I think the next four years are going to a be an economic disaster for most Americans (including most Trump supporters). We know that companies are going on record all ready about raising consumer prices to pay for tariffs. The forced deportations of farm workers and others will also shock food prices, once again increasing inflation. BTW, all those economic steps are being more or less promised by Elon Musk who is openly talking about how the American People and in particular “the takers” are going to have to endure some economic pain in the first few years of the Trump Presidency.
I also expect Russia will escalate in Ukraine and Trump will take off whatever slight pressure we put on Isreal. I also expect the Republicans will end up defaulting on our debt. And regardless of what Trump said about Project 2025, all of those architects will be pun in government to enact things. I’m not sure if and how the makeup of the SC will change other than Thomas and Alito retiring during his term.
Also, I expect that by 2026, the country will be run by President Vance–and that’s even more scary.
@Matt Bernius:
By the way, for Jack and others, none of that is “Orange Man Bad” criticism. I’m basing all of that on Trump’s (and his ally’s) expressed policy positions.
I’ve resigned myself to believing that Trump will win. The best case is that everything becomes bogged down in incompetence and litigation. I don’t have any illusions about the future. Part of the turn to the right isn’t only to nativism. It’s towards an angry dumbness about the world at large.
Trump’s language is the endgame of not having any perspective except what you see on television. In none of his victimized groups is there an I which has an experience other than hearing terrifying stuff on television about crime, migrants, trans people, academics, etc. Even the people who have been victimized speak as if they are talking to a mass audience. Go farther with this, and America is just a collective blob angry when individuals contradict what’s fed them with actual experience.
My wife is close to apoplectic about the potential of a Trump victory – she is literally losing a lot of sleep. She is a first grade teacher and still has PTSD about the abject fear that Trump’s first election put into the families of her kids, many of whom are black and brown and many others of whom are immigrants. I am just trying not to borrow trouble till it comes, but prepare myself for anything.
I am still extremely busy with real life, and this has allowed me to tune out a lot of the usual election bullshit.
Harris is much better – from a campaigning standpoint – than Biden, but I think it’s been a mistake to play it safe and run against Trump as the primary strategy. One of the reasons I’ve kept saying that this election feels like 2016 to me is that so many political hobbyists/junkies talk about Trump as if he is this unknown figure, and if the public is just told the truth about him, they will turn against him. That seems to have been the core of the Democratic presidential campaigns since 2016 and continues today. How is that working out? As noted in the OP, Trump has better favorable than 2016 and 2020. I think people ought to consider why that might be instead of jumping to the conclusion that the public is ignorant about him and, therefore, needs to be taught/lectured more.
This same assumption is behind the endless liberal “media criticism” that calls out the press for not “accurately” portraying Trump as any one of the panoply of words and criticisms used – literal Hitler, fascist, dictator, etc. despite the objective fact that the press has not been friendly to Trump. We could go on a tangent about how the mainstream media’s influence is much diminished, and that attempts to criticize or tone-police the media to be more anti-Trump than they are is ultimately futile, but that’s ground we’ve tread before. The whole non-troversy about Harris going on the Joe Rogan podcast is a case in point.
My view is that all the anti-Trump juice was extracted from that squeeze long ago. I think it’s naive (to put it charitably) that there’s some large group of Americans who don’t know anything about Trump and his nature who can be educated by more media coverage, more tirades on social media and blogs, or by the political equivalent of circle-jerking in a safe ideological bubble about how everyone else is dumb or compromised for not realizing how bad Trump is.
I’ve pointed out before that despite Trump’s rhetoric and things he’s said and done in the past; there are non-trivial numbers of minorities who support him. We’ve had three posts, and lots of people are angry and lamenting the WAPO non-endorsement controversy, which will probably have no effect on the election. Yet, comparatively little has been said about the Teamsters non-endorsement among other traditionally Democratic groups and constituencies, which are more likely to have an effect. Even if Trump doesn’t, at the end of the day, make significant gains among some of these groups and constituencies, that he isn’t getting crushed by them, even after all he’s said, is pretty strong evidence that there’s a limit to the demonize Trump strategy, which has arguably become counterproductive.
So, my vibes right now are that Harris has a good chance of losing because of a strategy primarily based on the view that demonizing Trump is the way to win this election, which I think is a mistake. Harris has not helped herself on the merits by attempting to simultaneously claim credit for Biden’s successes while avoiding blame for the administration’s mistakes. It’s the same with trying to suggest that she’ll govern differently from Biden, but not clearly explaining how and to what extent she would be different, it is similarly flawed. I think that is why the race has tightened up recently. Even I, who follows the details of politics and policies much more closely than the average American, don’t really know what Harris really believes or how she’ll actually govern.
So I’m generally with JJ when he says: “By all indications, she’s possessed of her mental faculties and is a non-sociopath. She seems to have a genuine regard for the rule of law and the norms of liberal democracy.” I’m voting for her for largely the same reason, and I hope she wins decisively.
At the same time, it’s important to understand that in a large, diverse country of 330 million people, many (most) others will rationalize their choices differently. The purpose of electioneering and politics is to convince as many as possible to support your position. And that’s where I worry that Harris, her campaign, her surrogates, and partisan Democrats are coming up short.
My vibe in Pennsylvania is similar to at least one response above–cautiously optimistic. But, as a reference point, I’m a white guy who’s probably not at risk of losing a source of income.
The data sources for this vibe assessment are the usual national reporting and polling, and the track record and messaging coming out of the Harris campaign. In addition, we’ve got anecdotes and yard signs… yeah, I know. There are the true believers who already had sizable investments in flags, signs, and banners from ’16 and ’20, so their garish displays in ’24 are mostly expected; and there is at least one nearby transplant from a heavily republican and even more heavily Trump jurisdiction, so of course. But there are also Harris-Walz and anti-Trump signs where I have not seen presidential candidate signs before. I do have one more long intrastate drive this weekend to see if anything’s changed since last month.
@Matt Bernius:
If that weren’t bad enough, with the world as interconnected as it’s become, any major downturn in America will pull most of the world down with it. A major disaster, as for example if the US defaulted on debt, would plunge most of the world into a really bad depression.
Me, I’m partly protected. My employer makes most of its income through selling food and food preparation services to the government. Even in a depression, the government will have money, and police, prisoners, hospital patients, and so on need to eat daily. Social programs may even expand as the economy implodes.
What remains to be seen is what that government money will be able to buy.
You’re not just voting for the future of America. You’re also voting for the world’s.
@Stormy Dragon:
Or they were Obama voters who later became Trump fans.
Is the process of radicalization or capitulation that confusing? There’s no shortage of politicians who transformed from Trump critics to Trump slaves, including his current running mate. Tales of family members lost to QAnon and Fox News are legion.
Human being are not stuck in amber. We change. I was once a Republican voter, as were this site’s hosts.
In the Bezos post, him standing up to Trump in the past was put forth as evidence contradictary to his potential collaboration with Trump. But so what? That was then, this is now.
@Erik:
My vibe sense of being cautiously optimistic applies to the actual electoral college outcome. The potential for Supreme Court invalidation of one or more states’ votes is indeed a specter hanging over this election.
Here are the vibes I’m picking up:
-Incumbent Senator in Nebraska on the ropes.
-Florida Senate campaign suddenly feeling like its in play, while pot and abortion are on the ballot.
-Dem Governors Associate suddenly dropping half a million in Indiana, Attorney General candidate running even with incumbent Todd Rokita (that poll should be published soon), and 3+ hour lines at early voting locations on a Tuesday afternoon.
-Democratic Presidential candidates holding rallies with Queen Bey in Houston
-Democrats down just a couple of points against Josh Hawley in Missouri, while there’s an abortion referenda on the ballot.
-A few million pissed off Puerto Ricans distributed quite conveniently across almost all of the swing states.
-Pennsylvania and Michigan feeling like a lock now.
-Nevada feeling like its moving back to the Dems after being pink for awhile (that ‘vibe’ shift can be summed up pretty simply with “Other data gurus have stepped up and neutered Jon Ralston’s cutesey cliffhanger shit.”)
-Millions more women turning out in early voting than men.
-Trump losing his shit this morning over Pennsylvania
-The nonexistent GOP GOTV operations in Wisconsin and AZ.
The list goes on. It’s still a hard race, but vibe wise? I’m feeling good. Note: I’m not predicting a blowout, nor that even a small percentage of the potential ‘flips’ outlined above happen. But it feels like Trump is on the ropes right now, not on offense.
@Lucy’s Football:
They were posted in comments at one of the LGM posts, by commenter who is usually reliable.
Unfortunately, I neglected to save a link, so I can’t recall which of yesterday’s LGM posts. ( I wish I could so I could cut and paste the comment).
@Kazzy:
I think they’re UNDER HIS BED!
There does not seem to be a scenario where there are no riots next week: Trump gets a popular vote or electoral vote win – there will be riots from groups that know they will get disenfranchised, those will be bigger the more he loses the popular vote by. If he loses the EV and there are shenanigans in Swing States, the House of Representatives or the Supreme Court to get him in office anyway there will be major riots.
If Harris wins, maga has already indicated they will riot to help enable shenanigans, and Trump had indicated he supports that.
@Stormy Dragon:
There are a bunch of counties that voted for Obama that have since gone full MAGA.
@Eusebio: yes fair. In that sense I am also cautiously optimistic. I do think that Harris is about 55-60% to win the electoral college. But my job, as I’ve often said only half jokingly, is to be a professional pessimist and think about all the ways something can go wrong and how to mitigate the damage if it does, so that’s why I tend to end up where I do
@Neil Hudelson:
Those are all really great data points.
If Trump wins the EC, I’m really curious about how that might impact understanding of the importance of GoTV and ground games (given how disorganized and farmed out that campaign’s approach seems to be).
I am optimistic that Harris will get the most votes in the right states, so that if things went normally she would win the majority of the electoral votes.
I am far less optimistic that things will go normally. And I am positive that hate crimes are going to go way up.
@Bill Jempty: Never lived either place but have to say I’m having difficulty understanding how FL and PI differ any way but culturally. The typhoons? Really?
@Matt Bernius:
Why cede the point?
Orange Man Bad is a valid feeling, valid take, and valid reason by itself to oppose Trump and support Harris.
A daily barrage of unhinged Mean Tweets is unacceptable from a president. Character and morals are not irrelevant. Ethics, temperament and personal conduct should matter in every workplace, doubly so for the White House.
@DK:
I need to write a post about this. I’m not ceding the point–I do think he’s bad and fundamentally unqualified for the office.
And I also think there is something toxic about “Orange Man Bad” or “Obama Derangement Syndrome” in the online space. Or more accurately disingenuous from bothsides!
For the record, I believe this to be a rare, legitimate “bothsides” point for once. I’ll try to write that over the weekend. I look forward to your feedback.
@Matt Bernius:
How often do Dems do this? I don’t think very often. Sure, the phrase “Obama Derangement Syndrome” exists, but it’s never been anything close to a household term, the way “TDS” gets thrown around by the MAGA people at every opportunity. And “Orange Man Bad” is their term as well; both terms are ways of trying to shut down criticism of Trump by simply setting a narrative of the other side as mindless haters, without having to address any of their arguments.
And for the record, the “X Derangement Syndrome” business began with another Republican president: it was coined in the aughts by Charles Krauthammer as “Bush Derangement Syndrome.” Dems have only seldom invoked the term for their party’s presidents. It’s mostly a Republican rhetorical device.
@just nutha:
I was stationed in the PI for over two years. In that time the areas I was living in or staying at were hit by those storms 7 times. Including twice in the matter of ten days.
My wife’s home town was ground zero for this storm in 2013. Never in my life before Yolanda did I expect to see news footage of Tacloban airport on the United States evening news.
Interesting, I closed out my very long comment earlier in this post by saying Musk would understand that causing the stock market to crash and other severe financial pain from going forward with some of Trump’s proposals would need to be avoided at all costs, but I guess not, seeing as how I just read Matt’s latest post on the subject of tariffs.
It sounds like Musk thinks everyone (MAGA, Progressives, Socialists, Communists, Anarchists, etc., any typo of label an American wants to stick on their shirt), and I do mean everyone has at least 2 years worth of savings banked in preparation for a rainy day.
I like to think that Musk is starting to sound beyond out of touch with most Americans to everyone in the U.S., regardless of ones political affiliation. Seriously, I can see a chunk of us American’s having a few months banked for a rainy day, but to casually say…hey America, relax, in about 2 years all that financial pain will be a thing of the past, and you will be happy, happy…wow, just wow.
We really might see some MAGA regret after Trump becomes President, maybe not though.
Lounsbury loves to point out how the bobo left is so out of touch with most Americans (and Andy does this to a certain degree, but sounds less condescending/smug in his posts), but are we really to believe that Musk’s declaration to just endure the financial pain until it goes away, in around 2 years or so, is in tune with the rest of America?
@Neil Hudelson:
Rick Scott has been elected to statewide FL office three times despite this being well known. Regrettably he won’t lose this time either.
Florida, steal $100, get ten years in jail. Steal $1,000,000,000, get elected Governor and Senator.
@Bill Jempty:
Vibes , my man, vibes! Facts like a “winning track record” are not verbotten but also not appreciated.
@Lucy’s Football:
Amateur analysis of early voter surveys vs the states’ published data on early vote balloting by partisan registration.
Today’s CNN poll of voters who have already voted (Oct 23-28):
Michigan — Harris 61%, Trump 35%
Wisconsin — Harris 60%, Trump 38%
Pennsylvania — Harris 57%, Trump 40%
Last week’s Marist poll of early voters who’ve already cast ballots (Oct 17-22):
North Carolina — Harris 55%, Trump 43%
Georgia — Harris 55%, Trump 45%
Arizona — Harris 56%, Trump 44%
But this is the partisan breakdown of returned ballots, as of today via VoteHub.com, per N Carolina’s Sec. of State:
Republican 34.1%
Other 33.1%
Democratic 32.8%
And for Pennsylvania:
Democratic 56.9%
Republican 32.4%
Other 10.7%
Harris optimists might try to compare early vote polls with early vote ballots, and extrapolate that Harris is winning a significant number of swing state indies and/or registered Republicans. Validating their cautious/nauseous optimism.
Since I think (public) poll fetishism is a dead end, I’m more encouraged by Harris suddenly adding another Georgia rally this weekend, and the absolute meltdown Trump is having on socials today — already alleging mass fraud in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Signals his post Nazi rally internals are not looking good for him.
I’m just popping in to let everyone know that I’m still alive. That being said I am on suicide watch right now. That is not a joke or hyperbole. I would have checked myself into a hospital last week if I didn’t have very real concerns that it could cause problems if we need to flee the country. My drs have agreed with me and we’re all working on a very narrow monitoring. Stormy Dragon is working overtime sending cute animals to me via discord. I’m in very bad shape.
I don’t know how things are gonna go. But between the ads saying that I’m responsible for the end of the world, the absolute evil of people like JKB, and the several people I have talked to (and freaked out on) lately that keep saying “I just wish both parties weren’t so extreme” (what. The. Fuck.) I don’t have any optimism.
I’ve paid the solicitor in the UK to work on my citizenship ship. She says it’s a weird case with me being trans and a former illegitimate child but she’s optimistic that it will be fine once I get my US passport back.
The only thing that gives me any sort of happiness is the knowledge that if Trump wins, the brain dead idiots like JKB will get what they always wanted and they will find out that they aren’t part of the in group and are wildly fucked.
Other though I had. Maybe it’s a bad thing we haven’t had a depression since the 1930s. Maybe if we had we could have avoided this.
@Neil Hudelson:
I’m pretty much in the same place.
Kamala Harris hit the ground running and has made no real mistakes. She’s gone to the states where the election will probably be decided. She’s done everything any Democrat could ask and if … if … things go well she will have saved Democrats from what was shaping to be a significant loss. It seems that the Senate will swing Red and the House will stay Red. I hope not but …
As to Trump’s going off the rails on the cruelty and misogny, and the latest Puerto Rico garbage stuff? I can’t decide if (1) Trump and Republicans are running on a lot of cockiness and hubris right now, or (2) Trump thinks that even if they lose they have a solid plan to steal the election, and they won’t fail this time, that it’s in the bag.
@DK: When I look at these numbers they don’t seem very good, especially PA
@JKB: I’m skeptical. The number of trans girls is minuscule, much less trans girls who are competitive athletes. We’re talking a few hundred at most, out of tens of millions of high school girls, and maybe a couple hundred thousand girls who are competitive high school athletes that could potentially get athletic scholarships.
Meanwhile, virtually every daughter of a suburban mom could potentially have an unplanned pregnancy or be raped. Which is more likely to derail her college chances: the very, very few trans athletes winning scholarships, or a baby?
Orange Man would need to do penance for 100 years and perform nothing but good works 24/7 during that time to rise to a the level of being merely “bad”.
@Kathy: If he did charity work for 100 years he would be putting together a fake leather bound picture book titled “Donald Trump’s Good Deeds”, and hawk them on his websites for $199.99 (gold embossed and autographed for $499.99).
I would say he would be pushing one of those boulders up a hill for all eternity in hell, but I can’t see it. I don’t think he’ll even make it into hell, even Satan has standards.
@Beth:
Thank you for sharing with us. That take so much courage to do and I really appreciate it. I appreciate you and your contributions and if you want to talk to an ally (or just get cute animal pics from them) reach out to
mb******@gm***.com
and I’m happy to send you supporting vibes.
I get what you are saying and this isn’t essentially an existential election for me. No one deserves to live with that stress on them.
@Lounsbury: give it up. Your understanding of America is so flawed. DK made a good point recently on a thread about the reaction to Bezos canning the WaPo endorsement of Harris, that liberals are sick of the sneering dismissal of the mainstream media. The MSM, the GOP, and “above it all” centrists like you would argue that liberals are all urban coastal elites who understand nothing about the working class and ordinary Americans. But here’s the thing: the vast majority of liberals are working class, ordinary Americans. And that doesn’t change just because the majority of us live in urban areas. Plus, we live all throughout the country, not just on the coasts. If the MSM wants to truly learn how ordinary, working class Americans think, they can save some of the money they’ve used to visit heartland and southern diners, and go visit barbershops, delis, and bodegas in their own cities.
@Lucysfootball:
Agreed. A few weeks ago, I was gloating Republicans would need 35% of Pennsylvania early ballots for Trump to have a chance — based on my own amateur analysis, years of monitoring Pennsylvania early voting, and the Haley Republicans in that state prepared to defect to Harris.
I’m not gloating anymore. I am shocked to see Republican early ballots have surged close to that number. Additionally, Trump is a hair’s breath ahead in Pennsylvania polling averages. Democrats ought to be wetting the bed.
Pennsylvania could end up being this year’s Florida 2000. Pennsylvania does not allow pre-processing of early ballots, so a final count could be delayed. I see that as disastrous in a razor thin election. Trump is already screeching about fake fraud (losing his crap on socials today) and based on today’s nakedly unlawful Virginia ballot ruling, SCOTUS can do his dirty work if necessary.
That said, Democrats are winning the early ballot race in Pennsylvania’s two closely-watched bellweather counties, Erie and Northhampton, with Erie looking especially blue. And 2022 Pennsylvania polling underestimated Democratic support in 2022 pretty badly. Final averages had Oz a point or more ahead of Fetterman; Fetterman won by almost five points. Averages had Shapiro about 10 points ahead of Mastriano; Shapiro won by about 15.
Trump optimists will say that doesn’t matter since Trump wasn’t on the ballot, but Oz and Mastriano were Trump creations and acolytes. Trump rallied with them in Pennsylvania multiple times, to no avail.
There’s also the matter of Trump’s Nazi rally turning off voters who might otherwise have broken his way. Pennsylvania has our 4th highest Puerto Rican population. Most final state polls will have completed their survey before the rally, to be released this week. As with the Comey letter, if would-be or undecided Latino votes are flipping to Harris this week, few if any state polls will catch the phenomenon. (History rhyming: the Comey letter dropped on 28 Oct 2016; Trump’s hatefest MSG rally was on 27 Oct 2024.)
So. Buckle up.
@Beth: Beth, I’m thinking about you and sending you hugs and alllll of the very best vibes. It’s all I’ve got, but know that there are a lot of us here who want nothing but the best outcome for you. xoxo
@inhumans99:
With the disclaimer that the internet is not real life, and most times we don’t really know if others are who they claim they are…
…one of these fellas comments with the wisdom, complexity, nuance, and authority of an American who has lived in America for decades, presumably.
And other probably is who he seems to be.
Apples to oranges.
@Lucysfootball:
I think he’ll be reincarnated as Xlon’s solid gold toilet.
@Beth: I’m thinking of you, and hoping you stay safe.
@Monala:
@DK:
I haven’t finished formulating the law of conservation of the number of OTB articulate trolls. The time variable is all screwy and the sample size is too small.
But if you remember James Pearce of the moving goalposts, Lounsbury should seem and feel familiar. Not identical. They’re not the same person, just the same type of person.
@Kathy:
Ha. Stealing.
@Monala: I was ballparking my numbers, so I decided to look it up. I wasn’t far off. There are currently about 8.3 million female high school students in the US. About 3 million of them play high school sports, but only 226,000 college athletes are women, so the number of high school girls who could qualify for athletic scholarships is about 1/10 of the ones who play high school sports.
There are about 300,000 youth ages 13-17 who identify as transgender in the US, and while it’s estimated that about 100 of them are playing girls’ high school sports, “Save Women’s Sports, an organization advocating for banning transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports, identified only five transgender athletes competing on girls’ teams in school sports for grades K through 12.” Link from Newsweek
Did you catch that? An anti-trans group only found 5 trans girls playing school sports in grades K-12 (not even high school!). So yeah, I think most suburban women and moms of daughters (I am one) have a clear idea of the actual threats our daughters face.
@Beth: Been thinking about you, Beth! Many hugs, hang in there!
@Monala:
x999,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Perhaps the best comment I’ve ever read here.
@inhumans99:
You didn’t ask, but since you mentioned me by name, I’ll just state that my opinion is that both parties are out of touch with most Americans. The degree to which that is the case depends on the issue. Democrats, for example, are much more aligned with average Americans on abortion, and Republicans are more aligned with average Americans on immigration, to give two very salient examples pertinent to the outcome of this current election.
One wonders (at least I do) how a party might fare electorally if it were aligned with average Americans on both of these issues as well as others where incongruity with the voting public exists.
@Kathy:
Back in 2016 I thought Trump would be bad. I never held the delusion that he would’grow into the job’ and become ‘presidential.’ I thought, he’s been a grifter and a brutal guy his entire life, why would he somehow become ‘normal’ and ‘presidential’? I was right about his not changing who was and still is, BUT I was wrong about what kind of president he would be – he was far worse than bad.
@DK:
In PA 32% of ballots are from Republicans but Trump is getting 40% of the votes.
I do not like the looks of that.
@Monala: actually, let me clarify something: I don’t view trans girls playing high school or college sports as a threat at all. But given their very small numbers, it’s ridiculous to consider it a major issue facing young women.
@Bill Jempty: Okay. I see your point on now.
@charontwo: Not quite that bad, because 10.7% are independents, so you would assume that half of these would be for Trump. So it seems like he should have received about 37%. I assume the registration split is actual numbers. The split oof who they voted for must be a telephone poll. The good news on that is that the question they are asking is how you voted, so they might not be that interested in getting the demos right. If that’s true, remember who responds to telephone polls the highest? Older white people (I was in the business, used to work for Nielsen and the hardest demos to get response were young people, especially younger Hispanics and blacks). Hopefully they are understanding young people and minorities. Otherwise PA is looking very bad.
@Beth: Keep on keeping on. Good thoughts your way!
@al Ameda:
I didn’t think he’d be utterly incapable of learning anything, or stupid enough to keep buttering up the base incessantly, or so f**ing embarrassing.
IMO, Obama wasn’t qualified for the job. I don’t even think he expected to win the nomination in 2008, much less the general election. Overall, I think he’d have done better if he’d been elected 4 or 8 years later. But he grew into the job rather well. Of course, he had no pathological need to upstage everyone or to dominate the news every day.
As to Biden, not that anyone asked. I see three things he did wrong:
1) Not running in 2016. Reasons I’ve read as to why range from the recent death of his son, Beau, to deference towards Hillary Clinton. Seeing as hardly anyone but Bernie Sanders really had a chance against her in the 2016 primaries, the latter might have been the bigger reason.
2) He loosened COVID preventive restrictions too soon, just as he should have seen Delta was rising in Asia and Europe, and would lay waste to the western hemisphere as well. Overall eh handled the trump pandemic as well as could be expected given the mess El Weirdo had left, especially setting up a quick distribution of vaccines. But that was a major error.
3) He didn’t limit himself to one term. As I’ve said elsewhere, I rate him as the best president of the US since I’ve paid attention to US politics (starting with Reagan in 1981). But he should have been aware of the limitations imposed by age. Had he announced after the midterms he wouldn’t seek reelection, or even early in 2023, we’d be having a very different election now.
The last, BTW, is not entirely hindsight. I thought back in 2020 he would step down after one term. I may even have mentioned it in the run up to that year’s election. Yes, he’d been seeking the post for decades,and got it late in his 70s. He should have concentrated on doing his best, which I think he did anyway, and left the way open for the younger generation.
@Beth:
My daughter is playing it tough. I’ve offered her everything I can. I suggested she might be safer over in SF – I don’t trust Oakland PD. I’m torn between pushing her to be safe and not scaring her. She’s putting down roots and rejecting her Dad’s preferred ‘just jump bail,’ approach. I suppose it’s not surprising that with two rootless parents, both our kids seem to want to be grounded.
Fucked up times. It’s a lousy story, but we only get one. Better to stay to watch the whole thing play out. There will be moments of grace. Might be a surprise ending of a good kind. I’m pretty grim and prone to pessimism, but even I have to admit pessimism is a losing strategy. It seems wise, but it isn’t. Hope gets you to single malts, modern dental care and a Barbie movie sequel. Pessimism gets you nothing but the right to say, “I told you so.” Hope is actually logical.
I could write a plausible happy ending to this that would be grounded. Unlikely but grounded in reality.
@charontwo:
Yup. As I said, I was cocky about Pennsylvania a few weeks back, but that has evaporated as of this week.
On the other hand, I had been worried about Michigan and Wisconsin, now data there looks much better. Reversal of fortune.
But I doubt Trump started howling about Pennsylvania fraud this morning for no reason. We don’t have access to the campaign’s internals, and we are unlikely to get any more state polls. So if you’re worried, all you can do is find some way to help GOTV.