A very sincere thank you for this, Stephen. I'm one of those liberals shitting his trousers at the moment.
One more thing to point out from a polling perspective: right wingers pollsters are indeeed flooding the zone with new polls showing Trump leading in swing states on a daily basis (unlike most "regular" polls from reputable firms), and analysts like 538 are happy to incorporate the noise into their models, because hey, it's a lot easier to make a prediction if their forcast shows no clear winner.
This is someone running to be the first woman of color president. Only someone without the ability to google a list of every prior American president to confirm, yes, they were all dudes and almost all white or David Brooks coming off a four double-bourbon lunch could possibly think that this would be easy.
I remember Sullivan's panicking back then! He always had a tendency to overreact to fucking everything. No measured approach when you can freak the fuck out for Sully!
And of course it was a bad debate that most people never watched, and forgot about a week later, as the polls settled back to normal when people realized unemployment was steadily dropping and Romney was trying to win over the most unsavory elements of his party late in the game when he should have been wooing moderates.
Let’s also take into consideration that the RWNJ’s are flooding the system with bs “polls” that make it look close. I refuse to believe that it’s just a twat hair away from the fat, farting felon getting back into the White House. He should be closer to the big house of incarceration.
The Arizona Republic had a lovely “apparent low early voting for democrats is bad for democrats”. First off, our ballot takes a few days to complete thanks to GOP supported propositions. Then Pima County, which includes very blue Tucson, had a delay in getting ballots mailed out.
But yeah. This is BAD for democrats was the editorial headline…
I get the anxiety. Losing to Romney, McCain, or Dole just didn't have the "this could end things for America" vibe that putting a mentally deranged criminal psychopath in power again could have. We already saw that last time he let a million Americans die from COVID while he "took no responsibility at all" and actively hampered efforts to stop the spread of the disease. Losing would not be a "I tried my best" scenario. It'd be fucked.
And by all indications, this could really go either way--polls are tighter than they ever were in our lifetimes. Again, it wouldn't mean that much if polls were so tight between Obama and Romney, for example, but when it's this tight between a normal liberal Democrat and a gross thing that crawled out of Hitler fan fiction it understandably exasperates any decent American. Trump SHOULD have been crushed in the polls never to reappear. Instead, he could win. That's fucked up.
But getting angry over how unjust and depressing this is won't do anyone any good, it'll just break you down. What you can do is connect with the nearest swing state/district to campaign, hand out flyers, put up signs, phone bank, deliver absentee ballots, write post cards, donate if they're a downballot race (those are the ones where the money goes farthest), and talk to as many people as you can. I'm sure in all our personal networks there's at least a few "on the fence" voters who could benefit from a personal appeal, and not a harrangue.
Yeah--the "what does this say about our country" and the "he could actually get a lot more people killed this time" factors are part of what's driving this.
My consolation is that polls can be off a bit in either direction, we just don't know right now, all we can do is try to help the good guys win and see how it goes. There'll be plenty of time for analysis in a couple weeks.
I am sick and tired of unnamed "Democrats" expressing "concern" that Harris (or any Democratic presidential candidate) is losing Blue Wall states, or Muslim Americans, Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, or the Easter Bunny. OK, that last was a joke, but these concern trolls don't help. What a way to depress turnout and to demoralize rank and file Dems. If they really want Harris to win, but are freaking out, don't voice that to reporters, voice it to a therapist. Reporters are simply doing their jobs by reporting what you said, and you may feel better, but you aren't helping your candidate. Telling it to a therapist will keep your fears from the media and the public in general, and it will also make you feel better. In fact, the therapist may have some suggestions to help you keep feeling better, like getting off of your ass and helping to get out the vote for your candidate. OTOH, they may not be Dems at all, or actually with the campaign, but want to hurt Harris, by depressing Democratic voters.
It's not helpful at all. It's one thing to say "we strongly advise more focus in this area" or "these are the voters who are on the fence, we should address them"--but worryworts just breed defeatism. And I wonder if these people have any idea how cheerful they make Trump supporters feel. Do you really want to make those people cheerful?
It's completely understandable to feel anxiety about the possible outcome of the election. After all, we all had our sense of security rocked in 2016. And the normal human reaction to being big wrong once is to feel dread that it could happen again. We don't trust our own perceptions after such a shocking event.
BUT, (and I could be wrong again of course) I am confident that the Trump lunacy has largely run its course. First and foremost, he's never won the popular vote even at the height of his "popularity" and he won't win it this time. As Steven noted, it took a rare sequence of events in a few outlier states to toss the EC to Trump. If turnout is even a bit elevated, it should be enough to solve that problem. Secondly, the issue of abortion access looms large, and it is already clear that the female turnout will be huge this year since so many states have it on the ballot, and the Supreme Court has stupidly (and corruptly) brought it to the forefront.
Last but not least, it takes a lot of energy to maintain the sense of grievance and outrage which is Trump's stock in trade, and that energy has clearly diminished in both him and his true believers. He'll get far more votes than a grifting, felonious sleazebag should ever get, but it won't be enough. Hopefully, Harris' coattails will be long enough to give her a more helpful congress and she can get shit done!
"Last but not least, it takes a lot of energy to maintain the sense of grievance and outrage which is Trump's stock in trade, and that energy has clearly diminished in both him and his true believers"
Yeah...you CAN really see it. Its TANGIBLE...Its a combo of pridefulness and the sunk cost fallacy
2016 was fucked in a lot of ways, but one advantage Democrats have now is that 2016 happened and they know not to assume anything is in the bag. That alone will affect voters and campaigners in a big way.
This refresher course in elections past is much appreciated. I’d forgotten how much election doomsaying there has always been from the media, particularly surrounding Obama’s campaigns. It’s really nothing new, but this time around, it’s become a constant drumbeat of anxiety-producing messaging, counter-messaging, spam bots and ratfucking and coy journalism posturing from all directions. It’s like there’s a desperate quest to find and reveal (or just plain invent) the exact “scandal” or appalling quote from the past that will deliver the killing blow to a candidate’s campaign.
So that’s good to remember during these last two weeks of this god-awful presidential race. I’d love to permit myself a wee bit of optimism to help ease the ever-present anxiety over Election Night 2024, but I’m purposely not getting my hopes up because of 2016, when we all voted and then sat back to enjoy the evening’s election returns, because hadn’t all the pollsters and pundits told us Hillary had it in the bag? And we got up the next morning hoping it was all a bad dream? I don’t think I could handle that trauma again, especially with the highest stakes possible this time around.
I swear I must have been in some bubble then--once Obama won the 2008 primary, I just assumed he was going to win that year (because the GOP brand was in the toilet, economy was crashing, and Palin) and in 2012 assumed he'd crush Romney because the economy had largely improved since Obama had taken office. The doomsaying seemed ridiculous then, to me at least, as much as it does now.
Then 2016 happened, and I think that made Democrats worryworts with some justification, though of course they're now at the point where they're like the guy who wins the lottery and immediately feels like shit thinking about the taxes he'd owe on it.
There were plenty of pissed-off Dems when Obama, and not Hillary, got the 2008 nomination. (Remember PUMA?) And where I and plenty of others live, there was(/is) more than enough racism to NOT assume Obama would win. There’s also plenty of misogyny amongst the electorate, and the combo in a Democratic candidate is a definite ‘no’ to large swaths of voters. It’s foolish to think otherwise. So no, I don’t find the doomsaying ‘ridiculous.’ I find it worrisome, and I will until the election is finally over.
But in 2008 most of that "I'll never vote for Obama because [pissed about Hillary] [black guy]" was coming from the sort of people who were never going to vote for Democrats anyway. And Obama managed the sweet spot of being palatable to both moderates and liberals, at a time when the GOP was as popular as poop. Republican attacks on the guy had the whiff of desperation ("bitter clingers! Arugula! His pastor said some shit!") rather than solid hits that could take down a candidate.
I'm not saying the doomsaying about 2024 is ridiculous--far from it, because of what a Trump win would mean, and that it is as likely as not--I'm saying the doomsaying of 2008 was ridiculous, both in hindsight and at the time. Obama had a solid edge and ran a solid campaign, McCain was hobbled by his party and the economy, and ensured he'd lose when he picked Palin.
>>most of that "I'll never vote for Obama because [pissed about Hillary] [black guy]was coming from the sort of people who were never going to vote for Democrats anyway.<<
This is simply not true. You are underestimating the base of support there was for Hillary before Obama was chosen as the nominee.
>> I'm not saying the doomsaying about 2024 is ridiculous<<
That’s literally what you just said.
Perhaps the bubble you were in was one of white male privilege. Perhaps the bubble I was in, and maybe still am, is one of a citizen who has voted for president 13 times in her lifetime and has had the opportunity to vote for a woman exactly once. Representation matters. Many of us know how strong the currents of sexism and racism can be, because we’ve lived with it all our lives.
I also remember the PUMA wars when I was active on DailyKos. A number of them became turncoats or moved on to other anti-party grievances. And of course the diehard Hillary supporters got really dissed out of existence after 2016.
Yeah--and in 2022, as I recall the polling averages were showing it to be pretty close, which it turned out to be--GOP won the House by a hair, Dems picked up a seat in the Senate--it was the pundits who ignored the polls and assumed the "fundamentals" would mean a red wave ("look how bad inflation is!") when it turned out that Dems now have the more reliable off-year voters (used to be the other way around) and they were PISSED about Dobbs.
How it'll go in 2 weeks, who knows--but polls suggest it'll be close, and in our column is the fact that unlike 2012 we are NOT complacent.
Hat tip for the Dead Zone reference and hilarious but all too true NYT headline! I am worried about the Muslim vote in Michigan being depressed. Hope other groups can make up that ground.
This campaign is leaving it all out on the road, and we should too. We won't win everywhere but we will win in lots of places. And you know what? We're going to see what the fundamental character of the USA is. If the majority goes for the unreconstructed party, it's not the first time we've backslid on rights. We lick our wounds and keep fighting to survive.
Make sure your voting plans are executed or in progress, folks. Time is running short.
New York Times columnist David Brooks asking, “Why the heck isn't she running away with this?” still pisses me off, considering the NYT represent half the problem at this point!
A very sincere thank you for this, Stephen. I'm one of those liberals shitting his trousers at the moment.
One more thing to point out from a polling perspective: right wingers pollsters are indeeed flooding the zone with new polls showing Trump leading in swing states on a daily basis (unlike most "regular" polls from reputable firms), and analysts like 538 are happy to incorporate the noise into their models, because hey, it's a lot easier to make a prediction if their forcast shows no clear winner.
This is someone running to be the first woman of color president. Only someone without the ability to google a list of every prior American president to confirm, yes, they were all dudes and almost all white or David Brooks coming off a four double-bourbon lunch could possibly think that this would be easy.
Kamala Harris even said this in the stupid interview with Bret Baier, right in the middle of post-turtling him. "It isn't supposed to be easy."
Thank you for reading Andrew Sullivan and David Brooks so I don’t have to
I remember Sullivan's panicking back then! He always had a tendency to overreact to fucking everything. No measured approach when you can freak the fuck out for Sully!
And of course it was a bad debate that most people never watched, and forgot about a week later, as the polls settled back to normal when people realized unemployment was steadily dropping and Romney was trying to win over the most unsavory elements of his party late in the game when he should have been wooing moderates.
Let’s also take into consideration that the RWNJ’s are flooding the system with bs “polls” that make it look close. I refuse to believe that it’s just a twat hair away from the fat, farting felon getting back into the White House. He should be closer to the big house of incarceration.
Thank you for this.
The Arizona Republic had a lovely “apparent low early voting for democrats is bad for democrats”. First off, our ballot takes a few days to complete thanks to GOP supported propositions. Then Pima County, which includes very blue Tucson, had a delay in getting ballots mailed out.
But yeah. This is BAD for democrats was the editorial headline…
Visiting friends and family. Limiting my doomscrolling to once a day and voted before I left. I’m sleeping very soundly.
Tbh, some of us have been in the panic attack stage for years now. It grows on you.
Ah, the furiously busy media... I predict when a Harris victory is announced, the headlines in WaPo and the Vichy Times will be:
TRUMP LOSES!
How Could the Polls Have Been So Off?!?
I get the anxiety. Losing to Romney, McCain, or Dole just didn't have the "this could end things for America" vibe that putting a mentally deranged criminal psychopath in power again could have. We already saw that last time he let a million Americans die from COVID while he "took no responsibility at all" and actively hampered efforts to stop the spread of the disease. Losing would not be a "I tried my best" scenario. It'd be fucked.
And by all indications, this could really go either way--polls are tighter than they ever were in our lifetimes. Again, it wouldn't mean that much if polls were so tight between Obama and Romney, for example, but when it's this tight between a normal liberal Democrat and a gross thing that crawled out of Hitler fan fiction it understandably exasperates any decent American. Trump SHOULD have been crushed in the polls never to reappear. Instead, he could win. That's fucked up.
But getting angry over how unjust and depressing this is won't do anyone any good, it'll just break you down. What you can do is connect with the nearest swing state/district to campaign, hand out flyers, put up signs, phone bank, deliver absentee ballots, write post cards, donate if they're a downballot race (those are the ones where the money goes farthest), and talk to as many people as you can. I'm sure in all our personal networks there's at least a few "on the fence" voters who could benefit from a personal appeal, and not a harrangue.
“but when it's this tight between a normal liberal Democrat and a gross thing that crawled out of Hitler fan fiction”
THIS is the fear. We ALL know what this means for our country and we all KNOW that this cannot happen.
Yeah--the "what does this say about our country" and the "he could actually get a lot more people killed this time" factors are part of what's driving this.
My consolation is that polls can be off a bit in either direction, we just don't know right now, all we can do is try to help the good guys win and see how it goes. There'll be plenty of time for analysis in a couple weeks.
Like Sarah Silverman's "The Great Schlep" go have those conversations. A personal appeal is great for fence sitters or semi-active voters.
Plus, if they're people you know, you know what makes them tick. You know what appeals might work on them.
Exactly
I am sick and tired of unnamed "Democrats" expressing "concern" that Harris (or any Democratic presidential candidate) is losing Blue Wall states, or Muslim Americans, Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, or the Easter Bunny. OK, that last was a joke, but these concern trolls don't help. What a way to depress turnout and to demoralize rank and file Dems. If they really want Harris to win, but are freaking out, don't voice that to reporters, voice it to a therapist. Reporters are simply doing their jobs by reporting what you said, and you may feel better, but you aren't helping your candidate. Telling it to a therapist will keep your fears from the media and the public in general, and it will also make you feel better. In fact, the therapist may have some suggestions to help you keep feeling better, like getting off of your ass and helping to get out the vote for your candidate. OTOH, they may not be Dems at all, or actually with the campaign, but want to hurt Harris, by depressing Democratic voters.
I think a lot of these 'unnamed' democrats are unnamed for a reason..i.e. they don't really exist...
I suspect some of them have last names that rhyme with "Marvel" and "Drum."
Yes, totally agree! Thank you for sharing this.
It's not helpful at all. It's one thing to say "we strongly advise more focus in this area" or "these are the voters who are on the fence, we should address them"--but worryworts just breed defeatism. And I wonder if these people have any idea how cheerful they make Trump supporters feel. Do you really want to make those people cheerful?
It's completely understandable to feel anxiety about the possible outcome of the election. After all, we all had our sense of security rocked in 2016. And the normal human reaction to being big wrong once is to feel dread that it could happen again. We don't trust our own perceptions after such a shocking event.
BUT, (and I could be wrong again of course) I am confident that the Trump lunacy has largely run its course. First and foremost, he's never won the popular vote even at the height of his "popularity" and he won't win it this time. As Steven noted, it took a rare sequence of events in a few outlier states to toss the EC to Trump. If turnout is even a bit elevated, it should be enough to solve that problem. Secondly, the issue of abortion access looms large, and it is already clear that the female turnout will be huge this year since so many states have it on the ballot, and the Supreme Court has stupidly (and corruptly) brought it to the forefront.
Last but not least, it takes a lot of energy to maintain the sense of grievance and outrage which is Trump's stock in trade, and that energy has clearly diminished in both him and his true believers. He'll get far more votes than a grifting, felonious sleazebag should ever get, but it won't be enough. Hopefully, Harris' coattails will be long enough to give her a more helpful congress and she can get shit done!
"Last but not least, it takes a lot of energy to maintain the sense of grievance and outrage which is Trump's stock in trade, and that energy has clearly diminished in both him and his true believers"
Yeah...you CAN really see it. Its TANGIBLE...Its a combo of pridefulness and the sunk cost fallacy
2016 was fucked in a lot of ways, but one advantage Democrats have now is that 2016 happened and they know not to assume anything is in the bag. That alone will affect voters and campaigners in a big way.
This refresher course in elections past is much appreciated. I’d forgotten how much election doomsaying there has always been from the media, particularly surrounding Obama’s campaigns. It’s really nothing new, but this time around, it’s become a constant drumbeat of anxiety-producing messaging, counter-messaging, spam bots and ratfucking and coy journalism posturing from all directions. It’s like there’s a desperate quest to find and reveal (or just plain invent) the exact “scandal” or appalling quote from the past that will deliver the killing blow to a candidate’s campaign.
So that’s good to remember during these last two weeks of this god-awful presidential race. I’d love to permit myself a wee bit of optimism to help ease the ever-present anxiety over Election Night 2024, but I’m purposely not getting my hopes up because of 2016, when we all voted and then sat back to enjoy the evening’s election returns, because hadn’t all the pollsters and pundits told us Hillary had it in the bag? And we got up the next morning hoping it was all a bad dream? I don’t think I could handle that trauma again, especially with the highest stakes possible this time around.
I swear I must have been in some bubble then--once Obama won the 2008 primary, I just assumed he was going to win that year (because the GOP brand was in the toilet, economy was crashing, and Palin) and in 2012 assumed he'd crush Romney because the economy had largely improved since Obama had taken office. The doomsaying seemed ridiculous then, to me at least, as much as it does now.
Then 2016 happened, and I think that made Democrats worryworts with some justification, though of course they're now at the point where they're like the guy who wins the lottery and immediately feels like shit thinking about the taxes he'd owe on it.
There were plenty of pissed-off Dems when Obama, and not Hillary, got the 2008 nomination. (Remember PUMA?) And where I and plenty of others live, there was(/is) more than enough racism to NOT assume Obama would win. There’s also plenty of misogyny amongst the electorate, and the combo in a Democratic candidate is a definite ‘no’ to large swaths of voters. It’s foolish to think otherwise. So no, I don’t find the doomsaying ‘ridiculous.’ I find it worrisome, and I will until the election is finally over.
But in 2008 most of that "I'll never vote for Obama because [pissed about Hillary] [black guy]" was coming from the sort of people who were never going to vote for Democrats anyway. And Obama managed the sweet spot of being palatable to both moderates and liberals, at a time when the GOP was as popular as poop. Republican attacks on the guy had the whiff of desperation ("bitter clingers! Arugula! His pastor said some shit!") rather than solid hits that could take down a candidate.
I'm not saying the doomsaying about 2024 is ridiculous--far from it, because of what a Trump win would mean, and that it is as likely as not--I'm saying the doomsaying of 2008 was ridiculous, both in hindsight and at the time. Obama had a solid edge and ran a solid campaign, McCain was hobbled by his party and the economy, and ensured he'd lose when he picked Palin.
>>most of that "I'll never vote for Obama because [pissed about Hillary] [black guy]was coming from the sort of people who were never going to vote for Democrats anyway.<<
This is simply not true. You are underestimating the base of support there was for Hillary before Obama was chosen as the nominee.
>> I'm not saying the doomsaying about 2024 is ridiculous<<
That’s literally what you just said.
Perhaps the bubble you were in was one of white male privilege. Perhaps the bubble I was in, and maybe still am, is one of a citizen who has voted for president 13 times in her lifetime and has had the opportunity to vote for a woman exactly once. Representation matters. Many of us know how strong the currents of sexism and racism can be, because we’ve lived with it all our lives.
I also remember the PUMA wars when I was active on DailyKos. A number of them became turncoats or moved on to other anti-party grievances. And of course the diehard Hillary supporters got really dissed out of existence after 2016.
Another good indicator should be the 2022 midterms that was supposed to be a red wave but was in fact, the complete opposite. If we vote, we win.
Yeah--and in 2022, as I recall the polling averages were showing it to be pretty close, which it turned out to be--GOP won the House by a hair, Dems picked up a seat in the Senate--it was the pundits who ignored the polls and assumed the "fundamentals" would mean a red wave ("look how bad inflation is!") when it turned out that Dems now have the more reliable off-year voters (used to be the other way around) and they were PISSED about Dobbs.
How it'll go in 2 weeks, who knows--but polls suggest it'll be close, and in our column is the fact that unlike 2012 we are NOT complacent.
Hat tip for the Dead Zone reference and hilarious but all too true NYT headline! I am worried about the Muslim vote in Michigan being depressed. Hope other groups can make up that ground.
This campaign is leaving it all out on the road, and we should too. We won't win everywhere but we will win in lots of places. And you know what? We're going to see what the fundamental character of the USA is. If the majority goes for the unreconstructed party, it's not the first time we've backslid on rights. We lick our wounds and keep fighting to survive.
Make sure your voting plans are executed or in progress, folks. Time is running short.
"We're going to see what the fundamental character of the USA is"
Yes we are...
Thanks, Stephen. I needed that. ❤️
New York Times columnist David Brooks asking, “Why the heck isn't she running away with this?” still pisses me off, considering the NYT represent half the problem at this point!
"why do you keep hitting yourself?"
Look in the mirror, David. Or better yet, actually read the garbage you write.
oh go drown your sorrows in a $ 78.00 double scotch at the airport there, Brooks 🙄
"We're all trying to find the guy who's responsible for this!"