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Notes for 9-29-20

Pre-Debate Predictions and What I Am Reading

Chris Spangle's avatar
Chris Spangle
Sep 29, 2020
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Our open thread for debate number one is live now! Join in.


The polls are steady

They have been for months. Riots, COVID-19 closings and openings, RBG's death, conventions, VP picks, and all of the other daily horrors the people of America have stared down on a daily basis have not moved the needle. In fact, his favorable/unfavorable polling has barely moved since he was elected.

Yes, yes, I know we aren't supposed to trust polling after 2016, but at IO, we never toss out a metric that might help us see a clearer picture of what is happening in the world today. Voters have clearly made up their minds on the President. They want to fire him.

But do they trust Joe Biden? The meme campaign waged against Biden's frailty has probably sewn a lot of doubt in the mind of the person that doesn't care about politics as deeply as we do. The lowered expectations from the memes around Biden's mental state were flamed by the campaign which spent tens of millions of dollars on pushing this narrative.

It could be one of the dumbest self-owns in electoral history. If Biden walks out tonight and he manages to drool into the cup instead of just on his shoes, the few swing voters left in the country may fill out their absentee ballots before the spin room heats up. He merely has to look competent to pick up much needed last-minute votes.

Voter turnout is already massive. A lot of that will be through the mail. My guess is that Trump is sewing doubt in absentee ballots because he wants you to have the ability to change your mind.

Historically, Presidents do terribly in the first debate. They've spent three years with staffers kissing their ass and it is the first time they've faced a serious challenge. Their opponent usually had several primary debates. Trump is not preparing for the debate. This is the biggest opportunity he has in keeping the Presidency and he's not worried. He should be. Trump's hubris combined with his lowering of expectations could lead to a fatal blow for the President.


This is a very half-baked idea that I've had the last week.

The moment when I began taking coronavirus seriously was Michael Osterholm’s estimate that a minimum of 700,000 some deaths would occur within a short time frame on Joe Rogan. We passed a million deaths last night.

Despite the notion that experts had this all wrong, a lot of predictions that scared people in March came true. So why doesn’t it feel as bad as we expected it to feel?

If you’ve suffered from the disease or had a loved one pass, it’s different, obviously. But most of us aren't experiencing the disease the way we expected in the spring. I hope someone in the future studies the psychological and sociological intricacies of all this.

Global coronavirus death toll crosses 1 million


Like a Rat in a Trap: Trump is running out of moves

From Jonathan V. Last:

"Question: When is the last time the sitting president of the United States accused his opponent of using performance-enhancing drugs and demanded that he take a drug test following a debate?

Obviously, the answer is: Never. Because prior to this moment our country has never had a president who was both psychologically and cognitively unbalanced.

But Trump’s bizarre drug-test demand isn’t just a symptom. It’s an indicator of how desperate he is.

Here are the baseline facts as we sit a little more than one month away from Election Day:

Biden currently leads Trump by > +7 percent in the national polling average.

Trump has never been closer than -3 at any point in the race, and even that margin was brief—just two days in April.

Trump’s net approve/disapprove is currently -9. He has been net-negative on this measure since February 3, 2017.

Taken together, Trump’s net negative approval rating and trailing of Biden are historic. In the advent of modern polling, no sitting president has ever been this unpopular and this far behind, this consistently, ever.

Trump’s pathway to victory—already very narrow—has continued to shrink.

Consider the shifting theories of victory Team Trump has put forward over the last four years:

First, they insisted that they would remake the Republican party and broaden its appeal creating a new, Reagan-like realignment and political majority.

At some point following the midterm elections, they abandoned even the pretense of trying to win a majority of the vote in 2020, and placed their faith in the hope of winning an Electoral College majority while holding Biden’s popular vote victory to +3 points.

Over the summer the idea of holding Biden to only +3 gave way to the hope that they might get to 270 Electoral Votes even if Biden finished +5.

Within the last month, the idea of winning in the Electoral College on election night has, itself, disappeared. The campaign now hopes to be able to use litigation and the courts to manufacture an Electoral College victory after the fact.

This progression of victory scenarios is not what you see from winning campaign."


I have to wonder what the limit is on the benefits of the doubt given to Trump. How many days in a row do Trump supporters have to make excuses for a man so clearly not worth their benefit of the doubt? I ask myself when a new story is released thanks to leaks of those that were close to the man. The most ardent never Trumpers in the first three years were Democrats. Lately, it's been those that worked for him.

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Black Lives Matter organization deletes page calling for 'disruption' of the nuclear family

Didn't Baby Boomers already do that?


Always a Tweet

Twitter avatar for @realDonaldTrump
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
HALF of Americans don't pay income tax despite crippling govt debt...
plu.gdHALF of Americans don’t pay income tax despite crippling government debtIn 2009, just 50.5 per cent of Americans paid any income tax to the federal government. This graph shows the rising proportion of non-taxpayers over the last 50 years.
7:59 PM ∙ Feb 23, 2012
5,397Likes6,624Retweets
Twitter avatar for @AWeissmann_
Andrew Weissmann @AWeissmann_
As you read the NYT Trump tax story, remember the Eric Trump statement in 2014: "We don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia." Now ask to whom does Trump owe the hundreds of millions of dollars coming due soon?
1:33 PM ∙ Sep 28, 2020
71,412Likes23,379Retweets
Twitter avatar for @DanAlexander21
Dan Alexander @DanAlexander21
1/ The New York Times #TrumpTaxReturns story is terrific. I had about a million thoughts as I was reading though. I'll be annotating those here, in this thread, for the next few hours.
nytimes.comTrump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax AvoidanceThe Times obtained Donald Trump’s tax information extending over more than two decades, revealing struggling properties, vast write-offs, an audit battle and hundreds of millions in debt coming due.
10:17 PM ∙ Sep 27, 2020
28,055Likes12,110Retweets
Twitter avatar for @JesseRodriguez
Jesse Rodriguez @JesseRodriguez
Tonight on @MSNBC ahead of the first debate: @HillaryClinton
Image
1:17 PM ∙ Sep 29, 2020
1,486Likes449Retweets

What I am Reading

If you're looking for a good breakdown on Trump's taxes, this is it.

Kentucky's self-defense laws negated possible homicide charges in Breonna Taylor's death

http://juryverdicts.net/Grandjuror.pdf

Cadaver dogs to search Carole Baskin's missing husband Don Lewis' lake house, ex-detective says

Why the First Debate Could Be Important

Biden Goes On Air In Ohio, Trump Goes Dark

Where Do NeverTrump Voters Stand Four Years Later?

Trump camp seeks extra debate rule: Third-party inspectors to look for electronic devices in candidates' ears

I Lived Through Collapse. America Is Already There.

Trump’s Tax Returns Show Lying Is His Only Marketable Skill

Human Gullibility

Trump Expected to Attack Biden’s Son

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Around the WAL Network

460: The Corrupt Commission on Presidential Debates

BNS 139: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Amy Coney Barrett, and the Implications on the 2020 Election -with Elaine Joan

OTR: Living In Interesting Times (Ft. Andrew Meyer)

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Lars Nordskog's avatar
Lars Nordskog
Sep 30, 2020

Great post. A nitpick but just for future reference it’s sow/sown like crops not sew/sewn like clothing :)

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