Trump is doomed if we have fair elections in 2020. That's a pretty big if right now, but the fact that well over half the voters have disapproved of his job as President for a solid 2-1/2 years makes his re-election all but impossible.

He's not going to change peoples' minds about him, his strategy will be to make his opponent seem worse.

What's more is that the fact that well over 50% of the country wants him removed from office is important too, to win in 2020 he's going to have to convince people to vote for someone they think should be thrown out of office.

jcgoldie

(11,638 posts)

5. I agree

Reply to Johnny2X2X (Reply #3)

Thu Oct 24, 2019, 12:13 PM

Oct 2019

The fact that his numbers are so stable is not in his favor. I think Silver said "if you weigh 350 lbs then keeping your weight consistent is not a plus." Yet "disapproval" doesn't necessarily mean they won't vote for him...

CrispyQ

(36,500 posts)

6. It's still disturbing.

Reply to jcgoldie (Original post)

Thu Oct 24, 2019, 12:22 PM

Oct 2019

Fintan O’Toole: Trial runs for fascism are in full flow
Babies in cages were no ‘mistake’ by Trump but test-marketing for barbarism
Tue, Jun 26, 2018

Fintan O'Toole

Fascism doesn’t arise suddenly in an existing democracy. It is not easy to get people to give up their ideas of freedom and civility. You have to do trial runs that, if they are done well, serve two purposes. They get people used to something they may initially recoil from; and they allow you to refine and calibrate. This is what is happening now and we would be fools not to see it.

One of the basic tools of fascism is the rigging of elections – we’ve seen that trialled in the election of Trump, in the Brexit referendum and (less successfully) in the French presidential elections. Another is the generation of tribal identities, the division of society into mutually exclusive polarities. Fascism does not need a majority – it typically comes to power with about 40 per cent support and then uses control and intimidation to consolidate that power. So it doesn’t matter if most people hate you, as long as your 40 per cent is fanatically committed. That’s been tested out too. And fascism of course needs a propaganda machine so effective that it creates for its followers a universe of “alternative facts” impervious to unwanted realities. Again, the testing for this is very far advanced.

I'd bet money that Barr's looking for evidence, real or fabricated, they don't care, of malfeasance on Obama or Clinton's part in some contrived scandal. They want show trials. I have been more optimistic the past few weeks, but until this the Con is out of office, we could still topple either way.

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