BringMetheHeadofBruceAllen
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https://newrepublic.com/article/182161/democrats-make-donald-trump-conviction-matter-election
If there is such a thing as one infamous quote that defines an era, then during the George W. Bush presidency it was an on-background remark made by a Bush aide to the journalist Ron Suskind in 2002 that appeared two years later in The New York Times Magazine. A “senior adviser” who was unhappy about an earlier article by Suskind had called him on the carpet and then went on to explain the broader world view that Suskind failed to comprehend:
The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”
The passage was instantly incendiary (everyone thinks it was Karl Rove; Rove has never confirmed this, and Suskind has never revealed his source). The arrogance of it, at a time when the Iraq War was hardly going to plan, was staggering. Some Democrats took the jibe as a badge of honor and began sporting “Reality-Based Community” buttons.
Republicans have a long track record of disastrous results. The Iraq War, which we were told in early 2003 would take a couple months, lasted years, killed hundreds of thousands, and cost trillions (and by the way, Iraq is still not close to being a free country). Bush also would go on to let a major American city drown (New Orleans) and nearly destroy the global economic order.
But we have to say this: None of that ever dims their confidence that they can create their own reality. And today, by which I mean right now, this week, Democrats can and must learn a thing or two from Republicans.
While Donald Trump was on trial, the conventional wisdom was that the outcome would have no effect on the election. The only people who disagreed were some conservatives—because they were sure it would actually help him.
But now we have a couple polls telling us something different. The conviction has the potential to hurt Trump. But emphasis on “potential.” It depends entirely on what the Democrats do with it. So this is the key question: Are the Democrats capable of creating their own reality? Do they have the imagination and courage to do it?
First, the polls. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after Trump’s conviction, 10 percent of Republicans and 25 percent of independents said the conviction made them less likely to vote for Trump. To be sure, majorities of both said it would have no effect, and 35 percent of Republicans said a conviction made them more likely to back Trump.
But the important number is that 10 percent. That is a huge number. Think it through with me. In 2020, 158 million people voted. According to the CNN exit polls, 36 percent were Republicans. That’s 57 million voters. If Trump were to lose 5.7 million Republicans, he would not only lose but probably lose convincingly. Even if half of that 10 percent comes back to him, he’d lose 2.85 million. That’s still a huge number.
Let’s do a little more math. In the key swing state of Arizona, the vote total was about 3.3 million. If we follow the CNN exit polls that put the GOP vote nationwide at 36 percent, then just shy of 1.2 million Arizona voters were Republican. If Trump were to lose 5 percent of them, that would amount to about 59,000 votes. And Arizona was decided, of course, by about 12,000 votes in 2020. In Georgia, which again was decided by roughly 12,000 votes, Trump would lose around 88,000 votes. In Michigan, it would be 99,000 votes lost if just 5 percent of Republicans desert him. In Pennsylvania, it would be close to 124,000 votes. And remember, I’m lowballing Republican defections from the poll’s 10 percent to half that, and I’m not even counting independents.
I trust you see the importance here.
Second post-conviction poll: Morning Consult found that 15 percent of Republicans believe Trump should end his candidacy. Now, there are no numbers to crunch here, and Trump is obviously not going to do that. But if roughly every seventh Republican really thinks Trump should end his candidacy, that is a staggering number, and again a potentially devastating one for him.
And again—emphasis on “potentially.”
Democrats, the ball is in your court. You can make your usual “judicious study of discernible reality” and buy into the lazy—and apparently wrong—conventional wisdom that says the verdict will make no difference.
Or you can create a new reality in which the verdict makes a big difference—maybe the difference between Joe Biden being reelected and Donald Trump destroying our democracy.
How to do it? There are lots of ways. But let’s start with this. “Convicted felon Donald Trump.” Not once. Not 10 times. Not 10,000 times. More like 500,000 times.
Seriously: No federal Democratic officeholder should, for the foreseeable future, say the name “Donald Trump” without putting the words “convicted felon” before it. We might give Biden himself a partial exemption here, because for a president, that kind of blunt, partisan repetition may be a little undignified. But no one else. Chuck Schumer. Hakeem Jeffries. Cori Bush on the left. Jared Golden on the right. Every. Single. One of them.
Blunt repetition may be boring. Democrats and liberals are intellectually averse to it, because it’s intellectually dull, and we’re supposed to be the smart side, always finding clever new arguments. But it works. People need to hear things over and over and over for it to lodge in their long-term memory.
Think of how many times you heard “Crooked Hillary” in 2016. Did they sound like mentally dull robots? Yes. But did it sink in, for millions of swing voters? Well, we do know this: As many as 40 percent of voters in 2016 polls said they thought she was corrupt. And when James Comey reopened that email investigation in late October, many of those voters thought: Aha. Crooked Hillary. Just what the Republicans have been saying.
This is how people’s brains work. Don’t take it from me. Take it from Gretchen Smelzer, a psychologist whom I admit I just found on Google on Sunday morning but who appears to be legit and whose 2018 book Journey Through Trauma earned a brief but respectful write-up in The New York Times. On her website, Smelzer writes:
There are only three ways that information can move from short-term memory to long term memory: urgency, repetition, or association.…
Repetition is the most familiar learning tool—everyone has memorized facts or vocabulary words by repeating them, and some have improved basketball free-throw shooting or playing piano scales through practice. Repetition creates long term memory by eliciting or enacting strong chemical interactions at the synapse of your neuron (where neurons connect to other neurons). Repetition creates the strongest learning.…
So Democrats. Here’s your situation. You can let this drop, thus ensuring that by November 5, Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts by a jury that deliberated for less than 10 hours will be totally forgotten, and no one will carry the thought of it into the voting booth. Or you can hammer away at it, never letting voters forget it—and by the way, driving Trump crazy the whole time, making it likely that he’ll say nuttier and nuttier things about it—and do all you can to swing those 59,000 votes in Arizona and all the rest.
It’s up to you. Do you want to wake up on Wednesday, November 6, with Trump having won, and with exit polls showing that his conviction made no difference? If not, well … as Malone (Sean Connery) said to Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) about stopping another mobster: “What are you prepared to do?”
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In any normal world that poll would encourage the GOP to push Trump out for an electable candidate. While I fear what the next year is going to bring in terms of discord and violence, some day Trump will be in everyone's rearview mirror, and we need to remember to hold his supporters to account by keeping their past insane comments relevant.
Some day sanity will prevail and people will wonder why it was a good idea to support a convicted criminal for leader of the free world, especially as the GOP continues to rack up losses in smaller elections, which his supporters seem not to notice.
The GOP, in addition to possibly turning into a domestic terror group depending on the level of violence coming up, is going to go the way of the Whig party, because the Far Right on their own will never win any serious office in the future.
The GOP only has itself to blame for allowing Trump to take over the party in the first place.
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16 minutes ago, Fergasun said:
I am skeptical. But I am also naive. I mean, people probably questioned whether Nixon played with himself.
They say power corrupts, but I have read that power attracts corruptible people.
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7 minutes ago, gbear said:
There was a book awhile back detailing all the affairs of past president's. Up through Bush I, every president save for Carter was on record as having an affair. It says something about the character traits of those likely to want to be president.
Even Nixon?? 🤢🤮
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5 minutes ago, The Evil Genius said:
I thought MAGA had a problem with China (not the poster).
Ssssshhh, don't tell MAGA. 😆
If Trump has no problem with them, then MAGA won't either, never mind that it contradicts everything they have believed since 2015.
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Going to jail is meaningless unless he's also deprived of using Truth to post from his cell. Otherwise he will use that to instigate a civil war. He's crossed every other Rubicon already with five months left until election day, it's only a matter of time before he starts calling for Dems to die. His blathering about everything being rigged against him can't possibly carry him through election day just by itself, he will have to up the ante because that's what MAGA expects.
Couldn't he then be charge with domestic terrorism?
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Although I don't expect jail time for the actual convictions (but it's possible for all of his gag order violations) I kinda would like to see Merchan throw the book at him and send him to jail for one year to prevent him running for president. Sure there will be violence, but we're going to get that anyway on Nov. 5th and in January too...why not get it out of the way first?
Trump doesn't have a 'right' to run for POTUS.
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11 hours ago, skinsfan4128 said:
Pardon me? Care to elaborate?
HTTR!
Nothing bad! I thought the asterisk use in your post was funny, so thought I'd respond using only asterisks...meant only in jest and no offense intended! 😁
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36 minutes ago, skinsfan4128 said:
Wear a ****Trump t-shirt. It's awesome when you pass a Trumper and they don't say a ****ing word to you.
Chicken**** mother****ers talk all sorts of **** til they get confronted by someone who don't play that bull****.
HTTR!
****!
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4 minutes ago, skinsmarydu said:
Gotta be. Everyone knows the jury deliberates in private.
Oh, snap!
It's fake, thank God. There is no 54th district in CA.
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True, and funnier still is the fact that Trump's appeal of his recent conviction won't happen before Nov either.
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I hope you're right but they can attack voting stations to prevent voting, which benefits Trump.
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As ridiculous as McCarthy sounds he's right. People have become so cynical about corrupt politicians that none of this surprises them any more, and they hold a businessman celebrity with no political knowledge to an even lower standard.
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Sadly that may become true, but even if it doesn't there's nothing to prevent Trump from claiming he has 50% of the Black vote locked up.
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That 60% really needs to get up around 80% before it will effect anything.
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4 minutes ago, Forehead said:
So...who had Rupert Murdoch marrying a Russian on their bingo card?
Without a doubt she's affiliated with the KGB.
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https://www.cbsnews.com/video/reality-as-trump-supporters-see-it/
DC better start planning for the next insurrection because it will be 10 times bigger. I've never seen so many ignorant rednexx in one place.
One problem with immigrants who support Trump is they weren't here when the civil war happened, so they don't know and don't care what it was about...just like people in Asia who mostly don't know who Hitler was.
Granted, this crowd is only 8k people, but 3k people almost destroyed democracy on J6.
It's funny in the video the women saying she wants freedom...but what freedom did she ever lose? Certainly not the freedom of assembly.
Maybe one day they'll make a movie "J6: Rise of the Rednecks."
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36 minutes ago, Fergasun said:
He's really gonna run with "I didn't say 'Lock Her Up!' "????
Yes and Trumpies will believe it.
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43 minutes ago, PokerPacker said:
Ah, yes, the old policy of appeasement. That always works out an doesn't just kick the can down the road.
I'm not saying appeasement like Neville Chamberlain but any conflict over Taiwan will go nuclear pretty quick. Hard diplomacy should not be abandoned as long as other countries in the region get on board.
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25 minutes ago, samy316 said:
This is 100% fact. I can’t tell you the number of people I know who don’t care about politics, don’t watch politics and hate watching the news. Except for a relatively small bubble, most people either can’t or won’t willingly watch the news or current events. For a lot of people, Twitter (or X), and TikTok are the primary source of how people consume daily news. Have you seen the ratings for MSNBC or CNN? No one under the age of 55 watches those channels. There are a LOT of people who don’t care about politics, and only follow it close to election time.
It also depends on your algorithm too. If you’re a guy between the ages of 18-35, whose a UFC fan, or into comics/anime, your algorithm might spit out more right-leaning news videos, so you’re prospective on Trump might be compromised depending on the algorithm of your media consumption online. We’ve known now for years where troll farms and Russian bots like to focus their attention online. It’s VERY easy to come across right wing blogs, posts and clips, and get indoctrinated into those spaces if you’re online videos skew UFC, anime, etc. It’s a very complicated, messy web.
One of the reasons I think social media deserves most of the blame with their algorithms only feeding you what you agree with...for their profits.
I don't think this Trump cult would have spread so much without that, understanding that 30 percent of the GOP would always believe him.
Maybe after losing hundreds of elections they will see the light...sure.
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I just don't think we should risk nuclear war over Taiwan or send our soldiers there. It's inevitable that China will take Taiwan and all we can do is make it costly for them by giving Taiwan weapons.
China doesn't care if it hurts their image, the fact is many in the world respect power and not international rules, which China and Russia push back on because it constrains them.
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1 hour ago, Cooked Crack said:
Boo friggin' hoo.
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15 minutes ago, Cooked Crack said:
Equating anyone with Jesus is a sure sign of a cult.
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6 minutes ago, Bang said:
Undecided = gutless idiot at this point.
~Bang
Especially after bodies start to hit the floor because Trump is on the verge of calling outright for assassinations.
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Election 2024 & Presidential Cage Match: Dark Brandon 46 vs Felonious Farty 45
in The Tailgate
Posted
1) Yes they would rationalize it because they have swallowed the "They're Out To Get Me" Kool-Aid that Trump has always sold. They will bring up FDR staying in office past 1940. Personally, I think Trump would suspend the Constitution and put Donald Jr. in as POTUS. He's shown no respect for the Constitution, why start now?
2) Nope, because they seem to believe that everyone agrees with them, evidence to the contrary. They can't possibly believe people would oppose Trump.
What makes you think Trump would peacefully leave office in January 2029?
True and it's stunning that the Dems haven't truly come to grips with that. They didn't even bother campaigning in three states that barely went for Trump and it cost her the election. I'm no Hillary fan, however, and her arrogance cost her...in addition to her 'basket of deplorables' comment, which may have been true it also helped to galvanize support for Trump.