The (no longer) much too early 2024 election thread

[Sunsilver]

When I see polls that place Trump ahead of Biden, my first thought is, "How can people be so STUPID as to not see through the man??"

And my second thought is, "When Trump was upset by polls that showed him not being in first place, he got Cohen to find a way to fix them for him."
Hmm...it really makes me wonder...

One thing for sure is I have no doubt whatsoever that Trump has replaced Cohen with a new fixer or fixers.

[N.E. Brigand]

This morning, President Biden informed the Commission on Presidential Debates that he would not be participating in any events they scheduled this year, and his letter made a decent case as to why the Commission's format doesn't serve the Amercian people -- I appreciate the reminder that the famous Nixon-Kennedy debates had no audience -- at the same time he announced that he intended to debate Donald Trump twice this year, and on an earlier schedule than in previous years. After noting that Donald Trump "lost two debates to me in 2020" and "hasn't shown up for a debate" since then, Biden said he has accepted CNN's invitation to debate Trump in June. Trump accepted soon after. Then Biden announced the second debate invitation he's accepted:

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I was just coming to post about that. That came together fast! Has there ever been a presidential debate for the general election before either candidate was the official candidate of their party? This shows that both of them think that they can gain significant traction in debating the other one, and there are very good reasons why both of them may be wrong. That being said, in 2020 Biden definitely had an advantage in the debates (particularly the first one, mostly because of how unhinged Trump acted) and if the same holds true this time, it might end up making a big difference. On the other hand, if Biden acts like a (forgive me) rattled old man, it might boomerang on him.

ETA: It is also entirely possible that these debates will never happen!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This is a real Truth Social post from Trump, but I don't know whether this is actually a debate Biden has agreed to. I doubt it, and it will probably be the excuse for the other debates to get cancelled.

[Sunsilver]

Trump says he’ll arrange his own transportation. I’ll bring my plane, too. I plan on keeping it for another four years.

Love Biden's low-key sense of humor!

I've watched two debates featuring Trump. The one with Hilary was just out and out creepy, the way he hovered behind her. The other one, I can't remember who he debated, except that he screamed throughout the whole thing, and did not allow the person he was debating to talk, even though the moderator set a time limit for each speaker to take turns talking. The moderator was unable to control him.

So a debate could well favor Biden, if he's able to be articulate and presents himself well.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I see that the case is being appealed to SCOTUS. Mark Joseph Stern expects they'll restore the legislature's map for this year's election in accordance with the "Purcell principle" (which says maps shouldn't be changed too close to an election) but there's a good chance that next year the Court will use this case to scrap what remains of the Voting Rights Act.

And, in fact, that is exactly what the court has done.

Supreme Court restores Louisiana voting map with majority-Black district

[N.E. Brigand]

I like this effort to bring the truth about Donald Trump's presidency out of the memory hole:

Trump's first term turned out much worse than anyone feared. He did the mean tweets and some racist stuff. He deployed armed, masked, and unbadged federal agents to grab citizens off the streets. He did his family separation policy with migrants. Not great, but also not "end of the Republic" stuff.

But then the sum of all fears hit. America was handed a real-deal, genuine crisis while Trump was at the helm and the result was that one million Americans died from COVID while Trump oversaw the greatest failure of the federal government since the Great Depression.

And then Trump lost his re-elect and attempted a coup.

How bad was this? If you went back in a time machine and described Trump's COVID response and coup attempt to Republican voters in 2016, they would have accused you of being a hysteric.

In May 2017, when Trump fired FBI Director James Comey and Trump invited Russian officials and their listening devices into the Oval Office, I wrote to a Trump-supporting acquaintance that I was growing concerned that the President might have engaged in criminal if not treasonous behavior. His response to me was, essentially, that I was being hysterical. At some point in 2019, I said to him that we were lucky that Trump hadn't faced a real crisis. Oops.

As for COVID, some Americans would have died regardless, but "about 684,000 more died ... than if we'd done as well as Canada per capita." That's Trump's legacy.

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And we need not give up hope that reason can prevail. Here's a Texas Tribune article about a Republican who ran for her local school board with the aim of making them get rid of the evil liberal textbooks. But then she read the books and "has disavowed the far right platform she ran on. ... The pervasive indoctrination she had railed against simply did not exist. Children were not being sexualized, and she could find no examples of critical race theory, an advanced academic concept that examines systemic racism."

[N.E. Brigand]

Trump says he’ll arrange his own transportation. I’ll bring my plane, too. I plan on keeping it for another four years.

Love Biden's low-key sense of humor!

Biden also said, "I hear you're free on Wednesdays," but June 27, the date of the debate on CNN, is actually a Thursday.

[N.E. Brigand]

Mark Joseph Stern expects SCOTUS will restore the legislature's map for this year's election in accordance with the "Purcell principle" (which says maps shouldn't be changed too close to an election) but there's a good chance that next year the Court will use this case to scrap what remains of the Voting Rights Act.

And, in fact, that is exactly what the court has done.

Supreme Court restores Louisiana voting map with majority-Black district

Interesting that it was the liberal justices who dissented, with Justice Jackson writing that it's too early for Purcell to apply.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Reading Justice Jackson's dissent, I think what she really wanted was to allow the process to play out so that the African-American voters who challenged the original map could have that case fully resolved.

[N.E. Brigand]

The link I put here:

This morning, President Biden informed the Commission on Presidential Debates that he would not be participating in any events they scheduled this year, and his letter made a decent case as to why the Commission's format doesn't serve the Amercian people...

is a link to a tweet from polling analyst Nate Silver in which he grumbles that President Biden, who is "supposed to be the candidate who stands up for norms and traditions," is "ducking this tradition". But as Aaron Fritschner notes here, two years ago, the Republican National Committee announced that its 2024 presidential nominee would be forbidden from participating in the Commission's debates. And I like this meme-heavy take from Dave Weigel, an elections reporter for Semafor (formerly at Slate, Bloomberg, and the Washington Post) who holds libertarian-leaning centrist positions:

I'm in a hipster coffee shop now, and everyone is whispering about Biden DESTROYING a tradition that started in 1987.

Less snarky: The RNC has already said it won't cooperate with the CPD, and both candidates want to go around it so they don't end up debating Kennedy.*

But this storied American tradition, which our brave troops fought to protect etc., is six years younger than the McRib. ...

It's not a real "presidential debate" unless it comes from the CPD region of France.

*And to that end, it turns out that Biden and Trump campaigns have quietly been discussing this possibility for a while.

Also, Aaron Ruper isn't exaggerating when he writes, "Trump almost murdered Biden during a debate last cycle by rolling up on the stage as a biological weapon. Norms and traditions went out the window long ago." Remember that Trump was announced as having Covid-19 -- and admitted to the hospital -- just two days after debating (and losing to) Biden here in Cleveland, but a year later we learned that Trump had tested positive three days before the debate and kept it secret.

Jonathan Martin of Politico believes today's move shows that "Biden does believe the polls -- and knows his only way back is to drag Trump back into living rooms (which the trial ain’t doing)". Greg Sargent frames the same point more positively: "the Biden camp believes many voters haven't tuned in to the actual choice they face and don't really believe Trump is the GOP nominee. Putting them side by side on a stage clarifies that."

And the voters both candidates need are often total ignoramuses: "nearly one in five battleground-state voters says Joe Biden is responsible for ending the constitutional right to abortion, despite the fact that he supports abortion rights and that Donald Trump appointed the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade" -- and that poll shows that only 56% of voters says that Trump is more responsible than Biden for that outcome. Also, I'm not sure if I mentioned before that an NBC poll conducted in April found that Trump does better with voters who haven't been paying attention to political news (and those who get their news from Youtube, social media, and cable news).

Trump continues to lead Biden in the 538.com average of national polls; he's currently ahead by 0.7%. Several "new" polls show Biden leading, particularly among likely voters. I use scare quotes because it appears those polls, although recently released, were conducted three to five weeks ago, so they're improving Biden's standing in 538's past average rather than currently.

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In other election news:

A. I mentioned several weeks ago that in order to keep reading tweets, I finally had to sign up for a Twitter account, because the various alternative ways of browsing content there had become inoperative. I've never posted there and don't intend to. I did have to select at least one account from a small list of choices to follow when I signed up, and I chose just one: President Biden. I don't follow the various accounts whose work I read -- I type in each URL each time -- but of course Twitter can tell who I'm reading and who I'm not. I have to think Twitter can tell by my choices that I'm a Democrat and that anyone who buys ads on Twitter will be steered toward or away from me accordingly. So what does it say that most of the ads I see are for the conservative National Review and for the Senate campaigns of Ohio Republican Bernie Moreno and Arizona Republican Kari Lake? Is Twitter that incompetent or are Moreno and Lake that desperate?

B. The Board of Supervisors for Alameda County, California has put a measure on the fall ballot for voters to decide (or not) to recall Pamela Price, the county's progressive district attorney, despite crime in Oakland (the county's largest city) having dropped 33% over the past year.

C. Former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who testified to the January 6th Committee about his experiences of that day, yesterday lost his bid to become a member of Congress from Maryland when he was defeated in the Democratic primary by state senator Sarah Elfreth. Dunn promptly congratulated and endorsed Elfreth.

D. In the presidential primary, about 20% of Republicans in Maryland voted for Nikki Haley over Donald Trump yesterday, despite Haley having dropped out of the race more than two months ago. CNN notes that Haley has received a "double digit vote share" in fifteen states since dropping out.

E. (i) There's an open race for U.S. Senate from Maryland with the impending retirement of Ben Cardin, a Democrat. On the Republican side, former governor Larry Hogan won with 62% of the vote. On the Democratic side, Angela Alsobrooks, the Prince George County Executive, beat U.S. Representative David Trone to become her party's nominee. Alsobrooks defeated Trone 54%-42% even though Trone spent $60 million of his own money (he got rich in the wine business) and was running television ads eleven months before she was. Despite being the more progressive candidate, Alsobrooks had the support from the state's governor and Congressional delegation. Trone conceded last night and urged his supporters to vote for Alsobrooks and President Biden in November.

(ii) The result was something of a surprise, and some people are knocking the polls. It's true the polling average did show Trone far ahead until recently and narrowly ahead in the past couple weeks. But there weren't all that many polls to average, the final average did have Trone just a few points ahead, and the late swing in Alsobrooks's favor suggested she had a good shot. Still, going from three points behind to twelve points ahead in just a few days is a big swing, which means "elections absolutely can break late, and campaigns matter."

[N.E. Brigand]

Timing!

I like this effort to bring the truth about Donald Trump's presidency out of the memory hole ... "If you went back in a time machine and described Trump's COVID response and coup attempt to Republican voters in 2016, they would have accused you of being a hysteric."

In May 2017, when Trump fired FBI Director James Comey and Trump invited Russian officials and their listening devices into the Oval Office, I wrote to a Trump-supporting acquaintance that I was growing concerned that the President might have engaged in criminal if not treasonous behavior. His response to me was, essentially, that I was being hysterical. At some point in 2019, I said to him that we were lucky that Trump hadn't faced a real crisis. Oops.[/quote]

Oh that's right, it wasn't just that Donald Trump invited Sergey Lavrov, Sergey Kislyak, and a Russian "reporter" (spy) to the Oval Office, but also, as this headline from seven years ago today shows:



It was that Donald Trump told them classified information from Israel -- shared with the U.S. on the understanding that it would go no further -- about an intelligence source inside ISIS controlled territory in Iraq or Syria, and that Russia later seems to have shared that information with Iran!

[N.E. Brigand]

Donald Trump lost Minnesota by seven points to Joe Biden in 2020, but at a Minnesota campaign rally tonight, Trump claimed that he won that state.

[N.E. Brigand]

Trump also said of President Biden: "I just want to debate this guy, but, you know. And I'm going to demand a drug test."

At this point, I'm pretty sure that if Biden demanded the same of Trump, Trump would withdraw, because he'd either fail the test or fall asleep during the debate.

[N.E. Brigand]

And after claiming that "we have deranged Jack Smith in New York" (wrong case, Donald!), this happened:

[N.E. Brigand]

And speaking of Donald Trump's lies about Minnesota:

Donald Trump lost Minnesota by seven points to Joe Biden in 2020, but at a Minnesota campaign rally tonight, Trump claimed that he won that state.

Earlier today, Donald Trump told a local Minnesota TV station that he never said in 2020 that he wouldn't return to the state if lost (which he did), so they played a clip (but for the audience, not for him) showing him saying just that:

[N.E. Brigand]

Apparently Donald Trump had a very successful weekend:

[N.E. Brigand]

Possibly I've mentioned before a discussion among the students of my high school government class when I was a senior in 1989-1990. The teacher had to step out of the room for a few minutes, and somehow the class got talking about the subject of interracial marriage, and it was clear that half the class, in suburban Ohio, didn't believe it was acceptable. (Surveys over the years show that share was in keeping with national opinions at that time.) Maybe we had been learning about the 1967 case of Loving v. Virginia, which found that interracial marriage was protected by the 14th Amendment. That decision overrule bans on interracial marriage in fifteen southern states and Delaware. I thought of that when reading this:



Young voters may not realize what Democrats have done for them and what Republicans could take away.

In that particular case, the theater where I work was scheduled to produce a reading of Dustin Lance Black's play 8 on June 30, 2015. That play concerns the 2011 court case that overturned California's Proposition 8. (There's something else young people probably won't believe: voters in California voted to ban gay marriage just 16 years ago.) Then on June 26, the Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges, ruling that same-sex marriage was legal in all states, which meant that gay marriage had been permitted in Ohio for just four days (Ohio voters banned gay marriage in 2004) when we presented the play.

(Edited to add: to be clear, Democrats have often dragged their feet these issues. But they are generally on the side of personal freedom.)

[N.E. Brigand]

Here's some interesting early 1980s commentary I've never read before from the far-left poet Amiri Baraka (1934-2014) about the importance of political incrementalism. Although Baraka was staunchly anti-capitalist, he warned against commentary he'd heard from others on the left about the last presidential election that Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter were "exactly the same". But as Baraka noted, Reagan, now president, was trying to put an end to Social Security. (He failed, fortunately.) You have to make the best choice from your actual options, and "those kind of sweeping, Leftist, ultra-revolutionary statements do nothing but fog up the reality that you have to fight every inch", and that includes voting for the most leftward candidate with a chance of winning because if you don't, "you will find yourself in a position where you're backed up against the ovens ... and then the only thing you can do is fight for your life, I mean quite literally."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Words of wisdom that I fear many in the coming election will ignore.