Desperation is in the air, 3 weeks left
The fact that this race is this close, is giving me hives. How can we be here?
We are rapidly approaching the 2024 US Presidential election, and the polls show the race to be agonizingly tight. What’s boggles the mind is that a solid 30% of the population is all in on the full MAGA experience, and about 15-16% more is on board enough because they think that the economy was better under Trump (narrator: it wasn’t by any objective measure) and that they believe Trump was better and would be better on immigration.
This ceiling of support of about 47% of the electorate when combined with Electoral College makes it far too likely that Trump can win.
But Trump’s activities have escalated in their unhinged-ness as I suspect their internal polling shows a lot of weakness in their numbers, and tightening in states that should have been uncontested. With Florida moving to within the margin of error (and Trump’s lacing into Haitian immigrants alienating a once lean Republican demo) it means that the Trump campaign will be forced to spend some dollars in the state that they desperately need elsewhere.
Good.
But Trump is on the stump, and just dishing out favors like a grandparent spoiling a grandchild.
No tax on tips! (see how fast that CEO’s and Hedge Fund Managers become tipped employees)
Deduct your car loan interest from your taxes! (that will lead cars to become ever more expensive, and when you can already spend up to $150K on a Hennessey edition Ford F150, how much higher can they go?)
Call Detroit a third world hellscape, from the podium at the Detroit Economic Club!
And now Elon Musk is going all in, spending as much as $500M (reportedly) in direct and indirect support for the Trump campaign, including a sketchy as fuck scheme to pay a $47 bounty for getting voters in a swing state to commit to first and second amendment support. The richest man on the planet has gone full MAGA and it is really sad.
Double down on all the nativist and racist tropes, to lock in that older racist white vote, and then berate his mega donors and harp on Jews who support Harris, and then hold events in states he’s never gonna be competitive (holding rallies in California and New York, and he’s trying to pull off a Madison Square Garden rally).
But I am worried. Really worried.
No, not about the groundswell of support that Harris/Walz is enjoying. And the pundits who are still pissed that Harris isn’t doing enough media - uh, no, she’s doing the media that meets the voters where they’re at, and the readers of the NY Times, WaPo, Politico, and others of the legacy media are not the undecideds or what the squishy political center. No, the readers of legacy media have already made up their minds.
Alas, JoJo from Jerz posted this banger:
Her position is that Trump is the whiniest little bitch on the planet, and we all know how to deal with them. It is a great post, and you should go read it.
But it brings to mind many conversations I have with Republican colleagues who are not MAGA per se, but they firmly believe that Trump’s bloviating is all outlandish claims that won’t actually come to pass. They say they don’t like the insanity, but boy, wasn’t the economy humming during his term?
All of these people I am talking to are people who make near $200K a year, who really don’t suffer when egg prices go up, but they like to LARP as a common man. These are intelligent, well educated (all MALE) people who should know better.
Do they deny the promises to round up 20M “illegals” and deport them? Do they think Trump isn’t serious about building concentration camps? That Trump isn’t going to withdraw the US from NATO (most of my colleagues in this category are ex-military)?
Or is it just the sweet sweet tax cuts? The “I got mine, so fuck you” mentality that is far too common in mediocre middle aged white dudes who think they earned their position in society.
Lastly, I am terrified that the US isn’t going to vote for a woman who is a person of color for the top tier. I know they will find excuses to not vote for her so they have plausible deniability when it really is the racism and misogynoir that they have internalized. I have listened to enough clips from focus groups where even many women are justifying their misogyny and racism couching it in “she’s not ready”.
What the actual fuck, there will never be enough “readiness” for a woman for these retromingent trash-humans.
And that is what keeps me up at night.
I have received, filled out, and returned my ballot here in California. I got the text message from the elections team acknowledging that my vote has been received and counted.
But I am still terrified that Trump might win, and that his desperate grasping at straws will work to tip the low (really no) information voters to pull the lever for him.
What is keeping you up at night?
Same. Still, I feel deep in my bones that Trump is going down. It’s all I got. (Also respect and faith in the basic goodness of people, women in particular, like Jojo, who are really, really sick of the bullshit and the bullying that Trump represents.)Hold on and stay strong. We’re almost there.
In my mind there is no contest. You’re either voting for a free society or a dictatorship. The blatant lies people believe are astounding and it shows how weak minded people are. I’m cautiously optimistic but I’ll leave the US before I live another 4 years under the terms of Project 2025. I’m lucky to be able to do that, I know. I’m very tired of people behaving badly.