At least one person learned the lesson of 2016. That Trump fights dirty and will do anything to win and if he doesn't win he will still say he won. End of story.
Don't believe me?
"Appearing on 'Fox & Friends' on Tuesday morning, President Trump again told his supporters to believe that if the election doesn't deliver the result they want, the outcome is inherently illegitimate - that there are no democratically legitimate circumstances under which he and his supporters can lose in a fair election.
By my count, this is the third time he has stated this explicitly in recent weeks. Trump will generally say both that the election is likely to be rigged and fraudulent - say, due to vote-by-mail - and that he can lose only if that happens."
wapo.st/3krigzM
Trump is preparing not only himself for victory, but his minions. The Democrats? They're still debating the issues, defending Joe Biden against all the bogus issues the right throws at him. So when the going gets tough, the Democratic constituency will be completely unprepared.
My friends want to argue the horse race, they want to whip out statistics, talk about Nate Silver, wince over Trump's behavior, but all of those are completely irrelevant. Trump is gonna declare victory no matter what, then what?
The Democratic insiders are getting prepared. They don't want to be outplayed like they were in 2000. But those not on the inside? THEY'VE GOT NO CLUE!
Let's go back to Hillary. The problem is still her e-mails, they caused Covid-19 and global warming, of course. The Democrats played defense in 2016, but you can only win if you play offense. Kinda like the "deplorables." Hillary and the left were badgered into retreating, taking back their words, and then they were lambasted for them all the way until election day, even after. The truth is Clinton should have doubled-down, isn't that what Trump has always done? He owns his statements. And the truth is a lot of Trump's supporters are deplorable, and what difference does it make if you label them so, they're going to vote for Trump anyway.
There's this canard that there's a great swath of undecided voters out there. If not, why do we have this endless election process which takes up the better part of two years? If voters are already aligned, what difference do the articles and the debates make? NONE! We live in a completely tribalized society and yet when it comes to voting for president a great number of people don't know which side they're on, they haven't made up their mind? That's like the Yankees playing the Red Sox and fans not knowing who to root for, but it's worse, it's a matter of life and death, of democracy. As for those friends, if you've got any, who say they're not sure, they just don't want to endure abuse from their circle. Come on, you know some of these people, if you get them alone and push them a bit they admit it, they voted for Trump and will again, but if they say so they'll be excommunicated from the group. You know, the ones who are educated but refuse to ever discuss politics. The undecided voter is a myth, I tell you.
So, Trump is playing the long game. He not only took control of the post office and hobbled it, he installed his own judges, who are tilting the playing field his way. Like the Trump judge who ruled the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania's lockdowns unconstitutional. And don't tell me to respect the bench, that would assume that no one lies in court and just because you were appointed you've got gravitas, when nothing could be further from the truth.
We could pay whac-a-mole here, delineate all of Trump's offenses, but that's what the right wants us to do. To get caught up in the minutiae, to debate facts and credibility when those are out the window completely. No, what we need to do is get out of the trenches and focus on the big picture, November 3rd and thereafter, how do Democrats counter Trump's narrative?
Trump has been telling his acolytes for months that the vote is untrustworthy unless he wins it. Meanwhile, the left keeps talking about the sanctity of the vote, like the election process is inviolate and we've just got to let the system work. Yeah, right. No, what the Democrats need is to get their base riled-up for the fight. And they need to do this with sunshine, a slogan. Enough with the hosannas for Michele Obama, when they go low...WE DON'T IGNORE IT!
LEGITIMIZE THE VOTE! Maybe that should be the bumper-sticker. Or MAIL-IN COUNTS! Or, NOVEMBER 3RD IS JUST THE BEGINNING! Yes, everyone agrees that the odds of having a final count on election day are essentially zero. But those in the trenches say Trump will declare victory on November 3rd and and then declare all resulting ballots illegal.
Not to mention the problem with mail-in ballots. A lot aren't counted for numerous reasons. Not mailed in time, not properly signed. Double digit percentages are thrown out, how are the Democrats preparing people for this? Where is the line as to whether a mail-in ballot is valid or not? If the secretary of state in question is a Republican are they going to decide in favor of Democratic mail-in ballots or play the role of a record company, counting royalties in their favor? And yes, you can audit the label, but even if they're wrong you never ever get a hundred cents on the dollar. You try to solve the problem via the initial contract. But in the case of voting, all these issues are not going to be addressed until the votes come in, and that's too late.
WE NEED PUSHBACK!
As for the talking heads on TV...forget them, they've never experienced this. And they're so wary of appearing one-sided that they'll cite the other side's opinion no matter how inane. But not on Fox! If you're in the right wing media silo you live in an alternative universe where all Democrats are insane and if Biden wins life in America as we know it will end. There's no concomitant left wing outlet. Forget the right excoriating MSNBC and CNN, it's no contest, Fox is way off the rails. But the right keeps working the refs, undermining whatever credibility MSNBC and CNN have, so people won't pay attention to them.
This is the battle of our lifetimes. This is the battle of the century. This is the ultimate battle for democracy. You'd think the Democrats would play a little harder. But no, they put up an old candidate who can't even get traction in the news, who barely ever tweets, and close their eyes and hope that it will all work out. Oh, there's another thing, you can't say anything bad about Biden or you're being disloyal. I'd buy that if the DNC and Biden campaign were employing a scorched-earth policy like the Republicans, but instead they're holed up inside with their polls with their fingers crossed, like a kid praying he got an A on the test. That doesn't work, but preparation does. And if you ever went to high school you know that the elite were often grade-grubbers, if they did not get the mark they wanted, the one they thought they deserved, they marched right up to the teacher's desk and implored he or she to change it, to the point where the teacher got wary of giving bad grades to these "achievers." As for business...it's all about blurring the lines, if not outright fraud. But somehow, when it comes to the election process everything will be hunky-dory.
This is the message the Democrats must disseminate. That there's a war on the election process itself and they are going to fight hard and not back down. The Democrats have to alert their voters that voting is just the beginning, and it's not enough. Sure, vote. But that's kind of like showing up at the stadium, it's after you vote that the game begins, truly.
This is unprecedented. So it calls for unprecedented measures. Do you see any from the Democrats with less than two months to go?
This is the narrative that should be established. After all, the Republicans are literally telling their rank and file to take to the street if things don't go their way. What's the Democrats' plan? Hope and prayer? The Republicans are planning a strike in plain sight. It'd be like Japan telegraphing FDR that they were going to bomb Pearl Harbor and Roosevelt doing nothing about it, sitting on his hands and being surprised when the bombs dropped. This isn't even a sneak attack by the Republicans, they keep telling us if Trump doesn't win the contest is illegitimate, and if the big bad, i.e. weak, Democrats don't accept this be ready to fight it out in the streets.
Bite-sized. Hammered over and over again. That's what the Democrats need. A slogan that everybody in America knows. To prepare them for what's to come. Oh, don't talk to me about dividing the country, it's already divided. As for the Trumpers up in arms...are you gonna always play by their rules, always concede? Rush Limbaugh and his minions get it wrong about Covid-19 but somehow they're right when it comes to climate change? The Republicans have their voters hoodwinked. They're all-in. The truth is irrelevant. And their truth is that the Democrats are untrustworthy and Biden is bad for the nation and there's only one true savior, Donald Trump. Yes, that's the message, repeated over and over and over again, multiple times each day. And all the Democrats do is drop their jaws open in amazement. As if by pointing at the train-wreck you can prevent it from happening. No, you gain control of the train. It's too late to rebuild the track or the locomotive. You prepare the passengers. You tell them you're going to do your best to prevent an incident, but if it comes be prepared, and blame it on the lack of investment in infrastructure. Owning your faults only works if you're a celebrity going to rehab. You circle the wagons and push back. That's the nation we're living in. The fight is not over the vote, but the count. Get that message hammered into people's heads, and only then will you have a chance of victory.
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