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I have a very hard time believing that Trump has any chance at losing this election if it’s anything close to fair. If he loses this time I would think it requires real direct vote fraud. Hacked machines. Dead people voting.
If the betting markets are at 30-40% the Dem wins then my opinion is there is a 30-40% chance of direct provable voter fraud.
Trump years were not that bad. And everyone just saw on TV that the Dems tried to pass off a non-functioning human being. No one will trust them anymore.
Is Hunter Biden the defacto POTUS right now?
Even if you swap him out you can not undo the brand damage. That’s going to a point or two hit to whoever the new guy is. Was Bill Clinton in his prime America’s most talented politician? You would need someone of that quality to pull it off.
At this point Trumps best strategy is likely Joe’s 2020 strategy of hiding in the basement. I think Trump has gotten better at politics but he has no reason to take the field again.
The easier bet to me is to vote on Trump winning because I do think there is a real chance Joe stays on the ticket but I can’t see a way Trump loses.
Edit: it just hit me. They should nominate Hunter Biden. He’s still a Biden. Everyone knows his name by now. Go full reality show. Maybe the American people will vote for the they find the most entertaining.
The smart play would be Dean Phillips. He has a good story that he tried to stand up to Biden so he’s not in the oligarchy. You would need someone outside of the Party to try for a serious campaign, but he has zero name recognition and I would guess only 2% of the population know the name.
I think Trump is not unbeatable, even by Biden. Biden could pull out very convincing performances in the next two debates. Trump could get clobbered in one of his many trials. The economy could upturn. All of these things are maybes, and there's no reason there couldn't be bad news for Biden. But there is a narrow but plausible road to the presidency.
I'll remind people that for months - basically the whole campaign, in fact - Hillary Clinton, supposedly the worst election candidate ever, led by similar margins over Trump. Where is she now?
Biden is gone. He is not winning a debate. He could not even do that in 2020.
Trump has already been convicted as a felon and as a rapists. Trials are not saving the Dems.
The economy could upturn? Unemployment is low and while inflation is too high it is better.
I see one positive catalyst. Russia collapses on the battlefield.
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I don't think any of those paths are plausible. The economy doesn't have much room to improve without overheating. The things that cause negative economic perceptions are mostly structural issues that will take decades to fix. Trump's trials are too manifold and confusing to really go that badly, if there were just one it might work, but every Negress prosecutor on the east coast filed a weak case and the scandals cross each other up. And there's no reason to believe Biden will get younger in time for the second debate.
Watergate was a manifold, confusing mess that unfolded mostly ignored by the American public. Then suddenly exploded. Nixon was around in politics for over two decades before his enemies in the press finally got their killshot. You're right to wonder if such a thing could exist for Trump, or could be found. I say it could. Trump is a fat, ugly, crude slug of a man, crooked, has terrible policies even from the perspective of the Right.
Biden is not going to get younger, but he'll have good days and bad days. I suspect hiding him away is doing more bad than good - egoist politicians like Biden draw strength from rallies, not from being sequestered with aides and drilled. But then, every hour Biden spends out of his cloister is a chance for him to shit his pants, and if the guy gets too excited he might actually try a pushup contest. I reckon Biden might have one more performance in him, even if it's his last, and if he can perform in the next debate he might get away with weaseling out of the third.
As for the economy, it's as much a matter of vibes and animal spirits as it is real data. On paper, as you say, there is not much room for improvement, but that's not how people feel and that could change.
I see this argument all over the place, and it seems to be classic WFAN caller "the coach is stupid, why doesn't he just play the good players?" I generally despise everyone I know who moved to DC and went into politics, but don't doubt that the consultants that surround him know that he should be doing rallies, that rallies would be good for him, less than a coach knows that he has to score more points than the other team. He's not doing rallies because he can't do rallies. This is a case of running a projection model that doesn't take injuries into account.
It's not just that there's no room for improvement on paper, it's that any improvement on paper probably leads to increased inflation. We're running near frictional unemployment, and the stock market is hitting record highs. Any increase in employment or wages is going to push prices higher, which upsets people. The only way prices are going to decrease is a recession, which will upset people. Biden's best hope is that everything stays the same for another few months. But running your game hoping that suddenly Americans will realize what's been going on around them for years is insanity, and hoping that Biden suddenly improves his salesmanship while in the state he's in is insanity.
But Biden's biggest problem is that the narrative is running against him that he's senile. Every slip up or routine action will be taken as a sign of senility. I was joking with my wife that, under a microscope and facing an assumption of senility, you'd find ample evidence in my life. Just yesterday, we had the septic tank pumped at one of our rental properties, which must be done every three years by township ordinance. I last worried about this three years ago, and I vaguely thought the tank lid might be out back somewhere. The guy pumping it remembered precisely where it was, on the side of the house, off the top of his head, because he did a repair on it seven years ago. Oh my God my memory is terrible!
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=XGe2uPLgL28
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This kind of generalization is definitely in the “more heat than light” category.
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There literally isn't a mechanism for anything you're describing without Biden resigning (at which point he likely strongly recommends Harris which would be path of least resistance) or dying (again, most likely Harris) in the next 2 weeks.
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If the Democrats can swap out their candidate, they can get rid of all their negatives. Then turn the entire media machine on promoting the Democrat and denigrating Trump (as usual). The Ds still vote for the D, the MAGAs still vote for Trump, but the squishy center which says such things as "I just want a competent adult running things" votes D, and the squishy Republican-leaners who mostly believe Trump is the Devil (because the media keeps telling them that) loses their excuse (that Biden is incompetent) to vote for him anyway.
However, they would have to swap out their candidate without breaking the party long enough for Trump to win anyway. And critically, I think they have to swap with someone other than Kamala (who as part of the Biden administration wouldn't lose all the negatives, and isn't much of a politician)
I disagree because I think the Dems have shot their credibility. Anyone connected to the establishment is going to be taking on these credibility issues.
I don’t think you can swap in Newsome and people will view him as an outsider. He even has his own issues here of the French Laundry incident where he’s out in public and about to shut the state down.
This is why I mentioned Dean Phillips because he was calling Biden senile in the primaries. You need a guy whose disconnected from establishment.
RFK is taking the liberal but outsider spot, though.
He is.
But Dean Phillips is the liberal outsider who still seems like a normie. RFK has some weird views.
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Funny enough if it were a race between RFK jr and Trump I think RFK Jr probably wins.
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Saves on yard sign replacement costs, significant experience in Ukraine and China relations, and he only has three felonies. Sign me up.
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