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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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This kind of generalization is definitely in the “more heat than light” category.
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