Well now, that was . . . something.
I am not going to go on at length about the president's performance last night. But what is crystal clear is that Trump did nothing for his electoral hopes. He did nothing to sway undecided voters or to in any way expand his base of 43%.
My first response was, how stupid. From the standpoint of electoral self-interest, this tactic was an abject failure, an act of electoral suicide. Trump outdid his worst displays of the 2016 debates. Trump went over-the-top. It was full-court stupidity, start to finish.
That was my first reaction but then I reminded myself that Trump is not actually trying to win the election. He hasn't been for some time.
Here is historian Heather Cox Richardson's assessment:
Trump long ago gave up the pretense that he wanted to win a majority of voters. For months now, he has made no effort to reach outside of his base. Instead he has focused on solidifying and radicalizing it.
And Jonathan Last of The Bulwark had this to say:
Now that in itself is bad for Trump. He’s down large and there’s very little time left on the clock. But even that doesn’t so much matter because—as Trump said at the end—his victory scenario no longer entails winning more votes.
If you take anything from Tuesday’s debate, it should be this: The president of the United States’s re-election strategy is to claw his way to victory after the fact by using the courts to throw out votes that have been cast for his opponent.
It seems more clear than ever that Trump is hoping to win this election in the courts. He all but said it plainly last night. And he hopes his court challenges will be accompanied by street-protest by the likes of the Proud Boys, whom he addressed directly last night, when asked to condemn right-wing violence, with the words, "Stand down and stand by."
This is the scandal of last night: the president of the United States addressed a militant neo-fascist protest group from the platform, ordering them to "stand by." If there was ever a reason to hope for a landslide victory for Biden, here it is. Let's decisively fire the chaos-agent in the White House!
* * *
Several new polls dropped yesterday. Two gave Biden the edge by 5 & 6%, just why of the RCP Polling average (which stood at 6.8% before these polls were released). The third, the Harvard-Harris poll, covering Sept. 22-25, gave Biden just a 2% lead. This joins Rasmussen as the outlier, showing a much closer race than the other polls. The RCP average is now at 6.1% for Biden, the narrowest margin in quite some time.
* * *
See also:
No More Debates, by William Kristol
Just shut up, man! by Amanda Carpenter
No comments:
Post a Comment