thebulwark--2020-09-30--The President Is a Sociopath. And 60 Million Americans Like It.

The Cleveland debate was a miniature , 90-minute version of the last 4 years : depressing , exhausting , full of craziness and lies .
Who won ?
I don ’ t know .
Honestly : I can not understand how anyone with an IQ over 80 could have watched this disgrace and not come away understanding that the president of the United States is a sociopath .
But I ’ ll try to put myself in the mind of voters and tell you what I saw .
Donald Trump dominated the debate .
Utterly and completely .
He was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , shouting , cajoling , needling and—this is the important part—never shutting up .
He kept ploughing ahead , no matter what .
He bulldozed Chris Wallace .
He bulldozed Joe Biden .
He turned every question into what he wanted to talk about .
He hit all of the notes he wanted : Burisma , stock market , shutdowns , Pocahontas .
If you are a fan of the Trump lifestyle brand—if you have a Trump flag on your boat and wear a MAGA hat because you love pissing off the brown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I suspect that you thought this was the greatest performance by any debater in the history of debates .
So I ’ m going to guess that people were very happy on Parler .
On the other hand , it ’ s not clear to me that Trump ’ s act was effective with undecided voters .
And I say this because Trump treated the debate like he was trying to win an argument between two baby mamas on a trash daytime show , while Joe Biden made a concerted effort throughout the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t there , often talking directly to voters .
Examples : When Biden brought up the Woodward tapes and Trump ’ s lying to America about COVID because he didn ’ t want to panic the country , here ’ s what Biden said , as he looked straight into the camera : “ You don ’ t panic .
He panicked.
” After Trump blubbered about how great the economy is right now , Biden looked straight into the camera and asked , “ You folks at home—how well are you doing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s attempts to beat up on Hunter Biden , the vice president gestured straight into the camera and explained , “ This is not about my family or his family , it ’ s about your family.
” The net effect of this was that Biden had a coherent message throughout : I ’ m on your side .
I can , however , tell you with complete certainty who lost the debate : America .
If you care at all about this country , then there are four things that should terrify @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the United States was asked to condemn white nationalists and refused .
He hemmed and hawed .
He tried to shimmy out of it .
And in the end the best he could muster was to tell the Proud Boys to “ stand by.
” The Proud Boys heard his message and saw it as a call to action .
( 2 ) The president of the United States was asked to pledge to tell his supporters to remain calm following the election and to not preemptively declare victory .
He flatly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the United States said that “ They came after me trying to do a coup.
” And that : “ We ’ ve caught them .
We ’ ve caught them all.
” And that one of “ them ” is his opponent .
( 4 ) More than 60 million Americans are going to vote for the president of the United States .
Regardless of who wins this election , how are we supposed to make this thing—here I am referring euphemistically to our glorious experiment in self-government—work when 40 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ am not being euphemistic—from their president ?
Because these preferences are not based on policy differences concerning marginal tax rates or trade policy or deregulation .
A serious question : Do we need more debates ?
I ask for two reasons .
First , because that debate felt like it was 7 hours long .
It was emotionally , spiritually , physically exhausting .
And for no payoff .
Nobody learned anything from this debate .
And no one is going to learn anything from more debates .
In fact , I would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spectacles can only further demean our country and erode the standards we hold for the conduct of people who serve in government .
But the political reality is that Biden has to endure more of this insanity .
Canceling would look weak .
Voters always prefer the guy who ’ s willing to work hard for their votes .
And this is trite but true : If you want the job of facing down Xi Jinping , you have to be able to face down a reality-show host .
Probably not .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The entire affair left me feeling like Dr. Leonid Pavel .

The Cleveland debate was a miniature, 90-minute version of the last 4 years: depressing, exhausting, full of craziness and lies.
Who won? I don’t know. Honestly: I cannot understand how anyone with an IQ over 80 could have watched this disgrace and not come away understanding that the president of the United States is a sociopath.
But I’ll try to put myself in the mind of voters and tell you what I saw.
Donald Trump dominated the debate. Utterly and completely. He was a doughy, orange honey-badger, yelling, shouting, cajoling, needling and—this is the important part—never shutting up. He kept ploughing ahead, no matter what. He bulldozed Chris Wallace. He bulldozed Joe Biden. He turned every question into what he wanted to talk about. He hit all of the notes he wanted: Burisma, stock market, shutdowns, Pocahontas.
If you are a fan of the Trump lifestyle brand—if you have a Trump flag on your boat and wear a MAGA hat because you love pissing off the brown girl with the nose ring at Starbucks—then I suspect that you thought this was the greatest performance by any debater in the history of debates.
So I’m going to guess that people were very happy on Parler.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
On the other hand, it’s not clear to me that Trump’s act was effective with undecided voters.
And I say this because Trump treated the debate like he was trying to win an argument between two baby mamas on a trash daytime show, while Joe Biden made a concerted effort throughout the debate to pretend that Trump wasn’t there, often talking directly to voters.
Examples: When Biden brought up the Woodward tapes and Trump’s lying to America about COVID because he didn’t want to panic the country, here’s what Biden said, as he looked straight into the camera: “You don’t panic. He panicked.”
After Trump blubbered about how great the economy is right now, Biden looked straight into the camera and asked, “You folks at home—how well are you doing?”
On one of Trump’s attempts to beat up on Hunter Biden, the vice president gestured straight into the camera and explained, “This is not about my family or his family, it’s about your family.”
The net effect of this was that Biden had a coherent message throughout: I’m on your side.
I can, however, tell you with complete certainty who lost the debate: America.
If you care at all about this country, then there are four things that should terrify you.
(1) The president of the United States was asked to condemn white nationalists and refused. He hemmed and hawed. He tried to shimmy out of it. And in the end the best he could muster was to tell the Proud Boys to “stand by.” The Proud Boys heard his message and saw it as a call to action.
(2) The president of the United States was asked to pledge to tell his supporters to remain calm following the election and to not preemptively declare victory. He flatly refused.
(3) The president of the United States said that “They came after me trying to do a coup.” And that: “We’ve caught them. We’ve caught them all.” And that one of “them” is his opponent.
(4) More than 60 million Americans are going to vote for the president of the United States.
Regardless of who wins this election, how are we supposed to make this thing—here I am referring euphemistically to our glorious experiment in self-government—work when 40 percent of the country wants this shit—here I am not being euphemistic—from their president?
Because these preferences are not based on policy differences concerning marginal tax rates or trade policy or deregulation.
A serious question: Do we need more debates?
I ask for two reasons. First, because that debate felt like it was 7 hours long. It was emotionally, spiritually, physically exhausting. And for no payoff. Nobody learned anything from this debate. And no one is going to learn anything from more debates.
In fact, I would suggest that having two more of these spectacles can only further demean our country and erode the standards we hold for the conduct of people who serve in government.
But the political reality is that Biden has to endure more of this insanity. Canceling would look weak. Voters always prefer the guy who’s willing to work hard for their votes. And this is trite but true: If you want the job of facing down Xi Jinping, you have to be able to face down a reality-show host.
Will this debate matter?
Probably not. The race is stable for a reason.
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.
The entire affair left me feeling like Dr. Leonid Pavel.


thebulwark--2020-09-30--Just Shut Up, Man

Just Shut Up, Man

Disgust should be a deterrent .
Still , millions of people tuned in to the presidential debate on Tuesday to see President Trump make a total mockery of the American political process .
Again .
Moderator Chris Wallace , who belongs to a network whose top personalities spent the day calling Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden “ senile , ” pathetically pleaded with Trump numerous times to let him ask questions .
Wallace and Biden implored Trump , trying to put the very words into his mouth one by one , to condemn white supremacists .
( He didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s family and called him “ dumb ” and a “ liar ” —and here I am becoming complicit in this disgusting exercise by repeating Trump ’ s amoeba-brain insults that a preschooler would be put into the corner for saying to a classmate .
The entire exercise was a total disgrace .
The worst part of it is that no one had any good reason to expect anything else .
Everyone was put on notice .
The Trump campaign spent the day hyping fake stories suggesting that Biden was juicing and was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gain an unfair advantage over Trump .
As if the fake stories that Team Trump was pushing compared in any way to the pain and suffering in America today—the 200,000 COVID deaths and national racial reckoning—or to the other real and important stories unfolding this week , like the rush to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to fill the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’ s Supreme Court seat , or the New York Times bombshell that showed Trump only paid $ 750 in taxes in 2016 and 2017 and no federal taxes at all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 15 years .
But this is our country on Trump .
We are constantly assailed by belligerent bullshit from our Manbaby-in-Chief .
Massive resources are embarrassingly devoted to attending to his emotional outbursts , trying to coddle and manage him , and to make him please , please , please behave like a president .
It ’ s futile .
Republicans haven ’ t been able to do it in Congress .
Chris Wallace couldn ’ t do it at the debate .
Meanwhile , Americans keep dying , democracy keeps crumbling , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As Biden said in exasperation to Trump , “ Just shut up , man.
” Let ’ s end this farce of a presidency .
Let ’ s all shut up and vote .

Disgust should be a deterrent. Still, millions of people tuned in to the presidential debate on Tuesday to see President Trump make a total mockery of the American political process. Again.
Moderator Chris Wallace, who belongs to a network whose top personalities spent the day calling Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden “senile,” pathetically pleaded with Trump numerous times to let him ask questions. Wallace and Biden implored Trump, trying to put the very words into his mouth one by one, to condemn white supremacists. (He didn’t.) Trump insulted Biden’s family and called him “dumb” and a “liar”—and here I am becoming complicit in this disgusting exercise by repeating Trump’s amoeba-brain insults that a preschooler would be put into the corner for saying to a classmate.
The entire exercise was a total disgrace. The worst part of it is that no one had any good reason to expect anything else.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Everyone was put on notice. The Trump campaign spent the day hyping fake stories suggesting that Biden was juicing and was planning to smuggle in an earpiece to gain an unfair advantage over Trump.
As if the fake stories that Team Trump was pushing compared in any way to the pain and suffering in America today—the 200,000 COVID deaths and national racial reckoning—or to the other real and important stories unfolding this week, like the rush to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to fill the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat, or the New York Times bombshell that showed Trump only paid $750 in taxes in 2016 and 2017 and no federal taxes at all in the last 10 out of the 15 years.
But this is our country on Trump. We are constantly assailed by belligerent bullshit from our Manbaby-in-Chief.
Massive resources are embarrassingly devoted to attending to his emotional outbursts, trying to coddle and manage him, and to make him please, please, please behave like a president. It’s futile. Republicans haven’t been able to do it in Congress. Chris Wallace couldn’t do it at the debate. Meanwhile, Americans keep dying, democracy keeps crumbling, and Trump keeps getting away with it.
As Biden said in exasperation to Trump, “Just shut up, man.” Let’s all shut up and vote.


thebulwark--2020-10-01--Listen to What Trump 2016 Swing-State Voters Had to Say About the Debate

On Wednesday night I checked back in with a focus group of female 2016 Trump voters in swing states that I ’ ve been tracking to get their reactions on the debate .
And there ’ s no sugar-coating it : Whatever Donald Trump was trying to do last night backfired with this group spectacularly .
Some context : I ’ ve done roughly a hundred focus groups with Trump voters since 2018 .
During this time I ’ ve zeroed in on female 2016 Trump voters in swing states who now rate the president as doing a “ somewhat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ job .
What ’ s interesting about this demographic is that they are theoretically “ gettable ” for both Trump and Biden .
Trump needs them to pull a repeat of his 2016 inside straight .
But if Biden pulls them from Trump ’ s column into his own it ’ s an especially big win , because he didn ’ t just earn a vote for himself , he also subtracted one from Trump .
I began tracking this specific group of swing state voters a couple weeks ago because , of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ undecided .
One was voting for Trump .
And one was settled on Biden .
Trump ’ s comments last week in which he refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power landed badly with the group and overshadowed in their minds any potential positives of Republicans locking in Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’ s SCOTUS seat .
In fact , many of the women said they were pushed more toward Biden because they thought Republican attempts to jam the nomination through were unfair .
Trump ’ s performance in last night ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ group back and caused some of the previously undecided women to close the door on Trump for good .
Every single one of them had watched the debate and had hoped to use it to make a final decision .
Here ’ s a roundup of each participant ’ s overall reaction : PA Voter 1 : “ It seemed like Trump was steamrolling him and bullying him .
I felt so bad for Biden that Trump was treating him that way .
Joe didn ’ t get a fair shot , we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he thinks about things .
I feel like Joe has more to say and we just didn ’ t hear it.
” PA Voter 2 : “ Biden did as well as he could ’ ve .
I think Trump was trying to get him off his train of thought to make him look like he has dementia.
” NC Voter : “ It turned into a shitshow .
It was embarrassing .
I think Biden did a bit better than I had expected .
He did keep his wits about him , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” PA Voter 3 : “ I felt last night was a drinking game .
It was terrible , I ’ ll be honest I was gon na go to bed early last night .
It was captivating in that it felt more like gladiator pit than political debate .
I was praying that Biden was going to come in and slam dunk , and I was really disappointed.
” AZ Voter : “ Disappointing and sad is what I left with .
I felt bad for Biden and I felt bad for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disrespect .
I agree that we weren ’ t able to get a full idea of Biden .
I was hoping I was going to come away with more , I ’ m leaning more [ toward Biden ] because Trump is disrespectful and embarrassing , but I ’ m looking forward to the other two debates.
” PA Voter 4 : “ If people in other countries watched that , it makes me wonder how he behaves with foreign dignitaries .
Much of what Biden said I lost because Trump was always @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden I don ’ t think I ’ d agree to a second debate.
” FL Voter : “ It was difficult to watch and finish .
I was relieved when it was over , I was very disappointed in both of them .
I don ’ t know if I can support either of those candidates , I lost respect for both of them .
I wish Biden would ’ ve been a better foil to the president and not responded in the same terms .
I understand why you ’ d @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but I wish he could ’ ve been a contrast to Trump a little more .
I felt like Biden stuck to talking points .
I was disappointed all around.
” TX Voter : “ Donald Trump was one of the most obnoxious and rude people in the universe .
I have to hand it to Joe , he held his wits better than I thought he would .
I guess my question is : Do I really have to vote ?
I don ’ t know but I want to , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t think either one won.
” WI Voter : “ I agree with the rest , Trump was the bully .
I think maybe Biden should ’ ve been more prepared on how to deal with that , because that was to be expected.
” When I asked them what had stood out the most to them , it was far and away the president ’ s refusal to condemn white supremacists .
PA Voter 3 : “ Are we serious right now ?
You ’ re on live TV , you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happening right now .
.
.
Just come out and condemn it !
Is it for all of the rednecks that you ’ re not telling the KKK to knock it off ?
I had a WTF moment while that was happening.
” FL Voter : “ That was the one thing that moved the barometer in the debate for me .
I found that appalling .
I still don ’ t know if I have a reason to vote for Biden , but that closed the door on voting for Trump .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the door on me feeling like I could vote for him .
I don ’ t feel like I have an option to go to from there .
How he handled the issue of systemic racism and every question related to that was appalling.
” NC Voter : [ Imitating Trump ] “ Stand down white supremacists right now , but if I say the word later and I lose , I ’ ll call you back out .
I don ’ t know , it ’ s just a firestarter .
If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extremist groups , you should unequivocally say I don ’ t support you , don ’ t do anything on my behalf .
That ’ s what a president should say.
” The one voter in the group who was planning to vote for Trump said this : Interestingly , these women thought Trump ’ s strategy was a transparent attempt to rattle Biden and make him look like the senile caricature that Trump ’ s campaign has been pushing on voters .
But these women thought that it seemed less like Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a guy constantly getting interrupted by a jerk : A focus group isn ’ t a poll .
But the reactions I heard seem to line up with the quick-reaction polling after the debate : That ’ s nine 2016 Trump voters , not a single one of whom is currently willing to vote for the president again in 2020 .

On Wednesday night I checked back in with a focus group of female 2016 Trump voters in swing states that I’ve been tracking to get their reactions on the debate. And there’s no sugar-coating it: Whatever Donald Trump was trying to do last night backfired with this group spectacularly.
Some context: I’ve done roughly a hundred hours of focus groups with Trump voters since 2018. During this time I’ve zeroed in on female 2016 Trump voters in swing states who now rate the president as doing a “somewhat bad” or “very bad” job.
What’s interesting about this demographic is that they are theoretically “gettable” for both Trump and Biden. Trump needs them to pull a repeat of his 2016 inside straight. But if Biden pulls them from Trump’s column into his own it’s an especially big win, because he didn’t just earn a vote for himself, he also subtracted one from Trump.
I began tracking this specific group of swing state voters a couple weeks ago because, of the nine participants, seven were truly undecided. One was voting for Trump. And one was settled on Biden.
Trump’s comments last week in which he refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power landed badly with the group and overshadowed in their minds any potential positives of Republicans locking in Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s SCOTUS seat. In fact, many of the women said they were pushed more toward Biden because they thought Republican attempts to jam the nomination through were unfair.
Trump’s performance in last night’s debate did nothing to win this group back and caused some of the previously undecided women to close the door on Trump for good.
Every single one of them had watched the debate and had hoped to use it to make a final decision. Here’s a roundup of each participant’s overall reaction:
PA Voter 1: “It seemed like Trump was steamrolling him and bullying him. I felt so bad for Biden that Trump was treating him that way. Joe didn’t get a fair shot, we didn’t get to hear what he thinks about things. I feel like Joe has more to say and we just didn’t hear it.” PA Voter 2: “Biden did as well as he could’ve. I think Trump was trying to get him off his train of thought to make him look like he has dementia.” NC Voter: “It turned into a shitshow. It was embarrassing. I think Biden did a bit better than I had expected. He did keep his wits about him, and Trump acted in typical Trump fashion.” PA Voter 3: “I felt last night was a drinking game. It was terrible, I’ll be honest I was gonna go to bed early last night. It was captivating in that it felt more like gladiator pit than political debate. I was praying that Biden was going to come in and slam dunk, and I was really disappointed.” AZ Voter: “Disappointing and sad is what I left with. I felt bad for Biden and I felt bad for the mediator, because of the complete disrespect. I agree that we weren’t able to get a full idea of Biden. I was hoping I was going to come away with more, I’m leaning more [toward Biden] because Trump is disrespectful and embarrassing, but I’m looking forward to the other two debates.” PA Voter 4: “If people in other countries watched that, it makes me wonder how he behaves with foreign dignitaries. Much of what Biden said I lost because Trump was always talking over him. If I was Biden I don’t think I’d agree to a second debate.” FL Voter: “It was difficult to watch and finish. I was relieved when it was over, I was very disappointed in both of them. I don’t know if I can support either of those candidates, I lost respect for both of them. I wish Biden would’ve been a better foil to the president and not responded in the same terms. I understand why you’d tell someone to ‘shut up’ but I wish he could’ve been a contrast to Trump a little more. I felt like Biden stuck to talking points. I was disappointed all around.” TX Voter: “Donald Trump was one of the most obnoxious and rude people in the universe. I have to hand it to Joe, he held his wits better than I thought he would. I guess my question is: Do I really have to vote? I don’t know but I want to, but it was discouraging. I don’t think either one won.” WI Voter: “I agree with the rest, Trump was the bully. I think maybe Biden should’ve been more prepared on how to deal with that, because that was to be expected.”
When I asked them what had stood out the most to them, it was far and away the president’s refusal to condemn white supremacists.
PA Voter 3: “Are we serious right now? You’re on live TV, you’ve got every single social injustice thing happening right now . . . Just come out and condemn it! Is it for all of the rednecks that you’re not telling the KKK to knock it off? I had a WTF moment while that was happening.” FL Voter: “That was the one thing that moved the barometer in the debate for me. I found that appalling. I still don’t know if I have a reason to vote for Biden, but that closed the door on voting for Trump. It really was appalling. It shut the door on me feeling like I could vote for him. I don’t feel like I have an option to go to from there. How he handled the issue of systemic racism and every question related to that was appalling.” NC Voter: [Imitating Trump] “Stand down white supremacists right now, but if I say the word later and I lose, I’ll call you back out. I don’t know, it’s just a firestarter. If someone tells you that you should condemn extremist groups, you should unequivocally say I don’t support you, don’t do anything on my behalf. That’s what a president should say.”
The one voter in the group who was planning to vote for Trump said this:
TX Voter: “I don’t know if I am going to stick with him. That was awful last night. I’m moving more towards the fence, I really am. It was despicable behavior, the way he attacked Joe’s sons, one of whom is dead, it was terrible.”
Interestingly, these women thought Trump’s strategy was a transparent attempt to rattle Biden and make him look like the senile caricature that Trump’s campaign has been pushing on voters. But these women thought that it seemed less like Biden had dementia and more like he was a guy constantly getting interrupted by a jerk:
PA Voter 2: “I think Trump was his own worst enemy, if he let Biden talk we would’ve found out if Biden is cognitively all there.” WI Voter: “I think Biden did fairly well…It got to the point where [Trump] was attacking his son and blatantly lying about things, you’re trying to keep your cool but then you get interrupted. I don’t know if it’s a cognitive issue or getting annoyed and thrown off by constant interruptions. I don’t know if we learned that much positive or anything swaying to help us make decisions, but cognitively he did fine.” TX Voter: “Biden did better than I thought he would, gotta hand it to him, but he drifted a little bit, but then again a Rhodes scholar might’ve too if they were heckled like that.”
A focus group isn’t a poll. But the reactions I heard seem to line up with the quick-reaction polling after the debate: That’s nine 2016 Trump voters, not a single one of whom is currently willing to vote for the president again in 2020.


thebulwark--2020-09-30--The Worst Debate Takes

The Worst Debate Takes

Last night ’ s debate was intensely unpleasant , and if you were lucky enough to have avoided it , you should count your blessings .
But not everyone could avoid it—some of us have to watch these things for work , and here at The Bulwark , it ’ s what we have to do .
That ’ s why our thousands of Bulwark+ members pay to help us keep the lights on .
And last night a couple thousand of them joined us for a post-debate recap .
Meanwhile , during the debate and ever since it ended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ takes—some smart , some not so much .
Beyond a left-right consensus that the whole thing was pretty awful—the word “ shitshow ” has been thrown around a lot—many of the takes about last night ’ s debate are pretty grim for Republicans , because , well , it was not a good night for Donald Trump .
In an homage to our friends over at Twitchy , here are some of the dumbest , goofiest , question-begging debate takes from the right .
Mark “ The Great One !
” Levin apparently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rest of us—one where Donald Trump apparently couldn ’ t get a word in .
Charlie Kirk also suggested Trump didn ’ t get enough time to talk .
Fortunately , our Bulwark contributor Robert Tracinski was around to pour a bucket of cold water on Charlie .
Former Senator Rick Santorum seemed to be tuckered out by the barrage of the debate .
This clip is kind of amazing : Santorum agrees with his CNN copanelists that Trump doesn ’ t want to criticize his supporters .
.
.
.
Or in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white nationalists .
That moment from the debate was a big focus for Trump defenders , as it basically sounded like—and reads like , if you look at the transcript—Charlottesville 2.0 .
And that ’ s because it was .
Unless you ’ re National Review ‘ s Alexandra DeSanctis .
And others on the right have taken different tacks in defending Trump for those remarks about the Proud Boys .
The Daily Wire ‘ s Matt Walsh , for example , claims that Trump has done so well in the past on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he does not owe the bad-faith media an answer .
One America News conspiracy gadfly Jack Posobiec came back with some weapons-grade whataboutism , suggesting that President Trump executed a white supremacist .
Two points here : Daniel Lewis Lee was apprehended when Posobiec was about 12 years old .
He was convicted during the Clinton administration .
Eric Holder had more to do with the execution of Lee than Trump did .
Unless Posobiec is seriously arguing—and there is a non-zero chance of this , given his history—that Trump isn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ death penalty sentence from the late 1990s be carried out .
Former Bush 43 press secretary Ari Fleischer tried his best Tim Russert impression with a whiteboard .
It wasn ’ t as memorable as Russert ’ s classic “ FLORIDA , FLORIDA , FLORIDA , ” and it wasn ’ t all that great advice , either : If Fleischer thinks Trump can just cease being himself , well , Fox News is probably overpaying him .
National Review ‘ s David Harsanyi took the Fleischer line and ran with it , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and constitutional eligibility birther expert Steve Deace from The Blaze took it a step further : Was Chris Wallace trying to “ punish ” President Trump ?
That ’ s Hugh Hewitt ’ s take .
( Hewitt , recall , has served in a moderating capacity before . )
Hewitt also did a podcast with Megyn Kelly ( another former debate moderator ) and she took it a step further : I miss the old Hugh Hewitt , the one who was willing to ask blunt questions of Donald Trump that would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hewitt is far from neutral these days .
The Federalist ‘ s Mark Hemingway , a former colleague of ours back in the Weekly Standard days , got busted on some bad math about COVID-19 deaths .
To his credit , he deleted his erroneous tweet .
Watch out , Scott Adams , Tim might take over Dilbert if you ’ re not careful !
To close us out , Brigitte Gabriel has this theory that Biden was wearing a wire .
Don ’ t worry , there are only three more debates @ @ @

Last night’s debate was intensely unpleasant, and if you were lucky enough to have avoided it, you should count your blessings. But not everyone could avoid it—some of us have to watch these things for work, and here at The Bulwark, it’s what we have to do.
That’s why our thousands of Bulwark+ members pay to help us keep the lights on. And last night a couple thousand of them joined us for a post-debate recap.
Meanwhile, during the debate and ever since it ended, the internet has been aflame with takes—some smart, some not so much. Beyond a left-right consensus that the whole thing was pretty awful—the word “shitshow” has been thrown around a lot—many of the takes about last night’s debate are pretty grim for Republicans, because, well, it was not a good night for Donald Trump.
In an homage to our friends over at Twitchy, here are some of the dumbest, goofiest, question-begging debate takes from the right.
Mark “The Great One!” Levin apparently watched an entirely different debate from the rest of us—one where Donald Trump apparently couldn’t get a word in.
1. Biden got away with endless lies and cheap shots. The questions were mostly asked from a left perspective ("the science of climate change," what's wrong with "critical race theory" training," etc.) and Biden went unchallenged by the moderator far too often. — Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) September 30, 2020
Charlie Kirk also suggested Trump didn’t get enough time to talk. Fortunately, our Bulwark contributor Robert Tracinski was around to pour a bucket of cold water on Charlie.
How to tell who won or lost a debate: If your people spend the next day fighting against the moderator, you lost. https://t.co/5OxYIl26h0 — Robert Tracinski (@Tracinski) September 30, 2020
Former Senator Rick Santorum seemed to be tuckered out by the barrage of the debate. This clip is kind of amazing: Santorum agrees with his CNN copanelists that Trump doesn’t want to criticize his supporters. . . . Or in the case of the Proud Boys, white nationalists.
Just an incredible, oblivious own of Trump here from Rick Santorum pic.twitter.com/V59xPa43Xr — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 30, 2020
That moment from the debate was a big focus for Trump defenders, as it basically sounded like—and reads like, if you look at the transcript—Charlottesville 2.0.
And that’s because it was. Unless you’re National Review‘s Alexandra DeSanctis.
He did tell the Proud Boys to "stand back and standby" — which was not exactly a condemnation. — Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) September 30, 2020
And others on the right have taken different tacks in defending Trump for those remarks about the Proud Boys. The Daily Wire‘s Matt Walsh, for example, claims that Trump has done so well in the past on this topic (?!?) that he does not owe the bad-faith media an answer.
Trump has explicitly condemned white supremacist groups several times. He doesn't need to do it anymore. It's a bad faith question anyway, like asking him to deny that he's a pedophile. The media is playing a game here and Trump is under no obligation to play along. — Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 30, 2020
One America News conspiracy gadfly Jack Posobiec came back with some weapons-grade whataboutism, suggesting that President Trump executed a white supremacist.
Two points here: Daniel Lewis Lee was apprehended when Posobiec was about 12 years old. He was convicted during the Clinton administration. Eric Holder had more to do with the execution of Lee than Trump did. Unless Posobiec is seriously arguing—and there is a non-zero chance of this, given his history—that Trump isn’t a racist because he let a death penalty sentence from the late 1990s be carried out.
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1311282137140801536
Former Bush 43 press secretary Ari Fleischer tried his best Tim Russert impression with a whiteboard. It wasn’t as memorable as Russert’s classic “FLORIDA, FLORIDA, FLORIDA,” and it wasn’t all that great advice, either: If Fleischer thinks Trump can just cease being himself, well, Fox News is probably overpaying him.
Fox & Friends is trying out a new and remedial approach to preparing Trump for the next election: pic.twitter.com/46kUK5Gwae — Colby Hall (@colbyhall) September 30, 2020
National Review‘s David Harsanyi took the Fleischer line and ran with it, too, but testosterone and adrenaline expert and constitutional eligibility birther expert Steve Deace from The Blaze took it a step further:
Exactly right. It also subsided Biden‘s dementia, because when a man is confronted testosterone and adrenaline kick in. That helped Biden to stay alert. Biden’s dementia shows up when he has to talk specifics that he can’t recall, and issues he no longer understands. https://t.co/dDrdaueAfk — Steve Deace (@SteveDeaceShow) September 30, 2020
Was Chris Wallace trying to “punish” President Trump? That’s Hugh Hewitt’s take. (Hewitt, recall, has served in a moderating capacity before.)
No. Chris Wallace is mad at @realDonaldTrump and punishing him as a result. https://t.co/6n3yLLDRPR — Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) September 30, 2020
Hewitt also did a podcast with Megyn Kelly (another former debate moderator) and she took it a step further:
Now @megynkelly was more diplomatic about this than I was, but she played the last “J’accuse” Wallace exchange with @realDonaldTrump. “Will you condemn white supremacy.” “Sure” said @POTUS. Wallace wanted more than an answer. He wanted a sound byte to distort. Not a neutral. https://t.co/GTQuX1q5Fq — Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) September 30, 2020
I miss the old Hugh Hewitt, the one who was willing to ask blunt questions of Donald Trump that would reveal his scanty knowledge. Sadly, Hewitt is far from neutral these days.
The Federalist‘s Mark Hemingway, a former colleague of ours back in the Weekly Standard days, got busted on some bad math about COVID-19 deaths. To his credit, he deleted his erroneous tweet.
Tim Pool has this bizarre framing:
Trump won the debate for one reason The conversation is almost entirely about what Trump did or did not say Browsing social media and you might be wondering if Biden was even there Its either Orange Man Bad or MAGA — Tim Pool (@Timcast) September 30, 2020
Watch out, Scott Adams, Tim might take over Dilbert if you’re not careful!
To close us out, Brigitte Gabriel has this theory that Biden was wearing a wire.
Possibly heparin lock for immediate med infusion.
Wire under suit might be a telemetry unit monitoring
heart rate, BP.amd 02 levels. — John Tierney (@tierneybook) September 30, 2020
The Vox Pop have thoughts.
Don’t worry, there are only three more debates to go.


thebulwark--2020-09-30--Biden Won the Debate. America Lost.

Biden Won the Debate. America Lost.

One aftermath of Donald Trump ’ s frightening and aberrant debate performance was that his nakedly unshackled sociopathy virtually obliterated conventional political analysis .
Still , this was more than a nauseating gut-punch to human decency—it was a pivotal marker in what is , surely , the most crucial presidential campaign in living memory .
So , before we go on to the larger implications for American democracy , a verdict on the implications for the election .
He won the night by dispelling Trump ’ s thuggish assertions of senility .
He won by requiring Trump to give America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He won by filling what space he could with a conventional , often crisp , recitation of his central message .
He won by espousing that formerly unquestioned sine qua non of democracy that contestants accept the will of the electorate .
He won by speaking directly to Americans through the camera about their core concerns .
He won by saying of Trump ’ s callous response to over 200,000 dead from COVID-19 : “ It is what it is because you are who you are.
” He won because Trump is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He won because Trump ’ s repulsive persona inevitably alienated the voters he most needs—wavering Republicans and the increasingly shrinking number of undecided voters .
He won because Trump invited white supremacists to “ stand by ” ; encouraged his supporters to intimidate in-person voters ; and virtually promised that he will attempt to reverse the results of a democratic election .
Most of all , Biden won because no person whose judgment isn ’ t warped by hate and fear could watch Trump and see a normal person they would want @ @ @ @ @ @ @ friend—let alone as a president to whom they would entrust with the future of their family or their country .
Those commentators who treated this event as a debacle shared by two candidates and the moderator badly missed the point .
Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan could not have controlled an opponent who lives outside the boundaries of sane human conduct .
Nor could Walter Cronkite have moderated a debate in which one of the contestants can not see any other human being beyond the only one he cares about .
Those things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the audience .
So , yes , Biden won .
Trump ’ s greatest hope is that an undifferentiated disgust with the spectacle he provoked causes more undecided voters to refrain from voting then will vote for Biden .
That is a corrosive attack on the bonds of civility and decency which are the glue of our democratic compact .
That , of course , is the ultimate tragedy of this debate .
Biden won , but our country lost something precious—the hope of an exchange of ideas which leads to a peaceful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ internalized the pathology of a man who will overturn an election if he can .
It is no longer alarmist to say that America ’ s president threatens us with fascism , for he is telling us that he does .
The history of authoritarianism is replete with demagogues who have claimed , as Trump did , that a democratic election is “ going to be a fraud like you ’ ve never seen.
” What America has never seen is a president bent on plunging us into such poisonous dysfunction .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rejects him , but survives him .

One aftermath of Donald Trump’s frightening and aberrant debate performance was that his nakedly unshackled sociopathy virtually obliterated conventional political analysis. Still, this was more than a nauseating gut-punch to human decency—it was a pivotal marker in what is, surely, the most crucial presidential campaign in living memory. So, before we go on to the larger implications for American democracy, a verdict on the implications for the election.
Biden won.
He won the night by dispelling Trump’s thuggish assertions of senility.
He won by requiring Trump to give America an unhinged 90 minutes of indecent self-exposure.
He won by filling what space he could with a conventional, often crisp, recitation of his central message.
He won by espousing that formerly unquestioned sine qua non of democracy that contestants accept the will of the electorate.
He won by speaking directly to Americans through the camera about their core concerns.
He won by saying of Trump’s callous response to over 200,000 dead from COVID-19: “It is what it is because you are who you are.”
He won because Trump is, indeed, inescapably who he is. He won because Trump’s repulsive persona inevitably alienated the voters he most needs—wavering Republicans and the increasingly shrinking number of undecided voters. He won because Trump invited white supremacists to “stand by”; encouraged his supporters to intimidate in-person voters; and virtually promised that he will attempt to reverse the results of a democratic election.
Most of all, Biden won because no person whose judgment isn’t warped by hate and fear could watch Trump and see a normal person they would want for a neighbor, coworker, or friend—let alone as a president to whom they would entrust with the future of their family or their country.
Those commentators who treated this event as a debacle shared by two candidates and the moderator badly missed the point. Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan could not have controlled an opponent who lives outside the boundaries of sane human conduct. Nor could Walter Cronkite have moderated a debate in which one of the contestants cannot see any other human being beyond the only one he cares about. Those things, too, sent a message to the audience.
So, yes, Biden won. Trump’s greatest hope is that an undifferentiated disgust with the spectacle he provoked causes more undecided voters to refrain from voting then will vote for Biden. That is a corrosive attack on the bonds of civility and decency which are the glue of our democratic compact.
That, of course, is the ultimate tragedy of this debate. Biden won, but our country lost something precious—the hope of an exchange of ideas which leads to a peaceful transition of power. We have now internalized the pathology of a man who will overturn an election if he can. It is no longer alarmist to say that America’s president threatens us with fascism, for he is telling us that he does. The history of authoritarianism is replete with demagogues who have claimed, as Trump did, that a democratic election is “going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen.”
What America has never seen is a president bent on plunging us into such poisonous dysfunction. We should pray that our country not only rejects him, but survives him.


thebulwark--2020-10-01--Three Errors About Trump (and An Encouraging Truth)

President Trump ’ s enduring appeal to millions of Americans continues to baffle and bother the learned commentariat , and has given rise to at least three comforting—but flawed—narratives .
First , Trump , we are told , has warped the minds of impressionable voters , brainwashing them into supporting him .
Second , contributing to his success , apparently , is an unprecedented disregard for the truth .
Third , happily , it seems , we can console ourselves in the knowledge that Trump ’ s effusive exercise of power surely will be the implement of his own undoing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ results he manages to achieve .
None of this is true .
Trump ’ s genius , like that of so many other demagogues , isn ’ t persuasion but perception , his uncanny ability to recognize and amplify the often inchoate views and emotions of others .
And shame on those who clutch their pearls and declares themselves shocked by Trump ’ s abject indifference to facts and truth ; Trump ’ s ability to maliciously contrive and successfully amplify false narratives for electoral gain would impress no one involved with ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Senate campaign .
Finally , Trump ’ s enthusiastic embrace and display of raw power has likely only enhanced both his power and his appeal ; it ’ s a feature , not a bug .
And yet , all is not lost .
Our greatest source of hope is our remarkable , glorious heterogeneity , our nuances and our inconsistencies , our stubborn resistance to facile ideological reduction .
Despite the widespread belief—especially in the most refined circles—that “ the mass of people ” are “ hopelessly gullible , ” the evidence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t credulously accept whatever we ’ re told.
” So explains cognitive scientist Hugo Mercier in his captivating book Not Born Yesterday .
Evolution would have killed us off long ago , Mercier argues , if we didn ’ t have well-developed “ vigilance mechanisms ” to critically evaluate new information and carefully assess whether to believe it .
Consequently , he argues , and subsequently demonstrates , “ most attempts at mass persuasion .
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from the most banal—advertising , proselytizing—to the most extreme—brainwashing , subliminal influence ” turn out to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clearly exist , reappearing again and again in history , from Cleon in ancient Greece to Hitler in Nazi Germany .
Cleon , a demagogue said to have nearly destroyed Athenian democracy 2,500 years ago , possessed “ the true demagogue ’ s tact of catching the feeling of the people.
” As Mercier explains , “ By and large , Cleon ’ s powerful voice reflected , rather than guided , the people ’ s will.
” Similarly , Hitler ’ s rise to power and electoral success in 1933 was possible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cited by Mercier ) , because Hitler “ embodied an already well-established , extensive , ideological consensus ” —in particular , anti-Marxism ( not anti-Semitism ) .
Early on , Mercier says , “ Hitler downplayed his own anti-Semitism , barely mentioning it in public speeches , refusing to sign the appeal for a boycott of Jewish shops.
” Hitler “ had to preach messages that ran against his [ own , anti-Semitic ] worldview ” and “ played on people ’ s existing opinions ” —at first , more consistently anti-Marxist than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Mercier argues , in “ the long line of American populists , from William Jennings Bryan to Huey Long , ” who “ relied on the same strategy , gaining political power not by manipulating crowds but my championing opinions that were already popular but not well represented by political leaders.
” Which brings us to Trump .
New Yorker writer Evan Osnos recounts a little-known early milestone on Trump ’ s road to the White House : In 2012 , Connecticut businessman and major GOP donor Lee Hanley commissioned pollster Patrick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidates were underperforming.
” The data revealed , in the words of Caddell , that the “ level of discontent in this country was beyond anything measurable.
” Hanley discussed these results with several key players in the conservative movement—including Steve Bannon and billionaire Robert Mercer—and identified , as Osnos puts it , an “ appetite for a populist challenger who could run as an outsider , exposing corruption and rapacity.
” They started to hunt for such a candidate , dubbing the mission “ the Candidate Smith project , ” after the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ concluded that Trump was the closest thing they would find to a Candidate Smith.
” Mercer was persuaded to invest in Trump , and the rest , of course , is history .
Trump , in other words , didn ’ t brainwash a nation of previously content citizens ; rather , he was identified as the figure most likely to appeal to this large , and largely underappreciated , group of disaffected Americans—while also presumably willing to play ball with the ultra-affluent of U.S. business and finance .
Trump has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s also hardly the first American political leader to play them .
When Lyndon Baines Johnson was running for the Senate in 1948 , he appeared to be nearing the end of his political career , a journey that had started with brilliant promise , according to Robert Caro ’ s magisterial , multi-volume biography , when against all expectation Johnson rose from humble roots in the rural Texas Hill Country to become one of the nation ’ s youngest members of Congress , winning a special election at the age of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most ardent Texas supporter : FDR+LBJ .
Yet Johnson had essentially no legislative accomplishments to speak of ; he ran for the Senate in 1941 and lost ; and after Roosevelt ’ s death in 1945 , Johnson ’ s influence in the White House diminished to virtually nothing .
Johnson calculated that his last , best chance for political advancement was election to the Senate in 1948 .
Standing in his way was an almost unimaginably popular figure , Coke Stevenson , a John Wayne-like figure , a self-made , self-sufficient man @ @ @ @ @ @ @ individualism ” in Caro ’ s words .
Stevenson had taught himself law and become a highly respected attorney , earning a reputation for civility and fairness .
While evincing little interest in politics ( he seemed happiest on his ranch ) , he was eventually persuaded to run for office , first for the Texas House of Representatives , where he was elected in 1929 and elevated to speaker in 1935 ) .
He won statewide election for lieutenant governor in 1938 , won a special election for governor in 1941 ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ Daniel , decamped for the Senate after defeating Johnson ) , won a full term as governor in 1942 ( taking 69 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary—the only relevant contest in what was effectively a one-party state at the time ) , and was re-elected in 1944 by an even larger margin , winning the primary in every one of the state ’ s 254 counties .
Adding to the legend : Stevenson disdained traditional campaigning and preferred to amble from town to town , getting to know the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Stevenson entered the 1948 Senate race , he was considered the easy favorite , perhaps even a shoe-in ; yet when the 81st Congress was sworn in on January 3 , 1949 , it was Johnson , not Stevenson , taking the oath of office .
Johnson would go on to become the Senate majority leader , and ultimately , the 36th president of the United States .
While Caro ’ s account of the campaign is perhaps best known for revealing how Johnson quite literally stole the election , falsifying votes at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the story is also remarkable for revealing how the Johnson campaign closed a seemingly impossible gap , making the final outcome close enough to make the final theft even possible .
Johnson initially attracted attention with a gimmick—a helicopter , dubbed a “ flying windmill , ” and unfamiliar to most Texans at the time—that attracted curious residents to his rallies and allowed him to campaign efficiently across the expansive , mostly rural state .
He also had access to considerable resources , due to close relationships with some deep-pocketed donors invested in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interests .
But even so , he entered the last month of the pivotal campaign significantly behind , and needing to pick up the votes of conservative Democrats—a constituency inclined to support Stevenson , a “ symbol of conservatism.
” Johnson was an early adopter of modern polling methods ; in 1948 , “ no politician in Texas had ever used polls as Johnson wanted to use them , ” Caro writes .
While most politicians might obtain polls monthly , “ three or four during a campaign at most , ” Johnson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ firms .
He wanted not only a more granular understanding of how he was doing , but also a deeper appreciation of the depth of voter preferences , and a better understanding of what issues were important to them .
Guided by the detailed polling data his money enabled him to acquire , as well as his instinctive understanding of both his audience and his adversary , Johnson hit upon a promising ploy : to falsely assert that Stevenson opposed anti-union legislation that Johnson ( like most voters in Texas ) strongly supported @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deign to dignify the allegation , enabling Johnson to claim Stevenson was dodging the issue .
Johnson persuaded friendly Washington , D.C.-based reporters to challenge Stevenson on this alleged position , and capitalized , as planned , on Stevenson ’ s initial lack of response .
Johnson ’ s campaign quickly expanded upon their allegations—wasn ’ t Stevenson acting like a stooge of the unions ?
Perhaps , they said , he was even an agent of the Communists .
Johnson also employed an army of locals to reinforce this messaging with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different ethnic groups .
Critical to Johnson ’ s strategy was the repetition of allegations , through both free and paid media .
“ Johnson , ” writes Caro , “ seemed to think he could make Texans—at least rural Texans—swallow even so ridiculous a charge [ i.e.
, the assertion that Stevenson was a Communist ] if it was repeated often enough.
” As Johnson ’ s speechwriter Paul Bolton explained to Caro years later , the idea was simple : Even when the Stevenson campaign finally responded , their response was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saturation .
Johnson ’ s campaign also evolved a strategy of immediately echoing the Stevenson campaign , likely aided by insider access .
When Stevenson would use certain language in a speech , Johnson would deliver a speech the same day using nearly identical language , offsetting the impact .
And when Stevenson would level an ( often accurate ) accusation at the Johnson ’ s campaign , Johnson would immediately direct the same accusation back at Stevenson , a counterpunching style so familiar today .
Far too late , Stevenson would recognize @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : A reasonably apt description , to be sure , though of the wrong candidate .
Johnson ’ s ability to reframe narratives for political advantage would memorably resurface less than ten years later , when he helped to recast the 1957 launch of Sputnik , which President Eisenhower had downplayed , as the harbinger of a major potential threat .
Johnson ’ s aide George Reedy proposed the strategy in a memo , assuring LBJ that the plan , “ if properly followed , would blast the Republicans out of the water @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elect you President.
” Johnson ’ s opportunistic political maneuvering did much to shape the public ’ s subsequent understanding of Sputnik as a national security failure ; “ Sputnik moment ” became shorthand for the belated recognition of dangerously overlooked threat .
The example of Johnson is informative in two important ways .
First , in Johnson , we can view a remarkable spectrum of by-now familiar traits : adaptable beliefs , indifference to truth , affection for alternative narratives , and a penchant for reflexive counterpunching—all directed relentlessly toward the acquisition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all characteristic of Donald Trump ’ s political style as well .
And from Johnson—congressional aide , head of the Texas National Youth Administration , representative , senator , majority leader , vice president , and ultimately president—we learn something else about this approach : It can work .
Following his election in 2016 , Trump immediately demonstrated his enthusiasm for using the power at his disposal—all of it , whether the privileges of the presidency or the reach of his Twitter—to punish antagonists and reward allies , and to do so conspicuously @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as many initially did , that this approach would offer at best only short-term gain , and would ultimately lead to Trump ’ s undoing .
To many , an ever-expanding enemies list and an ever more disgusted public hardly seemed like a recipe for enduring success .
The unpleasant truth is that , since embarking on this strategy , Trump ’ s power has only increased .
As Politico ’ s Tim Alberta recently reported , there is effectively no opposition to Trump within the Republican party—he is the party , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public support for Trump has remained remarkably steady ; his approval numbers clock in at around 43 percent .
One researcher who is definitely not surprised is Jeffrey Pfeffer , who has spent decades at Stanford studying power and teaching about it .
His next book on the subject , he has said , is called The 7 Rules of Power .
Notably , he tells me , “ Rule 6 is ‘ use your power , ’ because the more you use it , the more you have.
” Rule 7 ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ how you got there will be forgotten , forgiven , or both.
” Rule 7 , it seems , also informed George H.W .
Bush ’ s decision to run the notorious , Lee Atwater-designed “ Willie Horton ” ad against Michael Dukakis in 1988 ( three years later , a dying Atwater offered a partial apology to Dukakis ) .
As Bush ’ s biographer Jon Meacham wrote in the New York Times in 2018 , shortly after Bush died , At the most basic level , “ people want power ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all about self-preservation and being close to power.
” This is why “ once the Republicans could see that Trump could/would win [ in 2016 ] , they came over.
” More interesting , perhaps , is how so many justify their association with the powerful , especially when the object of their affections exhibits seemingly reprehensible traits—such as , say , trashing the appearance of a competitor ’ s wife , or suggesting the father of the same competitor may have been involved in the Kennedy assassination .
Or boasting , on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re a star .
.
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you can do anything .
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Grab ’ em by the pussy.
” Americus Reed and colleagues at Wharton , in a classic paper published in 2012 , studied this exact question , examining how we “ selectively dissociate judgments of morality from judgments of performance , ” which , in turn , allows us to “ support an immoral actor without being subject to self-reproach.
” Bill Clinton , the authors remind us , was impeached in 1998 , admitted to improper conduct , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presidency with a 66 % approval rating , the highest exit rating since the end of World War II.
” Other examples cited include director Roman Polanski receiving an Academy Award after being convicted of statutory rape .
Also : Martha Stewart was convicted of insider trading and sentenced to prison in 2004 , yet her company ’ s stock would more than triple in value that year .
As a psychological matter , we primarily manage such conflicts , Reed and colleagues argue , not through rationalization— “ construing an immoral action @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what they call “ moral decoupling , ” allowing us to support morally tarnished products and people by “ separating or compartmentalizing the immoral action from the performance of the immoral actor.
” It ’ s moral decoupling that allows us to separate with surprising ease what our heart tells us we want to do and what our brain may tell us we should do .
Moral decoupling allows us to serve both masters , and represents a profoundly underestimated capability that Trump , instinctively , seems to understand and to leverage .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ place .
A skilled demagogue has figured out how to channel powerful endogenous emotions that seem to exist beneath the radar of so many political observers .
He ’ s willing to do whatever it takes to win , confident that the ends will justify the means , and will enable him to accrue still more power .
Trump evokes Caro ’ s description of Johnson , a politician whose “ pattern of pragmatism , cynicism and ruthlessness .
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was marked by a lack of any discernible limits .
Pragmatism shaded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a morality in which any maneuver is justified by the end of victory—into a morality that is amorality.
” Yet before we despair , we should remember , as Mercier constantly reminds us , that most people are less gullible and more critical than we tend to believe .
In many cases , faith in a particular leader is far less strong than our comments ( often voiced strategically , to advance our social aims ) —might suggest .
Most demagogues , assures Mercier , hold less sway than we think .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for example , and “ when Cleon raised trumped-up charges against Aristophanes , ” Mercier reminds us , “ a popular jury sided with the playwright.
” Similarly , “ Hitler ’ s appeal waxed and waned with economic and military vicissitudes , ” Mercier writes , adding that after the Germans were defeated at Stalingrad , “ support for Hitler disintegrated .
People stopped seeing him as an inspirational leader , and vicious rumors started to circulate.
” Yet our greatest hope may be our own heterogeneity , the pastiche of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As political scientist David Shor explained this summer in New York magazine , “ there ’ s a big constellation of issues .
The single biggest way that highly educated people who follow politics closely are different from everyone else is that we have much more ideological coherence in our views.
” He continues , “ while voters may have more left-wing views than Joe Biden on a few issues , they don ’ t have the same consistency across their views .
There are like tons of pro-life people who want higher @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cites : “ Non-college-educated whites , on average , have very conservative views on immigration , and generally conservative racial attitudes .
But they have center-left views on economics ; they support universal health care and minimum-wage increases.
” “ Moderate ” voters , Shor says , citing a famous political science paper from a few years ago , “ don ’ t have moderate views , just ideologically inconsistent ones.
” Consequently , “ there ’ s a big mass of voters who agree with us on some issues , and disagree @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Shor notes , is a “ complex optimization problem ” that politicians face every time they speak , since “ what you say gains you some voters and loses you other voters .
But this is actually cool because campaigns have a lot of control over what issues they talk about.
” As important , it also means that even in the age of Trump , the die is not cast , voters are not irreversibly under his control and command , and some of his apparent supporters may ultimately , even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And if Trump starts to lose power , it will likely recede in the familiar pattern : slowly at first , then all at once .
It also means that those hoping to defeat Trump must resist demands for ideological purity , and embrace a more heterodox view .
As Mercier tells me , “ even ( some ?
most ? )
Trump supporters hold values that other politicians might better speak to.
” Mercier ’ s advice echoes a core teaching of business school negotiation classes—try to avoid reductive assumptions about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you fully understand their priorities and motivations , and instead seek out opportunities to expand the scope of discussions .
“ Adding issues to a negotiation is an important tactic for value creation , ” write Harvard Business School professors Deepak Malhotra and Max Bazerman in their 2007 book Negotiation Genius .
Why ?
Because of “ a simple formula : more issues=more currency .
The more issues you have to play with , the easier it will be to find opportunities ” for trade-offs .
Trump may view himself as the Great @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and persistently searching out opportunities to connect with citizens of diverse views and conflicted loyalties , may ultimately be able to close the deal with the American people .
The key , as Mercier says , is to recognize that “ not only does any country contain multitudes , but .
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we all do .
”

President Trump’s enduring appeal to millions of Americans continues to baffle and bother the learned commentariat, and has given rise to at least three comforting—but flawed—narratives.
First, Trump, we are told, has warped the minds of impressionable voters, brainwashing them into supporting him.
Second, contributing to his success, apparently, is an unprecedented disregard for the truth.
Third, happily, it seems, we can console ourselves in the knowledge that Trump’s effusive exercise of power surely will be the implement of his own undoing, while inevitably tainting and diminishing any results he manages to achieve.
None of this is true.
Trump’s genius, like that of so many other demagogues, isn’t persuasion but perception, his uncanny ability to recognize and amplify the often inchoate views and emotions of others. And shame on those who clutch their pearls and declares themselves shocked by Trump’s abject indifference to facts and truth; Trump’s ability to maliciously contrive and successfully amplify false narratives for electoral gain would impress no one involved with (for example) LBJ’s 1948 Senate campaign. Finally, Trump’s enthusiastic embrace and display of raw power has likely only enhanced both his power and his appeal; it’s a feature, not a bug.
And yet, all is not lost. Our greatest source of hope is our remarkable, glorious heterogeneity, our nuances and our inconsistencies, our stubborn resistance to facile ideological reduction.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Despite the widespread belief—especially in the most refined circles—that “the mass of people” are “hopelessly gullible,” the evidence suggests that actually we “don’t credulously accept whatever we’re told.” So explains cognitive scientist Hugo Mercier in his captivating book Not Born Yesterday. Evolution would have killed us off long ago, Mercier argues, if we didn’t have well-developed “vigilance mechanisms” to critically evaluate new information and carefully assess whether to believe it.
Consequently, he argues, and subsequently demonstrates, “most attempts at mass persuasion . . . from the most banal—advertising, proselytizing—to the most extreme—brainwashing, subliminal influence” turn out to be “miserably unsuccessful.”
Yet demagogues clearly exist, reappearing again and again in history, from Cleon in ancient Greece to Hitler in Nazi Germany. Cleon, a demagogue said to have nearly destroyed Athenian democracy 2,500 years ago, possessed “the true demagogue’s tact of catching the feeling of the people.” As Mercier explains, “By and large, Cleon’s powerful voice reflected, rather than guided, the people’s will.”
Similarly, Hitler’s rise to power and electoral success in 1933 was possible, according to historian Ian Kershaw (cited by Mercier), because Hitler “embodied an already well-established, extensive, ideological consensus”—in particular, anti-Marxism (not anti-Semitism). Early on, Mercier says, “Hitler downplayed his own anti-Semitism, barely mentioning it in public speeches, refusing to sign the appeal for a boycott of Jewish shops.” Hitler “had to preach messages that ran against his [own, anti-Semitic] worldview” and “played on people’s existing opinions”—at first, more consistently anti-Marxist than anti-Semitic.
This pattern is also seen, Mercier argues, in “the long line of American populists, from William Jennings Bryan to Huey Long,” who “relied on the same strategy, gaining political power not by manipulating crowds but my championing opinions that were already popular but not well represented by political leaders.”
Which brings us to Trump. New Yorker writer Evan Osnos recounts a little-known early milestone on Trump’s road to the White House: In 2012, Connecticut businessman and major GOP donor Lee Hanley commissioned pollster Patrick Caddell to “investigate why conventional Republican candidates were underperforming.” The data revealed, in the words of Caddell, that the “level of discontent in this country was beyond anything measurable.”
Hanley discussed these results with several key players in the conservative movement—including Steve Bannon and billionaire Robert Mercer—and identified, as Osnos puts it, an “appetite for a populist challenger who could run as an outsider, exposing corruption and rapacity.” They started to hunt for such a candidate, dubbing the mission “the Candidate Smith project,” after the classic Jimmy Stewart movie, and eventually “concluded that Trump was the closest thing they would find to a Candidate Smith.” Mercer was persuaded to invest in Trump, and the rest, of course, is history.
Trump, in other words, didn’t brainwash a nation of previously content citizens; rather, he was identified as the figure most likely to appeal to this large, and largely underappreciated, group of disaffected Americans—while also presumably willing to play ball with the ultra-affluent of U.S. business and finance.
Trump has been effective at both roles. But he’s also hardly the first American political leader to play them.
When Lyndon Baines Johnson was running for the Senate in 1948, he appeared to be nearing the end of his political career, a journey that had started with brilliant promise, according to Robert Caro’s magisterial, multi-volume biography, when against all expectation Johnson rose from humble roots in the rural Texas Hill Country to become one of the nation’s youngest members of Congress, winning a special election at the age of 28, running as FDR’s most ardent Texas supporter: FDR+LBJ. Yet Johnson had essentially no legislative accomplishments to speak of; he ran for the Senate in 1941 and lost; and after Roosevelt’s death in 1945, Johnson’s influence in the White House diminished to virtually nothing.
Johnson calculated that his last, best chance for political advancement was election to the Senate in 1948. Standing in his way was an almost unimaginably popular figure, Coke Stevenson, a John Wayne-like figure, a self-made, self-sufficient man, the “living personification of frontier individualism” in Caro’s words.
Stevenson had taught himself law and become a highly respected attorney, earning a reputation for civility and fairness. While evincing little interest in politics (he seemed happiest on his ranch), he was eventually persuaded to run for office, first for the Texas House of Representatives, where he was elected in 1929 and elevated to speaker in 1935). He won statewide election for lieutenant governor in 1938, won a special election for governor in 1941 (when the sitting governor, Pappy O’Daniel, decamped for the Senate after defeating Johnson), won a full term as governor in 1942 (taking 69 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary—the only relevant contest in what was effectively a one-party state at the time), and was re-elected in 1944 by an even larger margin, winning the primary in every one of the state’s 254 counties.
Adding to the legend: Stevenson disdained traditional campaigning and preferred to amble from town to town, getting to know the people in an understated fashion.
When Stevenson entered the 1948 Senate race, he was considered the easy favorite, perhaps even a shoo-in; yet when the 81st Congress was sworn in on January 3, 1949, it was Johnson, not Stevenson, taking the oath of office. Johnson would go on to become the Senate majority leader, and ultimately, the 36th president of the United States.
While Caro’s account of the campaign is perhaps best known for revealing how Johnson quite literally stole the election, falsifying votes at the level of individual ballot boxes, the story is also remarkable for revealing how the Johnson campaign closed a seemingly impossible gap, making the final outcome close enough to make the final theft even possible.
Johnson initially attracted attention with a gimmick—a helicopter, dubbed a “flying windmill,” and unfamiliar to most Texans at the time—that attracted curious residents to his rallies and allowed him to campaign efficiently across the expansive, mostly rural state. He also had access to considerable resources, due to close relationships with some deep-pocketed donors invested in Johnson’s continued support of their interests. But even so, he entered the last month of the pivotal campaign significantly behind, and needing to pick up the votes of conservative Democrats—a constituency inclined to support Stevenson, a “symbol of conservatism.”
Johnson was an early adopter of modern polling methods; in 1948, “no politician in Texas had ever used polls as Johnson wanted to use them,” Caro writes. While most politicians might obtain polls monthly, “three or four during a campaign at most,” Johnson wanted polls done weekly, by multiple firms. He wanted not only a more granular understanding of how he was doing, but also a deeper appreciation of the depth of voter preferences, and a better understanding of what issues were important to them.
Explains Caro, in words with a contemporary resonance,
Issues, to Johnson, had never been anything more than campaign fodder; caring about none himself, he had, in every campaign he had run, simply tested, and discarded, one issue after another until he found one which, in his word, “touched”—influenced—voters. (“We didn’t care if the argument was true or not,” recalls one of his college allies. “We just kept trying to find one that touched.”)
Guided by the detailed polling data his money enabled him to acquire, as well as his instinctive understanding of both his audience and his adversary, Johnson hit upon a promising ploy: to falsely assert that Stevenson opposed anti-union legislation that Johnson (like most voters in Texas) strongly supported. Johnson knew Stevenson would likely not deign to dignify the allegation, enabling Johnson to claim Stevenson was dodging the issue.
Johnson persuaded friendly Washington, D.C.-based reporters to challenge Stevenson on this alleged position, and capitalized, as planned, on Stevenson’s initial lack of response.
Johnson’s campaign quickly expanded upon their allegations—wasn’t Stevenson acting like a stooge of the unions? Perhaps, they said, he was even an agent of the Communists. Johnson also employed an army of locals to reinforce this messaging with a seemingly grassroots whisper campaign, tailored to different ethnic groups.
Critical to Johnson’s strategy was the repetition of allegations, through both free and paid media. “Johnson,” writes Caro, “seemed to think he could make Texans—at least rural Texans—swallow even so ridiculous a charge [i.e., the assertion that Stevenson was a Communist] if it was repeated often enough.”
As Johnson’s speechwriter Paul Bolton explained to Caro years later, the idea was simple:
Repeat the same thing over and over and over—jumping on Coke Stevenson’s having secret dealings with labor. You knew it was a damned lie [but] you just repeated it and repeated it and repeated it. Repetition—that was the thing.
Even when the Stevenson campaign finally responded, their response was drowned out by Johnson’s media saturation.
Johnson’s campaign also evolved a strategy of immediately echoing the Stevenson campaign, likely aided by insider access. When Stevenson would use certain language in a speech, Johnson would deliver a speech the same day using nearly identical language, offsetting the impact. And when Stevenson would level an (often accurate) accusation at the Johnson’s campaign, Johnson would immediately direct the same accusation back at Stevenson, a counterpunching style so familiar today.
Caro describes the predictable result:
Who could blame voters, even those who were conscientiously attempting to follow the campaign, for being confused—and, in a sea of identical charges by both candidates, for being convinced by the candidate who could, thanks to the power of money, make the charge so much more frequently than his opponent?
Far too late, Stevenson would recognize that, in Caro’s words:
Johnson’s attacks were working, that Texans were coming to believe that he [Stevenson] was a Communist front, a “do-nothing” Governor who had accomplished nothing for the state, and an opportunistic politician without firm principles or beliefs who would trim his sails to the prevailing wind.
A reasonably apt description, to be sure, though of the wrong candidate.
Johnson’s ability to reframe narratives for political advantage would memorably resurface less than ten years later, when he helped to recast the 1957 launch of Sputnik, which President Eisenhower had downplayed, as the harbinger of a major potential threat. Johnson’s aide George Reedy proposed the strategy in a memo, assuring LBJ that the plan, “if properly followed, would blast the Republicans out of the water, unify the Democratic Party, and elect you President.” Johnson’s opportunistic political maneuvering did much to shape the public’s subsequent understanding of Sputnik as a national security failure; “Sputnik moment” became shorthand for the belated recognition of dangerously overlooked threat.
The example of Johnson is informative in two important ways.
First, in Johnson, we can view a remarkable spectrum of by-now familiar traits: adaptable beliefs, indifference to truth, affection for alternative narratives, and a penchant for reflexive counterpunching—all directed relentlessly toward the acquisition and expansion of power. These are all characteristic of Donald Trump’s political style as well.
And from Johnson—congressional aide, head of the Texas National Youth Administration, representative, senator, majority leader, vice president, and ultimately president—we learn something else about this approach: It can work.
Following his election in 2016, Trump immediately demonstrated his enthusiasm for using the power at his disposal—all of it, whether the privileges of the presidency or the reach of his Twitter—to punish antagonists and reward allies, and to do so conspicuously. It was comforting to assume, as many initially did, that this approach would offer at best only short-term gain, and would ultimately lead to Trump’s undoing. To many, an ever-expanding enemies list and an ever more disgusted public hardly seemed like a recipe for enduring success.
And yet.
The unpleasant truth is that, since embarking on this strategy, Trump’s power has only increased. As Politico’s Tim Alberta recently reported, there is effectively no opposition to Trump within the Republican party—he is the party, and the party is Trump. Meanwhile, public support for Trump has remained remarkably steady; his approval numbers clock in at around 43 percent.
One researcher who is definitely not surprised is Jeffrey Pfeffer, who has spent decades at Stanford studying power and teaching about it. His next book on the subject, he has said, is called The 7 Rules of Power. Notably, he tells me, “Rule 6 is ‘use your power,’ because the more you use it, the more you have.” Rule 7? “Once you are in power, how you got there will be forgotten, forgiven, or both.”
Rule 7, it seems, also informed George H.W. Bush’s decision to run the notorious, Lee Atwater-designed “Willie Horton” ad against Michael Dukakis in 1988 (three years later, a dying Atwater offered a partial apology to Dukakis).
As Bush’s biographer Jon Meacham wrote in the New York Times in 2018, shortly after Bush died,
To serve he had to succeed; to preside he had to prevail. For Mr. Bush the impulses to do in his opponents and to do good were inextricably bound. At the end of the 1988 campaign he mused to himself [in a tape-recorded diary entry], “The country gets over these things fast. I have no apologies, no regrets, and if I had let the press keep defining me as a wimp, a loser, I wouldn’t be where I am today: threatening, close, and who knows, maybe winning.” [Emphasis added.]
At the most basic level, “people want power” explains Pfeffer. “It’s all about self-preservation and being close to power.” This is why “once the Republicans could see that Trump could/would win [in 2016], they came over.”
More interesting, perhaps, is how so many justify their association with the powerful, especially when the object of their affections exhibits seemingly reprehensible traits—such as, say, trashing the appearance of a competitor’s wife, or suggesting the father of the same competitor may have been involved in the Kennedy assassination. Or boasting, on tape, that “when you’re a star . . . you can do anything. . . . Grab ’em by the pussy.”
Americus Reed and colleagues at Wharton, in a classic paper published in 2012, studied this exact question, examining how we “selectively dissociate judgments of morality from judgments of performance,” which, in turn, allows us to “support an immoral actor without being subject to self-reproach.”
Bill Clinton, the authors remind us, was impeached in 1998, admitted to improper conduct, yet “went on to complete his presidency with a 66% approval rating, the highest exit rating since the end of World War II.” Other examples cited include director Roman Polanski receiving an Academy Award after being convicted of statutory rape. Also: Martha Stewart was convicted of insider trading and sentenced to prison in 2004, yet her company’s stock would more than triple in value that year.
As a psychological matter, we primarily manage such conflicts, Reed and colleagues argue, not through rationalization—“construing an immoral action as less immoral”—but rather through what they call “moral decoupling,” allowing us to support morally tarnished products and people by “separating or compartmentalizing the immoral action from the performance of the immoral actor.”
It’s moral decoupling that allows us to separate with surprising ease what our heart tells us we want to do and what our brain may tell us we should do. Moral decoupling allows us to serve both masters, and represents a profoundly underestimated capability that Trump, instinctively, seems to understand and to leverage.
We have arrived at a particularly troubling place. A skilled demagogue has figured out how to channel powerful endogenous emotions that seem to exist beneath the radar of so many political observers. He’s willing to do whatever it takes to win, confident that the ends will justify the means, and will enable him to accrue still more power.
Trump evokes Caro’s description of Johnson, a politician whose “pattern of pragmatism, cynicism and ruthlessness . . . was marked by a lack of any discernible limits. Pragmatism shaded into the morality of the ballot box, a morality in which any maneuver is justified by the end of victory—into a morality that is amorality.”
Yet before we despair, we should remember, as Mercier constantly reminds us, that most people are less gullible and more critical than we tend to believe. In many cases, faith in a particular leader is far less strong than our comments (often voiced strategically, to advance our social aims)—might suggest.
Most demagogues, assures Mercier, hold less sway than we think. Cleon was ridiculed by the playwright Aristophanes, for example, and “when Cleon raised trumped-up charges against Aristophanes,” Mercier reminds us, “a popular jury sided with the playwright.”
Similarly, “Hitler’s appeal waxed and waned with economic and military vicissitudes,” Mercier writes, adding that after the Germans were defeated at Stalingrad, “support for Hitler disintegrated. People stopped seeing him as an inspirational leader, and vicious rumors started to circulate.”
Yet our greatest hope may be our own heterogeneity, the pastiche of views so many of us hold. As political scientist David Shor explained this summer in New York magazine, “there’s a big constellation of issues. The single biggest way that highly educated people who follow politics closely are different from everyone else is that we have much more ideological coherence in our views.”
He continues, “while voters may have more left-wing views than Joe Biden on a few issues, they don’t have the same consistency across their views. There are like tons of pro-life people who want higher taxes, etc.”
Another example Shor cites: “Non-college-educated whites, on average, have very conservative views on immigration, and generally conservative racial attitudes. But they have center-left views on economics; they support universal health care and minimum-wage increases.”
“Moderate” voters, Shor says, citing a famous political science paper from a few years ago, “don’t have moderate views, just ideologically inconsistent ones.” Consequently, “there’s a big mass of voters who agree with us on some issues, and disagree with us on others.”
What emerges, Shor notes, is a “complex optimization problem” that politicians face every time they speak, since “what you say gains you some voters and loses you other voters. But this is actually cool because campaigns have a lot of control over what issues they talk about.”
As important, it also means that even in the age of Trump, the die is not cast, voters are not irreversibly under his control and command, and some of his apparent supporters may ultimately, even now, find greater resonance with Biden. And if Trump starts to lose power, it will likely recede in the familiar pattern: slowly at first, then all at once.
It also means that those hoping to defeat Trump must resist demands for ideological purity, and embrace a more heterodox view. As Mercier tells me, “even (some? most?) Trump supporters hold values that other politicians might better speak to.”
Mercier’s advice echoes a core teaching of business school negotiation classes—try to avoid reductive assumptions about the other party, such as assuming you fully understand their priorities and motivations, and instead seek out opportunities to expand the scope of discussions.
“Adding issues to a negotiation is an important tactic for value creation,” write Harvard Business School professors Deepak Malhotra and Max Bazerman in their 2007 book Negotiation Genius. Why? Because of “a simple formula: more issues=more currency. The more issues you have to play with, the easier it will be to find opportunities” for trade-offs.
Trump may view himself as the Great Negotiator, but Biden, by authentically and persistently searching out opportunities to connect with citizens of diverse views and conflicted loyalties, may ultimately be able to close the deal with the American people.
The key, as Mercier says, is to recognize that “not only does any country contain multitudes, but . . . we all do.”


thebulwark--2020-10-01--Reaching the ‘Bannon Line’

Reaching the ‘Bannon Line’

The clearest path to defeating Donald Trump was mapped out this past January , when erstwhile Trump adviser Steve Bannon , in a ( pre-indictment ) interview with the Associated Press , admitted that the president ’ s route to re-election is essentially eliminated if just 3 to 4 percent of Republican voters move away from him .
My colleagues at the Lincoln Project and I have named that threshold the “ Bannon Line.
” Flying in the face of tradition and logic , the president has spent his time in office doing everything possible to drive away the middle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ corner .
Because of this , the only electoral path to victory for the Trump campaign is with unprecedented turnout and support from his base .
But there are just not enough voters left in Trump ’ s base—so if we can achieve even moderate success reaching the Bannon Line , Trump is likely to lose .
With the exceptions of Nebraska and Maine , every state ( and D.C. ) awards its Electoral College votes on a winner-take-all basis .
For swing states like Michigan , Pennsylvania , and Wisconsin , each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2016 , reaching the Bannon Line—shifting 3 or 4 percentage points away from Trump among Republicans—would completely flip all three states .
And if we swing by the same 4 percent not just Republicans but also the independents who voted for Trump , he loses not only those three states but also Florida , North Carolina , Arizona , and Georgia—a decisive defeat .
Although we have hope that more than 4 percent of Republicans will put country over party and step up to oppose Donald Trump , hope alone won ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s going to require a dedicated effort from each and every one of us , reaching out and talking to our fellow Republicans about Trump ’ s glaring leadership issues , his incompetent handling of the coronavirus , how the economy can ’ t be put back on track until we have a national pandemic plan in place , and why he is a unique threat to both our democracy and the world ’ s stability .
Because here ’ s what we know : Donald Trump ’ s swing vote is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are slipping through his fingers .
He ’ s underwater with every group imaginable , except non-college-educated white men .
Older voters , college-educated voters , and college-educated white women are now leading a mass exodus from the president and coalescing in support of Joe Biden .
In 2016 , Trump won 65-plus voters by 7 points .
This year , he is behind Biden by 6 points with those voters in the battleground states—a 13-point flip .
Add to that , in those suburbs , he ’ s got a massive double-digit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 20-point-plus lead among suburban women and , 39-point lead among college-educated white women .
The Trump campaign believes he can win the suburbs by directly inciting a culture war—but his poor leadership , selfishness , and erratic behavior is costing him the demographics that would tip the scales in his favor : suburban women , veterans , and faith-based voters .
Meanwhile , COVID-19 overwhelms and decimates our communities , forcing millions of Americans to worry about job security and sending our children to safe schools , and even to struggle with paying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the president ’ s incompetence .
Republican voters need to know that to save the country , they will need to break with their party in November .
At the Lincoln Project , we are devoting all our effort and energy over the next month to making that case .
We don ’ t have to convince every voter .
All we have to do is reach the Bannon Line .

The clearest path to defeating Donald Trump was mapped out this past January, when erstwhile Trump adviser Steve Bannon, in a (pre-indictment) interview with the Associated Press, admitted that the president’s route to re-election is essentially eliminated if just 3 to 4 percent of Republican voters move away from him.
My colleagues at the Lincoln Project and I have named that threshold the “Bannon Line.”
Flying in the face of tradition and logic, the president has spent his time in office doing everything possible to drive away the middle, thus painting himself into a political corner. Because of this, the only electoral path to victory for the Trump campaign is with unprecedented turnout and support from his base. But there are just not enough voters left in Trump’s base—so if we can achieve even moderate success reaching the Bannon Line, Trump is likely to lose.
With the exceptions of Nebraska and Maine, every state (and D.C.) awards its Electoral College votes on a winner-take-all basis. For swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, each of which Trump won by a whisker in 2016, reaching the Bannon Line—shifting 3 or 4 percentage points away from Trump among Republicans—would completely flip all three states. And if we swing by the same 4 percent not just Republicans but also the independents who voted for Trump, he loses not only those three states but also Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, and Georgia—a decisive defeat.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Although we have hope that more than 4 percent of Republicans will put country over party and step up to oppose Donald Trump, hope alone won’t end this unceasing madness.
It’s going to require a dedicated effort from each and every one of us, reaching out and talking to our fellow Republicans about Trump’s glaring leadership issues, his incompetent handling of the coronavirus, how the economy can’t be put back on track until we have a national pandemic plan in place, and why he is a unique threat to both our democracy and the world’s stability .
Because here’s what we know: Donald Trump’s swing vote is America’s suburbs. Those votes are slipping through his fingers. He’s underwater with every group imaginable, except non-college-educated white men. Older voters, college-educated voters, and college-educated white women are now leading a mass exodus from the president and coalescing in support of Joe Biden. In 2016, Trump won 65-plus voters by 7 points. This year, he is behind Biden by 6 points with those voters in the battleground states—a 13-point flip. Add to that, in those suburbs, he’s got a massive double-digit deficit to Biden—driven by Biden’s 20-point-plus lead among suburban women and, 39-point lead among college-educated white women.
The Trump campaign believes he can win the suburbs by directly inciting a culture war—but his poor leadership, selfishness, and erratic behavior is costing him the demographics that would tip the scales in his favor: suburban women, veterans, and faith-based voters. Meanwhile, COVID-19 overwhelms and decimates our communities, forcing millions of Americans to worry about job security and sending our children to safe schools, and even to struggle with paying rent and affording food, all due to the president’s incompetence.
Republican voters need to know that to save the country, they will need to break with their party in November.
At the Lincoln Project, we are devoting all our effort and energy over the next month to making that case. We don’t have to convince every voter. All we have to do is reach the Bannon Line.