Playing Devil’s Advocate

 

Biden oceanic crowd: 3 people (plus some in the trucks?). This is in Michigan. 

I am not one of those brainless Libtards who swallow the propaganda of their own party and parrot it day in and day out. I try to make some simple sense checks to see whether I am not going down the wrong road, purely because I want to think that things are just fine.

So, let us think of the scenario that could, in fact, cause a Biden/Harris victory starting, as always, from reality. Reality tells us that there is a huge enthusiasm gap between Trump and Biden supporters. So, what could cause Biden to win notwithstanding the undeniable enthusiasm gap?

People who hate Trump would vote for Stalin 

Fair enough. There are a lot of people who just can’t stand Trump. They are the TDS apostles, the screaming posters on Youtube and TikTok, the rabid bigots immediately calling you a Nazi for even mentioning Trump’s name. There is a lot of hatred for this man, who is very polarising. Should I be worried?

Not really, I would say. I remember when Reagan was just as hated in 1984. Reagan went on to win in a landslide. Polarising candidates (Reagan, Thatcher, Trump) make the fringes mad, but this does not really damage them with the centre, the moderates, the sane voters. You see them screaming on Twitter, but It’s far more smoke than fire. Yes, people from California, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts might emerge from their basements in drove to vote Biden. Yes, a lot of people who have not voted in the past will feel good voting against Trump this time. But I think that, as a whole, they will come from States the Democrats are going to win anyway. The Dems will likely win the popular vote again. Let them. Who cares. It will make it funnier to see them cry.

Nobody showing up for Biden does not mean he will not get voted. 

Yes. Better said: yes, and no. Hillary also had abysmal presence at her rallies, and she went on to win the popular won and lose Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin for relatively small margins. If you had looked at the difference in enthusiasm alone, you’d have said she was on course to lose Florida by 10 point. It was “merely” 1.2% in the end. Enthusiasm gap does not translate directly into voter’s gap. People who want to keep abortion will not show up at a Democrat rally, but they will vote for a half-dead, demented, corrupted, creepy guy like Biden without a second thought. 

Still, it would be the first time in my memory that the candidate who seems to have such a lack of enthusiasm behind him ends up winning in the end. The more so, as we all know that there is no reason not to say that one will vote for Biden. Not even the pollsters mention “silent Biden voters”. In my eyes, such a lack of enthusiasm will not translate in a Reagan-like landslide, but it will be enough to make him lose. I can’t imagine that such a disastrous candidate will not cause the loss of, say, at least 1% or 2% of voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin. Not many compared to the totals, but probably decisive for the race.

Biden has no one showing up at his rallies because Democrats are afraid of the Chinese Virus.  

Fair enough, at least as partial explanation. We know that the fear of the Chinese Virus is far more pronounced among Democrats than among Republicans. This will translate into more Democrats voting by mail, but still voting, and more Democrats not showing up at Biden’s rallies, but still voting. By the by: expect extremely good, possibly record-braking Democrat mail and early voting data, exactly for this reason.

However, this cuts both ways. If the Dems are scared by the Pandemic, are we sure that they will all go to vote? Postal vote is not possible in several states, and it takes a certain degree of resilience to go to vote knowing one could (cough) “die” of it. I think this is another 1% or 2% left on the ground. And by the by: the Democrats have scared their people for long enough. It will be impossible now to persuade them that it is safe to vote in person. Plus: mail vote is showing a horrible percentage of votes annulled, around 30%. Many Dems are so dumb they can’t even vote by mail. The mail vote might burn for them a lot of votes that would have been perfectly valid ballot votes.

Bonus argument: if the Virus is the issue behind the enthusiasm gap, why are motorcades for Trump everywhere and absolutely massive, and motorcades for Biden are scarce and utterly depressing?

Mail vote will cause more lazy Democrats to vote for Biden 

The argument goes this way: many Democrat voters are so lazy that they can’t haul their backside to the polling station. The mail vote will activate this part of the Democrat vote; and even if 30% of these excess votes are annulled, the other 70% will lead Biden to victory.

If Biden wins (quod Deus avertat!), I will likely think that this one was the biggest factor. However, I don’t think that is really so. Anecdotal evidence says that Democrats manage to have a percentage of registered Black voters similar to the ones among Whites (I remember reading data from Georgia a couple of years ago). If true nationwide, this would indicate that the Dems already manage to capture the “lazy ass” electorate already, for example offering bus or car drives. It seems difficult to me that email vote will translate into more Black votes. It might well simply translate into less car drives. Plus, if they are losing 10% or more of the Black vote to Trump, it will make it even more difficult to get an advantage from this.

I have tried to find as many arguments as I can. I think there is some merit in all of them. I do not think any of them represents a real danger for now.

I will be eagerly awaiting the provisional voting data from Florida. If, as I think, the Democrats will see their advantage unchanged or reduced (or even only slightly increased) compared to 2016, I will see in this a very good sign. This would mean that the cultural preference for early voting among Democrats is not really translating into a substantial Dem advantage (remember: if you are scared of Covid and you can’t vote by mail, as I think you can’t in Florida, you vote early to minimise the queue). 

We shall see.

Please be in good spirit, pray for Trump’s victory, and hope for the best.

Why Tutti Frutti Is Not Working

 

The new encyclical letter, Tutti Frutti, has been issued some 10 days ago now, and the most notable consequence of it is that it has not made any wave whatsoever.

Francis has reduced himself to a state of such irrelevancy, that his excrementations are rapidly becoming good for nothing more than the increase in consumption of toilet paper, as the man does not even manage to make good Catholics angry.

Why is that? Let me count the ways:

1. Francis is a broken record. Whatever he publishes, you know it will be the same stupid, waffling nonsense as ever. Environment bla, peace bla bla, consumerism blablabla, and so on. In the meantime, this has become older than Biden.
2. Francis is consistently Catholicism-free. If Francis mixed stupid waffling with some useful, Catholic insights, the faithful might give his excrementations the time of day. But he doesn’t, so they don’t. And in fact, a man capable of useful Catholics insights would not go on waffling about the environment, or social justice, in the first place.
3. Francis has chosen the worst possible time. At the moment, the entire planet is looking towards the US, where a man is stealing the show from everybody, Francis not excluded. Ill or healthy, funny or angry, rallying or tweeting, Trump always has everybody’s attention. It will not stop until November. Francis should have known this.

Not for the first time, it seems to me that this man is desperately looking for the attention fewer and fewer people are willing to give him. Like Greta Thunberg, he is disappearing from the radar screen and, like Greta Thunberg, he is just a cretin to whom the world has given its attention for far too long.

They tell me this is what old grumpy men do, and what old fairies actually do even more. 

Remember Ruth, Francis. 

You might be in her company soon enough. 

 

2020: The Low-Hanging Fruits, Part II

Part I is here. 

Nevada 

Nevada is difficult to gauge for me, and possibly not only for me. Hillary won this, by 2.42%, in 2016. It seems reasonable to think a strong Trump campaign puts this in play. However, I remember the Republicans spending a lot of money here in 2016 and still losing. If you ask me, Minnesota is where I would spend my money first.

I am hearing that the Trump campaign is spending an awful lot here, and that they feel very confident. They must have data corroborating this. But to me this is still difficult, as it seems to me that Nevada has a lot of transients working in the entertainment industry. With more people coming and going, it becomes more difficult to give a State a well-defined “face”, or cultural traits (like you can do in the Rust Belt) and target your messages appropriately. I will add to this that I have no idea how many people have left Nevada after the shutdown of the entertainment industry, how many have returned, and how they feel about the Chinese Virus.

Still, the Governor is a Democrat; and, like all Democrats, he pursued the “let’s get into full panic mode, because it damages Trump” narrative. How many he forced to leave Nevada I don’t know. But I can’t imagine has so many fans. Nevada also has two Democrats senators. It seems to me that Nevada is a bit the contrary of Florida. Florida is said to hang in the balance, but has Governor and Senators all Republican. Nevada is said to be in play, but it seems to me that they tend to favour the Democrats. Still, the Trump campaign is confident and they are spending a lot. Let’s hope this goes well.

Colorado  

This low hanging fruit does not hang very low. Actually, if you ask me, it hangs quite high. However, it can still be reached. The Trump organisation here has dwarfed previous Republican efforts,  whilst Democrats sits in their basement and await Mom’s permission to go out canvassing. Simply put, the Trump campaign this time has so much more money than in 2016, that they can afford this kind of push in more peripheral battlegrounds. It seems a bit like swimming against the current, but we shall see.

Honorable mention: Virginia 

I will look at Virginia with particular interest. Not because I think that it can be easily won, but because I think that it will be a useful early indicator of the way the night will go. In 2016, Trump led in Virginia until the voter data from Fairfax County (heavily Democrat, and whose voter data tend to arrive last) toppled the situation, giving Hillary a very comfortable 5.32% win. If the vote counting rhythm follows the one of the last election, we should see whether an even more pronounced initial advantage for Trump tells us that the suburbs are going heavily for Trump; this would mean, if you ask me, game over and easy Trump victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, whose rural vote data tend to arrive later.

Plus, the Democrats have two danger factors at play in Virginia. Firstly, the Black population is around 20%, and they might leave 1% or 2% of votes on the ground on this demographic alone. Secondly, the heavily civil servants-dominated Fairfax County might, by now, have more Trump supporters than this was the case in 2016; you know, that type of “silent Trump voters” who are terrified of showing their colour in a, basically, DC-Style political monoculture, but actually like Trump. We shall see.

As a whole, I still feel very confident. I do not doubt that, at times, it will seem that the race is close. As it look now, I think that only complacency can defeat Trump. Paradoxically, the absurd polls will help the Trump campaign not to fall in the complacency trap.