Trump can apparently get away with any lie, claim, or statement, and they need to recalibrate the political calculator.
With his rabid loyalist base, which, once again, constitutes only about 10% of the entire population of America and always exists on both ends of the political spectrum. Just look at the Sanders bots. Nothing he says or does can ever dissuade them from worshipping him like a messiah. The man
literally said that he was "under no delusions" and that he categorically could not get anything he proposes implemented and his fanboys came in their shants.
What a great leader! He's completely ineffectual and he knows it!
What you're doing is looking at the press as if they are accurately painting a picture of our culture, which is false. Again, look at the entire Sanders "revolution" that never existed. The
perception was that it was an unstoppable juggernaut that was taking over the country while the
reality was that no one was actually buying any of his bullshit and he suffered a massive defeat. When all the smoke cleared he couldn't motivate more than 5-6% of Democrats to vote for him.
So what did
Sander's rabid base do? Did they all apologize for fucking everything up and
significantly contributing to (and knowingly participating in) the attack on Clinton that added to the anomaly that rendered 70,000 votes more impactful than 3,000,000?
Fuck no! They vehemently deny to this day that Sanders--or themselves--had
anything at all to do with Trump being in the WH. No, it's all the fault of the person who BEAT TRUMP BY ALMOST 3,000,000 VOTES.
Somehow, the math for
Sanders means he won for losing, while Hillary, who actually did beat Trump by millions of votes, is the loser because she couldn't beat Trump. Even though she did.
Yeah, but she's not President and that's the only thing that matters, so she was the worst candidate ever because she couldn't even beat someone as bad as Trump!!
Except that she could and she did. What's being conflated is the reality with the perception. The reality is she got millions more votes, which conclusively proves that she was the preferred candidate. The perception, however, is that, because she isn't President on a technicality that she--as a candidate--was a complete failure and the wrong one and
insert every right-wing/Sanders bot/Russian dog-pile here.
You can't both win a popularity contest AND be considered less popular than your despicable opponent. The vote is what determines the popularity, not the
prize. The prize is a separate matter and in this case awarded under different conditions, that, ironically
still relate to popularity, just an artificially castrated form.
Iow, once again, IF you are trying to determine the greatest
fighter in the world, you do NOT go by most TKOs. The only metric that matters in regard to trying to determine who is the greatest
fighter is how many physical knockouts you were able to deliver, not that you got your belt because your shoelaces were properly tied.
The reason I keep pointing this out--and the
preferences of the non-voters, which only adds to the millions who preferred Hillary--is because there are TWO issues being constantly conflated in regard to 2016, which goes directly to this issue of perception (or, rather, misperception).
There is the
reality and there is the
perception and perhaps only in politics are they never the same. And the reality is guided conclusively and exclusively by the votes. By the
preference.
In 2008, the country preferred Obama. In 2012, the country wanted Obama. In 2016, the country wanted Hillary. In 2018, the country wanted Democrats.
If you were to go by the
perception--by the smoke and mirrors and the noise machines--by the fringe, iow, the political extremists--then you'd have all manner of apologetics and bullshit clouding the reality of voter preference.
What Trump's base does or does not do is entirely irrelevant. I'm going to repeat that again. What Trump's base does or does not do is entirely irrelevant.
They don't exist as far as the
reality goes. They only exist in support of the
perception. Clear? Their purpose is the same as a big-tittied magician's assistant or flashpaper. It's to keep you distracted so that you don't see what's actually going on. The
reality.
The
reality is the numbers as I've laid them out.
Trump must
turn some 20 MILLION Democrats and left-leaning Independents
to him in the next year. That's his only chance at being re-elected.
It's not possible to suppress THAT many votes. And he has no resources to tap; no pockets of voters he can motivate, but certainly not 20 million just to match the 78 million Dems/Indies.
And, yes, I'm of course aware of the seeming contradiction in describing
preference as reality in light of the fact that Trump is President and that is also a reality, but that is a different kind of reality--the reality of a TKO not a physical knockout. Most of you are intelligent enough to easily parse such a distinction. The usual suspects, however, will no doubt jump up and down on their hidey horses over this, but that's just exactly what they will do no matter what and only underscores my point.
They are just as irrelevant as their deplorable overlords.
Trump must
somehow surmount a
twenty million vote mountain in order to even come close to being re-elected. So that can only mean cheating and another EC route exclusively. It won't be possible for him to win the popular vote and he knows this and everyone else does too in his camp, including, of course, Putin.
But those 20 million are predominantly made up of Independents, not just Dems. Which means they aren't just all clustered in California.
The "blue" states in the rust belt that were the ONLY exploitable chink in the chain have almost all been sealed shut by Independents in 2018. Again, they went from 70% approval of Trump to 35%. And they are the largest voting bloc.
Let's put it this way, in order to get his TKO in 2016, it took a massive Russian warfare machine that targeted on suppressing black male voters and encouraging (poorly educated) white male rural voters and they only managed to get that TKO by the tiniest of tiny slivers--less than 1%.
There is no longer a less than 1% sliver available
in any of those states.
Regardless, we're not talking about 70,000 votes overcoming 3,000,000. Now we're talking about 20,000,000 votes that need to be overcome and they are all over the map. Literally, not figuratively.
In short, when the largest voting bloc goes from a 70% to 35% approval rating, you're fucked. So the ONLY option, once again, is to cheat and the only avenue for cheating is the EC (and that only through more Russian clandestine shit).
So all we need to do is track that and keep exposing it. Like here:
Bots Pushed Divisive Content, Misinformation on Race During Debates.
Data shows suspicious social-media accounts targeted Kamala Harris, including with conspiracy theories, during both Democratic gatherings.
...
Hundreds of social-media accounts with bot-like traits promoted misinformation and content aimed at inflaming racial divisions during both nights of Democratic presidential debates, continuing similar activity during the first set of debates last month, according to data analyzed by The Wall Street Journal.
The rest is behind a pay-wall.
And, there's this:
Russia's propaganda machine discovers 2020 Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard, but I suspect she's a red herring.
So now it becomes a matter of piercing through the smoke and keeping an eye on the forest for the trees, instead of what ALL of this is in aid of (focusing on the trees to spite the forest).
