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“If we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”
Donald Trump in Time Magazine, on post-election violence.
“If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results… If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”
Trump interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“World War III and Everything Else”
Trump’s prediction at a closed door GOP fundraiser if Biden were to win
“Unlike Trump, I’ve belonged to the GOP my entire life. This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass.”
Former Georgia GOP Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan in a pro-Biden May 6th Op-Ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We should be aware by now that Gens Y and Z tend to ignore telephone calls from people they do not know. Between spam calls and the deluge of political surveys/messaging across any available platform, fathoming what they feel is exceptionally difficult. Even as protests explode across campuses, it remains hard to determine the real impact that such issues would have on the November election. We know at least that these generations feel betrayed by older voters, that their issues before taking the Gaza debacle into consideration, focused on climate change, affordable housing, student loans and a general notion of profound polarization and instability. Many have given up on elections and the existing political parties. To the extent that they stay away from the polls, Donald Trump is the likely beneficiary.
Faith Pinho, writing for the May 6th Los Angeles Times provides some details: “A poll by Harvard’s Institute of Politics, released last month, found that more than half of Americans between 18 and 29 say they will vote in November — which is on par with its 2020 findings… ‘Young people today have clear concerns about where our country is headed,’ Setti Warren, director of the institute, said in a statement. ‘From worries about the economy, foreign policy, immigration, and climate, young people across the country are paying attention and are increasingly prepared to make their voices heard at the ballot box this November.’
“One of the foremost issues young voters agree on is support for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Slightly more than half of 18- to 29-year-olds support a cease-fire while 10% oppose it, the Youth Poll found… Biden’s situation with young voters over his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict has become more pronounced after a week of protests on college campuses… The school year will soon end, and there’s no telling where pro-Palestinian encampments on campuses — or young voters’ support for Biden — will go.”
According to a recent Pew poll, while 49% of Americans from both parties believe that there won’t be a civil war here, 40% believe such a war is likely within the next five years. So, is polling a waste of time? After all Hillary Clinton was favored in 2016, and all know how accurate that prediction was. Have pollsters sufficiently revised their polling technique to correct for such clearly inaccurate results? Trump’s MAGA followers seem intransigent; nothing will sway their beliefs. And they will vote. There’s no comparable following within the Democratic Party. The election is in the hands of those in the middle. For me, polls are still not accurate predictors of ultimate votes, but the rise and fall within credible polls seem to be valid as predictors of trend lines.
While we still cannot definitively predict the accuracy of any recent polls, the trend lines in such polling does not augur well for Joe Biden. Even given Trump’s unambiguous embrace of violence, his statement that he would be a dictator for a day on if elected and that it is time simply to override the constitution, he believes that’s what his constituents really want: “I think a lot of people like it [autocracy],” he said. To many MAGAns, autocracy is the only way to block minority voters from usurping white Christian power. Biden has lost traction with Hispanic and African American men, and his recent stands on continuing military support of Israel (with hints that he may slow the arms shipments if Israel’s attacks on Gaza continue to inflict massive civilian casualties) have eroded support from many younger, traditionally Democratic and even older educated voters.
Yet the survival of democracy is very much on the November ballot. As LA Times columnist Doyle Mc Manus observes (May 6th): “[When Trump was asked] whether there would be violence if he loses the 2024 election, Donald Trump said ‘it depends.’ … It’s quite clear: If he loses, he won’t go quietly… Trump has never competed in an election that he acknowledged as fair… In 2020, when he lost to President Biden by 7 million votes, Trump not only claimed the result was illegitimate; he also worked for months to overturn it, demanding that state officials ‘find’ thousands of new votes in his favor. When his court challenges failed, he summoned supporters to Washington and urged them to march on the Capitol… ‘If you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country any more,’ he told them. The mob responded by invading the building. He returned to that apocalyptic theme [in late April], when he told supporters in Wisconsin that if Biden wins a second term, ‘we won’t have a country left.’...
“And for months he has extolled the defendants convicted of violent crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection as ‘hostages,’ promising to pardon many or all if he is reelected…. ‘He’s telling us what his intentions are, as he did before Jan. 6,’ Juliette Kayyem, a terrorism expert at Harvard University, said recently on PBS. ‘The language is the language of incitement. ... If he loses, we certainly know from what Trump has said — and we also know from what the FBI is telling us — that there are large groups and organizations that are preparing to continue the fight.’
“As matters stand in the presidential campaign, that kind of 2020-style crisis may not recur, since Trump stands a good chance of winning… The average of public opinion polls published by fivethirtyeight.com shows a dead heat in the national popular vote — but it shows Trump winning in all six of the most important swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”
With the ultra-rightwing Heritage Foundation, which screened Trump’s Supreme Court picks, already having prescreened thousands of potential presidential appointees – individuals who must agree that the 2020 election was stolen and be prepared to dismantle federal regulatory agencies and populate the federal bench with diehard conservatives – Trump’s ascension to autocracy, a la Trump model elected autocrat, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, is preordained… if he is reelected. And right now, Gaza may be the straw that breaks Biden’s election back.
I’m Peter Dekom, and most voters just do not seem to accept (or believe?) that American democracy is truly at risk… and that there are no issues worth ending that form of government… while MAGA voters seem to be committed precisely to that de facto internal regime change.
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