This election is over. Trump will definitely win, and I say that as very much a Kamala supporter. The current moving average of polls now has Trump ahead in the popular vote (by 0.1% as of this moment, but still) and the direction has been consistent for several weeks now. And here is what the current electoral map projection looks like based on the state-level breakdown. In other words, if tomorrow were election day, that's what the outcome would probably look like and you'll notice that Trump is averaging a lead in every swing state now, including the entire Midwestern "blue wall" and, for the first time in his political career so far, also Nevada. On top of that, current turnout levels suggest that, if anything, the polls may actually be underestimating the vote share Trump will wind up getting this year, much like they did the last two times. I would bet on an outright Trump win this year, marking his best showing to date. It's definitely time to sober up about this year. When the polling trajectory, the betting markets, and the early voting turnout levels are all telling the same story, one has to pay attention. And frankly, the Democrats are acting like they're losing. I think on some level, we all kind of feel it. The joy is gone from this campaign.
There are, of course, reasons this is happening. Between the two candidates, Harris is the less-known quantity. For those of us who've followed her campaign as avidly as I, we know what she stands for, what the outline of her program for her first term is, and our minds were made up much sooner than this. I mean I've already voted. It's non-politicos though...the people they call low-information or low-propensity voters...who decide in the last month which candidate to back, if they opt to vote at all (which, invariably, many don't), and Trump's gargantuan ad blitz here in the final stretch of the campaign has proven effective at defining Harris for those more oblivious people who obviously lived through the Trump presidency but remain generally unfamiliar with Kamala Harris. Her previous presidential campaign's woke streak is coming back to haunt her, as are some truly idiotic remarks from recent weeks about how she'd have done "not a thing" differently were she in Biden's shoes. The status quo is deeply unpopular and wokeness just as much and she just doesn't do a good job of explaining her personal evolution on a whole range of issues. She dodges too much whenever asked about those things. There's a dif between playing things safe and being consistently evasive on certain subjects people want to know about to know if they can trust you. She should have some answers for those things by now.
Honestly, I think it'd be in the Democratic Party's best interest to revive the so-called "blue dog" faction of their party in the future. Those people are the dying remnants of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal worker-farmer coalition and the modern Democratic brand simply sucks at reaching either end of that spectrum increasingly. There's too many goddamn Venture Capitalists for Kamala and Business Leaders for Harris, too many events with Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and other assorted neocon militarists who've never heard of a war they didn't want us to fight and couldn't give a rat's ass if you starve or wind up homeless or die of a fentanyl overdose. I'm seeing way too much Mark Cuban on my screen and it's communicating the wrong message. It's time to get back to kitchen table issues. Where are those in this last stretch of the campaign? Wtf happened to that whole message?
This is also just simply a change election year worldwide. The world, and the working class in particular, is unhappy with the post-pandemic cost of living, housing shortages, and the mass migration that's opened up to add more strain to our resources in a context of what's often been real scarcity and already-strained government budgets. In America's case, that means people are also just simply looking for excuses to vote for Trump this year. Harris is stuck fighting against that tide and what it all means is that she has to basically be perfect to win and Trump can get away with pretty much anything at the moment. Is that fair? Hell no! Is it reality though? Yes.
We can discuss my prescription for a revived and improved Democratic Party in greater detail later. For right now, I think we all just need to take some time to process the reality that this is happening again. I started getting that same sinking feeling I did back in 2015-16 again about a month ago after the second Trump assassination attempt and would characterize that as the turning point in this contest. It didn't have much of an impact in itself (because Trump is who he is; he's just not a very sympathetic person), but it started a long-term trajectory that's been accelerating of late. A trajectory that continued in the VP debate and many subsequent media interviews and now in the ad wars. Harris still draws massive crowds, but they're not adding up to a win. Personally, when I heard her say that she'd do "not a thing" differently from Biden, I knew in my heart at that moment that she was going to lose. It's taken me a couple weeks to go through the stages of grief though because, despite my efforts to be strictly objective, I have to admit that I got caught up in the Harris campaign and emotionally attached to it. I was a true believer for a while and felt convinced she would win after her debate with Trump! So it's been a process for me to accept that it's not going to happen and go back to just being objective. It's not been easy. Now maybe you (anyone) didn't necessarily get as attached as I did, but nonetheless I think we all need some time. I just think it's better to get past the denial stage now so that one can be as mentally-emotionally prepared for what's about to happen as one can be. We all need to brace ourselves for a second Donald Trump presidency, with all it implies about the kind of country we're starting to become.
Last edited by Jaicee - 3 days ago
