I dont really follow USA politics but will Donald Trump really be voted back in?

[Shosha1]

Personally the very idea terrifies me.
The man seems totally out of control. Refuses to answer any questions he dosnt like.
Takes no responsibility for anything he does.
And all this, as well as being a misogynist, bully.
I couldn't believe he was voted in, in the first place.
Was it because he ran against a woman?
Oh for this all to have happened when Obama held the reins. Whether things would have been much better or not I dont know. But I'm damn sure it would have been dealt with a lot more calmly.

Bizarre as it may seem from this side of the pond, it’s highly likely that Trump could win again. Most incumbent presidents are re-elected comfortably, but these are not normal times.

The Republican Party has very widespread support in ‘middle America’ . They could put up a dead sheep as their candidate for president and still win at least 22 of the 50 states, so Trump already has those in the bag. His margin of victory in several closely-fought states in 2016 was tiny, however, so he isn’t certain of winning them again.

One of Trump’s biggest assets is the divided state of the Democratic Party. There is a huge split between moderate centrists and left wingers who want radical changes to American society. The moderates’ candidate, Joe Biden, has secured the Democratic nomination, but he is uninspiring and, at 77, elderly. It is far from certain that Biden will be able to unite enough support behind him to beat Trump.

Before the covid pandemic, most pundits thought Trump was heading for a comfortable win due to the strength of the US economy, but that has obviously been blown apart, so who knows what will happen in November.

Thank you @MJane3

nauticant, that's an absolutely classic example of what I'm talking about.

The chosen "Kryptonite" against Biden is that he is supposedly a sexual predator. That's what your clip says. He stands close to women and seems to smell their hair.

Trump is a self-confessed sexual predator. He brags about grabbing women by the crotch. He hung out at Jeffrey Epstein's parties. There are a large number of accusations against him of sexual assault. Now that's weapon-of-choice that these days will always be reeled out against every male presidential candidate, but Trump has some two-dozen accusers.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-sexual-assault-allegations-all-list-misconduct-karen-johnson-how-many-a9149216.html

And our reaction to those two thumbnails is: Trump will win the election, because Biden is sexually bad.

Trump will walk it in November namely due to the fact that Biden has been chosen as the candidate:

1. The "Bernie Bros" are upset that they have lost for the 2nd time to an establishment candidate who is in league with "Big Business/The Banks". They will sit this one out.
2. The #Walkaway movement where moderate democrats have left the party due to being shamed/shouted at by the loud far left identity politics for daring to have a different view. Most will sit this out or vote for Trump reluctantly.
3. ADOS (American descendants of slaves) is one the groups that demand a specific Black agenda and a "New Deal for Black America." www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/us/slavery-black-immigrants-ados.html. The fact that Biden sponsored the Crime Bill in 1994 which disproportionately affected Black Americans is also something that will come back to haunt him.
4. The credible sexual assault allegation made by Tara Reade and the way she has been dismissed by most of the DNC and Media has exposed dem hypocrisy. Especially when contrasted with believe all women #metoo and the vigour with which Kavanaugh was attacked.
5. Financial scandals of Hunter Biden in Ukraine and China present an easy line of attack.

And our reaction to those two thumbnails is: Trump will win the election, because Biden is sexually bad.

Many Trump supporters don't care much about his appalling record with women, while many of the people to whom Biden needs to pitch would find the videos of Biden being creepy around women very off-putting.

There may be double standards but the issue is: who will get enough votes to win?

Really interesting all.

Another factor is that the extremely vocal Christian right supports trump. He unashamedly bought support by saying he would oppose abortion, which is a huge topic in US. A lot of fundamentalist Christian families have it as their hill to die on, and see Trump as a means to an end, like the wicked kings of the bible who carried out the Lord’s work despite their own flaws. (There are a lot of people posting ‘for all the Covid lives lost, consider the babies who would have been murdered who are saved) . These are groups who by and large oppose gun control and support death penalty, so I suspect it’s less about the sanctity of life and more about deep-rooted misogyny.

I would like to read an unbiased account of the handing of the Pandemic in the USA. But dont know where to start.

OP, every publication is biased. Every opinion is biased. As a reader, the best thing you can do is to be aware of this bias, and to read critically. There is no such thing as an unbiased account.

The reason I'm highlighting this is that some people don't seem to have recognise the game being played.

If Trump was up again a decent Democratic candidate...

NO!

This is missing the point.

There is no candidate for which the Republicans will not choose a Kryptonite. It doesn't have to be one which hits all of that candidate's vote. And it doesn't have to be one of which their own candidate isn't guilty.

But WHATEVER IT IS will become a media-frenzy to generate the "But X... I couldn't."

And it will be repeated fervently by people who don't give a shit that their own candidate is much worse along whatever axis is chosen.

It's particularly powerful against voters with a conscience, or who feel some duty to be honest, and who are more likely to have personal standards or care about the welfare of other people, or have some notion of fairness.

So – and it's an issue across the globe – which sorts of candidates are likely to come to power when you suppress the vote of those sorts of voters...?

X-posted with you saying the same thing, nauticant.

Maybe to combat this pandemic, and to learn how to deal with the politics of the world both countries should look to Germany, Taiwan, NZ, Iceland, Finland and Denmark

All lead by women

Why does everyone forget about Belgium. Doing terribly against coronavirus and yes, led by a woman.

I don’t think it’s a factor.

Hillary was hated by many. The first female president of USA will likely be a conservative. I think Nikki Haley has a good shot.

I'm glad to see we're making the same point in different ways PerkingFaintly but I do think that if the Democrats picked a candidate with fewer flaws, they would have a better chance of winning. Sure, there would be all kinds of searching for "weak-spots" and application of smears by Trump supporting groupings but in spite of this I do think a Democrat candidate could win. Many of the voters who swung Trump's victory will be looking on at his incompetence with horror.

I agree, Perking.

The Democrats thought they had a great candidate in John Kerry in 2004 -- how could anyone call a decorated Vietnam veteran soft on national security, or question his patriotism?

So the Republicans helped create the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group of veterans who claimed Kerry was lying about his service, along with many other wild accusations. The smear campaign worked, really hurt Kerry in the polls and eventually he lost.

Whoever the Dems run, the Trump campaign will find a way to massively smear them, they will invent things if they have to.

Of course, with micro-targetting, you don't have to select just one Kryptonite.

Cambridge Analytica: how did it turn clicks into votes?
www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/06/cambridge-analytica-how-turn-clicks-into-votes-christopher-wylie

Cambridge Analytica could, Wylie says, craft adverts no one else could: a neurotic, extroverted and agreeable Democrat could be targeted with a radically different message than an emotionally stable, introverted, intellectual one, each designed to suppress their voting intention – even if the same messages, swapped around, would have the opposite effect .

And some examples of where they did it.

How the Trump Campaign Built an Identity Database and Used Facebook Ads to Win the Election
medium.com/startup-grind/how-the-trump-campaign-built-an-identity-database-and-used-facebook-ads-to-win-the-election-4ff7d24269ac

Depress The Vote
“We have three major voter suppression operations under way,” a senior Trump official explained to reporters from BusinessWeek. They’re aimed at three groups Clinton needs to win overwhelmingly: idealistic white liberals, young women, and African Americans.”
The goal was to depress Hillary Clinton’s vote total. “We know because we’ve modeled this,” the senior Trump official said. “It will dramatically affect her ability to turn these people out.”

If I remember correctly, the Trump campaign ran "Hillary insults black men" ads to one target segment, while running "Hillary supports black men who you believe are all rapists and murderers" to another segment.

The examples are from the 2016 US election, but this is the future of politics internationally. At least it is while we continue to buy it.

So excuse me if I raise an eyebrow on hearing about a social media "#Walkaway movement". Uh-huh. Wonder where that came from...

Trump will have an easy win, no doubt about it. It's more a question of who will follow him after his second term. Trump is incompetent and driven by greed but I fear what will follow him, at this rate it will be someone from their far right, fundamentalist Christian section.

I fear what will follow him, at this rate it will be someone from their far right, fundamentalist Christian section

I don’t. There are actually lots of great up and coming conservative candidates in the States. Nikki Haley, Tom Cotton, Dan Crenshaw and even DeSantis got a great boost from his good handling of the coronavirus in Florida.

I think they will be the future of the GOP in the years to come.

To those confident Trump will win - the numbers don't add up atm. I am willing to open a book on this.

Biden starts the election with California and New York in the bag, two huge states. The others reliably Blue will go Blue. Trump will not flip a Blue state.

Virginia is now Blue leaning, with 7 out of 11 senators. He wins Virginia, the tide is going to turn and fast. Regardless, I predict he will get one or more of two key states Hillary lost: Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin and/or Michigan.

If I am even half right about the last point, he's over the line.

He doesn't actually need to do that much.

I am prepared for disappointment - I've been on the losing side of these elections/referendums often enough in the last four years.

And as I said above, it's going to be a mixed blessing. It won't be a 'healing' win, at least for a while

7 out of 11 Democratic senators, that is.

My feeling is that he might get Pennsylvania because that is Biden’s home state (it will be narrow tho). Michigan and Wisconsin will both be toss-ups, but I really can’t see Florida going to Biden at this point

Trump has a chance to flip New Hampshire but those electoral votes are so small it won’t really change anything.

I don't think Trump will flip New Hampshire on the day. Not this year. Might be a bit narrower than expected. Outlook for the future - who knows? Could be a re-alignment of a few states. New Jersey is another one to watch (Blue to Red but probably not yet.)

Interesting things are happening in Texas too but that's too long a shot for B.

Arizona is interesting because a lot of ex-Californians are moving there, due to costs of Cali. I predict Cali over time less Blue. In fact, there is a senate race I heard where the Republican might win.

I predict Cali over time less Blue

California was once the bastion of Reaganism ...

Right but he was speshul. Mostly Blue there. I am an ex-Californian.

I also think (and posted on another thread recently) that left-leaning voters need to stop thinking about their precious consciences and being so squeamish and just flipping well vote for the lesser of two evils. Because otherwise the right will keep on winning.

Who says they don’t? It all depends on which particular hill a person chooses to die on, doesn’t it? Like it or not, we all have a personal line we won’t cross. For example, the vast majority of the left don’t seem to know what a woman is and / or think women can have penises & voicing any opinion that differs or challenges that notion is a hate crime. For some people, voting for the right or not voting at all / spoiling their ballot is the lesser of two evils.

Who says they don’t? It all depends on which particular hill a person chooses to die on, doesn’t it?

Yes, this is true. And also: while I would vote Democratic in the US in this and the last several elections, there is reluctance in some of the left-wing circles I occupy to endorse the fact that it is acceptable for women to have political views across the full range of the political spectrum. Right leaning women must have been brain washed by someone, probably their husbands or their families. Crushed by the Patriarchy or Traitors to Feminism.

However, the same is said by Right leaning women of the left. All brainwashed, all told what to do. They don't say that about Bernie Sanders though. He's crazy and a Commie but his views are his own.

A plague on both their fucking houses, I say. Fuck all of them.

Like it or not, we all have a personal line we won’t cross.

Exactly. That's the point of the rejectionist voting strategy: to find the hill each of your opponent's voting blocks will die on, and try to ensure they get the chance to die on it. Which often enough they obligingly do.