"Got Him," Part 1: Uncharted Waters

How does this affect the election? *granddaddy of all shrug emojis*

We all live in bubbles, even if we don’t mean to. So I made an attempt to step outside mine.

That woman needs some better meds.¹

There are repulsive people in the world, and then there are the women of The View.

If anyone ever tells you that we need more “feminine energy” in politics, just show them that clip. They take cattiness and woman-child to a whole new level.

And that would be why I rarely venture outside my “bubble.”

On the other hand, I saw a lot of celebrating on the right. This almost guarantees Trump the election, I’m told. People will rise up and vote him back into office because of this “unique” injustice.²

And I got to thinking, exactly how true is that? Are these people onto something or are they trying to make themselves feel good?

I mean, RFK thinks the Democrats have shot themselves in the foot . . .

I have a general respect for RFK, and his opinion was reinforced in a backhanded way by Dean Phillips, the Minnesota Congress critter who “challenged” Biden in the primaries (as much as anyone can “challenge” Biden when the whole thing is fixed).

Of course, he got the usual shortsighted, cliched reaction, as exemplified by just this random post . . .

When they drink the Kool-Aid, they commit, don’t they?

Dean Phillips seems to have a better read on the room than Biden.

So at first glance, it would indeed seem as if Democrats have poured jet fuel on a fire, especially if fundraising is anything to go by.

Trump’s campaign said in a press release Monday that it had received more than two million donations in the month of May averaging $70.27. More than a third of that haul — 37.6% — came in the form of online contributions in the 24 hours after the verdict was announced, it said.

It looks like people have finally had it this time.

That’s what I’d think if I stayed inside my bubble.

But (and you know there’s always a but) . . .

If you can’t bring yourself to watch this, don’t worry. I’ll pull out the important parts.

At 2:11, with Saint Rachel of the Demented Dairy-Producing Dowagers . . .

And NPR’s own headline here, they say, quote Trump verdict would likely move only a small number of votes. But if recent elections, of course, are any indication, a small number of votes in a few places is all you need to change the outcome.

Yes, Ms. Maddow, which is why the “they found no widespread fraud” was such a BS take on why the 2020 election was the “cleanest election ever.” You don’t need widespread fraud. You just need some carefully placed fraud.

I notice no one ever addressed that.

But her general repugnance aside, Rachel is unfortunately right. We have gotten to a point where presidential elections swing on a handful of votes.

And polls like these could be cause for pause.

I can’t access the actual poll because it’s behind a paywall, but even the story itself muddies the promise of the headline.

• 49% of Independents and 15% of Republicans said Trump should end his campaign because of the conviction.

Okay, but then . . .

The poll also revealed some deep distrust of the criminal justice system. . . .

• And 77% of GOP voters, as well as 43% of independents, said they believed the conviction was driven by motivation to damage Trump's political career.

Honestly, I’d like to know how the questions were asked, because the following can be reconciled:

(A) The verdict was completely motivated by politics.

(B) Trump should drop out anyway.

Why?

If you’re an independent who desperately doesn’t want to see Biden in the White House again, you’ll be worried about Trump’s ability to campaign and his ability to win. If you are a Trump voter or supporter, you’ll be worried about whether or not they will throw him in jail and he’ll actually be able to serve.³ In neither of these cases does saying he shouldn’t be running definitively mean you won’t vote for him.

And the media knows it’s just that complicated. Watch the spin on this ABC article . . .

What is the headline on the actual Ipsos poll?

The media is still as worried as it ever was about Biden’s chances, and they’re relying on driving the herd to get the old man over the finish line, as Pepperming Psaki points out in her own inimitable way at around the 3:00 mark.

The other piece that is very hard to measure in polls is the emotions of it, and what people feel about the character. Because some of what is hard to measure is, Do people look at him and think, there’s too much baggage? Or if he is doubling down four weeks form now and saying this is a screwed-up system and it is a rigged system, . . . he is attacking the judge and his family. Are people like . . . this is too much. I don’t want to hear him talk about this anymore. It is hard to measure that, because people vote by emotions and how somebody makes you feel.

Again Ms. Psaki is right. People do vote on emotion. And she’s right that Trump’s own troubles will only carry him so far. But Trump is not the only one who’s going to beat this dead horse and make a fool of himself.

And Biden himself doesn’t help.

One day Biden’s handlers will get smart and put a remote shocking device in his pants, and the moment he starts to turn around, they’ll hit it to keep the demented fool moving forward.

I saw a lot of people describing the grin as “demonic.” It wasn’t. It was the grin of an arrogant old asshat who has lost the ability to even pretend there’s anything real about what’s going on.

Trump’s team was johnny on the spot with an ad. I don’t think Biden had even had time to change his Depends.

But is all this going to change people’s minds?

I doubt it. If you’re already watching The View, Morning Joe, or Fox News, you have your mind made up. The only thing it might change is your eagerness to get to the polls, but even at that . . .

However, that leads us to another group, courtesy of Chris Hayes⁴ at around the 5:00 mark:

I am also just really curious . . . are people aware of it? Just as an empirical question. Not even does it move people or not? My sense was that a certain portion of the electorate [was] paying very careful, close attention to this trial. The majority of voters were not.

I’m going to include part of a comment on Saturday’s piece because I think there’s more of this going on than those of us who do “care” are willing to face. (Thank you to Mr. Helkenn for this observation as my world is not nearly this filled with people, by design, but nevertheless.)

My best response to it is “almost no one cares”. ..about any of it. Let me make my point. Yesterday I worked out early with my daughter. She doesn’t count because she wouldn’t care about anything that happened to Trump. Then I went to the club where I can use walking track, whirlpool, steam, etc. No one was talking about the verdict. It’s filled with seniors and I didn’t even see a Trump tshirt. I then went to the music facility we’re starting and interacted with parents bringing their kids to practice. Nothing. I worked with my son in law on one of the jet skis last night and spoke with many of my neighbors. No one mentioned anything about the trial. I’ve been at the lake all week. No one there has said a thing. Outside of the social media sphere, and Substack, no one cares.

I suppose some of the reticence might come from Trump being such divisive topic and not wanting to spoil a conversation by bringing up politics.

But . . . I think people may also know intuitively something I will talk about in Part 2. As much as we might think that this is a momentous event, in the grand scheme of things, it is just one more tired step along the path of many tired steps. And why get excited? It makes me sad, but people are just that disconnected from politics, and for good reason.

So will any of this change these people’s minds? Will they suddenly “wake up” and the movie will end with Trump returning gloriously to the White House and tearing everything down?

*shru—* Uh, no I don’t even need a shrug. I’d say these people are just as “stuck” as everyone else. I doubt anyone is going to see a ground swell of support either way. For every one that Trump or Biden loses the other gains, or they move over to RFK or some other third-party candidate, or they just stay home. But really it’s hard to tell how that will all play out in the end.

We have one finally group, those who are independent and do care. And they have noticed. Matt Taibbi has written two articles about the verdict and reactions to the verdict, and I’ve snorted ice tea through my nose a few times reading them.

From Sunday’s piece on how various talking heads admit that the case is ridiculous, but justify it on the grounds that Trump deserves it after a life of norm-breaking depravity:

Not one of these people recognized the obvious: that of all the things Donald Trump has been accused of, none are as serious or system-imperiling as abusing the courts to dispose of a political rival. If Trump was caught buggering a corpse while smoking joints rolled in rubles, it wouldn’t approach the offense of “concocting” a charge to put away someone you want to “nail” for “something.”

And then there’s Jimmy Dore . . .

At roughly 1:45

I thought that’s good. . . . That works. Put it that way. That works because everything he says there gets me excited. [Laughter.] I don’t think he’s going to do any of it, but if he was, that would be great.

But are these people, like Matt Taibbi and Jimmy Dore, or the people who follow their work, actually going to vote for Trump because the Democrats have gone so off the rails?

People are trying to approach this in such a reductive way, but there are too many moving parts to this.

• Two very unpopular incumbents . . .

• One is convicted of felonies, and one has committed oodles of crimes, but no one touches him.

• Depending on which media you watch, you can have totally different sets of information.

• There are high levels of mistrust in the media and high levels of mistrust in the system, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into being good for Trump.

• We have several third party candidates . . .

• And an incredibly disillusioned electorate who’s not afraid to stay home or vote outside the two parties.

• Oh, and polling sucks.

So . . . if anyone tells you they know what’s going to happen, just give them the raised eyebrow.

We’re in truly uncharted waters.

And here there really stupid monsters be.

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Old Chinese curse: May you living in interesting times.

So have I missed any moving parts?

1. By the by, did you know that Maxine Waters is 85 years old? God, she’ll be a plague on us forever.

2. It’s not so unique, as we’ll discuss in part 2.

3. That’s why I’m paying really close attention to whom he picks for VP.

4. I have no good nickname for Chris Hayes, but what is it with all these men who look like little boys?