An Independency Day check-in on democracy: Have I been overly pessimistic?
Well. July 4, 2020. This is a strange time. I have known none stranger. Granted, in geologic terms, I have scarcely been here for the blink of an eye, but still. Strange times. Anyway, there has been a long-running theme in my commentaries on democracy in this country, and I won't rehash them in long form because there is no need. The short version, relevant for today's commentary, is that I have not been very sanguine about the state of democracy in America. Specifically, I have been predicting very bad things about the 2020 election.
Until the coronavirus outbreak, the economy was chugging along beautifully, putting Trump on the glide-path to reelection. However, the pandemic and economic collapse have changed a lot. Right now, in a free and fair election, the odds would tilt against him. How strongly? That's hard to say. We don't have a lot of precedent here, but Q2 GDP will be terrible, and plugging that into something like the old Abramowitz model, along with Trump's abysmal job approval ratings, and that should forecast a generic Dem victory. However, my response has been that Trump will not step down voluntarily. He will declare the election "rigged," make false claims of some phantom voter fraud, challenge results in every court across the country, and backed by the Republican establishment, do everything he can to not step down. That could get very, very ugly, and take us from "democratic backsliding," in the terminology of Levitsky & Ziblatt, to the complete abandonment of any semblance of democracy.
So here's the thing about this nightmare scenario. It requires the Republican Party to coalesce around the narrative that "Trump really won, but for voter fraud and yadda, yadda, yadda." And as the Republican Party at the elite level migrates to their new social media platform while I stay here at blogspot avoiding the old ones, one may be tempted to say, sure, yeah. No problem. I've been saying that, after all.
And it isn't necessarily that difficult for such a narrative to develop. Consider "unskewed polls." Do you remember this phenomenon? A crazy person named Dean Chambers put together an operation called "Unskewed Polls" back in 2012 because he looked at all of the poling that showed Obama winning and said, "that can't be right!" Why not? 'Cuz! There were, like, hidden Romney supporters and silent majority-types, and all that! Those polls were "skewed!" So you know what he did? He loosened up his sphincter, reached deep, and pulled out a number to add to Romney's total in those polls. He called this process "unskewing" the polls. And a lot of Republicans bought into this.
Funnily enough, they were predisposed to do so. I had a helluva time convincing people that the political science forecasting models in 2012 predicted a generic Dem victory. They did. But, the Republicans ran a messaging operation that said otherwise, because sumthin'r'other, and the country was supposed to vote R, so why weren't the polls going that way? They were skewed!
No, the polls weren't skewed, Dean Chambers was an idiot and a hack, the election that saw the rise of Nate Silver was really nothing more than an election in which any method of polling aggregation would give you the right answer because polling is usually right,* and the Republicans surprised on election night were fools.
Strangely enough, those fools included Karl Rove, who had an absolutely famous meltdown on Fox News back in 2012 because he so thoroughly bought into the "Romney is winning" thing.
Perhaps you can understand why I have been nervous. Take the "unskewed polls" mentality, if we can call it that, and combine it with Trumpian authoritarianism, lies about voter fraud, and put the authoritarian in office as the default, and yeah. That's a lot of concerning stuff.
OK. Now remember the title. This is an optimistic, Independence Day post! Happy 4th, y'all!
Anyway, the horror show scenarios for 2020 rely on the Republican Party buying into the "Trump is winning" scenario to the same degree that they did in 2012. At least, publicly.
They're... not.
Karl Rove is not.
In general, I don't tend to think that election "narratives" matter. They are silly things that journalists construct. I am a fundamentalist, in that I think election fundamentals are what decide election results. The state of the economy, whether or not the incumbent party has won two or more terms in a row... that kind of stuff. Everything else is just silly distraction. Entertaining, perhaps, but the narratives journalists construct don't generally matter.
However, that's not what this is about. This is about the post-election response. For that, the narrative does matter. If the economy chugged along beautifully and polls favored Trump, then we had an election night surprise, my post-election horror story would be a certainty because there's no way the Republican Party would respond with anything other than claims of voter fraud. That's the narrative upon which they would rely.
On the other hand, it is hard to walk into an election saying, damn, Trump is getting his ass handed to him and we all know it, see that election play out, and then say, after the fact, that it must have been voter fraud. Impossible? No. This was a real concern in 2016, even though the narrative was that Trump was getting his ass handed to him until the election night surprise turned out the other way, but it is more of a strain.
Trump threatened to sue CNN for a poll showing him trailing Biden, not just because he's Trump, and that's the kind of Trump-y thing that such a malignant cancer on the body politic would do, but because it helps create a false "Trump is actually winning" narrative among his cult followers, so that if he loses, they reject the result, claim voter fraud, and we get the nightmare scenario. But, if that narrative isn't actually accepted and dominant within GOP circles, it's a lot harder to get away with the "I'm not stepping down, I won!" thing. You need to lay the groundwork for that.
And Karl Rove, who melted down over 2012, ain't buyin' it. Plenty of Republicans ain't buyin' it.
Does that mean he can't pull something after the fact? No. It's just harder. If you look at the betting at PredictIt as of this morning, people are putting Biden's chances ahead of Trump's chances at 60 cents on the dollar over 40 cents on the dollar. The people placing bets are not writing off Trump, and I think they're right to not disregard his chances. Moreover, that belief creates the opportunity to respond with cries of "rigged" elections, "voter fraud," and everything else you know to expect if Trump loses. The question is how far the rest of the GOP will go to back him if it comes to that.
It is easier to back him if they embrace the narrative that he's winning sooner rather than later. Right now, there's a narrative that says Trump is losing. That narrative won't impact the election itself, but it can impact Trump's ability to refuse to step down.
To the extent that Republicans accept the "Trump is losing" narrative, it will be harder for them to turn around and back him when he refuses to concede. Will Trump actually concede if he loses? C'mon. He'll claim the election was rigged, there was voter fraud, and he'll try to challenge it in courts. He'll use every trick he can. However, the "every trick he can" set is a much larger set if he is backed by the rest of his party.
As I have said for years-- not uniquely-- Trump only has power because the Republican Party lets him have power. He's not a warrior king who vanquished all challengers in singles-combat. That darned bone spur! (And you know he has Odd Job cheat for him at golf.) He's ahalf quarter thousandth-wit conman in a toxic, codependent relationship of sociopathy with a bunch of power-hungry weaklings too cowardly to stand up to a tweet. They can't cut their ties to him because he successfully conned an even dumber bunch of rubes to whom they answer for their jobs, and he acts with unchecked power, not because the Constitution has no checks, but because they refuse to exercise those checks. Sociopathic codependency. And without McConnell and the rest of institutional Republican leadership providing institutional backing, it all falls apart.
So what happens if they fail to join the "it was rigged" bandwagon after a Trump loss? In all likelihood, we get court challenges, and such, but the worst nightmare scenarios may be avoided. Even if Trump loses those challenges, he'll still tell his dupes that he was robbed, and problems will ensue, but the scenarios involving military standoffs, Trump holding onto the White House in defiance and things like that... they go off the table. If the Republican Party doesn't get on the Unskewed Polls crazy train this year because they bought their tickets to a slightly different crazy train, I don't mean to say everything is fine, and democracy is saved, but the worst scenarios are avoided.
You need to understand how much damage Dean Chambers could have done, and would have done if Romney were Trump. We're ridin' a line here.
A lot of damage is done. Trump won't actually concede. He'll say he was robbed, because he can never admit defeat, and even stepping down, that will do a lot of damage, and if there has been a consistent theme in my commentaries on the damage to American politics for the long term, it has been the damage done by the diminution of truth. That won't go away either. The lesson for the GOP will not be, "gee, I guess we better stop lying, 'cuz that didn't work out too well for us." It will be, "damn, lousy luck with that pandemic thing because before that, the whole white power-'n-lyin' thing was workin' out great for us, but let's never mention Trump again." And as long as we live in a post-truth political world, we're screwed, long-term.
But, if the GOP is beginning to accept the narrative that Trump is getting his ass kicked, they'll have a harder time going too far after a Trump loss in November. This is the first good political news I've seen in a long time.
On this Independence Day, 2020, democracy may not be completely dead. Yay (?)
*Yes, I'll address the 2016 polls as the 2020 election approaches.
Until the coronavirus outbreak, the economy was chugging along beautifully, putting Trump on the glide-path to reelection. However, the pandemic and economic collapse have changed a lot. Right now, in a free and fair election, the odds would tilt against him. How strongly? That's hard to say. We don't have a lot of precedent here, but Q2 GDP will be terrible, and plugging that into something like the old Abramowitz model, along with Trump's abysmal job approval ratings, and that should forecast a generic Dem victory. However, my response has been that Trump will not step down voluntarily. He will declare the election "rigged," make false claims of some phantom voter fraud, challenge results in every court across the country, and backed by the Republican establishment, do everything he can to not step down. That could get very, very ugly, and take us from "democratic backsliding," in the terminology of Levitsky & Ziblatt, to the complete abandonment of any semblance of democracy.
So here's the thing about this nightmare scenario. It requires the Republican Party to coalesce around the narrative that "Trump really won, but for voter fraud and yadda, yadda, yadda." And as the Republican Party at the elite level migrates to their new social media platform while I stay here at blogspot avoiding the old ones, one may be tempted to say, sure, yeah. No problem. I've been saying that, after all.
And it isn't necessarily that difficult for such a narrative to develop. Consider "unskewed polls." Do you remember this phenomenon? A crazy person named Dean Chambers put together an operation called "Unskewed Polls" back in 2012 because he looked at all of the poling that showed Obama winning and said, "that can't be right!" Why not? 'Cuz! There were, like, hidden Romney supporters and silent majority-types, and all that! Those polls were "skewed!" So you know what he did? He loosened up his sphincter, reached deep, and pulled out a number to add to Romney's total in those polls. He called this process "unskewing" the polls. And a lot of Republicans bought into this.
Funnily enough, they were predisposed to do so. I had a helluva time convincing people that the political science forecasting models in 2012 predicted a generic Dem victory. They did. But, the Republicans ran a messaging operation that said otherwise, because sumthin'r'other, and the country was supposed to vote R, so why weren't the polls going that way? They were skewed!
No, the polls weren't skewed, Dean Chambers was an idiot and a hack, the election that saw the rise of Nate Silver was really nothing more than an election in which any method of polling aggregation would give you the right answer because polling is usually right,* and the Republicans surprised on election night were fools.
Strangely enough, those fools included Karl Rove, who had an absolutely famous meltdown on Fox News back in 2012 because he so thoroughly bought into the "Romney is winning" thing.
Perhaps you can understand why I have been nervous. Take the "unskewed polls" mentality, if we can call it that, and combine it with Trumpian authoritarianism, lies about voter fraud, and put the authoritarian in office as the default, and yeah. That's a lot of concerning stuff.
OK. Now remember the title. This is an optimistic, Independence Day post! Happy 4th, y'all!
Anyway, the horror show scenarios for 2020 rely on the Republican Party buying into the "Trump is winning" scenario to the same degree that they did in 2012. At least, publicly.
They're... not.
Karl Rove is not.
In general, I don't tend to think that election "narratives" matter. They are silly things that journalists construct. I am a fundamentalist, in that I think election fundamentals are what decide election results. The state of the economy, whether or not the incumbent party has won two or more terms in a row... that kind of stuff. Everything else is just silly distraction. Entertaining, perhaps, but the narratives journalists construct don't generally matter.
However, that's not what this is about. This is about the post-election response. For that, the narrative does matter. If the economy chugged along beautifully and polls favored Trump, then we had an election night surprise, my post-election horror story would be a certainty because there's no way the Republican Party would respond with anything other than claims of voter fraud. That's the narrative upon which they would rely.
On the other hand, it is hard to walk into an election saying, damn, Trump is getting his ass handed to him and we all know it, see that election play out, and then say, after the fact, that it must have been voter fraud. Impossible? No. This was a real concern in 2016, even though the narrative was that Trump was getting his ass handed to him until the election night surprise turned out the other way, but it is more of a strain.
Trump threatened to sue CNN for a poll showing him trailing Biden, not just because he's Trump, and that's the kind of Trump-y thing that such a malignant cancer on the body politic would do, but because it helps create a false "Trump is actually winning" narrative among his cult followers, so that if he loses, they reject the result, claim voter fraud, and we get the nightmare scenario. But, if that narrative isn't actually accepted and dominant within GOP circles, it's a lot harder to get away with the "I'm not stepping down, I won!" thing. You need to lay the groundwork for that.
And Karl Rove, who melted down over 2012, ain't buyin' it. Plenty of Republicans ain't buyin' it.
Does that mean he can't pull something after the fact? No. It's just harder. If you look at the betting at PredictIt as of this morning, people are putting Biden's chances ahead of Trump's chances at 60 cents on the dollar over 40 cents on the dollar. The people placing bets are not writing off Trump, and I think they're right to not disregard his chances. Moreover, that belief creates the opportunity to respond with cries of "rigged" elections, "voter fraud," and everything else you know to expect if Trump loses. The question is how far the rest of the GOP will go to back him if it comes to that.
It is easier to back him if they embrace the narrative that he's winning sooner rather than later. Right now, there's a narrative that says Trump is losing. That narrative won't impact the election itself, but it can impact Trump's ability to refuse to step down.
To the extent that Republicans accept the "Trump is losing" narrative, it will be harder for them to turn around and back him when he refuses to concede. Will Trump actually concede if he loses? C'mon. He'll claim the election was rigged, there was voter fraud, and he'll try to challenge it in courts. He'll use every trick he can. However, the "every trick he can" set is a much larger set if he is backed by the rest of his party.
As I have said for years-- not uniquely-- Trump only has power because the Republican Party lets him have power. He's not a warrior king who vanquished all challengers in singles-combat. That darned bone spur! (And you know he has Odd Job cheat for him at golf.) He's a
So what happens if they fail to join the "it was rigged" bandwagon after a Trump loss? In all likelihood, we get court challenges, and such, but the worst nightmare scenarios may be avoided. Even if Trump loses those challenges, he'll still tell his dupes that he was robbed, and problems will ensue, but the scenarios involving military standoffs, Trump holding onto the White House in defiance and things like that... they go off the table. If the Republican Party doesn't get on the Unskewed Polls crazy train this year because they bought their tickets to a slightly different crazy train, I don't mean to say everything is fine, and democracy is saved, but the worst scenarios are avoided.
You need to understand how much damage Dean Chambers could have done, and would have done if Romney were Trump. We're ridin' a line here.
A lot of damage is done. Trump won't actually concede. He'll say he was robbed, because he can never admit defeat, and even stepping down, that will do a lot of damage, and if there has been a consistent theme in my commentaries on the damage to American politics for the long term, it has been the damage done by the diminution of truth. That won't go away either. The lesson for the GOP will not be, "gee, I guess we better stop lying, 'cuz that didn't work out too well for us." It will be, "damn, lousy luck with that pandemic thing because before that, the whole white power-'n-lyin' thing was workin' out great for us, but let's never mention Trump again." And as long as we live in a post-truth political world, we're screwed, long-term.
But, if the GOP is beginning to accept the narrative that Trump is getting his ass kicked, they'll have a harder time going too far after a Trump loss in November. This is the first good political news I've seen in a long time.
On this Independence Day, 2020, democracy may not be completely dead. Yay (?)
*Yes, I'll address the 2016 polls as the 2020 election approaches.
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