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Mark Lause writes: "I do think there's nothing that's going to jolt voters
into forgetting what Trump's record." I think both the 2018 results as well
as all present polls show that is not correct. Hundreds of thousands if not
millions of previous Trump voters voted for a Democrat in 2018 in an
election that was in effect a referendum on Trump. And the fact that his
polling numbers today are dropping like a stone also shows that that is
untrue. Not only are college educated white suburban moms ("soccer moms"?)
turning against Trump, so are those over 60 and even a layer of white,
males without a college education.
Even among those who "strongly approve" of Trump today, it would surprise
me if even among some of them, his support could erode, at the very least
to the extent that their enthusiasm will decrease to the extent that they
won't vote at all. I think some great shock will be required to move them,
but shocks are inherent in the situation. We know, for example, that the
Trump supporters tend to be very patriotic and for many of them, the
immediate reaction to Americans being killed (most especially US soldiers)
is almost being willing to drop a nuclear bomb. What will happen if it is
decisively proven that Trump knew about the Russian bounty on US soldiers
in Afghanistan and did nothing? (My own suspicion is that the information
was in his daily briefing but that they hoped he wouldn't read it because
if he did they feared he'd go directly to Putin and let Putin know that US
intelligence knew.)
There is a layer of Trump supporters about whom what Mark writes is true. I
suspect that they are about one quarter or a little more of the electorate.
That doesn't even come close to being enough to win an election, not even
with voter suppression.
I do think that Trump's reelection (which now seems increasingly doubtful
although far from ruled out) would be a serious defeat, an even greater
defeat than the election of Biden. If Trump got back in, it would
enormously boost the far right - the white supremacists, violent militias,
and outright fascists. It would give Trump a free hand to even further
steamroll all semblance of opposition. This is not the same as what could
have been said - and was said - about previous Republican presidents
(Reagan, Bush, etc.). Trump actually is qualitatively different from them.
As for Howie Hawkins and the Green Party: I had had hopes that it might
develop into something - might start to develop a wider working class base
- after Sanders lost in 2016. I think it's pretty clear since then that
they won't. A real working class party will develop out of the struggle in
the streets, on the jobs, and inside the unions. I have yet to see the
Green Party play any significant role in any of that. To my knowledge, for
example, they aren't even in the discussion within the protests against the
George Floyd murder and the related murders.
I voted for the Greens in 2016 and now I think it was a mistake for two
reasons: First is that I underestimated the importance of their vice
presidential candidate being an Assad supporter and their presidential
candidate palling around with Putin and, in effect, saying that a Trump
victory was better than a Clinton victory. Despite that, I might have voted
for them anyway had I been right that they might develop a genuine working
class base. (And, no, I don't see blue collar men as being the only members
of the US working class.)
John Reimann
On Tue, Jun 30, 2020 at 11:52 AM Mark Lause <markala...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I do think there's nothing that's going to jolt voters into forgetting
> what Trump's record. His diehard supporters know and don't care. But I
> think he's damaged severely and not bright enough to even attempt to do
> anything about it other than to repeat what's worked for him in the past.
> Nothing he does is going to get significantly more than he's already got.
>
> What could lose the election is turnout. The Democrats are trying hard to
> convince people that Joe Biden is some kind of old liberal or more, which
> he wasn't. Neither is he entirely up to the ordeal of a serious campaign
> without become too exhausted or frustrated to being making utterly
> gratuitous and idiotic comments revealing his arrogance and sense of
> entitlement. Either the Democratic leadership will use him only in very
> controlled situations and win or they will let him do what Trump does and
> risk losing by persuading voters that it's not worth their while to
> participate in such a crappy and demeaning process.
>
> Our task should be to see if we can get Howie Hawkins a percentage of the
> popular vote as large as Nader got in 2000. More is possible. All else
> aside, there was a certain very unmerited popularity for Clinton among some
> quarters of the female electorate. Biden does not have anything like that
> . . . well, maybe septuagenarians who think that LBJ was treated badly
> because of a misunderstanding or something. But this leaves a sizeable
> constituency of people who had hoped for better than Bidenand that, too, is
> a question of whether an insurgent ticket can mobilize and turn out those
> voters.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
--
*“Science and socialism go hand-in-hand.” *Felicity Dowling
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
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