So Far, Trump-Stoked Chaos And Anomie Are Not Helping Him With Voters

Rev. John Pavlovitz was frustrated when he woke up yesterday-- very frustrated. He wrote that he felt "done being represented by a needy, belligerent, barely literate mobster, done with unrepentant racists and anti-science religious zealots, done with confederate flags and Fox News and MAGA cultism, done with a grotesque Frankenstein Christianity wildly stumbling around without Jesus’ tender heart, done living in a nation, nearly half of which wants it to be more white, less diverse, and less kind." On second thought, he noted that dwelling on that frustration isn't what he needed to do as much as the fact that America is "he place we’re going to shout down the bigots, the place we’re going to outnumber the close-minded, the place we’re going to demand equity, the place we’re going to tear down the flags and the statues and mindsets that perpetuate white supremacy, the place we’re going to expand so that every hungry, exhausted, hurting soul finds rest, and the place we’re going to lock arms and dig in our heels and push back the terrified bullies trying to drag us backward."

Pavlovitz concluded that "The racists are growing desperate. I think their violence is going to get worse. I think they feel the head winds of History blowing fiercely against them and they are going to make one more frantic, brutal, ugly assault on diversity and decency-- and we’ll have to be here to be the line that will not be moved." He's ready "to be here to be the line that will not be moved... We have to make a stand."

Trump made a deranged and extremely worrisome appearance on Fox News with one of his worst media enablers, Laura Ingraham. You should watch this and see if you can count the lies (hint-- more than one every 20 seconds). Try to remember that almost a third of Americans-- many of them armed to the teeth-- believe whatever this sociopath says:





That was Monday. On Tuesday, on his way to stir up trouble in Kenosha, he was still carrying on about how "an entire plane" was "filled with looters, the anarchists, rioters, people looking for trouble. When reporters, trying not to laugh in his orange face, asked him to speak to a witness who TRump claimed was made to feel "uncomfortable" on the plane filled with looters and rioters and thugs, he told the reporters he will try to put them in touch with the person. "Maybe," he said, "they will speak to you, maybe they won’t."

Has Trump lost his mind-- or is he just gaslighting and feeding his low-IQ base the red meat they thrive on? Even Ingraham noted that some of this crazy off-the-top-of-his-head nonsense she was getting out of him was conspiracy theory stuff.

NBC News reporter Ben Collins explained where Trump got it. He wrote that the conspiracy theory that Señor Trumpanzee was pushing Monday about the plane almost completely loaded with thugs in "dark uniforms, black uniforms" ready to disrupt the Republican National Convention "was almost identical to a rumor that went viral on Facebook three months ago... There is no evidence of any such flight. When Ingraham asked for more information about the flight, the president said, 'I'll tell you sometime.' He then alleged the people had been headed to Washington to disrupt the RNC. Before mentioning the uniformed men who allegedly boarded the plane, Trump claimed that there are 'people that are in the dark shadows' and 'people that you haven’t heard of' controlling Democratic nominee Joe Biden." He also claimed "they control the streets" and are being paid by rich people and corporations.

Ingraham pressed the president for more details and said it sounded like he was alleging a conspiracy.

“They’re people that are on the streets. They’re people that are controlling the streets,” Trump said.

The claim about the flight matches a viral Facebook post from June 1 that falsely claimed, “At least a dozen males got off the plane in Boise from Seattle, dressed head to toe in black.” The post, by an Emmett, Idaho, man, warned residents to “Be ready for attacks downtown and residential areas,” and claimed one passenger had “a tattoo that said Antifa America on his arm.”

That post was shared over 3,000 times on Facebook, and other pages from Idaho quickly added their own spin to it, like the Idaho branch of the far-right militia group 3 Percenters.

One post claimed that “Antifa has sent a plane load of their people” and that the Payette County Sheriff’s Office confirmed it. Within days, that version of the rumor picked up enough steam in Idaho Facebook groups that the Payette County Sheriff’s Office had to release a statement insisting that the viral rumor was “false information.”

Rumors of marauding bands of Antifa supporters have plagued local Facebook groups, chain emails and forwarded text messages since mid-May. One of the most viral rumors on an Antifa invasion into the suburbs was taken down after Twitter said it was created by a troll account with ties to white nationalists.

Some armed Americans took to town squares in several towns to fight off fictitious busloads of Antifa in June, spurred by false rumors on Facebook pages. Seven days after the original Idaho rumor went viral on Facebook, armed men stood guard over protests in Missoula, Montana, worried about the planeloads of Antifa supporters.

In his Washington Post column about Trump's flawed election strategy August 20th, David Byler pointed out that not only is "Trump's suburban pitch... off-key in an election dominated by the coronavirus," but that "Playing the race card is more likely to backfire now than in any time in a generation. In 2019, the libertarian Cato Institute found that 52% of Americans who live in the suburbs favor 'building more houses, condos and apartments' in their community while 46% oppose the idea. According to YouGov, 50% of suburbanites think Biden would be better at handling race relations than Trump, and only 28% prefer Trump to Biden... These communities are no longer all-White bastions where fathers work and mothers stay home with the children. These neighborhoods are racially diverse: According to a 2018 study, only 68% of suburbanites were White, 14% were Hispanic and 11% were Black. And no matter where they live, Pew Research Center found that the share of mothers who stay home with children declined from 49% in 1967 to 27% in 2016. The audience Trump believes he’s targeting-- White stay-at-home suburban moms-- may be smaller than he thinks.

Trump's bullshit about "saving Kenosha" is not being bought by voters, who are finally recognizing how Trump lies and manipulates to push his personal agenda. Even with support for Black Lives Matter sliding in Wisconsin, voters are still backing Biden, not Trump.

Yesterday, Chuck Todd's team at NBC News speculated that playing the race card "is-- at best-- break-even for Trump. And at worst, it’s another liability for him. According to our August NBC News/WSJ poll (conducted before the violence in Kenosha), Trump held a 4-point advantage over Biden when it comes to which candidate better handles crime, with 43 percent picking Trump and 39 percent Biden. But on uniting the country, Biden’s edge over Trump was 23 points, 49 percent to 26 percent. And on race relations, Biden’s lead over Trump is 24 points, 53 percent to 29 percent. So despite the conventional wisdom, it’s not clear at all this issue is a winner for Trump.

The new poll from Morning Consult that was released yesterday-- so post-conventions-- shows Biden ahead 51 to 43% nationally. 55% of voters view Trump negatively while just 46% view Biden negatively. But it's the swing states where the campaigns are in full gear that are most interesting. According to this set of polling, Trump is losing every swing state but Ohio and Texas. But what about that normal convention bounce? Well, there was some. Biden increased his support after the 2 conventions in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Texas and Wisconsin-- stayed the same in North Carolina, Ohio, Minnesota and Colorado-- and lost one point each in Pennsylvania and Florida, each of which he is still leading in. Trump, on the other hand, had a bounce down in Michigan, Georgia and Arizona, stayed the same in Wisconsin and Colorado, and increased his positions slightly in Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Minnesota-- in each of which he's still losing-- and in Ohio and Texas.