I’m just going to lay this down now so it’s on record:

Trump’s campaign has used the exact same strategy it used in 2016: smear his opponent; attempt to demotivate their base; and actively attempt to prevent or obstruct them from voting.

It is a push-down strategy.

1/

In 2016, didn’t win because he made a winning case to a big enough population.

He won because his opponent’s turnout was pushed down by a full-court press that tapped everything from misogyny to poll tampering.

2/
He is trying to run the exact same playbook against Biden.

But it isn’t working because:

1) We now understand it

2) Many who were effectively suppressed last time have had four years to see what that cost

3) Biden isn’t susceptible to the same illegitimate biases

3/
And 4) Many people who first engaged with politics because of Bernie are now well past the “...or Bust” vibe of 2016 and are now solidly active progressive voters

The media, pundits and analysts never fully reckoned with the extent to which Hillary’s vote was just suppressed.
4/
Instead, they overestimated Trump’s strength.

Trump only won by smothering just enough of his opponent’s support.

Some of the voters who that succeeded with in 2016 are vehemently un-smotherable this time.

5/
And what is left is an electorate that will look quite changed since 2016 in ways that are all bad for Trump.

Trump is a one-trick pony: depress the other guy’s votes. It worked in 2016. The whole system helped.

The media loves to hate Hillary too much to fully admit that.

6/
It not only isn’t working in 2020, it has ignited a vigilance among some who were taken in by it.

Trump is going to lose. It isn’t going to be a nail-biter.

And the post mortems will go right on missing the fact that Trump never, ever held the backing of enough ppl to win.

7/
I am already pre-annoyed by the breathless post-election analyses of the “startling” extent of Trump’s defeat, the “unpredicted weakness” in his support.

It was always right there to see.

8/
I did the same yelling into the abyss about Bernie’s hard ceiling in the primaries while David Plouffe and the other professional talking heads were swooning over momentum that wasn’t.

It is right there to see.

9/
Trump is no different than he was in 2016.

His support is no different.

It wasn’t enough then. It isn’t enough now.

It took a perfect storm in 2016.

Now he can’t even rustle the drapes.

And that was always right there to see.

But boring races don’t sell ad space.

10/10
As I was saying...

Right. There. To. See. https://t.co/oI4mBi0FpU

More from The Hoarse Whisperer

So, in Trump’s narcissistic cycle, there is a predictable sequence of phases that play out whenever he is facing a public humiliation.

1) Double Down Donnie
2) Loco Lawn Sprinkler
3) Sad and Silent
4) Hunting for Scapegoats
5) Riding the Excuse Train

1/


Whenever Trump is facing a public embarrassment he sees coming, he first doubles down on all of the stupid shit that put him in that hole to begin with. He has no other tools.

Then he frantically spins like a lawn sprinkler desperately spraying unhinged nonsense.

2/

The worse the pending embarrassment, the more unhinged the nutbaggery out of his mouth.

See: the past week.

It has been just a firehose of industrial-grade batshit.

3/

Then, when the embarrassment arrives, he gets quiet and sullen like a chastised little boy and runs off to cocoon.

Listen to the clips from the thread in the first post. Talking about his presidency in a tired, dejected past tense.

No aggression. No real fight left.

4/

Trump entirely disregulates as the embarrassment train is bearing down. He seems out of control because he is. No control over himself. An overtired toddler x1,000.

Then the train passes the point of avoidance though and Trump shrinks into a sad ball (albeit briefly).

5/
This is the most significant window into Trump’s psychology since the election.

He is so gravely wounded by his loss, even the usual protections a narcissist employs aren’t saving him.

1/


The pattern for Trump has always been the exact same without deviation.

When faced with a public humiliation, he 1) broods; 2) scapegoats; 3) adopts a face-saving excuse; and 4) gets back on his feet.

He isn’t reaching #4.

2/

It is remarkable and striking.

He is so debilitated by the public humiliation of having lost, he can’t even function in the dysfunctional way he used to...

Normally, he’d be posturing about how his loss was actually somehow a win for him. He’d be claiming he benefitted.

3/

He would have fully adopted a narrative about what happened *in the past* and would be talking about how great things were for him *in the present and future*.

Instead, he is a month into a spiral he can’t pull himself out of where he is still trying to change the outcome.

4/

I thought a trip to Mar a Lago would pull him out of that.

He’d be surrounded by people who looked at him adoringly and nodded at his nonsense with love and reverence.

He’d see that his facade of specialness was still intact *there at least*.

5/
I read up on the last several men the federal government rushed to put to death this past month.

Sister Helen is 100% right. None of the defendants would have come anywhere near a death penalty had they had money and privilege.

1/


Take the person executed last night: Dustin Higgs.

Higgs, another man and a woman were involved in the murder of two people. The trio had picked the victims up and taken them to a desolate area where they were shot.

2/

The reasons for the shooting were unclear. To make their case, prosecutors offered a deal to Higgs’ two associates: testify that Higgs had orchestrated the killing and they would be charged with lesser offenses.

So, the two did.

3/

The man testified that he had actually been the shooter and had murdered the two women - but had been told to do so by Higgs.

The actual murderer avoided the death penalty. The other associate got a lighter sentence.

4/

I entirely 1,000% believe that prosecutors would have never even pursued the death penalty had Higgs had intimidating counsel.

Epstein got a walk for a boatload of crimes, in part, because prosecutors were intimidated of the fight they’d face.

5/

More from Politics

My piece in the NY Times today: "the Trump administration is denying applications submitted to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services at a rate 37 percent higher than the Obama administration did in 2016."

Based on this analysis: "Denials for immigration benefits—travel documents, work permits, green cards, worker petitions, etc.—increased 37 percent since FY 2016. On an absolute basis, FY 2018 will see more than about 155,000 more denials than FY 2016."
https://t.co/Bl0naOO0sh


"This increase in denials cannot be credited to an overall rise in applications. In fact, the total number of applications so far this year is 2 percent lower than in 2016. It could be that the higher denial rate is also discouraging some people from applying at all.."

Thanks to @gsiskind for his insightful comments. The increase in denials, he said, is “significant enough to make one think that Congress must have passed legislation changing the requirements. But we know they have not.”

My conclusion:
Handy guide for Dominic Raab and other Brexiteers, and for anyone keen to replace our EU trade with trade with the rest of the world on WTO terms...


You can't magic away the vast distances involved. Clue: we fly in only 1/192th of our trade compared to the amount that arrives via sea


But even if you invented a teleporter tomorrow, WTO terms are so bad, so stacked against us, that a no-deal Brexit will be a total economic disaster


And while the Brexiteers fantasise, real jobs are being lost, investments are drying up, companies are moving assets to the EU27 or redomiciling. All already happened and happening right now, not in some mythical


Of course, there are many, many myths that Brexiteers perpetuate that are total fiction. You've seen a couple of them already. The thread below busts a whole lot
This idea - that elections should translate into policy - is not wrong at all. But political science can help explain why it's not working this way. There are three main explanations: 1. mandates are constructed, not automatic, 2. party asymmetry, 3. partisan conpetition 1/


First, party/policy mandates from elections are far from self-executing in our system. Work on mandates from Dahl to Ellis and Kirk on the history of the mandate to mine on its role in post-Nixon politics, to Peterson Grossback and Stimson all emphasize that this link is... 2/

Created deliberately and isn't always persuasive. Others have to convinced that the election meant a particular thing for it to work in a legislative context. I theorized in the immediate period of after the 2020 election that this was part of why Repubs signed on to ...3/

Trump's demonstrably false fraud nonsense - it derailed an emerging mandate news cycle. Winners of elections get what they get - institutional control - but can't expect much beyond that unless the perception of an election mandate takes hold. And it didn't. 4/

Let's turn to the legislation element of this. There's just an asymmetry in terms of passing a relief bill. Republicans are presumably less motivated to get some kind of deal passed. Democrats are more likely to want to do *something.* 5/

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शमशान में जब महर्षि दधीचि के मांसपिंड का दाह संस्कार हो रहा था तो उनकी पत्नी अपने पति का वियोग सहन नहीं कर पायी और पास में ही स्थित विशाल पीपल वृक्ष के कोटर में अपने तीन वर्ष के बालक को रख के स्वयं चिता पे बैठ कर सती हो गयी ।इस प्रकार ऋषी दधीचि और उनकी पत्नी की मुक्ति हो गयी।


परन्तु पीपल के कोटर में रखा बालक भूख प्यास से तड़पने लगा। जब कुछ नहीं मिला तो वो कोटर में पड़े पीपल के गोदों (फल) को खाकर बड़ा होने लगा। कालान्तर में पीपल के फलों और पत्तों को खाकर बालक का जीवन किसी प्रकार सुरक्षित रहा।

एक दिन देवर्षि नारद वहां से गुजर रहे थे ।नारद ने पीपल के कोटर में बालक को देख कर उसका परिचय मांगा -
नारद बोले - बालक तुम कौन हो?
बालक - यही तो मैं भी जानना चहता हूँ ।
नारद - तुम्हारे जनक कौन हैं?
बालक - यही तो मैं भी जानना चाहता हूँ ।

तब नारद ने आँखें बन्द कर ध्यान लगाया ।


तत्पश्चात आश्चर्यचकित हो कर बालक को बताया कि 'हे बालक! तुम महान दानी महर्षि दधीचि के पुत्र हो । तुम्हारे पिता की अस्थियों का वज्रास्त्र बनाकर ही देवताओं ने असुरों पर विजय पायी थी।तुम्हारे पिता की मृत्यु मात्र 31 वर्ष की वय में ही हो गयी थी'।

बालक - मेरे पिता की अकाल मृत्यु का क्या कारण था?
नारद - तुम्हारे पिता पर शनिदेव की महादशा थी।
बालक - मेरे उपर आयी विपत्ति का कारण क्या था?
नारद - शनिदेव की महादशा।
इतना बताकर देवर्षि नारद ने पीपल के पत्तों और गोदों को खाकर बड़े हुए उस बालक का नाम पिप्पलाद रखा और उसे दीक्षित किया।
Ivor Cummins has been wrong (or lying) almost entirely throughout this pandemic and got paid handsomly for it.

He has been wrong (or lying) so often that it will be nearly impossible for me to track every grift, lie, deceit, manipulation he has pulled. I will use...


... other sources who have been trying to shine on light on this grifter (as I have tried to do, time and again:


Example #1: "Still not seeing Sweden signal versus Denmark really"... There it was (Images attached).
19 to 80 is an over 300% difference.

Tweet: https://t.co/36FnYnsRT9


Example #2 - "Yes, I'm comparing the Noridcs / No, you cannot compare the Nordics."

I wonder why...

Tweets: https://t.co/XLfoX4rpck / https://t.co/vjE1ctLU5x


Example #3 - "I'm only looking at what makes the data fit in my favour" a.k.a moving the goalposts.

Tweets: https://t.co/vcDpTu3qyj / https://t.co/CA3N6hC2Lq