MAGAts
As Abraham Lincoln said, the best way to predict the future is to choose it.
Someone signed me up for the campaign of the one I will not name.
I am getting emails all day long - addressed to Phillip A - requesting money for their political juggernaut. A L L. D A Y. L O N G.
Begging for money. 100% match. 200% match. 300% match. I’ve seen some as high as 500% match.
What could they possibly need so much money for? All the helicopters that will be necessary to extract them from a burning White House on the 4th of November?
Or maybe it’s for their campaign manager’s Ferraris?
Or Ivanka and Jared’s golden parachutes?
Or the con man’s million dollar golf outings?
Or to feather one of their fake charities?
They are desperate. I will never count them out, but the panic is palpable. You know how I love anecdotal evidence, so here goes. . .
House out on Chumstick Highway has been proudly displaying MAGA posters for the past three and a half years. The posters were pristine. Undisturbed. They looked exactly as they did on Day One when they were nailed to the side of the barn.
They’re gone now.
Sad.
Maybe it was the coronavirus inattentiveness. Maybe it was the blithering of an idiot whenever he was confronted by an assertive, fact-checking reporter. Maybe it was the shits he took on the armed forces every chance he got. Something got them to take it down. They were proud MAGAts.
Maybe it was the inability to drink a glass of water without two hands. Maybe it was doddering down a ramp like a centenarian. Maybe it was the gibbering of words. Maybe it was the occasional spasmodic body motions like a tortured marionette. I am sure MAGAts are uncomfortable with displays of weakness.
Olsen’s Automotive out on the main highway just outside town displayed their gigantic MAGAt sign throughout the previous presidential election year, but not so far this time around.
We’re under 90 days now.
Sad.
(Doesn’t matter. Even if I broke down right in front of them, I’d still call a tow truck.)
Maybe it was his indiscriminate abuse of tear gas on peaceful protesters. Maybe it was his name-calling of multi-star generals. Maybe it was his ties to convicted pedophiles. Maybe it was his hang-dog demeanor around Russia’s dictator-for-life. Maybe it’s how many convicted criminals orbit his inner circle.
As White House reporter Jim Acosta said, “It’s now down to Kool-aid drinkers and next of kin” in the White House.
Maybe it’s because the stock market is soaring but the American economy is in free-fall. Even those of us who are clueless about such matters know something is amiss. Even during the Great Depression the gross domestic product did not crater like it has in 2020. I hold my breath every day waiting to find out if the rug has been pulled out from under the stock market as well.
Maybe it’s that the pandemic is beginning to hit closer to home for those wanting to make America white again, I mean, great again. Maybe they thought they were going to dodge the pandemic bullet because, you know, white males are amazingly proficient at hand washing and wearing - what some consider - emasculating masks. And following government directives or public health officials’ suggestions.
Maybe they’re tired - like the rest of us - of the Roy Cohn tactics. Roy Cohn once said, “Don’t tell me about the law, just tell me who the judge is.” Roy Cohn was the combative New York lawyer who mentored the insufferable boor. Roy Cohn was Senator Joseph McCarthy’s counsel during the ‘50s when McCarthy saw communists behind every tree.
Belligerence gets old. Bellicosity gets old. The welcome mat might be worn out for the Roy Cohn tactics and disputatiousness.
I know there are plenty of spiteful MAGAts still ready to return this loser to the White House. (The Fox News viewership plummeted on the day John Lewis’ memorial service was aired with Barack Obama, George Bush and Bill Clinton giving eulogies. That tells you all that you need to know.) With that in mind, I have no intention of letting down my guard. But, I sense, the man’s charismatic hold is waning.
Everything about him is sagging - jowls, belly, posture, humor (which he never had much of publicly anyway). The best course of action for Joe Biden is to lay low and let Benedict Donald talk, and tweet, his way out of a second term.
We need more interviews like the one with Jonathan Swan of Axios that is streaming on HBO. It comes with a warning, however.
It might suck the life force right out of you.
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Special Note: Those political emails I’m receiving? I received one where I could win a VIP Dinner with Benedict Donald at Southhampton that I understand is in New York somewhere. It’s this Friday. His political campaign spent $100,000 for about 4 million views on F***book.
The kicker? Citizens from about 34 states have to self-quarantine for two weeks upon arrival in New York state per Governor Cuomo’s directive. According to Judd Legum of Popular Information, 73% of those targeted on FB were from those very states! Washington is one of those states, so I am shit out of luck. Darn.
But, the point is, they’re soliciting donations for an event the vast majority of their true believers can’t attend even if the insufferable boor really intended to hold such an occasion. Just another example of our P.T. Barnum president, at it again!
Two of my most alert readers sent me this link - Pauline Kao and Steve Laboff. It will take you to the New York Times video and article of the guy who has predicted every presidential election correctly for several decades.
Don’t allow it to get your hopes up.
Here is the transcript, in the event you do not have a NYT subscription:
“This is professor Allan Lichtman. He’s taught history at American University for almost 50 years. He’s a former steeplechase champion. “It’s a race designed for horses but run by people.” “Tic-Tac-Dough.” And a former quiz show winner. “I had a 16-show winning streak. Won four cars.” But we’re not here to talk about any of that. We’re here because “Allan Lichtman” is the Nostradamus of presidential elections. He’s accurately predicted them for four decades. Yes, even that one. “Donald Trump sent me a note. Congrats professor. Good call. In his big Sharpie letters.” Now Allan’s ready to tell us who will win in 2020. But we’ll come back to that. Allan Lichtman is certain we’ve been thinking about elections all wrong. “The pollsters and the pundits cover elections as though they were horse races. But history tells us voters are not fooled by the tricks of the campaign. Voters vote pragmatically according to how well the party holding the White House has governed the country.” So polls are worthless? “They are snapshots in time. None of this in the end has any impact whatsoever on the outcome of a presidential election.” So Allan Lichtman designed a better system to predict presidential winners. He calls it “The Keys to the White House.” And like some other politics these days, there’s a Russian involved. “In 1981, I met Vladimir Keilis-Borok. Vladimir turned to me and said, we are going to collaborate.” By the way, Vladimir wasn’t a historian or a politician. He was a leading expert in predicting earthquakes. “This point, I thought the guy was either nuts or KGB.” He wasn’t. “We recast American presidential elections as stability, the party holding the White House keeps the White House. And earthquake, the White House party is turned out of power.” So they got to work. “We looked at every presidential election from 1860 to 1980.” What they found were 13 keys. Only two of which have anything to do with the traits of the candidates. Allan has used the keys to accurately predict every election. First in 1984, calling it two years early before anyone even knew who Reagan’s contender would be. In 1988, calling it in spring when Bush was trailing Dukakis. Again in ‘92, ‘96 and in 2000, when he called it for Al Gore? Hey, Allan. “No, no, I wasn’t wrong. I correctly predicted that Al Gore would win the popular vote. When I first developed the system in ‘81, you had to go all the way back to 1888 to find a divergence between the popular vote and the Electoral College vote.” So Allan eventually started calling the winner, not just the popular vote, which was useful 16 years later when, well, you know. “I’m a Democrat. And the toughest thing in being a forecaster is to keep your own politics out of it.” But that’s enough history, professor. Let’s get to it. What do Allan’s 13 keys predict for 2020? “And remember, an answer of ‘true’ always favors the re-election of the White House party. If six or more of the keys are false, you get a political earthquake.” OK, No. 1: The White House party gained House seats between midterm elections. “Republicans lost the U.S. House midterms in 2018. So false.” No. 2: There is no primary contest for the White House party. “No Republicans challenged Trump for his renomination. So true.” No. 3: The incumbent seeking. The sitting president is running for re-election. “Doesn’t look like he’s stepping down, so true.” Four: There is no third-party challenger. “Despite claims by Kanye West to be running, this is a two-party race.” This is looking pretty good for Trump so far. No. 5: The short-term economy is strong. “The pandemic has pushed the economy into recession. False.” Six: Long-term economic growth during this presidential term has been as good as the past two terms. “The pandemic has caused such negative G.D.P. growth in 2020 that the key has turned false.” No. 7: The White House has made major changes to national policy. “Through his big tax cut, but mostly through his executive orders, Trump has fundamentally changed the policies of the Obama era. So true.” No. 8: There is no social unrest during the term. “There has been considerable social unrest on the streets, with enough violence to threaten the social order. So false.” No. 9: The White House is untainted by scandal. “My favorite key. As I predicted, Trump was impeached. Plus he has plenty of other scandals. So false.” No. 10: The White House has no major foreign or military failures abroad. “We’ve had some very difficult moments with Donald Trump. But so far, true.” 11: The White House has a major success abroad. “While Trump hasn’t had any big splashy failures, he hasn’t had any major successes either. So false.” 12: The incumbent-party candidate is charismatic. “Donald Trump is a great showman. But he only appeals to a narrow slice of the American people. And as a result, false.” 13: The challenger is uncharismatic. “Biden is a decent empathetic person, but he’s not inspirational or charismatic. So true.” That means — “The keys predict that Trump will lose the White House.” That’s Allan Lichtman’s prediction. And Allan Lichtman is always right. “Don’t just take my word for it. There are forces at play outside the keys — voter suppression, Russian meddling. It’s up to you the voters to decide the future of our democracy. So get out and vote. Vote in person. Vote by mail. As Abraham Lincoln said, the best way to predict the future is to choose it.”