1a. The media takes Barr’s bullshit October “surprise” seriously, breathlessly reporting on the scandal and legitimizing nonsense, tightening the race so all the shit listed below is potentially determinative.
1b. Biden debates, and the media predictably focuses on his weakest moment to try to tighten the horse race, regardless of what Trump does.
Barr uses manufactured chaos in large cities to send in Federal troops and restrict voting by physically taking over polling places, initiating mass arrests, etc.
Trump’s political hack USPS guy stops the delivery of mail in ballots (they don’t get counted unless they arrive by election day), enabling…
Trump declares victory on election night and says remaining absentee ballots are fraudulent, subsequently refusing to leave office.
Honestly, those scenarios aren’t THAT bad, and are unlikely to result in Trump actually retaining office. The guy simply saying he won when he lost probably won’t work. I’m probably missing some Barr-related shenanigans. That guy is my biggest fear. Lots of talk of “riggage,” but elections are run by the states and only Florida has a Republican governor.
Most scared of #2 on this list by a substantial margin.
If Barr sends in federal officers into Milwaukee/Detroit/Philadelphia/Denver/Charlotte/Atlanta/etc., what would the consequences be? All the evidence I’ve seen tells me that the answer is “none”. Why wouldn’t they try?
I think we have seen that it is possible to make the fascism overt enough to lose votes from the center. I remember Trump’s numbers dropping due to Lafayette Park.
ok I know I said this earlier but Nate Silver said the model is about ready and I’m ready to start hitting refresh 27 times a day on it for the next 3 months. Let’s gooooooo…
Might have to get this flag to troll my neighbors. It looks close enough to the Trump 2020 one that people might not shoot at my house at first glance. I don’t really care enough about Biden to buy swag, but the trolling factor makes it tempting.
My favorite 538er Perry Bacon Jr made a good point in the podcast today, that basically the media really needs to start laying the groundwork that October is “Voting Month” and (post-November 3) November is “Counting Month.”
Don’t need the Narrator to tell me they won’t do this, but it seems pretty critical to at least somewhat mitigate the inevitable muddying that Trump will do on Election Night in any situation other than a clear Trump win.
I saw a similar “Dump Trump” flag not that long ago. First time I drove by I thought it was a pro-Trump flag since it was that color and all I could read was “Trump” because the flag was bunched up at the top…
That’s the problem with parody political signs, also red hats that have anti Trump stuff on them. At quick glance they look like the real thing. The hicks around here all had Obummer stickers on their trucks but unless you looked closely it was just the normal Obama sticker.
I managed to get really down in my head about this this morning. If trump and the gop somehow cancel or indefinitely postpone the election, a ton of people aren’t going to care. Thirty percent of the country will cheer it on, while another twenty will just kinda ignore it. Throw in the lawbros who will assure us that the courts will do the right thing, and suddenly trump’s acting with like 70% of the country’s blessing.
It also would preemptively frame the GOP as idiots so desperate they can’t wait a few days to finish the count. You don’t have to say that, just inculcate the public with the idea that the whole month is dedicated to finalizing the count.
