Two weeks to go.
There aren't a lot of undecided voters left at this point, but there are some—and they might end up being decisive if they can be turned against Donald Trump. So I keep wondering: What could we tell them about Trump that they don't already know?
In other words, forget about the fascism, the lying, the racism, and the bizarre rally speeches. They probably already know all that stuff and it hasn't done the trick. So what's left?
A blast of "Trump is planning to bankrupt Social Security" TV ads, I hope.
Good one.
Mockery for age, being a huckster and a moron
Biden/Harris economy has been better.
Trump's tariff's and corporate greed caused inflation.
It's the ground game now; who get's their marginal voters out to vote.
Elon may be a genius, but he's never run a national GOTV effort. On top of that, they're playing the confidence game (Trump's MO) of presumption they're going to win. So the marginal voters are not as inspired.
Meanwhile, every woman I know with just a few exceptions will vote for Harris because of Dobbs; women like freedom, too.
Elon is not a genius.
He will renew drone strikes, ended under Biden.
More lead in drinking water.
If Trumps behavior over the last eight years isn't good enough to sway you either way you might not be as smart as a 1st grader.
Let's add insulting the military. And his Hitler worship. Oh, and the Arnold Palmer crude references - he really amped up his creep factor - so creeping out all genders. It takes pure genius to become a bigger turd blossom than Karl Rove - sorry Karl you lost the title.
I think that the only significant wound will have to be self-inflicted. Maybe if he passed out on stage or something. That's why he's not putting himself in front of the cameras.
I've always said his mouth is his worst enemy. Just give him a microphone and a question about something about policy and see the crazy and incoherent man mumble.
it's nothing new, but the abortion, ivf and birth control stuff seems like the most concrete, affects you and your friends and family stuff. obviously the economy is the same, but that's just a tougher case to make since people seem to think trump is some sort of business/economic genius and biden/harris have been an economic disaster.
How about: “how much money does it cost to bury a f…ing Mexican”.
Yes. That. She was active duty Army and was murdered. Trump asked her parents to send him the bill for her service.....and that was his deplorable statement.
Don't forget to support your local representative too--especially in swing states. Senators too....
I've been following 270towin, and it looks like races are turning towards the Democrats. There's still a ways to go. Everyone is still asking for more money, but not sure how much use it will be from now on. If your going to donate more, do it now. And get people to vote in swing states as best as you can.
Welp, the campaigns might well need to spend money on litigation to contest questionable outcomes. Or at least investigate.
That's kind of yuck, but that's where we are...
Just checked again, some back sliding...
I think this is the wrong approach. My approach has been to just keep to one or two points. My main point:
Trump tried to overturn a lawfully conducted election. In plainer terms, he tried to overthrow the government. He shows every sign of wanting to do it again.
Just pound this home. Keep repeating it. Stay on message.
That is the rational argument, and it seems to have zero effect, at least until now.
That's a really good question. Random thought connections - play his game - laugh at him, mock him, humiliate him - call him stupid names that take cheap shots (Diaper Donnie, Traitor Trump, Donnie Three Inches...) - Harris baited him like a fish in the debate, more of this in big, splashy ads - hammer the airwaves with ads of the worst of January 6 cut with Trump looking and acting like a witless moron - run run run ads showing Trump practically fellating Putin, the magic of editing - rip this guy to pieces, his personhood, his character, his manhood - make him look stupid, weak, pathetic, worthless, small, retarded.
It isn't about information. It is about vibes at this point.
Just randomly choose any of the 1000s gross things he's done. It is statistically likely that whomever you're talking to hasn't heard it yet, or if they did, they forgot about it.
Hammer his foulness, his pettiness, his stupidity, his vulgarity, how weird and tacky and gross he is. Why you'd never leave important papers out near him or leave him around your kids.
The income tax returns he’s been working so hard to hide for 9 years.
The divorce records
He has the ugliest voice in the history of sound.
You want to have to listen to that poison dripping voice for the next four years?
Yes! And I've always wondered how even his cult can stand hearing that for hours, yet no one has seemed to mention it.
Gotcha question: "How many canonical Gospels are there?"
D'ya think he can get within +/-4 of the correct number?
Just the one that he's writing. Both Corinthians are raving about it.
Yeah that stopped his campaign cold in 2016.
Come on. Only people who already hate Trump care about stuff like that. Have we not learned this by now?
Hit him where he thinks he's strong.
Hit him on the border. Trump stopped Biden from fixing the border. Show how his "wall" is a joke.
How about an ad telling everyone he released thousands of Taliban prisoners and shows him all lovey dovey with Kim Jon Un that calls him soft on terrorists.
"Donald Trump will always side with the terrorists over you."
Hit him on taxes. Trump wants to raise taxes on Americans by 100% (or whatever scare number you can pull out of his tariff nonsense) and on inflation.
"Trump's crazy tax plan is going to send inflation through the roof!"
But don't do all of these. Just pick one or two and hit them hard every day using simple, scary language.
Of course Dems suck at this sort of then. Gotta be fair and put lots of nuance in there.
In Florida and Georgia I have seen so many Trump ads that just show Kamala with "scary" looking trans people. That's their biggest message right now. Trans people are scary!
Why not show Trump standing next to Putin and Kim in every single ad. Think of the "Dole / Gingrich" ads from 96. Pair him with someone unpopular and hammer that into people's minds. Maybe too late for that now.
I think they don't get that Trump is NOT the guy they elected eight years ago, not any more. (I'm not sure we even get it.) He's changing into someone, something else. I don't mean the ordinary Trump-level bizarre stuff -- on top of all that, he's senile and demented, and more so every day.
He didn't used to run on about being dictator for a day, or generals like Hitler's, or fictitious cannibals, or a dead golfer's junk. He didn't used to 'dance' on stage instead of staging the town hall he'd promised. He didn't used to duck interviews and debates. And so on.
His own high-ranking people, who used to work closely with him (and know him way better than you do), are refusing to vote for him, and are saying you should too.
"He didn't used to run on about being dictator for a day, or generals like Hitler's, ..."
He is a long-time Hitler admirer, and the only book he is known to have read is Hilter's speeches. So that hasn't change.
The difference is that in the second term the threat of impeachment does not exist, because there are enough Republican worms in the senate to block it, so he will be free to actually do what he always wanted (which is suppress the population like Putin, Xi, Kim and Hitler).
I find I agreed with Bill Kristol today: "...hearing about Trump’s unfitness from people who worked with him, and from Republicans one would expect to defend him, seems to make a difference.” He's speaking of Blueprint's 10/16 story: "The best-testing closing arguments against Trump are those that emphasize his lack of support from his former cabinet and numerous Republicans (a topic the Harris campaign is running extensive ads on), his responsibility for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and his intentions to gut Social Security and Medicare and the Affordable Care Act."
Kevin, and most everyone in the media, make the mistake of thinking because they "know" everything about Trump, undecided voters "know" those things.
They don't! They don't consume The Atlantic or the New York Times or Kevin's blog. If they have heard some of the things, they've FORGOTTEN them.
This is why I think the Democrats should be talking about all the past abominations of Trump, despite what the news-saturated consultants tell them. Whatever happened to his awful COVID oversight? What about the guy who DIED from ingesting chloroquine after his wife told him it's "what they are talking about on TV" to cure the virus ("They" referred to Trump)? What about January 6, which is probably just a dim, confused memory to most undecided voters, many of whom don't even KNOW it started with a Trump speech? What about the 9% unemployment we had before he left office?
There is SO much legacy stuff that it's not necessary to find some new thing. People just need to be reminded.
There are scores of black marks against TFG, any one of which would have sunk another candidate (well, any Democratic candidate). The Trump U. fraud, stiffing contractors, the Central Park Five, housing discrimination, misusing his charity, mocking persons with disabilities, disparaging military service, the list goes on and on. If a person remembered just 1 or 2% of it, it should be disqualifying.
I’m still in the ‘turnout is everything’ camp, and I wish Harris/Walz would hit climate change harder, especially in the wake of Helene and Milton — younger voters should be motivated by visions of the future world in which they must live.
Make it simple. Make it obvious. Make it about people's pocketbooks.
A 20% tariff on imports would create an instant inflation rate of 20%. That's all you need to know.
And when Trump says it's paid by Chiner? What then?
If they were dogs, I'd put them out of their misery.
If they're eating the pets in Springfield why won't they let him have any?
Every accusation is a confession.
I don't the issue is "what's left?" I'm pretty sure the Harris's polling operation is sophisticated enough to know which issues work best for them: abortion, healthcare and January 6th.
The trick is how do you get the media to report on this? It's become an ironclad rule of our political universe that so-called "earned" media is more effective than advertising, because of diminishing returns.
https://www.slowboring.com/p/democrats-need-to-talk-about-their
Most folks know as much as they are ever going to know about Trump between now and the election. So they would need new "facts." In other words, make up a salacious lie about him. It has to be something sort of plausible, hard to disprove, and heinous.
Candidates:
- Some sort of gay sex, especially as a less dominant partner (not that there is anything wrong with it, but to some folks there would be).
- Cocaine use.
- Something sexual with one or more of his daughters.
And yes, I do feel unclean for even thinking about what might work in such a scenario.
Never forget that Donald Trump echo Alex Jones, the man who denies Sandy Hook. Who is really looking out for our children?
I was wondering this morning if the Court could be a good line of attack. It isn't beyond the realm of possibility that they go after Griswold. Do we really want him getting another justice or two?
they know the economy was the best it had been in decades when he was president. unfortunately they're too stupid to know that he had nothing to do with it. which is why he is likely to win.
Trump hates dogs.
+1
A judge gave Moss and Freeman the right to pursue Giuliani's $2M compensation claim against Trump. The gloves get to come off now, and Giuliani will have to turn over all the receipts and backup documentation to his compensation claim.
For my money, I think certain groups should push *national* ads with Trump saying he's a "very stable genius" set against videos of each weird thing he's done in the last year. I want to see ads with him talking about how he took TWO MoCA tests and have some doctors explain that the only reason why someone would have been administered two MoCA tests in 5 years is because of concerns of cognitive problems.
They're trying to lower enthusiasm for Harris, so return the favor in kind. Hit Trump showing how weak and unfit he is, mentally.
my attempts:
1. a Trump presidency will certainly result in more inaccurate accounting, and will probably result in more accounting fraud. The result of all that inaccurate accounting will be a big accounting scandal at some point, an accounting scandal that might threaten people's pensions and social security.
There will be accounting scandals under Democrats too, certainly. But it will be worse under Trump.
2 points made in the Daniel Davies' post which seem relevant to Trump:
https://blog.danieldavies.com/2004/05/d-squared-digest-one-minute-mba.html
"Fibbers' forecasts are worthless"
"The Vital Importance of Audit"
Another way to put it: a good economy requires, among other things, rule of law, full participation of women in the workforce, and honest accounting. Trump will be bad for all three.
2. Biden has tried to create and strengthen a culture of engineering excellence and consumer safety at places like Boeing and Intel. No real big public successes, but if future leaders sticks with it, it might pay dividends over the long term. The stock of Boeing soared during the Trump presidency, and then crashed when long term problems surfaced.
3. At some point in the next 20 years, there might be a big bailout of commercial real estate. If Democrats have significant power in Washington, the terms of the bailout might be slightly more favorable to the public.
4. Democrats care about things like good public libraries and good postal services. Postal service can play a role in reducing the logistics gap between big business and small business. Libraries can play a role in reducing the information and internet gap between established professionals and aspiring amateurs.