We've entered the Twilight Zone
State of the Race - July 15
I won’t attempt to write a treatise on American political violence or provide a rundown of events of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Saturday. I’m not a historian or political scientist (I only play one on Substack). With that said, it’s important to acknowledge political violence in the United States is nothing new. In some circles, it’s overlooked or simply ignored, but it’s a pillar of our shared history as a nation. It so happens we’re living in a time where acts of political violence have risen to highs not seen since at least the 1970s.
Political violence is never right. It does not help achieve the political goals one might want it to. It leads to the degradation of the values and norms that keep a democratic and pluralistic society healthy. As Jonathan Chait for New York Magazine recently wrote, “Political violence is a tool favored by radical causes. Assassination attempts of authoritarian figures, successful or unsuccessful, generally do not prevent authoritarianism. They enable it.”
I don’t want to see Trump win a second term as president. He has no business being in the White House. He espouses violence, hatred, and division. As the New York Times wrote in an editorial last week:
“Mr. Trump has shown a character unworthy of the responsibilities of the presidency. He has demonstrated an utter lack of respect for the Constitution, the rule of law and the American people. Instead of a cogent vision for the country’s future, Mr. Trump is animated by a thirst for political power: to use the levers of government to advance his interests, satisfy his impulses and exact retribution against those who he thinks have wronged him.”
I don’t disagree with any of it. Trump and his allies are a danger to the United States. We have nearly a decade of evidence in front of us showing it. But there’s a peaceful remedy to that: through the ballot box, as President Biden reminded his fellow Americans in a brief Oval Office address last night. It might sound trite, but if we want to protect our country, it needs to be done peacefully. No one deserves to be murdered, including those we disagree with politically, even if their views and policies are heinous and authoritarian. As Jonathan Chait wrote to finish his piece about the attempted Trump assassination:
“Even by the coldest calculation, murdering Trump would not protect American democracy because the threat of right-wing authoritarianism would not die with him. Had he been killed, his martyrdom would have only fueled his movement’s will to power.
The country is lucky Trump survived. And now we must protect the system from him.”
We cannot use violence to settle our differences. If we do, we’ll lose the very thing we’re trying to protect1, even if it’s imperfect and unjust.
Vibes Check: Help me try and understand something: if Democrats claim Trump is a threat to democracy and the world, why are its leaders resigned to the fact that they’ll lose and saying they won’t do anything to give themselves the best chance to prevent it? Something doesn’t add up. Either Democratic lawmakers and politicos don’t think Trump is an actual threat, or they’re cowards too concerned about saving their own political future at the peril of the demise of the very institution they want to be part of. These folks are as bad as the countless Republicans who claimed privately Trump was a disaster for the United States (and who had multiple opportunities to end his political career) but chose to provide tacit or explicit support publically, allowing a number of historic disasters to occur.
I’ll let the polls below speak for itself, but Biden has lost ground in the last month. He needed to reverse the rising tide against him, and that has not happened. Even looking optimistically, his chances of winning have stalled out at approximately one in three. It’s been two and a half weeks since the debate, and he has given one press briefing, a taped interview, a few live updates regarding the Trump assassination attempt, and some small rallies in swing states. There is no empirical evidence that the race will lean toward his favor come November. It has been stuck in the mud for months now, and Biden is slowly sinking deeper.
I should be clear that replacing Biden might not be the best course of action and that there is a risk with Kamala Harris or another candidate (let alone trying to select someone with just weeks to go until the Democratic National Convention). But when reading the polls and reviewing the polling forecasts, Democrats’ best bet for winning relies on a polling error of three to four percentage points. That should be a campaign’s last line of defense, not its first. National polls show Biden down two to three points and losing in the battleground states anywhere from one to six points. It looks grim.
I obviously cannot predict the future. Will Trump garner goodwill from the assassination attempt that will help him at the ballot box2? I don’t know. Will Biden stay in the race? I don’t know. All I know is that the evidence we have shows he’s an underdog, and there’s nothing his campaign is doing right now that shows giving his party the best chance to win. If the stakes are as great as some Democrats say, something drastic needs to change quickly. If those with a modicum of influence truly believe Biden gives Democrats the best chance to win, that’s fine. They may be right! But very few are saying that behind closed doors, and remaining silent makes them complicit. And cowards.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty
Forecasts and Polls
Note: Now that we’ve entered the fourth week of this mentally debilitating and unhealthy exercise, this week’s update includes rolling averages of polling data from four weeks ago and the week before. Enjoy!
Presidential Forecasts (who is favored to win) as of July 15:
National Polling Averages as of July 15:
Battleground Polling Averages as of July 15:
Pennslyvania
Change since last week: (No change, Biden +0.1, Trump +1.0)
Change since four weeks ago: (Trump +2.3, Trump +1.3, Trump +2.0)
Michigan
Change since last week: (Biden +0.4, Biden +0.1, Trump +1.0)
Change since four weeks ago: (No change, Biden +0.2, No change)
Wisconsin
Change since last week: (Trump +0.1, Trump +0.7, Trump +2.0)
Change since four weeks ago: (Trump +1.3, Trump +1.3, Trump +2.0)
Nevada
Change since last week: (Biden +0.4, Biden +0.2, Trump +3.0)
Change since four weeks ago: (Trump +1.9, Trump +1.0, Trump +2.0)
Arizona
Change since last week: (Biden +0.8, Biden +0.2, No change)
Change since four weeks ago: (Trump +0.3, Biden +2.4, Trump +1.0)
Georgia
Change since last week: (Biden +0.6, Biden +0.1, Trump +2.0)
Change since four weeks ago: (Biden +0.4, Biden +0.7, Trump +1.0)
North Carolina
Change since last week: (No change, Biden +0.2, No change)
Chance since four weeks ago: (Trump +0.5, Biden +1.1, No change)
I sound like a clichéd hack, but for some real-life examples, look to what happened to American society in the years following Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, along with Robert Kennedy’s in 1968. A lot more bad followed.
I’m curious to see what polling conducted after the incident shows to see if there are noticeable changes. The Republican National Convention begins today, and conventions have historically given the presidential nominee a small-to-medium (but short-term) boost in the polls, so it might be difficult to separate the two.