The more you put all of the evidence together, the more you can see that Trump is not only indifferent to American troops, he seems to actively hate them.

Flashback to June when The Lincoln Project released an ad slamming Trump for letting The Greatest Generation die of coronavirus while Trump and Republicans told them to sacrifice themselves for the economy and Trump’s reelection. That definitely adds to Trump not just being indifferent to veterans but seems to actively despise them.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/28/politics/lincoln-project-trump-coronavirus-deaths-greatest-generation/index.html

It all fits. Trump has clear left sided body weakness. He talked about, out of nowhere that he took a dementia test recently, and the mystery trip to the hospital for "unscheduled annual physical" at midnight. And it explains why Trump is so obsessed with Bidens mental condition. The guy had a stroke.

I know we are a bit hesitant to say that Trump will almost certainly lose, just vote, don't get cocky, ECT but objectively he is probably heading for a loss, maybe even a pretty big loss. I've seen a few elections in my day, as I'm sure many of you have. I remember 1996 and 2008, where one candidate running for president had very little chance of winning. During those elections, the person who is staring down defeat tends to put on a brave face and goes down with dignity. They stay on message, act hopeful, and whatever happens happens.

With Trump, I see a George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Bob Dole or John McCain situation but without the grace or dignity in defeat. When we look at the psychotic RNC shit show, trying to destroy the post office, delay the election, or cause riots in cities (among many other awful behaviors) some people seem concerned that Trump has some grand plan. Fire up the base, suppress the vote and everything will work out for Trump in the end. But the reality seems to be that Trump has no plan. He is a man who is panicked and is just throwing everything against the wall that he thinks is going to stick. That likely seems obvious to most but I think it is important to reiterate that Trump and his team aren't brilliant strategists. They are amateurs in way, way over their heads and they are making his likely loss in November way harder than it has to be. Instead of taking a defeat in stride and keeping any dignity in tact, they are going to make this as painful and destructive as they can.

This is why having a real professional and yes a real politician is important in such powerful positions. Dragging the entire country through an epic temper tantrum will do nothing to help Trump win. All it will do is cause a lot of needless pain and suffering, and damage Trump and the Republicans long term.

With the protests that we have been having and Trump's continuing attempts to stir up shit, I have been thinking a lot about how Americans in general perceive everything that is happening right now. And I believe that the majority of Americans are having the same reaction that I have been. I'm a middle aged( or close to it) middle class suburban white guy. While I am a staunch Democrat, I'm fairly moderate. When I see protests against police brutality, I get it. I agree that things like George Floyd suffocating to death or an unarmed black guy being paralyzed after being shot in the back is disgusting and reforms are needed. But at the same time, I look at things like starting fires or creating "police free zones" and I am a lot less sympathetic.

However, at the same time, I don't see Joe Biden embracing or being part of the more aggressive actions by some on the left. So I don't see a protester starting a fire and think "this is what Joe Biden wants!". But when I see ultra right wing assholes picking fights, pepper spraying people, murdering people, I do think "this is what Trump wants". Both extremes are terrifying. I don't want to go downtown in my local city and see areas blockaded against the police or broken windows, but I also don't want to see guys in red hats waving guns around and trying to provoke riots.

And that is where I think Trump has grossly misread the situation and that this is going to backfire horribly on him. I, like most Americans, don't see this as "Trump's extremism against Bidens extremism". I see it as "Trump's extremism vs Bidens middle of the road, rational approach". When I look at the two choices, I see right wing thuggery vs a return to peace and quiet with moderate reforms. That is what I think a majority of people are going to be thinking in the coming weeks.

We certainly hear a lot about how the US could be trending towards an authorization dictatorship under Trump. While he certainly has strongman ambitions and a total disregard for the rule of law, I find arguments that the US in general is ready to just give up and let Trump do whatever he wants to be rather dramatic. I think if push comes to shove, Americans would quicky rise up and put an end to any attempts by Trump to declare himself some kind of dictator.

And that has made me wonder if there have ever been long standing democracies that have become total dictatorships before. Yes, we have plenty of examples of democracies becoming 1 party states ruled by authoritarian dictators. Germany in the 1930s is a clear example. But when that happens, including in Germany's case, democracy was a new thing. The democratic system in Weimar Germany had only be around for like a decade before it was reverted back to a dictatorship. Or there are "republics" in history that have descended into autocracy but that was usually where only like 5% of people were allowed to vote, like in Rome a few thousand years ago.

All of this has me wondering if there has ever been a country that had a well established, stable democratic system for centuries, like the United States, that suddenly just let a dictatorship happen pretty much out of nowhere. I can't think of any time in history where that has happened.

I'm not sure why I regularly check the betting markets when it comes to politics since they are rarely correct. For example, after Biden lost New Hampshire this year, they predicted that Sanders would win every remaining primary. Obviously that wasn't even close to what happened. Also on the day Harris was picked as VP, they had Susan Rice at upwards of a 90% chance of being picked and Buttigieg was surging even though there was no evidence he was ever even considered to be a VP candidate by Biden.

But over the last few weeks, the betting markets are in rare form, even for their general batshit assessments about the world. Since the beginning of August, Bidens overall lead over Trump has gone from about 7.8 to 9.1. Biden is now very close to his all time high in his lead in the polls with voting starting in some states in just a few days. However during that time, Biden has gone from an average of about a 60% chance of winning the election, according to the betting markets, to a 50/50 toss up. There are days where every national poll coming out will show Biden up by 13 points (this happened a little over a week ago) but his odds of winning according to the bettors dropped 3 or 4 points in a single afternoon.

If anyone can tell me what in the absolute fuck these people are thinking, I am all ears. Because the only thing I can come up with is some kind of shared delusion on the part of people betting on the election

I sometimes like to check on what the other side is thinking and feeling, so go to the cesspools where they hangout online. That also includes the betting markets, which I can tell everyone right now not to bother checking for actual odds since the predictions are almost never correct.

Anyway, the red hats seem to be in rare form today. We have 538 showing Bidens average national lead over Trump jumping to 9.1 points, nearly tied for his all time high over there, as well as data showing the RNC had low ratings, and reactions to Trump's speech last night ranging from "very boring" to "worst acceptance speech in modern history. But you wouldn't know that from the comments from the Trumpets. They are buying up Trump shares on betting sites (meaning they think he is going to win) with their welfare checks (I assume) at a volume I haven't seen in a long time. They are also predicting Trump will not just win but win in a landslide (a landslide is a double digits popular vote win) because Americans are sick of black people committing crimes and "communism". They are also speculating whether Biden will drop out soon because it's clear that his nomination has been a disaster for the Democrats.

The best way to describe the current mood among Republicans is as a manic, delusional level of energy right now. I don't know if they are lost in their echo chamber or if they are desperately trying to convince themselves and each other that everything is just dandy but I can say the comments are actually so far detached from reality that it is genuinely frightening.

Hear me out here. Back in June, Vanity Fair had an article about how McConnell told Trump that if he didn't turn his polling numbers around by Labor Day, which is like a week from now, that they would leave Trump to his fate (i.e. do nothing to stop him from losing) and try to salvage the Senate. One argument they were going to make is that having the Senate in Republican hands would be a check on a Democratic House and Presidency. Seems like they are starting to ramp up that message as McConnell just said in an interview that keeping the Senate Republican would be a firewall against Pelosi's agenda.

https://www.axios.com/mcconnell-trump-republican-national-convention-e461adfb-81f8-4b47-be28-08c898ba593e.html