Month: February 2022

I have been documenting the cult-like devotion of some Americans to their president since I started this blog. For instance:

“President Bush is a Leader who has the courage to lead. It is political courage. It is not poll driven it is conviction driven. It is consistent and does not change because of pressure or threats of political survival. It is reconfirmed every day. It differs from combat courage in that it is thought oriented not reaction oriented. Combat courage does not necessarily translate into political courage. Combat courage is admirable and you only know if you have it when you are in combat. President Bush has demonstrated that he has political courage and this is why he was re-elected. By owning a bust of President Bush, Commander in Chief you will be making a statement and in a politically charged environment, it takes courage.”

And this:

It’s so embarrassing. But I have never seen anything like this:

You have to pity the poor sad person who built that shrine. ..

Trump’s cult goes way beyond the Bush in the flightsuit/ “yes we can” Obama stuff. They are literally worshiping him.

Donald Trump.

They are worshiping Donald Trump.

Howie sez:

Blue America hasn’t had a contest in a while. This one’s at the nexus of music and politics. It’s easy to play for less easy to explain. Let me try. You can win an autographed copy of a new book coming out next week, Disturbing The Peace– 415 Records And The Rise Of New Wave, along with a sealed companion CD, 415 Records– Still Disturbing The Peace, with songs by many of the groups author Bill Knopp wrote about in the book. And, on top of that, the candidate of your choice will get a $1,000 check from Blue America for their campaign. There are two books and two CDs, double your chance to win. The contest ends next Monday at noon (your time), Valentine’s Day– that’s February 14.

So, here’s how to enter. Just contribute to the campaign of the candidate you like best on this page.

Any amount is fine. The candidate who gets the most contributions wins the $1,000 check with a note saying it came to them because of you. Meanwhile, your name gets entered in a drawing and next Monday we’ll pick two people to win the two packs of a book and a CD

And here’s the… quirk. Since every candidate onthe page supports the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, racial justice reform, women’s choice and the other issues Blue America stands for, the way we’re asking you to pick a candidate is based on… their favorite musical artist! I know that sounds different, but… since they are already all excellent candidates politically, what not pick one based on what you can glean about their choice of music. I asked each of these candidates to tell me who their favorite band or musician is:

Shervin Aazami (CA)- New OrderSergio Alcubilla (HI)- The TemptationsJason Call (WA)- Pink FloydAlly Dalsimer (VA)- Carol KingMelanie D’Arrigo (NY)- Smashing PumpkinsChris Deluzio (PA)- Lady GagaCristina Garcia (CA)- Cyndi LauperAlan Grayson (FL)- Joni MitchellMorgan Harper (OH)- Lauryn HillSteve Holden (NY)- U2Lourin Hubbard- Kendrick LamarAlexandra Hunt (PA)- Imagine DragonsDaniel Lee (CA)- PrinceTom Nelson (WI)- AC/DCChristine Olivo (FL)- Janet JacksonMike Ortega (CA)- Pink FloydChris Preece (IN)- Iron MaidenKylie Taitano (CA)- the Postal ServiceNeal Walia (CO)- Mos Def

One more thing, if you want to enter the contest but you’re short of cash, just send a postcard and say you want tone entered in the 415 contest to:

Blue AmericaPO Box 27201Los Angeles, CA 90027

You’ll have the same chance as anyone else to win. But send it right away. It needs to get to us by Monday, Feb. 14. You can find a copy of our general contest rules here (just ignore the specifics of that particular contest).

OK, so one more time: here’s the page where you enter the contest. And here’s the song that launched 415 Records into national prominence:

Howie doesn’t mention it in this announcement because he’s too modest, but he was one of the founders of 415 Records.

The Washington Post’s Philip Bump writes a piece expressing the sentiments I find myself screaming at the TV every day (and makes me slap myself for not writing it myself.) Noting the latest uproar over Mike Pence uttering the words “President Trump is wrong” he observes what should be obvious to anyone — so what? Pence said he was wrong back on January 6th and refused to do his bidding and we all know the result. Just as everyone assumed the McCain slur, Access Hollywood, Charlottesville, Helsinki and dozens of other horrific moments since he came down that escalator was “the moment” the tide had turned against Trump, it almost certainly is not. We know what he is. Everyone does. And tens of millions of Americans love him for it (or in spite of it.)

Bump writes:

So much of the political commentariat is looking for smudged fingerprints on a crowbar found near the scene of a break-in even as that crowbar is clearly labeled “property of Donald Trump” and Trump is selling a bunch of obviously stolen merchandise at a yard sale across the street.

For example, that resolution criticizing Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) for participation in the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 included a reference to the committee engaging in “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” As The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey reported, this was a clumsily phrased reference to subpoenas issued to people who were engaged in the broader effort to overturn the election, not the day’s violence. Yet, on the hunt for the signal moment, observers — including Cheney — decided that the resolution was saying that the riot was being waved away as “legitimate political discourse.”

The important thing here is that it wouldn’t matter if that was the intent. We know that the Republican Party is whitewashing the riot. We know that the far-right media is spreading misinformation about it. We know that those arrested for participating in violence are getting sympathetic responses from powerful Republican officials. To insist that there is greater significance in the phrasing used for a resolution than the accreted evidence of efforts to play down what happened that day is simply bizarre. What matters isn’t that linguistic detectives are on the case, what matters is literally everything else we know.

It happened this week, too. When Trump released that statement saying Pence could have overturned the election had he acted on Jan. 6, this was hailed as a novel confession of guilt. Perhaps a prosecutor will see it as such after comparing it to the letter of the law. But this was not, in itself, a revelation of intent! No kidding that Trump wanted Pence to overturn the election! What did you think was happening for the two months from the 2020 election to President Biden’s inauguration? A rational, good-faith consideration of what the voters had intended?

It was this comment from Trump that was the predicate for Pence’s switch from passive to active disagreement with his former boss. Here’s Pence, giving the crowd what it wants: not Joseph Welch saying “have you no sense of decency?” but someone performing the role of Welch saying that. At last, here was a moment the audience had been awaiting, Pence turning on Trump! Except he already did, back when it mattered. Focusing on spindly little trees obscures the breadth of the forest.

We are at an extreme. Our standard parsing of the moment, of dragging the center flag of the tug-of-war rope an inch one way or the other, doesn’t apply. The rope is already in a heap at the edge of the field and the losing team lying on the ground with dislocated shoulders. If you have discovered that the flag is slightly closer to the middle than was believed, you have not discovered anything of any use.

There’s not going to “that moment.” There have already been so many and it hasn’t made a difference. Maybe he will have to face some legal ramifications that will take him out of the race in 2024. (I doubt it…) Or maybe Trump will die unexpectedly in his sleep. That would be “that moment.” Other than that, I kind of expect “that moment” will have to be election day 2024 and God knows what will happen after that.

The salt of the earth:

Last week, McMinn County made news when the school board voted to ban beloved graphic novel Maus — a Holocaust story told with anthropomorphic mice and cats — due to instances of swear words and nudity. While the vote happened in early January, it went viral following a report from TN Holler.

Last night, Mt. Juliet pastor and pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Greg Locke decided to turn it up a notch by organizing an old-fashioned book burning. The books included millennial staples like Harry Potter and Twilight — hits of the early Aughts that were targeted by Christian book burnings back in the day.

In a sermon preceding the bonfire, Locke described beefing with “Free Mason devils” and said “I ain’t gonna be ‘suiciding myself’ no time soon.” Locke also said people aren’t mad that they were burning books, but mad because of the books they were burning — implying that his critics, even other pastors, were devil and witchcraft supporters.

Ok, so these people are the usual fundamentalists. But they aren’t really that far outside the mainstream these days, are they?

How the economy is doing ahead of an election may not be as important as how voters perceive the economy, The Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter observed well in advance of the COVID-19 pandemic. Negative partisanship plays an important role in that perception. “Voters are less willing than ever to give the other party any credit for a good economy, or to hold their own party accountable in a downturn,” Walter wrote. Rationality has little to do with it, a 2018 University of Michigan study found, “with Democrats placing heavy emphasis on negative developments and Republican on positive developments.” The gap between those perceptions under the Trump administration grew to three times that under Ronald Reagan.

Nevertheless, despite the economy booming under President Biden, a nagging perception persists that Republicans manage the economy better than Democrats. Heather Cox Richardson explains:

This should not come as a surprise to anyone. The economy has performed better under Democrats than Republicans since at least World War II. CNN Business reports that since 1945, the Standard & Poor’s 500—a market index of 500 leading U.S. publicly traded companies—has averaged an annual gain of 11.2% during years when Democrats controlled the White House, and a 6.9% average gain under Republicans. In the same time period, gross domestic product grew by an average of 4.1% under Democrats, 2.5% under Republicans. Job growth, too, is significantly stronger under Democrats than Republicans.

“[T]here has been a stark pattern in the United States for nearly a century,” wrote David Leonhardt of the New York Times last year, “The economy has grown significantly faster under Democratic presidents than Republican ones.”

The persistence of the myth that Democrats are bad for the economy is an interesting example of the endurance of political rhetoric over reality.

The rhetoric that Democrats advocate socialism dates back to Reconstruction, Richardson writes. Then, socialism meant any form of wealth redistribution from the aristocrats to the commoners.

Finally, after the spectacularly corrupt administration of Republican Benjamin Harrison, which businessmen had called “beyond question the best business administration the country has ever seen,” the unthinkable happened. In the election of 1892, for the first time since the Civil War, Democrats took control of the White House and Congress. They promised to rein in the power of big business by lowering the tariffs and loosening the money supply. This, Republicans insisted, meant financial ruin.

Not unlike today, Republicans worked to sabotage the incoming Democratic administration, that of Grover Cleveland. “Money flowed out of the country as the outgoing Harrison administration poured gasoline on the fires of media fears and refused to act to try to turn the tide.” They provoked a crash.

To Cleveland fell the Panic of 1893, with its strikes, marchers, and despair, all of which opponents insisted was the Democrats’ fault. In the midterm election of 1894, Republicans showed the statistics of Cleveland’s first two years and told voters that Democrats destroyed the economy. Voters could restore the health of the nation’s economy by electing Republicans again. In 1894, voters returned Republicans to control of the government in the biggest midterm landslide in American history, and the image of Democrats as bad for the economy was cemented.

From then on, Republicans portrayed Democrats as weak on the economy. When the next Democratic president to take office, Woodrow Wilson, undermined the tariff as soon as he took office, replacing it with an income tax, opponents insisted the Revenue Act of 1913 was inaugurating the country’s socialistic downfall. When Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt pioneered the New Deal, Republicans saw socialism. Over the past century, that rhetoric has only grown stronger.

Republicans have argued Democratic control means the country’s ruin for 150 years and, so far, the country persists. But they have been disciplined about messaging it until their claims became conventional wisdom.

Since Newt Gingrich made that approach Republican gospel, Republicans with help from conservative talk radio and TV have refined their skills for bending reality to fit their preferences.

In a restaurant in Greenville, SC once, I saw a framed black-and-white photo like the one at the top. It bore the cryptic caption: “Waiting for Grover Cleveland.”

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If your team won’t repeat your message, if they won’t repeat or retweet it, it’s not a good message, preaches progressive communications expert Anat Shenker Osorio. The title above does not begin with a shared value. It’s not exactly destined for virality. But it has the merit of fitting on a bumper sticker.

The message spotlights Friday’s assessment from consultant Mike Lux and pollster Celinda Lake that Democrats have reason to believe they will defy the media narrative and common wisdom that they will do poorly in the November elections.

Sen. Joe Manchin notwithstanding, the Biden administration has chalked up a number of wins in its first year:

– the $1400 pandemic relief checks just when they were needed the most
– over 200 million shots in arms, including boosters, which made people far less likely to get sick and die
– stopping the practice of health care providers doing surprise medical billing
– getting high speed broadband delivered to rural America and other parts of the country that have been left behind
– making the biggest investment in roads and bridges since the Interstate Highway System was built
– making major investments in strengthening the electric grid, so that electricity outages are less likely
– making investments in manufacturing and jobs here in America, and
– releasing petroleum reserves to lower gas prices

Solid economic talking points. But it is wise to remember that voters do not vote their economic best interests; they vote their identitites. Catastrophic civil wars start over them.  Democrats will need more. 

Fortunately, led by a “narcissist with shit hair,” the Republican brand is not exactly gleaming these days. This fall’s contest, say Lux and Lake, will be between a party “trying to meet and solve problems” and one that wants to fight a culture war (see paragraph above).

But Republican candidates will face some bruising primaries in which candidates will argue who’s the Trumpiest.

House redistricting is turning out not to be as bad as expected for Democrats. (It just got better here last week.) The Senate map as well gives Democrats a chance to hold its majority. Depending on the economy in the fall, there could be some tough holds: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and New Hampshire. But:

On the red-to-blue pickup opportunity side, we have some real possibilities. Pennsylvania, a state won by Biden, has an open seat and another ugly, weird GOP primary fight, with two leading candidates who don’t live in state, while an earlier frontrunner had to suspend his campaign after a judge ruled that he had abused hiswife. In Wisconsin, another state won by Biden, the unpopular incumbent Ron Johnson decided to run again,and is a strong target for Democrats. North Carolina, the last state in the country called in both the presidential and Senate races for 2020, is an open seat, with another wild and tough GOP primary.

Ohio, Missouri, and Florida Senate wins are not out of the question.

Republicans are speaking only to their hard-core base. Democrats are still the majority party in the country. They cannot run on Trump, but he will be on the ballot again as he was in 2018 amd 2020.

Democrats build things. Republicans just want to break them.

Lux and Lake offer a few recommendations for how Democrats can win 2022:

1. We need to promote our big accomplishments, specifically the great things we have already delivered for working families (which the Republicans have mostly opposed), but we also must talk about what we are fighting for and against. Our focus should be on kitchen-table economics: the $1400 pandemic checks when people needed them the most, getting roads and bridges built, delivering clean drinking water, getting high speed internet into rural America and other communities left behind, stopping surprise medical billing, creating new jobs in solar and wind power, raising wages more than they have been raised in generations. And we talk about how Big Pharma, Big Oil, Wall Street, the Big Food companies, and Big Tech are profiteering from the pandemic and battling us every step of the way, but how we will keep fighting for you. And again: Republicans have joined these big corporations to oppose every step of the way. Moreover, one of the major problems is that the ultra-wealthy and corporations are not paying their fair share of taxes.

Democrats are working hard to make sure our economy thrives, and that American families thrive. We have delivered a lotof important things since we took power. We have a lot left to do, miles to go before we sleep, but we are getting things moving again in spite of the hard core opposition from huge global corporations and most Republicans. These are the things Joe Biden focused on in winning the 2020 election by over 7 million votes.

And we also need to make clear that Democrats are doing everything in their power to fight for small business. From fighting corporate monopolies that are trying to crush competition from smaller businesses, to helping build the network of child care providers, to helping keep the restaurant industry going with the American Recovery Plan in the worst of the pandemic, to helping boost new solar and wind clean energybusinesses, Democrats are proud to be doing everything they can to help small businesses.

The small business message is crucial in reassuring swing voters, but small business in general is arguably the most beloved institution in America — including by Democratic base voters. Talking about small business is not about a centrist message vs a progressive message: it helps us with everyone.

It can be boiled down to this: Democrats are building things. Republicans just want to break them, and are opposing all efforts to fix anything.

2. Build a broad economic narrative about the changes Democrats are working to make in order to make it help working families more; and how Big Business, in league with the Republicans, is fighting the positive change Democrats are working to deliver. Democrats have delivered important things to theAmerican people through the legislative process, but whether or not we pass more major legislation, we can tell the story about how we are taking on corrupt and abusive big corporations. Even if we don’t win every legislative battle, voters should know we are fighting hard for them, and that the wealthy special interests, CEOs, and lobbyists are doing everything in their power to block us. Democrats must have a compelling, constantly repeated economic narrative.

The Biden administration has already been moving steadily in this direction, and other Democrats as well asthe broader progressive movement should amplify this narrative every chance they get. Candidates on the campaign trail in 2022 need to be all about fighting corporate corruption. They can talk about how President Biden and the Democrats in Congress are fighting hard to help working families, but that Big Business CEOs and billionaires are spending tens of millions of dollars to fight everything we are working to do. We want to raise workers’ wages and give them more bargaining power; we want to cut the costs of pharmaceuticals and health insurance, of energy prices and groceries. We want to force big profitable multinational businesses to finally pay their fair share in taxes, and help the small businesses that are trying to give them some competition so that prices will come down. But these companies — many of which have been profiteering off the pandemic and jacking up their prices unnecessarily,
out-sourcing jobs to get cheap labor overseas, and trying to stomp out any competition from small business — are fighting us tooth and nail.

3. Use the race-class narrative approach to frame responses to Republican attacks. (Thanks to Anat Shenker Osario and Ian Haney Lopez for their help with this section). Historically, some Democrats have seen the multi-racial composition of their coalition as a weakness. After all, the Republican messaging strategy for the last 50 years has focused on pushing racial wedge issues, most recently, for instance, thesupposed threats from critical race theory. And too often, Democrats themselves believe they must pursue distinct mobilization and persuasion strategies for different racial groups.

But recent work using race and class gives the Democratic Party the power to turn its multi-racial identity into a core strength. Race-class narrative and fusion politics frames racial conflict as a divide-and-conquer strategy that threatens us all, people of every race and across the broad economic spectrum. The real enemy we all face is those who profit by intentionally stoking racial division. The Trumpist politicians fueling group hatred, the media personalities like Tucker Carlson harping on the “great replacement theory,” and the dark money think tanks that promote attacks on affirmative action, welfare, and most recently the 1619 Project. These are the real enemies we face. And by naming them as such, Democrats can shift the basic us-them conflict in American politics. The core opposition in American life is not between white people and people of color. It’s usall, against those who profit by promoting social strife.

There’s good evidence from multiple polls that the race-class narrative works. The reason it works is that it represents to Democrats a single story that can be genuinely owned by everyone in the party. Fusion politicsaddresses the core concerns of those focused on racial justice, speaking powerfully to communities of color while directly confronting racism without calling the voters we are trying to win over racists.
Race-class messages also bring along majorities of white voters and focus attention on the economic issues we have talked about elsewhere in this memo.

4. Telling our story about rising prices. Inflation is probably our number one challenge right now in terms of our success at delivering a positive economic message. It is definitely something voters are worried about and thinking about a lot, and Democrats should not discount or avoid the problem.

Candidates often do not like to talk about tough issues, but in this case we think that approach would be a mistake. In fact, we recommend that they address the issue head on.

Inflation is being caused by two things. First, of course, are the supply chain issues caused by Covid. The Bidenadministration is aggressively moving to unsnarl these supply chain problems. It is going to take a while to solve, but we are making steady progress. For example, most Christmas gifts people wanted to buy were available in time last year after predictions that they wouldn’t be.
And we are working on longer term solutions to keep supply chains in better shape, especially with Biden’s tough, new Made in America Executive Order, which is very popular with voters.

The other big issue is pandemic profiteering: big multinational corporations — many of them with near-monopoly power in their industry — are taking advantage of the situation to jack up their prices on a variety of foods, on energy prices, onconsumer items of all kinds. All while avoiding paying their fair share of taxes. The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress are taking on corporate profiteering hard: we released oil from the Federal Oil Reserve to drive down oil prices; we are helping family farmers and small food processing companies compete against the Big Food companies; and we are having the Federal Trade Commission investigate unjustified price hikes.

Democrats reject the idea that wages should go down to curb inflation. We are working hard to get the prices of prescription drugs, health care, energy, housing, and child care down to affordable levels. We will wrestle this problem to the ground.

5. Non-profit and party organizations have developed voter registration and GOTV strategies targeted to key Democratic leaning constituencies like people of color, young people, and unmarried women that have been proven to work in elections year after year, but they are always underfunded. We are going toneed to fund those strategies at a higher level than ever in this election year, because the media is in a relentlessly negative cycle; Covid has people discouraged and wary; and wherever they have control, Republicans are passing new election laws that will make it more difficult to vote. As we said above, if we turn our voters out, we will win this election, but it will be a big challenge. There is no higher priority in terms of winning the 2022 elections than a strong, well-funded GOTV strategy.

There is time to shift the national narrative, Lake and Lux argue. But it will take doing.

Messaging continues to be a major weakness for Democrats. Good news neither bleeds nor leads. For all their self-assured smarts, the left has trouble finding and repeating bumper-sticker messages over and over until they stick.

Depending on how the Jan. 6 investigations progress, the goal this fall may be to rally voters to save the country and democracy itself. That’s not purely a kitchen-table issue, nor “a broad economic narrative.” But it may define what’s at stake better than both.

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For The Win, 4th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.

The money game isn’t everything but they can’t win without it:

All seven House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald J. Trump and are seeking re-election have out-raised their primary opponents, many of whom have received Mr. Trump’s backing, according to campaign disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission this week.

In Wyoming, Representative Liz Cheney, who was all but exiled by her party for bluntly condemning Mr. Trump’s false election claims and has emerged as one of the lead lawmakers on the special committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, raked in $2 million during the last quarter, entering 2022 with nearly $5 million in cash on hand. Her opponent, Harriet Hageman, who has drawn the vociferous support of Mr. Trump and his family, raised $443,000 last quarter and has about $380,000 cash on hand.

Representative Fred Upton, a centrist who has held his seat in southwest Michigan for more than three decades, brought in $726,000 and has about $1.5 million cash on hand, well ahead of the challenger Mr. Trump has endorsed, Steve Carra, a state representative who raised $134,000 last quarter and has $200,000 cash on hand.

Joe Kent, a Trump-backed Army Special Forces veteran prolific on social media and conservative talk shows, appeared to come closer to matching the fund-raising totals of his opponent, Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, but still trailed her in both quarterly hauls and cash on hand.

I don’t think this means all that much — these people are probably getting money from Democrats as well as disaffected Republicans and Independents but I’m not sure they’ll get their votes in a primary or in the general election. Maybe. But people do send money as a show of support and it appears they are sending it to the Republicans who stood up to Dear Leader.

But I wouldn’t worry too much about those challengers. The RNC just voted to allow itself to spend money for Liz Cheney’s opponent (which is apparently against Wyoming law.) But don’t worry. Whatever happens they aren’t going to let those pro-Trump candidates flounder without money. They can’t guarantee they’ll win, but they won’t let them starve.

Trump won’t spend much of the massive war chest he’s collected, of course. He gave a million plus to Mark Meadows’ group and disbursed a small amount across 65 different candidates. But for the most part he’s hoarding it all for his own run. And there’s plenty more where that came from, I’m sure.

That character assassin Barbara Comstock was on CNN saying that Pence received wild adulation at the Federalist Society speech and it’s not true. I happened to be watching MSNBC yeseterday when they cut abruptly to Pence’s speech and this is what they showed. Nobody’s mentioned it again as far as I know. It’s telling. Despite his comments about Trump being wrong and the fact that he got a perfunctory standing ovation (they didn’t exactly leap to their feet and cheer) they really didn’t like him much:

Apparently, Republicans are a teensy bit worried that all this talk of rigged election will result in some of their own voters not bothering to go to the polls:

The anger over the 2020 vote even has some election deniers questioning whether voting is worthwhile.

“Unless we fix what went down — and I voted ever since I was able to vote — I’m pretty well done,” Gary Taylor, 65, of Pinckney, said at the Michigan rally. “I mean, what’s the point? I think the whole damn thing is corrupt.”

That sentiment could make a difference in Republicans winning or losing races. In Georgia’s Senate runoff elections in January 2021, constant fraud claims by Trump and his allies were seen to have played a role in dampening GOP turnout enough to have allowed for one — if not both — Democratic victories.

In a virtual town hall late last year, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., told supporters, “We have to vote.”

“There’s been some big negative voices that have been saying terrible things,” she said. “They’ve been telling people not to vote in the next election. And I think that is the biggest lie. If anyone is telling you not to vote, they’re helping the enemy.”

In Tucson, Sherrylyn Young, a candidate for the state Senate who attended the question-and-answer session with Bennett, said even a small number of Republicans giving up on elections is “a big concern.”

“I think there are a lot of people who are saying it’s rigged and there’s no point in even going out and voting. I hope that doesn’t happen,” she said. It might be “enough to swing an election when it comes right down to it.”

Polling suggests that Trump followers are very excited to vote so I’m not sure this is a real concern. In fact, I think the bigger turnout worry for them is if the cult comes out in the primaries in huge numbers and they nominate Trumpy weirdos — and turn off the Independents they need in the general. And there’s a pretty good chance that’s what they’re going to do.

The “rigged” election rhetoric isn’t there to dissuade Republicans from voting. It’s to challenge ( bitch, whine and try to punish the election officials) any election they lose. Conservatives always worked overtime to persuade their voters that they are the majority even when it’s clear they are not. Now they are literally saying that it’s impossible for them to lose elections.