That would be a real shame, eh?
Why Democratic voters might stay home on Election Day
Alarm is growing in Democratic circles that the massively unpopular President Trump might connive to keep himself in office past January even if he is voted out. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the party’s presumptive nominee, has warned repeatedly that Trump will steal the election. Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Sunday said he believes the president “plans to install himself in some kind of emergency way to continue to hold onto office.” Publications including The Atlantic and The Washington Post have carried stories speculating that Trump will usurp the election or reject its results. Trump himself fed the speculation last week by suggesting the election be delayed — a notion quickly squashed by Republican officeholders across the spectrum.
These warnings are rooted in Trump’s clear disregard for American democracy, or any rule that keeps him from getting what he wants. But what if all this doomsaying scares Biden’s voters away from the polls? Rick Henderson, editor-in-chief of Carolina Journal — and a friend of mine — raised the question Sunday: “‘Responsible’ people on both sides seeding doubt about the legitimacy of the election (and possible transfer of power) is nuts,” he wrote on Twitter. “If no one trusts the election to be fair, why would anyone want to vote and play a sucker’s game?”
Democrats have been worried that their voters won’t make it to the polls this fall, but those concerns are mostly rooted in a fear of overconfidence within the party, and GOP voter-suppression efforts. There hasn’t been much concern — publicly, at least — that voters will conclude American democracy is already dead and thus it’s not worth the effort of casting a ballot.
There’s lots more fear-mongering in the article, but, what this is really all about is setting the stage for when Biden loses, claiming that the election was fraudulent. They claimed it was Russia Russia Russia for the 2016 election, and could never prove it. They need Reasons as to why the hardcore Modern Socialist agenda is not really that popular across the country.
Really, though, you can see lots of non-crazy Democrats, the ones who aren’t the far left nuts, along with Independents who lean Democrat not bothering to vote this time. Lots of them. They’ll see the issues with Joe Biden, such as his mental deterioration and hard Progressive turn, and just stay home. Meaning that the down ballot votes will not go their way. They compare the Dem candidates agenda to Trump, and see people who want Crazy vs a guy who seems to be a jerk personally but gets things done in office. And understand that all politicians are jerks, most just hide it better. These people may not vote Trump, but, they won’t vote Dem, either. They’ll stay home.
There is already some reason to be concerned about Democratic turnout this year. Recent polls suggest that, when it comes to voter enthusiasm, Biden lags Trump in key battleground states. That could mean Democrats are less likely to vote in November. Or it could mean very little. Democratic voters may have to hold their noses at the ballot box, but they’ll still cast a vote for Biden. As CBS News’ Kabir Khanna observed, “an unenthusiastic vote … counts just the same as an enthusiastic one.” Indeed, it seems a fair number of likely Biden voters are settling for him not because they love him or his potential policies, but because they see him as a “safe” candidate in a time of great peril.
Who can get enthused by Biden? Will he continue to hide till election day? Will he debate? If all he gets is Hillary’s 2016 states, he loses. Is anything he’s doing expanding the votes to flip the Trump 2016 states?
