Donald Trump believes he’s going to lose!!

                                                                                                                         

[거사 주]: 미국 대선이 11/5이라 5일밖에 남지 않았습니다. 지난 TV 토론에서 연로한 Joe Biden이  Donald Trump 한테 밀렸던 이벤트가 결국 대권주자를 VP Kamala Harris한테 우여곡절을 겪으며 넘겨졌습니다. 그 후로 길지 않은 기간 동안 선거운동에 올인하여 그녀의 인지도가 높아졌습니다. 반면 Trump는 정신상태가 이상해진 탓인지, 적군인지 아군인지 분간 못하는 발언을 하여 가뜩이나 범법자의 오명이 쪄 누르는 상황에서 공화당 지도부에서도 우려가 큽니다. Red States와 Blue States를 제외한 7 Swing States(Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, & Pennsylvania)의 향방이 대선 결과에 절대적으로 영향을 주기 때문에 모두 All-In 하고 있습니다. 2020년 대선 때 Joe Biden이 North Carolina를 제외한 6개 주에서 승리하여 당선이 되었습니다. 이번 대선에서 사기꾼에 거짓말쟁이, 히틀러/푸틴을 흠모하며, 미국이 불법 이민자로 가득찬 '쓰레기 통'이라고 발언한 사람이 미국의 대통령이 기필코 되어서는 않됩니다. 그런데 트럼프는 만약에 패배할 경우를 대비하여 곳곳에 선거 부정이 있다는 거짓 증거를 만들어서 지난 2020년 Joe Biden이 당선되었어도 승복하지 않고 추종자들을 선동하여 여론 몰이를 하였던, 그런 꼼수를 부리고 있답니다. 

 

VP Kamala Harris at the Ella West Gallery in Durham, North Carolina on March 1

 Alternet - Opinion by John Stoehr

We have a week to go before Election Day, and like many of my comrades in the pundit corps, I’m being asked what I think is going to happen. Here are some thoughts, with others on the side. 

That’s what he’s telling us when he complains about cheating. Yes, he’s eroding public trust in the institutions of government, but first and foremost, he’s saying that he believes Kamala Harris will beat him.

You could say, as O’Brien did, that Trump resorts to loser tactics when he “loses political ground,” but you could put that another way. He resorts to them when he gives ground away. His campaign evidently felt it was a good idea to insult Puerto Ricans and Latinos generally a couple of days before holding a rally at an arena located in the Puerto Rican neighborhood of a majority-Latino city (Allentown) in the must-win swing state of Pennsylvania. According to Politico, some residents are so enraged by “island of garbage” that they’re planning to protest the rally, thus bringing more attention to a campaign that can’t break out of its bubble of white-power politics.

A party official in Allentown, who said that his Latino family is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, said of Trump that “it’s not the smartest thing to do, to insult people — a large group of voters here in a swing state — and then go to their home asking for votes.”

That’s a nice way of putting it. Another way is that he’s bad at politics.Back in the day, before Trump came along, we used to be able to count on both hands the number of unforced errors a candidate made. Recall that Republican nominee Mitt Romney was well-known for his gaffes.

In between the blunders, Romney ran a serious campaign. We could identify his gaffes, because they were the exception to the norm. There are such exceptions with Trump. They are the norm. His campaign is nonstop gaffing. He overwhelms us with them. We never talk about them, because we put on the pile of “more of the same.”

Trump could win. If he does, it will be because just enough white people in just enough places were willing to believe his lies and overlook his errors. He could also win by cheating and staging another coup, this one perhaps legal. But let’s also not kid ourselves. If he loses, and I think he will, no one is going to look back at nine years’ worth of campaigning and say that it’s worth emulating.

Harris believes she’s going to win. My main point is that the vice president is running a masterful campaign. Even if she’d had a year to prepare, I don’t think she could have put together a better operation than the one she has now. And as long as she executes according to plan, she’ll probably beat Trump.

With the help of Joe Biden, Harris orchestrated instantaneous unity within the Democratic Party, despite its factions and infighting. Since the convention, she has done what you expect from a nominee who is trying to win: she has expanded her base of power to include people who are not Democrats, namely Republicans, but also nonvoters.

She has done that with a mix of policy proposals, especially those that target price-gouging and the high cost of living, and basic appeals to reestablishing the regular order in political business. In doing so, Harris is creating a new kind of consensus. Or more precisely, she’s claiming as her own a consensus that has already emerged.

As if to illustrate the point, Barbara Pierce Bush, the daughter of former Republican president George W Bush, came out Monday in support of Harris. She said she hoped that voters would support the vice president toward the goal of protecting women’s rights. She joined the Harris campaign in Pennsylvania over the weekend.

Along with Liz and Dick Cheney, and scores of other prominent Republicans, the addition of a Bush daughter suggests two things. One is that Kamala Harris is standing at the mid-point in American politics. She represents the new centrism. The other is that Donald Trump is standing outside the mainstream. He’s a partisan candidate. She’s a bipartisan candidate, the first such candidate of my lifetime.

Though the aggregate of quality national polls is showing that Harris has a slight lead over Trump, that’s not the reason I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful because Trump is bad at politics and acts like a loser. Meanwhile, Harris is good at politics and acts like a winner. (-)