Looking for the magic indicator of election results

As the election gets closer, people tend to increasingly look for indicators as to what the result might be. This has become more of an art form since the failure of polls to predict Trump’s win in 2016 has made people wary of opinion polls. This problem of polling uncertainty may be accentuated this year because the intensity of the hostility generated by Trump may have resulted in people being more circumspect in revealing their views to pollsters.

Polls should not be totally discounted however. One thing that has surprised me is that although this election season has been extremely turbulent, as might be expected with a volatile president who behaves impulsively resulting in one headline-making event after another, since around mid-June the polling has been remarkably stable, even more so than in previous years, as can be seen in this timeline of the predictions of the Economist model that factors into account both polls and the so-called fundamentals of the economy, such as economic and demographic data.
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Voter suppression backlash

It is just three weeks before the election on Tuesday, November 3. It is by now pretty obvious that Trump and the Republican Party see their future electoral chances depend not on expanding their base of support beyond that of white and older and more well-to-do people from rural areas but instead on suppressing the vote from every other group. So we see all manner of hurdles thrown up to discourage voter registration and voting that seek to make it disproportionately harder to vote for people who live in areas whom they do not see as likely supporters.
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On being on the back foot

I occasionally hear reporters and commentators (usually in politics) in the US speak of someone being “on the back foot” by which they mean on the defensive. This always takes me by surprise since, although it is an idiom that I am familiar with, it comes from cricket, a game that few Americans have even the faintest idea about.

Its origins lie in the fact that a cricket batter who steps forward to meet the oncoming ball (i.e., plays it “on the front foot”) is seen as being aggressive, advancing to meet the attacker (the bowler) and taking greater risks since they are reducing the time available to decide how to play the shot. Here is Joe Root, the cricket captain for England, demonstrating one front foot shot.
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Rampant incompetence in the White House

This article argues that in addition to the Trump administration being full of people with damaging agendas, there is also a high level of incompetence.

That’s in part because, as his first term comes to a close, the professionals around Trump are not all that professional. It is now the exception in key staff and Cabinet posts to have people whose experience would be commensurate with that of people who have typically held those jobs in previous administrations of both parties. This major weakness has been revealing itself in a barrage of minor errors that summon Casey Stengel’s incredulous question about the 1962 New York Mets: Can’t anybody here play this game?
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Should we criticize Trump if we think he is deranged?

Just recently, after the fiasco of the first presidential debate, I got an email from an old friend of mine whom I had not heard from in years. In it, he gently chided me for ‘Trump bashing’ (his words). It is not that he is a Trump supporter. His reason is different and because it was so thoughtful and raised an important question, I am bringing it up here for discussion.

My friend wrote:

I don’t think that all the Trump bashing is warranted. It’s pretty obvious that he has a mental disorder. It’s not fair nor reasonable to have a go at the behavior of a person whose behaviour is due to a mental condition. Will anyone criticize the behaviour of a person who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, dementia or even a person who is bipolar?

I am no psychiatrist but I think Trump suffers from a form of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

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Making up a fake identity to attack diversity

We know that the white right wingers love to have people of color or other identifiable minorities attack members of their own group since that saves them from the charge of racism or bigotry if they were to make those same charges. People like Dinesh D’Souza, Diamond and Silk have made a comfortable living occupying this niche, quickly vaulting to prominence within Republican circles because of their willingness to be such mouthpieces.

Now comes along yet another case of a white college professor who set up a fake twitter account adopting the persona of an immigrant in order to attack immigrants and social justice causes generally.

A white male University of New Hampshire chemistry professor is accused of posing as an immigrant woman of colour on Twitter to make racist and sexist comments and attack users who supported racial justice and other progressive causes.

The university has not named the professor whom it said was being investigated related to the allegations on social media. A spokesperson said that the person “is on leave and not in the classroom”.

Several people who have reviewed the account before it was taken down last week said there were routinely posts with racist, sexist and transphobic comments and images over the past year.

Toby Santamaria, a graduate student studying plant biology at Michigan State who identifies with the gender-neutral term Latinx, was attacked online by followers of the Twitter account.

“I’m disgusted but not really surprised,” Santamaria said.

The person behind the account also detailed how they had fought efforts from their unnamed department to speak out on racial injustice following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. They also routinely brought up their fake background to criticise users who were pushing for greater diversity in science, mathematics, engineering and technology or STEM fields.

While this episode is disgusting, what keeps surprising me is that these people think that they will not be found out. While this episode is disgusting, what keeps surprising me is that these people think that they will not be found out. Haven’t they learned that the old joke that “On the internet, no one knows you are a dog” no longer holds?

Trump’s reckless behavior before and after the debate

It appears that Trump has decided that he is just fine and that he can go about his normal activities. But both he and his doctors have been cagey and inconsistent about the status of Trump’s illness and it is not clear if the doctors are being dictated to by Trump about how he should be treated and what they should tell the media. Dan Froomkin writes that there are whole host of questions that need to be asked from the doctors and the White House spokespersons that they need to provide answers for.
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