My view on why Trump did so well

[Benjamin Frank]

I posted this previously in the election result thread, but I think it's an important point that isn't being recognized.

This is based on an analysis I heard from Canadian pollster Michael Adams (of the polling firm Environics.)  

This was admittedly from polling that is now as much as 20 years old, but anyway.  His polling in the U.S on this started after the 1996 election when turnout was under 50% of registered voters.  

Even though Clinton won (the Republicans held the House though), liberals had long believed that the non-voters would heavily favor them if they could just be brought to the polls. That the non-voters were disproportionately poorer and marginalized in society and were, therefore, heavily persuadable voters.

Michael Adams polling suggested the non voters were far more complex than that.  From his polling after the 2004 election in which George W Bush was reelected he said in his analysis "if you think the religious right voters who reelected Bush are bad, you should be aware that millions of non-voters would be far worse in your mind.  These are people with extremist reactionary conspiratorial views, but, fortunately for you, due to their conspiratorial views, they don't trust voting so they don't vote."

For many of these people, Trump was the first President they voted for back in 2016 or the first person they had voted for in years.  Much of what he did as President, his stating conspiratorial views, his constantly claiming on behalf of himself and of them to be a victim, was to convince these extremists that he is one of them, and that they should trust him to vote for him.

For many of his additional voters, they weren't convinced Trump was the real deal in 2016, but by 2020 they were true believers.  

That's the main reason why there were still millions more who voted for Trump in 2020 over 2016.

[Benjamin Frank]

There is probably some truth to this theory since Trump increased his raw vote totals in so many places. It also explains why a noticeable amount of Trump's support was not picked up by the polls in both 2016 and 2020. The big question is what happens with these low-propensity voters in 2022 and 2024. Will they continue leaning Republican, stay home, or trend Democratic? Hopefully, the post-election analysis will give us some answers.

Based on this analysis, the 2018 midterms suggest many of them are supporters of Trump but not supporters of the Republican Party.

[Benjamin Frank]

This is definitely true.  I have some absolute nuts in my family who were never involved in politics before Trump.  Now they have someone who puts a voice to their inane Facebook-meme conspiracy theories.

One of them texted me a month ago saying she thought Dr. Fauci should be executed for what he's done to this country.  Just two days ago, Steve Bannon was cancelled from social media for saying the same thing.  People were shocked, but I wasn't.

They like Tucker Carlson, and they like Ted Cruz.  They don't trust any other Republican politicians.  And they hate the Republican Party.  They don't actually know anything about politics and they don't understand how the government works.  All they know is that they read stuff on Facebook that's absolutely terrifying, and they adopt their opposition to that stuff as part of their personality.  Since "all politicians lie and do nothing and both sides are equally bad, full of liars and crooks" they weren't involved in politics and paid no attention.  But Trump/Cruz/Carlson embody their opposition to that terrifying nonsense they saw on Facebook.

And this isn't the typical MAGA or even QAnon nonsense that you may be thinking of.  This is crazy stuff you're probably not familiar with unless you live and breathe these circles.  Did you know that Dr. Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum give secret presentations about creating a global government where they mind-control everyone with secret computer programs hidden in vaccines?  This is the kind of stuff they actually believe.  Trump dog-whistles to them, so they love him.

This is the guest who was on Coast to Coast AM on Wednesday Night, using the write up from the Coast website:

Matthew Landman holds an MBA and was entrenched in the financial world when he decided to take a break to work on an organic farm in Humboldt County, where he became aware of geoengineering (chemtrails). In the first half, he discussed his ongoing efforts to raise awareness about toxins and damage from chemtrails, electromagnetic fields (EMF), vaccines, and 5G. He believes that a rogue group of elitists is behind the skies' spraying, as part of a "New World Order" agenda, and their efforts may cause a food shortage this winter. NASA and the government also run different programs that experiment with the stratosphere and the climate. These agencies think that geoengineering is the solution to climate warming, but Landman considers their efforts to be the culprit behind recent droughts and extreme weather events.

Regarding the potential COVID vaccine, he warned that the aluminum in the formula will create a toxic chemical reaction in the body. Coupled "with the increased EMF radiation from the launch of 5G," people will become psychologically malleable or zombified from the vaccine, leaving them easily controlled, he asserted. 5G, the next generation of mobile network technology, will make humans more susceptible to EMF radiation, he contended (he has founded the Spero Protective Clothing line to block or mitigate exposure). Landman also cautioned about the "blue light" emitted from all of our LED screens, which can disorient the body's natural circadian rhythms, particularly when we use these devices at night.

[Benjamin Frank]

This is definitely true.  I have some absolute nuts in my family who were never involved in politics before Trump.  Now they have someone who puts a voice to their inane Facebook-meme conspiracy theories.

One of them texted me a month ago saying she thought Dr. Fauci should be executed for what he's done to this country.  Just two days ago, Steve Bannon was cancelled from social media for saying the same thing.  People were shocked, but I wasn't.

They like Tucker Carlson, and they like Ted Cruz.  They don't trust any other Republican politicians.  And they hate the Republican Party.  They don't actually know anything about politics and they don't understand how the government works.  All they know is that they read stuff on Facebook that's absolutely terrifying, and they adopt their opposition to that stuff as part of their personality.  Since "all politicians lie and do nothing and both sides are equally bad, full of liars and crooks" they weren't involved in politics and paid no attention.  But Trump/Cruz/Carlson embody their opposition to that terrifying nonsense they saw on Facebook.

And this isn't the typical MAGA or even QAnon nonsense that you may be thinking of.  This is crazy stuff you're probably not familiar with unless you live and breathe these circles.  Did you know that Dr. Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum give secret presentations about creating a global government where they mind-control everyone with secret computer programs hidden in vaccines?  This is the kind of stuff they actually believe.  Trump dog-whistles to them, so they love him.

This is the guest who was on Coast to Coast AM on Wednesday Night, using the write up from the Coast website:

Matthew Landman holds an MBA and was entrenched in the financial world when he decided to take a break to work on an organic farm in Humboldt County, where he became aware of geoengineering (chemtrails). In the first half, he discussed his ongoing efforts to raise awareness about toxins and damage from chemtrails, electromagnetic fields (EMF), vaccines, and 5G. He believes that a rogue group of elitists is behind the skies' spraying, as part of a "New World Order" agenda, and their efforts may cause a food shortage this winter. NASA and the government also run different programs that experiment with the stratosphere and the climate. These agencies think that geoengineering is the solution to climate warming, but Landman considers their efforts to be the culprit behind recent droughts and extreme weather events.

Regarding the potential COVID vaccine, he warned that the aluminum in the formula will create a toxic chemical reaction in the body. Coupled "with the increased EMF radiation from the launch of 5G," people will become psychologically malleable or zombified from the vaccine, leaving them easily controlled, he asserted. 5G, the next generation of mobile network technology, will make humans more susceptible to EMF radiation, he contended (he has founded the Spero Protective Clothing line to block or mitigate exposure). Landman also cautioned about the "blue light" emitted from all of our LED screens, which can disorient the body's natural circadian rhythms, particularly when we use these devices at night.

I hadn't noticed this until now, but this write up actually got one thing wrong, maybe its author was also taken about by the insanity of the guest.

I believe the guest did argue that the COVID vaccine (which doesn't presently exist) will cause a toxic reaction in the body to zombify the public, however, this leaves out that the guest also argued that some of the inputs in the masks sold to the public are already doing this.  The guest confused the N-95 masks worn by medical people with the non-medical masks sold to the public, so he seemed to be confused himself, but when you're a nutter, I don't believe that's unexpected.

Interesting also is the host of Coast to Coast, George Noory, is also changing his tune in these areas in an even more negative way now that his hero Trump has lost.  At the start of the whole Covid situation back in March, Noory said on a number of occasions, presumably to calm his listeners, "there could be a vaccine in a couple months, you just never know.'  (Noory is a genuinely ignorant person.  Given all the testing requiring, there could never have been a vaccine in March in just a couple months.)

However, Noory has been pushing for the economy to be completely reopened and for people to 'boost their immune system' to fight the Coronavirus.  Now that his hero Trump has been defeated, he no longer needs to not contradict Trump on the timing of a vaccine, so he said yesterday "there may never be a vaccine.  It may not even be possible.  Covid is a Coronavirus like the common cold and there has never been a vaccine for that."

(That is also ignorant in that the Covid seems to be a lot more stable than the common cold.)

However, part of the interesting thing here is that I can understand why these extremist loony conspiracy theorists confuse(d) Democratic strategists and why they would not have appreciated how Trump could appeal to them (this wasn't just Democratic strategists either.)  

During the open line segment of last night's show, Noory was asked in a segment of "Noory answers your tweets" 'what law would he like to see enacted.'  He responded to the question with a reply regarding what law he'd like to see removed, and he mentioned drug laws.  He argued, as I do, that all drugs should be legalized, and, if necessary, that there should be treatment provided for people who want to get off drugs.  He argued, as I do, that drug laws are antithetical to basic notions of freedom, and that the destruction of lives by drugs being illegal is far greater than the destruction of lives by the drugs themselves.

In the case of this loony guest, he is an organic farmer who dislikes multinational corporations.  On the surface, he sounds like somebody who the Democrats could easily persuade to vote for them.