Trump/Biden: Only 61 Days To Go

By Donald A. Collins | 3 September 2020
Church and State

(Credit: Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Even before post convention campaigns began you doubtless had long tired of the barrage of fundraising emails from the candidates.

I am now still getting at least 5 or 6 a day from both Trump and/or his proxies and Biden and/or his proxies. Few people now even open them I suspect.

I did open this one today from Trump which begins,

Did you hear the news, Friend?

I just announced how I’m going to keep FIGHTING FOR YOU with my second-term agenda.

From the day I became your President, I have put America First with every decision that I make. Unfortunately, the Democrats are threatening to DESTROY everything if they TAKE BACK the Nation.

We cannot let that happen, Friend. Where the Left sees American darkness, I see American greatness.

These next few weeks will be absolutely brutal as we get closer to Election Day. I need my BEST supporters to step up to the front lines and help me WIN BIG so that I can implement my critical second-term agenda.

Then the spot takes one to the pitch for money. There’s plenty of money on both sides already, but this election could be very close.

Trump in 2016 greatly used the immigration issue to get elected by making many voters fear a foreign invasion.

So far Trump’s 2nd term agenda has featured his replaying the fear card while much of our citizens are suffering the effects of the pandemic and economic distress, except for the super or the near rich whose wealth gap has been developing for 40 years ever since Milton Friedman’s claim that profits should be the sole goal of business was adopted as orthodoxy under Reagan.

Electing a President means bringing in a cast of characters to serve him. For an incumbent, we know who those folks are or who they were if they are no longer there.

In Trump’s case the in and out list is staggering even long before the present turmoil. Here the list as of October 2019 which you can read here courtesy of CNN Politics.

Serving and leaving gave those who served the chance to write a book which as in John Bolton’s case was a best seller.

Regardless, the outcome in November is likely going to be very close and the Electoral College votes in a few states could swing the result. The headline in this 9/2/20 Washington Post article entitled, “How turnout and swing voters could get Trump or Biden to 270”.

Bring the article up and play the various options. I did and found the way you can manipulate the numbers online most confirming of the potential narrowness of the margin to victory.

Some say the upcoming Presidential debates will be a key factor as they were with Nixon and Kennedy in 1960. Some think that the Postmaster Louis Dejoy has crippled the mail service so the vote-by-mail ballots will not get handled properly. Both sides agree that the result will be decided by the ardor of the contending voters.

The erratic behavior of the incumbent between now and in the 61 days until November 3 could ultimately cause some of his base to defect.

For example, the effect of the fact that Trump went to Kenosha despite the mayor and the Lt Governor asking him not to come is now unknown.

A friend just forwarded to me the August 30 speech of the Portland mayor Ted Wheeler who has been trying to defuse violence in his city for several months.

Last night’s violence began with hundreds of supporters of Donald Trump rallying and then driving into downtown Portland. They were energized and supported by the president himself.

President Trump, for four years we have had to live with you and your racist comments about Black people. We learned early about your sexist attitudes towards women. We have had to endure clips of you mocking a disabled man, we have heard your anti-democratic attacks on journalists. We have read your tweets slamming private citizens to the point of receiving death threats, and we’ve heard your direct attacks on immigrants including labeling Mexicans as murderers and rapists. We’ve heard you say that John McCain was not a hero because he was a prisoner of war and now you’re attacking democratic mayors in the very institutions of democracy that have served our nation well since its founding.

Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence? It’s you who have created hate in the division that has lead to violence, Mr. President.

It’s you who have not found a way to say the names of Black people killed by police officers, even as people in law-enforcement have and it’s you who claimed the white supremacists are good people.

Your campaign of fear is as anti-democratic as anything you’ve done to create hate and vitriol in our beautiful country. You’ve tried to divide us more than any other figure in modern history and now you want me to stop the violence that you helped create.

What America needs is for you to be stopped so that we can come back together as one America while recognizing that we must demand that all people, black, brown, white, every color from every political persuasion pull together all people accountable in stopping racism and violence and we together are peaceful again under a new leadership that reflects who we really are, the people of this great nation.

President Trump you bring no peace, you bring no respect to our democracy. You, Mr. President, need to do your job as the leader of this nation and I, Mr. President, will do my job as the mayor of this city and we will both be held accountable as we should.”

Yes, only 61 more days of this. Lots can happen either way.

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC., has spent over 40 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013.

From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013

By Donald A. Collins
Publisher: Church and State Press (July 30, 2014)
ASIN: B00MA40TVE
Kindle Store

Trump Defends Actions Of His Supporters At Violent Portland, Kenosha Protests | NBC News NOW

Trump In Kenosha Shows He Can’t Do Two Things At Once | Morning Joe | MSNBC

New Polls: Biden Leads Trump Nationwide And In Key Battleground States | The 11th Hour | MSNBC

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