Apparently, You Don’t Have to Work Hard to Be President

Rob Meyne

  • Nov. 8, 2020
  • 5 min read

As we predicted, the 2020 election will make history. At this point, no winner is certified, although some media outlets have called Biden the winner. Although much of this story remains to be written, let’s offer a few observations as of today.

First, there was no blue wave. Whatever happens to the presidential contest, those who repeatedly predicted a Democratic landslide were wrong. Notably, many of those who were wrong on this point are former Republicans, RINOs, previously relevant prognosticators like Bill Kristol, or failed national candidates like Mitt Romney. Most of these anti-Trumpers predicted Trump would crash and burn and bring the entire GOP slate with it. They could not have been more wrong.

The GOP gained seats in the House, cutting the Dem majority by a dozen or more seats. Republicans have likely retained control of the Senate as well. That, however, depends on what happens in the two Senate runoffs in Georgia. If we hold those seats, we hold the majority.

The GOP also did not lose control of a single state legislative body and flipped one in New Hampshire. That means they are firmly in control of a majority of state houses as we approach redistricting.

Second, the polls were wrong. Almost all of them. The one notable exception is the Trafalgar group. They were consistently more optimistic about the GOPs chances than any of the other national polling firms. If there is anyone who has earned the right to say, “I told you so,” it is Robert Cahaly, Trafalgar’s CEO. I wish him well and hope he is around for a long time.

He maintained all along that there was a segment of the electorate who supported Trump but were hard to detect, or measure, through conventional polls. He was right, and his poll emerges from 2020 as the gold standard. Trafalgar is a ten out of ten, and their closest competitors may be a 7.

Third, Biden won with something I’ll call a shadow campaign. I don’t have a better word for it, and maybe someone else does. But it was a shadow effort in the sense that it bore little resemblance to conventional campaigns. His team made the decision that they could run with thinly-disguised contempt for the American people and our political norms. And it looks like they may well have been right.

American campaigns have for decades included a few basic elements. Grassroots organization is always important. It is the block and tackling of politics, the way in which you identify your voters and ensure they get to the polls. Biden ignored this part of campaigning entirely. Trump’s folks knocked on a million doors a week; Biden’s, zero.

Biden also won, if a win does officially materialize, without a clear, positive message. It is generally believed that it is more powerful and motivating for a candidate to be for something. Biden turned that on its head. The central foundation of his campaign was hatred of Trump.

The Democratic platform, which Biden endorsed along with socialist Bernie Sanders, is the most extreme left document on which a presidential candidate has ever campaigned. There is plenty of fuel for the fire if one wants to discuss issues. But Biden did not effectively embrace central, positive messages in the few instances where he actually made appearances.

If you were to ask people why they voted for Biden, chances are most wouldn’t be able to give you a policy-based answer. In addition, if you pointed out the most extreme policies they have endorsed, a lot of Democratic voters and anti-Trumpers just didn’t believe you. It says something about the extreme nature of a Party platform when even its supporters don’t believe you when you talk about what is in it.

It is also clear that, at least if you are a Democrat, you can lie with abandon, and refuse to answer key questions, and still win the race. Biden lied so often it took a computer with expanded memory to keep track of it all. He lied about his positions on fracking, abortion, fossil fuels in general, support of the war in Iraq, his position on packing SCOTUS, and even details like his educational background.

He also made it clear that being mentally challenged, cognitively weak, isn’t enough for at least half of the electorate to disqualify you. He had dozens of instances where it was crystal clear he does not posses the mental acuity to do the job. Never mind, though, the media covered for him and his supporters don’t care. Consider: in the final week of the campaign, Biden introduced Beau Biden to a crowd as the person they elected to the DE Senate. The problem? It wasn’t Beau Biden; it was his daughter. Biden was never elected to the Senate; he was Attorney General. And one final detail: Beau Biden is dead. Other than that, the introduction was factual and clear. How out of it do you have to be to do that?

Biden also demonstrated that, oddly, it isn’t necessary for a presidential candidate to work very hard. Biden took off more days than Johnny Carson in the final years of his contracts with NBC. No one ever spent less time and effort becoming president than Biden. And the same goes for Harris. She went the entire campaign without having a single press conference, made very few appearances, and was harder to find than Sasquatch.

Now, the issue is this: can the GOP hold the Senate after the GA special elections in January? If they lose both seats, all bets are off, and there will remain no obstacles to the extreme left/socialist wing of the Party enacting every proposal they have, no matter how extreme. Right now, a GOP Senate appears to be the only thing standing in their way.

And the person leading the charge will soon be Kamala Harris. Rated by independent, third-party researchers, like the National Journal, as the single most liberal member of the Senate, Harris will officially take over sometime in the next four years. Biden simply isn’t up to the task. And before it becomes official, she will be pulling the levers behind the scenes.

The accuracy and legality of the vote count will be challenged in court. And there is abundant reason to doubt it is honest and fair. One hopes. If the corruption that is evident at the local level – where they count the votes – is allowed to stand, America is nothing but a banana republic with a bigger GDP.

The “America we know and love” is at risk. If President Trump doesn’t prevail in the courts, the changes Biden and Harris implement may be so severe that, four years hence, this country will be unrecognizable.

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