by Rick Wilson
Just because it didn’t work as well politically as the administration expected on Election Day 2018 doesn’t mean you won’t see the caravan and its parallels trotted out in the hit parade to come. Even though a series of Trump-inspired killers have swept America, there’s nothing Trump loves more than to double down on being a shit-tier human, so this season’s caravans will be bigger, more threatening, and more imminent than ever.
Hell, in the summer of 2019 the Russo–Right Wing alliance was trying to sell a story that Ebola-infected Congolese migrants were trying to sneak across the southern border to take our jobs and infect us with a deadly hemorrhagic fever. Bonus!
As with damn-near everything, Trump’s dominant—some could argue only—style as president is creating a crisis, declaring an emergency, blowing things up, then either dropping the subject or pretending it never happened. “Aren’t you happy I didn’t nuke Omaha? Because I could have and they deserved it.”
With traditional October surprises and last-minute hits, the attacks generally have something to do with a candidate’s record. It may be shocking, but not insane. These hits are grounded somewhere in reality. A conflict of interest. A DUI. An affair. Because the Fabulist in Chief has been a strong influence on his campaign staff, surrogates, and advisors, expect the last-minute accusations about the Democratic nominee to blow your damn mind.
Remember, Trump campaign surrogates like Ratfucker in Chief Roger Stone, bloated conspiracy jihadi Alex Jones, wee alt-right strategist Jack Posobiec, and flounder-eyed lunatic Mike Cernovich were aggressively pushing stories that no sane person would touch with a fifty-foot sterilized pole. The unsubtle line between the Trump campaign and this collection of douchebags was former caddy but now Twitter factotum for the president Dan Scavino. They also—largely through Steve Bannon and former alt-right boy wonder and now professional Internet beggar Milo Yiannopoulos—had a strong communications channel to the dregs of the white-supremacist, neo-Nazi, and neo-fascist elements of Trump’s base. Bannon also loved having these alt-right ass-kissers serve as a feeder element for stories that were too over-the-edge for Breitbart. (I know, let that sink in.)
This cavalcade of malicious dipshits worked tirelessly and successfully to market outright lies, asserting that the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was ordered by Hillary Clinton’s campaign as revenge for the WikiLeaks release of her emails. They jumped in feet-first with the ludicrous Comet Ping Pong/Pizzagate smear, which came damn close to costing innocent lives.
This was all when they weren’t too busy pushing the stories that Hillary Clinton was suffering from Parkinson’s, gout, heart failure, stroke-related vision loss, and rickets. The thin veil between reality and fantasy has been pierced for most of Trump’s voters; they’ve been conditioned to buy into stories because the Gresham’s Law of douchey Trump-right media is that bad coverage always drives out good, and insane coverage always drives out sane.
The system for disseminating Trump’s conspiracy horseshit is built out now, a mighty machine well-practiced at laundering conspiracy nonsense into the eyeballs of 90 million Fox viewers every day and then shoving it down the gagging throats of mainstream viewers.
Sure, whatever crazy conspiracy that infects the political bloodstream this time was first posted on QanewsMAGASiloEagleVision.ru, but then it showed up on Gateway Pundit, Breitbart, and Fox. Rush Limbaugh said he couldn’t confirm it, yet. Sean Hannity is just asking questions, y’all. By the end of every cycle, even The New York Times is covering the story about the story. “As conspiracy rumors swirl on Biden’s cannibalism, Washington waits.” This is part of the social engineering of the extremes and propagandists; they know the story’s very absurdity makes it newsworthy, driving more coverage, more clicks, and more repetitions of the initial lie.
Expect the very worst from these jokers—and the worst will border on unimaginable. They’ll bet big, and late in the game. The story will tweak all the hot buttons the audience loves: criminality by arrogant elites, conspiracy, sex, and power. This is the kind of tabloid-meets-QAnon conspiracy fuel that reminds the incoherent Trump voter that some amorphous “they” are trying to stop the Golden One. (For “they” insert the Illuminati, the Bilderbergers, the Jews, the Muslims, the gays, the lizard people, Hillary and Huma’s coven, the Gnomes of Zurich, the Jews, various alien species resident at Area 51, time travelers, and also, the Jews.)
The first way you face these things is to prepare. You need to be prepared with responses to legitimate attacks, including statements, social-media posts, talking points for surrogates, digital and television advertising, and countervailing messages.
The second, and vital, discipline on these questions is to laugh. Out loud. To the camera. Not a nervous “oh dear” laugh, but a big, hearty belly laugh. Call bullshit. Defuse the bomb. They want you to come across as angry, outraged, and demanding an apology they will never give. That feeds their power.
Say it right out. “This is bullshit. It’s ludicrous, absurd bullshit from Donald.”
Don’t ask for an apology. They thrive on denying you one. Don’t be disappointed. They love tears and sadness. Don’t craft some lofty rhetorical gem to call down the judgment of history. They’re memetards, not true rhetorical equals.
A simple “Fuck you, Donald” will often suffice.
None of that can prepare you for the fantasy-based attacks. It’s not traditional campaigning, I know. Voters hate the poise and polish of the too-calm politicians. They view it as fake and deceptive. When the crazy comes, it should be met not with hand-wringing or “woe is me” responses, but with a passionate, serious, fuck-you attitude back. You need to blame it all directly on the president himself, and remind voters he is a persistent liar and barking conspiracy loon.
Anything else that can happen to fuck up your campaign generally will. Weather, natural disasters, economic downturns, emergent scandals, Russian interference, terrorism, Chinese interference, plague, pestilence, and Guilder invading Florin.
Strap in, because the last two weeks of the 2020 campaign are going to be lit.
PART 5
HOW TO WIN
2020 Debate Fact Check no. 1
During the first of three presidential debates last night at Bryn Mawr College, just outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, President Donald Trump made the following claim:
“Every American knows I am the tallest, healthiest, most attractive man to ever hold the office of the president. At 6'6" and 175 pounds, my body is a temple. Greek gods are jealous of me. I have the only 12-pack of abs in the world. My blood pressure is 7 over 2. My opponent is a 96-year-old woman with bad knees and body lice.”
FACT CHECK
While attractiveness is subjective, many presidents before Trump have been considered attractive men, notably Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and John F. Kennedy, to name just a few from the modern era.
Donald Trump’s medical records and annual health reports contain numerous unverifiable claims about his personal health.
Photographic evidence comparing President Trump to other men of known heights indicates he is not 6'6".
Donald Trump weighs 175 pounds from the waist up.
The only 12-pack Donald Trump possesses is the KFC 12-pack of boneless chicken wings.
That’s not a blood pressure measurement from this world.
Donald Trump’s opponent is not a woman, not 96, has no record of knee difficulties, and no sign or history of body lice.
ONLY FIGHT THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE MAP
I’ve mentioned this a time or two in this book, but I want to emphasize once again that the only fight in 2020 is a fight for the Electoral College win, and nothing more.
Don’t bullshit yourself that you’re going to win deep-red states, no matter how much time and how many resources you put into it, or states that you’d like to imagine might, if you squint, turn kinda sorta blue someda
y soon.
The election is already over in roughly thirty-five states. California, Washington, Oregon, New York, Massachusetts, and other big, blue powerhouses aren’t going to change this election cycle. Don’t go there, except to raise money. Don’t spend a penny there on advertising or get-out-the-vote efforts. You must engage in brutal political triage.
I know how hard this will be for you. Everything inside you rebels at the thought.
First, there’s your typical conceit that the entire country is one single political and ideological entity. You really want to think of the United States as a democracy, and not as a republic. Tinker with the definitions all you want, and the Constitution and the law still end up with the reality that fifty states use electors to decide the president. Those fifty states still display meaningful political, economic, and cultural differences that you’d imagine the party of diversity would embrace but instead loathes.
There’s a part of you that hates flyover country for resisting the inevitable tide of liberal groupthink, for their higher religious participation, and for their clingy hold on their guns and religion, but there’s an even worse inclination that Democrats display: the idea that the South and Midwest are just filled with eager AOC types, yearning to breathe free.
Bless your hearts. The idea that these states are rife with a sense of populist anger on the left just isn’t backed up by history.
As in all things, we can also blame social media for much of your problem with the Electoral College. With its most woke voices screaming the loudest, it tricks you into believing that your edges are the center of the ideological spectrum, and that everyone, everywhere is as progressive as the average resident of Brookline, Mass. As we’ve covered elsewhere, this isn’t true even in your bluest states. Yes, the coastal kingdoms are more liberal, but there’s still a meaningful fraction of your party that’s either moderate, or simply tribally Democratic.
Here’s the 2020 battlefield, as of this writing. Sure, it can change a bit by the election, but the voting history, demographics, and polling tell us where the fight will take place in the coming contest. Your advantage is that Trump has broken his promises in many of these states—his trade war is an economic wrecking ball—and the novelty of Trump has worn a bit thin. The bad news is that in many of these places your favorite issues are alien, offensive, or political poison.
Once again, this isn’t a value judgment. It’s just observed political experience; we stole seats from you in these places because of the differential between your national political reality on one hand and the state and local realities on the other.
Both sides come to the fight with a bit over 200 Electoral College votes in the bag. I don’t need thirty years of experience to tell you Alabama is going red and California is going blue. We may debate the details—and the details of these states would be a book in itself—but the real map of 2020 is as follows:
THE REAL MAP OF 2020
There are some arguments about which swing states are, well, swingy, but for the purposes of this exercise, I’m basing it on a Cook Partisan Voting Index of fewer than 10 points in either direction, a history of party-switching at least once in the last five presidential contests, and some ground-level common sense based on thirty years of experience in the field.
The outliers—states so partisan that they have no impact on a tightly contested EC equation—can be pulled out right away; these are states with a Partisan Voting Index of more than 10 in either direction.
On the Republican side, that means Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming are out of the fight for Democrats. Just stop. You’re not running a fifty-state campaign. States with a PVI over 10 in favor of Democrats are fewer in number: The Democratic Death Star for Republicans includes California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont, as well as Washington, D.C.
Some states are technically under the 10 PVI but still don’t count as swing states simply due to voter performance history or other demographics. Washington State is only a D+8 PVI, but any Republican who spends a dime there is a damn fool. Texas is only an R+6 PVI, but again, a graveyard of Democratic ambitions, for now at least. Opposite is my list of the 2020 swing states. Many of these states are changing and becoming more Democratic over time, but remember, kids: This is 2020, and the “Someday state X will be solidly blue” argument is a bad bet.
STATE
ELECTORAL VOTES
2016 WINNER
PARTISAN VOTING INDEX
Florida
29
Trump
R+2
Pennsylvania
20
Trump
R+1
Ohio
18
Trump
R+5
Georgia
16
Trump
R+4
Michigan
16
Trump
R+1
North Carolina
15
Trump
R+3
Virginia
13
Clinton
D+2
Arizona
11
Trump
R+3
Minnesota
10
Clinton
0
Wisconsin
10
Trump
R+2
Colorado
9
Clinton
D+2
Iowa
6
Trump
R+6
Nevada
6
Clinton
0
Maine
4
Clinton
0
New Hampshire
4
Clinton
R+1
Trump’s triumph in the Upper Midwest should scare the hell out of the Democrats. No false bravado, please; the region has a PVI of R+3 and is culturally far more conservative than any of the Democratic candidates. In the South, Democrats face two hard targets: Georgia, which is still a reach, and Florida, which demands massive resources and effort…and has a regional PVI of R+7.
This analysis is necessarily brief and superficial, and any Democratic campaign worth its salt will be running a massive set of multivariate scenarios trading off polling, resources, and media costs, and planning their message, strategy, and expenditures accordi
ngly. I assure you, the professionals in the Trump campaign are doing just that, backed up with data scientists and pollsters who are focused like the proverbial laser on victory.
Here’s a very brief tour of the Electoral College swing states.
ARIZONA: 11 ELECTORAL VOTES
Democratic Arizona is trending blue after being a solid GOP stronghold for decades. Clinton’s narrow loss in Arizona is belied by the GOP’s troubles there in 2018 and problems to come in 2020. A prime state where the GOP’s clown-show candidates like Joe Arpaio and Kelli Ward are great foils for a smart campaign. Immigration lords over everything in Arizona politics right now.
COLORADO: 9 ELECTORAL VOTES
Breaking hard into the blue side, Colorado is an obvious double-bang target for 2020. Senator Cory Gardner, a GOP incumbent, is in trouble, and Trump’s numbers in the state have been consistently poor. Colorado was Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson’s best performance in this list. Weed and the energy sector are big stories in CO, and with the majority of Colorado’s votes coming from the Denver-Boulder suburbs, it won’t be a swing state much longer. It’s a ripe, easy target, and Democrats need to wrap it up fast for the 2020 cycle.
FLORIDA: 29 ELECTORAL VOTES
Florida is the biggest, baddest, face-eating white-hot center of national crazy in the race…and the biggest prize in 2020. Trump managed a narrow win (all wins in Florida are narrow). Here’s some savage real talk for the Democrats: Florida Republicans are really good at winning statewide races. The state Democratic Party is notoriously ineffective and disorganized. Floridians love low taxes and a clean environment, and our love of guns is rivaled only by the tribes of northwestern Pakistan.
