Biden and the 56%
This is actually one of the most disturbing of what are euphemistically known as Biden’s “gaffes” (please watch the video):
“56% of Americans said that they are better off today than they were 4 years ago under the Obama-Biden administration. Why should they vote for you?”
Biden: Well if they think that, they probably shouldn’t pic.twitter.com/upKO1TMMZy
— Jewish Deplorable ?? (@TrumpJew) October 13, 2020
The reporter is to be commended for asking the question, which is a bit difficult to answer but features a poll that has been widely talked about lately. Biden should have had a prepared answer for it.
An acceptable answer might have gone something like this: “Well, that was just one poll, and other polls say the American people prefer me quite strongly. So I must be doing something right.”
Instead, Biden bizarrely says that the 56% of people who think they’re better off today than they were four years ago shouldn’t vote for him. I wonder whether that means he simply doesn’t care what 56% of the people think, because he knows voter fraud will carry him over the finish line. Or maybe he just gets angry when anything or anyone challenges him, and saying this group shouldn’t vote for him is a statement he feels comes off as lovably feisty.
And what he actually says is even more troubling that that: he adds that, if fifty-four percent of the people say they are better off now than four years ago, “Well, their memory’s not very good.” So, immediately prior to challenging the accuracy of memory of a vast swath of the American public – the ones who aren’t smart enough to vote for Joe – Biden makes an error about the figure the reporter has just given him, because that figure was 56% rather than 54%. And he not only says they don’t have to vote for him, he says they don’t correctly perceive or remember the facts of their own lives. He, Joe Biden, knows better and remembers better.
It’s one thing to forget a specific number after some passage of time. But to forget it nearly immediately is evidence of a higher degree of cognitive disruption. I doubt he misheard the number, either, because “six” sounds nothing like “four.”
Then Biden pivots to what he knows best, a trashing of Trump, which is pretty much the tactic of his entire campaign. It’s his happy place. And one of the things Biden says – that Trump is not very honest with people – is especially ironic coming from one of the biggest and most long-term liars in American politics.
Yet the polls have Biden far ahead, and I don’t think people have really considered what the polls are actually saying.
If these numbers hold up, Donald Trump on Election Day will essentially not get any more support than he did in 2016 while Joe Biden, one of the most lackluster Presidential candidates in decades, will actually get a higher percentage of the vote than ANY candidate (GOP or Democrat) since Ronald Reagan in 1984. That doesn’t make sense to me.
Since people usually try to avoid being overtly evil, I wondered what’s going on with these polls. A theory I’m kicking around now is that turnout was massively up for the 2018 midterms and are these polls predicting a similar increase for 2020? I believe 2018 was the highest midterm turnout since 1912 and the last time the country was even close was the 1960s. A similar jump for 2020 would give us something close to 70% turnout.
Mike
Looks like Joe’s off his campaigning game at this point, with no intelligent and/or snappy comeback to a very predictable question (unless he’s so sure the media will cover for him that he doesn’t worry about even a question like that one).
This incident reminds me of Ed Koch’s remark, when he was campaigning for Mayor of New York City:
“If you agree with me on 9 out of 12 issues, vote for me. If you agree with me on 12 out of 12 issues, see a psychiatrist.”
70 percent turnout is a possibility with mail in voting, but the probability of vote fraud may be higher than the turnout percentage. This Is Fine?
Mbunge,
It is unlikely that the 2018 elections had very many people who didn’t vote in 2016 or 2012- I think the Democrats just managed to get more of their 2016 voters to actually vote in 2018 than the Republicans did in, though this was not really case in all the states. The turnout in 2020 vs 2016 probably won’t change very much, and might actually drop overall if people are too scared of COVID to vote by any method.
In short, what I am saying is that the 2018 turnout wasn’t a lot of new voters, just included more presidential year voters who often skip the midterms unless there is a competitive race in their state or district. The Republicans match the Democrats ground game when they had a Senate seat to go for or a tough one to defend, but otherwise got snowed under without that motivation (see the California and New York State house elections).
“In short, what I am saying is that the 2018 turnout wasn’t a lot of new voters”
I think that’s correct. What I’m wondering is if 2020 pollsters ARE projecting a lot of new voters and that accounts for Biden’s big lead. The bigger the turnout, the most likely voters should resemble the general population.
Mike
My guess is that 56% and 4 years got mashed together in Joe’s brain and became 54%.
The polls are deliberately bad so as to show Biden leading in order to justify later violence and claims of Trump cheating.
Lots of Trump voters don’t answer the polls – and with woke culture cancelations of “deplorables”, that’s unlikely to change. Look for signs?
Maybe those with flags, but no signs, are signaling pro-Trump, quietly.
Biden is worse than Hillary – yet I hate him much much less. He’s an old man, with an unsatisfied dream, and too many yes-men (and wife Jill) around him telling him he can win, thus should run.
The Dems refused to choose anybody else in their primary – especially NOT Harris.
But Biden would likely be easier to oppose / modify in his policies, as well as becoming a 2022 focus of Rep “revenge”, the way Jes was talking about. Ya, there’s some small chance if the Dems fraud their way to a win with Biden, Reps will never win again. But it’s far more likely that more Reps will be fighters, as in vigorous opposition, and in many ways can be even more effective without Trump. At least, with the college educated elite and elite wannabees, who are so often NF (abstract feelers in Myers-Briggs), when every Biden gaffe can be used to laugh at the Dems.
Remember Georgia’s change of mind included “embarrassment” at being a Dem.
It’s important not to freak out over the sad thought of America votin’ for sad old Biden – America is great enough to withstand his senility.
I’ve already sent in my Trump vote, to CA (San Bernardino), but I fully expect lots of attempts at fraud.
I also expect Trump to win.
Tom Grey:
America is great enough to withstand Biden’s senility, if it were only that. The problem is the opportunity his senility offers for the worst elements of the left to take charge.
I disagree with much of your analysis here, only because I think Biden actually misunderstands the statement the questioner makes. Biden says something like “they think 54% are better off” which is quite different from “56% believe they are better off.” That’s quite different. Someone (they) thinking 54% of people in general are better off vs. 56% of those asked believing themselves to be better off.
Kungfool:
Except that no poll had said that people think 54% are better off.
I’m afraid your attempt at a rational explanation for Biden’s error doesn’t hold water. It is far more likely that he forgot the actual percentage, and that he bungled the syntax of the rest.
As Biden has advised – 200 million Americans have died of Covid. But the survivors will receive a 15 million dollar per hour minimum wage when SloJoe is President.
Well, Calif is a Biden state , so it is really a non-issue.
Of course, the voting fraud going on there is probably occurring in every state that has mail in voting.
And once in office, Biden / Obama / Sanders / AOC / Harris / Stalin / Lenin / Castro/ Chavez / Hitler / Mussolini will rig the system – PERMANENTLY – so that they never will lose a national vote again.
And it will all be “Constitutional.”
The Biden campaign is on auto-pilot. His events are sparsely attended & scarcely publicized. His speeches are all pre-programmed into the teleprompter & the Q&As are mostly softballs. The lines are boilerplate attack ads.
The ONLY thing not in neutral is the fraud machine and voter intimidation workforce; which includes pollsters & journalists.
He is handled to the nth degree but still goes “off the program” but it doesn’t matter. 40-odd% will still vote D…the rest they’ll cheat.
I did think it was sad for a candidate clearly sliding into dementia to claim that people who think they’re better off don’t really remember how things were only four years ago.
When I have my annual physicals these days, they ask me to repeat three words, and about twenty seconds later, to repeat them again from memory. Looks to me like Biden can’t do that.
That backdrop in front of which the Marionette is standing is rather pretty, I think. What a curious way of campaigning for president – standing in front of a B&W drawing of a street from the 1940s or so (the lamppost) with his hands in his pockets and answering questions from a solitary reporter standing about 10 yards away. Must be nice.
Perhaps the Marionette is the one with the poor memory, since if he questions people’s view that they were better off now than before, it may be because he’s comparing (in his own mind) 2015 to, say, the last six months merely, which I think we can admit have definitely been a gut punch economically to the average, uh, Joe. Not that the poll question cited actually asked about the last six months, of course, but it may be a manifestation of the Marionette seeking to reinterpret the question to his own benefit on the fly.
Kate, that’s a brilliant little test.
I doubt the polls are accurate. Biden has 12 people at most show up when he speaks, he has dementia, Kamala is not liked and Pence can draw over a thousand people to hear him speak. I have also discovered that even younger Joe is a joke and a jerk.
And he is not bright. Check this out;
https://youtu.be/pEOlK4y8AUo
Just a thought; ‘When you and the media insult half the population for years, do you think that is going to work out for you?’ Remember, 2018 gain three Republican Senators and was easier on the Party in power than the the pure ‘ Shellacking‘ during the Obama/Biden years.
Neo,
I agree with you that he bungled the number. I just think he bungled the whole statement. When you say, “Biden bizarrely says that the 56% of people who think they’re better off today than they were four years ago shouldn’t vote for him,” you are depending on him having understood the statement. But because he misunderstood the original statement, I actually think he says something more like this: People who think 54% (56% if hadn’t bungled the number) of Americans are better off shouldn’t vote for him. He’s talking about people who have the view that a certain percentage of Americans are better off, as opposed to a certain percentage of people who think they themselves are better off.
I think Biden is just being honest simply because he often hasn’t the ability to lie off the cuff. That’s when he utters a gaff.
“one of the things Biden says – that Trump is not very honest with people – is especially ironic coming from one of the biggest and most long-term liars in American politics.”
Successful con-men and arguably, Biden ranks within the top three with only Obama and Clintons ahead of him, have to be able to LIE with no hesitation at all, it bears aspects of sociopathy. Their moral conscience is severely atrophied. Biden’s cognitive decline has rendered away what little ability he had in lying spontaneously.
And the explanation for the apparent contradiction between the two lies above is that one required an ability to respond off the cuff, while the other is practiced; “Then Biden pivots to what he knows best, a trashing of Trump, which is pretty much the tactic of his entire campaign. It’s his happy place.”
Kungfool:
He’s so messed-up cognitively that it’s hard to know for sure exactly the extent and nature of his bungling, but bungle he did.
John Tyler:
Not a non-issue, even in California. As I wrote earlier, increasing the Democratic vote in California through vote by fraud would have two effects. The first is to pump up the national popular vote, so that if Trump were to happen to win the Electoral College and not the popular vote (as in 2016), the Democrats could use that to say he’s an illegitimate president and also to use it as an argument to abolish the Electoral College. The second purpose would be to win local races in California that are close.
Remember how Joe came out of the basement only every other day, and then put a lid on even some of those days? But over past two weeks or so, and during the Debate, he seemed to be fairly cognizant of what was going on. But now, once again, the gaffes and stumbles are becoming a daily occurrence as he campaigns, if you can call it that when 8 people show up and stand in their circles. Methinks that whatever meds they put him on, some obviously very strong ones, are wearing off and not having the desired effects. I look for a big October surprise and it will be Joe having a serious accident of some kind, not that I would ever wish that on anyone.
“if Trump were to happen to win the Electoral College and not the popular vote (as in 2016), the Democrats could use that to say he’s an illegitimate president and also to use it as an argument to abolish the Electoral College.” neo
If Trump loses the national vote and squeaks by in the Electoral College, the dems and MSM absolutely will say that he’s an illegitimate President. Even if he wins big, some will still say that.
However, since the Electoral College is clearly included in the Constitution, wouldn’t it take a Constitutional amendment to eliminate it? If so, that’s currently out of reach for the dems, as 3/4 of the State legislatures have to be on board and it will be quite some time before that threshold can be reached, even if things continue to go badly.
Geoffrey Britain:
Just do a search for “ways to eliminate the electoral college without an amendment” and up will pop a ton o articles on the subject.
I find the Electoral College thing fascinating. It worked in 2016 exactly the way the Founding Fathers intended, preventing a candidate with strong regional popularity from overwhelming the rest of the country. And none of the objections to it hold water because they’re all based in some way on a majoritarian objection to minority rights, yet NONE of the objectors have a single complaint about any of the other ways out system protects and defends minority rights. Nothing could be less democratic than allowing nine lawyers in DC to override the will of the public and their elected representatives, but every single critic of the Electoral College would blow a gasket at the suggestion we eliminate the Supreme Court.
Mike
neo,
I ran that search and the consensus seems to be that “States could pass laws pledging that they will award all of their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote.”
I see that as unconstitutional. In a state where electors are divided according to the voting percentages for the candidates it disenfranchises those voters who did not vote for the winner of the national vote.
In a winner take all state, in a case where the majority of voters in a state have voted for the candidate who gets the lesser of the national vote… apportioning all the electors to the national vote winner would disenfranchise the majority of voters of that state.
And the American Bar association agrees:
“over the past 200 years more than 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College – without any becoming law.’
“the Electoral College is constitutionally mandated, and abolishing it would require a constitutional amendment”
“The basis for the Electoral College is found in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, which spells out how the president shall be chosen.”
Article II Section 1
For the electors to choose one candidate to get all the votes, when the state’s voters did not vote in the majority for that candidate is a clear violation of the procedure outlined in Article II Section 1. Which by the way also appears to invalidate the winner take all scenario.
Biden has been weaving tangled webs for decades. For scores. He was no doubt super impressed, even titillated, by Obama’s nerve.
And while the poowa fellow might not know exactly where he is or what office he’s running for on any given day, he DOES KNOW (i.e., if he can remember) that he has some very, very good friends, and that they will do their utmost to help him “get by”.
Think of it as Biden-privilege or Biden-culture. No wonder Hunter thought it all was a “dead cert”….
“Twitter Labels NYPost Hunter Biden Expose As “Unsafe”, Won’t Allow Users To Share”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/smoking-gun-emails-show-hunter-biden-introduced-vp-dad-burisma-executive
File under (of course): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C58ttB2-Qg
Bookworm brought up something scary in a post the other day about the polls. She said they’re measuring the wrong thing. It isn’t support for Biden that is indicative, but rather the support people have for BLM and all the various anti-Trump groups and protests. That’s the true measure.
In this election, the Biden voters are the ‘anyone but Trump’.
I found it to be a very scary, but realistic opinion. It’s either that or they are straight out manipulating the polls or lying about the results.