12-19-2020, 12:24 AM
The impact of BLM protests is a curly issue. The death of George Floyd may well have helped get out the vote in the black community. But the protests gave Trump a ready-made Law & Order appeal to white voters.
And then BLM protesters and progressives pushed the ‘Defund the Police’ slogan. I’d love to see “The Gruen” analyse that one. Taken literally, it meant that police forces would be disbanded. Maybe that’s what some extremists wanted, but most protesters meant that some money would be diverted from aggressive policing to crime prevention services. But how many white voters who would have voted Biden because they were turned off by Trump’s racism ended up voting for Trump out of fear that they might be victims of racial violence?
I reckon the biggest factor behind Trump’s loss was Covid. Perhaps voters punished his poor efforts to contain Covid although it seems he was mostly able to dodge responsibility for it. Among conservative voters, many were convinced it was a hoax and many thought Covid would have run rampant no matter who happened to be President. The more important consequence of Covid was that decades-long GOP voter-suppression strategies were rendered impotent. Early voting and mail-in voting were rapidly expanded and that made it easier for Democratic constituencies to vote. No wonder Trump was tearing his hair out over those changes. What he wanted was to force just about everybody to have to queue up on a working day, Tuesday, for hours. Of course, the lines in Republican areas would be short as there would be more voting centres open in those areas. But in Democratic areas, fewer centres would be open, fewer staff would be in attendance and for some reason broken machines would end up there. Lines would wend for miles, confronting voters with the waits of up to 10 hours in winter conditions.
What we can expect is that swing states with Republican Governors and legislatures will do their best to kill off early voting and mail-in voting in the next 4 years.
And then BLM protesters and progressives pushed the ‘Defund the Police’ slogan. I’d love to see “The Gruen” analyse that one. Taken literally, it meant that police forces would be disbanded. Maybe that’s what some extremists wanted, but most protesters meant that some money would be diverted from aggressive policing to crime prevention services. But how many white voters who would have voted Biden because they were turned off by Trump’s racism ended up voting for Trump out of fear that they might be victims of racial violence?
I reckon the biggest factor behind Trump’s loss was Covid. Perhaps voters punished his poor efforts to contain Covid although it seems he was mostly able to dodge responsibility for it. Among conservative voters, many were convinced it was a hoax and many thought Covid would have run rampant no matter who happened to be President. The more important consequence of Covid was that decades-long GOP voter-suppression strategies were rendered impotent. Early voting and mail-in voting were rapidly expanded and that made it easier for Democratic constituencies to vote. No wonder Trump was tearing his hair out over those changes. What he wanted was to force just about everybody to have to queue up on a working day, Tuesday, for hours. Of course, the lines in Republican areas would be short as there would be more voting centres open in those areas. But in Democratic areas, fewer centres would be open, fewer staff would be in attendance and for some reason broken machines would end up there. Lines would wend for miles, confronting voters with the waits of up to 10 hours in winter conditions.
What we can expect is that swing states with Republican Governors and legislatures will do their best to kill off early voting and mail-in voting in the next 4 years.