A new poll, conducted September 1-5 by International Communications Research, has a 48-47 lead for Kerry among RVs, consistent with the recently-released Gallup poll and further calling into question the results of the Time and Newsweek polls.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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December 5: A Field Guide to MAGA Excuses for the Toddler President
Don’t know if this post from New York about Trump’s immaturity will get me onto the White House list of enemy media, but there’s a chance.
Veteran political journalist Jonathan Martin has a new rant at Politico Magazine with the self-explanatory headline: “The President Who Never Grew Up.” Nothing he said is the least bit revelatory; it’s all about things we know Donald Trump has done and said but lined up in a way that illustrates how very much the president resembles a child, and a not-very-well-behaved child at that. A sample:
Trump is living his best life in this second and final turn in the White House. Coming up on one year back in power, he’s turned the office into an adult fantasy camp, a Tom Hanks-in-Big, ice-cream-for-dinner escapade posing as a presidency.
The brazen corruption, near-daily vulgarity and handing out pardons like lollipops is impossible to ignore and deserves the scorn of history. Yet how the president is spending much of his time reveals his flippant attitude toward his second term. This is free-range Trump. And the country has never seen such an indulgent head of state.
Yes, he’s one-part Viktor Orbán, making a mockery of the rule of law and wielding state power to reward friends and punish foes while eroding institutions.
But he’s also a 12-year-old boy: There’s fun trips, lots of screen time, playing with toys, reliable kids’ menus and cool gifts under the tree — no socks or trapper keepers.
Martin is just scratching the surface here. He doesn’t even mention the president’s inability to admit or accept responsibility for mistakes, which is reminiscent of an excuse-making child, or his tendency to fabricate his own set of “facts” like an incessant daydreamer bored by kindergarten. Now to be clear, the essentially juvenile nature of many of Trump’s preoccupations and impulses has struck just about everybody who’s forced to watch him closely and isn’t inclined by party or ideology to jump into the sandbox with him to share the fun. But since he’s the president, it’s more seemly for critics to focus on problems deeper than immaturity. There are the many worrisome “isms” he is prone to embrace or reflect (nativism, racism, sexism, authoritarianism, jingoism, cronyism, nepotism). And there’s also his habit of surrounding himself with cartoon villains like Pete Hegseth, Kristi Noem, Kash Patel, Stephen Miller, and J.D. Vance who are the stuff of grown-up nightmares.
But still, I find myself wondering regularly how Trump’s own followers process his rather blatant lack of seriousness about the most serious job on the planet. If there’s such a thing as negative gravitas, the toddler president has it in abundance. So what are the excuses MAGA folk make for him? There are five major rationalizations that come to mind:
Trolling the liberals
Whenever he says something especially outrageous or embarrassing, we are quickly told by his defenders that he’s just having an enormous joke at the expense of humorless liberals. This dates back to pro-Trump journalist Salena Zito’s famous 2016 dictum that his followers “take him seriously but not literally.” Where you draw the line between the stuff he means and the stuff he’s just kidding about can obviously be adjusted to cover any lapses in taste or honesty he might betray. The “he’s just trolling the libs” defense is a useful bit of jiujitsu as it happens. It turns the self-righteousness of his critics into foolishness while neutering any fears that whatever nasty or malicious thing Trump has said reflects his true nature and inclinations. You see this tactic a lot with Trumpworld social-media takes on mass deportation that exhibit what some have called “performative cruelty” in depicting ICE violence against immigrants, which predictably shock liberals who are then mocked for not understanding it’s all a shuck. Meanwhile, the most radical of Trump’s MAGA fans bask in the administration’s appropriation of their worst impulses.
Playing chess, not checkers
A second rationalization you hear from Trump’s defenders, particularly when he says or does something that makes no sense, is to argue that he’s operating on multiple levels that include some higher strategies his critics simply don’t have the mental bandwidth to grasp. If, for example, he insults a foreign leader, he may secretly be setting off a diplomatic chain reaction that results in foreign-policy gains somewhere else. Similarly, if he defames federal judges, Democratic elected officials, or mainstream journalists, he may simply be trying to manipulate public opinion in a sophisticated way to overcome those who thwart or undermine his substantive agenda. Trump himself set the template for the “chess not checkers” theory by telling us his most incoherent speeches and statements reflect a novel rhetorical style he calls “the weave.” You do have to admire his chutzpah in telling people they simply aren’t smart enough to follow him as he fails to complete thoughts and sentences.
He’s a man of the people, and the people are as childish as he is
An even more common excuse for Trump’s worst traits is that he is focused on communicating with the people, not the media or other snooty elites. If he’s crude or impulsive or irrational, so, too, are the people. As one liberal writer ruefully admitted of Trump circa 2016:
He liked fast food and sports and, most importantly, he shared all their gripes and complaints and articulated them in the same terms some used themselves. For all his crowing about his money and showing off, he really didn’t put on airs. He was just like them.
And he behaved just like they would if they were given a billion dollars and unlimited power. Thus his childishness and even his cruelty could be construed as efforts to meld minds with the sovereign public or, at least, key parts of it. This became most explicit in 2024 when Trump’s crudeness and fury about diversity were transformed into a shrew pitch for the support of the “manosphere” and the masses of politically volatile younger men who spend much of their lives there. It could even serve as an excuse for his destruction of the White House as we’ve known it. Gold plating of everything in sight and the construction of a huge, garish ballroom might disgust aesthetes and history buffs with postgraduate degrees and no common sense. But with the White House set to become a venue for UFC fights, why not go big and loud? Nobody elected architecture experts to run the country, did they?
Trump is an insurgent leader with an insurgent style
A parallel excuse for Trump’s uncouthness is that transgressions are central to his mission. He’s there to overturn the Establishment, not respect its silly rules of what’s appropriate for presidents. His distractors ruined the country, so who are they to complain when it requires someone unconventional to set things aright? Trump campaigned in 2016, 2020, and 2024 as a disrupter and thrilled his followers by refusing to be domesticated in office. When returned to power most recently, he hit Washington like a gale-force wind defying all precedents and expressing an exasperated public’s disgust with the status quo and the people who led it. So why would anyone expect this Robespierre to play by the rules of Versailles? That’s not who he is and not what he was elected to do.
He’s saving America, so he should be able to do any damn thing he wants
The president himself has best articulated the standard by which he judges himself and expects to be judged by his followers, and by history, in a Truth Social post this past February: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” From the MAGA point of view, the 47th president is bending history, reversing a long trend toward national decline, and raising the economic aspirations and moral values of America to heights thought to be long lost. Perhaps the most powerful rationalization for Trump’s many excesses ever written was the famous 2016 essay by Michael Anton comparing those supporting Trump’s challenge to Hillary Clinton to the desperate and self-sacrificing passengers of the hijacked September 11 flight that brought the plane down by rushing the terrorists in the cockpit:
[I]f you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.
It’s Trump, warts and all, or the abyss, to many Trump fans, today as in 2016. So if he wants to have some boyish fun while he’s saving America, and perhaps civilization, who are we to deny him?
send some meat… give us some evidence… please.
Thanks
Would it be enough if he just threatened you with a horrible death?
It seems to be the extent of the GOP platform these days.
That and pleas for a Mulligan.
‘We’ll actually, like, do stuff and things if we get another term.’
former Democrat… dont just lay on rhetoric… add some concrete evidence to your chat. You are sounding so much like bush… give us something to chew on… send some meat… give us some evidence… please.
Thanks
former demorcrat said
” We need a united country that has strong leadership”
I agree! Ask King George why he is such a devider? Why does almost every country in the world want John Kerry to win? We will never have a united country that has strong leadership until we get rid of the cowboy.
“former democrat”:
“…supplied by the very people Kerry would turn to…” etc, etc, etc…
You seem to have missed the part where the Reagan and Bush I administrations very publicly supported and armed BOTH Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. Remember the picture of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam’s hand? Remember when Osama was a “freedom fighter” because he was fighting the soviet occupation of Afganistan?
Nice friends you “republicans” have…
P.S. Cheney voted against more weapons systems than Kerry did, but somehow THAT fact is never posted on Faux News.
Don’t you realize that you are dealing here with people who read ALL news sources (not just the ones they agree with) and are capable of doing research for themselves?
Come better prepared next time.
BTW, I’m a real live, card-carrying yellow dog Democrat who can trace his dues back to McGovern. If you’re really a Democrat, you could never become a Republican.
Being a Democrat is a state of mind best captured by Will Rogers.
If you’re not a white person in the upper half of society financially, or not a fundamentalist Christian, you have no place with Republicans. I am, but I’m a race/class/religion traitor.
Democrats – give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
God almighty, those words still give me a chill, and may they until the day I die.
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To lying Puke who claims to be a former Democrat:
————
You like me!
You REALLY like me!
BTW, Sally Fields is one of us, loser.
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You’re scared, that’s why you’re here. If you really had balls bigger than acorns, you wouldn’t be here fronting. You’d be fighting in Iraq, or at least serving meals to soldiers for $90K a year through Halliburton.
Chickenhawk.
Go Cheney yourself.
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you guys would be funny if it were not so serious.You run around screaming into the night to boost your courage while you put your hopes and trust into a man that is no better than Jane Fonda at her worst. The weapons our enemies use against us were supplied by the very people Kerry would turn to for his “coalition”. The intellegence agencies that were supposed to protect our country were stripped of their resources by Kerry and his former democratic president while they voted to stop the very weapons that we depend on for our protection now. It is easy to set back and
be critical of a man who would sacrifice his personal desires to protect our country. If you think the president wanted this war any more than you or I , you have never tried to know the man.
I shudder to think what Al Gore or John Kerry would have done. Bush inherited a recession brought on by a false economy spurred by the phoney companies of the dot com. This was not Clinton’s or Bush’s doing but he inherited it. We have fought through the recession and are fighting through the terroist threat that has been building for over twenty years. We need a united country that has strong leadership but I fear the democrats don’t want a unified country, they want a Victory so they can advance their liberal agendas regardless of the future. Who is living in a”bubble”?
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In the past four presidential elections, Gallup has missed the number between the Dem and the Repub an average of almost 4 million voters. They might as well be throwing darts.
They haven’t gotten closer than 2 million in 20 years.
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They’re getting paid, but not for being good.
I am watching CNN , Lou Dobbs and MSNBC Chris Mathews. They are saying they don’t care about what happened 35 years ago. Why didn’t they say this 3 weeks ago when they were spending days and days pounding up on Kerry? They didn’t get tired of it then……….
Notice former Demorcrat’s e-mail, one of those right wing fanatic evangels who don’t give a shit about anything because Jesus is going to come and take them all away.
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Now is the time for Kerry to challenge Bush directly.
Bush is trying to squirm out of the town hall debate where undecideds would ask questions. In addition to finally putting Bush where he might have to answer real questions of real Americans, it puts Bush beside Kerry, who is 6 inches taller.
Time for Kery to issue THE CHALLENGE which I call:
MEET ME IN MISSOURI
——————————
“President Bush,
Are you afraid to face Americans who don’t sign loyalty oaths to you?
Instead running all over the country giving your same stump speech to people who signed loyalty oaths to you, why don’t you come debate me in Missouri, before those town hall people?
Are you afraid to let America see us STAND face to face?
Will you STAND up this time, or will you disappear again?
Stand up and MEET ME IN MISSOURI, Mister President, or I will be there by myself on that day, debating your empty chair to the same audience.”
The buck stops in Missouri, Mister President.
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Feel free to spread it throughout blog land and Dem circles. Yes, osmosis works. No attribution necessary. Steal it, call it your own, but use it.
“promote their agenda for abortions, gay marriages, pornography, drugs, or any other form of behavior that destroys the very fabric of our society”
The republicans can’t beat us on our actual issues (education, environment, health care, tax fairness), so they lie, lie, lie about who we are.
“Former Democrat”: we are not the people who you are describing. You are a victim of propaganda. Try not to swallow all the lies you are fed, and get out and check things out for yourself. Also, try reading american history.
(Beep! Beep! Beep! Propaganda Victim Alert!)
WHAT KERRY SHOULD DO…
pull a Bush.
Kerry should come out and have this huge press conference.
In this press conference he should (in a forceful way) explain the following facts:
1) The election campaign for President is now tied.’
2) President Bush and himself have about the same amount of money in the bank.
3) President Bush and himself are polar opposites on practically every issue. He should explain the differences.
Then he should explain that this is the most important election of our lifetime. It is important, because the decisions made will affect the country for the next generation.
Will we have war or peace?
Will our children inherit the strongest economy in the world or will our children inherit massive debt?
Will we put the interests of the few ahead the interests of the many?
He should bring up Cheney’s latest attack. He should define it for what it is: an act of total desperation by an administration who believed that they could ride the worst terrorist event in US history to another four years in power. They believed that the American people would not care about the fact that one million jobs have been lost; or that millions of families have lost their health benefits; or that this administration has turned a record $250 billion surplus into a record $500 billion deficit. This administration believes that fear motivates this election. They believe that the people are too stupid to know the difference.
These are the decisions the American people have to make in this election. This election will not be decided by money. This election will not be decided by smears. This election will not be decided by pundits and talking heads.
It will be decided by the people. And it is in the people I trust.
Kerry should then say, “this is too important an election to leave up to the “experts” in Washington who have developed a knack for looking out for themselves. This is an election about the people. And to the people of America…I will not lose your election.”
Dudes, this would get such a reaction. Coming on top of the growing perception of a “limited Bush bounce.” Official Washington would talk about nothing else.
Kerry can then go on the offense regarding the economy, etc.
I don’t know about you guys, but i’m getting my second wind.
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I don’t understand why you would call the poll a tie.
Posted by reignman at September 8, 2004 07:23 PM
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Here’s why:
These polls are usually around 1000 people.
482 for Bush
473 for Kerry
41 for undecided
The poll is not and cannot be accurate. The only poll that is theoretically accurate is the election. Everything else is merely AN EDUCATED GUESS.
That is all polls are: EDUCATED GUESSES.
Problem is, as Ruy has shown, is that some of the guesses aren’t very educated these days. They have bad methodology, too short a time frame, too limited a means of data recovery, and/or inherent bias.
The next 1000 numbers called could easily have shown Kerry up by 9. It is not a statistically significant difference, hence, it’s a tie.
Um…a 3.5 margin of error w/ Bush a point ahead suggests that Bush has a small lead of Kerry, because the probability of that being so is larger than the probability of Kerry being in the lead. I guess it’s a virtual tie, but I don’t understand why you would call the poll a tie.
Can you smell it friends?
The smell of Democratic victory in November.
I mean, after a $50 million advertising blitz by Bush in August. To Kerry’s blackout.
After a smear by swift boat liars.
After an overtly negative party convention.
If they lead us at all, it’s by one or two percent.
In reality, I think they are behind or we are tied.
Now the Democrats have their gloves off.
Now Bush’s AWOL story is coming to light.
Now Kitty Kelly’s, Bob Graham’s book is coming out.
What does this all mean?
Bye-bye Bush!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love the smell of smoldering right wing shills in the morning. Smells like….VICTORY!
I wonder if there is some way to translate Jeff’s 50-46 into a likely electoral number.
Former Democrat..
Based on your definition of repubs, how do they differ from the democrats? You seem to be implying that only repubs have these values but you need to know that this is absolutely untrue. You have spent too much time in the repub bubble and have gone thru a sad conversion.
I do not know any democrats who are not hard working, who do not pay taxes, who are not christian minded, who do not believe in the tenets on which the country was founded.. and if there are any dems who do not share in the values above, I am sure there are just as many repubs who do not share these values either.
It would do you plenty good to burst the GOP bubble and start to review the issues from all sides.
As much as you seem to imply the righteousness of the repubs, you must also know that truth and credibility are scarce commodities in the GOP camp also. Have a look.
Former Democrat?
Or current Bush shill?
Another one of the online goobers who thinks posting spam that someone else wrote. That story has been around the world a few times. All the Bushies who don’t watch Fox or listen to Rush all day, send emails with crap like that on it.
“former democrat”: I suggest that you take yourself and your Zell Miller-approved RNC talking points over to the Free Republic blog, where you and they clearly belong. We’re really not interested in that kind of garbage here.
Should clarify: An LV screen could presumably ask “Did you vote in the last election AND are you likely to vote this time. However, if the constraint is to reduce the sample size to match % voter turnout the first to be tossed out will be people who answered NO/NO or NO/YES.
I figured they were skidding when Cheney
came out with shrill scare tactics
And O’Reilly re-introduced Swiftboat Satan
O’Neill last night.
I just did my own analysis of the Gallup poll.
Using their own internals:
With each candidate receiving 90% support among their base (7% voting for the other candidate).
Also, with Kerry actually ahead of Bush among independants: 49% to 46%.
Here is how it ACTUALLY breaks down, if one assumes that the same number of people vote in 2004, which voted in 2000 (how about that for a LIKELY VOTER).
In 2000, of all those who voted – 39% were Dems; 35% were Republicans; 26% were independants.
Therefore using these numbers and the numbers supplied in the Gallup poll internals:
Kerry 50.3%
Bush 46. 2%
Is it me, or do you think someone is messing with these numbers?
LV screens will always bias in favor of republicans as they are usually more motivated than dems. Fortunately for dems they are outnumbered. If voter turnout is unusually high (and there’s no way the LV number can predict that since they are based on historic data) then the polls will be significantly off – which I agree is good, it keeps democrats more motivated. A landslide will be so sweet.
My choice for K/E slogan: THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR IS BUSH/CHENEY!
New Kerry motto:
GIVE ‘EM HELL KERRY!
It is hard to measure motivation of the voters. I think the closeness of the last election, and the polarized electorate will work both sides into a frenzy to get out the vote. We will see a reversal of the trend of lower voter turnout this year.
Frankly, I am glad to see Bush pull ahead in the polls. This is not going to be easy, so we have to work harder if we want the best results. The previously unthinkable massive turnout could change the political landscape as dramatically as in years past when Presidential Candidates had coatails.
Does anyone doubt that Bush deserves to have the rug pulled out from under his feet more than any President in history? Not just a loss, but a BIG loss. Why not hope for that? After all, they have earned it.
Time for a good post explaining LV models. You’ve said in the past that they become much more accurate as the election approaches. It seems likely that news stories will increasingly favor LV results.
Yet it seems possible to me that they may be biased republican right up to the election. People’s statements about what they will do are always less reliable than measuring their actual actions. Thus, I would imagine that an important predictor of LV’s is whether they voted in the last presidential election. But the last election was a time of demoralization for dems, and this ought to be one for repubs (I know, we’ll see). But if prior voting figures strongly in LV screens, then I think their predictions could easily be off this time around… Right up to election day.
What’s your take on LV models? What do they typically incorporate? Why do you say they get better closer to the election? Are they based entirely on respondent predictions or on prior behavior?
Tx
Charlie
Do not despair…the Swift Boat has turned to the attack and not a minute too soon either
Every silver cloud has a dark intrnals lining…
ICR
The Race for Independents
The ICR press release of August 14th reported a substantive lead for John Kerry among registered Independents. This was in sharp contrast to August, 2000, when the last Democratic nominee for President, Al Gore, trailed in this important population by nearly 10 points.
However, since that time there has been a sharp erosion of preference for Kerry amongst this critical population. In fact, within this population Bush now holds a significant lead (47.7% to 36.9% with a 8% margin of error), in sharp contrast to one month ago:
Edwards Calls Cheney Remark Dishonorable and un-American
CLARKSBURG, W.Va. – Democrat John Edwards urged President Bush on Wednesday to renounce Vice President Dick Cheney’s statement that the United States risks another terrorist attack if voters make the wrong election choice, calling the warning dishonorable and un-American.
“This statement by the vice president of the United States was intended to divide us,” Edwards said. “It was calculated to divide us on an issue of safety and security for the American people. It’s wrong and it’s un-American.”
Edwards made his comments to supporters while campaigning in West Virginia, a day after Cheney said at a town hall meeting in Iowa, “It’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we’ll get hit again and we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.”
Bush declined to comment on Cheney’s statement when asked about it Wednesday at the White House.
Of course Bush would not comment because he is a coward.
Way to go Edwards ! make these slimeballs accountable for their sordid actions and behavior.
I cannot wait for the debates …
Kerry going to take Bushie boy to the woodshed and Edwards is going to verbally deconstruct Cheney.
This is weird phraseology “Based on registered voters who are certain they will vote, 48.2 percent say they will vote for George W. Bush, 47.3 percent for John Kerry, and 4.1 percent for others or undecided.”
So the screen is self identifying – There 90% of self-identified GOP said they were certain to vote. 80% of self ID’d Dems, and now over 70% of self ID’d Independents.
May I say that I am skeptical all around. All these people certain to vote – pshaw.
The other thing was the surge in Indies (self ID’d) certain to vote – well I think those are O’Reilly Indies, meaning Republicans.
Srry, Ruy, throw it out. Funny looking poll.
More of a bowling ball bounce than a basketball.