April 4: Keep Bashing Musk Til He’s Gone
This week’s election results in Wisconsin had a pretty clear message for Democrats, as I explained at New York:
The most tiresome intra-Democratic debate of them all soon reached crisis levels after Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory. Should the “party of the people” focus on the threat to democratic institutions MAGA authoritarians most definitely pose? Or should they instead pursue lost non-college-educated voters via the ancient “populist” formula of class warfare over purely economic issues? The debate has often become very personal, with “populists” tending to dismiss arguments about democracy as elitist mumbo jumbo unintelligible to working stiffs who just want to see the money, and people frightened about fascism worrying that Americans will cheerfully sell out our heritage of liberty for $2 a gallon gas.
Fortunately, and just in the nick of time, a figure has emerged at the highest levels of government who can instantly unite “populists” and “defenders of democracy.” That would be Elon Musk, who is simultaneously the richest man on earth (and in modern history) and an even greater threat to democratic institutions than Trump. He is, moreover, via the DOGE initiative, waging aggressive war on public-sector programs that restrain his tiny class of corporate predators and benefit the general public while violating every constitutional norm imaginable. And suffusing this entire assault on the people and the institutions to which Democrats should feel loyalty is a nihilistic personality exhibiting some of the worst impulses of the human race: narcissism, messianism, ethnocentrism, worship of power and technology, and a testosterone-poisoned lust for combat and destruction. It’s as though Bruce Wayne had decided to become the Joker instead of Batman.
Terrifying as Musk is, Democrats should thank their lucky stars that he doesn’t simply operate in the background of the MAGA movement, financing Trump’s antics but otherwise remaining anonymous. No: He has insisted on a very public place on the stages of politics, commerce, and culture, rivaled only by his benefactor and enabler in the White House. And the more people see of him, the less they seem to like him.
This week’s judicial election in Wisconsin shows what happens when this peculiar man makes himself the center of attention in a popularity contest not limited to his sycophants on X. The most polarized electorate in the entire nation fed by the most expensive campaign ever to revolve around judges decided by a healthy margin that they did not want Elon Musk in charge of their destiny (much less the “destiny of humanity” he so fatuously claimed was at stake). And better yet, the dispirited ranks of Democrats turned out disproportionately at the polls in the first electoral test since last November’s disaster.
It’s now clear that so long as Musk is the most powerful figure in the administration and the living symbol of Trump 2.0, Democrats should make Musk-bashing even more of a daily preoccupation than it has already become. Populists can draw fresh attention to the very real class implications of DOGE’s assault on corporate regulation and on practical services like Social Security offices accessible to old folks and medical facilities that can keep middle-class people alive. Defenders of democratic institutions can continue to expose (and attack in courts) the arrogant pretense that self-appointed engineers who brag about their destructive intentions should be entrusted with “reforming” government. And everyone can keep exposing the deeply sinister tech-bro worldview Musk and his accomplices exemplify, aimed at converting the United States of America into a privately held corporate oligarchy governed by insanely wealthy elites deploying AI at will and treating life itself as a video game in which the losers are the rest of us.
Musk-bashing won’t solve all the problems facing Democrats. They still need to regain public trust about their own values and competence. For one thing, DOGE’s very existence remains a terrible indictment of the contempt for government that is now so epidemic, and that Democrats have for so long either ignored or tried to buy off with popular benefits; they need their own credible “government reform” agenda and the determination to carry it out.
But make no mistake: Elon Musk is a political gift, particularly if his ego and Trump’s reliance on his support mean he will insist on keeping himself front and center, showing up at Cabinet meetings and MAGA rallies alike while indulging his endless glossolalia on X. So long as he remains the face of Trump 2.0, Democrats would be wise to make sure that face is the first thing Americans think of when they survey the political landscape. If Musk and DOGE crash or are subdued by the jealous god in the Oval Office (as some reports suggest Trump has signaled may happen), that is a very good thing in itself and a worthy goal for the opposition.
Mady-
Yesterday afternoon, I looked at all polls with post dates of October at race2004.net. I excluded those with either a GOP or Dem designation. I used 3 way data, if available, when Nader was on the ballot, 2 way data, if available, when Nader was not on the ballot. If a given organization did more than one poll, I used the most recent.
Of the 11 polls in Florida, 4 had Kerry in the lead, 4 Bush, 3 tied. The unweighted (by sample size) average was Bush up by 0.5%.
Of the 11 polls in Ohio, 7 had Kerry in the lead, 4 had Bush in the lead. The average was Kerry up .8%
Of the 7 polls in Wisconsin, 2 had Kerry in the lead, 3 Bush, and 2 were dead ties. The average was dead even.
Of the 8 polls in Iowa, 2 had Kerry up, 5 Bush, with 1 tie, average Bush lead of 2%.
Of the 5 in New Mexico, 2 had Kerry up, 3 Bush, average Bush lead of 2%.
Of the 4 in Minnesota, 2 had Kerry up, 2 Bush, with an average Kerry lead of 0.75%.
Of the 9 in New Hampshire, 6 had Kerry up, 3 Bush, with an average Kerry lead of 3%.
So…each of those polls has both sides winning some of the time this past month. It’s hard for me to think of any of them as solid. And Wisconsin is probably the least solid of any of them.
Those 7 seem the key battlegrounds now, with the possibility of an Arkansas or Hawaii creeping in.
[Others states for which at least one independent poll has shown both both sides in the lead of at least 1% at some point last month, using only the most recent poll from the organization…:
Colorado, Bush 5, Kerry 1
Oregon, Kerry 7, Bush 1
That’s it. Hawaii, Arkansas, Michigan, New Jersey, and Nevada seem to have been close here or there…]
If all but the 7 listed above are considered solid, you’re looking at 228 EV’s for Kerry, 227 for Bush. Kerry can get the other 42 with Ohio, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and either Florida, Wisconsin, or [Iowa and New Mexico].
Looking at today’s state polls, I think Wisconsin is up for grabs, while Iowa seems to lean slightly–but not irrecoverably–to Bush. Giving Nevada and especially Arkansas to Kerry seems a little overoptimistic, but not impossible. Probably the most important–Florida and Ohio–are split down the middle (if you discount what I hope is the out-of-whack Gallup result in Florida), with new polls divided on who is ahead, usually within the margin of error.
I think general polls of battleground states weight their sample so that more people are sampled from the largest states, with many more Floridians than Oregonians, for instance. But the samples from each state are almost certainly too small to reliably extrapolate results from individual states.
Zogby’s rolling tracking is showing a Bush lead on the basis of one day’s result having Bush +7. He’s up 3 which means the other days in the survey have to net a +4 to Kerry. Once that Bush +7 drops out in 2 days, it will be back where it was most likely.
I don’t know what’s going on with Tipp.
WaPo seems to be going Kerry’s way as is Rasmussen a bit (It was B+3) last week. So things are looking better.
Mady: There’s nothing addressing an analysis of the early votes that I know of. Are California and New York having early voting this year? I know many of the Southern States do and some of the northern states do not. Could that be the discrepancy? Also, I don’t know if that figure is an estimate based on exit polling, or an actual count.
In the state polls, Race.com has taken PA, NH, NJ, ME from undecided to Weak Kerry.
Mady: I checked most of the recent polls in WI. They’re mostly from SV, a republican outfit. I’ll wait for some more credible polls there.
Same is true of Iowa.
Mady,
Steve Soto at Left Coast has an analysis of early voters and it’s great for Kerry. Typically, early voters are elderly women in western states (most early voting states are in the West) – and trend heavily Republican. I believe Bush beat Gore among early voters in 2000 by 55-44 or something. So if Bush only leads by 4 now among early voters (and with a sample size of 170 voters anyway) then Bush is doing poorly.
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/
Also, a new Gallup poll (yes, Gallup) shows Kerry up 1 in Iowa. I have less confidence about Nevada but with OH and FL Nevada doesn’t matter.
Can anyone tell me a poll on how many 2000 bush supporters are not voting for him this time. Are the polls weighted in such a way that fails to this into account. There are many who simply will not vote for him this time. There are some who may not vote for Kerry but they are definitely not voting for Bush. This seems like it would be a significant thing to know.
I’m not sure, looking at the polls tonight most of which show Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nevada as pretty firmly Bush, where you find the information that those states will go to Kerry. Is it the potential for Democratic turnout, or some way of reading polling that I’m not doing? I’d love to believe with you, but I really think it is totally up in the air right now.
Also, no one addressed a question I had posted earlier–why is the voting that’s been done already showing a Repub lead? Any information on patterns, where people are voting early, which groups are?
probably Kerry
Wisconsin
New Mexico
Nevada
Florida
Ohio
Arkansas
Minnesota
Michigan
Pennsylvania
Oregon
New Hampshire
probably Bush
Colorado
Missouri
West Virginia
Virginia
Tennessee
Kerry is going to win BIG.
According to ABC (Noted Now) both campaigns are now putting resources into Hawaii, which seems to be genuinely in play. That is really not a good thing.
Kudos, commendations, and additional crown jewels to Ruy for being the best Donkey Rising, hands down, thumbs up!!
To Ruy and staff …. thanks a bunch! Many are greatful for your efforts. Including me.
Is it possible to give us some feedback on early voting? Either turnout or exit polling, or anything concrete? Anything more concrete on election turnout in general?
Again, thanks.
Do we know what Demo Corps. considers battlegrounds still? If it’s the entire 16 or so that originally existed (including WA, OR, etc), then this is not surprising or exciting.
Numbers that would be meaningful at this point should essentially be confined to PA, FL, OH, IA, WI, MN, NM, NV and possibly AR and CO. If these numbers include OR and WA and perhaps some others, then these aren’t that useful, since OR and WA will obviously inflate Kerry’s numbers since these are barely battlegrounds now. In fact, I’d argue that we could take PA off the list too to get a really good number of how Kerry is doing.
Here’s hoping that similar numbers exist for the states I mentioned.
-Jeff
Personally, I find the “battleground states” polls unenlightening.
America does not elect presidents nationally; it elects them on a state-by-state basis through the Electoral College. As we learned in 2000, it does not matter if a candidate racks up big vote-margins in one state (and win the national vote), only to lose a couple of others by mere handfuls and therefore lose the EC.
Subsequently, I honestly don’t care if John Kerry is building up a big vote-total in all 15 battleground states. Does this mean Kerry is doing well in all 15 battlegrounds? Or does it mean Oregon has gone whole-hog for Kerry while Kerry is losing the rest?
You can’t tell. Therefore, these polls are completely uninformative to me, and don’t give me any strategic information whatsoever.
I wish polling firms would stop doing them, and either do state-by-state polls which would give us real data by which to predict EC outcomes, or divert the resources to states (like Arkansas) which are seeing little polling but which might just well be coming into play (as the last Arkansas poll indicated).
Zogby has Bush up by 3 nationwide and also ahead in most of the battleground states…The brief lead Kerry had in the Rasmussen poll is gone and it is a dead heat again. Boy, I sure hope that all the good polls are the ones listed on EDM, but I can’t help but be a little nervous at this point. At least EDM gives me some hope though!