I didn’t watch Donald Trump’s prime time White House address on election “integrity” this week.
If Trump’s talking about elections in America, you already know what he’s going to say: They’re rigged against him, even when he wins, and something needs to be done about it. About the alleged rigging, I mean. He never offers anything like proof of his claims, and what documentation he does provide doesn’t meet even the loosest definition of the word “evidence.”
Currently, Trump’s unpopular, his approval ratings on the economy (and particularly inflation) are bad, he’s mired in precisely the kind of Mideast quagmire he promised to extricate America from and the upsurge in gas prices associated with that conflict torpedoed consumer moods, which were already quite dire. All of that in a mid-term year.
So I knew, just like everyone else knew, that Trump was going to claim, on Thursday evening, that America’s elections aren’t fair, that foreign actors (except Russia, which would never do such a thing) are interfering and that he intends to take steps between now and November to ensure ballot box sanctity.
By now I suspect even the Alex Jones crowd has an inkling that Trump may be the opposite of what he claims and on every front, including this one. That is, even some (a minority, but some) card-carrying MAGA cult members probably suspect that if anyone’s trying to rig elections, it’s Trump.
One thing Trump might try instead of spouting more conspiracy theories on national television, is taking steps to address the complaints of the middle-class — namely inflation and the (spoken and unspoken) contention that the US economy isn’t working for them.
When he does that, sentiment generally ticks up, even as it stays at low levels. Witness a second consecutive outsized monthly gain for the nation’s marquee gauge of household moods.
As the figure shows, the preliminary read on University of Michigan sentiment for July (54.4) showed a 10% advance from June, primarily attributable to lower gas prices.
“This month’s rise was pervasive, seen across groups by age, income, wealth and political party [but] with prices [still] frustratingly high, consumers are hardly ebullient about the economy,” survey director Joanne Hsu remarked, noting that sentiment’s still down 12% from a year ago.
The increase on the headline gauge to a multi-month high “may prove difficult to sustain if recent declines in gas prices continue to reverse course,” Hsu added, in the editorial accompanying Friday’s release, which saw the current conditions index leap more than 15%.
Have a look at the updated figure below, which shows you the difference in consumer moods based on stock ownership.
I’ve used a version of that chart before, but it’s always worth another look.
Since 2023, sentiment among American households which hold the most stocks has been very elevated versus households which own no equities. The two series tend to converge when stocks are falling, for obvious reasons.
The problem with that for Trump (beyond “selloff risk,” so to speak) is simple: His base doesn’t own many (or, in a lot of cases, any) stocks.
I went over this a week ago. The figure above’s from “Everybody’s Profiting.”
The middle-class and the bottom 50% control less than 13% of America’s equities between them. That’s roughly 120 million households. Do the math: There are about 133 million households in the country. So, 13 million households control 87% of the stocks.
Trump can’t just point to Wall Street and say “Look, it’s going great.” And, again, the “Rigged elections” shtick’s getting old by now, I imagine, even for some voters amenable to it.
Almost all of Trump’s second-term troubles are fumbles — unforced errors. The tariffs and the Iran war chief among them. He’s got nobody to blame but himself if Republicans are routed in the mid-terms. There’s still time to turn it around, but he needs to start immediately, and harping on record-high stock prices isn’t the best route to go, neither is interrupting Americans’ family time to insist he won an election that took place half a dozen years ago.
If, God forbid, stocks should fall meaningfully between now and November, he’s going to wish he’d spent a little less time blowing stuff up, bloviating about the Dow and complaining about 2020 and a little more time addressing the issues which got a convicted felon reelected to the highest office in the world.
On that latter point, Trump needs to take a hint: His second-term presidency belongs in the phrase section of the dictionary next to the entry for “benefit of the doubt.” I can’t think of anyone who’s worked harder than Trump to undermine his presidential resume. That he’s back in the Oval Office plainly suggests he can get away with damn near anything as long as it’s not the two things no one can get away with: Stoking inflation and starting a war in the Mideast.
According to the people who keep a close eye on the price of crude oil, the Chinese might start buying again in September, which will put pressure on the price. Netanyahu wanted to come to DC Monday and Trump evidently said no. Ukraine is making a mess of Russian oil infrastructure. This does not look good for the paycheck to paycheck crowd. Who knows who’s gonna win the midterms. This looks like a recipe for some serious volatility.
The Georgia election board, a 5 member panel, is now made up of 3 election deniers. Decisions are made on a majority basis. They are in charge of disputing/disputed ballots, and many other election procedures. They have made multiple changes to Georgia’s election laws, some of which have been struck down by Georgia courts, some of which have been struck down by the SCOTUS, all of which are aimed at tipping the advantage towards republican candidates in Georgia. The people overseeing the election readily, openly admit they would have overturned the 2020 election. I don’t think they can be trusted, as they’ve shown time and again that they lack integrity, and are willing to make decisions without supporting evidence. The Georgia example is one of many happening in multiple states around the country.
I watched the President’s speech with great interest. It was a very Richard Nixon/Joseph McCarthy like performance: he is describing our elections as if we are a banana republic, releasing FBI and CIA documents as “proof,” and authorizing investigations. He is moving to take control of state electronic voting machines and purge voting roles. Whether his accusations gain any traction is one thing, but he is promising to take action across all fronts. Instead of lying to us about the economy and the war, he has chosen to lie to us about elections — a far more nefarious path.
Fortunately, here in the UK, we’re not subjected to all the bs that spouts from the senile, bloviated orange mass of hair spray on a daily basis (i really do empathise with you guys on that).
I blame epstein!
The cabinet: “Mr pres, they want the epstein files”
Djt: “give em the crap and redact it”
Cab: “they’re onto us”
Djt: “threaten to invade Greenland, pinch maduro and blow up some drug runners boats, that’ll deflect”
Cab: “mtg is still banging on, what shall we do?”
Djt: “i think I fooked up with you lot. I’ll sack a few of you numpties, that’ll get em talking about something else”
Cab (ex kristi et al): “its not worked”
Djt: “blow up Iran. Nobody likes em and they might have a nuke cos I ripped up the previous agreement ”
Cab : “they’ve closed the soh, price of oil has gone galactic and we’re killing our base cos they’ve got no money”
Djt: “don’t worry, ill go on prime time tv and spout the same baseless bs about stolen elections cos that normally riles em and we know the proud boys, et al love a tear up”
And all because putin has the photos at epstein pedo palace
Great satire
This is an ongoing part of letting everyone know that he’ll be taking action at the polls, and I’ve long suspected some military-type presence. This June funding for ICE was increased by $70 Billion. That will hire a significant paramilitary force that can be deployed on US streets without invoking the Insurrection Act. They will see to it the election is run to provide the right outcome
My 75 year old immigrant naturalized citizen educated engineer MAGA uncle who live in CA is my barometer for how Republicans feel. He/They dislike and distrust Democrats more than they like Trump. He literally believes Democrats will bring this country down, destroy democracy. That even Trump is better than having a Democrat as president. It’s crazy how much they hate Democrats and manage to justify everything Trump does as being necessary.
It sounds like your uncle was a post-WW2 immigrant from Eastern Europe?
The cult only wants Trump to talk about sticking it to the big shot smarty pants.The elites that are taking it all. If he talked about anything else , most would know he is lying and the cult would either be bored, or not understand what he was talking about and turn off the tv.