Nevada Key: State-by-State Predictions for Election 2016: Barely or BIGLY, Trump Likely to Lose

It could be close, but it may not be: Democrat Hillary Clinton should still win at least 274 Electoral College votes even if she loses big states like Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida, thereby defeating Republican Donald Trump on Election Day, and Nevada is the likely key; below, a state-by-state analysis of every competitive state.

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse November 7/8, 2016  

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) November 7th/8th, 2016

270towin

AMMAN — I wrote after the third debate that the election was over and that Clinton would win unless there was some kind of major Surprise. Then, FBI Director Comey spoketh… And it’s closer than many thought possible.

As we pass through the homestretch and near Election Day, the discussion inevitably turns to maps and geography more so than any other time in the general election, and Americans get to reacquaint themselves with states other than their own, the existence of which they tend to forget when there is not a presidential election at hand. “Who are these mysterious denizens in distant lands who look at the same sky we do, can agree we both seem the same color, and then agree on nothing else whatsoever?” many ask.

Well, here is your guide to the map, states, and math of the Electoral College that will determine who will be the next president of the United States of America.

In order for Trump to defeat the favored Hillary Clinton, he would have to win almost all the battleground states. Now, this is why Clinton is favored in every major statistical model, and the gold-standard in polling analysis, Five Thirty Eight, has two models—one taking into account only polls and another taking into account polls and a few other factors like demographics and economics; the thing is, it’s not as daunting a task to win for Trump as one might think, hence Five Thirty Eight’s models wisely have Trump at about a 1-in-3 shot to become president.

And keep in mind folks: our magic number here is 270.

The Locks:

First, we have the states that are locks, barring a polling disaster or a political miracle (for all states, the number in parentheses is that state’s—and DC’s—number of Electoral College votes):

Hillary’s got these locked down: Vermont (3), Massachusetts (11), Rhode Island (4), Connecticut (7), New York (29), New Jersey (14), Delaware (3), Maryland (10), Washington, DC (3), Illinois (20), Washington (state) (12), Oregon (7), California (55), and Hawaii (4), for a total of 182 certain electoral votes for Clinton.

Donald’s got these states locked down: West Virginia (5), South Carolina (9), Kentucky (8), Tennessee (11), Alabama (9), Indiana (11), Mississippi (6), Missouri (10), Arkansas (6), Louisiana (8), North Dakota (3), South Dakota (3), Nebraska (5, but only 4 are certain because the state splits its votes), Kansas (6), Oklahoma (7), Montana (3), Wyoming (3), and Idaho (4), for a total of 116 certain electoral votes for Trump.

Locked electoral votes: 182 Clinton, 116 Trump

The Near-Locks:

For Clinton:

Then, we have states which look like they could be competitive in theory, but will not be unless something crazy happens: Virginia, Georgia, Minnesota, Texas, New Mexico, Alaska, plus Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District; let’s go through each by which candidate is an overwhelming favorite and why.

Virginia (13): Before Obama won Virginia in 2008, the last time Virginia voted for a Democrat was in 1964, but since 2008 it’s been solidly blue, only sending Democratic U.S. Senators to DC since and reelecting Obama in 2012. Its main population growth has been in the DC suburbs, an area with a young, diverse increase in population mainly working for or contracting with the much-reviled status-quo “Establishment” government; they are the system and won’t vote for someone who advocates tearing it down. So while Clinton’s pretty steady lead is modest, don’t expect it to succumb to a Trump assault. Virginia will almost certainly stay in Clinton’s camp.

New Mexico (5): While Trump appears within striking distance in New Mexico, don’t let that fool you: only once since 1992, in 2004, has New Mexico voted for a Republican for president, and both of its senators and 2 out of 3 House seats are Democratic. Also, Clinton’s polling lead there has generally fluctuated between modest and good, but her lead has been steady. And, of course, Trump’s ridiculous comments about Mexican immigrants has riled up the normally relatively apathetic Latino bloc: Latinos—and Mexican-Americans especially—are coming out to vote for Clinton in record numbers, and New Mexico is fertile ground for this trend to keep it solidly in her column on Election Day. It should very much end up in with Clinton’s in the end.

Minnesota (10): Minnesota is the most liberal state not on a coast in the country: it hasn’t gone for a Republican presidential candidate since Nixon in 1972 and did so only two other times—each time for Eisenhower in the 1950s—since 1932. In addition, 6 of its 8 House (and both Senate) seats are in Democratic hands—the only state in between the coasts with such an imbalance in favor of Democrats other than New Mexico—and Minnesota polls have shown a consistent and generally sizable lead for Clinton there. Keep dreaming, Trump.

This gives us an addition 28 electoral votes that are almost certainly going to Clinton

28 near-lock + 182 lock = 210 in Clinton’s column total

For Trump:

Georgia (16): The polling has been mighty close in Georgia, but, for the most part, it’s been a consistent lead for Trump, if only a small one; but Democrats shouldn’t kid themselves: while Georgia is changing demographically and is becoming a more diverse state, the state-level political machine is very much dominated by Republicans, who have ensured that only about 28.5% of its House delegation is Democratic and both of its senators are Republicans even though nearly 45.5% of its voters voted for Obama in the 2012 election; the state system is clearly stacked against Democrats. There is a reason the Voting Rights Act (VRA) preclearance provisions were so focused on the South: white conservative southerners had used the state and local governments for generations there to disenfranchise southern blacks; with the conservative Roberts Supreme Court striking down the preclearance provision of the VRA, in 2013, overall in the South it is quite clear that Republican state authorities are engaging in systematic attempts to make it harder for people to vote in heavily Democratic and heavily African-American areas, with at least 655 polling locations closed since the Supreme Court decision in the six southern states where data is available. Georgia is not included in the available data-set, but Georgia can almost certainly be sure to be part of this trend and, especially with African-American turnout seemingly down compared to when Obama was running, it would take a miracle for Clinton to win Georgia.

Texas (38): Yes, a large number of polls show that Clinton is within striking distance in Texas (and, personally as a Democrat, I can’t wait for that state to go purple and then blue), but it’s not going to happen in 2016, barring some crazy miracle. And yes, while unlike African-Americans, Latinos will be turning out in historic numbers for Clinton, with Republicans firmly in control of the state (the state hasn’t voted for a Democrat for president since 1976, only about 30.5% of its House delegation are Democrats and both its senators are Republicans both even though almost 41.4% voted for Obama in 2012) and trying to suppress voter turnout (at least 403 polling places have been closed in the state since the 2013 VRA decision), it would take something pretty crazy for her to top Trump in Texas.

Alaska (3): Though polls have shown a highly unusually close race in Alaska, and Five Thirty Eight’s models show Clinton with roughly the same chance of winning Alaska as Donald Trump has of winning either Wisconsin or Michigan, calm down, people, Trump is still up and it’s Alaska: this state only voted for a Democrat once, in 1964. Alaska is a diverse state, with Alaskan Natives/Native Americans a large portion of Alaska’s population—nearly 15%—and though they vote heavily Democratic, they have some of the lowest voter turnout rates of any group in the United States and hopes of Clinton taking the state would ride largely on the difficult task of turning them out. Don’t stay up late expecting Alaska to surprise anyone; it’s almost certainly going to be Trump territory.

Then there’s Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District (1), which famously voted for Obama in 2008, but not in 2012; whispers of Clinton having a shot have been heard, but in the scant polling we do have, nothing showed Clinton to be competitive, and there is no other evidence that this will be the case. Yes, there’s so little data that anything is possible, but take it to the bank that this is going stay Trump territory.

This adds another 58 electoral votes that are pretty definite for Trump

So 116 lock + 58 near-lock = 174 total for Trump total

So, certain/virtually certain Electoral Votes: 210 Clinton, 174 Trump

Now, below is where it gets more interesting…

The Upsets-Are-Very-Possible-States

Departing from the above states, we have a number of states where one candidate is moderately favored but where an upset is quite possible: Maine, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Utah, and Arizona. Let’s break them down by which candidates are favored.

Advantage Clinton:

Maine (4 at stake in total, 3 at stake for the 1st Congressional District and overall winner): Overall, Maine is surprisingly close, and while a few polls have it very close, most have given Clinton a healthy lead; still, Maine is a very white state, and the whitest states have been her weakest during the primaries against Sanders and are also her weakest during this general election at the same time, but unlike most very white states, Maine’s population is relatively well-educated, a trait that hurts Trump’s chances. It is not very populous state, so any swing can make a big difference; Clinton is still an overwhelming favorite, and the state hasn’t voted GOP in a presidential race since 1988, but don’t count Trump out. Trump is far more likely to get 1 of Maine’s 4 electoral votes, from the state’s 2nd Congressional District (see further below), than he is to win the state outright.

Pennsylvania (20): While Pennsylvania has tightened in recent days, Clinton’s lead here has been averaging a very consistent moderate one, though one that has shrunken a bit in recent days. It’s not big enough to close the window on Trump but isn’t so small that it doesn’t make her a clear and substantial favorite. Yet possibly lower African-American turnout could mean Clinton doesn’t get quite the boost she is hoping for from Philadelphia.

Ballotpedia

And another point, and this is where we get into the whole early-voting situation and FBI Director Comey’s letters: Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states where there is no early voting and where only a specific set of reasons allow a person to absentee vote. Before Comey’s latest public statement, released yesterday, which exonerates (for a second time) Clinton of any prosecutable wrongdoing in her e-mails/server situation, I would have said that his previous incredible statement of October 28th—that new e-mails were found in the process of a possible sex-crime investigation on Anthony Weiner’s laptop, which he apparently shared with top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, which may be relevant to the Clinton investigation but which neither Comey nor the FBI has begun examining, meaning there was no evidence to report yet (a statement that altered the race, hurt Clinton, and helped Trump)—could have led to a dip in Clinton’s support in general and especially in states that do not allow early voting, since very few people there would have been allowed to vote before that damaging statement from Comey came out, and since people voting on Election Day would have had this e-mail thing as likely the last revelation of the 2016 campaign and the piece of information most fresh in their minds in the voting booth. 

In other words, in a close race, that October 28th Comey revelation could have made it closer or even changed the outcome. With the new revelation exonerating Clinton from wrongdoing coming only 48 hours before Election Day, on one level, this probably reduces some of the damage from the earlier statement; but the fact is that that previous statement gave America a week of non-stop negative coverage of Clinton and this new one came so late it might not make much of a difference at all: people might even miss the information depending on how busy and engaged they were/are with just two days left (a further question that will be very difficult to answer is: how many people would have voted differently during early voting if they had known now that they know from Comey’s latest revelation and/or if they had never heard the previous Comey statement; that is a mighty difficult question to answer, yet it is still very troubling that we even need to be asking this question, much to the discredit of Comey and the FBI). Another thing to consider is that even though this is “good” news for Clinton, it is still news that keeps the spotlight on this e-mail/server issue, one of Clinton’s worst, and not the issues, not her positives, not Trump’s negatives. Especially in a close race that does not allow early voting, the whole FBI e-mail stuff is still what has colored the last stretch of the campaign, so even with the latest exoneration this stuff probably hurts, more than helps, Clinton.

Still, Pennsylvania looks good for Clinton, and the state hasn’t picked a Republican for president since 1988, but it doesn’t look that good for her, and Trump has a decent chance of winning, or failing that, quite a good chance of making Pennsylvania a very tight race and much closer than expected. Bet on Clinton, but don’t bet the house.

Michigan (16): Michigan is quite an interesting state; on paper, it’s generally shown a steady and moderate Clinton lead in the polls, but with a few exceptions. However, Michigan became one of the greatest polling disasters in polling history—and the greatest in primary history—during the Michigan Democratic Primary, when Bernie Sanders ever so narrowly upset Hillary Clinton; it was the surprise Brexit (so far) of the 2016 election season. There are plenty of reasons—lower black enthusiasm, higher white enthusiasm, anger at trade deals, etc., that Trump won big in the primary and Clinton lost to Sanders—to look at a Trump upset as a serious possibility in this state. Plus, the state-level government is totally controlled by Republicans. And oh, Michigan is another state without early voting and which is strict with absentee voting, raising the possibility of Clinton’s e-mails weighing disproportionately heavily on voters’ minds here. She is definitely favored, and Michigan hasn’t gone Republican for president since 1988, but the people at the Clinton campaign sure aren’t taking Michigan for granted; nor should they. 

Wisconsin (10): With a generally steady and moderate lead for Clinton, Wisconsin isn’t quirky like Michigan, and it isn’t as close in polling as Pennsylvania, but that doesn’t mean it is out of Trump’s reach: the state government is totally controlled by Republicans, with controversial Gov. (and former 2016 presidential candidate) Scott Walker at the helm. Conversely, if Michigan is possibly weaker for Clinton because she narrowly lost to Sanders there, it must be mentioned that former 2016 Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz trounced Trump in the Wisconsin Republican Primary; additionally, Wisconsin hasn’t voted for a Republican president since 1984. Both Michigan and Pennsylvania are better bets for Trump, though he still has a decent, if smaller, shot at Wisconsin.

This adds 49 more electoral votes to Clinton’s column, probable but far from certain or even close to certain

49 likely + 210 lock/near lock = 259 looking good for Clinton overall

Advantage Trump:

Iowa (6): For a while it seemed like Iowa would be pretty competitive, but as the campaign draws to a close, the polling trends have moved decidedly in Trump’s favor; Clinton still has a shot, but that shot has become smaller just when she would have hoped the opposite would be true. Expect Trump to prevail in Iowa.

Utah (6): Utah undoubtedly has to win the novelty prize of “most interesting race:” For a while, the state was host a tight three-way race between Trump, Clinton, and independent conservative and one of the last true standard-bearers of the conservative #NeverTrump movement, Mormon Utahn Evan McMullin. Unlike the vast majority of conservative Christians—who have proven themselves little more than rank hypocrites in supporting Trump after harping so long on “family values” as an issue, Mormons have admirable actually demonstrated a fidelity to their principles and have never warmed up to Trump; in fact, they really don’t like him. But polls in the last few weeks have shown Trump with a moderate and steady lead, and Utah seems to be his to lose. Still, with many Mormons being so principled and passionate in their feelings against Trump, it’s quite possible that anti-Trump Mormons may turn out in higher numbers than expected and vote for their fellow Mormon. McMullin has been surprisingly impressive, and still has the ability to shock and be the surprise of the election, but it is still an uphill battle for him, and even more so for Clinton in a conservative state, no matter how close they are; expect Trump to win but allow room for a surprise.

IF McMullin does pull off an upset—hardly inconceivable—his victory could throw a monkey wrench into the whole Electoral College math in some interesting scenarios where neither Trump nor Clinton hit 270 Electoral College votes, sending the election… to Congress? See more at the end of my article (coming soon)…

Arizona (11): Arizona has only gone once for a Democrat in a presidential election since 1952: Bill Clinton, in 1996. This time around, there has been a mostly steady and moderate lead for Trump, though a few more relatively recent polls have it very close and a few even have Clinton up a sliver. It should still go Trump, except… as mentioned, there is a dramatic increase in Hispanic voter turnout this election, and this could put Arizona in play. But there is also an increase in white turnout, as well, which may even outpace the big bump in Latino participation. And Republicans control the entire state government, having at least 212 polling places been closed in the state since the 2013 Supreme Court VRA decision. Even with a Latino surge, with the polls the way they are, a competing white surge, the state dominated by the GOP, and a longer-term national Republican strategy of voter suppression already in place, Arizona is likely to remain with Trump.

This gives another 23 likely, but hardly certain, electoral votes to Trump

23 likely + 174 lock/near lock votes = 197 for Trump

So far, that’s 259 for Clinton and 179 for Trump

The Battlegrounds

Finally, true battleground states where things are most in doubt are Florida, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Ohio, Colorado, and Nevada, as well as Maine’s 2nd Congressional District; we’ll divide these into leans and true tossups.

Leans Clinton

Colorado (9): Clinton had a good-sized lead in Colorado for most of October, but after the Comey announcement of October 28th, polling showed the race here tightening considerably. Still, even though the race is closer, she is shown to have a clear if slight lead, and the fact of the matter is that the demographics of Colorado are very much against Donald Trump, not just because the state is diverse, but because much of the white population is young and Millennial-heavy, profusely college-educated, and liberal. It may be a very close race, but this ground is not favorable to Trump, not enough to give him a victory without a lot of luck and a big surprise. Colorado is a state that has changed a lot and now seems firmly on a path that will keep it a blue state in terms of presidential politics for the foreseeable future.

Nevada (6) TIPPING POINT: The polling in Nevada—perhaps the most difficult state of all to poll for a mix of reasons—has been balanced out to being pretty much tied (not so much with actual ties but with a number of polls canceling each other out), and it would be easy to include it in the tossup category… Except that a lot of early voting data suggests that the race is basically over, that Latino and Democratic turnout has so exceeded expectations in favor of Clinton and without an increase in whites large enough to offset this, that the race can already be called for Clinton in the eyes of the most reputable authority on Nevada politics, Jon Ralston, especially considering that the vast majority (70%) of Nevada voters voted early in 2012.

So Clinton might have already won Nevada before Election Day, with the Nevada State Democratic Party and Harry Reid’s political machine delivering her a victory through an exceptional early-voting-drive effort; it would be fitting particularly for Reid, since it was arguably his machine that delivered Nevada to Clinton in the contest with Sanders, and, as I have pointed out, that was the point where Clinton effectively defeated Sanders for the nomination, even if many others did not realize this at the time. Yes, this would be quite a curtain call for Reid, set to retire after suffering a terrible head injury while exercising back on New Years’ Day in 2015.

Given what we know from early voting, it’s very hard to see Trump winning Nevada.

This means that looking at how uncertain other parts of the race are, considering how in-doubt Nevada was until early voting data came in and how Colorado was thought to be much less competitive than Nevada, if we look at the map and do the math, if we consider Colorado a state more secure for Clinton than Nevada, then we can basically say that Nevada is the tipping point, because it is with Nevada secure—the least secure of all the contests for her in which she is favored—that she has enough Electoral College votes to win the election regardless of who wins New Hampshire, North Carolina, or Florida, the outcomes of which are far more in doubt; Nevada in this case is the kingmaker, then, or, rather, we should say queenmaker.

So 15 electoral votes (with Nevada being the final 6) + the 259 we already gave to Clinton = 274.

Game over.

*****

But, let us finish our analysis:

Leans Trump

Maine’s 2nd Congressional District (1): Polls previously had this very rural, extremely white part of Maine solidly in Trump’s camp, but over the last month is has tightened and now the polls indicate it will be a toss-up. But aside from very being white, it is also not as well-educated as the rest of Maine, making it fertile ground for Trump; thus, even with the numbers indicating a tie, in the end, the demographics suggest that Trump is more likely to prevail than Clinton.

Ohio (18): Ohio always seems to be a crucial state in elections: since 1804—its first election—the state has only failed to vote for the winning presidential candidate 9 times, and only twice in the 20th century, in 1944 (weirdly enough) and 1960.  But there’s a pretty good chance that Ohio will pick the loser in 2016, for the first time in 56 years. Clinton has a decent shot, but not a great one: for most of the last month, Trump has had a steady and moderate lead, but very recently a number of very close polls came out; if not for these polls, I would have had Ohio in the previous category. On one level, Ohio is mad about Bill Clinton’s NAFTA trade deal, plus African-Americans, as mentioned, have been coming out to vote in lower numbers than in 2008 and 2012, Ohio included; on another level, Clinton still managed to beat Sanders soundly here in the primary, while Trump was embarrassed by then-rival and sitting governor of the state John Kasich, who refused to vote for Trump and wrote in John McCain’s name in early voting. Still, the Republicans control the entire state government and Trump is definitely favored here: Clinton has about as good a chance of winning Ohio as Trump does of winning the whole election: according to Five Thirty Eight models, about one-in-three. It could be really close, but Trump should win here.

This means we have 19 electoral votes that lean trump

19 leans + 197 likelies, locks/near locks = 216 electoral votes for Trump

That’s 274 electoral votes for Clinton, 216 for Trump even before the most in-doubt races are factored into the mix, but let’s go into them anyway, since the above numbers are likely, but hardly guaranteed.

True tossups:

New Hampshire (4): Clinton had a relatively steady lead here, but polls tightened over the last week or so, and even though she still seems to have an overall edge in polling, there are many contradictory polls; given New Hampshire’s famous propensity for bucking trends and defying prediction, being independent-minded, and having a strong libertarian streak, it’s just too hard to predict this one. Clinton got crushed here by Bernie Sanders, and Trump dominated his opponents here on the other side of that primary, but the state also voted for Obama twice and voted for Kerry in 2004. The state is also overwhelmingly white, but also very educated. On top of it all, New Hampshire is one of those few states that does not have early voting and has strict absentee voting, begging the question of how the whole FBI/Comey stuff will play out. New Hampshire, you’re tough, and I honestly don’t have a prediction to make.

North Carolina (15): Going into the final few weeks, a number of conflicting polls emerged, with a majority showing Clinton with a slight-to-moderate lead, but a strong minority giving Trump a lead, and most of those a slight one; the final poll showed a tie. If this wasn’t confusing enough, North Carolina is a relatively educated state, with a strong number of college-degree holding whites and a large African-American population; conversely, white turnout is up in North Carolina and African-American turnout is down in the state after the GOP closed a number of polling sites, and the state government is totally controlled by Republicans, who have been exposed there as systematically trying to “target African-Americans with almost surgical precision” with voter suppression in a federal appeals court rulingfrom late July that struck down some of the North Carolina Republicans’ attempts to restrict voting, a ruling which a 4-4 deadlocked Supreme Court was unable to overturn at the end of August (had Scalia survived, he certainly would have made that a 5-4 decision overturning the federal appeals court ruling). The state voted for Obama in 2008 (the first time a Democrat won the presidential race there since Jimmy Carter won the state in 1976), but then went for Romney in 2012, and with plenty of reasons for both campaigns to be optimistic and both campaigns to worry, it is unclear how the state will go once all the votes are counted in 2016.

Florida (29): Oh, Florida, it’s always crazy in Florida on Election Day. Polls in Florida have been a bit all over the place, about half showing Clinton with a small lead and half showing Trump with a small lead (plus one) tie. And there are reasons for both sides to be optimistic: Clinton is happy that Florida is a diverse state and that in its vibrant Latino community turnout is dramatically up in early voting, but the white vote is also way up, the Democrats’ lead in early voting is less than it was in 2008, and Republicans control the entire state government, a position from which they may be engaging in voter suppression, as Republicans have been apt to do this election cycle: after Hurricane Matthew hit, Republican Governor and enthusiastic Trump supporter Rick Scott did not even want to extend voter registration, but he was sued by the Florida Democratic Party and a federal judge forced him to extend the deadline. Thus, Florida, as usual, is also too close to call, give the polling and what I laid out.

I really think these last three states are just too close to call, so that’s 48 electoral votes that are anybody’s guess. But this still gives us a range:

Likely closest result: 274 Clinton, 264 Trump

Likely biggest gap: 322 Clinton, 216 Trump 

The Crazy Scenarios if Nobody Gets to 270

Then, there are the crazy scenarios with a realistic chance of actually happening, where neither Clinton nor Trump hit 270.

For starters, let’s say that the states go as I have predicted and say that New Hampshire goes for Clinton with North Carolina and Florida going to Trump, with the exceptions that Trump pulls off upsets in Nevada and Colorado: ladies and gentleman, we would be tied 269-269, and the election would go to the incoming Congress (more on that in a bit, and wow, Maine’s 2nd Congressional District would look mighty important in such scenario).

But then we have other crazy scenario: if Evan McMullin wins Utah (hardly an extremely remote possibility given what I laid out) there are a number of very close scenarios where candidates could be just a few electoral votes shy of getting 270, sometimes just a single vote (Maine’s 2nd Congressional District could be a kingmaker here if it went Clinton) . And, again, we go to Congress.

There are other scenarios where neither Clinton nor Trump reaches 270, but these are easily the most likely, the other being dramatically more remote but hardly impossible (scenarios involving less competitive states above the battleground tier, as outlined above).

I’ll avoid going into those since they are far more remote, but feel free to play with your own maps.

But, under the Constitution, when the election goes to Congress, the president is chosen by the state congressional delegations from the incoming House of Representatives class (extremely likely to be majority-Republican), with each delegation getting one vote: all of Texas’ congressmen are equal to Montana’s one congressman. They would be allowed to choose from the top three electoral vote receivers, and if McMullin’s Utah delegation could pull in other Republican states’ representatives who are hostile to Trump into a bloc, they could prevent enough delegations from picking Trump, who would need 26 out of the 50 delegations to win. Meanwhile, the Senate would select the VP from the top-two electoral-vote receivers for the vice presidency, with senators voting as individuals; if the House could not pick a winner with at least 26 delegations by the inauguration, the VP chosen from the Senate would become president; if Senate was deadlocked, the president would be the incoming Speaker of the House (likely Paul Ryan but not certainly so).

On top of all of this? A Bernie Sanders support who is 1 out of 12 electors in the Electoral College for Washington State, which a lock for Clinton, has explicitly said he will not vote for Clinton in the Electoral College regardless of how his state votes; if he stays true to his statement, then Clinton will lose 1 electoral vote. If some of the aforementioned wackier scenarios play out, this one obnoxious man may decide the fate of the nation, and perhaps Western democracy and the world…

About That Popular Vote…

With lots of close races, it’s going to come down to turnout. Can Obama’s personally hitting the campaign trail help to make up some of the gap between black turnout in 2012 and 2008 compared to reports of lower turnout thus far in 2016? Can Trump turnout whites in record-enough numbers to upset Clinton? Will Latinos, like the Ents in The Lord of the Rings, wake up to their potential power and be kingmakers in key states like Florida, Arizona, and Nevada?

As for the numbers of popular vote, the best pollster in politics, Ann Selzer, just released a national poll which had Clinton at 44%, Trump at 41%, 4% for Gary Johnson, and 2% for Jill Stein; 1% did not know, 3% voted/intended to vote but not for president (think of this as the disgusted vote), and a whopping 4% did not want to tell their choice; as I wrote in my early October prediction of how voters might shift before Election Day (I seemed to have underestimated the collapse of Johnson and Stein, but my best guess from then was about Clinton 45%, Trump 43%, Johnson 6% and 2-3% for Stein, with about 4.5% undecided that I wouldn’t dare guess), I noted how I thought the vast majority of those who said they did not want to share their intentions were probably Trump voters; if I am right here, the popular vote margin could be very close; Clinton could even lose the popular vote while winning the electoral college, something that, given what I just mentioned, seems a more likely scenario that any would have thought previously (I didn’t say likely, just more possible). If I am wrong about those people who didn’t want to share their choice with pollsters, Clinton should win the popular vote by a small but clear margin, but perhaps the Latino surge will outperform these surveys and give Clinton more than a small margin in the popular vote; probably the main reason she will win by a larger margin if so, and, possibly the main reason she will win in general.

It’s also quite reasonably possible that the polls are off by “a normal polling error” across the board, kind of like with Brexit; if this is the case, we could see a decent-sized Trump win, but that could mean a Clinton blowout.

We’ll know very soon. Nothing to worry about here, only the fate of American and Western democracy…

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 Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse October 3, 2016  

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) October 3rd, 2016

Pool/Getty Images

AMMAN — These debates worry and perplex me because I never know how the American public and the media will react. I know how rational people who aren’t blind ideologues will react. And at this point, all rational people and non-ideologues are backing Clinton. The almost 6 in 10 Americans that are irrational and/or ideologues constantly seem to prefer and encourage the atrocious. What horrifies normal, decent, civil, thoughtful people delights these “deplorables” to the tunes of shrieks and howls of delight, often with more than just a thin veneer of racism, misogyny, or some other form of bigotry and hate. So when by any objective measure Clinton easily won the debate and Trump more or less imploded, that is little comfort in trying to gauge the reaction of the mob and the can’t-see-the-forest-for-the-trees media.

Getting Inside Voter’s Minds

For the first two minutes, Trump seemed the most articulate I’ve ever seen him. For the first half-hour, he managed to not look terrible talking about trade and the economy. And then he demonstrated he had the attention span of an ADHD Millennial in giving us an hour of unfocused, incoherent rants in which he demonstrated no ability to exercise self-control as he was successfully baited every time Clinton tried to bait him to talk about unflattering and off-topic items. He acted unpresidential, demonstrated a solid lack of both understanding and information on pretty much everything, and was unable to fill his time without repeating himself over and over again and without parroting the same anecdotes he’s been peddling for over a year (we heard about Carrier, but I’m surprised he didn’t bring up Komatsu and Caterpillar as well…). Clinton was careful not to appear too aggressive and stayed calm, composed, seemed to be enjoying herself, and demonstrated a mastery facts and issues that has come to be a hallmark of her as a public servant.

Regardless of with whom you agreed more on this issues, this is what happened. And regardless of your thoughts on various issues and your party affiliation, it is clear that Donald Trump has a dangerous temperament, lack of self-control and focus, and a stunning ignorance that makes him unfit to be president and Commander-in-Chief. 

Any rational person can and did see and understand this.

And that is what frightens me, because I fear we rational people are outnumbered in this country. Along with irrational people who can’t see these obvious truths and hateful, childish, spiteful, narcissistic ideologues who either don’t care about the effects of their vote or are willfully blind to them (and I am convinced there are far more of the former than the latter), they may for a majority of voters. And they may not. We will see.

In the end, this debate and the ones to come, much like the election itself, are simply about math.

To Consider Impact of Debate(s), Divide Voters Into Parts of an Equation

In fact, it’s something of a long equation with various parts. Two parts of the equation are immutable: those who are definitely voting Trump and Clinton. Let’s call them Td and Cd. The there are those who are leaning but not certain, and who can be divided by how strongly they lean—high (Tlh and Clh), medium (Tlm and Clm) and low (Tll and Cll). The same thing can more-or-less be done for Johnson and Stein. Then we would have undecideds (U). 

I will cherry pick Ann Selzer’s outfit’s latest poll conducted before the first debate, as she is regarded by FiveThirtyEight as the “best pollster in politics,” to set the landscape: 43% of voters said they will vote Trump, 41% Clinton, 8% Gary Johnson, 4% Jill Stein, 3% were not sure, 2% “don’t want to tell” (I suspect these people are almost all Trump supporters), and 1% said they were not voting for a presidential candidate (if you prefer, feel free to do this exercise with the Real Clear Politics current average, which is very similar but with Trump’s and Clinton’s numbers switched and Stein significantly less than 4%, but I would venture that Selzer’s Bloomberg poll is likely more accurate). 

Now, the first main question is, whose minds can be changed and whose mind are past that point of being able to be changed?

Trump & Clinton supporters 

At this point I’d say a strong majority of Trump and Clinton supporters are going to stick with their candidate through hell and high water. I would say that all of Td and Tlh are going to turn out for him, and the same with Clinton’s Td and Tlh. That leaves medium leaners, light leaners, and the undecideds (I’d include those saying they won’t vote for president in this category) that I’d consider as people whose minds could possibly change. I think clear, overwhelming majorities—let’s say including 2/3-of the medium leaners—are going to definitely stick with their candidates in the cases of Trump and Clinton. That leaves roughly 1/3 of the medium Clm and 1/3 of the medium Tlm to be combined with the light leaners (Cll and Tll) for each to form the body of persuadable voters.

As I indicated in my last article, while there is an enthusiasm gap in favor of Trump meaning in theory that there is more possibility of Clinton’s people switching, I think that this is less likely because Clinton’s people are so anti-Trump and relatively practical that weak enthusiasm for Clinton does not meant there is a good chance that they will support Trump or someone else. If Johnson was performing better I would think he’d have a better chance of picking off unenthusiastic Trump supporters, but with the climate of fear in America intensifying, I think that effect will be mitigated. If anything, Clinton has a chance to pick up Republicans who are both rational and worried about Trump’s ability to conduct foreign policy, but I am not sure many of those people exist. So I’m sticking with only 1/3 of medium leaners being up for grabs for both candidates, in addition to all light leaners. 

As far as quantifying these, I would think that by far most Trump and Clinton voters are not light leaners, and I would think that she has more medium leaners than he does and that he has more high leaners, but I would say that the vast majority of supporters of both Clinton and Trump are definites. Including heavy leaners that I think have pretty much zero chance of leaning anywhere else, I don’t think all leaners combined for either candidate exceed 20% of their support and may be as low as 15%. I would with 100% confidence say that the 1/3 of the medium and light leaners who could actually change their minds together would not be as high as 10% and could be lower than even 5%; for simplicity’s sake let’s say it’s 5% of their support for each.

Stein & Johnson people

I think most Stein people are fanatics at this point, and selfishly care more about “feeling good” about their vote than whether or not Trump destroys many mores of democratic custom and does gods know what in terms of foreign policy. I also tend to think of Stein people as liberals who are either super into her or really just disgusted by Clinton and seek an alternative candidate, without many people in the middle, so, in other words, there aren’t a lot of Stein medium-leaners (Slm), so we’ll divide her support into Sd Slh and Sll, and I’d think her Sd and Slh to be about 2/3 of her support, with only 1/3 Sll.  Plus, Stein’s Green Party (as well as Johnson’s Libertarian Party) are drawing a lot of brand new support from people who have never voted third-party, so there is little party-loyalty and those voters disenchanted with Democrats flirting with Stein (and others disenchanted and flirting with Johnson) may, after a brief love affair, also become disenchanted with their new lover(s) the more they are exposed to her (or him); in fact, this is likely.

Johnson is more complicated than stein, though: he is attracting roughly half his support from people who would otherwise vote Clinton (I discussed this in my previous article), which is counterintuitive because as the Libertarian Party candidate he is far to the right on my issues, but is deceptively alluring because he is a pretty cool/fun guy, is very straightforward, and is cool on things Millennials really care about like weed and gay rights and is also stridently anti-foreign-interventionist. I would imagine most of his liberal support, other than misogynistic Bernie Bros, is actually up for grabs, and I think a good portion of his conservative support that doesn’t come from actual libertarians is also up for grabs because he has demonstrated himself to be atrociously and lazily uninformed and unengaged on issues of foreign policy. He will keep the conservatives whose biggest concerns are the size and scope of government, regulation, the debt, the Fed, etc., but conservatives who care a lot about foreign policy and are not isolationist may find themselves slowly moving to Clinton’s camp, especially after Johnson’s “What is Aleppo?” debacle when he demonstrated that had no idea about or had even heard of the Syrian city of Aleppo, site of some of the worst fighting of the ongoing civil war there, and his more recent seeming inability to name a single foreign leader he liked, despite being given many chances to do so and then mocking this himself as “having another Aleppo moment.” So, for Johnson, I think between 2/3 and 3/4 of his liberal support is up for grabs and about but I would think that 2/3 of his conservative support are solid libertarians or Republicans focused on libertarian issues, and since polling inferences show a strong likelihood that his support is split in half between liberals and conservatives, I’d say this means about half of his support is up for grabs, maybe even slightly more. Basically, the Jlh aren’t up for grabs with Johnson either, which I’d say with Jd are about half his support. Jlm, on the other hand, as with Stein, are virtually nonexistent so I would say about half his are weak Jll who I would bet are not only possible switchers but likely ones.

So at this point, for Trump’s “definite” support, I’d have an equation saying that = Td + Tlh + 2/3Tlm, and for Clinton, Cd + Clh + 2/3Clm.

For Stein, it would be Sd + Slh, and Johnson Jd + Jlh

Up for grabs, we have 1/3Tlm +Tll +1/3Clm +Cll + Sll + Jll

Now, before I continue, I will just point out that these following numbers are wholly non-scientific, and that this is more an exercise in thought and deductive reasoning. Now, going back to the Selzer poll, this means (again roughly) that Trump, with 43%, has 40.85% that is rock-solid; for Clinton, with 41%, 38.95% is rock-solid; for Stein, with 4%, 2.66% is rock-solid; and with Johnson, with 8%, 4.0% is rock-solid. Clearly, Johnson has the most potential to lose support, for the reasons I discussed, while it would seem Stein would have the most loyal supporters. I have a pretty high confidence on this admittedly rough analysis as being close to numbers that will resemble the outcome in November. This very roughly quantifies to [1/3Tlm + Tll2.15%] + [1/3Clm + Cll2.05%] + [Sll1.33%] + [Jll4.0%] = 9.53% that could change candidates plus another 4% equaling the undecideds/won’t vote people. Of those 2% who did not want to share, let’s give 1.0% to Trump as definite Td and 0.5% as Tll, and we’ll increase to 5.5% the number of persuadable leaners for Trump since they were reluctant to declare their support; we will imagine that the other 0.5% of this 2% could be for anyone and would also be up for grabs, though I suspect many of them are Trump people; to be more cautious that 0.5% will be added to undecideds for the sake of simplicity. 

A Loosely Instructive Equation

So, the full revised equations would look like this:

Adjusted Selzer #s: Trump T=44.5% Clinton C=41% Johnson J=8% Stein S=4% undecided U=4.5%

[Definites T + C + S + J]           + [Persuadables T + C + S + J + U]         = 100%

[Td +Tlh+2/3Tlm + Cd+Clh+2/3Clm + Sd+Slh + Jd+Jlh] + [1/3Tlm+Tll +1/3Clm+Cll + Sll + Jll + U] = 100%

[42.05%T + 39.95%C +2.66%S +4.0%J] + [2.45%T + 2.05%C + 1.33%S + 4.0%J + 4.5%U]  = 100%

85.67%                                                 + 14.33%                                         = 100%

Now, I realize this may come off as stupid and artificial and possibly pointless. Maybe that’s even fair. And I did mention that this is rough. However, I do think this does actually gives a logical and roughly-relatively-precise idea of what’s going on here. Basically, close to 86% of the electorate will not be changing their minds under any non-wild-card circumstances, and the remaining 14ish% are up for grabs, on a spectrum ranging from medium-leaners to those saying they will vote but not vote for president. I don’t think all these 14%+ people will change their leanings. In fact, at this point, if I had to guess, some of the medium-leaners (many in Clinton’s case) won’t be changing unless something dramatic happens, like a major terrorist attack on American soil or some sort of serious proof of sexual abuse or rape by Trump, etc., etc.. Let’s say that the 1/3 of the moderate leaners represent 1/3 overall of the persuadables for both Trump and Clinton; that would leave 2/3 of their persuadables with a moderate-to-high chance of being persuadable. The question is: where would they go?

Potential for Change Among Candidate’s Current Supporters

CLINTON

How Clinton could lose support

I think it highly unlikely any Clinton people would go to Trump or Johnson or Stein; she’s too cautious a candidate to do something that would cause people leaning her way to move to such dramatically different candidates; unless there is a major terrorist attack that would drive the weakest supporters of Clinton to Trump’s tent out of fear, I can’t see any of her people switching sides at this point except for maybe a tiny fraction of Millennials out of peer pressure, and I mean a tiny fraction because Millennials are so strongly supporting Stein and Johnson anyway. So I’d say at most 0.15% go combined to Johnson or Stein, probably evenly, but if this does happen it will like be less than 0.1% if it happens at all. Yes, there is the possibility of more Assange Wikileaks releases that could hurt Clinton, but the people who are likely to be animated enough by that to switch candidates away from Clinton are probably all already saying now that they are voting for that someone else.  

Likely Clinton losses: none

How Clinton could gain support

Where could she steal support? I think a tiny number of Republicans might finally realize that Trump is truly awful and does not have the temperament to command the world’s largest military and nuclear arsenal or to conduct negotiations that are going to be far trickier than any business deals he’s been part of, but not many people overall. Sill, with people like the very well-respected WWII and Korea veteran, former Republican Sen. Of Virginia, and former secretary of the Navy John Warner publicly endorsing Clinton, and with former President George H. W. Bush privately choosing Clinton, there could still be some Trump voters that might switch in these final weeks not just to Johnson or abstaining, but to Clinton if they are more conscientious of the bigger picture.  I also think that people who wanted to support Johnson but actually give a big damn about foreign policy will move to Clinton, and my hope is that some of the liberal Millennial support for him will also go to Clinton, but that remains to be seen. I do think she can pick off some of the persuadable Johnson and (particularly) Stein people, especially since most of their supporters are newcomers, as I discussed before.

Likely Clinton Gains: +1.33% from Stein, +1.5-3% from Johnson (+2.25% average), +0.25-0.75% from Trump (+0.5% average)

Likely Net Clinton: +4.08% average up to 45.08%

TRUMP

How Trump could lose support

Unlike Clinton, I think there is much higher chance of Trump losing not only his light leaners but also the medium leaners. I would think that the light leaners are looking for any reason to bolt that they can, while the moderate leaners are looking and hoping he will improve. But throughout this campaign, even when it seems like he is improving, he always seems to stumble again in ways that suggests he is incapable of consistently applying or internalizing any lessons over time in any kind of deep way. Thus, I think there is a high likelihood that Trump will lose most or all of his persuadable voters, at least if he has more performances that resemble his self-destructive first debate performance and continues to do things like tweet at 5:30 AM about a supposed sex tape of Miss Universe 1996, Alicia Machado, whom Trump weight-shamed repeatedly and who has come out supporting Clinton, something Trump did three days ago. It’s hard to imagine any of Trump’s people bolting to Stein, meaning they will divide between Clinton and Johnson and just not voting for president out of disgust.. I think the more they listen to him, read about him, and see him, the more not only the light persuadables but also medium leaners will be turned off and lose hope that Trump can be an adequate candidate.

Likely Trump losses: -0.25-0.75% to Clinton (-0.5% average), -0.75-1.25% to Johnson (-1.0% average), -0.5-1% to no-vote (-0.75% average)

-2.25% overall average loss

How Trump could gain support

Wild-cards like terrorist attacks, racial unrest, and an economic downturn could all help Trump and hurt other candidates, though to what degree would be hard to predict. But leaving wild-cards aside, Trump is likely to gain some support from Johnson as some conservatives become disillusioned with Johnson and begin to worry about the effects of a Clinton presidency on the conservative movement. I think this will offset the Johnson people who leave Trump for Johnson.

+0.75-1.25% from Johnson (+1.0% average)

Net average loss of -1.25% down to 43.25%

JOHNSON

How Johnson could lose support

At this point, with his major foreign affairs gaffes and just plain goofiness, I don’t think it’s a question of if Johnson loses support, but how much support he loses. I think him only losing 2% and keeping 6% might be middle-of-the-road estimate, given that about half of his support is liberal and/or would go to Clinton in a two-way race. I think he loses between 3-4% more from his liberal wing of support, but with some Johnson people breaking late who are particularly concerned about the Supreme Court and would be terrified by Clinton’s judicial picks, thus pushing them to vote for Trump, he will lose some of his current conservative base as well; as mentioned, though, these will likely be offset by people hoping Trump will improve as a candidate who will leave him when he doesn’t.

Likely losses: -1.75-2.75% to Clinton (-2.25% average), -0.75%-1.25% to Trump (-1% average)

-3.25% average overall loss

How Johnson could gain support

Johnson is proving himself an inept candidate, but, as with the beginning of his candidacy, even as he will likely lose support in it its twilight, the best thing to happen to his poll numbers and support levels is Donald Trump. Anecdotally, a number of conservative intellectuals are saying that since they (and if you) don’t live in a swing state, they will (and you should) vote Johnson. The message is more muddled from those and to those who live in swing states. Still, a lot of the conservatives that will lose hope in Trump if does not improve his performance may switch to Johnson on “conscience” votes, but this group will be largely offset by people leaving Johnson.

Likely Johnson Gains +0.75-1.25% from Trump (+1% average)

Net -2.25% average loss down to 5.75%

STEIN

How Stein could lose support

Stein’s core of support is a group of fanatics blind to reality. But some of her newer supporters who were seeking something better than Clinton will find the reality that Stein is anything but: a bunch of empty talk with no actual plans to move them forward and with positions so far to the left she makes Bernie Sanders look like a Republican (or, perhaps more accurately, a moderate Democrat). Thus, after exposure to her, it is hard to see any non-extremist Democrats sticking with her, so you can expect her persuadables to abandon her en masse as they realize that Clinton and Trump are so close that they will realize what the consequences of voting for Stein will actually be, and will return to Clinton as unenthusiastic Clinton voters. It’s also hard to see any of Stein’s people switching to Trump or even Johnson.

Likely Stein losses: -1.33% to Clinton

How Stein could gain support

Perhaps there is a slight chance that liberal Johnson voters will realize how conservative Johnson actually is on many issues and switch to Johnson as a second Clinton alternative, but I am skeptical of this, as any liberal supporting Johnson are not particularly aware or informed people to begin with, and the Bernie Bros won’t likely support a woman over a man.

Likely Stein gains: none

Net -1.33% loss down to 2.66%

Likely final scenario after persuadables settle: so base levels of support if things continue as they have been will probably boil down to a poll showing about 45% Clinton, 43% Trump, 6% Johnson, and 2-3% Stein: a slight edge for Clinton over Trump and diminished support for third party candidates that benefits Clinton. 

The real question will be how the undecideds will break…

Conclusion: Those Pesky Undecideds Could Decide the Election

You may have noticed that I avoided discussing the undecideds. That’s because as to undecideds, damned if I know. If Trump’s year of outrages aren’t enough to make him a clear non-choice to the remaining 4.5% or so of undecideds, I do not pretend to understand the psychology of such a person who looks at both Trump and Clinton and finds that a difficult choice to make. They could split evenly or go 2/3-1/3 or go almost all to one candidate or another. Perhaps some are torn between Stein and Clinton and Trump and Johnson, and I would think that fear of the other side (liberal/vs conservative) would drive those people towards the two major party candidates. Maybe some conservatives in particular who hate Trump so much but don’t like Clinton either will stay with Johnson. The Republican I-hate-Trump-but-not-enough-to-vote-Clinton-vote is a lock for Johnson, and that group is likely larger than the Democratic I-hate-Clinton-but-not-enough-to-vote-Trump that will be Stein’s core. This is not difficult to comprehend, even as it is also not too difficult to condemn.

But I honestly cannot fathom the mentality or even the existence of people who are unable to choose between Trump and Clinton. I can easily picture the ignorance—willful or otherwise—and/or hate that motivates people to vote for Trump because I have encountered that hate and ignorance far too often in human, corporeal form, and I can easily picture the idealistic pragmatism that animates the most passionate of Clinton supporters because in that, I am talking about myself; likewise, I can picture the liberals who dislike or even hate Clinton but who are voting for her anyway, because they care about still advancing a liberal agenda and because Trump; I can picture the moderate Republican veteran who sees Trump as wholly unfit to be Commander in Chief voting Clinton; I can picture conservatives obsessed with the size of government and young Bernie Bros voting Johnson, and I can picture the far-lefties voting Stein; I can’t for the life of me picture the person who is undecided between Trump and Clinton. And I make no predictions regarding how they will break, and I can’t make any predictions about if the undecideds are torn between Clinton and Trump or one of them and a third party candidate; it’s just one big giant mystery.

And an even bigger mystery is how they will view, and react to, the debates.

One thing I will say is that if my analysis is even close, Trump will have to win significantly more undecideds to beat Clinton and can’t afford to split them. And again, this analysis depends on a trajectory that continues as is without any big surprises in the homestretch.

Blue Nation Review

And if we’re trying to gauge what could be game changers for any voters, that’s where the debates come in. They’re pretty much the only things left aside from wild-cards that have the potential to change anyone’s votes. The VP debate will probably give Trump’s ticket a slight bump because Mike Pence is like every president in every B movie you can think of: bland, boring, but projecting strength; Kaine will almost certainly make better arguments, but his warm-fuzzy goofiness and sensitivity are not going to look presidential at all next to Pence or reassure undecideds. Though Kaine is brilliant and will no doubt perform very well, it is hard to see him win the optics battle next to a guy straight out of B-movie casting for the role of president. But then we can expect to see Trump continue to disappoint in the following debates, negating that bump. And we will still be stuck with trying to guess how very strange, indecisive people who seem to have to really mentally wrestle with whether to vote Clinton or Trump despite both candidate’s ubiquitous presence on any and all forms of media for month after month after month. With it almost impossible to guess how these undecideds will vote, the election is still up for grabs, though we can give Clinton an edge.

Between Brexit and the defeat of the Colombian/FARC peace deal at the hands of Colombian voters, we must make sure we who actually know what’s at stake get out and vote and to annoy our less mature friends to do the right thing. Democracy can be unpredictable, and can also be a scary thing, too; let’s make sure it isn’t this November.

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  Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse September 26, 2016  

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) September 26th, 2016 (Edited/updated slightly September 27th)

Getty Images/Reuters/NY Post

AMMAN — This is too close for comfort, people. And it’s important to understand why. Here are ten reasons why what some call the “Trumpocalypse” is a real serious possibility, one with about the same odds of happening as Hillary saving America, Western civilization, and the world from a President Trump. Any exaggeration in the preceding sentence is slight, if it exists at all, I’m sorry to say.

1.)   This Isn’t like 2012. Or any other year, for that matter; the past cannot provide comfort

Numerous times I’ve experienced liberals who are confident saying “This is just like when it was close with Mitt Romney and Obama. We’re going to win.” Or pointing to this trend or that swing from another election year. This boggles my mind because I thought one of the most obvious—even omnipresent—themes from this year’s election is so much being so unpredictable and so unprecedented. Republicans had 17 candidates running for president, nearly all of whom were better qualified than Trump. And Trump won. A declared “democratic socialist” won about 4 in 10 votes in the Democratic contest. So, please, don’t tell me not to worry because X happened in X past election. This year, the rulebook seems to have been thrown onto a bonfire of the vanities. Obviously, this is because of Trump (and the people backing him) more than anything else, and he seems to pay no long-term prices for his many gaffes and scandals and outrages.

2.)   Republican voters really are a mob and “principled” Republicans actually willing to stand against Trump on principle are a nearly extinct species

I will be giving myself credit, and then say what I got wrong. In August 2015, I was one of the only non-pro-Trump people to recognize Trump’s potential to win the nomination and that important factors favored his chances of doing so. But at the time I predicted he would be a disaster as a general election candidate; that is still possible, but seems very unlikely now; what seems more likely is that it will be very close either way.

How did I get this wrong? I put too much emphasis on “The Republican Establishment” and assumed it actually represented more people in the party than it actually did. One of the reasons both Mitt Romney and John McCain lost is that, unlike George W. Bush, both were relatively unliked by Republican voters for being too moderate. But in both 2008 and 2012, a number of Christian conservatives split the base votes in favor of one main moderate “Establishment” candidate. The “Establishment” elites in backed McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2004, both of whom during important early stretches only won a plurality and not a majority of GOP voters. In 2008, John McCain only won 3 of 7 contests in January, failing to even reach 40% of the vote in any contest, and on that year’s Super Tuesday on February 5th, out of 20 contests McCain only won over 50% of the votes in 3 even though he won 9 contests overall. Then in 2012, Mitt Romney won 2 of 4 contests in January, but did not win a majority of votes in either and won less than 40% in one; for all of February, he won less than half the vote in every contest save one in Nevada, where he won 50.1% of the vote, even though he won 4 out of 6 contests. In both situations, other candidates divided votes that went towards less moderate, less “Establishment”-backed candidates so that solid chances to derail both McCain and Romney and allow a single other candidate to gain clear momentum early in the campaign were lost. Conversely, there were so many candidates in 2016 that were “Establishment”-oriented and moderate that the dynamic worked somewhat in reverse, so that even after the first Super Tuesday in March, such candidates has only won a single state (Rubio in Minnesota), and the rest went to Trump and Cruz, two solidly anti-“Establishment” candidates, with Kasich being the only other candidate to win one of the fifty states, his home state of Ohio.

What I and I think many others thought is that “Well, that crazy base Republican was beaten in 2008 and 2012, and while they weren’t enthusiastic about their candidates, the more typical and moderate Republicans who voted in the general election but not the primaries were more solidly behind McCain and Romney.” What 2016 has taught us is that there are very few “typical moderate” Republicans in any meaningful sense, because such people would not be supporting Trump; I had not realized how far gone the vast majority of Republican voters are down the rabbit hole; the Kasich-Kristol-National Review-wing of the Republican Party is only a tiny fraction of the Party overall and has little sway with Republican voters in general. Sure, when the “Establishment” candidates won in 2008 and 2012, most rank-and-file Republicans had no problem supporting them over Obama but did not do so enthusiastically; yet the assumption that many Republican being rational and principled and unable to support Trump was always a myth, as Trump’s numbers now mean that he has pretty much all Republicans in his camp. The public intellectuals, commentators, and national security professionals who are Republicans and speaking out against Trump are merely a detached intelligentsia who influence the small group of elites like them and, clearly, virtually no other Republicans. I have lost track of the specific items of behavior that should have cost Trump a significant number of Republican voters—from disparaging both John McCain for being captured during the Vietnam War and a reporter for being disabled to talking about his penis at a presidential debate to seeming to instigate both violence (repeatedly) and Russian hacking against Clinton—but as we approach Election Day, that support has only increased and is at comparable levels to Clinton’s support among Democrats. In fact, Trump’s behavior has in no way disqualified him from receiving support within his party comparable to levels of what other recent Republican nominees have enjoyed.

In other words, I foolishly believed that enough Republicans would be better people than to be able to support Trump. But if anything, enthusiasm is higher for Trump than Clinton. Granted, I didn’t expect this number of Republicans to be large (and knew it didn’t need to be that large to still make a big dent in Trump’s support level), but it’s pretty much nonexistent relative to other candidates, and thus, the race is basically a dead heat.

3.)   Millennials

Much has been written of Millennials’s lack of support for Clinton. It’s not a fading thing: it dogged Clinton all through the primaries and it’s still a major problem six weeks before Election Day. Echoes of Brexit—when an outcome that a vast majority of Millennials in the UK did not desire and that has drastically negative long-term consequence occurred because Millennials pathetically couldn’t motivate themselves to get out and vote—can be heard now in America, with not only worries about whether or not Millennials will turn out and votebut worries about who they will vote for even if they do turn out. Clinton’s relatively and notably strong weakness with Millennials compared to Obama is evident across all ethnic, racial, and gender groups, including with African-Americans and women. It’s not that they support Trump more, it’s that they often tend to support other third-party candidates or seem less likely to vote for Clinton or vote at all: polls tend to show Clinton’s support among Millennials from being close to significantly behind the combined Johnson-Stein vote, and the trendline for Clintons’ Millennial support is (mostly) moving down. 

In a close election, Millennials are a key part of the Obama coalition that Clinton cannot afford to do without. But perhaps even most frustratingly, such behavior on the part of Millennials is something the country and especially they themselves cannot afford. In the words of New York Times columnist Charles Blow, “As Bernie Sanders himself said last week: “This is not the time for a protest vote.” Protest voting or not voting at all isn’t principled. It’s dumb, and childish, and self-immolating. I know you’re young, but grow up!” James Kirchick, writing for The Daily Beast, echoes a similar sentiment: “…[M]illennial opposition to Clinton and the attendant blitheness toward the prospect of a Trump presidency…[can] best [be] described as a mix of moral relativism, historical ignorance, and narcissism.” However, some good news below…

4.)   Sanders Supporters

There is a lot of overlap here with the Millennials section above, but here, we must ask why so many Millennials think of Clinton as a soulless hack, the epitome both of corruption and a selfish “Establishment,” and a “warmonger.” Where, you ask, did they get such an impression? Easily more than any other source, the answer is Bernie Sanders. I have laid all this outin detail in the past, but what is important to note here is that before Sanders began his presidential campaign, this narrative of Clinton was basically nonexistent. Then he repeated it over, and over, and over, and over, and over again at every rally over many months, skillfully blaming Clinton for an entire system implicitly at first with a guilt-by-association campaign, then progressing to letting surrogates do his dirty work and not reigning them in, then becoming more direct, even to the degree of whipping up crowds into a frenzy and pausing to let them boo Clinton and the Democratic Party, thus creating an atmosphere of hatred of Clinton (as evidenced by many signs and just listening to Sanders supporters talk about her at rallies) that culminated in a mini-riot at the Nevada Democratic State Convention in May that I dubbed a mainly non-violent form of political terrorism. Now, is it any wonder, after claiming before that the contest was “rigged” against him and implying that Clinton was a monster, that many of his backers didn’t still don’t support her, despite his endorsement? 

Of course, many of the earlier discussed Millennials are Sanders supporters, as he was wildly popular with the younger crowd. 

As for that good news: just yesterday, an Economist/YouGov poll was released that showed a dramatic increase in a key stat: 70% of Sanders supporters were now saying they would support Clinton, up from 57% a week ago, which was up from 52% in a poll released on the 15th. The new poll also saw Trump’s support from Sanders supporters increase to 13% from 12%, which was 15% before that, while Stein’s support shrank dramatically to 6% from 11%, which had been 13% before that; as for Johnson, his support dropped dramatically as well, to 4% of Sanders supporters, down from 9% in the previous two surveys. This is welcome news, but is just one pollster’s group of polls and its findings do not seem to fit in the larger patterns that now have the race virtually tied. And despite the increases in these examples, they still show 3 out of 10 Sanders supporters are not backing Clinton, and when factoring in the fact that 13% of them are saying they will support Trump, Clinton is left with a net level of support of only 57% of Sanders supporters over Trump. These specific Economist/YouGov polls notwithstanding, Sanders supporters and Millennials, two groups with huge overlap, are groups Clinton needs to really focus on in the final weeks of her campaign in order to ensure a victory in November.

5.)   Dr. Stein and Gov. Johnson

In most polls, when third-party candidates are factored in, Clinton does worse than when the same poll shows just Clinton and Trump, the clear conclusion is that the two third-party candidates are taking more votes from Clinton than from Trump. When this trend first became clear, it was shocking: obviously the far leftist Stein would be taking virtually all her support from the left, but Johnson has between two and three times as much support as Stein, and he, as a L/libertarian, would be expected to be drawing more support from the right, and yet, the net advantage has been to Trump, meaning Johnson has a considerable portion of his support—roughly half—coming from the left. Since Johnson is “cool,” very independent-minded, very anti-foreign intervention, and very pro-weed, this means he is taking vital votes away from young Millennials all over the country and in key battleground states where marijuana is very popular, especially Colorado but also Michigan, Nevada, surprisingly-close Maine, and New Hampshire; New Hampshire and Nevada are also two of the states with the most libertarian support, and Colorado is also in the top third; in all five states, Johnson’s polling average is 8% or higher, and in New Hampshire, Colorado, and Maine, it’s above 10%; this is all in five states where the polling average gap between Trump and Clinton is 0.2% to 5.4% (and we did not even get into Stein). In other words, there is a very real chance that Johnson and Stein being on the ballot will end up covering the difference if Clinton loses any of these states even when just factoring in their liberal support (according to FiveThirtyEight, she’s currently favored in Michigan, New Hampshire, Maine—which is one of two states that does not award all the electoral votes to the statewide winner but splits some of its electoral votes based on Congressional district, with Trump up in one district and likely to get 1 of Maine’s 4 Electoral College votes because of that—and is favored slightly in Colorado, but is slightly behind in Nevada; Trump has recently closed the gap in the other four, as well). If she loses any of the states where she is favored and Trump holds onto every state in which he is favored, Clinton loses…

The situation of a third-party candidate acting as a spoiler is not merely hypothetical: in 2000, liberal Ralph Nader voters could easily have put Gore in the White House instead of Bush; Bush won Florida by 537 votes, and Nader got almost 100,000 there; in New Hampshire, Bush won by 7,211 votes, where Nader got over 22,000 votes; exit polls told us that if Nader had stayed out of the race, 47% of his votes would have gone to Gore and only 21 percent to Bush. Objectively, then, Nader and his voters cost Gore the presidency, and a similar situation could be giving us a President Trump in a few weeks.

Before Nader, the last time a third-party was a spolier was when Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Party run cost Republicans the presidency in the election of 1912.

6.)   Clinton isn’t Obama

Obama was an exceptionally charismatic candidate and came into the public eye with barely a hint of scandal (in part because he was so new). Hillary Clinton simply doesn’t have the same personality and charisma as Obama. Two points here: first, I would hope liberals/Millennials can energize themselves to vote on critical issues concerning our future without needing to have someone with an exceptionally charismatic personality as a candidate. I’ve had it with liberals not supporting the likes of Al Gore and John Kerry who may not have been “cool” but who would have been great presidents and would have spared us the human disaster that was George W. Bush (although if we have a President Trump I will imagine that I will recall the Bush years fondly) had younger voters then been able to put aside “cool” and focus on substance. But especially with liberal Millennials now, I am not sure we can trust them to do their fair share in this election or over time without the dangling of shiny new objects in front of their faces; Clinton is like the perfectly functioning and incredibly useful iPhone that just happens to have the misfortune of being two or even three versions old; there is very little difference between it and newer models, but it’s not the cool-thingy-of-the-moment, and therefore earns something between indifference and scorn from the typical Millennial liberal. It’s more about an individual and their personality that supporting a political party over time. In fact, when it comes to their politics, Millennials are pretty political party averse: about half identify as independents (hence they came out to vote for Obama twice, but voted in significantly lower proportions in both the 2010 and 2014 midterms, helping to give rise to the Tea Party and contributing to the inability of Obama and Democrats to enact key parts of a liberal agenda. The above factors are big parts of the reason why Trump is now competitive and basically even with Clinton.

Second point, related to the iPhone analogy: I would hope liberal Millennials can realize that the iPhone Hillary is much like the iPhone Barack, for even without the cooler design of the iPhone Barack, they are almost the same in many substantive ways; in other words, that Clinton is essentially running for a third Obama term but has a big gap between the level of support he enjoyed and that she is enjoying now is mainly due to a combination of one of three things: 1.) she’s not (as?) cool, 2.) she’s a woman (black men voted before women in America, and we had a black man as president before a woman), so “HELLO, sexism!”, and 3.) negative recent branding of Clinton by her former rival, Bernie Sanders, and by her current and decades-long-enemies, the Republicans. In the end, there IS SO MUCH MORE IN COMMON between Clinton and Obama than any differences that exist between them that it is hard explain the gap otherwise. In fact, it is very telling that Obama is still loved by Millennials liberals, but Clinton gets castigated and deemed evil incarnate for Libya and TPP, among other policies, that were actually Obama’s calls to make and more his than her policies because he was president, not her; listening to elements of the angry left’s denunciations of Clinton, you sure wouldn’t know this.

7.)   Ann Selzer, polls, and momentum.

Who, you ask? Only “the best pollster in politics.”  Her outfit just released a poll, conducted September 21st-24th, which has Trump up 2 points (43% to Clinton’s 41%), Stein with 4% of the vote, Johnson with 8%, and 2% of voters saying “don’t want to tell,” which sounds an awful lot like embarrassed Trump voters to me; the last poll her group conducted had Clinton up 4% (44% to Trump’s 40%), with the same 4% for Stein and Johnson at 9%, meaning their latest poll had Trump up 3 points and Clinton down 3 points from the last one. Oh, and the averages of all the other polling shows a tightening of the race both nationally and in key battleground states. At a time when it would be great for this to not be happening. Trump is gaining support, and Clinton losing support, with only weeks to go and just as the debates are starting.

No pressure Hillary.

8.)   Trump has spent very little money relative to Clinton

Since mid-June, Clinton has outspent Trump more than 5-to-1 ($109.4 million to $18.7 million) on television ads through September 13th and has spent far less than any major-party candidate since at least 2008. The fact that they are basically tied in light of this info is, frankly, terrifying and terrifyingly efficient.

If that isn’t bad enough, Trump’s campaign just announced it will spend $100 million in TV and $40 million in digital ads between now and the election. Imagine the potential difference that could make… and imagine if the billionaire decides to throw a lot more of his own money in as a surprise right before the end…

9.)   The major media outlets have generally done a terrible job covering this election

A whole article can (and will be) written about this, but we should briefly look at the dynamics behind how bad the coverage has been and how important the media is in shaping this race. It basically boils down to this: Trump has so much baggage and spews so many lies and misstatements that the media barely scratches the surface of them before it decides to move onto something else without properly revisiting what it had started exploring, but spends an inordinately disproportionate amount of time going over every little detail of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails/server (since that is basically all that can compete with the scandals on Trump’s side) and yet cannot even provide proper understanding and context for that (which I provided in my last article); there were even times that it seemed the news cycle contained nothing else about Clinton other than her news scandal, not her policies, not her ideas, not anything else, except maybe her falling favorability/trustworthiness numbers. The same can be said for the lazy, facile coverage of the Clinton Foundation arising from content in certain e-mails of Clinton and her staff, content that was anything but scandalous, yet you wouldn’t know this from the coverage. This has created a dangerous false equivalence in the coverage of Clinton and Trump, with the New York Times’ Paul Krugman noting a similar dynamic helped to destroy Al Gore’s candidacy in 2000. As for Trump, I myself wrote an in-depth article on his and his associates’ ties to Russia, making several connections before any major media outlet made them; there is no way that I should have been the one to do this, and not a major paper (but I’ll take it as a freelancer!); this is just one example of the general lack of proper coverage of Trump.

The end result has been that Trump is now more trusted than Clinton, as many Americans are getting a distorted view of Clinton and one that makes her seem in many ways to be on the same level as Trump, where people just seem to shrug off his scandals in part because there has been too little of a focus on really digging deeper, following up on unanswered questions, and getting the full, complete picture. In many ways, the damage is done and attempts at self-correction (some just starting) may very well be too late.

10.)  Americans are stupid

Rationality dictates that Clinton would have a sizeable lead. But we are not a rational country. It’s so glaringly obvious to the rest of the world, which is also increasingly irrational. I seriously have no idea how people will react, decide, or change their mind between now and the election because any rational person would choose Clinton and I do not know if we have more rational than irrational people. I hope we do, but for now, about 6 in 10 voters are saying they will vote for Trump, Johnson, or Stein. I’m not going to cite anything to show how stupid we are a nation; rather, I’ll let you, dear readers, engage in the mental exercise of looking up how bad our public education system is, how ignorant people are about basic history and geography, how crazy are some of the beliefs Americans have (like evolution and climate change), how many people believe in debunked conspiracy theories, and any other number of other topics.

Democracy may be failing in places like the EU, Turkey, Israel, India, & Russia as right-wing, racist, and/or xenophobic demagogues, from Modi to Netanyahu, from Le Pen to Erdoğan gain power, but far be it for the U.S. to be a spectator: it’s trying as hard as it can to follow suit, embrace hatred and irrationality and tribalism as well as groups in Syria, Iraq, Israel and Palestine, just in less violent ways. But such tribalism almost invariably leads to violence, and we are seeing racial unrest and disturbances not seen in a generation in America. If Trump wins, these fault lines can be expected to be the location of earthquakes.

*****

On top of all this, there’s always the room for late-game surprises: terrorist attacks could increase a climate of fear to favor a candidate presenting himself as a strong-man—like Trump is—and push the country to the right as has happened in Europe, Turkey, and Israel; even non-terrorist mass shootings may do more to contribute to fears about security more than add to any support for gun control; there’s also room for one or two bad jobs reports between now and the election, something which would cause the voters to blame Democratic Party of Obama, the sitting president, and of Clinton. Then there’s the promised “October surprise” coming from Julian Assange of Wikileaks, one which will release more Clinton-related hacked files and be sure to keep that topic in the limelight in the final days of the election contest…

And let’s not forget the possibility of Russia hacking our election to put try to put Trump in the White House…

And even amid the litany of well-documented lies and distortions coming from Trump of just the past week, the voters are moving slightly towards him and slightly away from Clinton. Some of these people are liberals who are ignoring political reality and suffer from any of a series of personality syndromes and have no business voting for anyone but Clinton when she is running against Trump. Well, one thing which hasn’t changed this cycle compared with others in the key final months: the left is still great at shooting itself in the foot while the right is making sure to be unified. Do I think Trump will win? I can’t say yes, but I can’t say no either. I feel ever so slightly more confident that Clinton will win instead of Trump, but now that is only by the faintest of margins and accompanied with a sense of dread. Whatever the outcome, shame on America and American voters that it was ever as close as it is now, that someone like Trump can get this far in our political system. 

Even if Clinton wins, we are a country with serious problems and will be an extremely divided nation. I wouldn’t even be surprised if she won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote with perhaps millions of liberals voting with Johnson and Stein, outnumbering conservatives who vote Johnson, even as they are not enough to swing the Electoral College to Trump. It would be a kind of revenge for 2000, but one that at this point in time could really damage the credibility of the system in eyes of voters and greatly harm the ability of Clinton to govern or the government in general to function. I would be shocked if Republicans didn’t try to impeach Clinton on the “scandals” of Benghazi and her e-mails; like the last time a Clinton was impeached, the case will be ridiculous and the motives will be almost entirely political. No matter who wins, it will be difficult, but no question will America still be far better off with Clinton than with Trump. 

But on those hypotheticals another time…

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Despite all the talk of Trump being stopped at an open convention, the only way the Republican Party can survive intact is if it unifies behind Trump.  While hardly an ideal situation for the Party, the climate it has fostered for years that has created the current debacle in which it finds itself now leaves it no other choice unless it wants to sacrifice itself for the good of the nation.  But “The Republican Establishment” will care far more about winning and staying in office than in putting country above party.  Thus, even at a contested convention, Trump is still likely to emerge as the GOP’s nominee.

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse April 7, 2016 

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) April 7th, 2016

Gary Varvel

AMMAN — At this moment, hot on the heels or Cruz’s big win in the Wisconsin Republican primary, there’s an awful lot of talk and speculation about a contested convention that would deny Trump the Republican nomination.  While after Wisconsin, the statistical probabilities of this have certainly increased significantly, the idea that this is likely relies mostly on the increased mathematical possibility that Trump will fall short of the 1,237 majority of delegates he needs to clinch the nomination outright on the first round of voting at the convention and that Trump’s chances to win the nomination are slim when other factors necessarily come into play, per the rules, on the second and any subsequent ballots. 

I will add that not least among the reasons that there is so much talk from both the media and pundit-class and that they are salivating at the idea of a contested convention are because 1.) it hasn’t happened in decades, 2.)both classes are deep students of the political process and it would be terribly fascinating to them, and 3.) it gives both something new to talk about and a reason for people to tune in and listen to them, since almost no Americans have any idea how such a scenario would play out an under what rules, meaning they will earn more money and more viewers (the bias is so often one of the media being a business trying to earn viewers and advertising dollars in a crowded field, rather than a political bias…).  Thus, both pundits and the media have a vested interest in seeing a contested convention, but we should not be too hard on them because, as noted, if it does happen, this is the first time since 1952 where it will happen for Democrats (and since either 1948 or 1952, depending on your definition, for Republicans) where we find ourselves in this boat.

This mode of thinking that Trump will be stopped at a contested convention, though, assumes a lot of things that, upon closer inspection, are extremely unlikely, despite the cries from non-Trumpers to make it sound like a certain thing.  Here are the top 10 reasons why it is very unlikely that the Republican Party will deny him the nomination at a contested convention:

1.) Trump will have far more delegates than anyone else, ALMOST a majority

LM Otero/Reuters

Even if Trump falls short of 1,237 delegates before the convention, he will almost certainly do so by the narrowest of margins; the Republican candidate who is second to Trump is Ted Cruz, who is only at 54% of the delegates he should have at this point in order to be on track to secure the nomination outright, and, as I have written before, Kasich is likely to surprise some people with the amount of delegates he could pick up in some of these later-voting states, thus, Cruz will not be getting all the non-Trump delegates, making his chances of making up his current gigantic deficit in delegates that much more remote, especially considering that most of the states with larger delegate prizes coming—most varieties of winner-take-all—are more favorable to Trump and some signs point to them being more favorable to Kasich than Cruz. This means Trump—currently with 93% of the delegates he should have at this time to be on track for the nomination on a first ballot, a deficit that is eminently possible to make up—will enter the convention with the most delegates by far, with his competitors nowhere near the majority needed to secure the nomination and far behind him, regardless of whether Trump is at or over 1,237 delegates or not.

2.) Trump will have a dominant plurality of votes from actual voters

Mark Wallheiser/Getty

Considering point 1.), in order for the Republican National Convention to deny Trump the nomination, it will have to thwart the will of the people who voted in their primaries and caucused at caucuses; Trump, after a string of defeats, still has 37% of the vote, and that is before the populous states of New York and Pennsylvania vote in the next few weeks, states that seem quite favorable to Trump, among other states that are favorable to Trump voting in the same time-frame. His share of the vote is certain to increase over 40% after these near-term contests, whereas Ted Cruz, who has so far won about 28% of the vote, is likely to see his share of the vote drop below 25%, perhaps even lower, in the next few weeks.  No other candidate, active or not, had earned more than 16% of the vote.  Trump could very well have 45% or even more going into the convention, Cruz a lot less, maybe even half as much or less.  If delegates and Party elites decide to throw the nomination to Cruz, someone who got far fewer votes than even Cruz, or someone who did not even run for president during the nomination process, they risk the wrath of anywhere from roughly 40% to 50% of the people who participated in Republican primaries and caucuses; even though Trump will likely not have gotten a majority of votes, he will receive a clear plurality and the Republican Party, its elites, and delegates will have to absolutely ignore and disrespect the voice of this commanding plurality to stop Trump.

The consequences of such an unprecedented and dangerous move could be catastrophic, even fatal, for the Republican Party, its elites, its delegates, it sitting office-holders, its prospective office-holders, and for the self-perceived interests of its voters.  Here are the potential consequences:

3.) Trump will form a Third Party and run as its nominee

Trump could (in fact, is almost certain to) break away from the Republican National Convention and the Republican Party, with most, maybe almost all of his passionate 40+% of the primary voters, and form a third party if he is denied the nomination. Throughout his campaign, despite several times pledging to support whoever is the Republican  nominee, Trump has not been shy about repeatedly asserting that he might not support the Republican nominee if he does not think that the Republican Party treats him fairly, and just recently asserted that this is now the case; his two still-active rivals also backed out of the unity pledge.  Without question, the Party denying him the nomination when he, by far, has the most votes and the most voting-earned delegates would be an act that falls under this category of “unfair” for Trump (and many others). Yes, we know that non-Trump voters really don’t like Trump, but the exit polls in Wisconsin just showed us that Trump voters really don’t like Ted Cruz, either, with both sets of dislikes likely holding true as the contest between the two of them has taken an even nastier turn than usual.  Trump supporters right now hate the Republican Party, its “Establishment,” and what it has become.  There is a very good chance that nearly all of his supporters would follow him and support his third-party candidacy.  But even far lower a proportion than that deserting the party could be fatal for the Party and its chances to win the White House, and even hold onto Congress, in the fall.

Consequences of a Trumpian third party: 

4.) A Democrat (Hillary Clinton) wins the White House

Getty

If Trump breaks off and forms a new party, both his new party and the old Republican Party are virtually certain* (see the end) not to win the fall presidential election, meaning a Democrat will be in the White House for at least four years.  And not just any Democrat, but one Republicans loathe: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

5.) The Republican Party as we know it will be destroyed

Tom Stiglich/Creators Syndicate

In addition to not retaking the White House, the Republican Party will have to look at the very real possibility that it will be destroyed as we know it today. The Trump coalition will be filled with even more bitterness, rage, and resentment towards the Republican Party, far more (if that is even possible) than the already high levels its members currently harbor towards it.  Like the Whigs, partly from the ashes of which the original Republican Party rose in the 1850s, the Republican Party may simply fade away into oblivion; if it survives, it could be a substantially smaller party than it has been at any time during its existence, save for its early formative days, because the damage from a formal rupture in 2016 is not one that would be able to be healed anytime soon.   As one major Republican insider recently opined on Showtime’s The Circus, “We can’t put it back together, Humpty Dumpty won’t come back together.”

6.) Many Republicans could lose elections by going against Trump

When a third Trump party happens, local Congressmen in districts that voted heavily for Trump will have to make a choice: stand up for Trump and/or possibly leave the Republican Party and join his movement, or stay loyal to the Republican Party and risk Trump’s supporters going against (or at least not for) them, meaning a far higher chance of them losing their seats in Congress. The same goes for senators and governors in states with a lot of Trump supporters, whose seats that are up for (re)election in 2016 will be at risk with a split as well, a rupture that would likely go all the way down to local politics as well.  Given recent elected Republican officials’ track record of pandering totally to what the people who voted for them want, and not what is in the national interest—pushing for multiple government shutdowns over “Obamacare” and Planned Parenthood, the former succeeding once, the latter narrowly avoided because of John Boehner’s sacrificial heroics—one can hardly expect them to go against Trump if they are in heavily pro-Trump districts.  In fact, the idea that large numbers of sitting Republicans would risk their seats and reelection to fight Trump out of principle is actually quite laughable.  John Boehner, Lindsey Graham, and Mitt Romney, the last two among the leading anti-Trump activists, are rare gems who are men of principle and decency; the same cannot be said for many of their colleagues.

7.) Beware the Libertarian Party and Gary Johnson as a Vulture

Gage Skidmore

Libertarian candidate and former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, who garnered close to 1.3 million votes for president as the candidate of the Libertarian Party (on the ballot in all 50 states i 2016) in the 2012 national election, has seen his support increasing of late, hitting 11% in a recent poll(to Clinton’s 42% and Trump’s 34%). This puts him within striking distance (with plenty of time to close the gap) of getting to 15%, which would earn him a spot in the nationally televised presidential debates shortly before the election.  If the Republican Party splits, it will be interesting to see where members of its libertarian wing (Particularly Rand—and even Ron—Paul) go, and Johnson is very likely to pick up some support from this wing out of the Republicans’ wreckage.  This means there is a realistic possibility of four candidates on the debate stage in the fall…

8.) Most of “Establishment” is not actively going against Trump

The simple fact that is lost amid all the talk of a contested convention that would thwart the plurality of Republican primary/caucus voters is the Republican “Establishment”—office holders, elites, power-brokers, intellectuals—are keenly aware of all the points I just raised.  While The intellectual wing—intellectuals, columnists, media commentators, whose members are not generally office holders and won’t lose their current positions if Trump and his supporters revolt against the Party—is decidedly against Trump, in contrast, the current class of Republican office-holders—senators, congressmen, governors—are incredibly silent in the fight between Trump and Cruz, and even on Kasich.

To quantify this, so far only 32 Republican congressional representatives (including 10 from his home state) have endorsed Ted Cruz out of 247, or only less than 13% of Republicans in the House.  John Kasich has only garnered the support 7 Republican House members (including 4 from his home state), the same number as Trump.  When it comes to senators, sitting Senator Ted Cruz has only received the endorsement of just 3 out of 53 of his fellow Republican senators, about 5.6% of his colleagues, and 2 out of 3 of them—Lindsey Graham and James Risch—and are vocally unenthusiastic, with Graham likening a choice between Trump and Cruz to one of between shooting yourself and drinking poison and Risch markedly declining to characterize his support as an endorsement.  Kasich only has 2 senators, including one from his home state, to Trump’s 1.  When it comes to governors, out of 31 Republican governors, only 5, or just about 16%, support Cruz, including the governor of his home state, and only 2 of Kasich’s colleagues supports Kaisch, who is himself a sitting governor.  Trump, meanwhile has won the endorsements of 3 Republican governors. 

In other words, the vast majority of “The Establishment” is not even publicly trying to fight Trump, is not publicly supporting either of his two remaining rivals, and it not even publicly involved in the contentious nomination process.  Yes, the anti-Trump forces are quite vocal right now, but as we have seen from the Bernie Sanders “political revolution” movement, loudness is a poor indicator of how widespread support actually is.  As I wrote before, the last Republican debate was a clear sign that “The Republican Establishment” is resigned, however reluctantly, to Trump being their nominee, and would rather an back an unfit candidate than lose their own offices in a fight on principle.  If this was not the case, we would see far larger numbers of senators, congressmen, and governors enthusiastically supporting Cruz or Kasich, and this would have been happening for some time; after Cruz’s win in Wisconsin, it’s going to happen now or pretty much never.  And it’s not happening now, even thought many of the most important remaining contests before the convention are happening in the second-half of April, just around the corner…

9.) Delegates could also pay a price for thwarting Trump

In addition, we must discuss the delegates. These delegates are actual people with their own beliefs, and, apparently, many of them do not, and not likely to, like Trump.  And over two-thirds of delegates are selected by state/local conventions/committees some time after the primaries and caucuses for their respective states; adding in the 7% of delegates that are made up of Republican National Committee members, you have almost three-quarters of all delegates who are not selected directly by the voters or by candidates.  These three-quarters of the delegates are people who are active in state and local Republican Party politics and in the Party apparatus; these are generally not people who are in the Trump crowd, but, rather, are good, loyal Republicans.  On the first round of voting, almost all the delegates (95%) are bound to vote the way their states’ populations have voted, but after this first round, that number falls to 42%, and then to 20% in a third round if it comes to that, and so on.  

And yet, I have a hard time believing that most of the delegates, who are hopeful of continued roles in the Party and of bright futures in politics, will be so willing to risk the ire or such a strong, vocal plurality, approaching a (or maybe even a slight) majority of the electorate that participated in the Republican contests.  You can bet the people and surrogates who support Trump will be putting very heavy pressure on them to respect the will of the voters, and will not forget those who fail to do so.  And let’s not forget that Trump supporters are the most loyal and passionate supporters of any of the remaining Republican candidates.  These delegates will have to go back to these people, with whom they live and have known for years, and answer for why they ignored their will, ignored the votes of their friends, neighbors, and fellow Party members.  The answers will likely amount to “I knew better than you” or “I was pressured (bribed?) by the Party,” neither of which will go over well… 

10.) Riots are far from a remote impossibility

Mike Christy/Arizona Daily Star via AP

Finally, there is specter of political violence. I do not believe that Trump will directly or sincerely encourage violence, but many of his very loyal and very passionate supporters are no philosophers and have not shied away from getting a bit physical (occasionally even more than a bit) at some of his rallies.  Trump supporters are already in rage mode, and many of them own guns; I’m hardly suggesting any kind of civil war or armed insurgency, but nevertheless there is the certainty of mass protests if Trump is denied the nomination and a decent possibility of violence and violent riots; Donald Trump himself has said as much.

For all of these reasons, if Trump enters the convention short of the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination on the first ballot, I don’t believe Republicans have enough chutzpah or a sense of sacrifice to risk their party’s destruction and their own chances to both hold onto their elected offices and/or have a political future by operating in the most undemocratic of ways and awarding the nomination to someone who has not earned anywhere near as much support as Trump. I would be shocked if this was the case.

*****

In any event, I happen to like Trump’s chances to get to 1,237 before the convention (game out scenarios here) even after his loss in Wisconsin.

On Wisconsin…

Yes, Wisconsin was a bump in the road, but he still managed to get over 35% of the vote there in a state whose Republicans were not as favorable to him demographically as they could have been (being slightly more conservative and educated than those in many of the other states he won), where has been an active presence of national “Establishment” Republican powers as a result of the high profile political battles of its Governor Scott Walker in the past few election cycles, where the popular-with-RepublicansWalker had endorsed Cruz, and where his enemies poured millions into defeating him.  Furthermore, Trump still held onto a large share of the vote even after he had one of the worst stretches of any candidate in modern election history over the last few weeks leading up to the Wisconsin Primary.  Wisconsin is a blow, sure, but hardly a fatal one and one he weathered quite well (as he always seems to).

The Road Ahead: Still Paved for Trump

Trump now still seems in position to dominate the contests coming up in the next few weeks as he faces two rivals in Kasich and Cruz who are competing with themselves as much as him, with a pretty resigned “Establishment” on the sidelines and declining to rally to either them.  In addition, there is evidence that suggests some of Cruz’s surging support is more of an anti-Trump thing than one of people actually voting for Cruz, and Trump’s supporters are still retaining a significant advantage in enthusiasm, factors that will favor Trump when it comes to voter turnout.

As I’ve written before, don’t dismiss The Donald; he will still very likely be the Republican Party’s nominee.  The only hope the Republicans have of still winning if they deny Trump the nomination rests on Bernie Sanders being a spoiler, refusing to support Hillary Clinton when she wins the Democratic Party’s nomination and running against Clinton, Trump, and whoever else with his own new insurgent party.  That means possibly five candidates on the debate stage in the fall.  Behave, Bernie.

AP

Related articles: Western Democracy Is on Trial, More than Any Time Since WWII

GOP To Unify Behind Trump, Cease Circus, Game Has Changed Since Debate; Democrats To Face Stronger GOP in Fall, Sanders Must Tone Down Clinton Attacks

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*****

The story of how Russia won the (First) Russo-American Cyberwar because American President Barack Obama did not fight back and failed to protect America’s democracy from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s well-orchestrated, wide-ranging cyberassault, part of Russia’s wider war on Western democracy

 January 21st, 2019. Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse December 7, 2016  

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Twitter @bfry1981, YouTube, Facebook) December 7th, 2016 (a condensed, edited version of this article is featured on War Is Boring, and that version was quoted in another article by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty [RFE/RL] here and was also mentioned in a morning briefing here by that article’s author; here are the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, and ePub eBook versions)

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Reuters

AMMAN — It is fitting that, on the anniversary of Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack, I am publishing an article discussing an attack far worse in its overall effects on America than Pearl Harbor: if December 7th, 1941, is “a date which will live in infamy,” 2016 is a year which will live in infamy.

All things being equal in an election that was decided by, at current count, less than 38,600 votes spread across three states (a few over 22,150 in Pennsylvania, slightly more than 5,350 in Michigan, a few under 11,100 in Wisconsin) out of over 136 million votes cast (under 0.0284% of all votes cast), it is certain that without Russia’s political cyberwarfare offensive in the (First) Russo-American Cyberwar—and Obama’s stunning lack of response to it—Hillary Clinton would now be President-elect.

Full disclosure: I am a liberal Democrat who proudly voted twice for Obama, but I will make clear what no one seems to want to, though it pains me: I tried making excuses before and after the campaign—he thought she would win anyway, he wanted to play it safe, maybe he has something secret in store, etc.—but as the days turned to weeks after the election and I spent more and more mental energy thinking it through, the stubborn truth reared its ugly head: Obama failed miserably in his role as Commander in Chief, protector, and defender of the United States of America in the final months of his eight-year presidency. In doing so, he ensured his own legacy would be destroyed, likely along with the American political system as we know it and possibly (likely?) the U.S.-led international system that has been a bulwark of great-power peace since WWII.

Here is the story of how Obama lost the war.

*****

First Strikes

In June of 2015, a unit of elite Russian hackers known as Cozy Bear, or APT 29, working at the behest of the main security service of the Russian government—the F.S.B., main successor to the famed Soviet-era K.G.B., where Vladimir Putin had served for over 15 years—successfully hacked into the systems of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the national governing body of the Democratic Party, completely unbeknownst to DNC staff.

The FBI contacted the DNC in the fall of 2015, warning it of possible hacking and asking its people to look for suspicious activity, but not providing any specifics; when DNC staffers responded with a sweep and found nothing, they asked the FBI to provide specifics, but it declined, keeping from them then and in future meetings the fact that U.S. officials suspected the Russian government; if the DNC had known this, it would have taken additional steps that could have limited the damage that came later. Only late in March 2016, did the DNC realize its systems were compromised and later bring in private cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike in April for help.

Also that March, another group of elite Russian hackers known as Fancy Bear, or APT 28—working at the behest of the G.R.U, Russia’s military intelligence service—targeted the DNC as well, in addition to targeting Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, namely the e-mail accounts of senior campaign officials, including Chairman John Podesta. The FBI warned the campaign in March about possible hacking, but, again, did not mention anything specific about the hackers; only in April did the campaign realize its systems had been penetrated, something U.S. intelligence chief James Clapper publicly hinted at vaguely in May.

It took until June for the DNC to expel the Russians, and on June 14th, DNC officials and CrowdStrike experts informed the Washington Post of the successful hackings. The next day, CrowdStrike released an analysis that detailed ample evidence of Fancy/Cozy Bear’s involvement. The following day, the Clinton campaign hacks were first reported.

Only days after this, a hacker/hackers going by the moniker Guccifer 2.0—an homage to the Romanian hacker made famous by publicly outing Clinton’s private e-mail server—began publicly posting DNC documents, but it was quickly clear from a consensus of experts citing overwhelming evidence that Guccifer 2.0 was actually a front for Russia’s Fancy Bear.

Soon after, it was also reported that government officials realized in June that the Clinton Foundation was also the target of attempted Russian hacks. The same month, the Russians tried to breach voter databases in Arizona but apparently failed; in July, the Russians succeeded in hacking into Illinois voter databases, stealing information on some 200,000 voters; experts suggested it was likely other states’ voter databases had been hacked undetected.

*****

Information Bomb

The hacking stories largely receded until the evening of Friday, July 22nd, just after Donald Trump’s official nomination and days before Clinton’s Democratic National Convention, when WikiLeaks posted close to 20,000 e-mails from the DNC that had been hacked by Russia. The grossly overblown fallout from that release has been well-documented.

The leaks could not have come at a worse time for Clinton, who was desperate to rally liberals (particularly the conspiratorially-minded among hardcore Millennial Bernie Sanders supporters, whose emotional state demanded an alternate reality where the only possible explanation for their savior’s loss was that Clinton “cheated”) wary of her to her banner for the coming fight with Trump and to display Democratic Party unity at her convention; the leaks slowed and partly prevented this process, creating remarkable public displays of disunity at the Convention and in the streets outside of it and reopening wounds that had only just begun to heal. By the time a later round of leaks came, the ability of Clinton to have built up enough goodwill among many of these people to stay with her in the face of such new leaks playing into their negative stereotypes of her was greatly diminished by this first round of DNC-related leaks.

This was not a coincidence, and it was clear from the beginning that WikiLeaks and the Russians who gave WikiLeaks the hacked information (either directly or indirectly) had designed the release to have a maximum negative impact on Clinton. Julian Assange, WikiLeaks’ extremely anti-American founder and leader, made no secret of his intent to harm Clinton’s campaign and his visceral dislike of her, even while refraining from criticizing Trump, Republicans, and Russia, as he and his organization have a complicated but largely beneficial relationship with Russia.

Putin had far more reason to fear a Clinton presidency than one led by Trump, who has spent many years courting Russian favor, whose positions were the most pro-Russian for a major party candidate in American presidential campaign history, and whose campaign manager at this time, Paul Manafort, was notoriously known to have for years been on Putin’s payroll, even if indirectly.

During the week of the Democratic National Convention, it became even more obvious how intent the Russians were on damaging Clinton and the Democratic Party, and Trump even publicly called on Russia to hack Clinton. That week, it was reported that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and a voter database used by the Clinton campaign and other Democrats were also targeted by Fancy Bear. It was also reported during the same period that both cybersecurity experts and U.S. government officials had determined that that the Russian government was behind the hacking of the DNC (including a consensus of FBI officials), that officials saw this as a full-blown national security issue, and that U.S. government officials had shared this conclusion—and evidence that Russia was responsible—with the White House, which had discussed the hacks prior to the WikiLeaks DNC release; some officials had also concluded that the DNC e-mails’ release was part of a Russian attempt to hurt Clinton’s chances and help make Trump president. 

Numerous Obama Administration officials were concerned enough with the lack of response that they anonymously shared their frustrations with the media. Apart from serious internal pressure on Obama from some of his advisors, the day Clinton accepted the Democratic nomination a bipartisan group of dozens of prominent former military, intelligence, and diplomatic officials and experts called on Obama to act swiftly and forcefully to counter, deter, and punish those responsible for the hacking, describing the attempt to hack and influence the American electoral process in the gravest, starkest of terms. In addition, senior Democrats on congressional intelligence committees called on Obama to publicly name the attackers. 

Later it was discovered that the hacking efforts were on a wider scale than initially thought, including the Democratic Governor’s Association, left-leaning think tanks tied to the Party, and other Democratic insiders and organizations.

Presidential Pensiveness and Paralysis

Despite all of this, Obama was steadfastly refusing to publicly name Russia as the culprit, in part because of fears of igniting a conflict and uncertainty as to how to respond to such attacks. 

The most absurd part of his rationale was that he was worried naming the Russians and taking a strong stance against them would harm John Kerry’s then-ongoing diplomatic efforts to win cooperation with the Russians on Syria, as all recent diplomatic talks with them on Syria had been a farce. The same officials noted that Obama “fear[ed]” additional cyberattacks by Putin, additional military harassment in the Black and Baltic seas, and further aggression in Eastern Europe. 

Yes, incredulously, Obama imagined that turning a blind eye to Russian interference in domestic American elections would somehow invite Russian compromise on other fronts, frustrating some on his team.  I am reminded of the scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, when the heroes are trying to convince Théoden, King of Rohan, to stand up for his people against the disinformation and aggression of Saruman; Théoden responds by saying “I will not risk open war,” to which Aragorn retorts “Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not;” in the real world, we had Obama playing the role of a Théoden in denial.

His maddening naiveté manifesting hardly for the first time during his presidency, Obama, demonstrated how poorly he understood his adversary, and unsurprisingly, Putin was emboldened on all these fronts.

Even during Kerry’s fastidious diplomacy, on September 19th Russia deliberately bombed a well-known UN aid convoy heading for an Aleppo, Syria, civilian population that was under siege and desperate for supplies; a few days after, Russia and Syria launched a “ferocious” indiscriminate air offensive against Aleppo, an “unrelenting assault” that quickly became the most intense campaign to date in the war and involved systematic targeting of hospitals (today, Russia and Assad are, with impunity, threatening whole parts of Aleppo with mass slaughter); Ukraine also saw Russian escalation.

Kerry’s talks failed because the Russians were never serious about them, much like previous negotiations on both Syria and Ukraine had repeatedly failed. After some two weeks of these Russian war crimes, the U.S. formally broke off negotiations on October 3rd; the day after, the Guccifer 2.0 APT 28 front released fake documents it claimed proved corruption at the Clinton Foundation.

In the face of Russian mockery of Obama’s diplomatic efforts and his continued non-response to Russia’s cyberwarfare, some of Obama’s “top national security officials” grew furious with him and felt U.S. credibility was being severely damaged, especially in the intelligence community and State Department, while even top Democrats in the House and Senate intelligence committees were either criticizing Obama’s caution (Rep. Adam Schiff) or publicly stating that Russia’s goal could be to harm Clinton’s candidacy and empower Trump’s (Schiff and Sen. Diane Feinstein). Calling on Obama to do more, they issued a joint statement on September 22nd publicly blaming Russia and stating its intent was to influence the election; incredibly, the White House had repeatedly urged them to delay the statement.

In fact, for all of 2016, Russia’s own media was decidedly pro-Trump and anti-Clinton. Additionally, all throughout the campaign, up to and through Election Day, it is now quite clear that Russia’s propaganda machine of hundreds of websites and many thousands of social media accounts—some unwittingly duped, others complicit or even an army of paid agents—posted many thousands of anti-Clinton, pro-Trump, pro-Russian, and anti-American comments, posts, and stories. Sometimes they amplified true stories like the DNC hacks, often they promoted only partly true or even totally false stories that were seen hundreds of millions of times by American voters, with a core of some 15 million Americans regularly consuming the propaganda and sharing it with much larger audiences on Facebook and Twitter, to the extent that in the final months of the election, fake U.S. election news produced greater engagement and shares than real U.S. election news, a period for which Trump had just placed the despicable Steve Bannon—a major American master of creating and promoting fake news—in charge of running his campaign. I can personally tell you from my own experience that Russian trolls even have ample time left over to direct their blatant propaganda at someone of my own lowly status often, repeatedly, and energetically.

*****

Bloodless Victory Against a Passive Opponent

Even considering all this, Obama waited the better part of a week after the Syria talks formally ended, and some two-and-a-half months after his administration had reached a consensus that Russia was behind the hackings and at least involved in the passing of the information to WikiLeaks, to finally formally accuse Russia on October 7th, explicitly asserting that the aim of its operations was to “interfere” with our presidential election, the conclusion of 17 American governmental intelligence agencies. 

Later the same day, a recording from 2005 of Donald Trump vulgarly bragging about committing serial unwanted sexual advances appeared; “almost immediately after” it surfaced, Russia and WikiLeaks came to play defense for Trump and offense against Clinton, with WikiLeaks beginning a series of releases of many thousands of Clinton campaign Chairman Podesta’s e-mails, obtained earlier by Russia; they highlighted campaign infighting, transcripts of Clinton’s paid-by-Wall Street-banks speeches, and Clinton’s ties to political and financial elites, all of which generated negative publicity for Clinton. The batches were released almost every day from October 7th through Election Day on November 8th, ensuring they would constantly be in the headlines in the closing month of the election, even as U.S. officials were coming across even further evidence that Russia was feeding them directly to WikiLeaks. Exit polls—especially in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and others—showed that voters who made their time up during this period broke overwhelmingly for Trump; additionally, they showed that far more voters broke for third-party candidates in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin—as well as every swing state that Trump won—in the final weeks and month than before. For those who had been deeply angered by the DNC leak but were trying to give Clinton a chance, these new Podesta leaks were a reminder of the previous controversy and played into many of the same negative emotions and perceptions these people had harbored about Clinton.

At this point, Obama was considering a “proportional” response to Russia, but such a response still has not materialized, as any appropriate response of any proportion would have sent a public message that the world would unmistakably have heard, being that this Russo-American conflict is playing out very markedly on the global public stage; what has materialized instead is a deafening silence of action from Obama, causing Western democracies to despair. To add insult to injury, weeks before the election Trump claimed America “had no idea” if Russia was behind the hacks at the final presidential debate and Russia even requested it be allowed to send election observers to several U.S. states, which rejected the requests.

Pathetically, Obama warned Putin directly on October 31st on a sensitive nuclear-related hotline not to hack the electoral process (but making no mention of the WikiLeaks DNC and Podesta leaks), only eight days before the election and long after so much damage had already been done, clearly enough to shape public opinion and achieve Putin’s aims without direct election hacks, and the WikiLeaks leaks still continued after this message was delivered. 

Obama laughably claimed the warning amounted to successful deterrence, yet even if Clinton had won, the U.S. was possibly facing massive unrest and a Congress intent on impeaching Clinton, its constituents incensed in part by Russian propaganda. 

In charge of a relatively weaker Russia taking on the most powerful nation in the world and regardless of the election’s outcome, Putin had already won: he took to heart von Clausewitz’s maxim that “War is the continuation of policy [or politics] by other means,” something that Obama seems to have missed. Putin had essentially “weaponized” WikiLeaks (and, in the process, the unwitting U.S. news media) against Clinton, the Democratic Party, the U.S. electoral process, and American democracy itself. And almost overnight, he has largely silenced the Republican Party’s hostility to him and his regime: most Republicans seem to prefer not to attack their new benefactor, while the most vocal GOP critics of Putin are mostly a fading old guard (as a case in point, just a few days ago, all Democratic members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence called for the Obama Administration to declassify information on Russia’s interference in the U.S. election; not one single Republican on the Committee joined the call). 

Russia’s hacking and disinformation campaigns coupled with Obama’s dismal failure to respond appropriately to them were themselves certainly more than enough to explain Clinton’s razor thin loss, even as other factors—Clinton’s e-mail server scandal, the way FBI Director James Comey engaged with the public (or did not) during the FBI’s multiple investigations, the Bernie Sanders phenomenon and the behavior of Bernie Sanders, polling errors, the style and focus of media coverage, and, of course, many Americans’ irrational, visceral hatred of Clinton born largely out of still-pervasive sexism and misogyny—undeniably also played a role. Any one of those alone not becoming a factor could have swung the election to Clinton, but they were largely out of the hands of the Clinton campaign. President Obama could have declassified most or all of Hillary’s e-mails and shown the public how innocuous they actually were; he could have reigned in Comey and the rogue actors within the FBI, as they were part of the Executive Branch, though this would have carried considerable political risk and could have at least created the appearance of a president interfering in an official investigation for political reasons; but the single area where the president could have had the most impact and been able to act in a way least tainted by questions of propriety was concerning all things related to Russia.

*****

The Worst Defeat in American History and a Serious Blow to Western Democracy

Russia had simply waltzed into America’s national election, President Obama’s political party, and the campaign of President Obama’s chosen successor Hillary Clinton, did what it pleased for all the world to see, stared us down at our own gala, grabbed the microphone, repeatedly endorsed the savage critic of Obama and rival of Clinton Donald Trump, repeatedly badmouthed both Obama and Clinton, took a crap on the dance floor, the dropped the mic and laughed hysterically while doing a slow waltz out the door.

Wars have been fought for far less, and yet Obama’s response was to avoid confrontation with his legacy and the future of the nation, even the future of Western democracy, very much at stake.

In a follow-up piece, I shall deal with the many options Obama had as Commander in Chief besides doing virtually nothing. But for now, perspective:

The most successful cyberattack in world history also involved the weakest response by any American president ever to foreign aggression. It was also the worst foreign attack on American soil since the War of 1812: neither Pearl Harbor nor 9/11 resulted in a regime change that put in place a President of the United States who is so unwitting a mole for Russia, grossly unfit for high office, and oblivious to how much he will undermine critical institutions and values as Trump. It is the first time a party in power in America was toppled by foreign interference and the first time a foreign power toppled the political leadership of a long-reigning first-tier power since arguably Alexander the Great took over Persia. 

Additionally, Russia’s activities have greatly helped to diminish confidence in the American system, further fan the flames of cynicism, and normalize fake news, making America overall more divided, less governable, and more confused than at any time since the Civil War/Reconstruction period; these acts have also damaged the U.S.-led international system that has been in place since WWII.

It can only said of Putin’s resoundingly successful cyberwar that he played so many segments of American society to his ends without their knowledge that it was a masterful orchestral performance and that Putin was a legendary conductor. This (First) Russo-American Cyberwar will be studied for generations, for centuries, as a brilliant way for a state to take down a democratic nation, no matter how powerful, if its people are divided, and to do so without actually firing a single shot but by turning that nation’s strengths against itself. 

This is part of a larger Russian war against the West that is becoming increasingly brazen: until this year, Syria and Ukraine were the most glaring centerpieces in Russia’s disinformation campaigns; then, Russian disinformation caused a faux scandal early this year in Germany that weakened Merkel and her party ahead of key regional votes; Russia’s propaganda machine went intensely against Remain and for Brexit in the UK’s big vote this year and its efforts were clearly crucial in swaying votes in what was an intensely close decision; Russia has also been active in non-NATO Sweden this year, particularly when it was voting on closer ties with NATO; Finland, which shares a huge border with Russia, has also seen a surge in Russian disinformation; early in November, it even became apparent that Russia may have even been involved in an attempted coup in Montenegro, which is on the verge of ascending to membership in NATO.

Since Trump’s election and just this week, Russia’s tool WikiLeaks is already unleashing its might against Angela Merkel and her party in Germany, which fears far more interference in its 2017 national elections, and Russian propaganda was active in supporting the right-wing parties in Italy’s big vote that was a stinging defeat for it centrist pro-EU leader and his party (he will now soon resign), though efforts were less successful in Austria, where the pro-Russian far-right candidate failed by only a modestly large margin in an election that still signaled a significant weakening of Austria’s political center and in which fake news (not yet directly linked to Russia) played a major role during the campaign. In Russia, lawmakers cheered the developments in both Italy and Austria, seeing them as further signs of the demise of the current European system. Also since Trump’s victory, pro-Russian presidential candidates won in Moldova and Bulgaria, where Russian political meddling has been a significant force in shaping the political climate in the years preceding the recent votes. Additionally, Russia’s neighboring three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—already subject to heavy Russian disinformation operations—have seen a significant increase in Russian disinformation since the U.S. election and many there fear what is to come next. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the leader of close U.S. ally South Korea is now facing impeachment during a period of massive unrest in part provoked by Trump, even as a politician known as “Korea’s Trump” is rising in the polls.

Today, right-wing extremists—now that the Soviet Union is gone and Russia is not a champion of communism and the international left—admire Putin’s authoritarianism and see him as a defender of the West, a newly increasingly illiberal, rather than liberal, West, and Russian support for right-wing pro-Russian parties in Europe is hardly limited to propaganda and disinformation: Russia has been orchestrating loans to right-wing parties all over Europe, including (but hardly limited) to France. And Trump and his advisor Bannon have made no secret that they want to ally with and support the same far-right, anti-NATO, pro-Russian parties in Europe that Putin wants to see succeed. Even in just four, let alone eight, years of a Trump presidency, the damage such a coordinated effort could do to the EU and NATO as institutions should not be underestimated, especially as Russia’s successful disinformation and propaganda operations increase Putin’s standing and support across Europe. 

Putin sits on Europe’s eastern border, part wolf, part vulture, both inflicting wounds and picking those wounds apart, weakening the body politic of the West. And by any standard, 2016 was a year of spectacular success, with Russia’s desired outcomes being achieved in the US, the UK, Italy, Bulgaria, and Moldova, while seeing trends favorable to its interests significantly increased in places like Germany and Austria. Furthermore, U.S. and NATO “ally” Turkey has taken a decidedly sharp anti-democratic and anti-Western plunge and is clearly cozying up to Russia. 

2017 may be even better for the Kremlin, and even worse for what is still referred to as the West.

This is the new face of warfare, one in which the lines between politics and war are erased and in which Russia is dominant and ahead of everyone, and this should be terrifying all of us. I am not going to write that this is a fatal blow for the U.S. or the West, but it is a grievous one, and that it is one that the public and news media seem unable to discover or acknowledge, let alone comprehend or respond to appropriately, makes it all the more dangerous and all the more likely to happen again… and again.

AP

© 2016 Brian E. Frydenborg all rights reserved, no republication without permission, attributed quotations welcome

See related articles: EXCLUSIVE: Top Trump Aides’ Deeper & Linked Roles in Putin Agenda Revealed; Russian Mafia Nexus With Trump & Aides Goes Back Years

Trump, Putin, Russia, DNC/Clinton Hack, & WikiLeaks: “There’s Something Going on” with Election 2016 & It’s Cyberwarfare & Maybe Worse

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