TrueBlueGED

Personally I'm right there with you--Trump is bad enough that it should overcome a lot of everything else. But this is where it's important to take a step back and recognize the lense we're viewing this through, and appreciate it's not general to everyone. That said, this latest may have done it. Here's a really good (and free!) article on the process that may be happening right now for many who are re-evaluating their position on Trump: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229569279_The_Affective_Tipping_Point_Do_Motivated_Reasoners_Ever_Get_It As to your edit, I wouldn't be shocked if the RNC officially pulls support (though the party is still in an impossible position because doing so can alienate his base, a large share of which is needed to help win down-ballot elections). In addition to what you said, several companies producing Trump mailers have been told to temporarily cease production, and Trump's name has been temporarily removed from some fundraising center over-the-phone spiels.

But now you're conflating Trump and voters. Sure this is who he is, but that doesn't mean that's why people are voting for him, or that they condone those things. For instance, there was a bunch of people in 2008 who voted for Obama because he wasn't a Republican. Doesn't mean they were endorsing liberal government policy. Not every vote cast for George W Bush should be construed of as support for evangelical beliefs. And so on. Edit: I'd like to add, and trust me I don't mean this to be insulting, but people who aren't familiar with the research on the topic read way too much into the meaning of a vote. It simply means a lot less than people tend to think. Edit #2: I think I went about that first paragraph clumsily. Put differently, pro-choice voters voted for George W Bush. That doesn't mean that access to abortion procedures and contraception aren't important to them or are non-issues. We shouldn't view a vote choice as support for the entirety of a candidate, nor as a disregard for that candidate's flaws or positions on issues we disagree with.

Most people don't vote on issues, and those who do have an issue hierarchy. I think labeling those things you mentioned as "less important" is much more accurate than as "unimportant".

It's not the kind of thing the election results can determine. His model will be judged "right" if he has Clinton 55% to win a state and she is. But if she's really 65% to win it, then his model wasn't very good...but there's no way to know what her real probability is in a given state. What I do know is his model has been quite a bit more reactive to poll fluctuations than his past models have been. That's the opposite of how a general election model should work. My guess is the wacky Republican primary shook him and caused him to tune this year's general election model to be more sensitive to short run poll changes. I think that's a very poor choice, but not one that ultimate election results will do much to help us evaluate.

Eeeeehhhhhh I don't think his 2016 model is. To use his own words against him, it's picking up too much noise and not enough signal. His model has been far too volatile with the polling while the race itself has been fundamentally unchanged for ages.

Hillary Clinton would have to broadcast herself beheading a child for Donald Trump to win this election.

What you're missing is that he needs more than his base to win. He needs more than Republicans...and at this rate he's not even going to get all of them. Look at my posts throughout this thread: I don't ride the emotional roller coaster of every up and down. 80% of presidential election results don't deviate from the Labor Day polls. If what is happening to Trump was happening to Clinton, he'd be one of the lucky 20% to overcome the deficit, but seeing as it's happening to him...it's over. The only question is how big he loses and what happens to Congress, but he himself is losing.

Trump's presidential bid is toast. He already had no likely path to the Electoral College, and that was before prominent Republican lawmakers started abandoning ship. And now the RNC has put a temporary hold on mail production for his campaign. He's done.

Yea, I read that article earlier today. It'll be a shitshow one way or another if for whatever reason he's not longer the nominee. But we're 30 days from the election (and Trump is still the nominee)...is there really enough time for a 50 state effort to work through the entire court system? What if he's not officially dumped for another week? I just don't see how it's workable (especially if appeals try to take it to the federal level). And frankly, would it even matter? If it gets to that point, the Republicans are probably cooked anyway. I'd rather have people do the right thing for the wrong reasons than continue doing the wrong thing.

While I'm sure to engage in some guilty pleasure snark on this fiasco, I don't think we should demonize those who eventually come around to doing the right thing.

Nearly every ballot certification deadline has passed: https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_access_for_presidential_candidates. Many states have printed ballots already, while others have sent out absentee and vote by mail ballots, and early voting has begun.

There's a pretty special irony in calling on Trump to step down because "this election is too important." The GOP can twist itself into a pretzel to replace him on the ticket all they want if he withdraws, but that doesn't change the ballots--those are set in stone. Those are set. So the only thing the GOP can do is hope to mobilize a massive write-in campaign, but there's no way in the world that works on a large scale and Trump would still end up carrying the states that Republicans would win, or in a worse case scenario for the party, it ends up splitting the vote enough so that some states that would have gone Republican end up going to Clinton. Outside of that, the only other option is to hope that state electors in states that go Trump would instead cast their ballot for his hypothetical replacement (I don't have exact numbers off the top of my head, but I think only like 18 states have laws requiring electors to vote for the popular vote winner in the state). Short version: if the party abandons him en masse (including party leadership), this could turn into a landslide win for the Democrats. The truly fascinating question is what would happen with congressional elections in this case--we know that a landslide for president also means a congressional wave...but we've never had a scenario where a landslide for president is precipitated by one party abandoning its nominee. Would this allow those members of Congress up for re-election to sufficiently insulate themselves from a landslide? I honestly don't know, this is totally uncharted territory (again, if it happens). Particularly this late in the process, my best guess is a landslide for Clinton would result in the traditional congressional wave, perhaps on the low side of a wave with some Republicans successfully detaching themselves from Trump. Rob Portman has been very successful at distancing himself from Trump...but he's also been doing it for months. This late in the game I'm skeptical of how effective it would be for Republicans who have supported him to this point. Doesn't change the name on the ballots, however. The party is in a completely impossible spot right now.

Brings the total up to...7? I think. Herbert, Chaffetz, Roby, Stewart, Heck.

Has Girgensons played a single shift this preseason at wing? I think the clearly defined role they have devised for him is at center.

Sir, one cannot pass up a chance to take a shot at CNN. I also got the impression that what Shrader was referencing was CNN dropping the F-bomb, not a Trump quote, but could be wrong on that.

It's CNN...so figure a week to be aware of it, and a month to fix it.

1) Shouldn't be all that much confusion. Dissonance makes it easy to ignore all of the dog whistles and stories...harder to do when it's this explicit. Everything else was a mob outside the castle walls with pitchforks...this was a battering ram through the gate. Any non-Republican who is even a little surprised that Trump had said something like this in the past is...well...yea...I think we can figure out where I'm going with this. Don't wanna get banned n stuff. 2) Current number of GOP members of Congress rescinding their endorsement: 0. As far as I can tell, the governor of Utah is the only Republican officeholder of consequence to rescind today. Paul Musgrave ‏@profmusgrave 3m3 minutes ago Donald Trump is the BEST argument for super delegates and lengthy presidential elections. Couldn't have said it better myself. Actually, wait, I think I've said exactly this numerous times in this thread. *vigorously pats self on back* :p I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the GOP adopt some form of superdelegates before 2020, and they'd be 100% correct to do so.

Be prepared to be furious. Seems pretty clear to me that Murray likes the team as is.

Stop being a wuss. I don't disagree.

I'm pretty good at ignoring things I don't want to think about :p

Man. I realize he looks like he's a bust...but what's the downside there? Type of move I'd have loved to see Murray make.

Dudacek is gonna need new pants when he reads this, unless he disrobes before browsing Sabrespace.

Good man :thumbsup:

Eh, final preseason game I think it makes sense to put a line together he plans on opening the season with. Now, whether the real line should involve Kane is another matter entirely...

Of course they're not. I'm expected the elevated ticket to come back problem solved by next week, the problem to still be there, and to have to start all over again. I'd love to know which genius thought it was a good idea to migrate email from Exchange to Office 365 in the middle of the freaking semester.