Another Night Of Fear And Anger

I watched some of the footage from last night and it looks like many of the same dynamics I wrote about yesterday are still in the forefront.

• There are groups of African American protesters who are largely peaceful - if enraged - and conducted lawful marches.
• There are groups of mostly young white people committing crimes against property.
• There is some looting going on.
• The police are rioting and attacking people all over the place.

Beginning with the police, we know what de-escalation looks like. It looks like Camden and Flint. It is possible to partner with citizens to create a positive law enforcement culture. The evidence is right there. I'll return to the police in a bit.

I want to talk about the people who are escalating things on the protest side, before we get to the cops. Let's look at the 27 year old white woman who threw Molotov cocktails at police. But please, please look at this video, and there are more like it, of BLM organizers trying to stop young white women from vandalizing property. Activists are trying to restrain chaos tourists. When you see violent confrontation with cops, it escalates from one or both sides, and much of escalation from the protest side comes from whites. 

Obviously, they could be agents provocateur who are trying to give police license to riot. But at least in that video above, they look like this armchair revolutionaries and cosplay socialists who are just generally angry and like to stir shit up. The woman who allegedly threw Molotov cocktails at the police has a history of this. 

The whole theory of voting for Jill Stein or sitting out 2016 was the Trump would "heighten the contradictions" and lead to a revolution.  Instead, it led to Speaker Pelosi and presumptive nominee Joe Biden. Sandernistas thought that this was Bernie's moment, and it wasn't. Why? Because African American voters were loyal to Biden. I can't help but notice that a lot of the unrest in NYC was centered in Brooklyn, not the Bronx.

White protesters simply don't understand the risks of interacting with the police like this bring.  African American protesters do. When young white radicals start spray painting buildings - or in one case literally shitting on a police car - they are basically changing the narrative from "peaceful protest in favor of not being killed by the police" to "let's just smash shit up." 

Of course, there is also the spectacle of just smashing stuff up. Here's aYouTube star smashing things up in a mall. He isn't poor.  He isn't black. He just wants to break stuff. Sure, there are people stealing things because the opportunity presents itself, but that isn't the protesters, any more than the remora is a shark.

Now, there is also video of undercover and plain clothes police doing this stuff, too. That - frankly - should tell you what you need to know about the efficacy and wisdom in turning protests over the death of George Floyd into a personal vendetta against Starbucks.

The police, however, are out of control. Not everywhere, but much of the violence you see on TV starts with police escalating things. Certain police departments seem worse.  The NYPD has been especially bad. You've probably seen the police cruiser plowing into a crowd. An old white guy being pushed to ground for no reason in Salt Lake City. Shooting people who are lawfully on their porch. The "light'em up" comment is chilling. The rage and fear in those cops voice; the desperate need to be dominant. 

They have also consciously targeted the media. There simply can't be a coincidence that Trump's rhetoric about the media isn't influencing how members of the press are being specifically targeted.  True, if the police are eager to riot, they don't want the media there covering it, so it helps to drive them off. One reporter has been blinded in one eye. The press have every right to be out on those streets, and the police targeting people who identify as media is straight up authoritarian police state shit.

It remains to be seen how this plays out over the next few days and weeks.  So far, only two people seem to have been killed - one by a drive-by shooting in Detroit. That's amazing and unlikely to continue. The general pattern is that day time protests are largely peaceful, but curfews allow the police to escalate. They've likely been spending the daytime hours fuming under verbal abuse and then the starting gun goes off and so do they.

We are, once again, absent national leadership. Trump will - if anything - endeavor to make this worse. It's not Obama's problem to solve, but I hope he's working with Dubya Bush and Bill Clinton to perhaps exert some sort of leadership here. Biden, too, has said the right things, but actions need to be taken. Obama and Biden should be in Minnesota, working to calm things down there.  Demonstrate leadership, because Trump won't.

Will this make a difference in November? I think Martin Longman is right that it is too soon to tell. In 1968, Humphrey was hurt by the riots of '68, including the police riot in Chicago. However, the King riots in '92 didn't hurt Clinton. It could be that the incumbent party suffers more than Democrats specifically.  However, civil unrest plays into the hands of authoritarians.

So much of this anger has been building for 3 1/2 years of living in Trumpistan. The young, white people are angry about a bunch of stuff, but they are piggybacking onto a movement that doesn't belong to them. White supremacists are using this moment to bring on the race war they've been craving.  The police are using this moment to crack skulls and play army man. One thing history DOES tell us is that in times of political violence it will be black bodies that pay the price first and most. The organizers of these protests know this. 

We are rudderless. Adrift. That allows the worst elements to hijack a moment of real pain for people who care about racial justice, and force things to spiral in directions that should scare anyone.  

Scared and angry people are not good decision makers, and we are all scared and angry.

Not Our Space

I awoke to the current horror show on my Twitter feed as anger spilled out across American cities. There were more than a few clips of people smashing windows and setting fires and clashing violently with police.  A lot of those people were white guys dressed in black. There were also several clips and photos of police dressed as protestors - especially Black Bloc types. Maybe they were simply keeping track of the crowds. Maybe they were elevating things.

The idea that right wing cops or left wing anarchists would piggyback their own agendas onto the protests over police brutality towards African Americans is sadly not at all surprising.

Psychiatrists use the word "elevated" to describe someone in an agitated emotional state. The process of getting elevated is "escalation." Once someone escalates into a heightened emotional state, it's imperative to de-escalate them.  No one who is angry or outraged or fearful or despairing is in a sound mental state to make prudent decisions.  Veteran organizers of nonviolent protests spend a great deal of time making sure their marchers and the situation doesn't escalate. Nonviolence isn't a jacket you try on and go out and march; it's a discipline that has to be trained into you.

For African Americans - or any oppressed group - it is even more important that things not escalate.  The entire point of these protests is the cavalier disregard authorities have for black and brown bodies. We see it in mortality rates, Covid-19 deaths and iPhone footage of people of color being killed. I remember in the film "Bloody Sunday," the organizers of the march in Derry took every pains to make sure confrontation was kept manageable and the situation didn't escalate.  The British Army and the IRA had other plans, and there was a slaughter - not of the British, but of the Irish Catholics.

Leaving aside the probable presence of police provocateurs among the protests, the presence of Cosplay Socialist and Podcast Revolutionaries inserting themselves and their agenda into these protests enrages me. Attacking a Five Guys because you have a beef with capitalism is...that's not the point, OK. Maybe capitalism is intertwined with racism, but right now that conversation needs to be put aside. These protests are not about you and your agenda, it's about a specific form in injustice that really doesn't apply to you. And sometimes "outside agitators" are indeed outside agitators.

White protestors have a license to engage in behavior that would get African Americans killed. Don't believe me? Remember the Michigan State House? Their behavior though will reflect on the protestors who are doing things right in petitioning their government for a redress of grievances.

The 1619 introductory essay made a powerful point: African Americans have precious little reason to believe in the institutions of American democracy, yet they have been the most patient and persistent in engaging with them. They demand their right to vote; they march; they serve in the armed forces. Their faith in institutions that have wronged them is frankly unbelievable. The Rose Brigade of privileged white boys who want to smash things up - in the context of African American engagement - is nauseating.

At this moment, the entire country is elevated. Some of this is because of the virus.  Some of this is because of the fascist squatting in the White House. Some of this is simply the slow attrition of white supremacy on black bodies. I see this video of an African American police officer in Atlanta demonstrating what de-escalation looks like and two things strike me.  First, this is why it's important for African Americans to have a voice in these moments - on both sides of the barricades. But secondly, why must we always put the onus on African Americans to heal the wounds inflicted by white violence?

At the very least, it is not the place of Hipster Revolutionaries to hijack a moment that does not belong to them.

Bad Data; Bad Policy

Politico reports that we have a huge data problem in trying to make public policy around Covid-19. States have been artificially boosting their testing numbers in order to hit benchmarks to re-opening. There is some evidence states like Florida are hiding Covid deaths in flu and pneumonia counts.

There is a cost to having bad inputs when you are trying to create public policy.  That cost is currently human lives.

This Will Likely Get Worse

The scenes from Minneapolis are increasingly devolving into the usual tragic pattern.

• An African American is killed by the police for no reason beyond the fact that he was black.
• There are protests when the officer(s) involved is not arrested for committing a clear crime on camera.
• The protests start peacefully.
• The police meet these protestors with force.
• The protesters respond to force with force. 
• Eventually, there is some looting.

At this point, the coverage usually turns against the protesters and decries the looting of private property and whatever momentum the protesters had is lost amongst the pearl clutching. Riots, as such, are usually self-defeating as a tactic. It allows those who would subvert necessary change to switch the subject. It returns police to their role as protectors of the common good. I remember watching this play out in LA during the King Unrest. Daryl Gates pulled his cops off the streets until people demanded that they return. "Oh, you think cops are bad? How do you like your city burning down?"

But the police in Minneapolis/St.Paul continue to refocus attention on their own misdeeds. Watching them arrest a CNN reporter on camera brings to mind literal authoritarianism, not the rhetorical tool of online commentary. We made a default decision to militarize our police over the past few decades and when you see the film of the riot police arresting Omar Jimenez...that's not "protect and serve." That is as naked an abuse of power - if not as tragic - as what happened to George Floyd.

Social media reported on some white guy smashing windows. He could be a cop trying to discredit the protests. He could be a Black Bloc anarchist trying to push the protests to violence. Whatever it is, he doesn't seem to be part of the protests aimed at the racial injustices in the Minneapolis police department that go back - at the very least - to Philando Castile. St. Paul police say he's not one of theirs, but honestly, do you believe them?  Haven't police proved time and time again that they protect their own first?

What is clear is that once "law and order" breaks down, the rules that hold society together unravel. Once violence becomes the most important force, inevitably people will die. What needs to be made clearer is that "law and order" broke down when Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd and wasn't arrested for it. Smashed windows and burning police stations are what authoritarians want. They want the suburbanites who think the Floyd murder was wrong to start worrying about "the mob." They need that. If we go back to the riots of 1968, there is no doubt that they helped elect Nixon (who won by a fairly close margin).

The question is: Have we changed enough? Have we seen enough African Americans dying for no reason to allow us to break with the police?  I'm honestly skeptical. 

It is undeniably true that heavily armed white protestors are awarded immensely more deference from police than peaceful black protesters, especially if those protests are about police brutality. The reasons why heavily armed white guys can storm a public building and scream at cops is because we tried holding them accountable at Ruby Ridge and Waco. Then Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people in Oklahoma City and the plan became not to confront white men with guns.

White political violence has a long history going back to Britain. There was a certain performative nature in the small rebellions that lords and commons exercised against the power of the king. American protests from 1764-1775 had the same feel as many of the small uprisings that occurred throughout British history.

When African Americans exercise political violence, it is treated fundamentally differently. Again, the historical roots of this are deep. Violent protests against taxes? Legit. Violent protests against being literally enslaved? Not legit. Fear of white violence leads to restraint; fear of black violence leads to escalations of violence. The problem is that minorities are...well...minorities. Whites ARE a majority, and you need to win enough of their votes to try and stop the lynching of African Americans by police. It's unclear what effect political violence exercised by blacks will have on their political calculus, but in the past it hasn't necessarily been helpful. 

There is a theory of latent authoritarianism, which states that fear can trigger a desire for authoritarianism in those who otherwise might not desire it. That was at the heart of Nixon's '68 strategy, though it didn't have a nice theory attached to it at the time.  Hitler used the Reichstag fire to seize power. The more political violence is used by African Americans, in some ways the further from their goals they become. The fact that this is NOT true for white militias is incredibly sad, but no less true for being unjust.

We also know that Trump will do (and has been doing) everything in his power to fan the flames of this and every other conflagration.  Trump needs America to be on the verge of tearing itself apart in order to win re-election. He could be looking at 20% unemployment and 250,000 dead Americans in November and eeking out a win on the backs of dead African American protesters and smoldering cities is really his only feasible plan at this point.

What's more, it seems to me that the only feasible solution to the problems of police and communities of color is an independent investigative arm within the Department of Justice. Local attorneys general have shown no ability to separate themselves from the police departments with whom they work so closely. It would be like asking the NSA to oversee the CIA. However, Trump has also exposed the great weakness within our entire system of laws that requires the DOJ to be a disinterested party. He has turned the upper reaches of the DOJ into his own personal law firm. Does anyone really think a Trump DOJ would prosecute Derek Chauvin, much less the other three cops?

The only way we see progress on this issue is with laws designed to limit police violence, make police accountable to the law and an impartial check that sits outside the clique of normal law enforcement. The only way that happens is if we have a Democratic president and control of both houses of Congress. That only happens (especially the Senate) in a blue wave. 

It's unclear whether the legitimate grievances of the protesters will get drowned out by concern over a looted Target. It is also unclear whether anyone will remember this in five months time when they go to the polls.  "Re-opening America" apparently means a return to lynchings and workplace shootings; that is a return to normal. Trump needs America to burn, however. 

"This will likely get worse," is the official motto of Trumpistan.

UPDATE: John Judis - who I rarely agree with - makes a similar point.

Donald Trump, Psychopath

This is a good read by Trump's biographer. Basically it argues what we know but are afraid to say: The President of the United States is legitimately mentally ill.

TL;DR - Wear Your Damned Mask

There is really only one way to arrest coronavirus, and that is by wearing a mask.

The problem is we live with people whose entire worldview is shaped by what will upset "liberals."

This is a good summary by The Atlantic.

No, Seriously. What Does Electricity Taste Like?

Mitch McConnell is a man with one important idea: that the levers of the Senate makes it possible for either party to stop Congress from doing pretty much anything but pass a budget (and therefore cut taxes). Apparently, he is averse to passing any new spending that will aid states.  States, as we know, struggle under bullshit balanced budget amendments that hamstring them in times of economic crisis.

There is no plausible way for McConnell to frame this as concern for a balanced budget, as he passed the incredibly regressive tax cut that blew a massive hole in the federal budget even before the virus fueled depression. He was likely playing the usual game of Republicans:

1. Cut taxes
2. Run a budget deficit
3. Lose control of the government
4. Leverage elite concern about the deficit he created to prevent new social spending by the Democratic government
5. Use dissatisfaction with the Democrats to win back power

If McConnell was really concerned about deficits, I'm sure Liz Warren has a plan for that.

Instead, if states are forced to the wall, we are looking at 20% unemployment by election day. McConnell will not only lose his job as Majority Leader, but likely as Senator from Kentucky.

It's just mind-boggingly stupid, but because McConnell borrowed one important idea from John C. Calhoun, he's considered some sort of savant.  

He's not.

He's another idiot who wants to stick his tongue in a light socket.

What Does Electricity Taste Like?

There was a joke a few years ago that So and So was so dumb he would stick his tongue into a light socket to see what electricity tasted like. It seems that Trump has moved into light socket territory. We have no therapeutics to reduce the lethality of Covid-19. We have no vaccine, and likely won't for a year or so.

What we have is masks and social distancing, but really, mostly masks.  Masks are at least part of the reason why East Asia has not been crushed by the coronavirus (as mask wearing is fairly common there, post-SARS). Some European countries went to masks early and had good results.

But masks need to be nearly universal to work. Most masks won't so much protect the wearer from the virus (though they will) but they will insure a carrier (asymptomatic or otherwise) will not spread the virus.  The first rule of gun safety is that the gun is always loaded.  The first rule of Covid should be that everyone should be presumed to have the virus.

Trump's decision not to wear a mask is likely rooted in his shallow vanity and his desire to appear tough, when really he is anything but. However, having taken a stand against masks back in March, he now can't retreat.  An essential part of Trump is the absolute 100% refusal to ever admit you were wrong or to backtrack. So, he staked out a stupid decision in March, probably based on vanity. Now, he can't admit it was wrong and won't appear on camera with a mask.

This sends a massive signal to the MAGAts that mask wearing is a stupid liberal plot to steal your freedumbs.  This is at least partly why we see mass gatherings of people who are unmasked. Outside or not, mass gatherings are terrible for the spread of the virus.  The noise makes you shout, and that makes it more likely that droplets with the virus are expelled (shouting is considered one of the reasons why meatpacking plants have been superspreader events).

Again, we need everyone who can to wear a mask. Trump is encouraging - actively and passively - his followers not to wear them.

Today, we will pass the 100,000 dead mark. My guess is that we will start to see an increase in hospitalizations and deaths across the states that have largely abandoned efforts to contain the virus. That should become apparent in the next week to ten days.

What makes this so stupid (aside from, you know, the mass death) is that Trump needs a quick recovery from both the virus and the economy to have any chance in November. But he just can't help sticking his tongue in that socket.

Henry Wallace? Seriously?

John Nichols has written a thing about how Henry Wallace suggests a road map for Sandernistas to take over the Democratic Party.  Jon Chait effectively dismantles it here. Wallace had been FDR's Vice President and Secretary of Agriculture, but he was bounced from the ticket in '44, because he was too far left and FDR's health made the Veep selection very important. He then ran as a third party candidate in '48 (along with Strom Thurmond who broke to create the Dixiecrat Party).

There's a line buried in there about how Wallace fell under the spell of thinking his tiny coterie of enthusiasts represented a critical mass of the electorate.  Chait quotes from Thomas Devine's actual history tome:

 “even though Wallace claimed to have the backing of the ‘common man,’ his primary base of support had always been limited to a relatively small group of left-leaning intellectuals, middle-class professionals, and CIO labor leaders.”

That pretty much sums up the Sandernistas. Except "middle class professionals" isn't great, more like "creative class malcontents." I came across this beautiful hit piece about Meagan Day and Walker Bragman.  Bragman was on Twitter snidely belittling Neera Tanden's battle with Covid-19, because he's an arrogant little shit.

These self-styled revolutionaries adopt a pose that they think elevates their moral standing without really understanding what morality is in the first place.  These are the Leftists from the '60s who became Reagan Neocons in the '80s. It's just an article of clothing you put on because it flatters you and it's easy to change.

Henry Wallace was a fool. His "movement" was a joke. That anyone would think otherwise is sad.

Read This

Prove David Atkins is wrong.

Grow The Party

This, by Martin Longman, is exactly right. He mentions Neera Tanden, and perhaps on purpose doesn't note that when she announced she had Covid-19, the usual Bernie trolls came out and basically hoped that she would die of it.  The dead-end Berners are not Sanders himself. They are narcissistic sociopaths. Many of the most vocal are children of wealth who have adopted a form of radical politics that they think looks chic on them. They thought shit-posting was the key to victory.

When I think about the Trumpenproletariat and Rose Twitter, they are basically brats. Grown adults who never grew out of their bratty three year old selves. Cult 45 wants to get their hair dyed and their fredums and they don't care if they kill people to do it. Dead end Sandernistas simply want to win Twitter beefs without really caring about the humans at the other end of the discussion. If they can't win, they will take their Twitter feed and go home.

Life isn't fair, folks. It sucks that this is happening.  We would have graduated our Seniors today, and I got choked up about what they missed.  But shit happens, and it happens whether you care about it or not. The universe doesn't give two shits about your plans or your desires.  Most people grow up and realize this. Those that don't put on camo and strap military grade weapons across their chests or elevate Twitter into a twisted form of performance art.

Predictable

Covid-19 has been remarkably unpredictable and predictable at the same time.  The actual biology of the virus is still largely unknown, though they are making progress on understanding it every day.

The spread of Covid-19 is much more predictable. Early on, I felt it was pretty obvious that it would hit rural America later than urban America, but that it would hit hard when it did.  That looks to be exactly what is happening. The super-spreader clusters are a feature of this illness and the meat packing plants and prisons that constitute a major source of employment in some rural areas are turning out to the petri dishes for the disease. Rural nursing homes are another hot spot, at least for deaths.

The article linked above notes that rural poverty is a huge contributing factor to the spread of Covid-19 in these communities.  Hospitals have shut down as rural populations have declined and doctors have retreated to more prosperous communities. Younger, healthier people move away and in some areas undocumented workers come in to do the jobs that normally are done by the young. And while this isn't a health insurance problem, it is a health care system problem that exposes the vulnerability of the poor, the undocumented, people of color and the aged.

It is also - it must be said - a problem of education levels. It is difficult to look at videos like this and not be shocked. That is a super spreader event. Trump said he "loved the poorly educated." They get their news from him and Fox and they are engaged in levels of self-destructive behavior that isn't exactly new, but it has health ramifications for more of us.

Covid was always going to morph into a series of outbreaks and hot spots.  Even under the best plan, this was the future.  South Korea has been putting out brush fires since they started re-opening, but they have a competently managed system in place.  We do not, so our brush fires will become wildfires.

Meanwhile, Trump played golf yesterday.

It's Up To Us

One of the hallmarks of American society is that in the absence of a strong, active state, Americans historically relied on the loosely defined term "civil society" to solve their ills.  Tocqueville was the first (naturally) to explore America's endless "joining."  If we think about the various groups that typically organize especially around small town life like Rotary Clubs, the Lions, the Shriners and other aspects of life, we usually think about the 1950s and '60s. I suppose these organizations still exist, but the exist on the margins.

As we face a complete absence of national coordination on Covid-19 policy and it increasingly becomes a cause celebre amongst the Populist Right to fly in the face of public health measures, it will be up to Americans as individuals and small groups to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. Masking, social distancing and avoiding large crowds is really all we have left until a vaccine or therapy arrives.

There is decent evidence that Americans ARE taking this responsibility seriously. While we won't get little fezzes, vests and go-carts like the Shriners, masks will become the uniform of the responsible. Admittedly, I'm in a part of the country that was hit very hard, and therefore - even though I live in maybe the most Republican town in the state - compliance has been pretty high.

Shaming people into masking and social distancing won't work, but if there was some way to create positive social capital by acknowledging mask wearing, that might help.

The problem of the next month is clear. If the epidemiologists are right, we are going to see a new wave of outbreaks across the South and midwest. For various reasons, the "Blue" states might see less of a wave at first.  However, the problem with the coronavirus is that two week delayed fuse. For instance, Georgia has rushed to re-open and is not currently seeing a spike in cases. Perhaps that is a lack of testing or even fudging the numbers. Perhaps it because most people in Atlanta were slow to embrace reopening. Or perhaps we simply have to wait a week or two before we see the wave.

It's not simply a two week delay. It's a two week delay before we START to see a mild increase in cases, but then it will start to grow exponentially.  "Super spreader events" seem to be at the heart of the spread of Covid-19. So we will see a few things open, a few souls will venture out. Nothing will happen. The sky won't fall.  So they will start leaving their masks at home, start going out in ways that are dangerous. There will be a birthday party or a church gathering.

All of this will take several weeks. We have good reason to believe that the virus was in the US in February, percolating under the surface.  It only exploded in late March.

Maybe...just maybe...the experts are wrong.  Maybe warm weather will kill this thing.  I doubt it.

Instead, it should be incumbent on us to organize ourselves to provide the guidance and responsibility that our government won't.

We are the only hope we have.

UPDATE: Never mind.  We're doomed.

Libertarianism>Anti-Statism>Racism

This is an interesting interview with a public health professor about whether America is too "libertarian" to properly fight off Covid-19. The missing ingredient in this analysis is the overlap between libertarianism or even classical liberalism, anti-statism and racism.

There is a case to be made for classical liberalism's focus on individual liberty. Liberty IS important, and under normal circumstances should be one of (but not sole) guiding principles of public action. However, libertarianism is a hothouse theory that rarely survives contact with the outside world. States exist because they work. On a practical, day-to-day level, they work.

Anti-statism is a virulent strain of libertarianism that simply rejects the idea of the state. There isn't a role for the state to play. We can see this in the Ammon Bundy group or sovereign citizens and many of the camo wearing lunatics brandishing AK-47s on state capitol grounds across America.

Like libertarianism, anti-statism is a hothouse theory (anarchism is it's obvious end point). This strong belief is not mirrored by the realities of the world at large. In fact, many libertarian/anti-statist groups and individuals are actually surprisingly OK with state action as long as it benefits them or people like them.

The breakdown of trust in the state among more than a fringe few (John Birchers) expanded when the state decided to treat black people like equal citizens.  Every effort to expand the role of a benevolent state founders on fears of helping "them." That was why the ACA was called Obamacare by its detractors. The point was to associate universal health care with the first African American president.  Short term, it worked to help fuel the Teanderthal movement in 2010.

It will be interesting if we get a best case scenario of a Democratic trifecta in 2021 (with some way of overcoming the filibuster and the Courts). If Joe Biden dramatically expands the benevolent state, the fanatical fringe of the 20% will still oppose it, but would a white man expanding benefits play better that a black man doing it?  Possibly.  FDR was a living god to many Americans, but Harry Truman - who proposed universal health care but also civil rights legislation - was vilified during his time in office.

Americans will trust a government that gives them goodies and takes care of them.  They are suspicious of a government that gives goodies to people who don't look like them.

That'll Work

Oxford Economics predicts Trump loses a landslide election.  Depending on Democratic turnout efforts he could barely win 100 electoral votes. As of this moment, they think Trump not only loses PA, MI, WI and AZ, but IA, MO, OH and NC. If Democrats get their voters to the polls, you can throw in FL, GA and...TX and TN.