2020...Why Does Trump Think He Won?

Trump has never stopped saying that he thought he won the United States presidential election in 2020. The standard response is to state that there were about 60 court challenges to the outcome, and that they almost all failed. Besides that, there is literally no evidence of wide-spread fraud, and none has been produced to date.

Having said that, no one seems to have tried to figure out why he continues to maintain that he won, except to state that he is knowingly lying - which is admittedly normal conduct for him - and that he knows that he lost.

What if he isn't lying, and he actually believe this? Where might this belief come from?

This blog has illustrated that the charges against Trump in Georgia related to election interference are highly questionable. The reason for this is that Trump never stated in the conversation that is much of the the basis of the charges that he thought he lost the election. Without proving this mental element, charges cannot be made out as no one will be able to show that he has a guilty mind. See here...

https://mewetree.blogspot.com/2024/01/trump-v-raffensperger.html

Let's take a closer look at Georgia in 2020 to try to glean why Trump may still think he won.

On election day in 2020, Trump led Biden by 0.2% in the polls in Georgia, and in 2016, he led Clinton by 4.8%. See here...

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/georgia/trump-vs-harris

We know that polls in the 2016 and 2020 elections were skewed in favour of the Democrats, meaning that they polled about 2% better than their results on election day. Let's look at other "battleground" states from 2020.

In North Carolina, Trump was up only 0.2% on election day, and he won the state by 1.4%. The polls favoured the Democrats by 1.2%.

In Michigan, Biden was up by 5.1% on election day, and he won the state by 2.8%. The polls favoured the Democrats by 2.3%.

In Wisconsin, Biden was up by 6.7% on election day, and he won by only 0.7%. The polls favoured the Democrats by a whopping 6.0%.

In Georgia, Trump was actually ahead in the polls on election day in 2020 by 0.2%. He lost to Biden in the closest election of any state by 0.3%. This means that, unlike elsewhere in the battleground states, the pre-election polls appear to have actually favoured Trump not Biden. 

If Trump has a rationale for his claim that he actually won in 2020, it could be that the outcome in Georgia looks odd. In fact, the result looks like an outlier as it bucked a trend of polling that favoured the Democrats that was apparent throughout the United States.

Trump has constantly maintained that he won Georgia by 200,000 to 300,000 votes. About 5 million people voted there in 2020. The average of 250,000 votes that Trump claims he won over and above the certified result. would be about 5% of that vote. This would be on the outer edge of the polling advantage that the Democrats had in most states in the 2020 election, but Wisconsin illustrates that a 4.5% shift between the polls and the election in favour of Trump in Georgia would not be unheard of.

He lost in 2020, but he is not a stupid man. States other than Georgia are not analyzed here, nonetheless there may be more to Trump that pure malevolence. 

Stock Market? Time to Sell...

It's been a long time since the editorial board here at mewetree.blogspot.com opined on stock market issues. This is primarily because the board has what is called a "liquidity issue"...it has no liquidity to invest, so this issue has not been front and centre for a long time.

That changes today.

The Shiller's P/E ratio is at 37. 

This measure tracks the historic price to earnings ratio of the S&P 500 stock exchange. Normal is 16. See here...

https://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe

Buying equities which paid a pittance as a dividend and which therefore had very high P/E ratios was rational in a world of super low interest rates, given that an investor could not do better with bonds. Rates are not low anymore. 

This P/E ratio of 37 is screaming that there will be a pull-back soon, as investors can get an equal or better return on bonds than they can on equities for a given level of risk. It's just math.

Inverted, then Not.

The interest rate curves were inverted for over two years, meaning that long term yields were lower than short term yields. This happens when smart money gets out of equities and into long term bonds in expectation of a market decline. 

A recession and stock market pull-back follows after the inversion ends and the relationship between long and short term yields returns to normal. They returned to normal this month. No one knows when the bad things will happen, but this indicator is 100% accurate. The stock market has never been higher. The good times will end, as they always do.

Buffett Buffet.

Warren Buffet has over $277 Billion in cash or easily convertible assets. This is a massive amount of money. He would not have this much cash on the sidelines if he thought there was any good place to put it. If he is moving out of the market, you should be too. That cash will be deployed to take advantage of opportunities once prices have declined.

New President.

Except for Clinton and Trump, the first year of a new President's term in office has seen markets downturns ever since JFK. We don't know who will win next Tuesday, but we do know it will not be Biden - there will be a "new" President. 

If it is Trump, the market pull-back noted above could be delayed, but it will happen - the market fell almost 5% in Trump's second year in office.  

If you are in the stock market, time to think about redeploying to safer assets.

We seek safe harbour!

.

Why is Harris Doing So Badly?

The editorial board of mewetree.blogspot.com has predicted a very narrow Harris victory on the 2024 United States presidential election. This was based on her strong showing in public opinion polls right after she received the Democratic Party nomination. 

And then, Kamala Harris and the Democrats happened...

Readers of this blog will note that prior to this the editorial board did think that Donald Trump would "...wipe the floor with Harris if she is nominated." Indeed, it looks like that is exactly what he will do, as he now leads in every single battleground state. 

See here...

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-harris

Real Clear Politics has Trump up by 0.1% in national polling. This is misleading. In the 2016 and 2020 presidential election campaigns, the pollsters proved to be off by about 2 - 3%, with polls being badly skewed in favour of the Democrats. 

For example, just before the vote in 2016, Clinton led Trump by over 4%. On election day, Clinton only got 2.1% more votes than Trump, and he won the Electoral College. In 2020, Biden was ahead by over 7% in the polls on the day of the election, but he only beat Trump by 4.5%. 

If previous pro-Democrat polling bias holds true, Trump is probably ahead of Harris by about 2.5%. With this level of support on election day, Trump will win the election in what could be a landslide, winning both the Electoral College and the popular vote.

So what happened?

Harris is a terrible candidate. She seemingly cannot answer simple questions with straight-forward answers. Hillary Clinton had the same problem. This is probably because she has been told that if she takes a firm position on anything, she will lose votes. The concept of gaining votes and/or that her refusal to answer questions leaves voters thinking she will not be able to make decisions should she become the President may have not occurred to her.  There is a reason why the press wasn't allowed anywhere near her for the first month of her campaign.

But something else is happening...

The Democrats appear to have slammed up against the sad reality that they don't actually understand at least half of the American population, and their view of the world is unfamiliar to most voters. When they look at that population, they see groups divided by gender, race, age, education level, ethnicity, income level, etc. They don't see actual people, in and of themselves. Most people in America don't see the country that way.

Because they are "class" oriented, the Democrats propose policies designed to buy the votes of these specific groups, with those proposals specifically targeted at those groups. 

For example, they have proposed $25,000 for young people to buy their first home. As well, they would set up a loan initiative allowing Black people to borrow up to $20,000 each toward establishing their first businesses, with the loans guaranteed by the federal government. 

These and similar initiatives are essentially federally-funded bribes targeted to groups whose votes the Democrats believe they own, with the bribes promised to encourage them to go the extra mile and come out to support Harris on November 5th. The $20,000 loan guarantee was proposed owing to Harris's declining standing with Black male voters. If she was not doing worse with this group of people, the loan initiative would not have been proposed, as the Democrats see no utility in proposals such as this other than their ability to buy them votes. 

Let's make this clear - the Democrats often do not have a perspective on how American should be run, outside of this type of targeted policy proposal. For them, much of governance comes down to a class analysis, where "class" is reduced to the characteristics noted above - especially race, gender, sexual preference, and age. Democratic policy is often about class division and political exploitation, not about wise policy in and of itself.

Compare that to what Trump does.

Trump has policy proposals for people and for the entire country, not classes. He probably doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone other than himself, but in providing guidance on what he intends to do if he again gains office, he doesn't break the population down by their characteristics, with the population encompassing each characteristic presumably deserving of different policy proposals, and even different rights. Proposals like ending taxation of tips, stopping illegal immigration and renegotiating free trade agreements are not directed at any identifiable group. Like him or not, he speaks to all Americans as Americans, not to subsets of them.  

The American people may be starting to get it. The waning of support for Harris amongst groups like Black men may suggest that at least some of these people increasingly dislike identity politics, which is the only way that Democrats play the game. They especially won't like being called misogynist, racist, sexist and all the other "ists" that the Democrats use to demonize the people who are part of the groups that they don't like (Whites, men, heterosexuals, religious people, capitalists, etc.) The stupidity of demonizing large and specifically identifiable sections of the population, then asking for their votes, is mindboggling - Biden may have been a way station between the "Deplorables" of Hillary Clinton, and the Woke agenda of Kamala Harris. 

Let's chat about identify, specifically Harris's identity.

Trump appeared before the National Association of Black Journalists in July, and questioned Harris's Black heritage, stating that he had always thought she was Indian as that is how she had presented herself. He was savaged in the left media, which claimed this was evidence of his racism.  

And yet, 20% of Black men would vote for Trump if the election were held today, and he would get 15% of the Black vote overall. In 2020, he only got an estimated 9% of the that vote. The 6% change in his favour could spell the end of the Harris campaign, as it could hand many of the hotly-contested battleground states to Trump. 

While Harris will still get an estimated 85% of the Black vote, one has to wonder if Trump's viscous dig at her heritage has struck a chord with some people - as in, do a significant  minority of Black people actually think that Harris is not really "Black"? (For the record, she is.)

In comparison to her 85% support, 95% of Black voters supported Obama in 2008, and 93% supported him in 2012. That 10% loss of support for Harris amongst Black voters is massive, but is it really inexplicable? 

We need to ask...who is Kamala Harris, really? 

Her failure to show America who she is and what she stands for, instead of focusing on attacking Trump, is slowly destroying her campaign (Note - if someone starts calling their political opponent a "Fascist" who loves Hitler, they have reached the "jump the shark" point of their campaign...it's over.) Even to the extent she has defined herself, many don't like what they see. 

There is a reason why she got no delegates in her 2020 campaign to become the Democratic nominee.

 

 

Trump Fraud Case - Update

The editorial team here at mewetree.blogspot.com previously questioned the validity of the civil fraud case against Trump in this post...

https://mewetree.blogspot.com/2024/02/trumps-fraudulent-fraud-conviction.html

That blog post ended with this prediction...

"This entire charade will be thrown out on appeal, much to the chagrin of Trump haters everywhere."

The Trump civil fraud case has made it to the New York Court of Appeals. Here is how that appeal is faring...

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/26/trump-civil-fraud-appeal-oral-arguments-00181339

The appeals court has questioned how this law, which is a consumer protection law, applies to private business transactions between equally sophisticated parties, where there were no losses on the part of either party - a.k.a. no victims.  

The judges asked if the District Attorney - who ran for office on a promise to go after Donald Trump, personally - had overstepped the intent and scope of the law being applied.

Judges who think this case was kosher wouldn't ask questions like this.

If they throw this fraud case out, and they do it before the election in November, doing so will validate Trump's claim that they judicial system has been set against him. 

Which, of course, is the case.

 

Fake Polls

We need to chat about polls. See here...

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/pennsylvania/trump-vs-harris

The latest polls for Pennsylvania show a slight Harris lead. But look more closely.

Of the last eight polls up until the Bloomberg poll yesterday, five showed that Harris and Trump were tied, two had Trump ahead by 1% or 2%, and one poll had Harris ahead by 2%.

The Bloomberg poll has Harris ahead by 5%. Real Clear Politics averages the results of polls so a poll result like this skews the results in favour of Harris.

Harris does not have a 5% lead in Pennsylvania. As noted in previous blogs, the editorial team here at mewetree.blogspot.com thinks she will win the state by under 0.5%. But it will not be a landslide, as is suggested by this Bloomberg poll.

So how did this poll come about?

Pollsters will skew results by polling people who they know will favour their own favored candidate. This can be done by polling people in geographic areas known to support the pollster's favourite candidate, or by having less balance to the demographic spread than is optimal, and polling demographic groups that are known to favour their favourite. Finally, when they see results that do not support their preferred line, they simply don't publish the polls. If you see large gaps in the time between the release of polls by a pollster with particular political leaning, you can rest assured that this is because they haven't been able to generate results that suit their candidate or party.

In short, pollsters actually know who likely favours whom in terms of voting preferences and where those people live, so to skew a poll they just make sure to ask those who they know will give them the answers that they want.

To see how easy it is to fake a public opinion poll, see here - this is the classic explanation...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks

The key is this, "...so they don't mention the first five questions, and they publish the last one..."

It's not a matter of "Trust no none!", but it might be a matter of "When things look out of the ordinary and/or look illogical, they are usually just so."

Internet Technology Follies

I have been thinking of doing THIS THING since the start of COVID-19 pandemic.

What is THIS THING that I want to do?

I want to track how utterly incompetent IT actually is. How often it actually fails. How utterly idiotic are many of its security requirements. How many of the "cures" for IT issues are comparable "chicken noodle soup" remedies passed on by our grandmothers. How it masquerades as the essential connector and facilitator of the 21st century, but how it is really still in the stone age. 

When you think of IT, do not think of the Bethesda Medical Institute. Think of witch doctors prescribing bleeding by leech, or a range of herbal remedies for things like cancer or broken bones.

They don't want you to know this...

IT is in the Middle Ages when it comes to the technology. This fact is camouflaged behind the knowledge that we, the users, don't understand the technology.  If we did, we would stand back aghast at the idiocy and incompetence set out before us.

Let's start...you will see a daily log of IT issues below.

September 19, 2024.

Issue #1: I work in a secure building, on a secure laptop, using secure internet supplied to service the same secure building. I arrived at work, and tried to log into the secure internet system using the secure laptop. I provided my two different passwords, via two different access portals. The passwords were accepted. Then I got this message, which is a message I get about half the time I try to log in...

"Login denied. You have hit the DlftAccessPolicy - Connection terminated."

Why was my access denied? The notice doesn't explain. When you call IT services, what do you think they say? Well, I think we all know what they say, now don't we...

"Have you tried shutting your computer off and starting again?"

Translation...

"Have you tried wormwood root for your tummy ache, or maybe a lavender enema?"

Reality - they don't know what is wrong. They have no clue. 

Emperor IT is walking down the road. Have you noticed that he is naked?

Issue #2: I was just asked to approve something in the internal IT system where I work. To do that, you need to log in via the Internet. The internal site will not function on Microsoft Edge. It will only work on Google.  

The place I work has hundreds of thousands of employees, and a budget of hundreds of billions of dollars. And yet, it's internal approvals system does not work on one of the world's top internet service platforms.  

You can't make this shit up.

September 20, 2024.

In secure building, on secure laptop, trying to log into secure internet, both passwords accepted, after restarting my computer, made two attempts...

"Login denied. You have hit the DlftAccessPolicy - Connection terminated."

Yup.

September 22, 2024.

In secure building, on secure laptop, trying to log into secure internet, both passwords accepted, after restarting my computer, made two attempts...

"Login denied. You have hit the DlftAccessPolicy - Connection terminated."

Yup.

September 23, 2024.

I met someone for lunch at a restaurant. My cellphone simply stopped working - no access to the Internet. I did not change any of the Settings. 

I shut it off and started it again. That didn't work. Some time later, it just accessed the Internet again, also for no apparent reason. 

I have no idea why it stopped. I have no idea why it started again. We met for lunch in the middle of a medium sized Western city, so access to the Internet was not the issue.

What if automobiles operated like this - sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't. Would we then realize how desperately incompetent the auto industry would have to be to build such occasionally useless crap?

September 24, 2024.

I uploaded a Word document this morning. 

I have received at least fifteen "Upload failed" notifications, even though I successfully uploaded the document. 

I have also received about fifteen notifications telling me to save the document that the computer says I didn't upload!

These notifications reduced my productivity by about 10%, as I had to stop working to deal with the notifications, one after the other. 

I had no idea how to stop the notifications, which were coming at regular intervals. 

"The new definition of 'insanity' is responding to the same IT notifications over and over again, expecting that they will somehow miraculously end. They won't end.” 

 

September 25, 2024.

Issue #1: I uploaded a Microsoft Presentation. I started working on it, and wanted to save it to my computer as a draft and rename it.  I could not save it unless I first uploaded it to the Microsoft Cloud.  The only way to rename it was to send it to myself and save it from the email.

Why? Why not let me just "save as" and create a different presentation? Who is in charge of this presentation, me or Microsoft?

I found a way, but this was irritating and a total waste of my time.

Issue #2:  I was on a Teams meting and had to leave early. I looked for the "Chat" button so that I could inform the group of my intention to leave. There was no "Chat" button. I had to interrupt the speaker to advise that I was going to depart.  

Where as the button? Was I using an older version of Teams? I don't know. I tested Teams this morning; there is a Chat button again.

Imagine that you owned a car that had windows that rolled down or not depending on who knows what!? One day the window rolls down, the next day it doesn't. Would you buy that car? This "optional functionality" is 100% normal in the world of IT.

September 26, 2024.

In secure building, on secure laptop, trying to log into secure internet, both passwords accepted, after restarting my computer, made two attempts...

"Login denied. You have hit the DlftAccessPolicy - Connection terminated."

Yup.

Note that I did log in successfully yesterday, when outside of the secure building using a non-secure internet.

Yup...Yup.

October 1, 2024.

In secure building, on secure laptop, trying to log into secure internet, both passwords accepted, after restarting my computer, made two attempts...

"Login denied. You have hit the DlftAccessPolicy - Connection terminated."

Yup.

October 3, 2024.

I went for a walk and had to go to the bathroom at some point. I stopped in at a local donut shop, and sat to do my business. I put my cell phone in my pocket, and was surprised to hear my good buddie chatting with me in my pocket. I pulled the phone out only to see him looking at me in a video call.

It turns out that I had pocket called five people when I put the phone in my pocket. The screen is so sensitive that literally any slight touch sets the apps off and running. You have to work hard for your phone to keep this shit from happening.

October 4, 2024.

Issue #1: In secure building, on secure laptop, trying to log into secure internet, both passwords accepted, after restarting my computer, made two attempts...

"Login denied. You have hit the DlftAccessPolicy - Connection terminated."

Yup.

Issue #2: I took a day off yesterday, so I did not log in.  

Oh oh!

I just got partially into the grid - see Issue #1. The file saving system is booting up every minute asking me to save files that are not opened and that I did not work on. When I close that screen, a second screen comes up saying "Upload failed".  I have not tried to upload anything as yet.

October 7, 2024.

I tried to access two web sites today based on emails sent to me by the institutions that own and operate the web sites. The log in request asked for my email address. Both said that they did not recognize my email address - the very same email address to which they had sent the requests.

Is IT really this fucking stupid?

Yes.

I still haven't been able to log in.

October 8, 2024.

In secure building, on secure laptop, trying to log into secure internet, both passwords accepted, after restarting my computer, made two attempts...

"Login denied. You have hit the DlftAccessPolicy - Connection terminated."

Yup.

Trump - Eating Dogs and Creating Diversions

The debate is over.  

The Left is all atwitter about Trump's claim that Haitian immigrants are eating dogs off the streets of Ohio. CNN won't stop talking about it...

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/17/politics/haitian-immigrants-springfield-false-rumor-what-to-know/index.html

Did Trump do this on purpose?

For years, Trump Tweeted-out things that were borderline crazy. The Left focused on each and every one of these completely irrelevant utterances, while being seemingly blind to what was really going on. 

While they were mostly distracted, Trump stuffed the US court system with Conservative judges. He gave massive tax cuts to his buddies. He mismanaged the deadliest pandemic in 100 years. He moved forward borrowing at such a level that it eventually resulted in a negative assessment of US debt. He repealed reams of environmental and other necessary regulations.

In short, he used the cover of the Left's predictable responses to his regular irrational outbursts to remake much of American legal and fiscal life.

He said that Haitians eat dogs. Reality - not even one of his hard-core supporters cares about this. They hate the Democrats so much that if he actually ate a dog while on stage in the debate, they would still stay with him. 

The Independents might be swayed against Trump. These people will decide the election, but as of this morning, Trump would win the Electoral College if the election were to be held today.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/maps/president/2024/no-toss-up/electoral-college (see note at bottom)

Trump is constantly talking about bread and butter issues. Those are the ones that Americans are mostly concerned about, especially Inflation, which is an issue that affects literally every single voter.

Unless the Democrats stop focusing on what this writer thinks are Trump's carefully crafted dodges, and start communicating how they will improve the lives of average Americans, they will lose this election.  

On that, Harris has just started crisscrossing America talking to groups about her vision and taking actual questions. This welcome change could not have come a moment too soon.

Watch Pennsylvania. The state has flipped back and forth from Biden/Harris to Trump eight times since March, and three times in the last week! 

The editorial board of mewetree.blogspot.com has predicted a narrow Harris victory in November based on her winning Pennsylvania by less that 0.5% of the vote. In fact, that state just flipped back to Harris...WHILE THIS BLOG WAS BEING WRITTEN! 

The URL included above now shows Harris winning the Electoral College!

 .