The failure of democracy

One thing people really need to get over is the conspiratorial nonsense that something like this poll is some sort of dishonest attempt to make Biden look bad and Trump look good. Polls have their limitations to put it mildly, but high quality professional efforts like this one do provide a useful high level look at what voters are thinking about a year out from the next presidential election. And what an extremely large percentage of the American public is thinking is certifiably insane:

The core of Mr. Trump’s strength remains his perceived skill at managing the economy — at least insofar as he’s compared to Mr. Biden. More than half of voters say the economy is in poor shape, despite a multimillion-dollar push by Biden allies to promote his efforts to rebuild the country after the pandemic. As voters perceive the country heading down the wrong track, Mr. Trump appears to be benefiting from being out of the White House, out of the spotlight and out of responsibility when things go bad.

Voters trust Mr. Trump more than Mr. Biden to manage the economy by a margin of 22 percentage points. On the economy, Mr. Trump is more trusted across every age group, among white and Hispanic voters and across the educational spectrum. In most of these states, the share of voters who say they’re voting based on the economy — as opposed to social issues — has increased since the midterm elections last November.

The levels of delusion involved here are mind-boggling. At its core, the idea that presidents “manage” something like “the economy” is really stupid to begin with, but let’s assume they actually do. How untethered from any contact with empirical reality must you be to think that Donald Trump would be good at managing a $27 trillion enterprise like the American economy?

Really, Mark Burnett should be thrown out of a helicopter so that he can be touched by an angel.

There’s more — a lot more:

Dakota Jordan, a 26-year-old also from Maricopa County, did not vote in the 2020 election. He said that he would rather not have Mr. Trump in office at all, but that “given the choices,” he would vote for him over Mr. Biden, absent a criminal conviction. “If he was convicted, there’s absolutely no way — I can’t elect a criminal as my leader,” he said.

Oh my Jesus.

Mr. Trump has pulled together a surprisingly diverse coalition for a Republican.

Among voters under 30 — usually a core Democratic Party constituency — Mr. Trump is only one percentage point behind Mr. Biden. Such a result would seem implausible if it didn’t track with trends seen in many public and private polls. In 2020, Mr. Biden won that age group by 33 percent in these states.

Younger voters say they trust Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden on national security and the economy — saying that the latter is crucial to their vote by a two-to-one margin over social issues like abortion and democracy.

You know what a president can actually do? Sign national legislation banning abortion, and try to overthrow the government when he loses an election, hypothetically speaking. (That’s the issue of “democracy” for those of you scoring at home).

Hey at least my people are covering themselves in glory right?

For many Hispanic voters, the state of the economy has played a large role in their candidate choice. Hispanic voters are three times more likely to say economic issues are important in deciding their vote than social issues, and are 20 points more likely to trust Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden to handle the economy.

Elaine Ramirez, 38, a Democrat from Las Vegas, said Mr. Biden vowed to help the economy and lower inflation — promises she said he has failed to deliver.

“I think for me it’s all the broken promises from Biden that make me want to switch to Trump,” said Ms. Ramirez, who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 and is considering voting for Mr. Trump. “In 2020, I didn’t like what Trump had to say and his womanizing wasn’t great. But Trump is also more dominating and aggressive and maybe we do need someone like that to fix our economy and our country.”

Necesitamos un caudillo!

I can’t even any more.