Ariana Grande for the win

OK, time for some optimism for all you shiny happy people.

Even as the Biden reelection campaign forges ahead with preparations for another potential general election match-up between Biden and his predecessor, it is grappling with a stubborn reality: The majority of undecided voters simply do not seem to believe – at least not yet – that Donald Trump is likely to be the Republican presidential nominee.

According to the campaign’s internal research, this is the case for most of the undecided voters that the campaign is targeting – nearly three-in-four of them, senior Biden campaign officials told CNN. Those officials said one of the biggest reasons driving this is the simple fact that many voters are not paying close attention to the election, including the ins and outs of the GOP nomination process.

“You can’t conceive of how tuned out these folks are,” one senior campaign official said.

To that end, Biden campaign officials see the task of helping voters recognize that Trump is a strong frontrunner as one of their most important and urgent challenges, with the first GOP caucus in Iowa now just days away. A key part of that work is painting a vivid picture of what a second term of a Trump White House would look like.

At some point in the near future, Biden campaign officials say they expect that a switch will turn on for many of these voters who are not yet convinced that Trump is likely to be on the ballot in the fall. As one senior official put it, a realization will hit: “Oh s—, it is an election between that guy and that guy.”

But what’s impossible for the campaign to predict at this point in the election cycle is when exactly it will click for voters that “that guy” – Trump – is poised to be the GOP presidential nominee. Just 20% of the public has been paying a lot of attention to the 2024 presidential campaign, according to an AP-NORC poll from the end of last year; meanwhile, 47% said they have paid little or no attention.

I’ve come to really love my Ariana Grande Theory of Politics, because it is mine, but also because It Is Correct.

And in this context, the theory really does provide grounds for optimism about the possibility that Trump’s presidential campaign could be an unambiguous disaster for reactionary authoritarianism in this country, featuring not only a huge popular vote and decisive EC defeat, but also plenty of reverse coattails, and a Democratic trifecta.

Here’s why: A huge percentage of the voting public has no idea that Trump is going to be the Republican nominee. And why? Because if you don’t pay attention to politics except very intermittently, the whole idea that he would be the nominee sounds completely nuts. I mean first off didn’t he lose already? Are you even allowed to be the nominee again if you’ve lost? Also, didn’t I hear a story about how he’s about to go on trial for some crime or crimes? Also my friend who is on Facebook tells me a jury found him guilty for raping a porn star, and she’s very knowledgable. And wait, I may be forgetting some details, but I seem to remember he tried to, like, overthrow the government or something when he lost the last time?

“YOU CANNOT CONCEIVE OF HOW TUNED OUT THESE FOLKS ARE.”

Oh but I can.

The point being, Trump’s supporters are all in, but the people who don’t pay attention are not only not all in, they’re playing serious catchup with current events, and current events actually look really bad for Trump if you’re not in the cult. Now look I get it — 40% of the voting public is either in the cult or along for the ride, and that’s horrendous, but that’s nowhere near enough to win, even in our White Conservatives Get to Play Politics on the Easy Setting system. And therefore there’s a real chance that Ariana Grande, or at least her theory, is going to save us.

If so, the 15 second mark of this video will be every decent person on Election Night, at the moment the race gets called: