This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

Seems everyone has their knickers in a twist about the recent polling showing Donald Trump ahead in the battleground states.  A poll is nothing but an advertisement for a point of view. It depends on who they’re asking versus what they want the poll to say. What people say to a pollster over the phone or outside Walmart or outside the country club. It’s not always what they ask, but where they ask it.

Twain called it, “Lies, damn lies and statistics.” Back in my past life in Montgomery, the newspaper (loose description) liked to use polls and strangely for some odd reason. Their polls always agreed with their own point of view. Are corporate taxes too high? We interviewed 300 people at the Annual Chamber of Commerce dinner, and 94% said, “Yes! Our corporate taxes are too high!”

I remember in the last election cycle these same polls forecasting doom! The difference between the earth being struck by a meteor and being missed by a million miles. One is a front-page story; the other is a nothing burger. “Make Show!” You have to fill the page with something interesting. “Scientists brace for possible end of the world collision with Certain Death!”

We interviewed 500 residents at the Over the Hills and Far Away Nursing home in Terminus, Florida, about their choice for President. We interviewed 500 residents at the Villages or the local VFW lodge. We interviewed 500 Alabamians for their Presidential choice. We interviewed 500 members at the Scared Bleeding-heart Evangelical Temple and the end times publications L.LC.

Look at the polling inside the Republican Party. Trump polls between 40 and 50% inside the Party. Trump has half of his Party in his pocket. The other 50% are mainly free radicals, most of whom would like to see Trump swallowed up whole by the earth with a full memory wipe. So, it is illogical that Trump polls so much stronger outside the party than inside of it. Unless the sample is biased.

Of any 100 voters interviewed, more than 50 won’t ever show up to the polls anyway. Either forgot to vote or couldn’t make it, in jail or too drunk, ex-felon, something. So, what people tell pollsters and get in the car and go vote about are vastly different.

This is not to say that Trump doesn’t have support. Trump’s support is a mile wide and an inch deep. To the unsophisticated voter, who else is there, besides Trump? There’s Ron, that little guy fighting with Mickey Mouse and that big overweight guy and that Mickey woman. Political junkies can spell Ramaswamy from memory, but most voters aren’t political junkies.

Inside the Republican Party a Civil War is going on. The battle for speaker was the battle of the ideolog versus the practical path forward. Mike, what’s his name, puts forth a bill declared dead on arrival by his own party. But he put’s the bill forward, anyway, firing blanks to make a joyful noise with the in crowd. “Watch us accomplish nothing! For your fun and amusement!” This is great stuff for Fox News headlines but accomplishes nothing.

I wonder sometimes if a Christo-fascist prototype Mike. Wasn’t just the mainstream Republican parties attempt to placate the nutballs. To let them have their way to see for themselves, obtuseness doesn’t work any better than Kevin McCarthy’s approach. Sooner or later comes a time when you have to get off the pot and do something legislative.

A political ploy that plays well with the base and only with the base. Dragging their feet headed for a shutdown…again. And every time Republicans shut down the government, they lose at the ballot box. What was that well known definition of insanity again?

So, Trump has 50% of the Republican vote and Zero percent of the Democratic vote. Take the independent voters and the six RFK voters and just for sport, divide them straight down the middle. How can Trump be ahead in Battleground states? If he’s just barely winning in his own party? It’s a Trump bites man story.

“Oh no, be afraid, be very afraid. Trump is ahead in battleground states! Get the cyanide down from the cupboard!”

A tendency to see Trump as ten foot tall with laser eyes and a grenade launcher on his head. Sun Tzu says all difficulties are the same. If you are cold your opponent is also cold. Trump has more deficiencies than could be counted by simple common numbers. Fighting a legal octopus with one hand and running for office with the other.

Trump is facing the long arm of the law. And the long arm has Trump by his nuts. Trump can vent and spew all he wants but guilt has already been established. This is the penalty phase and at the end of the day, the Trump histrionics are being aimed at the man who will judge Trump’s fate. Go ahead, insult him, and call him names. What could it hurt? Trump is playing chicken with a freight train. “Come on Mr. Big Freight Train! You don’t scare me!”

Famous last words. How bad could Trump’s legal battles become before next year? It boggles the mind just to imagine. “Ah, Mr. Trump, the court is going to need a check today for $250 million big ones. You do have $250 million big ones in cash, don’t you? Mr. Trump?”

A poll a year out from election day. Or as Ben Franklin said, “News today, fish wrapper tomorrow.”

“Dewey Defeats Truman!” A recent poll finds Americans want a space-based laser system and more oil pipelines. Americans are tiring of electric vehicles; a fossil fuel group finds. No connection between smoking and cancer says tobacco group study! Trump ahead in battleground states!

“All media is propaganda” – George Orwell