Probably. It worked well enough for Putin.

So, his convention is over. He's running against crime (blacks). Or perhaps the other way around. That said, the most recent poll that checked found that crime is the top issue for 4% of the respondents. So the 'undecided' that he needs to pull 4 to 1 over Biden, and are actually losing 3 to 2, aren't going to flock to him in droves over this one. But one supposes he's kind of stuck; he can only run as the anti black/woman/liberal/Jesus candidate. He's nullified any other kind of pitch.

We're talking about a guy who deliberately exposes his supporters to Covid to own the libs.

So no, he's not got any reasonable pitch. He's trying to scare people into not voting for Biden by invoking the nightmare scenarios that already exist.

It's a matter of whether turnout can overwhelm the voter suppression.

It occurred to someone that Trump supporters may have boats. And in theory a bunch of folks on boats is socially distanced, while displaying that they have benefited from Republican racism and corruption and fully intend to keep supporting them. So what could go wrong with a bunch of said boat owners staging a water born rally?

Well, the fact that they're rabidly selfish Republicans should have been a strong hint. Everyone did their own thing, safety rules were ignored, and a bunch of lower riding and cheaper boats got sunk by the resulting chop. So the unconcerned rich had fun and the poor got screwed: it was the perfect Trump rally.

Now that Trump is openly endorsing self-appointed vigilantes, I'm worried the US is getting to the "roving regime-friendly paramilitary forces" part of democratic collapse. You think you're gonna really have a free and fair election?

Much more alarming then Trump endorsing vigilantes is IMHO, that the police seems to be happy to cooperate with them.

Oh look, a recording of Trump openly admitting that he lied to the public about the dangers of coronavirus back in February. The only thing I am wondering here is why did he allow himself to be recorded?

I've seen it said that the original idea was Jared's, but remember that Donald is incredibly stupid and completely psychopathic. He literally doesn't understand that if it's good for him and bad for other people then it isn't just fine; and so when he's not in grifter mode he'll come right out with it. He's done it repeatedly.

Since he's nailed down on tape he can't claim it's fake news so he's got no choice but to double down on "I LIED TO YOU FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!!!". Which the base is swallowing because it's a cult.

Well, yes; but this is the same Republican party where 53% were willing to come out and admit that it doesn't matter how many people have died during the epidemic, the number is acceptable to them. Even if that's all the Republicans who think so (and there's little reason to believe that), it's not likely he'll alienate any of them over his deliberate mishandling of things.

Now where this may be a problem for him are the pig ignorant and the 'want to vote Republican but like to pretend they have scruples' voters. This is the kind of thing the first crowd may hear and the second crowd will have a hard time rationalizing. But probably more importantly: every day that Trump and his fellow travelers have to lie that Trump isn't as awful as he really is, is a day that they can't lie that Biden is as bad as Trump.

You seem to be working under the assumption that Trumpist lies need to be internally consistent, which, er... They say whatever they want.

Where I am more encouraged are the signs that Trump no longer resonates emotionally with voters who aren't totally committed to owning the libs. Suburban women are getting sick of his stupid, petty angry schtick.

It's not a matter of Trump's base; they're irrelevant. The folks he needs to lie to now do need moderately coherent lies. But more importantly, the press has the attention span of a cranky three year old. They won't talk about Trump's lies that Biden is as bad as he is if what they're interested in is how truly awful Trump is. So effectively it's physically impossible for him to lie about both to anyone but the irrelevant, who watch networks created to not talk about how awful Trump is even if that is what will sell more toothpaste.

The previously Republican suburban women aren't so much tired of Trump's style as annoyed that the GOP meant them when it said that women are nothing but sexual surrogates and second class citizens. They had been pretending 'oh, they don't mean me' until the party grabbed them by the scruff of the neck and shoved them face first into a steaming pile of their own hypocrisy in order to get a rapist onto the Supremes. That, they feel, is bad.

To be honest, I think it's more the ineffectual-screaming-while-Rome-burns (Trump lacking the artistic talent for fiddling) that's pushing women away than Trump's misogyny, which was already out in the open 4 years ago. Who's taken the brunt of the coronavirus job losses and childcare burden? That's right, women.

Trump flailing around and ranting maliciously about imaginary threats while conspicuously failing to protect anyone from real threats has got to be getting old to women worrying about losing their jobs, homes and health insurance while wrangling screaming children for 6 months straight because it's too dangerous to send them to school.

(And to be honest, I don't think logical consistency in messaging matters that much for swing voters either. Voters just aren't that logical in the way they make choices. There's a lot of social conformity and emotion in the equation.)

I think an other factor is, that Trump did not deliver on some promises, that made people vote for him.

"the ecconomy will run smoothy, because i have great ecconomy kung fu and will be stingy on bleeding hearts projects, that don't have shortterm gains for the mainstream" -> Regardless what you believe about the virus, everybody agrees that the ecconomy is in trouble.

"I will keep the ghetto-rabble away from your neighbourhoods, by being mean and threatening towards them, so they don't get ideas." -> Whatever you believe about racial justice and policing, things are definitly not calm and quiet right now.

So while before, you needed to be politically literate, to know that his means will not achieve the ends he promised, now you have proof, that the ends were not met.

Yes, but not the women I was referring to. Working class white women are getting hosed by him and his party, and that's costing them a fair amount of support; but they were used to being thought of as second class citizens. The well to do/upper middle class? They're over the economic downturn for the moment. Heck, the average wage in this country has been going up while the stock market recovers; all of which is a pretty strong hint about just who is actually getting rehired and who's IRAs are back in the black. The opposition of those women to Trump and his party is more personal.

The corporate lawyers and i-bankers, yeah they're probably fine. There's also not very many of them as a voting pool, and the hyper-educated affluent (outside of some Silicon valley libertarian bros) weren't a major pool of Trump support to begin with. He was always too racist and crude.

The ones to watch are ordinary white collar drones - the accountants, real estate agents, marketing assistants and dental hygienists, whose husbands are probably middle managers at construction businesses and truck parts wholesalers - you've got to watch. These middle class folks still need their salaries way more than they need their retirement accounts, and the pandemic has not exactly been a picnic for them. And they're probably watching their more Trumpy relatives running around maskless and getting infected while Trump himself encourages this stupidity.