Selected Statements I Made Prior to the 2016 Election
I am writing this to document some of my older election Facebook posts because it takes too long to scroll and find them. There were many Democrats who took Donald Trump seriously and were very worried about him — far in advance of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. That’s why I was in Columbus, Ohio for voter protection.
Here are a few of my posts:
May 13, 2016
“Because I am solution-oriented, I will also add more suggestions and reach out to the Hillary campaign myself. Here are two:
First, if Hillary Clinton wants to beat Donald Trump, I think she’s got to select Elizabeth Warren as VP. This will electrify Democrats. And I was personally impressed by Warren’s response to Trump last week. Trump, an insecure man, attacked Warren reverse-psychology-bully-wise because he secretly does not want to run against her.
Second, Hillary Clinton is not going to out brand a marketing genius. So her campaign should have a weekly contest where voters themselves can come up with their own Trump nickname for the week. Voters should be able to tweet, email, or call it in. Then, Hillary can announce it at each of her rallies that week. Anyone who has ever read the comments in a Reddit post knows the collective wit of the Internet will out-brand Trump easily.
Please pass this along to the campaign if you know someone. I will as well.
Have a great weekend!”
May 18, 2016
“Also, everything you’ve heard about the polls is true — they aren’t going to be so reliable this year. We have a sort of reverse-Bradley effect going on because there are a lot of people who like what Trump says, but just don’t want to express that publicly or tell a pollster. As far as I’m concerned — for either the Hillary or Bernie campaign — any poll with a lead of under ten should be nerve-racking. The fact that you can say and do what Trump has said and done and be just ten points from the White House is the canary in the coal mine. Also, Mr. Trump’s list of Supreme Court nominees again dominates the news cycle and assures a Republican base that is beginning to rally behind him (remember Cruz’s critique that Trump would appoint “liberal” justices?). Hillary’s campaign better engage quickly, as I’ve been saying for months, and generate its own news coverage with its own bold proposals for the the country. If Trump is not defined properly for what he is by summer’s end, we will have to start preparing Cory Booker for 2020 (his Senate term ends in 2020 incidentally).”
August 2, 2016
“This is perhaps the most important clip you can watch this election cycle. To my knowledge, it is absolutely unprecedented for a sitting U.S. president to make a statement like this, and it absolutely needed to be said. Never before have two candidates presented such differing views of America. In a very real sense, in just one day, on November 8, 2016, we are going to learn more about ourselves as a country than we have learned from every single sociological, economic, and historical report in the last 35 years combined.”
September 7, 2016
“It appears the new Trump slogan is ‘Make America Russia Again’”
October 25, 2016
“Everyone, I really hope you can vote this cycle because this election may be tighter than polls indicate. We can’t confuse the “likely-to-win” models (538, NYT) with actual polls, and, further, these actual polls differ on their likely voter criteria (how to predict if someone will actually vote). This dramatically alters the polls. Plus, some key states have actors actively trying to suppress the vote. Moreover, I’m seeing widely different polls depending on when you poll or who conducts the polls. Pushing further, don’t forget that even the 538 model briefly had Trump up mid-summer. You might say that a lot has happened since then, and you’d be right, but think of all that had happened before then, which should have disqualified Trump in the first place. Anyway, one thing I recently recalled is that Gallup, basically the biggest name in polls, decided in 2015 not to poll this election in a candidate vs. candidate way. It seems like the pollsters may have disagreement amongst themselves on how to poll in the age of Snapchat and when it’s the norm to screen calls, etc. The Hillary campaign will have the most accurate data, but it’s internal. I’m writing this because too many people think this is election is already over. We all should remember that if Ray Allen can hit that shot in Game 6, anything can happen.”
November 3, 2016
“Attention Democrats: it is now time to panic. I hate that I have to say this, but it’s true. We need to be calling into the swing states all weekend to move this thing. Click the link below, and start tomorrow!!! I was calling today, and the Hillary GOTV lists have lots of disconnected numbers, which means they haven’t been called through enough (disconnected numbers should have been flagged and removed by now). You just have to tell people how awful Trump makes you feel. It’s now or never. I’ll even be in Columbus, Ohio for the election. Democrats, if we don’t make these calls, Trump is going to send us so far back in time you wouldn’t believe it. #GOTV”
