The Most Active Threads Since Friday

The most active thread over the weekend was titled, "Harris beating Trump in Iowa" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. For years, the Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll has been referred to as the "gold standard" for polls of Iowa politics. Pollster J. Ann Selzer has not been afraid to deviate from conventional wisdom and other pollsters and has often announced findings that are surprising at the time but later prove prescient. In 2016, Selzer spotted a trend toward former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump that other pollsters had missed. Her polling predicted that Trump would win Iowa by 7 points. He ended up winning by 9. Four years later, the DMR poll showed that Trump would win Iowa by 7. The actual result was Trump winning by 8 points. Selzer's final poll of this cycle showing Vice President Harris leading Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters was easily the most surprising news over the weekend. For Democrats, this was an invigorating shot of adrenaline. Democrats are by nature a pessimistic bunch, likely to see black clouds regardless of the amount of sunshine. For once, they began showing a hint of optimism as a result of the poll findings. Selzer found that the impetus for Harris' lead was support from older women. For many DCUM posters, this was not surprising because, they argued, many of these women had lived in a world where abortion was prohibited and were well aware of the dangers such a state of affairs can bring. They are furious about rights being stripped away. Moreover, this is one of the most dependable voting blocks in existence. As such, the Iowa findings might also translate to other states. The general attitude among DCUM liberal posters was that even if Trump were to pull out a slim victory in Iowa — something that is within the DMR poll's margin of error — he would be in terrible circumstances nationwide. The conservative response was one of disbelief and anger. Ignoring Selzer's history of accurately predicting Trump victories, Republican posters accused the poll of being a "Democratic poll," something that is obviously not true. Some suggested that Selzer had been bribed by the Democrats. Others argued that she is retiring and that the poll was her parting gift to Democrats. Others pointed to poll results by Emerson that were released the same day. That poll showed Trump leading by 10%. However, the DMR poll has a much better record than Emerson. Many of the conservative posters mocked liberals for taking the DMR results seriously, saying that there is no way that Iowa would vote for Harris. There is no doubt that if this poll turns out to be a big miss, it will be reputation-ending for Selzer. On the other hand, if the results are correct, it is likely that Trump has no hope of winning the election. As one pundit in my social media feeds said, this poll will either be the end of Selzer or Trump. They both can't survive these poll results.

The weekend's next most active thread was one posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. Titled, "Hayfield Football Coach Fired", the thread is nominally about an assistant football coach at Fairfax County Public School's Hayfield Secondary School being arrested after having a conversation with a 16-year-old boy about meeting up to smoke marijuana. The meeting ultimately did not take place, and the assistant coach's contract was immediately cancelled. However, Hayfield's football program has been controversial even before this episode, and the thread almost immediately encompassed the football program more broadly. The Hayfield football team was the subject of a previous "most active" thread about which I wrote some time ago. The allegations in the previous thread involved the head football coach who had come to Hayfield from another school and, allegedly, recruited former players to transfer to Hayfield. Whether these transfers were legal due to families moving into areas zoned for Hayfield or as a result of falsified residency was hotly disputed. What is not in dispute is that the Hayfield team, fairly or not, is very good. On the evening of the day this thread was created, Hayfield was ahead of Falls Church High School 42-0 before the game even reached halftime. While this thread was created in early October, it received considerable attention over the weekend because of a new development involving the football team. According to media reports, the Virginia High School League (VHSL) banned the football team from competing in playoff games for two years. It later turned out that this was actually a recommendation and not an actual decision. For reasons that are not clear to me, VHSL did not explain what violation led to the proposed ban. Therefore, posters in this thread engaged in rampant speculation, with some suggesting the recruiting scandal must have led to the suggested punishment and others arguing that ineligible players had been allowed to participate in games. This was unlikely because Hayfield was not forced to forfeit any games. Hayfield has the opportunity to contest the recommended ban and will likely do so today. Earlier, FCPS conducted an investigation into possible recruiting violations and issued a report exonerating the football program. Now those posters who assume that the proposed playoff ban is due to a recruiting scandal argued that the school district had conducted a cover-up. There are calls for all sorts of FCPS administrators to be fired. One rumor in the thread is that VHSL was able to obtain texts showing Hayfield coaches involved in recruiting, leading to the ban. This surprises some posters who wonder why such texts were not uncovered during the FCPS investigation. Others found the specter of a high school sports league wiretapping phones or subpoenaing phone companies to be unlikely. "This isn’t an FBI case", said one poster. Hayfield supporters argue that VHSL has not informed the high school of any violations and that the league simply caved into outside pressure. Moreover, supporters suspect that there might be racial motivation for punishing the school.

Next was a thread titled, "Halloween dis-invitation" and posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The original poster said that her middle-school-aged son had been planning to go trick-or-treating with a friend, but the day before Halloween, the friend had informed her son that he was going with someone else instead. The original poster's son then asked a group of kids with whom he walks to and from school if he could join them, but was turned down because they were attending a "private" event. The original poster's son is understandably hurt but unwilling to talk much about the situation. The original poster wants advice about how to help her son through this disappointment as well as to identify any possible contribution he may have made to the situation. The first thing I should say is, "hats off" to the original poster. She is clearly a level-headed and caring mother. She was receptive to advice and responded with appreciation. She kept a sense of humor when the thread took an unexpected turn and erupted in disagreement and animosity. Quite a few posters made good-faith efforts to offer helpful advice, and several posters expressed sympathy, noting how difficult it can be for a parent to see their child excluded. A number of posters brought up the topic of hosting pre-trick-or-treating parties. In some cases, these were suggestions for a way the original poster's child could control his own social life rather than being at the behest of others. For example, one poster stated, "Why would you wait for other people to include or exclude your child? You have your own damn party and you make sure to be inclusive to everyone." Other posters objected to parents getting involved and parties becoming part of the Halloween tradition. As one poster put it, "I think part of the problem is that there’s ‘hosting’ involved at all. The pre-parties and the group pic for social media—it’s turned a relatively simple, sweet holiday into yet another opportunity to reinforce your tribe." Soon the thread was dominated by posters disagreeing about parties, or more specifically, the parents' involvement in them. Posters who described hosting parties were accused of making things about them and ruining the tradition. In response, posters said their involvement amounted to simply ordering pizza. Otherwise, their kids handled everything. This, in turn, led to accusations that they were disengaged parents whose kids probably excluded others. Posters seem to see things in extremes. On one hand, posters argued that parents need to be involved and ensure that their kids are inclusive and that nobody is left out. Anything short of this was mannerless and would result in raising rude kids who excluded others. On the other hand, parents were supposed to remain completely out of the picture but teach their kids how to react to being excluded. Similarly,there was a debate about whether other kids' parents should be invited to these parties. This was a surprisingly heated debate that is currently 21 pages long. The original poster seemed a bit stunned by how the thread devolved, at one point asking, "How did this turn into crazy town?"

The final thread that I will discuss today is another one from the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "I don’t get it!", the original poster describes herself as a "hard core" Republican who voted for Republicans from 1976 until 2020 when she voted for Vice President Joe Biden. She cannot understand how former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump can be close to winning this election. She notes that he has lost the support of most of his former cabinet members, former members of the military leadership, and many of his former staffers. She says, "If it’s not a cult I don’t know what it is." Unfortunately, as I always emphasize when writing about Trump, MAGA is a cult. There is an entire ecosystem devoted to exaggerating any flaw in society and blaming it on Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Actual flaws are blown out of proportion. Problems that have complex origins are laid squarely, and simplistically, at the feet of Biden and Harris. Biden and Harris' accomplishments are ignored or misrepresented. In some cases, Trump is given credit for the achievements of the current administration, and Biden and Harris are blamed for developments that occurred under Trump. The main motivating factor for MAGAs is resentment. Everyone is out to get them. Hence, Trump's claims that he is fighting for them and that he is a victim of attacks meant for his supporters. The "government" and the "liberals" are taking their jobs, ruining their quality of life, and marginalizing their place in society through regulations, benefits to minorities, and the encouragement of immigration. Their country is being destroyed, and their lives along with it. They are surrounded all day long by messaging reinforcing these ideas. Any attempt to challenge their thinking is likely to result in an accusation that you are living in a bubble and should get out of it and see the real world. This is a stunning accusation coming from folks who live inside one of the most hermetically sealed bubbles that has ever existed. It can't be said that Trump doesn't know his audience. He famously said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would remain loyal. They have certainly demonstrated that this is true. Trump supporters so firmly believe their reality that they even succeed in convincing others that there must be something to it. Similarly, their complete refusal to acknowledge Trump's flaws has resulted in the mainstream media largely ignoring his flaws. The most charitable explanation that I have is that since Trump's flaws don't turn off his supporters, they have very limited significance and, therefore, don't deserve media attention. Just consider how the media treated Biden's cognitive shortcomings to how Trump's mental state is treated. How often have you seen the mainstream media report that Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies and remark on the extraordinary reality that a convicted felon could win the presidency? When Biden was misrepresented to have called Trump supporters "garbage," it was literally front-page news in the so-called "liberal" media. But when Trump referred to his opponents as "vermin", it received much less attention. There is a combination of a separate MAGA reality along with mainstream media that doesn't even try to puncture that reality. Instead, it actually ends up contributing to it. The result is that Trump has a legitimate shot at winning the election.