Trump's lawsuit against Ann Selzer is textbook #authoritarianism

Reading the complaint in Donald Trump’s lawsuit against
pollster #Ann #Selzer
over her 2024 poll that found Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa,
it’s hard not to give in to thoughts of how comically obscene it is.

The suit stretches the interpretation of the relevant law
— Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act
— well past the breaking point.

It leans heavily on “facts” that are nothing but Trump quoting Trump about being mad.

It spends a good deal of time citing hard-right outlets like Breitbart as if they are neutral.

It’s hard not to laugh at how absurd it is.

-- But then you remember that ABC just gave Trump a total of $16 million rather than fight the paper-thin defamation lawsuit he brought against them.

And that even after ABC knuckled under, Trump still haslawsuits against CBS, Simon & Schuster, and CNN.

And then you also remember that Trump has stated he’s going to use all his might
— and that of the government
— to bury media he doesn’t like.

All of this makes trying to rationally assess whether the lawsuit will succeed nearly impossible.

Trump can afford to go scorched earth whether his claims have any merit or not.

He has bottomless wealth,
particularly regarding legal fees,
as he’s made his donors cover at least $100 million of them so far.

He’s utterly unconcerned about whether something is true,
and he seems to have a never-ending stream of lawyers willing to step up
even though several have ended up facing sanctions, criminal charges, or both.

Put simply, he has no incentive to back down, ever.

All that being said, the lawsuit against Selzer is still straight-up trash,
even if it’s trash that somehow manages to succeed because of the unique blend of horrible characteristics exclusive to Trump

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-ann-selzer-lawsuit-explained?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Trump’s retribution may focus on individuals,
but it’s a collective harm
-- So it makes sense to spread the cost of dealing with it.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory and promised revenge tour,
a number of individuals have proposed the creation of an organization or fund
which would take on the job of defending the various lawsuits, prosecutions and generalized legal harassment Trump will bring to the table in the next four years.

It’s a very good idea.
It’s a necessary one.

So a few days ago I started reaching out to some people in the legal world and anti-Trump world to find out what’s going on,

whether any efforts are afoot and who is doing what.

What I found out is that there are at least a couple groups working toward doing something like this.

But the efforts seem embryonic.

Or at least I wasn’t able to find out too much.

The overnight news that Trump is now suing #Ann #Selzer and the #Des #Moines #Register over her final election poll for “election interference” makes me think that these efforts aren’t coming together soon enough
or can’t come together soon enough.

(If you’re not familiar with the details, Selzer is a pollster of almost legendary status
and in what turned out to be her final public poll, dramatically missed not only the result of the election but the whole direction of it.)

Let’s take the Selzer/Des Moines Register suit as our example.

Trump is claiming that he was damaged and should be made whole
because of a poll that showed him behind and turned out to be wrong.

His lawyers are trying to shoe-horn this claim into an Iowa consumer fraud statute.

But we shouldn’t be distracted by that.
The idea that a political candidate has a cause of action over a poll is absurd on its face.

And really that is precisely the point.

Trump casts penumbras of power and fear with talk; he holds public space; he keeps opponents off balance and guessing.

This is another example.

A lot of the power and point of such an exercise is precisely the absurdity of it.

It is meant to spur a chorus of “You can’t do that” and
“How can he do that?”

But he does do it.

We have that same mixture of outrage, incomprehension, uncanny laughter,
the upshot of which is an overwhelming and over-powering belief that the rules somehow don’t apply to this guy.

That’s his power and that is the point.

It is a performance art of power enabled by a shameless abuse of the legal system

Trump’s opponents need to learn to speak in that language.

Otherwise it’s a professional wrestling grudge match,
a taunt-fest with only one side taunting.

I fear some folks simply don’t get this dimension of what’s going on.

It’s not something you learn in law school and not in conventional, old-style politics either.

Defending the targets is key. But that’s not the only point or even the main one.

It’s about demonstrating the limits of Trump’s power and embarrassing him, President or not.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-big-pile-of-money-and-lawyering-to-defend-trumps-legal-targets

In the #Selzer poll, senior women went for Harris 63%-28%. Overall in the poll, #Iowa women chose #Harris 56%-36%.

Iowa's strict, 6-week #abortion ban certainly played a role.

In a 1973 post-Roe poll on abortion availability in Des Moines hospitals, #men were even more supportive than #women, and overall support was very high.

#reproductiverights #election2024 #trump #scotus #roevwade

So I've watched a few interviews with #Iowa pollster Ann #Selzer, and I think I've figured out how her #polls differ from other pollsters. First a summary of her approach. She does random digit dialing and weights on the demographics (factors) sex, age, and geography. Race is ignored because Iowa is overwhelmingly white. She does the polls until she has enough sample for the weighted factors. The actual numbers for the demographics are known from the census.

#uspol #uspolitics #poll

I just watched a YouTube channel that specifically exists to talk about elections and polling give unqualified praise to the #Selzer (#Iowa) track record, then list the flawless record of the polling.

Then he mentioned the “Harris +3” prediction and said, “now, Harris ISN’T going to win Iowa.”

I cannot tell you what the guy said after that because I switched off the video.