Trump Lost, but He Can Still Win

Donald Trump clearly lost what is likely to be the one and only debate of this presidential campaign. But he can still win the election. In fact, there is one path he has taken already that he could still use: the one that helped him defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2 million votes. But she lost in a decisive fashion where it mattered most: the Electoral College, where Trump won with 306 electors to Clinton’s mere 232.

In 2016, Trump won three key and typically Democratic states by less than 30,000 votes. These states were Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, where the race is just as tight this year as it was in 2016. A total of 46 electors made the difference between the candidates.

The Electoral College was created to keep the biggest states from holding too much power. As such, a small state cannot have fewer than three electors. This is also the size of the minimum state delegation to Congress in Washington.

Thus Wyoming, with a population of just under 600,000, has three electors, the same number as Delaware with a population of more than 1 million. That same Wyoming has one elector for every 192,000 residents, while states like California or Texas have one for every 700,000.

Since a majority of less-populated states traditionally votes Republican, Trump has a real mathematical advantage.

The possibility of an Electoral College advantage is still relevant and remains an opportunity for Trump, especially given that polls are still within the margin of error in six or seven key states.

But there are other factors that could work in the Republican candidate’s favor. In 2016, there was not such an impressive media ecosystem firmly planted on the right and openly backing Trump.

Of course, Fox News already existed, but while there were even more conservative networks like One America or Newsmax, they were far from having the audience they do today.

These networks are significant because they push all conservative media outlets further to the right. For example, during the endless vote counting after the last presidential election, Fox News was initially lukewarm to the idea of spreading Trump’s accusations of voter fraud. It quickly reversed course when it realized that its viewers preferred the Trumpist version of history and had deserted Fox for two of its rival conservative networks.

As early as Tuesday night and Wednesday, the three conservative networks together repeated accusations from the Trump camp against ABC, the network that hosted the presidential debate, saying the moderators dared contradict the former president on certain false statements that he made, including the widely circulated lie about illegal immigrants killing and eating cats and dogs.

In fact, local authorities in Springfield, Ohio, assert that nothing of the kind occurred, and that the immigrant community in their city mainly comprises Haitians who came to the United States and live here legally.

What is relatively new is the existence of a vast MAGA galaxy deployed across the internet with distribution lists where one can catch up on the latest news from the movement.

Parenthetically, the author thanks the anonymous reader who subscribed, though without consent, to one daily briefing website called American Greatness. Yes, like “Make America Great Again.” It is an endless source of fearmongering and fake news, often very entertaining.

This is how, every day, one can find articles like this one on Wednesday morning: “Taylor Swift Endorses Kamala Harris after a Biased Debate.” Or an article saying that Harris will soon appear on the cover of Vogue, “an extreme-left publication.”

But what is most intriguing on these sites is the fearmongering on the inherent risks of keeping one’s savings in American dollars.

There are innumerable ads for cryptocurrency. On American Greatness, there is an ad for a precious metals dealer who rehashes a 1966 remark by former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, according to whom, “deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth.”

Conclusion: The federal government is preparing to raid your bank account, and you would be well advised to buy gold bullion. And, good news, we sell gold!

A whole MAGA infrastructure, independent of traditional media, is spreading the good news about Trump — so many useful relays that did not exist in 2016 are at his disposal today.