The Chaser Report - The Harris Optimism Mirage

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

Charles Firth and Dom Knight are on the edge of their seats for the US election results, and in the face of a new poll Charles is willing to make his call on who will be the winner. Meanwhile, Dom reviews Kamala Harris' appearance on SNL, and Donald Trump's ability to open doors. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is the Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Oh, it's so exciting, Charles. The election is almost upon us. What? We need to, we need to, it's, Charles, it's tomorrow. It's finally here. What? It's finally Election Day.

No. In fact, this is the date when people hear this of the election we've been paying attention to for months. I don't know. I don't know what you're doing about. The election has already come and gone. No. We're talking about the most important election in the world this year. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Like, Charles, we've been doing so many episodes.

Yeah. I've been doing all these extra episodes about it. You clearly haven't been listening. No, no. It's today. No, no, no, no, no. It was like last weekend. We're talking about the Queensland state election, aren't we?

The election around which the whole world pivots. How did we forget, Charles, talk about the Queensland election? We got flooded by one text. message. We've got a Queensland listener. A Queensland listener complaining that we hadn't noted that not only had they gone to an election, but actually it was quite a big election in that there was a change of government. The LMP was swept to power. Yes. Yes. Stephen Miles, who we've interviewed in the past, he's got more time to come back on the show now because he's no longer premier. Yes. So I don't know how that escaped our attention. Well, also in Queensland's

uniquely unicameral house where the government can do whatever the hell it wants. with no one to stop it. Yes. Is this going to end wokeness in Queensland? I think it already has. Oh, he has. Yes. Well, there you go.

So now that we've mentioned it, can we talk about something more interesting? Let's talk about the election after this. So, Charles, it is going gangbusters. There haven't been any last minute changes of candidate, although I wouldn't rule it out, or assassination attempts. So we're not quite at the dramatic highs, but an awful lot has happened over the weekend and into today. And there is one thing that, in fact, two things that are actually positive for the Harris campaign,

and then there are lots of things that are. So we start with the things that are positive for the Harris campaign. Okay. So there's a poll in Iowa. Oh, wow, a poll. Which has Harris ahead by, I think it's four points or something. Right. And Iowa wasn't supposed to be competitive at all.

In play. Yeah, so it was supposed to be hard read. And so there's one poll, apparently quite a reputable poll, that has Harris ahead in that state. And this is because women are turning up, right? is the whole thing about the Iowa poll was it's not that men are suddenly voting for Harris, in fact, quite the opposite. Men are massively voting for Trump. Sure.

But it's that the turnout of women outweighs the intensity of love that men have for Trump. Well, this is the second thing that I was going to point to, which is I was listening to the The Restist Politics U.S. edition on the way in here, just to completely rip off what they were saying. And they were saying the early voting, they reckon, 40% to Harris. Now, that's partly because Democrats are nerds, and partly because Democrats are probably scared about going to the polls on Election Day in case there are armed Republicans there, stopping them for voting. 40. What do you mean 40? As in like, there's 40% more of their early votes going to Harris. So, as in a huge sweep.

Which actually proves my theory correct, which is that all the Democrats will have voted by election days. When they start counting on election night, they'll start with the votes that were cast on election day. and it'll all be a Republican. Like, suddenly you'll go, oh, actually, the momentum at the beginning of the night will feel like it's coming for the Republicans. As per last time, we're for many hours, it looked as though Trump had won.

And it was called the Red Mirage. Yes. Because... And then the blue shift. And then the blue shift. So what will happen is that Donald Trump, at the very moment when that stops, he will claim victory and say it's over

and that all the votes cast after this point are invalid. So that was the second point is the early voting. The nerds out there voting for Harris. And this is the theory that a lot of people have been advancing is that women are far more likely to vote because it's so boring and dutiful that Harris may well win on that basis. So those are the good bits of news for Harris. Yes. And should we then pause now for me to pour shit on that or should we keep going with?

We should absolutely pause for you to pour shit on that because there is definitely a sense of optimism about the Harris team creeping through at the last minute, which is exactly what happens to lefties moments before they get an absolute. shalacking. That's the tradition is there's terror and nervousness and then they think, no, no, wait a minute, we've got this. We're on the cause. We've got this. In fact, that's exactly what one Kamala Harris said to the other Kamala Harris on SNL when she had time to pop up for a lovely lovely, lovely left wing cameo. How many people died of cringe after that appearance? Did you see it? I did see it. Did you die of cringe? I mean, the thing that was so weird about it was, It's an idea they've done, like it's literally the same set of the dressing room mirror that they've used many times before when they've had someone parodying the person who's actually there.

So yeah, it was quite unoriginal. The one thing that I liked was that Maya Rudolph still made fun of her laugh in front of her, which I think, you know, it's cute. It is quite a good impression. I'm just here to remind you, you got this. Because you can do something your opponent cannot do. You can open doors. I see what you did.

They're like to a garbage truck, right? I don't really laugh like that, do I? A little bit. But no, look, it was like the thing with Hillary Clinton being the bartender serving Kate McKinnon's version. Hillary, it went beyond, it wasn't satire. It was just wearing your political heart on the sleeve. In a way that, to the chases's credit, we never did,

partly because we don't have any values. So the thing that I would say, Dom, is I've got a few numbers that also sort of seemingly seem good for Harris, but actually there's a real reason why they're terrible. Okay. So the blue optimism mirage is what we're about to do here. So the first one is I saw this great poll, which was not about who's going to vote for what, but it was rating out of 10 the importance that you feel the election is, right? Right.

So people who think the election is 10 out of 10 in terms of importance, they are basically evenly split between Trump and Harris voters, right? Yeah, there's a great stat that the vast majority of Americans think that democracy is in danger in this election, like literally a majority of them, but for completely opposite reasons. opposite reasons, yes. And then so then seven to nine, the people who think that rate the importance of this election seven through to nine out of ten, Harris has a two-point advantage.

So it's basically 48 to 52. So there's sort of the realists who think that it's pretty important, but not. But not. And they will probably turn out because they think it's important. And then the people who think that the election is of zero to six importance are 10 points in favour of Trump. Trump's supporters are people who also, like, skews heavily in favour of people who are also not particularly likely. to turn out. And so you suddenly start doing all these maths in your head.

And this is why I think all the Harris stands are all sort of, oh, maybe we're in with a chance is because you're going, well, how many people who think it's six out of ten important do you need to make up for one, nine out of ten importance person and things of that? The other thing to think about is, you know, it's clear that Gen Z and women are voting in numbers that we have never seen before. Yeah, and the Gen Z one is interesting, because that is one area where I have no idea to what extent celebrity endorsements matter. But it has been quite extraordinary.

Like the likes of kind of bad bunny, Beyonce. There's just an endless A-list parade endorsing Harris. Although, as we know, that can create massive backlash. Yes. As people get the shits with celebrities telling them what to do. But backlash among people who probably... People weren't going to vote anyway. Yeah, we weren't going to vote anyway.

Yeah. So, some stats on that. Traditionally, about 5% of 18 to 25s, like, of the electorate, 5% of voters are 18 to 25. Really? Yep. And this year, it's tracking closer to 9% of voters. So the average American turns 18, gets the right to vote that people fought and died for and goes, nah.

No, no, no, no. It's also to do with how many, like, of the total number of voters, there's far more. more over 65s than anything else. Well, also, and COVID killed so many boomers that presumably the, in the US, that the young people of a larger proportion. But it is, it is true that younger people who tend to be more Harris inclined are turning out in almost double the numbers than they did in the last couple of elections. So just note that if Harris does win in the way that you're describing, it will be because Donald Trump fucked up COVID and a lot of his base died. Literally, it was quite extraordinary. People will have forgotten this. But during the

the last election, it was very clear that Republicans weren't taking any precautions. Democrats are all like, oh, I'm going to do a mail-in ballot. I'm worried about getting the virus. And the Republicans were like, there is no virus. It doesn't exist. And so the death toll amongst Republicans was vastly higher than Democrats. In fact, I think it was one of the great predictors was, are you in a red state or a blue state? Yeah, exactly.

Whether you died or not. Impeach Fauci. So then the other stat, which I thought was quite interesting, is that women traditionally, there's usually a fairly even split gender-wise in turnout. So it's usually 52% women, 48% men. And there are more women alive. And there are more women alive. It's 51-49.

So it's almost exactly tracks according to what the population is. In this election, there is a 12-point gap. So I think it's, the numbers don't quite add up. but it's something like 56% women, 44% men. That's right. Yeah, that'd be 12. Is that a 12 point? Yeah, and that tracks what we were saying before about women turning out.

Yes. And so essentially what you're going is there's a whole lot of younger women, people under 35, who are turning out in this election for the first time because abortion is on the ballot and they have a very specific sort of sense of why it's important to not have their bodies controlled. Because it affects them, and the men in their lives are indifferent. And so who would you prefer to rely on if your future job dependent on it? Would you prefer to rely on a 25-year-old woman who's got a shit together

or a lazy 25-year-old man who's a shit-ed and lazy person? Don't you think 25-year-old men are definitely worse than 25-year-old women? They're much less mature. I remember when we were 25-year-old. They're horribly hopeless and horrible. But no, look, this is another thing that people who want optimism for the Harris side say is that when abortion has been on the ballot, which it literally has been in various kind of ballot measures trying to outlaw or to undo bans around the country, it has generally done very, very well because women have organised and turned up. And in fact, it's a very strong record of pro-choice candidates getting up since Roe v. Wade got overturned. So on that logic, Harris should piss it in.

Yes. But, but. But. And this is the but. Let's take in our break. Build suspense. The Chaser report. News you can't trust.

But. So this is the but which is they're playing two different games. Like Harris wants to win this election democratically. Yeah. The Democrats are trying to. So naive, Charles. Whereas for the Republicans, the game starts on election. night. Like, Trump has already said this to his lieutenant, lieutenants, about we're not even

going to bother with the turnout the vote sort of thing. Like, don't, don't bother with turn out the vote thing. They've actually, the Republicans have actually outsourced their turn out the vote campaigns to America PAC. It's a couple of other texts. I mean, Dave Smith talked about this a lot recently. And this is the beardy Charles of an approach to an election and to democracy, which says, if I lose, it's rigged. If I win, it's fair. If I lose, it's rigged. There's no other possibility or explanation.

And doesn't that just clarify the morality of it for you? And that's the point where you have spent the past four years stacking all the local precinct officers and all the people are supposed to approve the votes. And it actually, and I know this is a trite and tired comparison, but actually it is exactly what Hitler did in 33, right, which is there are a lot of people who were saying to Hitler at the time. If we don't actually get the chancellorship, let's just storm the capital again like we did in 23 with the vehicle. Let's just do it. And Hitler was very big on this idea of, no, we have to win this legally. And that's what the Republicans are trying to do. The Democrats are trying to

win it democratically by getting enough votes. The Republicans are playing a different game, which is, well, it doesn't matter how many votes there are. If we can actually legally throw enough into the system and actually mean that the result is not about the, you know, and the decisions start becoming, or this is too slow, it is not about the number of votes cast. This is now about, you know, which judge is appealing, which judge is appealing, which judge, and then it gets to the Supreme Court. Then the Republicans will win. Or it goes to the House of Representatives where, again, they will win.

They have a control. And so this is a fascinating game that's being played, because as Dave has pointed out on the podcast, after a lot of. last time, they did actually change quite a lot of the laws to prevent some of the stuff going on. So the whole, oh, Mike Pence can simply unilaterally reject the votes. Now, firstly, that's Kamala Harris in this news. In the insane system where one of the candidates is in charge of the overall process for approving the votes. But anyway, so there's that, but then also they've clarified a lot of the laws. So there are more guard rails. But as against that,

Charles, they've had four years. And Matt Bevan's done, if you're listening episodes on this recently, go and listen to those. They have found all. these people to go and serve as local election officials who are simply not going to certify the votes. And that happened in, I think he was saying, in Wayne County in Michigan last time. And it was only at the very end where they went, well, at one point, the Republican said that they'd certify the votes. So we're going to take them as certified. And the state of Michigan went to Joe Biden. But actually, Trump rang them. Trump rang the election officials in Wayne County, which is where, which is the Detroit County, you know, the biggest county in Michigan.

And he personally rang them and said, you know, hold the line. We'll send lawyers. We'll sort you about don't certify the votes. And so if that is done in an organized manner this time, then no one will certify the votes. And it will be a complete state of confusion. And I think what is likely to happen on election night is it will be that they start counting the votes in various parts. And he's Trump appointed election officials. We'll go, I've got a spody sense that there's something untoward, I want to pause all counting until we've got more visibility on this. Sure. And then there will be a court challenge to that. pausing of the thing.

And it'll just be sawdust in the system. And the problem is, that game is, like, I imagine that the Democrats have gamed it out a bit. Yeah, yeah. But this is a game that's never really been played properly before. Well, except in Florida in 2000, in the Bush Gore election, which of course was decided by the Republican-dominated Supreme Court in favor of the Republican candidate. in a completely blatant example of just partisanship. But the thing that Trump's side will have is the element of surprise.

Like, we don't quite know exactly how they're going to use all these appointees that they've got running around. But we just know that they will. I'm not sure the Democrats are fleet-footed enough to be able, especially as Democrats strike me as fairly just conventional, technocratic political professionals. You know, like, that's, who is a Kamala Harris employee at the moment, the campaign employee? They're people who've been bouncing around. Oh, they're optimistic nerds. Yeah, Charles, you're forgetting one factor in all this. One factor that's going to guarantee that the election is free and fair and the right side wins.

Okay. You're forgetting the most important player who doesn't get the credit, who doesn't get mentioned, the number one person in this system who's going to deliver a free and fair election. Joe Biden, the President of the United States. He's going to get up there. And he will give a rousing address to the nation. He will take the Oval Office and the bully puppet. And he's not a candidate.

No. He can rise above it. And what he will do is what he's done in this campaign. He will come out and say exactly the wrong word and deliver the election to Team Trump. And he'll have the best of intentions. Yeah. He will come out and say something like, oh, the Trump supporters are garbage. And what he'll mean was,

Oh, that one guy at the Madison Square Garden Rally was really racist. But instead, what he'll do is completely undermine what if it meant to him, Kamala Harris, has just got. This election was rigged. Yes. He's what he would say. And then he'd come back, oh, I meant to say it wasn't. Wasn't. Wasn't it wasn't rigged.

Look at the transcript. We'll edit the transcript. So, yeah, so Joe Biden, I mean, but in all seriousness, though, he does, he is going to have the ability to, you know, send in the troops. and basically launch his own coup. He won't do that because he's a boring sort of law. But he's got to, what would Donald Trump do? Donald Trump was still president. He'd call him the National Guard.

He'd call in the Army. I wonder whether, I mean, everyone's saying it's very close. But actually, Nate Silver's done a brilliant takedown of the idea that it's close today. Has he? Yes. Well, he's been saying it's Trump for a long time. Is his theory now that it's Trump? No, he's gone the other way.

His theory is now that the polls are completely untrue. Yeah, I mean, that does seem of the most likely outtime is that it's just all bullshit. He said there's a one in nine trillion chance that these polls are in any way accurate because his point is that if the polls were actually working, like if it was genuinely tied as an election, then in all these different swing states, like there's seven swing states where it's essentially tied, then because margin of errors tend to be about 3%. What you'd see is a natural spread between plus three and minus three between all those poles. Because they're all so close.

They're all bullshit because it's so unlikely that everyone would just... And there's so many adjustments that they make for turnout and stuff like that. To try and avoid being wrong. So they're actually overcorrecting. They're overcorrecting and there's something like the sheep effect. Like he posted a whole... Oh, sheep. A whole lot of emojis of sheep.

So when one poll goes, oh, we better adjust for this. But a couple of points on this, because Chas and I did a very long episode a few weeks ago where we talked a little bit about this. And there are so many reasons not to believe the polls. And one of them is that it's very hard, and we talked today about this as well, it's really hard to actually work out if someone's going to vote or not, even if they say they are. Yes. And that's where the sort of organised young woman thing might come in.

But also, we haven't seen groups of voters like this before, as you say, People are voting like never before. Yes. People of colour are doing things that they haven't. There hasn't been a candidate like Kamala Harris before. No one knows. No one knows what women of colour will do when there's a woman of colour on the ballot because it never has been.

So how do you adjust your polls for a scenario we've never seen before? So yeah, we can safely, despite having done months of podcasts on the polls, we can basically just ignore them. So I'm ready to call it now, Dom. Again. Yeah. Producer Lachlan, let's have a drum roll in the mix just for a moment here. Okay.

Here, yeah, Charles Firth is ready. to call the 2024 presidential election again. I've sent enough, Dom. And I'm willing to say it's going to be a Harris landslide. Really? Yeah, I think so. You're that optimistic right now? Because I think what's going to happen is the Iowa result, the Iowa poll is the canary in the coal mine.

It's seeing, you know, there's a sudden shift towards Harris in the last. It's crystallizing. The election is breaking towards Harris, mainly because women are actually turning out, which is what's happened in Iowa, but also because Trump just hasn't run a particularly crystallising campaign, whereas Harris at least has women to rely on. She's done an amazing job of not fucking up, actually, for someone who was so new to campaigning. But, Charles, if you're right, if there's a late Harris wave. And what I'm saying is because the polls are so close and unable to. to, you know, all within the margin of error, if they all break in one way, it will be an absolute fucking landslide.

Hilariously. To the candidate that it breaks in favour of. Charles has just written the word D on a poster script, which I think means democratic victory. So you heard it here first. But Charles, if, for that to be correct, for your theory to be correct, you would have had to have had in the past few days, things as random as, you know, someone at a Donald Trump rally alienating the entire island of Puerto Rico and all the people

from that island. Tick. You would have had to have had Donald Trump coming out and saying, I love women. We will protect them whether they like it or not. Tick. Sounding super, super non-consensual. You would have had to have had the Republicans coming out and Speaker Mark Johnson coming out

and saying, oh yeah, if we win we're going to cancel Obamacare. Tick. You would have to have Donald Trump going out and still talking about Hannibal fucking left. at his most recent North Carolina rally over the weekend and just at no point having any strategy whatsoever. Tick.

And you would have to have him doing a stunt where he tried to get into a garbage truck to make the most of Joe Biden's stuff up and actually have been unable to get into the garbage truck in a way that made him look really, really old. All those things Charles would have had to have happened for a last minute wave. Tick.

Tick. Towards Kamala Harris. Tick. And fucking tick, Dom. Charles, this is very sad news. I know. For comedy. Yes, because we're going to miss out on all those fantastic Trump impersonations. I really.

I really want to see. Oh, no. I want to see what happened. You're not going to have four more years of that. Whenever I do that, I get it. I must get a source right. What I want to see, Charles, and this is the other big news from the weekend that I found fascinating.

RFK Jr., the, you know, member of the Kennedy family who's had a few issues with substances. He likes tying dead whales to the front of his SUV and driving along with whale guts. flying into the car. It seems that Donald Trump has basically said, in fact, he has. He said he's going to let RFK Jr. loose on the Department of Health. I'm going to let him go wild on health.

I'm going to let him go wild on the food. I'm going to let him go wild on medicines. Now, this is a guy who is an out-and-out anti-vaxxer. And bearing in mind that getting the vaccines going was probably the one significant policy achievement of Donald Trump's first term. Yes. But also, RFK juniors come out and said, oh, we're going to take fluoride out of the water. Yes.

Donald Trump's like, yeah, cool, that sounds like a good idea. Let's go ahead with that. So I kind of want to see what happens. I don't want to live in that society, but when RFK Jr. is let loose on the whole of the American health system. It's sort of like a shit show that's worth watching. You let it the price of admission. Yeah, it's sort of like, yep, it's definitely terrible, but also, yeah.

It's a pity. None of that will happen. Charles Firth, the Oracle who called it in 2016, has spoken. You're the first to call it in Australia on Channel 10, live on Channel 10. Didn't get the invite this time, but whatever. Awkward. You've done it. The election's over. The election's over. All that needs to happen is the voting

and we will catch you tomorrow to find out what happens next. Spooky! We are part of the Aconiclass Network. Catch you tomorrow.