Thread by @bansisharma

1. Trump Was Outmaneuvered By Democrats in Broad Daylight

Trump didn't lose the election on election day. On election day voting, he won big. But he had lost the election before the first vote was cast on election day.

Trump's strategic mistake was astounding.

2. Was there voter fraud? Of course there was, because there always is, but almost all of it happened before election day -- ballot stuffing, registering illegal voters, mailing ballots for dead voters, etc. -- the usual staple, nothing new, but probably on a larger scale.

3. But I don't think fraud alone, or even predominantly, cost Trump the election. Trump got so many more votes on election day that even fraud could not have cost him the election. It was something else. It was a strategic mistake that did the trick.

4. The answer is right there staring everyone in the face and Trump supporters are so furious, totally understandably, they want to believe it was the fraud that did it. But I doubt that is the main reason.

5. You just have to look at the channel differential between in-person election day voting and mail-in voting. Look at Georgia, for example. Trump got 60% more votes than Biden in in-person voting on election day. But Biden got 88% more votes than Trump in mail-in votes.

6. Channel differential like that is hard to make up easily, even though Trump came amazingly close. Just look at the scale of mechanics behind these two channels.
Mail-in: Vote at leisure from home over more than a month.
In-Person: Vote just one day with masks and distancing.

7. Democrats implemented massive Vote By Mail initiatives all over the States, and advertised the hell out of it, giving specific directions on how to vote. Obama even cut PSAs for it. Rules were also relaxed to increase VBM acceptance rates.

8. All of it was done in full public view. There was no secret about it. Being State initiatives, there is nothing Trump or the federal government or even the Supreme Court could do about it. We can argue some rule changes were illegal, but my point here is that it was no secret.

9. Once it was clear massive mail-in voting is inevitable, what Trump and his team could have done is roll with it, and get ahead of it. They could have encouraged Republican voters to beat Democrats at their own game and be the first ones to vote by mail.

10. Instead, Trump pooh-poohed it, as he always does everything he doesn't like, most of the time with success. he almost made it sound like voting by mail would be unpatriotic. His disdain for it is totally understandable. It is more fraud prone.

11. But think about the self-imposed handicap. Trump should have known that no Democrat is going to give a hoot about what he thinks about it. Democrats are going to vote by mail with gusto. Meanwhile, Trump held back Republican voters as long as he could. To what end, may I ask?

12. What great statement did Trump make by holding back Republican voters from voting by mail, other than express a personal pique? We didn't break a century of voting turnout because Democrats were thrilled by a basement dweller candidate. We broke it because of mail-in voting.

13. Republican voters voted their hearts out on election day, but one day was just not enough to make up for a six-week self-imposed handicap.

No amount of crap about Kraken or peddling a singular CCTV video snippet is going to make up for this strategic error.

14. It's all crying over spilt milk now. If you want to use the word "steal," you can say Democrats stole the election in broad daylight with mail-in voting. Unfortunately, you can't sue them for outmaneuvering you. This is more like stealing a base in baseball.

The End

15. Some say Voting By Mail (VBM) wouldn't have created more Trump voters, they all voted. Not true.

16. VBM does create more voters by turning 'on the fence' voters who don't want to take the trouble of actually going to a voting center and standing in line to vote, whether out of temperament, physical hardship, or borderline apathy.

17. Just witness how many Democrats voted. Even if you discount 10 million votes for Biden, still far more Democrats voted this time than in any election in memory. Why? Because of VBM. I think Trump left millions of votes on the table by not encouraging VBM.

18. What Trump said about VBM isn't wrong. It is more prone to fraud. But once it became clear Democrats have made it a reality for this election, it was self-defeating for Trump to discourage VBM. He self-handicapped to make a point about mail-in voting. That's an own goal.

19. Trump set out to win an argument, not an election. He succeeded splendidly. He won the argument. He lost the election. SCOTUS cannot bail him out now. GOP senators cannot bail him out now. Democrats had an election strategy. Trump had a debating point. He won the debate.

20. Well, Trump won the debate to the extent that the whole nation now sees in technicolor that VBM is problematic. The fact that Democrats clearly see an advantage in it for themselves even more clearly than before and will push for its continued use past Covid is a testament.

21. If Trump had encouraged VBM and thereby tied the Democrats on voter turnout, he not only would have won in a landslide, he would also have convinced Democrats there was no unique advantage for them in VBM that GOP cannot exploit equally well.

22. Both parties would then have possibly cooled off on VBM, or at least be amenable to a negotiated reform. Considering the way it turned out, there is no arguing Democrats back from it now.

23. Democrats will now push universal mail-in voting forever, and this being a State level issue, they will win State by State wherever and whenever they are in control of a State. And there is nothing GOP can do to stop them.

24. When the heck will GOP wake up and realize that when Democrats do something crazy in terms of election rule changes, the only way to defeat them is not by argument from atop a high horse, but by defeating them at their own game. They will not listen to anything else.