So do I. I've invested a lot in it.
That said, I am going to revise my list.
Biden
- Record (Out of play)
- Stability (In Play, Paper Tiger)
- Competence (In play, Paper Tiger)
- Charisma (In play, Paper Tiger)
- Black Support (In play)
- COVID (Out of play, trying to bring back)
- George (Out of play)
- BLM (Out of play, trying to salvage)
- Antifa (Out of play)
- Sexual Assault Allegations (Probably Out of Play, but you never know they might bring it back)
- In-Party Support (Out of play)
- Midlander Support (In play)
- Impeachment (Out of play)
- The Media (In play, but diminished from 2016)
- Obama Endorsement (In play)
- FBI & Deep State Allies (Out of play)
Trump
- Economy (Out of play, looks to be returning)
- Protectionism (In Play)
- The Wall (In play)
- Law & Order (In play, but has taken a bit of a beating to protect other pieces)
- COVID Response (Out of play, was mediocre at best and unfairly covered by media)
- Black Support (In play, but a small piece)
- Military (In play)
- ACA Reform (Out of Play)
- In-Party Support (In play, but under direct attack now)
- Midlander Support (In play, but diminished from riots & COVID)
- Yankee Support (In play, but diminished from riots & COVID)
- Charisma (In play)
- Trump Rally (In Play, was formally out of play)
- Social Media (In Play, but under constant attack from censorship)
To explain this, each piece is sort of its own set of pieces. Each of those pieces can lose so many of their own pieces before they're either made irrelevant or outright destroyed. A piece may be strong or weak to begin with--or may even only exist on paper. From the outset, Biden was the chosen ones for the DNC. The problem with the DNC debates though, was that they damaged his Stability, Competence, and Charisma pieces. And annihilated the Record and In-Party Support pieces. Biden was literally apologizing for his record and the division meant that in-party support was not going to be useful at all.
The DNC had tried to use Impeachment as a cloud to hang over Trump's head. It was meant to erode all of his pieces. It was an effective tool too, having kept Trump weak throughout his first term. But Trump forced Pelosi to actually go through with the process and it fell completely apart. The DNC correctly identified Trump's economy, his charisma, his in-party support, and his rallies as his biggest pieces. When COVID reared its ugly head, the DNC capitalized on it.
In one blow, the DNC took away all three of those pieces. The Economy piece was Trumps prize piece too. It was his Queen, so to speak. Because everyone would look past his flaws if Trump could raise the US economy like a phoenix from the ashes. So the Dems hit Trump hard on COVID. And to their credit, they did a good job. Specifically the media trying to make it look scary and put all the blame on Trump, even if DNC members profited from the tragedy or had initially dismissed it. Trump's own COVID Response piece was also not that great. But the mere fact that it existed helped save his ass.
The problem was, the COVID piece could never last forever. You cannot keep the US economy shut down until November. And unfortunately for the DNC, they probably realized that the economy might come roaring back. This was predicted as a possibility to begin with. Trump could still play his Queen if even only a partial recovery came back before the election. The rest could be blamed upon COVID or even the DNC itself. At that point, the DNC realized it needed another piece to use against Trump. They had BLM and Antifa, but no excuse to unleash them.
So the Media piece began to push up stories of cop mishaps or abuse of power against black people. Some of it I expect was organic, but as luck would have it--they found one. George Floyd. And so the media pushed the narrative while the DNC activated BLM and then more secretly activated Antifa. While BLM provided legitimate cover of protesting, Antifa incited looting and carried out arson. Soon you had riots.
Now, the plan was for Trump to use his Law & Order piece to ruthlessly crush BLM. That would destroy his Yankee, Black, and Midlander pieces. Or at least weaken them while the Media replayed it time and time again, to drive in the fear of white supremacy. That would have brought down Trump's pieces to 6 pieces. And would have left the DNC with 9 pieces (on paper, 6 in reality--so a dead heat, but one that they could work with).
The problem was that instead of taking the bait, Trump waited and waited. The George Floyd piece was played out. Everyone began to grow anxious that Trump wasn't responding. Trump took the heat so that Antifa and BLM would overextend themselves. Trump then began the process of taking those two pieces. In response, Antifa went completely off the rails and BLM followed suit with insane demands. But doing so
only increased the damage; the DNC wasn't able to pull them back. And now Trump is utterly destroying Antifa and has crippled BLM (as the two are sister movements, BLM just has a racial overtone).
So what has happened is a complete reversal; instead of taking Trump's pieces, they lost their pieces and Trump has not only held onto those pieces (albeit, in a diminished form), but he regained his Rally and Charisma pieces. Now he's working on regaining his Queen. The current score is thus Biden with 7 piecs (4 functional pieces) and Trump with 10 pieces (but with 3 heavily damaged, so it feels like 7).
With their remaining effective pieces (Black Support, Media, Midlander Support, Obama) the DNC is now moving to try and break up Trump's base with polls in heavy bias of Biden, while at the same time trying to hide Biden's weakness. This appears to be working now, because the move is taking advantage of Trump's damaged pieces and his weakened economy. In effect, they're using the very damage they caused to the nation to attack Trump's base.
Now, if this works, it's game over. Without in-party support, the rallies fail and Trump's charisma dives. His other three supporting pieces, fueled by those, might very well collapse. It would leave Trump with 4 pieces, 5 if the economy returns in strength. And if the DNC can manage for Biden not to humiliate himself in a debate (by whatever means exist), then that's 7 piece to Trump's 4-5. Biden could possibly win.
These major moves is why there is a sense of Trump's failure. But what the DNC is not taking into account is Trump's charisma. Trump only needs to prevent his in-party support from being taken or too heavily damaged long enough for his rallies and his charisma to rejuvenate support. It comes down to how much of an effect those rallies have on the COVID spread or what the media can convince people they have.
I am not convinced the DNC strategy is going to work. The reason is that Trump has had a lower point of in-party support before; the Grab Them By the Pussy tape. That had been the perfect blow, delivered at the perfect time, and left Trump scrambling. Granted, some pillars then did not crack as they have now. But the overall damage was greater then. I am confident that if Trump's economy continues to return, his rallies continue to draw in large crowds, and his keeps his cool--he can and will keep his In-Party support and once off the defensive, move to create momentum.
Once that momentum gets going, the DNC will be in dire straights. What the DNC did was rush Trump before he could build his momentum in the Summer. Which was very well played...but they overextended with BLM and Antifa. I don't expect them to be a playable piece in late summer or the fall. Worse, the debates are coming up. The DNC is hoping to find a way to wiggle out of those, even while promising Biden will attend. The hope is to retain as much of Biden's Stability, Charisma, and Competence pieces for as long as possible, as intact as possible.
The problem is, in order to keep those pieces in play, the DNC can't use them. They're only there to look intimidating. If BLM and Antifa and COVID were still in play, they could excuse themselves from the debates with minimal damage. But all three are out of play. The DNC had sacrificed COVID for the riots in hopes of gutting Trump's pieces. And it would have been a master stroke had it worked. Instead, they don't have much to manipulate the board with after that. Which means, they know that Biden is going to start losing his Stability, Charisma, and Competence pieces. He's already damaged those himself. Between his own incompetence and a lack of debate and Trump's charisma...he's going to suffer. He may even be shamed into debating Trump. At which point, he loses those pieces. And shortly thereafter, the remaining pieces will simply collapse on their own.
The DNC's only hope right now is to continue to damage Trump through the Media (their Queen, by the way) while hoping to take as little damage on Biden's remaining core pieces. (Biden's Charisma, Stability, & Competence makes up his King, Trump's King is actually his Charisma, Rallies, and In-Party Support).
If Trump isn't effectively knocked out by mid to late July, the DNC is in big trouble.
EDIT -- Forgot about Trump's Social Media piece. I always forget about that one for some reason. The piece has been worn down, but it's useful in that it's a piece that is almost impossible to be taken away from him. Twitter tried a soft blow by labeling his tweets as factually incorrect or for inciting violence and Trump responded by threatening to open them all up to lawsuits that would bankrupt them.
