Women generally - and college-educated suburban women - are angry with the trump regime and it goes beyond the Kavanaugh confirmation. I doubt that anger will subside in the next few weeks. Any volatility will likely come from independents.
On that note, a reddit post that neatly explains the playbook the trumpistas are following.
Summary
It’s pretty smart really. It has been shown that once you’re put in a position where you have to defend your views, you’re more likely to stick with that view, despite proof that it’s not right, and you won’t be as likely to be moderate.
When extreme examples of a particular opinion are shown like this (antifa, nazis, violent feminists, etc), you’re put in a position where you have to say something along the lines of “I’m a feminist, but…” And then people will pry and try to see where your limits actually are. People will tell you “yeah, but being feminist/antifa/etc actually encourages this kind of dangerous behaviour!” (Slippery slope argument), and they have a video to prove it actually happens! (Anecdote generalization). Defending that opinion will further make you “certain” you’re right, and prevents you from seeking information that would contradict your views.
We often hear about the 30% figure that will never vote against Donald Trump, that tactic is meant to increase this figure, but on both ends of the spectrum.
Once you’ve done that, you have a population that’s easier to manipulate. You have, say, 30% that’s 100% sure on both ends, and probably another 15% on both ends that are 80% sure, and a remaining 10% that could go both ways. The more you do this, the more the 15% will be set in stone.
Then, the fun begins with manipulating the 10%. You know where they live (through facebook), you know how they think (Cambridge Analytica), so you can target them , and only them . Not only can you target this particular group, but by knowing how the electoral system works, you can target only a few people, in a few swing states.
Add that to voter suppression, Gerrymandering, voter ID laws and some ads that would discourage youth from going to the polls. And then you’ve got character assassination, accusations of paedophilia, a strongman who’s not afraid to “tell it like it is”, which are Putin’s cronies’s playbook, every single time.
So you end up targeting something like 1% of the electorate to sway a whole country’s elections. This way it’s clean and effective, you have plausible deniability, and a very large portion of your population will never believe that such a system is in place because it’s too elaborate.
Look up the documentary Active Measures and Preet Bharara’s interview with former Ambassador McFaul and a few others. Seriously.
