'Spinning yarns': Professor blasts Dems for creating fantasy that Trump isn't winning

As the November election draws closer, President Joe Biden is in serious trouble of losing to Donald Trump — and Democrats need to stop lying to themselves and accept that reality, according to David Faris, a columnist and associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University in Chicago.

Just because people can't conceive of Trump serving another term after his first tumultuous one doesn't mean it won't happen, Faris writes, adding that "there are too many high-profile voices in Democratic circles spinning yarns about how happy days will be here again soon and that Biden is in a fantastic position."

According to Faris, there are three lies Democrats are telling themselves that paint an overly rosy picture of Biden's chances.

The first, Faris writes, is the notion that polls showing Democrats outperforming Republicans can cement the future.

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"It might be Democrats who are now underperforming their expectations, if you believe the polling (which you should)," he writes. "With an incumbent president, very low unemployment and strong GDP growth, Biden ought to be on a glide path to reelection, especially with the incandescent fury about Dobbs powering Democrats elsewhere. But he’s not.

"And that brings us to the polls themselves, which the optimists are also telling you to ignore."

The second is the notion that polls are meaningless and the ones reflecting poorly on Biden aren't predictive this far out from an election. "The idea that polls are basically meaningless 10 months from a presidential election in which both candidates have close to 100 percent name recognition is one of those pieces of conventional wisdom that is as untraceable as a gun that has had its serial number scrubbed off," Faris writes in Slate.

And the third is the notion that any advantage Trump has will diminish once people realize he's going to be the GOP nominee.

"This theory supposes that the polling disadvantage will vanish like George Santos from the House floor or the Critical Race Theory panic from the local school board meeting," he writes.

"I’ll admit to thinking some version of this might be at work; voters simply aren’t taking another Trump term seriously enough, and once they do, surely they will come to their senses and start telling pollsters that they will back Biden."

Read more at Slate.