POTUS/General Election Thread 2020 + Aftermath

[Montmorency]

Look folks, I don't fundamentally disagree with what you are saying. But the fact remains, that for the second presidential election in a row, Democrats have severely under performed. Why is that? Is it that America has become a nation of gun-toting, conspiracy-believing bunch of idiots? To a certain degree, yes. There's simply no answer to that. Republicans are willing to accept those people into the fold in their attempt to attain or remain in power. That's not something that leads to a healthy political (or physical) existence. If that's the direction we are headed here, then we are lost no matter what the Democrats do.

I personally believe that we are most definitely going down that road, and I am completely disgusted with all of it. When people get killed over an issue so trivial as the wearing of a piece of cloth on your face during a pandemic, when 70 million people knowingly vote for someone who is a blatant racist, a misogynist, has committed crimes even while in office, and cares more for his bank account and image than for the people he's supposed to lead, then something is seriously wrong here.

Considering all that, this election should have been a slam-dunk. As it is, Biden appears to be on a path to barely squeak by. This speaks to the overall weakness of the Democratic candidate, and certainly as to how they ran their campaign. The 'broad-coalition', middle-of-the-road approach is a failure. Democrats need to take a firm stand on issues, and more importantly, work like hell to see them to fruition.

I don't agree with everything in this article, but it sums up many of my feelings:

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...speaks-volumes

Dems are a broad and therefore fractious coalition, but I'm sure there are some consensus items (especially if the president is willing to promote them).

One thing I would say is that Biden has only underperformed relative to Bill Clinton (96) and Obama (2008); Biden will end up approximating Obama's own 2012 performance. The House, Senate, and state races have gone badly, being a miniature version of the Republican waves (less than half the size) of 1994 and 2010. The House majority will fall within 220-225 I'm sure. Really, the Republican performance beside Trump is the primary question. You have to separate the two presidential candidates from their parties here, because many millions of voters (perhaps more than there ever existed of Obama-Trump voters) did so.

The notion that conservatives vote conservative because they're holding out for an opinionated leftist is one I struggled to credit even when I thought it had special license to be played out. At the very least it needs strong evidence. I've been reading Robinson (linked op-ed) for years, and he has been disappointing for the past year. The density of circular logic and question-begging on this topic has become typical; I believe once he fixates on a particular idea or commitment he turns into a recklessly-dogmatic asshole of the sort who believes their and only their exact preferences in policy and rhetoric can be the magic key to unlock the electorate and achieve gr8 success. The hell of it is we share the similar goals and preferences for how to conduct national campaigns, but I would urge more humility and caution as to what "works."

The democrats have fielded two very poor candidates in a row. Both candidates have been the lead candidate because of internal party seniority combined with blandness. Blandness used to be an asset. It used to be that you wanted a candidate that no one could grab hold of and drag down. But that's changed. You now want a bold and, at times, obnoxious and opinionated candidate.

Biden will win the vote by a higher margin than any slate Labour has ever fielded in the UK. I just don't feel there is good evidence for this take.
https://twitter.com/bradheath/status...27431178948615

The notion that conservatives vote conservative because they're holding out for an opinionated leftist is one I struggled to credit even when I thought it had special license to be played out. At the very least it needs strong evidence.

Can we say this is true for every Trump voter? Not everyone who voted for Trump were putting flags on their trucks and held rallies every other day for months to intimidate people.

If we have reason to believe that many voters don't even know Trump's own positions/policies, then two choices:
A. Monty is correct that Republican voters are at their core signing up for an authoritarian culture wars that keep their class/group above others on the socioeconomic level regardless of whether the overall standard of living rises or falls.
B. People are extremely fucking dumb and too easily suckered in by media bubbles (my theory).

While Monty has shown the statistical correlation between race relations and GOP voters, it's still hard to prove whether this mentality is inherent and attracted to the party or has been carefully cultivated among conservative minded people through a concerted effort since the 1970s and the kickoff of the Southern Strategy.

For the sake of my own sanity, I'm perhaps too attached to my idea of slow but steady indoctrination because there really is no solution if all these people are just...inherently terrible people.

The framing here is troublesome. The matter is not one of them being "inherently" terrible, but of holding particular psychological tendencies and values that can most certainly also be cultivated over time; but the thing is the underlying tendency or susceptibility has to be present. Otherwise you could theoretically brainwash Mr. Rogers by giving him a Clockwork Orange treatment of OANN and Alex Jones.

Your two options aren't incompatible anyway, and are interrelated. Compare two voters who have both watched The Apprentice TV show and have both seen 1 hour cumulatively of Trump speaking as a politician since 2015. One falls in love with Trump, one abhors him, both hardly know anything about him or his governance. One thinks Trump is a tough dealmaking businessman who cares about people like them (and maybe gives the 'appropriate' regard to Those People'), the other observes a nasty clown who doesn't know what he's talking about and cares only about himself. What's the difference? Psychology and values.

In 1900 almost everyone here was racist. But some were less racist than others. There's a difference between intellectualizing the need to sterilize rural blacks and control them like cattle, and thinking of them as poor and maltreated, if lesser, brutes. This one's harder to demonstrate as a historical exercise, but the sliding scale of attitudes could also reflect underlying moral attributes across times and contexts. For that matter, we may also need to treat Trumpists on a sliding scale, just as people in many countries have been obliged to accommodate elements of their authoritarian regimes in order to promote civil peace. Whether or not all Republicans are the same is beside the point as to how we should relate to the least-bad ones.

Labour went that route in 2015, and look where it went. Maybe it'll work better in the US than it did in the UK.

As politicians qua politicians Clinton and Biden (and even Sanders) are vastly better than Corbyn. He's just a really bad politician that came in with a blank slate and mismanaged the situation and made himself hated in and out of the party. Being a bad politician here is a knock even if you think Corbyn is a saint, because we don't field politicians (or shouldn't) to reflect our attitudes or opinions; they're there to win and wield power on our behalf. That's their job. They're not our friends, they're our implements.

A charismatic hard-lefty who is personally likable to a broad cross-section (exclusive of the media ops against them) would be a good opportunity where available, though of course there's no holding out for the legendary "Johnny Unbeatable."

I think it's a combination of both. Of course every Republican is not a MAGA-Manic, and you're right that many folks are just idiots seeking to advance their own agenda---hence QAnon. And now those brain-dead morons have put one of their own into Congress. Doesn't bode well.....

On a different note, moderate Democrats are just plain dumb. They are bemoaning the failure to retake the Senate, and the loss of seats in the House, blaming progressives:

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5...nds-into-chaos

And yet, nearly every seat lost in the House was a moderate. Meanwhile, all four members of the"Squad" retained their seats, as well as Jayapal in Washington, and Pocan in Wisconsin, while two other progressives, Jamaal Bowman in New York and Cori Bush in Missouri won their right to go to Congress. Instead of blaming the left, how about evaluating how a moderate stance might not cut it anymore, considering the ever growing number of young people coming of voting age. Ya might want to take a look at what moves the needle for them

To be fair, the moderates were always correlated with vulnerable seats and the progressives with safe seats. One good data point we can identify is that Kara Eastman in Nebraska had another close defeat in her House race in a competitive district (she ran in 2018), but didn't underperform compared to other Dems AFAIK. And I might be getting this wrong but the husband of her losing primary opponent, a former Congressman, endorsed Eastman's Republican opponent?!

Generally I would say political skills matter at least as much as ideology, so a capable or otherwise suitable progressive should be preferable to a generic centrist or empty suit (not the same thing, the latter is more malleable) in most districts.

Doesn't mean much, at this point. CoviDon will call for recounts in several states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Arizona (if he loses there), and perhaps Michigan. If that fails to alter results, the next phase will be to appeal to Republican legislatures in those states to ignore the popular vote and declare their electoral votes for him. More chaos and more litigation ensues. His final line of defense (which he has stated openly) is that the whole matter ends up in SCOTUS where he's counting on the lapdogs he's placed there to give him the presidency. It ain't over by a long shot....

A bit more on how far QAnon has come in the last four years:

https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-c...-congress-2020

I don't have the time or the desire to fact check the validity of the list, but two (not just the one I was aware of) QAnon supporters have made it to Congress. And this is the emerging America? We think things are screwed up now, wait until 2024.....

All signs point to the Republican Party cutting Trump loose. He has outlived his purpose, and only the fanatics and the lapdogs (Graham and Cruz) in elected office are calling for extraordinary measures. I feel pretty good about this one.

QAnon has surprising appeal around the world. It's germinating all over the place.