POTUS/General Election Thread 2020 + Aftermath

[Hooahguy]

Well I was referring in general to Dems as a whole, not necessarily just elected officials. But then again, we aren't sure of what is being said behind closed doors:

Barack Obama called Donald Trump a "fascist" in a phone conversation with Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia during the 2016 presidential election, Kaine says in a video clip featured in an upcoming documentary about Hillary Clinton.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Persuadable voters have long been persuaded by now, and the cohort that remains - maybe as little as 1% of people who vote - are habitual late deciders because they have no coherent ideology or grasp of issues; their vote, if at all, is decided by essentially random stimuli at the last minute.

Even if 1% is accurate (far too low an estimate, IMHO), that means, using voter turnout numbers in 2016, that about 1.4 million voters are 'late deciders'. Even not considering how those who didn't vote at all impacted the 2016 election, a look at the 10 closest races from 2016:

https://www.usnews.com/news/the-run-...-2016-election

Adding up the margin of difference for the entire list of ten, the number comes to 585,319. So in 2016, your 'late deciders' could have carried 10 states and then some.

I think it's a safe bet to say that SCOTUS will be deciding the outcome of the presidential election in 2020

all I can say with confidence about its media representation to the public is that it would certainly take command of the discourse in the way you'd like. The quality of the effects themselves is more debatable.

Not suggesting that Dems go all King Leonidas (though the imagery of Kamala Harris giving the nod, and Biden kicking Trump into the Abyss is enticing). As an example, NOW Biden is going to Kenosha, AFTER Trump has already been there. Now it's still possible Biden/Harris gain some gravitas if they meet personally (and sincerely) with the Blake family, and just as importantly, with leaders of the protests. But they should have already been there.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I think the lack of any "bounces" post convention is indicative of most folks having decided. The chronic late deciders don't bother paying attention at all until after Labor Day, and usually not until mid-October.

[Hooahguy]

I think it's a safe bet to say that SCOTUS will be deciding the outcome of the presidential election in 2020

At least when it comes to states counting mail-in ballots, yeah. Its a sobering thought that our democracy might end up in the hands of John Roberts, who will probably be the swing vote. Unless Gorsush pulls another upset which he might end up doing, who knows. But what I am fairly sure of is that there is a low chance we will know who won on election night.

[Montmorency]

Well I was referring in general to Dems as a whole, not necessarily just elected officials. But then again, we aren't sure of what is being said behind closed doors:

The point is that Obama-types refuse to say this out loud. Interestingly, Hillary Clinton has been more aggressive since her retirement, but in an inconsistent way and from the sidelines. If it were possible for Obama to say "We are occupied by an illegitimate usurpation of popular sovereignty. Arise now to throw off the fascist yoke or we face one-hundred years of darkness. From this day on all patriotic Americans must commit themselves to all peaceful means of resistance against the mortal threat" - that could change a lot of patterns of thinking.

I don't believe Obama is capable of such rhetoric, and it probably is too extreme for the electorate in practical terms, and as I said it may even be too late to pivot from the normal party line. But I wish the consensus were somewhere in that vicinity. I value directness personally. The CNN headlines about such a statement might be 'Former President Obama sees "mortal threat" in "fascist" Trump,' or it might be 'Obama agitates for partisan rage in caustic rant against Republicans.' Obviously all the chinstroking MSM centrist pundits would condemn such rhetoric out of hand. The Republicans might take it as license to even more openly pursue single-party rule. But it sure feels appropriate to the situation.

Even if 1% is accurate (far too low an estimate, IMHO),

I'm talking about the subset of people who: actually vote; are actually swing voters; who remain undecided up to Election Day or shortly before. That's a very small population and studying them - as well as more qualitative political fieldwork - indicates that they're very idiosyncratic and have few similarities to each other as a group. Putting all that together, you have a small, inconsistent group of people whom you can't reliably influence - so why base a strategy around them? Here's some relevant articles.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...dle-is-a-myth/
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ers-are-there/

that means, using voter turnout numbers in 2016, that about 1.4 million voters are 'late deciders'. Even not considering how those who didn't vote at all impacted the 2016 election, a look at the 10 closest races from 2016:

Turnout is important! But it's generally seen as a separate issue from capturing "swing" voters.

https://www.usnews.com/news/the-run-...-2016-election

Adding up the margin of difference for the entire list of ten, the number comes to 585,319. So in 2016, your 'late deciders' could have carried 10 states and then some.

Since votes are by state and not distributed around the country, assuming every state had a similar proportion of late deciders, they might only have had an effect in the tipping point midwestern states, if also assuming that they overwhelmingly broke for Republicans over Dems/3P.

I think it's a safe bet to say that SCOTUS will be deciding the outcome of the presidential election in 2020

Well, it is likely they will have some role to play, but I wouldn't use that wording, "decide." If Biden wins because of the Supreme Court, it will be according to its non-interference basically.

Notwithstanding my prior analyses, if the Supreme Court really overturns the electoral process in favor of Trump, and Biden and the Dems decide to gut it out and refuse to concede, there are five ways this can go down in order of decreasing preference.

1
2
3: Actually we just give up and slink away as Trump deploys the standard move of despots and waits for the opposition to exhaust its outrage.
4
5

[ReluctantSamurai]

Putting all that together, you have a small, inconsistent group of people whom you can't reliably influence - so why base a strategy around them?

Since votes are by state and not distributed around the country, assuming every state had a similar proportion of late deciders, they might only have had an effect in the tipping point midwestern states

Methinks you understate these "undecided". Am I overstating their importance? Perhaps. However, when one looks at many potential maps of election results, those Rust Belt states may very well decide the election, as they did in 2016. Basing a strategy around these undecided? Of course not, but ignoring them or considering them insignificant, is done at peril, IMHO.

Interesting that this has gone completely under media radar:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/antifa-...acist-threats/

Such "fine people".

[ReluctantSamurai]

Interesting read:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...navirus-408631

“Remember, this is a president who claimed that there was a massive fraud in an election he won,” says Levitt. “We have had peaceful transitions of power because We, the People, have believed that it is possible that more people who disagree with us actually cast ballots—that the possibility exists that we might be in a minority. And if that is not even a conceptual possibility, that’s a real danger to democracy and to the election process. If you cannot conceive that you might be in the minority, there’s no possibility of achieving change through voting nor of achieving legitimacy through voting.”

With respect to voting in the general election, there’s another “it depends”: It depends whether the case is consequential based on what it is arguing in theory, or whether it’s likely to work in practice. There are some cases asking for a fairly mammoth reconfiguration of local election practices, both to restrict access and to improve access—different cases in different places. Each is unlikely to succeed. Courts don’t like micromanaging all the aspects of an election. There are discrete elements that courts will address, but they don’t like putting themselves in charge of an election administration. And getting this close to an election, we’re just running out of time to make very big changes to the process. Those cases would be enormously consequential if they yielded an outcome, but it’s extremely unlikely they’re going to.

Honestly, there aren’t many ways that the courts have accepted to clamp down on present procedures. The main claim for clamping down on present procedures, is “these procedures cause fraud”—lots of screaming, all caps. Whatever the efficacy of that position in the court of public opinion, the courts that are actually courts demand evidence. So I don’t know that there’s much utility in using the courts to restrict voting if we’re starting from the status quo.

The rhetoric the president has used implies that if he doesn’t win, it’s been stolen by “fill in the blank.” That is profoundly dangerous. And I don’t want to minimize the danger of that at all. We have had peaceful transitions of power because We, the People, have believed that it is possible that more people who disagree with us actually cast ballots—that the possibility exists that we might be in a minority. And if that is not even a conceptual possibility, that’s a real danger to democracy and to the election process. If you cannot conceive that you might be in the minority, there’s no possibility of achieving change through voting nor of achieving legitimacy through voting. So that is scary.

[Montmorency]

Hilarious article about Trump and the military.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...uckers/615997/

Interesting read:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...navirus-408631

Kind of throws me that Levitt repeats a paragraph almost verbatim at the end, but anyway.

Seems Trump has been saying this lately.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN25U0KK

He said it in 2016 as well.
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/ne...111519972.html

Someone who followed his directive last time.
https://twitter.com/TheGoodLiars/sta...78831749730307

Every accusation is a confession etc. (But for the record studies have long found that virtually all identified voter fraud is Republicans, and we know all about the electoral fraud...)


I forgot to say, but I should have mentioned that there really was a space in 2016 for marginal people to change their decision to vote, or for whom to vote, in the immediate runup to the election. You know what I'm talking about, right? Such black swan events one really has no hope of guarding against or countering. If Republicans or Russians aren't completely numb in the lower half they'll have some October Surprise to spring. Another item to keep in the back of our heads next month.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Portent of things to come?

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...latile/616054/

Should the election drag on or should their candidate lose, Trump’s most aggressive supporters might consider it a patriotic act to publicly contest what they see as a fraudulent election.[...] After holding exercises to game out a potential post-election crisis, one conclusion the group reached was that “President Trump and his more fervent supporters have every incentive to try to turn peaceful pro-Biden (or anti-Trump) protests violent in order to generate evidence that a Democratic victory is tantamount to ‘mob rule,’” as was described in a recent report.

In interviews at the rally here yesterday afternoon, Trump supporters told me a Biden victory is so implausible that it could come about only through corrupt means. Latrobe sits in a county where Trump defeated Hillary Clinton four years ago by a 2–1 margin, and no one I spoke with thought Trump was in any real danger of losing this race either.

Walker spoke of a potential “revolution” were that to happen. “He ain’t got a prayer,” Walker said of Biden. “He can only win with fraud.

“That’s the only prayer, and that will cause the third and final revolution in this country,” he added, citing the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.

Before I entered the airplane hangar where the rally was held, I spoke with John and Michele Urban, a couple from Latrobe, as they waited in line to get inside. “Either way, there’s going to be turmoil,” Michele Urban said. “A revolution. I’d never thought I’d live to see it. I’m 66 years old.” Her husband, 68, told me: “Democrats have sealed their own fate. They’ve proven they’re not true Americans. They’re not for this country, and they’re not for our freedom. We’re just not going to take it any more. Trump is a godsend.”

This is going to get real ugly

[Hooahguy]

I wonder how much of that is talk (much like the "Im going to move to X country if Y wins the election" sayings) and how much is an actual commitment. Hard to tell I think until November comes. Things could get ugly, or it could fizzle out before anything serious happens. I do think that there will be some random Qanon-linked incidents here and there, but I'd be surprised if it turned into a major thing.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I'd be surprised if it turned into a major thing.

I hope you are right. But the record sales of guns in the US this year, the millions of Americas out of work, or tossed out of their homes, a President giving tacit approval to right-wing extremists, it doesn't bode well

[Hooahguy]

Well I said I'd be surprised if it turned into a major thing. I think there is a 99% chance of deadly violence regardless of outcome, the question remains on what scale.

[Montmorency]

Portent of things to come?

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...latile/616054/

This is going to get real ugly

Maybe this soothes some of the jitters in your gut.

As for mass violence, it is dispositive that Trump does not have the military (and probably has never even understood his position vis-a-vis the military). There is little calculation to his convulsions, but a lot of inconvenient commitment forced on his minions and copartisans. Now, we know by this that Republicans are in too deep to repudiate their war on us, but that doesn't help Trump himself; watch just how quickly Fox News and the like pivot from extolling Trump himself to doubling down on the communistic nefariousness of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (to the extent I am familiar with Fox's coverage there may have been subtle probes in this direction already).

[ReluctantSamurai]

Maybe this soothes some of the jitters in your gut.

A rather conspicuous omission from that discussion is voter tampering and repression by the White House. The "Red Mirage" seems more and more plausible. And you can bet Fearless Leader will claim victory and have his lap-dog Barr ready to go with cease-and-desist injunctions against states in the process of counting mail-in votes, as soon as he is ahead by one vote at the stroke of midnight.

Still my opinion that SCOTUS determines the winner, not by politics, but by either allowing the states to finalize their mail-in counts, or terminating them prematurely

[Hooahguy]

Its why Ive been trying to encourage people to vote early in-person.

Edit: something on the lighter side-

[ReluctantSamurai]

Although I agree with a lot of what progressives are trying to accomplish, I just don't get this:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ts-biden-trump

“I don’t want to vote for Joe Biden and I don’t want to vote for Trump,” said Jason Kishineff, who is running for city council in American Canyon, California. “I think either choice is going to lead to human extinction.”

Kishineff is part of a progressive, far-left group of voters who say they will not vote for Biden, even if it means a Trump victory, largely because of the candidate’s failure to adopt a progressive agenda on healthcare, mass incarceration, the environment and policing.

So, let me get this straight, you can't get your party candidate to give you everything you want, you would rather see someone who is actively trying to dismantle healthcare in this country, would like nothing better than to see immigrants all deported or jailed, who is rescinding one environmental policy after another, who thinks climate change is a hoax, and seems determined to militarize law enforcement as much as possible, get elected because you're having a temper tantrum over policy?

While Cruse is staunchly against Trump and the Republican party, he said Biden represents many of the same ideals as the current president when it comes to corporate politics.

There aren't many politicians these days who don't. Biden is probably no exception. No candidate has a pristine record. It's a function of how screwed up the election process is in this country. The amount of money required to run an election is staggering, and it's difficult not to accept donations from people who you might become beholden to later on.

Angelica Whipple agreed that avoiding a Trump re-election was not enough reason to vote for Biden.

Whipple had voted for Barack Obama in previous elections but said that her political views changed in 2016, when Sanders ran for president. The Medicare for All platform, and legalization of marijuana, became non-negotiable to her. Biden has not committed to either of those policies, though he supports a public option health plan.

“He’s very steadfast in not doing anything for progressives,” Whipple said. “I don’t see how he’s that much better than Trump. At least with Trump we see it out front.”

Can someone explain to me how that last statement makes any sense? Fearless Leader is "out front" with how he's going to fuck you, and that makes it ok.

“He’s been doing all of these horrendously centrist things and surrendering to the Republican narrative of protesters being rioters,” said Matt Myers, a software engineer in Seattle. “Making the false equivalence … it’s just not acceptable. He’s basically kicking the left in the teeth.”

But it's somehow ok to give tacit support (by not voting his ass out of office) to a man who thinks that protesters should all be put in jail, and is actively encouraging the far-right radicals in this country to show up to protests and shoot people exercising their First Amendment rights?

Even so, several of the progressive voters said they would consider voting for Biden if he were to adopt some of their key platforms, such as Medicare for All, which has widespread support among Democrats. So far, they said, that hasn’t come to fruition. “If Biden is willing to support [those policies] I will sacrifice my own integrity and vote for him,” Kishineff said.

Your integrity? What about the integrity of our democracy, which this president is actively trying to dismantle? Or how about the integrity of the voting process central to that democracy?

Cruse also said he would vote for Biden if he were to adopt Medicare for All and legalization of marijuana. But, he said, that would still be a “huge compromise”. And Jessica, a voter in Texas that the Guardian spoke to earlier this year said she still plans to vote for the Green party.

Myers is hoping Biden will also reform student debt, which left him bankrupt after he went to college for the first time. While he is already planning to vote for Biden, he continues to be a vocal critic to help try to push the platform left, which he said is not only ideological but a better strategy for Democrats.

Ahhh...give me my lollypop, and we'll be good little boys and girls.

But for some of the #BernieorBust crowd, voting for a third-party candidate or withholding their vote is not only about Trump and Biden. It’s about trying to diminish the country’s two-party system, in which Democrats and Republicans both have compromised on what they care about the most.

Until then, and perhaps in spite of that, this group of voters have no plans to lend their support to what they see as an establishment candidate. Kishineff said he will vote for Gloria La Riva, from the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Cruse plans to vote Green party, he said, to send a message to the Democrats. Whipple plans to write in Bernie Sanders.

Now the central idea to this I can agree with. The two-party system is broken, perhaps beyond repair. But first you have to rid this country from a wannabee tyrant who might just make that point moot.

[Pannonian]

Far left is far left, in the US as in the UK.

[Hooahguy]

Although I agree with a lot of what progressives are trying to accomplish, I just don't get this:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ts-biden-trump

The leftist youtuber Vaush had a really great retort to all the Bernie or bust leftists who wont vote for Biden. I don't agree with him on much but I appreciate his realistic take on things.



Probably one of the best quotes from it is "I won't be the wokest person in the mass grave."

But anyways until leftists learn how to actually work within the political system I dont think they will ever hold meaningful political power. Some, like AOC, understand this. Others clearly do not.

[ReluctantSamurai]

My biggest takeaway was that if large portions of the left either don't vote, or cast a meaningless vote for some third party noname, and Trump wins, guess where the DNC turns to in 2024? Yep...disenfranchised Republicans. And yes, the current political system sucks, but for now it's all you have to work with. Something else the far left isn't considering is the impact that even more Trump appointees to courts will have on the direction this country takes. He's already appointed judges to 194 federal positions, with 54 of those Appeals Court Justices---the most of any president in 40 years:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...ederal-judges/

The impact of his choices will be felt for many years, and given another 4 years, his impact on the judiciary process will be felt for a generation. So go ahead and whine lefties, and watch your work to change this country get exponentially harder.

A political party never gets everything it wants, unless of course, you have a dictatorship. That's why the word Compromise exists.

[Montmorency]

Latest Trumpist line of reasoning I peeped: If Biden is elected he will enable his children to engage in corruption of public trust, one piece of evidence being that Biden lied about one of his children dying not too long ago. Fake news! He probably had plastic surgery and was put on the take somewhere.

More evidence for the overwhelming case that (white) evangelicals are moral monsters whose religion is neoconfederatism and who revel in cruelty unto others.

There's a refrain that everyone tells me about white evangelicals. They vote for Republicans, in large part, due to abortion policy.

But, here's the thing. I honestly don't think that it's true. Or at least it wasn't in the case of Donald Trump.

Let me illustrate why (1/4)

This is Trump's approval among white evangelical Republicans by their views on abortion policy.

Note that even white evangelicals who take pro-choice positions still give Trump broad approval. In most cases the difference in approval is less than 10 pct pts.

But, if policy shifts to immigration, there are larger gaps in approval. 20+ pts. in several cases.

It looks like among white evangelical Republicans, those who are pro-choice are much more willing to give Trump a pass than those who disagree with him on immigration.

Said another way, pro-choice white evangelicals didn't hold their nose and vote for Trump in 2016. They were happy with their choice in 2018.

The real defection is among evangelicals who don't take hard line stances on immigration, that seems to be the litmus test now.

Sanders: America must be prepared for when Trump refuses to leave office

According to an embargoed copy of his coming email, Sanders is planning to state, “This is not just a ‘constitutional crisis.’ This is a threat to everything this country stands for.” Sanders is also going to lay out in his message to his supporters a series of steps that should be taken now to prepare for the election. He will say news organizations need to alert people that the election results may not be known on Nov. 3. Social media companies “must finally get their act together” to ensure that election officials are not harassed and disinformation is not spread on their platforms, he said.

Tell 'em boy

btw

One puzzling thing about Trump's recent attacks on mail-in ballots is that, prior to Trump's attacks on mailed ballots, it wasn't at all clear that vote by mail favored Democrats over Republicans. Just last year (before Trump started his anti-mail voting tirades) the Republican controlled legislature in Pennsylvania passed universal mail-in voting with pretty bipartisan support. (If you don't believe that just last year this was widely supported by Republicans just last year, check out this page from the PA Republican House caucus touting the vote-by-mail law) If anything, vote-by-mail was viewed as possibly favoring Republicans just because the two groups that most heavily rely upon vote-by-mail were members of the military and senior citizens with mobility issues, two demographics that leaned Republican.

So when Trump decided that vote by mail was a Democratic plot earlier this year, I chalked it up to the fact that he is a demented fucking idiot. There was no devious strategy behind it. Trump, once again, is probably shooting himself in the foot. He definitely created a self-fulfilling prophecy. With Trump claiming that mailed ballots are a Democratic plot to steal the election, Republican requests for mail-in ballots are way down and Democratic requests are way up, which is different from every prior year. But still, even just starting an anti-mail ballot backlash was seemed so dumb. Why raise questions about the validity of the military's (largely mailed-in) vote? Maybe this is why.

lol

Prayerfully, in 10 weeks

Hitler ranted that the German people had not fought with enough heroism and they “deserved to perish”, according to the documents.
[...]
During a conference on April 22nd, 1945, Hitler gave a speech to his assembled generals and Heinrich Himmler, his minister of the interior. The report states: “Hitler came in at 8:30 a completely broken man. Only a few army officers were with him. Himmler urged Hitler to leave Berlin. Suddenly, Hitler began to make one of his characteristic speeches”.

“Everyone has lied to me, everyone has deceived me, no one has told me the truth. The armed forces have lied to me and now the SS has left me in the lurch. The German people have not fought heroically. It deserves to perish,” Hitler had said according to the report. “It is not I who have lost the war, but the German people,” he had said.

Still my opinion that SCOTUS determines the winner, not by politics, but by either allowing the states to finalize their mail-in counts, or terminating them prematurely

I mean, as should be clear from all my posting - I agree!

But there are multiple layers to this business that we need to sort.

The "Red Mirage" seems more and more plausible.

Long live King Prospero in his White Palace.

There aren't many politicians these days who don't. Biden is probably no exception. No candidate has a pristine record. It's a function of how screwed up the election process is in this country. The amount of money required to run an election is staggering, and it's difficult not to accept donations from people who you might become beholden to later on.

AGAIK studies have found that Democratic large donors are economically and socially left of the median Democrat. To the extent this holds it would upend yet another progressive shibboleth about politics. And Biden and other Dems this cycle are pulling in record small donations. (Of course, this is all a separate matter from industrial or special interest lobbies.)

Can someone explain to me how that last statement makes any sense?

The Biden-Sanders unity committee has produced hundreds of policies and actions that (if implemented, granted) would clearly be Biden moving left. I mean look, a lot of this depends on how many Senate and House seats the Republicans can steal this cycle. But not taking yes for an answer is unseemly. The same holds true of other national Democrats as well, who haven't been this left on economics in 50 years. (The House is planning a vote on marijuana decriminalization and expunction of some legal derogations that marijuana-offense convicts have been subject to fwiw.)

Now the central idea to this I can agree with. The two-party system is broken, perhaps beyond repair. But first you have to rid this country from a wannabee tyrant who might just make that point moot.

The two parties match up with the vast majority of voters, though. We've always had a duopoly because both the electorate and structure of elections and governance condition it.

If you want more parties we'll need to replace the Constitution and adopt a parliamentary system (which is probably a good idea, but that's another conversation.) But in other countries you get governing coalitions between centrist and left-wing parties, so any governing majority with Biden will have AOC on the same side, and vice versa, in this country.

Far left is far left, in the US as in the UK.

For the record, most of the Communist organizations in the country - not that they are many or electorally-significant - are endorsing Biden. I see no indication in polls or otherwise that a significant subset of the left is breaking from the Popular Front this election. The whining of fringe holdouts shouldn't unnerve us as observers.

There have always been third-party wank candidates in America - less than in the UK I might add - and at its core it's a personality type, not an ideology. For example, for someone like this

Even so, several of the progressive voters said they would consider voting for Biden if he were to adopt some of their key platforms, such as Medicare for All, which has widespread support among Democrats. So far, they said, that hasn’t come to fruition. “If Biden is willing to support [those policies] I will sacrifice my own integrity and vote for him,” Kishineff said.

it's all about the symbolism and aesthetic rather than the pursuit of power.

[Hooahguy]

For the record, most of the Communist organizations in the country - not that they are many or electorally-significant - are endorsing Biden. I see no indication in polls or otherwise that a significant subset of the left is breaking from the Popular Front this election. The whining of fringe holdouts shouldn't unnerve us as observers.

There have always been third-party wank candidates in America - less than in the UK I might add - and at its core it's a personality type, not an ideology. For example, for someone like this

That is interesting, any links about this? I would be interested to learn more especially because the DSA explicitly said they would not endorse Biden. So if thats the case it seems pretty odd that the communists would endorse Biden, but the democratic socialists would not.

Now I dont think the threat of Bernie voter defections is as bad now as it was in 2016, when roughly 20-25% of Bernie voters did not vote for Clinton. They primarily went to Trump and third-party, with a small percentage staying home. Yes, a higher percentage of Clinton voters defected to McCain in 2008, but I think the location of those defections matters a lot too, as the article points out. But after 4 years of Trump I think far more of the Bernie voters are going to stick with Biden this time around. I guess we will find out in a couple months (crazy, isnt it?).

The only thing that irks me is when prominent people on the left who should know better advocate for not voting for Biden. Unfortunately I think at least some of them are refusing to endorse because they can gain more clout online to further their careers.

[Montmorency]

It occurs to me, many thousands of Democrats may be (unnecessarily) rioting the day after Election Day, as a shocking number of uninformed people still don't apprehend the shape of things to come. Then the reports of mail ballot counts will emerge. And then the murders begin. Expect Brooks Brothers boogaloos to resort to measures like physically occupying post offices and canvassing sites, to disrupt counts and impound or destroy caches of ballots.

Fox News doesn't bear thinking about, but I'm curious as to how the network news or major cable channels are educating their audiences about the issue, if at all.


Got a text from the city today: "NYC will lose billions for COVID-19 relief and seats in Congress. Complete the census. No questions about immigration."

The states are starting to get desperate.

Re masks/social distancing, I know when I say "Trump is deliberately killing people" it sounds harsh. But our language thus far has been egregiously weak.

If I drive on the sidewalk, no matter if my reason is to "own the libs", I go to jail for a long time if I run people over.

Go even further.



Some more typical stuff about Trump finances and subornation of government.

President Trump was proudly litigious before his victory in 2016 and has remained so in the White House. But one big factor has changed: He has drawn on campaign donations as a piggy bank for his legal expenses to a degree far greater than any of his predecessors.
[...]
Mr. Trump’s tendency to turn to the courts — and the legal issues that have stemmed from norm-breaking characteristics of his presidency — helps explain how he and his affiliated political entities have spent at least $58.4 million in donations on legal and compliance work since 2015, according to a tally by The New York Times and the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute.
[...]
The legal work, he said, is being used to defend violence at political rallies, chill the free speech of former aides and fight allegations of unethical actions by Mr. Trump himself. And it is being paid for in part by large individual donors who could seek help from Mr. Trump in dealing with government actions that affect their own interests at a time when the Justice Department has moved from simply defending the president to helping protect his personal finances, he said. “It is an astounding nexus of corruption,” Mr. Weissman said. “And the legal system in the United States is the one that is supposed to be defending justice.”

In a highly unusual legal maneuver, the Department of Justice moved on Tuesday to replace President Trump’s private lawyers and defend him against a defamation lawsuit brought in a New York state court by the author E. Jean Carroll, who has accused him of raping her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.
[...]
Citing a law called the Federal Tort Claims Act, the department lawyers asserted the right to take the case from Mr. Trump’s private lawyers and move the matter from state court to federal court. The law gives employees of the federal government immunity from lawsuits, though legal experts said that it has rarely, if ever, been used before to protect a president.

Money was supposed to have been one of the great advantages of incumbency for President Trump, much as it was for President Barack Obama in 2012 and George W. Bush in 2004. After getting outspent in 2016, Mr. Trump filed for re-election on the day of his inauguration — earlier than any other modern president — betting that the head start would deliver him a decisive financial advantage this year.

It seemed to have worked. His rival, Joseph R. Biden Jr., was relatively broke when he emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee this spring, and Mr. Trump and the Republican National Committee had a nearly $200 million cash advantage.

Five months later, Mr. Trump’s financial supremacy has evaporated. Of the $1.1 billon his campaign and the party raised from the beginning of 2019 through July, more than $800 million has already been spent. Now some people inside the campaign are forecasting what was once unthinkable: a cash crunch with less than 60 days until the election, according to Republican officials briefed on the matter.

Brad Parscale, the former campaign manager, liked to call Mr. Trump’s re-election war machine an “unstoppable juggernaut.” But interviews with more than a dozen current and former campaign aides and Trump allies, and a review of thousands of items in federal campaign filings, show that the president’s campaign and the R.N.C. developed some profligate habits as they burned through hundreds of millions of dollars. Since Bill Stepien replaced Mr. Parscale in July, the campaign has imposed a series of belt-tightening measures that have reshaped initiatives, including hiring practices, travel and the advertising budget.

Flashback to 2016:

In 2016, Trump was anathema to the GOP’s traditional wealthy donors. But small-dollar contributors — “the Army of Trump,” Parscale would later call them — loved him. Trump’s supporters were uniquely responsive to donation appeals on social media; his celebrity and gut-level appeal commanded eyeballs. “The hardest thing in digital advertising is getting people’s attention,” says Coby. “You got a cheat code with Trump.”

Trump’s online and email fundraising generated a record $239 million in small-dollar donations, far more than Hillary Clinton’s and more than two-thirds of his donation total, according to the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute. This made Trump competitive in a race where he was outspent nearly 2 to 1.

Parscale’s growing role remained pretty much a secret for weeks into the general election race. But in mid-August, a new FEC filing was about to reveal that Giles-Parscale, an obscure San Antonio firm, had become the campaign’s biggest vendor, receiving $12.5 million to date. That prompted Wired to run a quick, flattering profile of him. Trump, according to a former RNC official, soon began referring to Parscale as “my $10 Million Man.”

By the October FEC filing, that figure had multiplied. Giles-Parscale had received more than $20 million in the previous month, on its way to a jaw-dropping final $94 million tally from the Trump committees. After Trump read media reports spotlighting Parscale’s most recent take, he erupted. Making a rare descent to the campaign’s makeshift offices in Trump Tower, he cornered his digital director in the kitchen and flew into a spitting rage, screaming, “Where the fuck is my money?”

Parscale told Trump that the vast majority was simply passed through his firm and went toward buying ads. After salaries and various consulting fees, he insisted, he’d received only a small percentage — far below what’s typical — as profit. Deputy campaign manager Dave Bossie, who had jumped between the two men, backed Parscale’s story. According to two witnesses, the confrontation ended when Kellyanne Conway sneezed on Trump, distracting him from his fury.

As a Scorcese movie this would be unwatchable. Especially with no one getting killed.

That is interesting, any links about this? I would be interested to learn more especially because the DSA explicitly said they would not endorse Biden. So if thats the case it seems pretty odd that the communists would endorse Biden, but the democratic socialists would not.

Now I dont think the threat of Bernie voter defections is as bad now as it was in 2016, when roughly 20-25% of Bernie voters did not vote for Clinton. They primarily went to Trump and third-party, with a small percentage staying home. Yes, a higher percentage of Clinton voters defected to McCain in 2008, but I think the location of those defections matters a lot too, as the article points out. But after 4 years of Trump I think far more of the Bernie voters are going to stick with Biden this time around. I guess we will find out in a couple months (crazy, isnt it?).

The only thing that irks me is when prominent people on the left who should know better advocate for not voting for Biden. Unfortunately I think at least some of them are refusing to endorse because they can gain more clout online to further their careers.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...r-backs-biden/

Even Richard Spencer backs Biden! In the sense of allegedly planning to vote for him, at least.

Democrats 2020: Our coalition has never been bigger. We have Communists and Nazis! (And maybe even, dare I say, the radical centrists.)

[a completely inoffensive name]

It's too hot in CA to think about politics right now.

[Montmorency]

It still amazes me that Trump has jurisdiction flipped a state civil suit against him to federal remit (i.e. the Justice Department) by the premise that when he injured the plaintiff he was acting in his official capacity as President. Leave aside any notion of "the dignity of the office," there's no such thing. The problems here, in escalating order:

1. The federal government will now be his lawyer and pick up his costs.
2. If he loses the suit, it is probably the federal government that will have to pay out.
3. He's arrogating the clout and power of the federal government to defend himself in a private civil matter.

Maybe actual dictators are less corrupt than Trump has been, simply because they have stable institutional arrangements tailored to their interests.

But that's trivial compared to this. [AUDIO]


(Listen to Trump admit in early February that nCoV-19 is serious business, much deadlier than the seasonal flu, and on March 19 that its threat isn't limited to the old yet he insists on "playing it down" in order to avert "panic." For reference, March 19 was the day the California lockdown was announced. New York issued the order the next day or so. Congress was about to reach a deal on pandemic relief legislation.)*

One way or another the pandemic response has been a crime against humanity, but this is the sort of thing that alone - alone! - should get his estate expropriated and/or him thrown behind bars for life.

Also, screw Woodward, before 2016 I knew him as a legend (to be fair I didn't realize he was still alive). But he's a hack for getting multiple groundbreaking scoops on Trump's malfeasance during his term only to sit on them until they could get published for personal profit. Did the old man badly need the money, given the 20 other books on presidents he's written? Little better than every culpable (and often themselves criminal) asshole in the White House or in Trump's orbit who waited until they were out of government or had a book deal secured before speaking out.
... Actually, you know, I'm not sure I even feel that way after all. One could argue from what we have learned about partisan epistemology that Woodward's numerous taped interviews with Trump over the course of this year are more valuable toward the historical record than one of them curtailed would have been as a short-term news event dumped into the media cycle. Whatever...


*Note also how, yet again, Trump sounds like a moron when discussing factual matters most candidly. The indicators have been unending, but it's presented just as a reminder that this has never been a man concealing more cleverness or awareness than he displays. Although, this material is part of the body of evidence that he is capable of consciously lying, as opposed to being totally delusional.

It goes, it goes through the air, Bob. That's always tougher than the touch. You know, the touch, you don't have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that's how it's - passed. And so, that's a very tricky one. That's a very delicate one. Uh, it's also more deadly than your, you know, your, even your more strenuous flus.

Tangentially:

Woodward: But let me ask you this. I mean, we share one thing in common. We’re White, privileged, who- my father was a lawyer and a judge in Illinois, and we know what your dad did. Do you have any sense that that privilege has isolated and put you in a cave to a certain extent, as it put me, and I think lots of White, privileged people in a cave. And that we have to work our way out of it to understand the anger and the pain, particularly Black people feel in this country. Do you feel–

Trump: No. You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.

Classic.



Par for the course polling result:

A new HuffPost/YouGov survey suggests that Trump now dominates the Republican Party he leads. Among Republicans1 who voted for Trump in 2016, 49 percent considered themselves more Trump backers than GOP backers, while 19 percent said they were more supporters of the GOP than they were supporters of Trump. Another 28 percent said they were supporters of both. And if there were a conflict between Trump and congressional Republicans, 61 percent said they’d be more likely to support Trump, compared with just 13 percent who would be predisposed to back Republicans on Capitol Hill instead.

[ReluctantSamurai]

None of this means squat. On numerous occasions, Fearless Leader's total lack of respect for American democracy, American law, the American people themselves, and even the office of the presidency, has had little to no consequences. Members of the GOP are so brow-beaten, that they only raise an occasional bleat for fear of being ostracized, and the Dems are nothing more than a weak, pathetic collection of toothless politicians who do nothing to defend the democracy they were elected to uphold.

Woodward is a money-grubbing scum bag, pure and simple. Hopefully, some prosecutor figures out a way to sue his ass for being complicit in negligent homicide.

I'm tired of this Rocky & Bullwinkle Show that we've been subjected to for the last six months. Tired of seeing the latest block tumble from our democracy, while Congress and the rest of the morons on Capital Hill do little or nothing to stop the bleeding. While millions of Americans are out of work, and dying by the thousands due to their incompetence, they check the daily reports on their stock portfolio's. While a megalomaniac president continually prods us down the road of fascism, Congress does nothing. AFAIAC, they are all the same brand as Woodward----capitalists at their worst.

The only media outlet that I can find (so far), that treats this Woodward "bombshell" with the disparaging review it deserves, is this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/09/b...-woodward.html

Woodward ends “Rage” by delivering his grave verdict. “When his performance as president is taken in its entirety,” he intones, “I can only reach one conclusion: Trump is the wrong man for the job.” It’s an anticlimactic declaration that could surprise no one other than maybe Bob Woodward. In “The Choice,” his book about the 1996 presidential campaign, he explained something that still seems a core belief of his: “When all is said and sifted, character is what matters most.” But if the roiling and ultimately empty palace intrigues documented in “Rage” and “Fear” are any indications, this lofty view comes up woefully short. What if the real story about the Trump era is less about Trump and more about the people who surround and protect him, standing by him in public even as they denounce him (or talk to Woodward) in private — a tale not of character but of complicity?

Though it's unclear if Szalai is pointing a complicit finger at Woodward or at Fearless Leader's staff...

[ReluctantSamurai]

As a follow-up, Woodward defending his decision to sit on information contained in his book:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...49c_story.html

Woodward told me that — contrary to speculation — he did not have any signed agreement or formal embargo arrangement with Trump or the White House to hold back their conversations until the book published.
“I told him it was for the book,” he said — but as far as promising not to publish in real time, or signing such an agreement, “I don’t do that.”
Woodward said his aim was to provide a fuller context than could occur in a news story: “I knew I could tell the second draft of history, and I knew I could tell it before the election.” (Former Washington Post publisher Phil Graham famously called journalism “the first rough draft of history.”)
What’s more, he said, there were at least two problems with what he heard from Trump in February that kept him from putting it in the newspaper at the time:

First, he didn’t know what the source of Trump’s information was. It wasn’t until months later — in May — that Woodward learned it came from a high-level intelligence briefing in January that was also described in Wednesday’s reporting about the book.
In February, what Trump told Woodward seemed hard to make sense of, the author told me — back then, Woodward said, there was no panic over the virus; even toward the final days of that month, Anthony S. Fauci was publicly assuring Americans there was no need to change their daily habits.
Second, Woodward said, “the biggest problem I had, which is always a problem with Trump, is I didn’t know if it was true.”

But why not then write such a story later in the spring, once it was clear that the virus was extraordinarily destructive and that Trump’s early downplaying had almost certainly cost lives?
Again, Woodward said he believes his highest purpose isn’t to write daily stories but to give his readers the big picture — one that may have a greater effect, especially with a consequential election looming.
Woodward’s effort, he said, was to deliver in book form “the best obtainable version of the truth,” not to rush individual revelations into publication.

[Hooahguy]

I'm conflicted. While I think he should have released the info months ago, I do wonder if he is onto something in the sense of impact. I remember very clearly that the info in the first month or so was very confusing with people saying different things, like first to not wear masks and then we needed to, so I wonder if it would have just been another story that got lost in the chaos that was the first month. But now, after nearly 200,000 deaths? I think it packs more of a punch.

[ReluctantSamurai]

so I wonder if it would have just been another story that got lost in the chaos that was the first month. But now, after nearly 200,000 deaths? I think it packs more of a punch.

I guess noone will ever know if the story would've gotten lost in the noise. And what kind of "punch" is worth tens of thousands of excessive deaths? Do you really believe that anything meaningful will occur to improve our abysmal coronavirus response? In a couple of weeks, there will be a new "crisis" that dominates media, and all of this will just fade into the background noise that has pervaded the last 8 months. States will still be left to their own discretion and devices for dealing with the pandemic; our economy will still be in the shit hole because with a pandemic still rampant, you can't truly get economic recovery; the lies and mis-information in dealing with the virus will continue unabated; and this administration will probably severely damage the effectiveness of an eventual vaccine by undermining the already shaky public confidence in it's efficacy.

So what meaningful changes do you see in the coming weeks as a result of the fallout from all of this?

[Hooahguy]

I'm not disagreeing with you that he should have released it sooner, but hopefully you also remember how there were constant contradictions flying around regarding Covid in the early days so I am skeptical that it would have made much of a difference. Nor will it improve things now. The only way for our Covid response to get better is to vote Trump out. Thats it. There is no "better" with Trump at the helm. We won't ever truly know if it would have broken through the noise or not and make things better. But speaking from a strictly election-focused point of view, it being released now is far more impactful since we are less than two months away from the election and is more likely to sway voters on the fence. This is morbid, but the mantra of "Trump lied, people died" is far more effective after nearly 200,000 deaths.

Again let me be clear: I do think he should have released this info sooner to save lives. However, considering Woodward stated that he was looking to make the greatest effect, I understand why he did what he did despite disagreeing with it.

[ReluctantSamurai]

But speaking from a strictly election-focused point of view, it being released now is far more impactful since we are less than two months away from the election and is more likely to sway voters on the fence.

I truly hope that that is the case. It's a horrendous condemnation of the state of affairs in this country, that it takes the deaths of so many of our fellow citizens, rather than all of the other destructive things this man has done, to realize he is killing democracy, as we know it, in this country. I suspect it was already dead, and his ascending to the presidency, and what he's done since, is merely pointing out the Walking Dead that we've become....