POTUS/General Election Thread 2020 + Aftermath

[Montmorency]

A speculative insight on why the Senate Republicans or Mitch McConnell may be refusing to legislate new pandemic relief. The discussion in comments is also very worthwhile.

Best hypothesis I've heard is that many GOP Senators:

1) Expect Trump to lose.

2) Expect the right to react to this the same way it did to Bush II (renewed fervor for conservative purity).

3) Fear a big Covid stimulus would be the new TARP/that they will get primary-ed for it.

Another interesting flashback to the fundamentally Nixonian (at best) character of the Republican party:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics...sappear-again/


From Woodward's book:

Trump was taken with Kim’s flattery, Woodward writes, telling the author pridefully that Kim had addressed him as “Excellency.” Trump remarked that he was awestruck meeting Kim for the first time in 2018 in Singapore, thinking to himself, “Holy shit,” and finding Kim to be “far beyond smart.” Trump also boasted to Woodward that Kim “tells me everything,” including a graphic account of Kim having his uncle killed.

Trump did not share his letters to Kim — “Those are so top secret,” the president said — but Woodward obtained them independently. He writes that Trump sent Kim a copy of the New York Times featuring a picture of the two men on the front page. “Chairman, great picture of you, big time,” Trump wrote on the paper in marker. (Trump falsely boasted to Woodward: “He never smiled before. I’m the only one he smiles with.”)

Look, it's more history for us. Hopefully it's useful to some postdoc when we're dead.

(This kind of stuff demonstrating Trump's diminished mental capacity is why I've never really been able to hate him. Yes, I know he's technically sapient, fully capable of overt lies, and one of the worst people ever, but - he's just so pathetic!)

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 Trump administration's relentless incompetence, malice, and overt venal lawlessness are a psychic burden and a Promethean wound on the whole country. I can't count how many people have expressed this feeling, like meat boiling off a bone.

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.

I wish, per my previous statement, that they were screaming about it more, and maybe somehow teaming up with activists to organize their communities 'outside the system' in anticipation of a long period of popular uprising. But the reality we've all been forced to confront by now is that in terms of institutional power Congress or individual lawmakers just can't impose their will if the executive and judiciary collectively militate against it. Frustrating as it may be to be stuck in the position of crying "DO SOMETHING" at Dem electeds, they are almost helpless in their official capacity if the opposition plays hardball and feels unconstrained by laws or ethics or reason. What power they do still have is largely rhetorical, e.g. "screaming."

This is no mere defense of Capitol Hill Democrats but a reminder that unless we wrangle a revolutionary force that can sweep away Republicans outside the ballot box, we're left to keep taking the punches for the time being. (This isn't to say that Trump hasn't been rebuked by the courts, more often than not he has, but the consistent outcome of the Congressional complaints against Trump has been decisively in favor of executive time and power. Trump can give a damn.)

Biden as President - or more properly his administration's Justice Department - needs to open a few hundred criminal investigations as soon as physically possible though, as that's our only recourse to Republican crimes this side of the decade. Failure to acknowledge and operate on this wound would be a damning mark well beyond his time in office.

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

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

Admittedly, in this treatment he doesn't answer the narrow question of whether this bit of information was worth going public with given the technical possibility that its dissemination could prompt policy changes.

I'll split the difference and say he should have arranged for the info to be leaked to the NYT. He could have been Deep Wood! Truly a full circle finish, of a sort.

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

It does seem liable to congeal the dwindling of Trump's polling lead among elderly white voters, particularly in Florida.

[Hooahguy]

This is no mere defense of Capitol Hill Democrats but a reminder that unless we wrangle a revolutionary force that can sweep away Republicans outside the ballot box, we're left to keep taking the punches for the time being. (This isn't to say that Trump hasn't been rebuked by the courts, more often than not he has, but the consistent outcome of the Congressional complaints against Trump has been decisively in favor of executive time and power. Trump can give a damn.)

As I have long argued, the GOP needs to be burned to the ground completely. More people seem to be coming around to this point. I mean even Bill Kristol of all people seems to recognize this. This article, by Tom Nichols from yesterday is probably the best summation of why the GOP is beyond saving:

I’m not advocating for voting against the GOP merely to punish Republicans for Trump’s existence in their party. Rather, conservatives must finally accept that at this point Trump and the Republican Party are indistinguishable. Trump and his circle have gutted the old GOP and stuffed its empty husk with the Trump family’s paranoia and corruption.Indeed, the transformation of the GOP into a cult of personality is so complete that the Republicans didn’t even bother presenting a platform at their own convention. Like a group of ciphers at a meeting of SPECTRE, they nodded at whatever Number One told them to do, each of them fearing an extended pinkie finger pressing the button that would electrocute them into political oblivion.
...
Conservatives must also let go of fantasies about saving the “good” Republicans, a list that is virtually nonexistent. (You can’t count Mitt Romney more than once.) The occasional furrowed brow—a specialty of the feckless Susan Collins of Maine—is not enough. The few, like Romney, who have dared grasp at moments of sanity have been pilloried by Trump and other Republicans. In any case, Romney is chained to the GOP caucus, a crew that includes the jabbering Louie Gohmert and calculating Elise Stefanik in the House, and the sniveling Ted Cruz and amoral Mitch McConnell in the Senate.

Biden as President - or more properly his administration's Justice Department - needs to open a few hundred criminal investigations as soon as physically possible though, as that's our only recourse to Republican crimes this side of the decade. Failure to acknowledge and operate on this wound would be a damning mark well beyond his time in office.

Biden himself has said that he won't stand in the way of investigations into the Trump admin, but also said that he wouldn't order investigations either. Rather he would let the Justice Department decide. The rule of law part of me is encouraged by this, but at the same time I'm a little disappointed as the crimes of the current administration need to be explored and punished. I guess it will depend on who is picked for AG.

[Montmorency]

The Wisconsin Supreme Court - yes, that majority - has just ordered Wisconsin to stop mailing absentee ballots. The state had printed more than 2 million ballots, and mailed hundreds of thousands, with a deadline to send them by September 17; they had been prepared for the general E following the April chaos. But their SC halted all that and is considering nullifying all existing ballots.

This was all done at the request of the Green Party presidential candidates who failed to meet the criteria for being included on the ballot.

JFC can we have a reality where not every downballot election is critical to every other election? I'm sick of all the narrative threads!

[Hooahguy]

Well I guess we now have some numbers as to the potential impact of the Woodward tapes plus the Atlantic story about the troops:

Yahoo News/YouGov poll: Biden now leads Trump by 10, 49-39 (was Biden +6 post-RNC)

15% say the Woodward tape makes them less likely to vote for Trump

23% of independents say the Atlantic troops story makes them more likely to vote for Biden

Following the Atlantic story about Trump's comments on the troops, "six percent of 2016 Trump supporters say they have moved toward Biden as a result."

Overall, 8% of Trump 2016 voters have switched to Biden compared to just 1% of Clinton voters to Trump.

The interesting takeaway here seems to be that the Atlantic story seems to have had a bigger impact than the Woodward story.

[ReluctantSamurai]

The interesting takeaway here seems to be that the Atlantic story seems to have had a bigger impact than the Woodward story.

You just don't screw with loyalty to the military. Especially if you've never served....

As damning as the Woodward story is, this is equally damning, if not more so:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...ovid-19-412809

In some cases, emails from communications aides to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other senior officials openly complained that the agency’s reports would undermine President Donald Trump's optimistic messages about the outbreak, according to emails reviewed by POLITICO and three people familiar with the situation.

CDC officials have fought back against the most sweeping changes, but have increasingly agreed to allow the political officials to review the reports and, in a few cases, compromised on the wording, according to three people familiar with the exchanges. The communications aides’ efforts to change the language in the CDC’s reports have been constant across the summer and continued as recently as Friday afternoon.

But since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the health department's new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump's statements, including the president's claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether.

Caputo and his team have attempted to add caveats to the CDC's findings, including an effort to retroactively change agency reports that they said wrongly inflated the risks of Covid-19 and should have made clear that Americans sickened by the virus may have been infected because of their own behavior, according to the individuals familiar with the situation and emails reviewed by POLITICO.

In one clash, an aide to Caputo berated CDC scientists for attempting to use the reports to "hurt the President" in an Aug. 8 email sent to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other officials that was widely circulated inside the department and obtained by POLITICO.

Alexander also called on Redfield to halt all future MMWR reports until the agency modified its years-old publication process so he could personally review the entire report prior to publication, rather than a brief synopsis. Alexander, an assistant professor of health research at Toronto's McMaster University whom Caputo recruited this spring to be his scientific adviser, added that CDC needed to allow him to make line edits — and demanded an "immediate stop" to the reports in the meantime.

"The reports must be read by someone outside of CDC like myself, and we cannot allow the reporting to go on as it has been, for it is outrageous. Its lunacy," Alexander told Redfield and other officials. "Nothing to go out unless I read and agree with the findings how they CDC, wrote it and I tweak it to ensure it is fair and balanced and 'complete.'"

So not only lying about the threat of SARS-2 in February, but actively suppressing ongoing data transmission that made the Trump Administration look inept.

[Hooahguy]

Less inept and more malicious and deceitful in my opinion.

And re: the military, him entering his most recent rally to Fortunate Son is really something else. Hes the definition of a chickenhawk.

[edyzmedieval]

We're less than 2 months to go and it's getting even nastier.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Oh, it's just warming up

Like this ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuBX50zVY5g

Lincoln Project hits home again:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...-nevada-412990

“But you know the good part?” Trump continued. “Now I can be really vicious. Once I saw that ad, I don’t have to be nice anymore.”

These guys have shown the ability time and time again to get into Fearless Leaders head. People of questionable integrity, but they make killer ads the Dems won't, although they don't have enough funding to air them 'prime-time' on mainstream media. The ability of these ads to influence voters is likely quite limited, but still, it's fun to watch Fearless Leader squirm.

[Montmorency]

https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-s...loses-election

Roger Stoneis making baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election and is urging Donald Trump to consider several draconian measures to stay in power, including having federal authorities seize ballots in Nevada, having FBI agents and Republican state officials “physically” block voting under the pretext of preventing voter fraud, using martial law or the Insurrection Act to carry out widespread arrests, and nationalizing state police forces.

Stone, a longtime confidant of the president, made the comments during a September 10 appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars network. On July 10, Trump commuted a 40-month prison sentence that was handed down to Stone after he was convicted of lying to Congress and tampering with witnesses as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into 2016 election interference. Namely, Stone lied to Congress about his contacts with WikiLeaks, which released hacked emails with the aim of boosting Trump’s prospects [which Stone appears to have mediated]. In the weeks leading up to the commutation, Stone made a number of media appearances where he asked Trump to grant him clemency and said that in exchange, he could be a more effective campaigner for the president’s 2020 reelection efforts.

Stone’s efforts are now underway, and his aim appears to be to spread conspiracy theories about voter fraud and call for actions that would likely intimidate potential Joe Biden voters.

During his September 10 appearance on The Alex Jones Show, Stone declared that the only legitimate outcome to the 2020 election would be a Trump victory. He made this assertion on the basis of his entirely unfounded claim that early voting has been marred by widespread voter fraud.

Stone argued that “the ballots in Nevada on election night should be seized by federal marshalls and taken from the state” because “they are completely corrupted” and falsely said that “we can prove voter fraud in the absentees right now.” He specifically called for Trump to have absentee ballots seized in Clark County, Nevada, an area that leans Democratic. Stone went on to claim that “the votes from Nevada should not be counted; they are already flooded with illegals” and baselessly suggested that former Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) should be arrested and that Trump should consider nationalizing Nevada’s state police force.

Beyond Nevada, Stone recommended that Trump consider several actions to retain his power. Stone recommended that Trump appoint former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) as a special counsel “with the specific task of forming an Election Day operation using the FBI, federal marshals, and Republican state officials across the country to be prepared to file legal objections and if necessary to physically stand in the way of criminal activity.”

Stone also urged Trump to consider declaring “martial law” or invoking the Insurrection Act and then using his powers to arrest Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, “the Clintons” and “anybody else who can be proven to be involved in illegal activity.”

Stone is no stranger to interfering in elections. He was reportedly an organizer of the so-called “Brooks Brothers riot” [Ed. see #202 in thread] during the 2000 presidential election that led to vote counting being suspended in Miami-Dade County, Florida.

I am exquisitely triggered.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Listening to Limbaugh last week. Biggest worry among the call-ins was not whether or not Trump would win -- they are presuming a 2016 repeat -- but of who would take up the Trump agenda and style of leadership once Trump left office.

There exists a cadre who actually REVEL in this style of leadership environment.


So many folks who I thought conservative in orientation were simply selfish in orientation. Always knew that to be true, but I am saddened it was such a large chunk of the "conservative" segment.

[Idaho]

Conservatism is, at root, a feel-don't-think proposition. It's about fear of loss, aversion to the unknown, "we are right" kind of deal. As such, the effects and process are irrelevant. The most important thing is to maintain the right feeling.

[Hooahguy]

https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-s...loses-election

I am exquisitely triggered.

I saw someone on twitter comment that Trump isnt trying to win, he is trying to get within cheating distance, which I think he is he is getting there.

[Montmorency]

The top communications official at the powerful cabinet department in charge of combating the coronavirus accused career government scientists on Sunday of “sedition” in their handling of the pandemic and warned that left-wing hit squads were preparing for armed insurrection after the election.

Michael Caputo, 58, the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, said without evidence that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was harboring a “resistance unit” determined to undermine President Trump.

Mr. Caputo, who has faced criticism for leading efforts to warp C.D.C. weekly bulletins to fit Mr. Trump’s pandemic narrative, suggested that he personally could be in danger.

“You understand that they’re going to have to kill me, and unfortunately, I think that’s where this is going,” Mr. Caputo, a Trump loyalist installed by the White House in April, told followers in a video he hosted live on his personal Facebook page. Mr. Caputo has 5,000 Facebook friends, and the video has been viewed more than 850 times. It has been shared by 44 followers.

The department said in a statement: “Mr. Caputo is a critical, integral part of the president’s coronavirus response, leading on public messaging as Americans need public health information to defeat the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Mr. Caputo said Monday, “Since joining the administration my family and I have been continually threatened” and harassed by people who have later been prosecuted. “This weighs heavily on us, and we deeply appreciate the friendship and support of President Trump as we address these matters and keep our children safe.”

Mr. Caputo delivered his broadside against scientists, the media and Democrats after a spate of news reports over the weekend that detailed his team’s systematic interference in the C.D.C.’s official reports on the pandemic and other disease outbreaks. Former and current C.D.C. officials described to Politico, The New York Times and other outlets how Mr. Caputo and a top aide routinely demanded the agency revise, delay and even scuttle the C.D.C.’s core public health updates, called Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, that they believed undercut Mr. Trump’s message that the pandemic is under control.

Those reports, deemed “the holiest of the holy” by one former top health official for their international respect and importance, have traditionally been so shielded from political interference that political appointees see them only just before they are published.

Mr. Caputo on Sunday complained on Facebook that he was under siege by the media and said that his physical health was in question and his “mental health has definitely failed.”

“I don’t like being alone in Washington,” he said, describing “shadows on the ceiling in my apartment, there alone, shadows are so long.” He then ran through a series of conspiracy theories, culminating in a prediction that Mr. Trump will win re-election but his Democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., will refuse to concede.

“And when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin,” he said. “The drills that you’ve seen are nothing.” He added: “If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get.”

wtf ffs smh nagl ngl

Every day is Flight 93 day.

[ReluctantSamurai]

on his personal Facebook page. Mr. Caputo has 5,000 Facebook friends, and the video has been viewed more than 850 times. It has been shared by 44 followers.

Mr. Caputo on Sunday complained on Facebook that he was under siege by the media and said that his physical health was in question and his “mental health has definitely failed.”

The only truthful part of his entire statement

“And when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin,” he said. “The drills that you’ve seen are nothing.” He added: “If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get.”

“To allow people to die so that you can replace the president is a grievous venial sin, venial sin,” Mr. Caputo said. “And these people are all going to hell.”

https://i.imgur.com/TM9g64s.gif

QAnon is already in Washington

[ReluctantSamurai]

Good read on a critique of media in the US:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...stakes/616222/

Many of our most influential editors and reporters are acting as if the rules that prevailed under previous American presidents are still in effect. But this president is different; the rules are different; and if it doesn’t adapt, fast, the press will stand as yet another institution that failed in a moment of crucial pressure.

Who knows how the 2016 race might have turned out, and whether a man like Trump could have ended up in the position he did, if any of a hundred factors had gone a different way. But one important factor was the press’s reluctance to recognize what it was dealing with: a person nakedly using racial resentment as a tool; whose dishonesty and corruption dwarfed that of both Clintons combined, with most previous presidents’ thrown in as well; and whose knowledge about the vast organization he was about to control was inferior to that of any Capitol Hill staffer and most immigrants who had passed the (highly demanding) U.S. citizenship test.

Now it’s four years later. And we’re waking up in Groundhog Day, so far without Bill Murray’s eventual, hard-earned understanding that he could learn new skills as time went on. For Murray, those were things like playing the piano and speaking French. For the press, in these next 49 days, those can be grappling with (among other things) three of the most destructive habits in dealing with Donald Trump. For shorthand, they are the embrace of false equivalence, or both-sides-ism; the campaign-manager mentality, or horse-race-ism; and the love of spectacle, or going after the ratings and the clicks.

On "Both-Sides-Ism":

This is the shorthand term for most journalists’ discomfort with seeming to “take a side” in political disputes, and the contortions that result.

Of course, taking a side is fundamental to the act of journalism. Everything we write or broadcast is something we’re saying deserves more attention than what we’re not discussing. The layout of a front page, in print or online; the airtime given to TV or radio reports; the tone and emphasis of headlines; and everything else down the list of communication tools reflect choices. When we investigate and present exposés, we are taking a side in favor of the importance of these subjects, and the fidelity of our account.

On Horse-Race-Ism:

Decades ago in Breaking the News, I wrote about the near-irresistible impulse to convert the substance of anything into how it would seem from a political operative’s point of view. Much as football commentators can remain neutral between teams, but express sharp opinions on the three-four defense or whether the blitz pays off, political writers can avoid taking a side by expressing their judgment with tactical commentary.

This brings up one other tell, of people struggling with the both-sides impulse: the could-raise-questions technique.

On the "Spectacle":

Entertainment will always draw a bigger audience than news. During 2015 and 2016, the audiences drawn by Trump’s spectacles proved irresistible for TV programmers. Now the novelty has worn off, and the audience has been distilled to the believers. But still you can see the temptation to cover whatever he does, live, and—most of all—to be diverted by his latest stunt or outrage. Trump’s greatest strategic advantage is distraction: forcing, or tempting, the public mind to forget what happened yesterday, because of the new fireworks he has launched today. The tragedy at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya—when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state—was in the news for years and was the subject of at least 10 congressional hearings. Less than three months have passed since news broke of Russia paying bounties for the deaths of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and it’s rarely covered.

Donald Trump is weak on book-learning but extremely canny about attention management. The challenge for reporters and editors is to maintain attention on the “yesterday’s news” items that will matter tomorrow—in the state of the economy, in America’s standing in the world, in the structures of democratic governance. It is to see things steady and see them whole.

When a presidential confidant who has been convicted of felonies—one of several in that category—and then spared punishment by Trump’s direct intervention calls for “martial law” if election results go against Trump, that should not be just a one-day story. Roger Stone, who made that call last week, is known for histrionics. But if we have learned anything about Trump and his colleagues, it is to question their facts but be deadly earnest about their intent. (Take him “seriously but not factually,” we might say.) So too with Trump’s efforts to delegitimize in advance any vote count that does not go his way. His endless harping that “it’s rigged, folks, rigged” is so destructive that it has only one obvious precedent in modern U.S. history. That was Trump’s insistence on the same point four years ago, until the Electoral College swung his way. We can’t be sure now which is more destructive: a president openly encouraging much of the public to mistrust the democratic process, or that same president openly welcoming foreign interference in the process. Both are steps toward authoritarianism and danger, and awareness of them should shape coverage every single day.

For as long as the press has existed, it has been shambling and imperfect and improvisational. At our best we get things right on average, and incrementally, with a lot of getting things wrong along the way. Most of us in this business do our imperfect best. But any hope of doing better depends on the ability to learn. Soon the clock will show 6:00 a.m. once more; the alarm will start blaring “I Got You Babe” another time. This day, we can do better.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

As it stands, Biden will win the popular vote by a substantial number.

DO NOT assume the Electoral votes are a done deal. Yes, many of the states that took Trump to a win in 2016 are leading Biden, who plays better with working America than Hillary ever dreamed of doing, but the margins among likely voters are fairly slim in places like PA, MI, arguably WI as well, with the Trafalgar pollers (some folks think they suck, others not) showing Trump leads as little as three weeks ago.

Get anyone you know to go vote. Do not sit back and think "Joe's got this."

[Hooahguy]

I've seen a couple of articles from center-right folk who are saying things like "I really don't like Trump but the Dems are controlled by the far left so I have to vote for Trump." In response, this article was written. Really quite a humorous read:

Believe me when I tell you that the LAST THING I could POSSIBLY want would be to vote for Donald Trump. That’s why I am so stunned that you have taken it upon yourself to go to such lengths to FORCE me to vote for him! You sick, sick monster! I don’t even like him, not even one little bit. So I hope you’re happy with what YOU are making me do, which comes to me as a total surprise and is definitely not a foregone conclusion in any way.

Over the past four years, Trump’s ominous shadow has devoured everything that was precious about America, chewed on it and spat out only bones and gristle. This has slightly obscured the accomplishments of his administration, which include, if I am remembering right (DON’T TELL ME IF I’M NOT; THAT WILL MAKE ME ANGRY, AND YOU KNOW WHO ANGRY PEOPLE VOTE FOR), ending the budget deficit and doing whatever it was Abraham Lincoln did, but better and faster.

Do I think Trump has the attributes necessary for governing? Absolutely not! He is a dangerous man, and every day we spend under his leadership is a day we lose a precious share of the world’s respect that we may never regain. There’s definitely not a “But!” coming after such a strong and overwhelming condemnation of his leadership.

But! (You MONSTER! I can’t BELIEVE you put a “BUT” right here in my otherwise full-throated condemnation! That is the only explanation for how it could have gotten there; I know I would not have put it there.) I am more afraid that Joe Biden is the unwitting puppet of dangerous socialists, something you forced me to think using a mind ray. God! You’re even more disgusting than I imagined.

It is also bizarre and, frankly, counterproductive of you to insist that I not read any of Biden’s policy positions on anything, or how you have expended all this effort to make me baselessly paranoid that some shadowy, unseen figure is pulling his strings — something I would not think on my own! Can’t believe you’ve pushed me to this point.

I should also note that, much as I hold deep, principled reservations about Trump’s leadership, I just want to say that if anyone makes me feel the least bit uncomfortable about the legacy of racism in this country or urges me to learn one particle of history that I would not like to learn, I will panic, and when I panic, I vote for Trump (which is, I admit, weird given that I have ZERO desire to do so).

Also, I am sick of media bias. Journalists never quote the president saying anything that makes him look good or sound competent. But just statistically a person must sometimes sound at least kind of competent. Like the monkey-typewriter-Shakespeare thing! So if I see anywhere that the president said something that makes him look bad, malicious or incompetent, you know what that means: I’m going to have to vote for him. Twist my arm, why don’t you!

I am not worried about any dictatorial tendencies from Trump. Yes, he says all the time now that he deserves a third term and that his first one should not be counted, and he constantly implies that he will not accept the results of the election as legitimate if they involve the counting of mailed-in ballots. He also loves nothing better than to embrace creepy strongmen abroad! But (whoa, another “but”! You must be really messed up) I just kind of don’t think he really will follow through on any of it? And what if Biden, whom I have no reason to believe would do any of these things, were secretly planning something much, much worse?

Are there people on the right as bad as the people on the left who are really what is wrong with America? Yes, I think? You made me frame that very confusingly. Sure, it’s bad that the president is giving aid and cover to white supremacists, but — I can’t BELIEVE you would make me put another “but” here! This isn’t a sentence that should have a “but” in it! Though while we’re here, I guess I would say, since you’ve forced me to — but how much do we really need to care about that? You’ve given me no choice but to vote for Trump.

Is there anything any of you could say or do that would make me not vote for him? Wow, it’s condescending questions like this that have really forced my hand.

So I am going to hold my nose and vote for Donald Trump. It would be a real shame for the country, I think, but then again, it might not be such a shame. It almost feels like you WANT me to do it. Okay, I’ll do it.

[Montmorency]

On fires and militias in the Pacific Northwest, where the decline of the American state into failure is especially stark.
https://twitter.com/R3volutionDaddy/...47303066869762


Good news: In a 4-3 decision, the WISC denied the Greens their petition and allowed election officials to resume sending out mail ballots. To be clear, the viability of mail voting in a key battleground state swung on the whim of a single conservative justice. But the Greens are trying much the same scheme in Pennsylvania currently, which is worth twice as much as Wisconsin in the Electoral College... At some point it really seems like the entire national third party apparatus in the US is a transideological con meant to separate contrarian fools from their money at any cost. If a third party wants our votes it should run for something, not just against something.

QAnon is already in Washington

https://time.com/5887437/conspiracy-...2020-election/

They are impervious to messaging, advertising or data. They aren’t just infected with conspiracy; they appear to be inoculated against reality.

[I remembered this short from all the way back in the early days of Youtube. If the shoe fits...]

Why the stability of the 2020 race promises more volatility ahead

Trump's approval ratings and support in the presidential race against Democratic nominee Joe Biden have oscillated in a strikingly narrow range of around 40%-45% that appears largely immune to both good news -- the long economic boom during his presidency's first years -- and bad -- impeachment, the worst pandemic in more than a century, revelations that he's disparaged military service and blunt warnings that he is unfit for the job from former senior officials in his own government. Perhaps the newest disclosures, in the upcoming book from Bob Woodward, that Trump knew the coronavirus was far more dangerous than the common flu even as he told Americans precisely the opposite, will break this pattern, but most political strategists in both parties are skeptical that it will. The durability of both support and opposition to Trump shows how the motivation for voters' choices is shifting from transitory measures of performance, such as the traditional metrics of peace and prosperity, toward bedrock attitudes about demographic, cultural and economic change. The immovability of the battle lines in 2020 captures how thoroughly the two parties are now unified -- and separated -- by their contrasting attitudes toward these fundamental changes, with Trump mobilizing overwhelming support from the voters who are hostile to them, no matter what else happens, and the contrasting coalition of Americans who welcome this evolution flocking toward the Democrats.
[...]
What's more, Biden's national advantage over Trump isn't meaningfully different than it was a year ago, despite the searing intervening event of a pandemic that soon will have claimed 200,000 American lives. To take one measure, the Real Clear Politics average of national polls last October showed Biden at 50.1% and Trump at 43.4%; the result last weekend was 50.5% to 43% -- virtually unchanged. "Things are very locked in because the reason you're voting for Trump is not because of the economy or the response to coronavirus that he's delivering but rather the image of protecting White people in America," says Manuel Pastor
[...]
But the most powerful factor in the new stability may be the shift in the basis of voters' allegiance to the parties. Increasingly, campaign strategists and political scientists agree, voters are choosing between the parties more on their views about fundamental demographic and cultural change than on their immediate financial circumstances or even their views of economic policies, such as taxes, spending and regulation.
Partisan allegiances grounded in these fundamental measures of personal and national identity -- such as whether the nation must do more to assure equal opportunity for people of color and women -- appear highly resistant to reconsideration based on immediate events. In important research, Schaffner and his colleagues found that the denial that racism or sexism exists in America was the best predictor in the 2016 election of support for Trump, far more than any measures of economic distress. On the other side, Schaffner found that the belief that racism and sexism are serious problems predicted support for Clinton more powerfully than economic attitudes, as well. [Ed. Don't forget immigration]
[...]
If Biden holds his national lead, Democrats will win the popular vote in November for the seventh time in the past eight presidential elections -- something no party has done since the formation of the modern party system in 1828. That underscores the reality that the groups drawn toward the Democrats in this cultural resorting of the electorate -- what I've called the "coalition of transformation" -- are clearly larger at this point than the competing "coalition of restoration" aligning with the GOP.
[...]
Pastor isn't alone when he grimly predicts, "We're really getting ready for a very deep culture war coming."

I've seen a couple of articles from center-right folk who are saying things like "I really don't like Trump but the Dems are controlled by the far left so I have to vote for Trump." In response, this article was written. Really quite a humorous read:

I knew it was Petri without clicking. But this abuser logic has been properly (if not widely enough) mocked since at least 2017.

As it stands, Biden will win the popular vote by a substantial number.

DO NOT assume the Electoral votes are a done deal. Yes, many of the states that took Trump to a win in 2016 are leading Biden, who plays better with working America than Hillary ever dreamed of doing, but the margins among likely voters are fairly slim in places like PA, MI, arguably WI as well, with the Trafalgar pollers (some folks think they suck, others not) showing Trump leads as little as three weeks ago.

Get anyone you know to go vote. Do not sit back and think "Joe's got this."

Democrats should of course continue to act as though the race is not won, and indeed it isn't until there is widespread institutional acceptance that Trump has lost. Democrats should, as I said, be priming and educating and warning the public and their constituents about what is very predictably coming.

But if Biden were to win the national popular vote by 6% (in final returns) and lose the EC, with favorable battleground states sharply deviating from the latest polling, then mathematically speaking that would ipso facto demonstrate the presence of fraud; we would instantly recognize that fact in any other election in any other country, unblinkered by any remnants of exceptionalism. Conveniently, we already know Trump and his party are trying strenuously to secure a fraudulent result...

[ReluctantSamurai]

Dunno what this says about what motivates people:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/202...es-if-you-vote

[ReluctantSamurai]

Oops:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-race-abc-news

It didn't take long for The Lincoln Project to jump on that one:

https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/s...61951705858048

[a completely inoffensive name]

It's over. The last thing we wanted to happen, happened. So fucked.

[Pannonian]

It's over. The last thing we wanted to happen, happened. So fucked.

Quoi?

[Hooahguy]

Liberal SCOTUS justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.

Well I guess we are court packing if Biden wins and the Senate flips. But will Biden have the stones to do it? Guess we will see.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Sadly, this is a huge windfall for Trump 2020.
If he nominates someone and McConnell brings it to the floor then this fight becomes the mudpit crazy show Trump needs to keep the focus from being on his leadership. It is exactly what he needs — the greatest possible distraction.


On a personal note. I am not a liberal and often sided with the other position on issues. Despite which, she was a great justice who embodied a voice that is needed on the SCOTUS. She championed equality and worked tirelessly to make this country a better place to live, work, and enjoy personal freedom. She will be missed.

[Hooahguy]

Alternatively it also really motivates the left. So far three Republicans have stated that they wont vote on a nominee- Susan Collins, Chuck Grassley, and Lisa Murkowski. But if McConnell holds a vote, will they vote yes? Thats the giant question.

I think this is a good summation of what might happen, which wont be pretty any way one puts it:

We are now 46 days away from a presidential election that the current president is—just as a statistical matter—more likely to lose than win.

Republicans still control the Senate, but this majority is also in jeopardy.

And so President Trump faces a decision:

(1) Will he and the Republican Senate attempt to ram a replacement for Ginsburg through the Senate before voters render a verdict on them?

(2) Will he wait until after the election, but before January 20, to replace Ginsburg?

(3) Or will he abide by the same rationales that were deployed in the case of Merrick Garland, and allow the next president and Senate to attend to this matter?

It is not clear that any of these pathways leads to a good outcome for the country. This may be—forgive the mixed metaphor—the black swan that breaks America’s back.

Edit: this is some motivation- ActBlue (the Dem online donation website) processed over $11 million in under two hours tonight. As the tweet says, that's $105,404.41 per minute, $1,756.74 per second. Thats a crazy amount of money.

[a completely inoffensive name]

The worst aspect of GOP rule is not even the policies, it's the fundamental truth that such a state would be increasingly unstable.

You cannot have a party in charge whose claim to power rests on a single demographic, while every other demographic is moving away.
Attachment 23948

This country is rapidly moving to a majority-minority society and the end state of a GOP government is total electoral collapse and a massive power vacuum or a authoritarian ethnostate.

[a completely inoffensive name]

On a personal note. I am not a liberal and often sided with the other position on issues.

In times like these, how do you not fundamentally challenge the basic tenets of conservatism when you see how quickly, and how boldly, it devolved itself into conspiratorial cults.

[Montmorency]

This is what happens when I don't headline-surf for breaking news.

1. Court packing, electoral reform, pandemic relief, healthcare reform - and that just the legislative agenda, and the agenda for the first 100 days at that. And I might be forgetting some bigger or smaller items. Somehow I struggle to entertain the thought that an upcoming Democratic Congress with even relatively-dramatic majorities (itself far from certain) will rise to being one of the few most productive in history...

2. Ted Cruz says that "you can't run an election on 8 justices." So, uh, a reminder that all of our talk is for nothing here (more nothing than baseline) if Roberts is not even the median vote on election cases now.

3. history. Does it turn on the weft of small events and personalistic bifurcations, or does the sweep of centuries and macro forces grind out all individual effects? Regardless, it's not mere temporal flattery to call 2020 an epochal year.

4. If Ginsberg had died but a month later, the spectacle of the Republicans ramming through a 40-year-old hack in a couple weeks in order to exert judicial dominance over the election might be enough to convince at least the Democratic base that extreme measures are called for.

5. Surprised Hooah hasn't posted here about AG (head of federal law enforcement) Barr's latest antics, including declaring Democratic mail ballots to be presumptively fake and maybe or maybe not ordering that prosecutors pursue sedition charges against dissidents (including the Democratic mayor of Seattle). Funny how the guy balls-deep in Iran-Contra coverups (yet one of the most respected Republican fixers elders prior to joining Trump) turned out to be one of the very worst and most dangerous people in Trump's administration, from the day he was confirmed.

6. North Carolina is already rejecting black voters' mail ballots at 4X the rate of white voters'.

7. In rare good-ish news I've seen recently that polling onthe partisan gap in mail-in voting choice continues to narrow (Dems may be getting the message). Also:
https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/elect...-senate-races/

The disaster scenarios for voter suppression and Election Day sabotage leave out one piece of hopeful news. The Senate election story could be very different from the presidential.

The reason is that most of the states where Democrats have a good shot at picking up Republican-held seats have reasonably honest election administration.

By contrast, several key swing states needed for a Biden victory risk all manner of voter suppression and manipulation—notably Florida and Wisconsin, but also Michigan and Pennsylvania, which have Democratic governors but Republican legislatures.

But the Senate breaks differently.

Colorado and Maine, two of the most likely Democratic pickups, have exemplary election procedures. North Carolina, which was one of the worst suppressors in 2016, now has a Democratic governor and a state Board of Elections headed by a nonpartisan chief. North Carolina mischief has also been constrained by court orders. [Ed. ROFL hopefully so, see #6.]

Montana, where Gov. Steve Bullock has a shot at taking a seat from Republican incumbent Steve Daines, has a history of honest election administration.

Alaska, which has been trending Democratic, now shows incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan running even in the polls against challenger Al Gross; it’s another state with a history of basically honest election administration.

Arizona, another good possibility for Democrats, abused purges last time. It has a Democratic secretary of state and less prospect of mischief than in some years past.

Even Kentucky, where Mitch McConnell faces a challenge from Amy McGrath, now has a Democratic governor and only limited suppression.

In Iowa, where Republican Joni Ernst faces a close race against Democrat Theresa Greenfield, the Republican legislature passed a very restrictive voter ID law in 2017, which will disenfranchise an estimated 260,000 voters.

The extreme case is Georgia, with two Senate races this year. It is the reeking center of purges, manipulated polling places, and other forms of voter suppression.

But of course:

The presidential election, of course, is a whole other story. Even if Biden is the runaway winner, it will be trench warfare between now and January 20.

[Montmorency]

Ye Jacobites by name lend an ear, lend an ear
Ye Jacobites by name lend an ear
Ye Jacobites by name your faults I will proclaim
Your doctrines I must blame, you shall hear, you shall hear
Your doctrines I must blame, you shall hear.

What is right and what is wrong by the law, by the law
What is right and what is wrong by the law
What is right and what is wrong, a short sword and a long
A weak arm and a strong for to draw, for to draw for to draw
A weak arm and a strong for to draw.

Refrain

What makes heroic strife famed afar, famed afar?
What makes heroic strife famed afar?
What makes heroic strife, to whet the assassin's knife
Or hunt a parent's life with bloody war, bloody war
Or hunt a parent's life with bloody war.

Refrain

Then leave your schemes alone in the state, in the state
Then leave your schemes alone in the state
Then leave your schemes alone, adore the rising sun
And leave a man alone to his fate, to his fate
Oh leave a man alone to his fate.

Refrain

[ReluctantSamurai]

Trump needs to keep the focus from being on his leadership. It is exactly what he needs — the greatest possible distraction.

Despite the "OMG we're so screwed" mentality, this is probably the biggest benefit to Fearless Leader, for now. Although the House has no power to stop a nominee from being appointed, they can realistically delay it for as long as two months. I find this article rather prescient:

https://www.newsweek.com/democrat-mi...ominee-1439995

Senate filibuster rights that used to slow down the nomination process were gutted by Republicans in 2017.

But that doesn't mean Democrats can't use some leverage to fight back against President Donald Trump's nominee if a Supreme Court seat were to become vacant before the 2020 election. The only problem is that Democrats have a track record of letting judicial issues fall by the wayside.

"Democrats have limited tools but the key is a willingness to use what they've got," Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, told Newsweek. "They can demand quorum calls, they can slow down votes and they can make a big public issue of it. That's the one thing they've never done before."

Exit polling even showed that the Supreme Court vacancy may have had a significant role in Trump getting elected. According to one CNN survey, one in five voters said the high court was one reason they voted. Of those who said it was the "most important factor" in casting a ballot, 56 percent supported Trump.

Democrats, on the other hand, barely mentioned the court during the 2016 election—even in the wake of Garland's snub from the Senate. John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign adviser, told The New York Times in 2018 that Democrats "have ignored this field of battle for too long."

But in order to block a third Trump nominee from ascending to the lifelong court position, House Democrats are going to need to commit themselves to using their appropriations and oversight powers to tip the scales. They can also withhold support for certain legislation until a controversial nomination is withdrawn.

"Politics is a game of give and take. The president and the Republicans are going to need something that the Democrats will need to cooperate in giving them," Fredrickson said. "Is it the debt ceiling, is it an appropriations bill with funding for some pet project of the president? We'll see."

On that last part, given the current possibility that SCOTUS might well be determining the next president, the Dems might not have anything the GOP would want, but they better grow some cahonees and fight it tooth and nail.....

Dunno how much of this is pertinent to the times (geesus, this was only two years ago) but at least it's an interesting historical read on the nomination process (minus Brett Kavanaugh):

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44234.pdf

Finally, there seems to be at least three GOP senators that might give Moscow Mitch some trouble:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/18/trum...nell-says.html

The nomination will not be solely up to McConnell. The Republicans hold a 53-seat majority in the Senate, meaning the party can only tolerate three defections from its ranks, assuming every Democrat votes against a potential new nominee.

While Trump’s first nominee, Justice Neil Gorsuch, easily gained enough GOP support, Justice Brett Kavanaugh faced a tougher time, following sexual misconduct allegations which he denied.

One GOP senator who voted against Kavanaugh’s nomination, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has previously said that she opposed filling a hypothetical Ginsburg vacancy. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who voted for both of Trump’s nominees, has also in the past expressed opposition to filling a 2020 vacancy.

Grassley did not respond immediately to requests for comment on Friday evening, while Collins and Murkowski put out statements praising Ginsburg’s life but not indicating whether they would support a vote on a nominee ahead of November. Another moderate, Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who was not in office when Kavanaugh was confirmed, did the same.

Collins voted to confirm Kavanaugh, but has said that she would not vote to confirm a justice in October, because of its proximity to the election.