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Thread: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020 + Aftermath

  1. #331
    Stranger in a strange land Moderator Hooahguy's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
    nominate justices to balance the court
    See this isn't something that Biden would say though because it obviously implies court packing.

    Here is his seemingly most recent statement on the issue:

    “I’m not a fan of court packing, but I don’t want to get off on that whole issue. I want to keep focused,” Biden told WKRC, a Cincinnati-area CBS/CW affiliate. “The president would like nothing better than to fight about whether or not I would in fact pack the court or not pack the court, et cetera. The focus is, why is he doing what he’s doing now?”

    The former vice president also described Republicans’ push to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court before November's election as a form of court packing.


    “Court packing's going on now. Never before, when an election has already begun and millions of votes already cast, has it ever been that a Supreme Court nominee was put forward,” Biden said. “And one of the reasons is the only shot the American people get to determine who will be on a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court or federal court is when they pick their senator or their president.”

    Biden has previously called questions about his views on court packing a distraction, saying last week that “the moment I answer that question, the headline in every one of your papers will be on the answer to that question.”
    This is the right answer, which I actually see as an indication he will approve a court-packing measure- seeing that the GOP is already doing it, it seems like he would pursue it to "balance things out." But its far more subtle than your statement. Ill expect something more in-depth after the election if he wins, but for now this is enough for me.

    Again, its extremely obvious why Biden won't take a firm stance on this. The media and the Trump campaign are looking for red meat and Biden doesnt want to give anything to them, now that we are just 20 days away from the election.
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  2. #332

    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Quote Originally Posted by Hooahguy View Post
    This is the right answer, which I actually see as an indication he will approve a court-packing measure- seeing that the GOP is already doing it, it seems like he would pursue it to "balance things out." But its far more subtle than your statement. Ill expect something more in-depth after the election if he wins, but for now this is enough for me.

    Again, its extremely obvious why Biden won't take a firm stance on this. The media and the Trump campaign are looking for red meat and Biden doesnt want to give anything to them, now that we are just 20 days away from the election.
    It's a deflection and time will tell how long he can deflect until the media starts pumping the narrative that Biden is hiding behind his words.


  3. #333

    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Quote Originally Posted by Abraham Lincoln at Cooper Union, 1860
    But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of your Constitutional rights.

    That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some right, plainly written down in the Constitution. But we are proposing no such thing.

    When you make these declarations, you have a specific and well-understood allusion to an assumed Constitutional right of yours, to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. But no such right is specifically written in the Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence in the Constitution, even by implication.

    Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.

    This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will say the Supreme Court has decided the disputed Constitutional question in your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer's distinction between dictum and decision, the Court have decided the question for you in a sort of way. The Court have substantially said, it is your Constitutional right to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. When I say the decision was made in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided Court, by a bare majority of the Judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another in the reasons for making it; that it is so made as that its avowed supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, and that it was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact - the statement in the opinion that "the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution."
    [...]
    Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"
    [...]
    Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation. Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right, and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it, as a legal right, and a social blessing.

    Nor can we justifiably withhold this, on any ground save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and should be silenced, and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality - its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its extension - its enlargement. All they ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?

    Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man - such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care - such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance - such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.
    The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.

    These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly - done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated - we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas' new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

    Quote Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai View Post
    As a follow up to the previous several posts...
    I think I've mentioned Arizona's case here in the last years, but I didn't know about the rest. (I'm not sure they even had the means to succeed, but we should also note the case in which much of the Pennsylvania legislature signed on to impeaching state supremes over their court order requiring non-partisan districting in Pennsylvania. Oh, wait, we're picking up on the wire that they're baa-aa-ack and bigger than ever.)

    Meanwhile, as best as I can tell the lawless Trump administration has elected to borderline-nullify federal court rulings (up to the SCOTUS) against them on the DACA rescission.
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-a...t-protections/

    This is exactly the Republican national strategy - not for judicial control per se, but literally their political strategy writ large - since around the 1980s. It's difficult to gain strong legislative majorities and the presidency, and even harder to push wildly unpopular legislation (as most Republican policies are), but securing the judiciary is relatively achievable and optimal for several reasons. First, it's allows Republican priorities to be laundered through respected institutions; this is less and less the case, but the courts have tended to be one of the most vaunted institutions in the civic consciousness, and one Democrats have tended to see as apolitical and impartial (movement conservatism has hammered the alleged perfidy of the courts, and the need to correct that, to their voters for generations.) Second, most people don't pay as much attention to courts as they do to the other branches, which themselves have most of their activities obscured by substantive abstruseness, public apathy, lack of good/accessible reporting, etc; it is easier to engineer an agenda through the courts without much outcry. Third and most importantly, repealing or passing legislation is hard, and leveraging executive powers takes time, but a ruling in a rigged court can wipe out Democratic programs in no time at all - and the Dems have to eat it like the institutionalists who refuse to politicize judicial processes in the way they would with elected offices that they are.

    This has been the lodestone of the conservative project for generations, and is the reason for the existence of such bodies of discipline and indoctrination as the Federalist Society, which clones rigid ideological wreckers like Uruk-hai.

    Norms require mutuality to have a function as such. Republican commitment to a fully-staffed federal judiciary and 9-seat SCOTUS has only run as far as their partisan agenda; if Republicans insist on war to the hilt, they must be punished severely for a generation in order that they learn the costs of brinksmanship and zero-sum radicalism. Then maybe we can achieve a functioning society.




    Meanwhile, from the ongoing Barrett hearings:


    https://twitter.com/mirandayaver/sta...47949320065024
    Amy Coney Barrett punted on whether the president can unilaterally postpone the election.

    She punted on whether the President should be committed to a peaceful transfer of power.

    Democracy is at stake in this confirmation, and Barrett is failing the most basic test.
    https://twitter.com/vanitaguptaCR/st...82898244689920 [VIDEO]

    WATCH: Senator @amyklobuchar just asked Judge Barrett whether it's illegal under federal law to intimidate voters at the polls.

    Barrett refused to answer. Then Klobuchar read her the law. Astonishing.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  4. #334
    Stranger in a strange land Moderator Hooahguy's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
    It's a deflection and time will tell how long he can deflect until the media starts pumping the narrative that Biden is hiding behind his words.
    I mean they would do the same thing if he came out definitively either way. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

    If today's journalists were around in the 70's there would be no Watergate and Nixon would have served out his second term.
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    Senior Member Senior Member ReluctantSamurai's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    but we should also note the case in which much of the Pennsylvania legislature signed on to impeaching state supremes over their court order requiring non-partisan districting in Pennsylvania.
    I wish NCSC (from the above link) had provided more background on who initiated, and/or supported the impeachment legislation in the other states besides PA.

    From the second link:

    “Members should understand that I do not take this first step towards the removal of a Supreme Court justice lightly,” Ryan said in his resolution. “Regrettably, Justice Wecht’s actions undermine the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary; betray the trust of the people of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania; and have brought disrepute to the Unified Judicial System.”
    Interesting choice of words---"..undermine the integrity [...] betray the trust of the people."

    A little background on Pennsylvania Senate Bill 1249: (yes I know I'm getting off topic, but this speaks to the lengths the GOP goes to ensure its' grip on power through the courts)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redist...n_Pennsylvania

    On September 14, 2011, Republican senate leadership introduced a congressional redistricting bill which contained neither a map nor description of proposed congressional district lines. The proposed lines were added in the senate State Government Committee on December 13, 2011. The committee approved the bill 6-5 along party lines. Breaking with his party, Republican Sen. Mike Folmer opposed the Republican bill, saying "all you have to do is look at (the map)" to see it appeared to be specifically drawn to dilute Democratic votes and was the perfect example of why redistricting reform is needed. Barry Kauffman, lobbyist for Common Cause of Pennsylvania, agreed with Folmer, saying the plan "is a clear-cut case of politicians picking their voters in order to prevent voters from having a meaningful opportunity to pick their elected officials.
    Called by the Public Interest Law Center of Pennsylvania "one of the top three starkest partisan gerrymanders in the country and the worst in Pennsylvania's history" Senate Bill 1249 was challenged in court:

    https://www.pubintlaw.org/cases-and-...cting-lawsuit/

    Our lawsuit contended that in 2011 Pennsylvania elected officials manipulated the congressional district boundaries to entrench a majority Republican delegation in Congress and minimize the ability of Democratic voters to elect U.S. House representatives. Filed in the state’s Commonwealth Court, the complaint alleged the current congressional map was designed to pack as many Democratic voters as possible into Pennsylvania’s 1st, 2nd, 13th, 14th and 17th districts. At the same time, the map was designed to spread the remaining Democratic voters among the other 13 districts so that Democratic voters fall short of a majority in each of these 13 districts. The net effect maximized the number of Pennsylvania congressional seats held by Republicans.
    Not precedent setting....gerrymandering has been going on since the US was founded. Which brings us back to Rep. Frank Ryan. In introducing House Resolution 1044 [to impeach Judge Wecht], Ryan stated:

    https://triblive.com/news/pennsylvan...justice-wecht/

    cited the redistricting case; the case in which the court said the City of Pittsburgh had the right to pass a paid sick leave ordinance; as well as recent cases involving mail-in ballots for the upcoming election and the governor emergency disaster proclamation relative to the covid-19 pandemic.
    However:

    in all of the cases cited by Ryan, Wecht was joined by a majority of the court.
    So why go after just Wecht? Well.....

    “He’s an object lesson,” Ledewitz said. “Undoubtedly, they’re upset with the four-justice majority [in the redistricting case].”

    But Ryan explained that when Wecht ran for the Supreme Court in 2015, one of the issues he addressed on the campaign trail was redistricting. Therefore, Ryan said, Wecht should have recused from the case when it came before the court in 2018.

    “He’s legislating from the bench,” Ryan said. “This is strictly a constitutional issue for me.”
    Laughable if it wasn't so sad.

    Which brings us to Amy Coney Barrett, and perhaps the 'real' reason behind her nomination:

    https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily...-coney-barrett

    But there should be no doubt about why Barrett has been chosen. Much of the commentary about her selection will focus on the issue of abortion, and her likely role in overturning Roe v. Wade. During the 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to appoint Justices who would vote to overrule that landmark, and with his three selections, including Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, he appears to have delivered. Barrett is not only a member of a conservative organization within the Catholic Church; her legal writings, and the views of some who know her, suggest that she would overturn Roe.

    Still, it’s worth remembering the real priorities of Trump and Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, in this nomination. They’re happy to accommodate the anti-abortion base of the Republican Party, but an animating passion of McConnell’s career has been the deregulation of political campaigns. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision brought the issue to wide public attention, but McConnell has been crusading about it for decades. He wants the money spigot kept open, so that he can protect his Senate majority and the causes for which it stands. This, too, is why the Federalist Society has been so lavishly funded over the years, and why it has expanded from a mere campus organization into a national behemoth for lawyers and students. Under Republican Presidents, Federalist Society events have come to operate as auditions for judicial appointments. The corporate interests funding the growth of the Federalist Society probably weren’t especially interested in abortion, but they were almost certainly committed to crippling the regulatory state.
    It should go without saying that the nomination and the expected confirmation of Barrett in the final days before a Presidential election represent a paramount act of hypocrisy for McConnell and the other Republicans who denied even a hearing to Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court, in 2016. But the fact that these Republicans are willing to risk that charge shows how important the Supreme Court is to them. Far more than a senator, a Supreme Court Justice can deliver on the agenda. The war on abortion is just the start.
    Much like just about everything else in America today, SCOTUS is now viewed as a tool for 'delivering the agenda'.

    And on something of a 'lighter' note:

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...gn-event-rally

    Pete Buttigieg, who had earlier shared an old photo of himself dressed in a Star Trek costume, tuned in, wielding a Borg action figure as he chatted with Takei about how Star Trek taught viewers equality.

    As Trek the vote to victory continued it was the turn of Abrams, a progressive icon who was the Democratic nominee for Georgia governor in 2018, and one of the Trek the vote to victory hosts, to take over hosting duties.

    According to the New York Times Abrams “can recite with picayune detail the obscure plot points from incidents buried deep in the [Star Trek] canon”, and the former gubernatorial candidate seemed nervous.

    “I literally just tweeted out that I was about to talk to you guys, and therefore do not require Christmas presents this year, or possibly ever again in life,” Abrams told the female Star Trek actors. (She had indeed tweeted.)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtEaR1JU-ps

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    Last edited by ReluctantSamurai; 10-14-2020 at 15:54.
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  6. #336

    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Quote Originally Posted by Hooahguy View Post
    I mean they would do the same thing if he came out definitively either way. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

    If today's journalists were around in the 70's there would be no Watergate and Nixon would have served out his second term.




    But taking it on balance, our evaluations of media framing and focus in this campaign should not overlook that Joe Biden is a moderate old white man, rather than a woman named Clinton. Biden counts on a somewhat similar, if diminished, Teflon effect of the sort that Trump has enjoyed/exacted from the media.

    In fact, Trump's is kind of a general principle that many politicians will follow from now on, namely that if you ignore the media, flood the zone with nonsense, or tell them to go themselves in not-quite-so many words, everyone suddenly stops caring and moves on. Is anyone talking about Biden's Senate papers today? Caginess is rewarded over transparency and forthrightness, and we know politicians are the type to respond to incentives. So it shall be until the MSM finally changes as an institution.

    One imminent test may be how the media responds to the fake news of the Hunter Biden emails showing him snorting crack with Burisma hookers.

    Quote Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai View Post
    Abrams is also a single childless romance novelist, locking down the nerd vote.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  7. #337
    Senior Member Senior Member ReluctantSamurai's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Abrams is also a single childless romance novelist, locking down the nerd vote.
    I'm a Trekkie, of sorts, and I resent being called a nerd...



    Maybe Andrew Clark just overlooks the obvious...Biden is seen as being more open and telling the truth than not. Doesn't mean he's a perfect angel without hidden agendas, or doesn't make statements that aren't entirely true.

    A quick perusal of a couple of respected fact-checker organizations:

    https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/...iden/42343935/

    https://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/
    https://www.politifact.com/personalities/joe-biden/

    Last edited by ReluctantSamurai; 10-15-2020 at 01:18.
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    Stranger in a strange land Moderator Hooahguy's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Side note, the Biden campaign raised $383 million just in the month of September. Now apparently have over $400 million cash on hand for the final 20 days. I hope a good chunk of that is for hiring teams of lawyers to mount a firm legal challenge to any ratfucking that might happen.
    Last edited by Hooahguy; 10-15-2020 at 03:20.
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    Member Member Gilrandir's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Now I know who dancing Donny reminds me.
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  10. #340
    Darkside Medic Senior Member rory_20_uk's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Quote Originally Posted by Hooahguy View Post
    Side note, the Biden campaign raised $383 million just in the month of September. Now apparently have over $400 million cash on hand for the final 20 days. I hope a good chunk of that is for hiring teams of lawyers to mount a firm legal challenge to any ratfucking that might happen.
    I imagine the lawyers would work for free to get in on the tasty government contracts that will be up for grabs.

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    Member Member Crandar's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Trump gains in young Blacks and Hispanics, but loses in Whites. Not very surprised, because that reflects an already noted trend. If the Republican party was clever enough, it could have realised that pandering to racists alienates more potential voters than those it brings. It also demonstrates that the tribal value of Harris, that she should allegedly encourage blacks to vote for Biden, was overestimated. As expected.

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    Senior Member Senior Member ReluctantSamurai's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Trump gains in young Blacks and Hispanics, but loses in Whites. Not very surprised, because that reflects an already noted trend.
    A rather misleading statement, IMHO. Considering the apparent 2% CoviDon has gained in black support to become about 10% of registered black voters, that number is dwarfed by the nearly 90% support enjoyed by Biden/Harris. The white vote, particularly among white women, are defecting to Biden/Harris. CoviDon enjoyed a 16% advantage over Clinton in 2016 amongst white voters, his lead over Biden has shrunk to 5%.

    It also demonstrates that the tribal value of Harris, that she should allegedly encourage blacks to vote for Biden, was overestimated. As expected.
    There's many things wrong with that statement. Tribal value? You do realize that smacks of racism. Overestimated? As expected? Got some numbers to back that up, and by whom, respectively?
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    This poll is a very strange result, first for the overall magnitude of shift but also for identifying a Trumpward shift among all college-educated and young people, including white, which is not a result I have seen anywhere else AFAIK.

    Would need some more evidence that Trump has gained among young people and college-educated people when to my awareness basically every poll and study - including the actual results of the 2018 vote - contradict that.
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    Member Member Crandar's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    My bad, I phrased it badly. I was referring to the Hispanics considerable support for the Republican party. Cuban émigrés compose a large part of that demographic, but Republican influence is also present in other groups of Hispanic males. Hispanics and blacks share many of the conservative values espoused by the Republican party. If its officials didn't parrot racism so often and had actually tempered their anti-immigrant rhetoric, they would have more than covered their losses from the alienated far-right voters.
    Quote Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai View Post
    There's many things wrong with that statement. Tribal value? You do realize that smacks of racism. Overestimated? As expected? Got some numbers to back that up, and by whom, respectively?
    I agree completely, it was racist. It was speculated that Kamala Harris will attract more black and women votes for Biden, which I find it an implicitly condescending and derogatory view on blacks. The stagnation of Biden's popularity and Trump's moderate gains indicate that the premise was wrong, despite the president's obvious incompetence, gaffes and inflammatory remarks.

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    Stranger in a strange land Moderator Hooahguy's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Quote Originally Posted by Crandar View Post
    The stagnation of Biden's popularity and Trump's moderate gains indicate that the premise was wrong, despite the president's obvious incompetence, gaffes and inflammatory remarks.
    Biden went from +8.2 to +10.7 since October 1st but go off I guess.
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    Senior Member Senior Member ReluctantSamurai's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    I agree completely, it was racist.


    It was speculated that Kamala Harris will attract more black and women votes for Biden, which I find it an implicitly condescending and derogatory view on blacks.
    I suppose it could be viewed that way, OTOH, it could be viewed as an acknowledgement that minorities and women can get representation at the highest level of government

    I also agree with Hooahguy that Biden's popularity is anything but stagnant. IMHO, it's CoviDon's popularity that is stagnant. Constant appeals to his 'base' have done nothing to attract voters to his side...on the contrary, it appears to have had the opposite effect. A little discussed difference between Election 2020 and Election 2016 is that there are very few, and very insignificant third party candidates to siphon off votes. In 2016, third party candidates got 7.8 million votes, or 6% of the vote. Considering that for the previous three presidential elections (2004, 2008, 2012) the two major party nominees got 99%, 98.6%, and 98.3% respectively, that 4-5% difference made a huge impact.

    In 2016, in Pennsylvania, third party candidates garnered 268,000 votes. Trump carried the state by 44,000 votes. In Wisconsin, third party candidates got 188,000 votes. Trump won the state by less than 23,000 votes. Similar situations occurred in Florida and Michigan. In 2016, Trump won 7 states with less than 50% of the popular vote in those states. While not all the third party votes cast in 2016 will vote against Trump in 2020, and indeed some of them may vote for him while others may not vote at all, CoviDon has done very little, IMHO, to appeal to those voters, instead continuing to exhort to his "base" which is looking like it's not going to be enough for him to win.

    This article puts it better than I can:

    https://www.rollcall.com/2019/07/29/...ean-for-trump/

    In theory, Trump could have reached out during his presidency to Republican defectors. Instead, he chose to double-down on personal attacks, nationalist rhetoric and divisive appeals to non-college-educated whites, who helped elect him.

    That makes it unlikely for Trump to attract many of those who wasted their votes in 2016.

    On the other hand, Democrats have the rare opportunity next year to woo progressives, Republicans and swing voters who threw their votes away by supporting third-party nominees.

    Progressives now see the damage Trump has done, and Republicans who rejected Trump in 2016 have had their worst fears about him confirmed.

    But if Democrats select a nominee who is again unpalatable to many voters, as Clinton was, that could send anti-Trump Republicans and swing voters back to third parties again in 2020.

    While it is completely true that the Democrats “waste” large numbers of popular votes in California and New York, that’s not why Clinton lost in 2016.

    She failed to mobilize anti-Trump voters, too many of whom decided that they couldn’t support either major-party nominee. Winning those voters who defected from the two major parties would be an important step for either side.

    And right now, only the Democrats are in a position to take advantage of that, which is not good news for Trump, not only in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but also nationally.
    In selecting Joe Biden, the Dems have a moderate candidate capable of swinging more of those who voted third party to the Democrats. Granted, it's "another old white guy" as opposed to someone younger and more dynamic, but at least he's viewed as more 'presidential' old white guy who won't be up at night conducting idiotic tweet storms, and at least shows some empathy for what the people of this country are going through, at the moment.
    Last edited by ReluctantSamurai; 10-20-2020 at 17:51.
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    Stranger in a strange land Moderator Hooahguy's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    On a related note, these tweets:

    More people have now early voted in TX than the number of people who voted for Donald Trump in TX in 2016.
    Total Trump votes cast in TX in 2016: 4,685,047
    Total 2020 votes cast in TX as of last night: 4,706,398
    That's honestly astounding. I don't know what this means in terms of results, but as a means of gauging turnout...

    My hope is that overwhelming numbers will stymie any post-election fuckery that the Trump admin has in store.

    And speaking of, SCOTUS had a split 4-4 ruling (which means that the PA court ruling against the Pennsylvania GOP stands) to allow for counting of mail-in ballots that arrive after election day as long as they are postmarked by Nov 3. Which makes it really clear as to why the GOP is rushing a new justice onto the bench.
    Last edited by Hooahguy; 10-20-2020 at 19:31.
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  18. #348
    Member Member Crandar's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Quote Originally Posted by Hooahguy View Post
    Biden went from +8.2 to +10.7 since October 1st but go off I guess.
    Oh, come on, I meant the specific demographics mentioned in the cited article, not in general.
    Quote Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai View Post
    I suppose it could be viewed that way, OTOH, it could be viewed as an acknowledgement that minorities and women can get representation at the highest level of government
    The second statement is fine, but I doubt that this is the reasoning behind the vice-presidential picks. The choice for the vice-president should revolve around his skills and ideas, not his sex and skin complexion. Campaigns tend to focus on the latter, but they usually underestimate the voters' capacity of thinking beyond tribal limitations and of actually assessing each candidate's, without getting stuck into the surface. Not that only the Democrats resort to such pandering, one of the biggest mistakes of the Republicans was to opt for Palin, without even taking a cursory glance on her competence. I know that Hooahguy has been rooting for Harris since the primaries, so he feels a bit strongly about her, but, in my opinion, she's a terrible candidate. She's a populist and demonstrably hypocritical, whose greatest achievement was temporarily bringing Tulsi Gabbard into prominence.

  19. #349
    Stranger in a strange land Moderator Hooahguy's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Lol are we relitigating the VP pick again? Harris is fine, certainly hasnt hurt Biden at all. Seems silly to be arguing about this again when the election is literally in 14 days.

    Also I dont think we have discussed this much is the Hispanic vote. Interestingly enough, Trump seems to be doing as good or even better with Hispanics in Florida, Texas, and California. However he is doing worse with white voters so we will see what happens. Hispanics tend to be pretty conservative so Im not really surprised by this.
    Last edited by Hooahguy; 10-20-2020 at 20:09.
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    Senior Member Senior Member ReluctantSamurai's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    That's honestly astounding. I don't know what this means in terms of results, but as a means of gauging turnout
    As of today, statewide polls in Texas have it at a dead heat. Eight months ago, who would've thunk that That's why Gov Abbott did what he did in restricting polling stations to one per county, hoping that voters in Houston, Dallas, and other urban areas just say eff it with hours long waits. The GOP is scared shitless that Texas might go Blue, and rightly so. If Texas flips, the fat lady comes on stage for her warm up...

    Interestingly enough, Trump seems to be doing as good or even better with Hispanics in Florida, Texas, and California.
    Not enough to sway California; might be enough to rescue Texas; and Florida, where they might actually make a difference. I've never understood Hispanic support for Trump. He despises them and his world view on them is that they're drug pushers, rapists, and trouble makers...

    The choice for the vice-president should revolve around his skills and ideas, not his sex and skin complexion.
    Biden chose her for both...and 14 days out, it's a rather moot point, no?
    Last edited by ReluctantSamurai; 10-20-2020 at 23:51.
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  21. #351

    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Ronald Reagan's solicitor general admits that Democrats probably have to expand the courts to constrain the attempted repeal of the 20th century.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/o...eme-court.html

    Here are some more realistic poll numbers for your consumption:

    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Wasserman
    Here's my latest running average of demographic splits in national live-interview polls [Ed. The highest-quality and most reliable method] w/ new NYT/Siena added in. Biden's surged w/ 65+ between Sept. and Oct., but just a big a deal is the steady decline in undecided/third party since June/July (and vs. '16, of course).



    Quote Originally Posted by Crandar View Post
    My bad, I phrased it badly. I was referring to the Hispanics considerable support for the Republican party. Cuban émigrés compose a large part of that demographic, but Republican influence is also present in other groups of Hispanic males. Hispanics and blacks share many of the conservative values espoused by the Republican party. If its officials didn't parrot racism so often and had actually tempered their anti-immigrant rhetoric, they would have more than covered their losses from the alienated far-right voters.
    Cuban-Americans compose maybe 4% of the national Hispanic population. They are a negligible presence outside Florida.

    The "considerable" support of Hispanics for the Republican party is on the order of the support for Democrats among the most Republican states (i.e. ~33%).

    I doubt Republicans have ever had a majority of Hispanic voters nationally, or at least in the time since the category was first introduced.

    I agree completely, it was racist. It was speculated that Kamala Harris will attract more black and women votes for Biden, which I find it an implicitly condescending and derogatory view on blacks. The stagnation of Biden's popularity and Trump's moderate gains indicate that the premise was wrong, despite the president's obvious incompetence, gaffes and inflammatory remarks.
    To proceed from the assumption that women or non-whites are selected in politics to "attract votes" is hard to justify, and evidently insulting. A more accurate rendering would be that e.g. Harris's selection is meant to reward voters by demonstrating awareness of the importance of representation (in principle and to the Democratic base). But even that isn't quite right. The simplest way to understand it is:

    2016 was an election that by all right should have resulted in the inauguration of a woman president, but instead led to a monstrous misogynist (among other things) taking the intervening years to achieve the distinction of becoming the worst president in our history. In the contest to select a candidate to eject this man, the Democratic electorate settled on a reputationally-bland old white man over a squadron of female candidates (as well as more motivated men) including ones both qualified and well-liked. This result was admittedly in part due to the reported (arguably misplaced) anxiety among the Democratic electorate that only a white man could defeat the incumbent. Selecting a woman to be Democratic VP in 2020 is consequently at a minimum an exercise of distrainment on executive office. Of the available woman candidates, Harris was the "safest" pick, on top of being both well-qualified* and relatively popular.

    Hence, she was picked.

    *Of the men, the best-qualified was IMO Inslee, and the most popular - other than Biden - was of course Sanders. But leaving aside all the considerations above they would still be bad Vice Presidential picks on the merits (such as age).

    The choice for the vice-president should revolve around his skills and ideas, not his sex and skin complexion.
    I am very much of the opinion that white men should not be elevated simply for being white men. We've tried that for a long time.

    she's a terrible candidate.
    On what grounds? Reasonable criteria on which to judge a VP pick include: readiness to assume an active role in the White House; balancing against some attributes of the presidential nominee; being of no harm to the party's electoral calculus elsewhere (such as by opening a vulnerable seat); being not better used elsewhere; able to succeed the presidential nominee as a candidate themselves in future elections (the era of disposable vice presidents is long over in our system, though ironically since the time of Truman AFAIK the only VP or VP candidate who was explicitly intended never to run for President themselves was Joe Biden himself!)...

    She's a populist
    I've - never heard that term applied to Harris, so I wonder what you mean by it here.



    Some good news lately: Jacinda Ardern's Labour has just won an outright majority in the New Zealand elections, terminating the need for a coalition arrangement with the nationalist New Zealand First party (strongly backed by Brexit architects) - as the party itself was also eliminated from Parliament.

    Also, Bolivia just held elections to do over the quasi-coup a year ago, and the Socialists have scored a solid victory. The whole Bolivian right wing appears to accept the result.
    Last edited by Montmorency; 10-21-2020 at 02:00.
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  22. #352
    Member Member Crandar's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Hispanics vote for the Republican party, not for Trump, something which is not necessarily bad. American politics are still immaturely fixated on specific individuals, instead of party platforms. Republican conservatism is very close to the reactionary and anti-communist beliefs of Cuban émigrés, even if Donald's rants blur the picture. As I said earlier, the Democrats are very lucky that the Republicans are so unwilling to disavow the racist narrative endorsed by so many of its leading members.
    Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
    To proceed from the assumption that women or non-whites are selected in politics to "attract votes" is hard to justify, and evidently insulting. A more accurate rendering would be that e.g. Harris's selection is meant to reward voters by demonstrating awareness of the importance of representation (in principle and to the Democratic base). But even that isn't quite right. The simplest way to understand it is:
    I referred specifically to the vice-presidential picks. Of course it's insulting and racist, but that label applies for those that follow that policy, not for those who point it out. Your interpretation is very optimist, but I don't think it has much basis on reality. Vice-presidents have been traditionally selected, as campaign managers themselves admitted, to pander to the groups, which the president may find difficult to attract. Ideally, that would rely on their ideology, but that's an utopian expectation and Harris confirms the pattern, she doesn't contradict it. She's a populist, because she jumped to the progressive bandwagon, once she noticed the success of Sanders' and Obama's nomination campaigns. Unfortunately, her career as a prosecutor puts her liberal credentials into doubt and she has consistently refused to take a firm position on issues that divide moderate and radical Democrats. She criticises her opponents for lack of empathy, but her ideas seem as coherent as those of a big-tent coalition in a post colourful revolution in an Eastern European republic.
    Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
    2016 was an election that by all right should have resulted in the inauguration of a woman president, but instead led to a monstrous misogynist (among other things) taking the intervening years to achieve the distinction of becoming the worst president in our history.
    What do you mean by "should have"? In the sense that she would have prevailed, hadn't been for the Electoral College? Anyway, you can see Hillary's defeat from a more positive angle. If she had won, the historical mark of the first female presidency would have been tainted that she won, because of dynastic connections and nepotism, like Bush Jr. Not an inaccurate observation, given her mediocre record, as a minister of foreign affairs, and her exceptional lack of charisma. Now, thanks to her defeat, there's still the opportunity to see a female politician rise to the presidency through her rhetorical, political and administrative skills.
    Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
    Some good news lately: Jacinda Ardern's Labour has just won an outright majority in the New Zealand elections, terminating the need for a coalition arrangement with the nationalist New Zealand First party (strongly backed by Brexit architects) - as the party itself was also eliminated from Parliament.
    Also, Bolivia just held elections to do over the quasi-coup a year ago, and the Socialists have scored a solid victory. The whole Bolivian right wing appears to accept the result.
    Hey, we also put our Nazis in jail! You never mention a good piece of news about Greece, are we all debt to you?!
    Last edited by Crandar; 10-21-2020 at 09:56. Reason: Correcting Montmorency's unprecedented bias against the beacon of civilisation.

  23. #353
    Senior Member Senior Member ReluctantSamurai's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Hispanics vote for the Republican party, not for Trump, something which is not necessarily bad.
    Hispanics are indeed, usually conservative. Voting GOP being not necessarily bad might have been true 15-20 years ago. But the advent of the Tea Party movement in 2010 changed much of that. The state of the GOP today can be partly summed up in Mitch McConnell...he'd rather ram through an unpopular SCOTUS appointment than vote on a relief bill, and has flipped the bird to the American people by stating it openly.

    American politics are still immaturely fixated on specific individuals, instead of party platforms.
    Which is why our government has to clean house in terms of today's GOP, because the Republican Party has been hijacked by CoviDon. And just as bad, Republicans have no particular platform or plan for the US other than to pander to the idiot in White House. That they have no particular platform was made clear at the RNC where they laughably cut-and-pasted the same platform document they drafted in 2016, including rhetoric about the incompetent current president:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/u...-platform.html

    Every four years since 1856, the Republican Party has produced a platform articulating its priorities for the next president.

    But like so much else disrupted by President Trump, the Republican National Committee has dispensed with producing a 2020 platform, instead passing a resolution renewing what delegates enacted in 2016, bashing the news media and offering wholehearted support for Mr. Trump.
    The only thing new was a "list" put out by CoviDon:

    The list functions as a greatest hits of Mr. Trump’s recent proclamations, including, under his plans for confronting the coronavirus crisis, pledges such as “Return to Normal in 2021” and “Develop a Vaccine by The End Of 2020,” which, of course, take place entirely in Mr. Trump’s current term in office.

    The priorities document, which for reasons unexplained capitalizes nearly every word in it, also pledges to “Hold China Fully Accountable for Allowing the Virus to Spread around the World.” There is also a pledge to send a manned mission to Mars and “Get Allies to Pay their Fair Share.”

    There is no mention of abortion or the Second Amendment, which have long been animating features of the social conservative wing of Republican politics. The only foreign country mentioned by name is China, under a section titled “end our reliance on China.” A section on innovation offers a goal to “Partner with Other Nations to Clean Up our Planet’s Oceans.”
    That's the sad part, here's the laughable part:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/u...-platform.html

    “The survival of the internet as we know it is at risk,” the platform reads. “Its gravest peril originates in the White House, the current occupant of which has launched a campaign, both at home and internationally, to subjugate it to agents of government.”

    The platform censures the “current” president — who in 2016 was, of course, Barack Obama — and his administration for, among other things, imposing “a social and cultural revolution,” causing a “huge increase in the national debt” and damaging relationships with international partners.

    “The Middle East is more dangerous now than at any time since the Second World War,” the platform reads. “Whatever their disagreements, presidents of both parties had always prioritized America’s national interests, the trust of friendly governments, and the security of Israel. That sound consensus was replaced with impotent grandstanding on the part of the current President and his Secretaries of State. The results have been ruinous for all parties except Islamic terrorists and their Iranian and other sponsors.”
    Oh the irony of those statements

    Trying to justify their laziness:

    Melody Potter, an R.N.C. member from West Virginia who sat on the party’s platform committee in 2016 and planned to run for a seat on it this August, said she was pleased the platform was being rolled over for 2020.

    “The 2016 platform is the best one we’ve had in 40 years, so I’m fine with renewing it and extending it to 2024,” she said. “As a matter of fact, and you can quote me on this, I think it is a ray of sunshine in this whole messy storm.”

    Campaign operatives, for their part, defended the old document. “President Trump won in 2016 with this platform and he’ll win again in 2020 with this platform,” said Justin Clark, senior counsel to the campaign.
    You are fixating on racism as THE reason CoviDon and the rest of the GOP are likely to lose big in two weeks. That certainly hasn't helped their cause with black voters, but it won't be the singular reason they get voted out of office, if that happens. The opportunity to secure the next decade for the GOP was lost in their abysmal response to the pandemic and the resulting economic debacle. Those two factors are ranked #1 & #2 with voters.

    All this talk about Harris being a bad choice for Biden's VP is moot. The choice was made, and the election is two weeks away. Move on.

    If she had won, the historical mark of the first female presidency would have been tainted that she won, because of dynastic connections and nepotism, like Bush Jr.
    The real question is whether the US would be better off today with Hillary leading the pandemic response, than CoviDon

    Last edited by Crandar; Today at 04:56. Reason: Correcting Montmorency's unprecedented bias against the beacon of civilisation.


    On a lighter note:

    https://www.facebook.com/JimmyKimmel...7311987554598/
    Last edited by ReluctantSamurai; 10-21-2020 at 12:06.
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Quote Originally Posted by Crandar View Post
    Hispanics vote for the Republican party, not for Trump, something which is not necessarily bad.
    All I know indicates this is not true. It is not a necessity of the universe that it not be true, and maybe it will change in the future somehow, but empirically it has not occurred. Even in 2000-2012, when the Republican party was officially (nominally) committed to courting the Hispanic vote, they didn't post gains among Hispanics beyond the Bush Jr. years.
    https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...ious-midterms/
    https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...2018-midterms/
    https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic...2012-election/

    I note you've made a habit of overstating the conservativity of non-whites. Liberal whites are less conservative compared to all non-whites. Duh! But what you should look at is how liberal the liberal non-whites are, and what the proportions are of liberal share among all whites and all non-whites. A more interesting approach is the theory that as American society gradually becomes less segregated (a nonlinear process, nor an inevitable one), more whites will spend time with more non-whites, and vice versa, which is to say that members of a racial or ethnic group will on average spend less time in the social company of co-racials. The effect of this could be expected to be a mutual assimilation of political and partisan habits, as it can already be observed that whites with more non-white friends are more likely to vote Democratic than other whites, and non-whites with more white friends are more likely to vote Republican. How much of this is actually causal is of course unclear, but it is at least an interesting observation and fodder for long-term theories.

    (Also, it's very bad for anyone to vote for the Republican Party. They may not yet be as personally, physically brutal as Golden Dawn, but they've done vastly more damage to people and culture and the world than Golden Dawn have. Imagine Greece under a decade of Golden Dawn domination.)

    I referred specifically to the vice-presidential picks. Of course it's insulting and racist, but that label applies for those that follow that policy, not for those who point it out.
    I mean, the framing is racist. Is it "pandering" to promise or indicate that you will take someone's interests into account? That's the fundamental basis of politics!

    I would say, especially as a European, you have blind spots when it comes to American racial politics. (As for gender politics there's no excuse not to engage with that anywhere.)

    https://www.prri.org/research/amid-m...or-the-nation/




    Your interpretation is very optimist, but I don't think it has much basis on reality. Vice-presidents have been traditionally selected, as campaign managers themselves admitted, to pander to the groups, which the president may find difficult to attract
    Of course they do! Abraham Lincoln chose a Democrat for his unity ticket in 1864, to reassure the moderates and Copperheads. Democrats have almost always put Southerners on the ticket, starting with their history as the party of the South and continuing even up to the present day when that was far from being the case. Obama notably chose Biden to reassure white voters and moderates. Hillary Clinton chose Tim Kaine to reassure men and Southerners, as well as for his good standing among both blacks and Hispanics. But that's only one criterion, and not even a very cogent one since VP picks don't actually convert voters historically and the other considerations I mentioned are of practical importance. (Indeed, Andrew Johnson infamously turned out to be the very worst VP pick in American history as he was basically a traitor and seditionist once in office.)

    Ideally, that would rely on their ideology, but that's an utopian expectation and Harris confirms the pattern, she doesn't contradict it.
    You should look for the connections of the above to ideology and substantive politics. If you're drawing ideology solely in terms of policy platform, I struggle to imagine a world in which that would be a useful and relevant addition given the limitations of the office - and therefore a pick on the basis of "ideology" in those terms would be far from ideal. Except for pandering to certain ideological factions I guess, but there are better ways to accomplish that than to stock a position that is most important for being able to fill the Presidency as needed (About a quarter of all US presidents have either died in office, resigned, or been seriously incapacitated during their terms) with a mere opinion-holder.

    These musings of visionary selection resemble, if anything, the naive system set up by the Framers in the late 18th century, where the default assumption was that each candidate would be a pure individual and the vice president would most likely be the runner-up in the presidential election. This system was such a disaster it was immediately reformed.

    She's a populist, because she jumped to the progressive bandwagon, once she noticed the success of Sanders' and Obama's nomination campaigns.
    I've never heard populism defined as trying to identify and pursue popular policies, which again strikes me as you attempting to exoticize the most basic conceptions of political behavior. Populist, though a nebulous term, is usually thought to minimally feature the rhetoric of elites vs. The People and promises to overturn some putative model of the social power structure. It sounds more like you're trying to contend that she's an opportunist, which is debatable but irrelevant as to the results we seek even if apt.

    Unfortunately, her career as a prosecutor puts her liberal credentials into doubt and she has consistently refused to take a firm position on issues that divide moderate and radical Democrats. She criticises her opponents for lack of empathy, but her ideas seem as coherent as those of a big-tent coalition in a post colourful revolution in an Eastern European republic.
    It's fine to mistrust Harris or disagree with her ideas or policies (though one should also take into account her recent record), but I don't get what your point is here.

    What do you mean by "should have"? In the sense that she would have prevailed, hadn't been for the Electoral College? Anyway, you can see Hillary's defeat from a more positive angle. If she had won, the historical mark of the first female presidency would have been tainted that she won, because of dynastic connections and nepotism, like Bush Jr. Not an inaccurate observation, given her mediocre record, as a minister of foreign affairs, and her exceptional lack of charisma.
    "Should have" primarily in the sense that Donald Trump was unfit in any capacity to hold any office of public trust.

    Doesn't seem like a valid comparison. Notably, Clinton won more votes than Trump, whereas Bush was literally helped along in seizing the election for himself by his brother, then the governor of Florida. Now there's nepotism, among other things. Simply being related to another politician is not a bar for nepotism. Hillary Clinton put in decades of work establishing herself in the party, whether you like her or not. Dark horses like Angela Merkel are one in a million and can't serve as a basis for a political system.

    Now, thanks to her defeat, there's still the opportunity to see a female politician rise to the presidency through her rhetorical, political and administrative skills.
    Clinton was well-regarded for all the above...

    Hey, we also put our Nazis in jail! You never mention a good piece of news about Greece, are we all debt to you?!
    Good to know.


    Quote Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai View Post
    The real question is whether the US would be better off today with Hillary leading the pandemic response, than CoviDon
    I have a metaphysical bone to pick with these sorts of counterfactuals, but in setting up a parallel universe similar to ours we could imagine that the conditions facing a Clinton presidency could in some - only some! - ways make it dispreferable to a Trump presidency.

    In this blue-sky America with President quasi-Clinton following a close election, Congress would be divided to the point that no legislation or judicial appointments would pass through, leaving the country ungovernable. Who knows if this situation would be resolved or merely exacerbated in the midterms, whether Clinton would be assisted or punished by voters for the lack of action. Certainly the entire conservative movement and all its media apparatuses had for decades been trained on the vilification of Clintons, so it would have been easy for Fox News to whip up an even greater negative frenzy among the Republican base than exists today. A natural disaster, or a pandemic like this, would be well-managed at the top of the executive but there would be even more intense and organized resistance to the dictates of the central or blue state governments among Republican voters and politicians alike (remember the Clinton tyranny, UN black helicopters, and OWG memes of the 1990s? We haven't seen the limits of the militia movement in our reality...). There would also be no legislative disaster aid of any sort forthcoming from a likely-hostile Congress, so the economy would have no cushion, for which the Beltway and conservative media would criticize Clinton for failing to apply leaderly leadership and force Republicans to put country above party. Under such conditions, following 3 terms of Democratic presidential control, a Republican landslide would be available.

    But all this doesn't mean we should be 'grateful' that Trump became President, since all we have to go on is the actual event and it sucks.
    Last edited by Montmorency; 10-22-2020 at 08:27.
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  25. #355
    Senior Member Senior Member ReluctantSamurai's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    But all this doesn't mean we should be 'grateful' that Trump became President, since all we have to go on is the actual event and it sucks.
    The 'could have/would have' game is rather pointless, but it's hard to imagine anyone with a worse pandemic response than CoviDon. Dubious that there wouldn't be some sort of COVID aid stimulus. The pandemic was always going to wreak havoc with the economy, and that disaster would've cut across party lines. Maybe better oversight in how the money got spent happens? Anyway........
    Last edited by ReluctantSamurai; 10-22-2020 at 15:18.
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  26. #356

    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020



    As of this morning. By the end of the weekend as many votes will have been recorded as were recorded for Trump in the entire 2016 cycle. The election is Nov. 3.

    It doesn't surprise me that New York is a total dead zone on this map, as early voting in New York only begins today and our mail voting administration has been a national disgrace (though maybe it will be better this time...).


    right off. . . The last months have really just been too narratively-neat.
    https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/22/du...ount-password/

    A Dutch security researcher says he accessed President Trump’s @realDonaldTrump Twitter account last week by guessing his password: “maga2020!”.

    Victor Gevers, a security researcher at the GDI Foundation and chair of the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure, which finds and reports security vulnerabilities, told TechCrunch he guessed the president’s account password and was successful on the fifth attempt.

    The account was not protected by two-factor authentication, granting Gevers access to the president’s account.

    After logging in, he emailed US-CERT, a division of Homeland Security’s cyber unit Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), to disclose the security lapse, which TechCrunch has seen. Gevers said the president’s Twitter password was changed shortly after.

    It’s the second time Gevers has gained access to Trump’s Twitter account.

    The first time was in 2016, when Gevers and two others extracted and cracked Trump’s password from the 2012 LinkedIn breach. The researchers took his password — “yourefired” — his catchphrase from the television show “The Apprentice” — and found it let them into his Twitter account. Gevers reported the breach to local authorities in the Netherlands, with suggestions on how Trump could improve his password security. One of the passwords he suggested at the time was “maga2020!” he said. Gevers said he “did not expect” the password to work years later.

    One of the best arguments for Maoism I've ever seen.

    Last edited by Montmorency; 10-24-2020 at 20:32.
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  27. #357
    Stranger in a strange land Moderator Hooahguy's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    I've been trying to remember where I saw this (maybe on twitter) of a long line of HBCU alumna and their families marching and singing to the polls in North Carolina to vote early. Honestly was incredibly inspiring to watch. Gives me hope.

    Also, on this day a year ago this prescient tweet was made:
    Joe Biden: We are not prepared for a pandemic. Trump has rolled back progress President Obama and I made to strengthen global health security. We need leadership that builds public trust, focuses on real threats, and mobilizes the world to stop outbreaks before they reach our shores.
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  28. #358

    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020

    Cool voting story.
    https://twitter.com/lilianxoxx/statu...59648447238151

    my dad went to go vote and he said that as soon as he got there a woman approached him and asked, rudely, if she could help him and he was like i’m here to vote??? and the lady was like “oh wow YOU can vote? are you SURE? let me see your ID.” after he showed it to her she showed him where to check in and the woman there told him he wasn’t registered. he told her that he was and that he checked before the deadline to register and again the day he went to vote. the woman said “no you aren’t. when was the last time you voted” and he said in 2016 and the lady was like “you’re supposed to vote in local elections too or you’re not registered anymore” and he was like “that’s not true!!!” and she goes “here fill this out and you’ll be able to vote in 2-3 weeks” AND IT WAS A REGISTRATION APPLICATION and so he was like “registration is closed in texas and i KNOW i’m already registered so show me where it says i’m not registered” and he said as soon as they typed his name into the computer ALL of his information popped up my dad understands english (for the most part) and can somewhat speak it (although it’s choppy) so he was lucky he was able to defend himself against these women who OBVIOUSLY didn’t want him to vote and who seemed surprised he was even able to imagine what it’s like for people who can’t understand english or aren’t able to speak it at these polling sites where people actively try to prevent minorities from voting texas loves voter suppression happened at eastfield college pleasant grove campus

    OK, now I'm starting to think early voting could mean something. But what must confirm the result is the number and demographics of voters on Election Day itself. We could see as much as 75% of the 2016 total vote tally by Nov. 3, but I doubt it will reach or exceed that. But even if it does, Election Day determines total turnout. Since there's little basis for making firm predictions, for all we know this is an election where turnout finally reaches 70% in this country; that's only to be settled in a couple weeks. This early voting data is only prescient inasmuch as it carries through Election Day. (If total youth turnout reaches beyond 50% we're easily talking a 400+ EV landslide.)

    Last edited by Montmorency; 10-26-2020 at 05:01.
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  29. #359
    Member Member Xantan's Avatar
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    Default Re: POTUS/General Election Thread 2020



    In depth, rather humorous, analysis of 538 about polls.

  30. #360
    Member Member Xantan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Speaking of elections and the current state, a significant problem explained below.


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