POTUS/General Election Thread 2020 + Aftermath

[Montmorency]

What's auto-Orwellianism? Pardon my lack of understanding, but my experience of Orwell is principally coloured by his essays on leftism in England, so I may have a different impression of what Orwellianism means that other people do.

Aw, come on man, you've seen the term "Orwellian" deployed in media. It usually has its ultimate derivation from his single work "1984", and while the term is more diluted and generic in colloquial usage, I'm using it in a sense that picks out important features of the 1984 governing ideology and the concerns about political language and totalitarianism Orwell had as a thinker. Orwellianism then is the top-down manipulation of language and thought with the design of eliminating the possibility of dissent or disloyalty. This can involve the twisting of language into a set of partisan shibboleths rather than communicative tokens, the simultaneous or serial adherence to mutually-exclusive ideas or beliefs, and their coordinated and centralized inculcuation into the populace by a domineering government or party establishment. Among other things.

Auto mean "self" and as a prefix usually signifies reflexivity. Where Orwellianism is definitionally vertical ("top-down"), to the point of being one of the original allegory's weaknessess according to many critics, auto-Orwellianism would be horizontal. It would be self-directed but also social and communal in replicating Orwellian processes. If there is a conceptual distinction between insurgencies with charismatic leading figures (e.g. Garibaldi, Mao, Castro) and those organized around "leaderless resistance" (e.g. Islamic or white supremacist terrorism in theoretical, idealized forms), in analogy auto-Orwellianism would kind of map onto the latter.

While the traditional Orwellianism of course remains an essential feature of movement conservatism and the Republican Party (can you get a purer case study than the Pennsylvania GOP trying to argue against the constitutionality of a law they unilaterally passed a year ago?), we have entered into the queer circumstance of elites and common clay alike becoming equalized through this cognitive horizontalism. Each individual becomes an agent of their own indoctrination as well as the interpenetrative maintainance and development of group norms and ways of knowing. As, for example, seen in Fox News' struggle to avoid falling into the whirlpool of its viewership's moods even as it continues to pursue its mission to hierarchically shape their worldviews and agendas. Despite its strong Murdoch-influenced editorial bent, the audience increasingly shapes the nature and scope of the content an organization like Fox is prepared to generate. I was actually shocked and thankful Fox News quickly (if VERY equivocally) pivoted away from Trump as soon as the voting was done and has at least reprogrammed to devote more time to attacking pandemic regulation and the - presumptively - incoming Biden administration. Had they not called Arizona early (apparently with Daddy Murdoch's personal approval) and instead went full bore on the election being stolen by George Soros, the ChiComs, the Venezuelans, urban socialists, Pelosi, AOC, Harris... we would be in a distinctly worse place today (and tomorrow).

So, like, imagine if Big Brother spent all day watching TV and posting on social media, the Inner Party forgot if or whether they were at war with Eurasia or Eastasia, and the proles got agitated enough about rumors of traitors in the Party allowing Emmanuel Goldstein to chill out at a London townhouse that someone at the Ministry of Truth decided it was true and the government, with Big Brother's approval, leveled half a city borough trying to root him out. Someone should write that book...

Which, to be reductive about my themes these past years, TLDR: They're all bug**** crazy now.

It's worth studying how conscious lies and pretensions become mass delusion.


Reflecting further on the Flight 93 essay - and I was remiss in not establishing what Flight 93 the author referred to - this end-of-era Soviet protest song is pretty much what all the reactionaries are singing along to.

Colonel Vasin has come to the frontline
And brought his young wife along
Colonel Vasin has rallied his corps
And told them: "Let's go home"
We fought this war for seventy years
We were taught that life is a fight
But the intelligence has just reported
We fought ourselves all this time.

And I have seen generals
They drink and eat our death
Their children are going crazy
Cause there's nothing left that they don't have
And our land lies in rust
Our churches are burnt.
If we want to have a home to return to
Now is the time to return

Our train is on fire
There are no buttons to push
Our train is on fire
There is no place to run to
Long ago this land was ours
Before we got trapped in this war
And it will die if it is nobody's
It's time for it to be returned

And the torches are burning around us
It's the rallying of all perished troops
And people who shot our fathers
Are now making plans for our youths.
We were born by the sound of marches
We were threatened by jail
I say it's about time we stopped crawling.
We have returned to our land.

It's barely metaphorical for Confederate rage, just tweak the lyrics slightly.

With the Texas lawsuit, most focused on sleazy Paxton, but the statistics cooking was even more comical. One in a quadrillion and the Bolsheviks still won.

Well, our convicted Nazi gangster also succeeded in running away, despite the police announcing that his chances were fewer than one in a trillion. Granted, a trillion is a significantly smaller number than a quadrillion, but it shows that you can never be certain with Socialists and National-Socialists.

I hate to break it to you, but this has been the received wisdom for years.

At some point in the next few weeks, there should be consideration given to a thread covering the new Biden/Harris administration, yes? Cabinet nominations, for instance, are currently ongoing and certainly generating a lot of controversy.

Just a thought...

A Trump Thread was started on Jan. 20, 2017, so we might as well start a Biden thread on Inauguration Day.

I don't know anything about the author, but I tip my hat to a quality bit of 18th century political satire:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...rom%20%251%24s

It's Petri, she's the resident satirist at WaPo.

Yep....Republican lawmakers are such a great bunch of people, that every effort should be made to bend over backwards to work with these morons, despite the fact they want to destroy democracy. Here's an idea:

Put these idiots on trial for sedition.

I noted sometime in the past two years that our winning the governor's office in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan in 2018 offered us an appreciable security in flipping those states back. Lucky breaks and tiny margins in multiple states were our shield this cycle. But Democrats can't be expected to win decisively every time.

Republicans know that treason doth never prosper, for if it do...

[Pannonian]

Aw, come on man, you've seen the term "Orwellian" deployed in media. It usually has its ultimate derivation from his single work "1984", and while the term is more diluted and generic in colloquial usage, I'm using it in a sense that picks out important features of the 1984 governing ideology and the concerns about political language and totalitarianism Orwell had as a thinker. Orwellianism then is the top-down manipulation of language and thought with the design of eliminating the possibility of dissent or disloyalty. This can involve the twisting of language into a set of partisan shibboleths rather than communicative tokens, the simultaneous or serial adherence to mutually-exclusive ideas or beliefs, and their coordinated and centralized inculcuation into the populace by a domineering government or party establishment. Among other things.

Auto mean "self" and as a prefix usually signifies reflexivity. Where Orwellianism is definitionally vertical ("top-down"), to the point of being one of the original allegory's weaknessess according to many critics, auto-Orwellianism would be horizontal. It would be self-directed but also social and communal in replicating Orwellian processes. If there is a conceptual distinction between insurgencies with charismatic leading figures (e.g. Garibaldi, Mao, Castro) and those organized around "leaderless resistance" (e.g. Islamic or white supremacist terrorism in theoretical, idealized forms), in analogy auto-Orwellianism would kind of map onto the latter.

While the traditional Orwellianism of course remains an essential feature of movement conservatism and the Republican Party (can you get a purer case study than the Pennsylvania GOP trying to argue against the constitutionality of a law they unilaterally passed a year ago?), we have entered into the queer circumstance of elites and common clay alike becoming equalized through this cognitive horizontalism. Each individual becomes an agent of their own indoctrination as well as the interpenetrative maintainance and development of group norms and ways of knowing. As, for example, seen in Fox News' struggle to avoid falling into the whirlpool of its viewership's moods even as it continues to pursue its mission to hierarchically shape their worldviews and agendas. Despite its strong Murdoch-influenced editorial bent, the audience increasingly shapes the nature and scope of the content an organization like Fox is prepared to generate. I was actually shocked and thankful Fox News quickly (if VERY equivocally) pivoted away from Trump as soon as the voting was done and has at least reprogrammed to devote more time to attacking pandemic regulation and the - presumptively - incoming Biden administration. Had they not called Arizona early (apparently with Daddy Murdoch's personal approval) and instead went full bore on the election being stolen by George Soros, the ChiComs, the Venezuelans, urban socialists, Pelosi, AOC, Harris... we would be in a distinctly worse place today (and tomorrow).

So, like, imagine if Big Brother spent all day watching TV and posting on social media, the Inner Party forgot if or whether they were at war with Eurasia or Eastasia, and the proles got agitated enough about rumors of traitors in the Party allowing Emmanuel Goldstein to chill out at a London townhouse that someone at the Ministry of Truth decided it was true and the government, with Big Brother's approval, leveled half a city borough trying to root him out. Someone should write that book...

That's what I meant. I've read 1984, but his piece about the use of English language that I remember most was an excerpt about how socialists get caught up in comrade this and comrade that, that dulls the ears of everyone except their own little group, whereas right wingers tend to use more dynamic language that is more immediately appealing. The use of language in 1984 that you cite is still largely fictional, but his piece on the difference in language between left and right wingers is still true to life over half a century on. Eg. the Labour left's darling Laura Pidcock going down a storm in the Durham Miners' Gala whilst losing a constituency that has been Labour for 70 years.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I guess shit really does run downhill:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/1...ion-gop-444682

Trump, it seems, isn’t the only dead-ender holding out more than a month after the election, refusing to acknowledge defeat. Even as Trump lost again in court on Friday, with the Supreme Court rejecting a long-shot effort to overturn the election, he remains a lodestar for denialists of the GOP.

It isn't just that the losers of the campaign's mentioned in the article are challenging the results, it's the margin's of defeat that they lost by that is absurd:

[...] Loren Culp, the unsuccessful Republican nominee for governor in Washington state, where he lost by more than 13 percentage points on Nov. 3. Like Donald Trump, Culp insists he’s the victim of a rigged election.

In Maryland, a congressional candidate beaten by more than 40 percentage points is still complaining about “irregularities” in her election.

And in Tennessee, a House candidate defeated by more than 57 percentage points has reached out to the ubiquitous pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell to air her grievances about an election that no Republican had any chance of winning — but that she’s convinced she did.

Errol Webber, a little-known Republican who lost his race to unseat Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) by more than 70 percentage points. “It’s on principle that we will not let up until the truth is known.”

Buzz Patterson, a Republican who lost to Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) by more than 13 percentage points, has refused to concede and is complaining about voting machines.

In Massachusetts, Republican John Paul Moran is using unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud to fundraise, after losing his long-shot bid to unseat Rep. Seth Moulton by more than 30 percentage points.

30 points, 40 points, 57 points, 70 points, and the election was rigged? But....let's follow the biggest loser of all, CoviDon, and make a mockery of the election process...

John Thomas, a Republican strategist who advised a dozen House candidates across the country this year, said he could understand a candidate refusing to concede if the margin of defeat was “literally razor-thin and they were going to pay for a recount.” In any other case, he said, it’s a strategy “just for sore losers … And the problem is the damage it could potentially do to the electorate is huge, and I’m nervous as hell.”

I can only find two Democrats, thus far, contesting results (there may be more, I just haven't found them):

Iowa's 2d Congressional District:

Iowa’s state elections board on Monday certified Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks’s victory in the 2nd district, flipping a seat currently held by a Democrat. But her opponent, Rita Hart, is dusting off a 1969 federal statute to have the House of Representatives pick the winner. That means Democrats in Washington could overrule Iowa voters to seat a co-partisan and grow their majority.

The Iowa race was decided by six votes. The counting went on for weeks as 24 counties canvassed and recanvassed over 390,000 ballots, and lawyers from both sides haggled with election officials over machine counting, ballot qualifications and voter intent.

New York 22d Congressional District

[...] also in New York’s 22nd district upstate, where Democrat Anthony Brindisi is down by 12 votes in the preliminary final count to Republican Claudia Tenney. They want a judge to review county election board decisions on disputed ballots. Ms. Tenney’s lawyers warn in a court filing of “the perils of trying to recreate a Board’s findings in the absence of appropriate Board notations,” and ask the judge to put the race to an end.

This is beginning to look like the new norm in elections, from now on...

Next thing you would say that both of them can go back on their word

"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone"

[spmetla]

It'll only be the new normal if it works, though it certainly highlights the danger to democracy that Trump and ilk have been when any unfavorable result will be declared as rigged.

I can only hope that Biden has the new congress enact laws to codify many of the norms that have been trampled upon by Trump. An honor system doesn't work with a thoroughly dishonorable person at the top.
Biden will need the courage to actually ask for legislation that can limit executive power, perhaps even a constitutional amendment.

[Montmorency]

Samurai, here's a Twitter clipping of a Senate floor speech by Chris Murphy. He's starting to talk just like how we need Dems to.
https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/st...67239906283531[VIDEO - 2 min]

“Right now, the most serious attempt to overthrow our democracy in the history of our of country is underway.

Those who are pushing to make Donald Trump President, no matter the outcome of the election, are engaged in a treachery against their nation.”

You cannot, at the same time, love this country and hate democracy.
[...]
Democracies are really fragile things. Ours only continues because we make choices so that it can remain. Our government really isn't the piece of paper upon which the Constitution is written. ...[D]emocracy comes first, not the perpetuation of our own political power.

This election wasn't close enough to steal. But it's clear that most Republicans now think if a Democrat wins an election, it is, by definition, fraudulent. And next time, when some GOP controlled election board DOES overturn a legitimate Dem victory, our democracy is cooked.

On the subject of messaging, what kind of play is this gesture getting in the media? Is it filtering down to the public? Good case study, because one can message however one wants, and with any level of organizational uniformity, but very few people actually go directly to legislators' pages to hear the words they choose to prioritize, so the impact depends on how the message is disseminated by third parties.

It'll only be the new normal if it works, though it certainly highlights the danger to democracy that Trump and ilk have been when any unfavorable result will be declared as rigged.

I can only hope that Biden has the new congress enact laws to codify many of the norms that have been trampled upon by Trump. An honor system doesn't work with a thoroughly dishonorable person at the top.
Biden will need the courage to actually ask for legislation that can limit executive power, perhaps even a constitutional amendment.

If we're very very lucky Biden and Dems will have just enough votes to pass a third-loaf pandemic stimulus - and little else. I don't believe a Constitutional amendment or convention can be activated under any circumstances given the established thresholds. Though there could be many distasteful submissions if the opportunity arose, such as maybe disabling the social welfare state or enshrining white nationalist immigration policy in some form.

Sadly, the only chance of legislating restraint on the executive in the medium-term was for Dems to win a decisive majority in both chambers.

[Gilrandir]

"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone"

A good excuse for doing anything unseemly.

[ReluctantSamurai]

A good excuse for doing anything unseemly.

New hat now, I see...the moral police

In an effort to keep this thread on topic.....are those politicians that are attempting to subvert democracy by claiming "voter fraud" whenever they lose, doing anything "unseemly?" Before you answer, bear this in mind:

Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organisation, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or rebellion against, established authority.

I also have another question...you made these statements earlier this summer:

But, like I said, if they limit their activities to protecting their families and property, their ideology doens't matter to me. When they start excessive actions, hang them on the lamp posts. Next to looters.

Many social groups around the world (and sometimes all of them together) come out to voice their resentment. But, somehow, many of them keep within decency limits like it was in the 1960s in the MLK epoch, in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, in Ukraine in 2004 and 2013/14, in Armenia in 2018, in Hong Kong in 2019, in Belarus just now and even during Occupy Wall street events. By decency limits I mean fighting the authorities, not their fellow citizens. How come current tensions are so mistargeted?

It is not about being legitimate or not, it is about the lack of common sense. Protesters demand "law and order and justice", as you say, but by that they mean all these FOR THEMSELVES, and not for those who happened to own shops on a wrong street. If this is "justice for all" why do you attack innocent people's property? They aren't included into all? How are they guilty in the depravity of the police? Do the rioters realize that they alienate people by looting?

So should these people, pictured in the link below, be "hung from the lamp posts"? Are they "keeping within decency limits"? Is the church just "on the wrong street"? Why are you not as outraged now as you were at BLM protesters?

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/1...gton-dc-444940

And BTW, the American flag being waved there, while once a symbol of a fledgling country, is now predominantly seen in white supremacy gatherings. That tell you anything about what these folks think of our country?

@spmetla

It'll only be the new normal if it works

I think it already has worked, in the sense that it's undermined the legitimacy of the voting process. When you get trounced by 70 points in a race, there should be no doubt about the winner. But now, due to all the constant verbal lashing Trump has given the voting process in the last 4 years, that 70 point loser thinks that he/she has grounds for claiming they won by putting forth all kinds of wild assertions. The Bergmann case in Tennessee (from the above link) follows the same bizarre rhetoric as Trump's:

In Tennessee, Charlotte Bergmann, who lost her race to unseat Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) by more than 57 percentage points, said she became a “household name” in the Memphis-based district and that for Cohen, the sitting congressman, “to get the vote that he got in this race, people couldn’t understand it.”

“I’ve been active in politics since 1999, helping to get Republicans elected, starting with George W. Bush,” she wrote to her secretary of state, Tre Hargett. “That’s 21 years of service, and I’m the angriest I have been in decades! There are a group of corrupt people who have absolute contempt for the American people, who believe that we’re so spineless, so cowardly, so unwilling to stand up for ourselves, that they can steal the presidency, and down ballot seats, and we’ll just wring our hands, bring in a few lawyers, and do nothing.”

Being a "household name" and "active in politics since 1999" does not constitute voter fraud. You lost the election by 57 points. Take you're damn ball and go home. Better luck next time. WTF?

Sadly, the only chance of legislating restraint on the executive in the medium-term was for Dems to win a decisive majority in both chambers.

That, I'm afraid, is the sad reality. One only has to look at the total cluster-@#$% that's happening in Congress at this moment. Dr. No has almost the same power as POTUS. If anything, legislation was needed to put some restraints on the powers of the Senate Majority Leader. One man's refusal to authorize legislation that would ease the suffering of millions of Americans, while prioritizing Senate sessions to push through the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, is just as criminal as almost anything Trump has done.

And that also went out the door with the mediocre results down-ballot.

[Hooahguy]

The electoral college has made it formal today. No faithless electors, thank god.

Edit: also this means that technically Biden got more electoral college votes than Trump did in 2016 since there were two faithless electors then.

[Montmorency]

Any comments on Chris Murphy above? (Pascrell in the House is somewhere similar, and the Squad have naturally always been more defiant than the baseline Dem).


Fun fact (Vox): Only three people had been executed by the federal government in the past 50 years. Meanwhile, in less than five months, eight people have already been put to death by Trump’s Justice Department.

If the remaining executions in December are carried out — making a total of 10 for 2020 — it will mark more civilian executions in a single calendar year than any other presidency in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Interesting contrast to the pardons agenda.



To avoid a separate post, NYGov Cuomo released some updated stats on the local epidemic.



It's a surprise to me that industrial or public-facing establishments have improved their praxis so much, and that private persons have laxened it so much.


(And yet another useful resource for visualizing COVID)

[Gilrandir]

New hat now, I see...the moral police

Miami vice.