rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

Trump is probably gonna win and we’re gonna need this thread

the electorate is never wrong

I'm not concerned about Trump getting more votes than Biden, he almost certainly won't, but I do worry that the Supreme Court basically gave the GOP permission to disenfranchise large amounts of voters and throw away absentee ballots. I know a lotta people don't take Trump saying stuff like "vote by mail is illegitimate" seriously but lets see what happens if/when he actually loses

our catechism must be:

increasing isolation? good!
emboldening? bad!

leon czolgosz did nothing wrong

I know a lotta people don't take Trump saying stuff like "vote by mail is illegitimate" seriously

i do. i don't know why others don't. he's saying the quiet part out loud, when a more competent GOP person would just litigate it and let the GOP-selected judges do the work of disenfranchising voters. that's what they'll do under trump, too, but he's doing us the favor of yelling out his intentions so they can at least be critiqued (and hopefully counteracted).

but instead everybody's just like "keep your head down and...vote?"

or you know, try to vote, knowing that a ton of the people you need to vote with you aren't going to do it because they don't want to die

on the flip side

new @CNN poll of registered voters:

Biden 53%
Trump 42%

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) April 9, 2020

the good news is that even though voters will (once again) be disenfranchised, we're starting from an even better margin the time that h clinton lost by negative 3 million votes. and it's not due to biden being good or inspirational. he 's standing in for the steaming pile of shit in the well-worn phrase "i'd vote for a steaming pile of shit before i'd vote for donald fucking trump".

for the second time in 4 years, we've been handed a choice between donald trump and literally a steaming pile of shit

Would've bet on trump (almost did bet on biden to win democratic nomination and trump to win the general at the beginning of the year but the odds were below 2/1) but COVID throws in a dollop of unpredictability

for the second time in 4 years, we've been handed a choice between donald trump and literally a steaming pile of shit

― let me be your friend on the other end! (Karl Malone)

i'm working really hard not to play grammar police here karl, i'm trying to be a good descriptivist but i can't get over my white privilege hangup that people should not use "literally" when they mean "figuratively"

Hilary Clinton >> Joe Biden

But that's for another thread. No doubt Fred will poll them.

Hilary Clinton had a functioning brain and many people were genuinely invigorated by her candidacy

exactly

xp i call out people on the literally thing too. but the thing is, when i see donald trump, i see a big pile of shit with steam coming off of it, with a little crevice in the side moving up and down in time with the words that he speaks. he literally is a steaming pile of shit, and apparently 53% of voters also see it

she still lost white women though

Hilary Clinton >> Joe Biden

i agree too, it's a mistake to lump them into the same category. but i had to hold my nose for her all the same

She was definitely a much better candidate, but people didn't absolutely hate Trump the way they do now. hard to remember now but there was a time when a lot of online folks liked Trump b/c he was just eviscerating the GOP

I think enthusiasm for a candidate augurs success more often than people hating their opponent

Hillary would’ve made a better president and seemed smart and alert and awake but ppl hated her guts and they don’t feel the same about Biden

she did seem alert and awake! and sadly those do put her in another league, as a candidate

xp i call out people on the literally thing too. but the thing is, when i see donald trump, i see a big pile of shit with steam coming off of it, with a little crevice in the side moving up and down in time with the words that he speaks. he literally is a steaming pile of shit, and apparently 53% of voters also see it

Not that I disagree

In a just world, Hillary would be a stronger candidate than Biden, and I say that as someone who doesn't like Hillary much. But Biden Obama's VP and a good ole white guy.

it's up to Biden to fuck it up, and I trust he can do it.

yeah, i mean i'm not going to complain if you call donald trump literally a steaming pile of shit, but to call hillary clinton literally a steaming pile of shit seems slightly... hyperbolic?

I wouldn't bet a dollar on the outcome. I've generally thought GENERIC DEMOCRAT would win for the last couple of years and Trump will win people were just doomsayers, but so much of Trump's insanity seems to have been normalized and Biden is such a uniquely terrible candidate (we haven't even gotten to the BURISMA BURISMA BURISMA stage of things) that I wouldn't begin to guess how this will turn out.

but to call hillary clinton literally a steaming pile of shit seems slightly... hyperbolic?

yes, this is the part where i made a mistake, i readily admit

oh wait, and i called biden a literally steaming pile of shit, too.

welp

look in the time of coronavirus, etc etc, mistakes are made

Everyone who voted for the Iraq war is a steaming pile of shit

let me fix this for the record: we're faced with a decision between a literally steaming pile of shit and a figuratively steaming pile of shit. in 2016 the choice was between a literally steaming pile of shit and however we want to figuratively refer to hillary clinton

firm, but fair

Hillary would’ve made a better president and seemed smart and alert and awake but ppl hated her guts and they don’t feel the same about Biden

this is my one hope for 2020, people were mobilized to vote against Hillary in ways they won't be for Biden. I had coworkers who hated her guts for no discernable reason. we rag on the GOP for the way they fired off bad-faith attacks on her for 20 years but it sure as hell paid off

I wouldn't bet a dollar on the outcome. I've generally thought GENERIC DEMOCRAT would win for the last couple of years and Trump will win people were just doomsayers, but so much of Trump's insanity seems to have been normalized and Biden is such a uniquely terrible candidate (we haven't even gotten to the BURISMA BURISMA BURISMA stage of things) that I wouldn't begin to guess how this will turn out.

well the fact that "the president doesn't have a functioning brain" is now normalized is probably a point in favor of Biden now, sadly. by and large this is just what we've always known, most voters don't care about racism, corruption, lying, dead people in foreign countries, etc. etc...but once they start losing their jobs and having people they know die as a direct result of the President's incompetence, things might change. murdering 1,500,000 brown people on false pretenses didn't hurt GWB. the financial crisis and Katrina did.

I honestly don’t think Trump comes off as nearly as senile as Biden. We’re mostly judging him on content but he’s still a pretty confident speaker. Biden genuinely sounds like my 92-year old grandfather in the final year ‘decline phase.’

is this also the thread for "we're gonna have a Republican judiciary + sham elections for the rest of our lives"

however we want to figuratively refer to hillary clinton

― let me be your friend on the other end! (Karl Malone)

if you're asking my preference, i would prefer we not refer to hillary clinton, figuratively or otherwise. that's probably not a reasonable request, but it just seems like picking at an old wound that will fucking never heal over.

is this also the thread for "we're gonna have a Republican judiciary + sham elections for the rest of our lives"

― lukas

i feel like we should have a separate thread for long-term doom-mongering and we could try to keep this to 2020-only doom-mongering? but it's not my thread.

HRC is a white supremacist mass murderer who is partly responsible for this shitshow why should she get a pass

So good to finally have someone on this board who can weigh in from The Left.

HRC is a white supremacist mass murderer who is partly responsible for this shitshow why should she get a pass

shit really? Perhaps there should be some congressional hearings.

I honestly don’t think Trump comes off as nearly as senile as Biden. We’re mostly judging him on content but he’s still a pretty confident speaker. Biden genuinely sounds like my 92-year old grandfather in the final year ‘decline phase.’

― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Thursday, April 9, 2020 2:52 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i agree. i think it's hard to imagine Biden beating anyone but 799 people died in my state today of the virus trump was denying was a problem about a month ago so WHO KNOWS

Dumb asshole is gonna win, ffs

This site has enough rolling 77 threads for griping.

The thread title says what it’s for, it’s for this, so it doesn’t go in other threads

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWFrynfU4AASTY5?format=jpg&name=medium

Low numbers for Biden in both Trust and Don't Trust, so he does have room to improve if he's able to become more visible

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWFrynfU4AASTY5?format=jpg&name=medium

its tough when every major news network gives a free 2 hour commercial to your opponent every single night

in the main, no one's listening to whatever Biden says about covid-19, because he's not in a position to affect anything about it. people know that he's mostly irrelevant on that subject. it doesn't help that what he does manage to say is neutral boilerplate, stuff like 'I'd take effective action' that means nothing at all. I'd bet most of those trust vs. don't trust responders wouldn't be able to cite anything he said; it's just the usual tribal identification.

We should get Joe some of the shit from Flowers for Algernon

he does have room to improve if he's able to become more visible

Also room to get worse. Seriously, I would be all over a GoFundMe to (1) buy that man a teleprompter, (2) pay a trusted advisor to keep him on script, and (3) get some of them Deepfake tech whizzes to mock up some coherent speeches using his generically likable face.

he's gonna win every goddamn state https://t.co/RggsWIJkDH

— Andros of the Embers (@allahliker) April 21, 2020

of course he is

pic.twitter.com/cU6gIdMgGi

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 20, 2020

i forgot how wildly popular the initial travel ban and the wall and border separations were, everyone loved all that shit, this guy's totally right.

did we really need a new thread just for disgruntled sanders people to talk up trump?

I'd really like to see Biden put out an ad collecting all the times Trump made it sound like he wanted to fuck his daughter.

Trump is going to be president until we're all dead.

He'll never do it xp

ukilxors can't even be trusted to predict the results of uk elections

Trump is going to be president until we're all dead.

― Vegemite Is My Grrl (Eric H.)

only if he literally kills me

(xp) Not sure many, if any, predicted Corbyn would win tbf.

i remember the optimism during his campaign certainly from this point (8 months out from the election)

How Optimistic Are You?

The optimism was always qualified. Not that it matters as to whether I'll copy and paste some fun tweets xp

uk ilxors weren't stupid for hoping and people who are despairing right now aren't stupid for despairing

you can come up with another word for 'believes that election results aren't likely to be correlated w/ polling data'.

young voters are undercounted because they don’t use landlines, i totally read that

every time Trump says "Sleepy Joe" there are a bunch of disgruntled Bernie supporters tweeting "holy FUCK he's gonna get 500 EVs" and it's super annoying

he is an unstoppable force, though also extremely stoppable by the guy who polled worse against him than joe biden

I try to convince myself that "trump is gonna win" as an emotional shield in case it happens, plus the idea of investing in "biden is gonna win" is fucking sad (admittedly "trump is gonna one-term" appeals).

OTOH, what I sometimes think about is a friend's dad who voted for trump. He's a middle-class white guy who is literally in the infrastructure business and actually bought the idea that trump being pres would help him. But he's also married to a South American immigrant, and while I don't know him personally I am reasonably sure there's no chance he'll vote for trump again. I imagine there's at least a few other people like that, and I can't see anyone switching to trump at this point—even as hyperbole, "he's gonna win every goddamn state" makes you look like a dumbass. Going full throttle white nationalist isn't going to help him win, the thing to be worried about is disenfranchisement not trump's masterly "political campaigning skills."

Going full throttle white nationalist isn't going to help him win, the thing to be worried about is disenfranchisement not trump's masterly "political campaigning skills."

this

ultimately Trump had two big selling points for persuadable voters in 2020 - "at least the economy is doing well" and "yeah he's an incompetent racist dumbass but none of that really affects ME...", and now we're in a situation where millions are losing their jobs, 100,000 Americans will die, and the economy is cratering, and a lot of that can be traced back to Trump's incompetence. I just don't know who he *gains* in 2020.

like one thing I heard a lot in 2016 was "what's the worst that can happen, things already suck for us and the Presidency is mostly a show job" and well, now we know

can we lock this thread?

all true, but also

none of that really affects ME.

He could lose a few handfuls of voters out of sheer stupidity. I mean I haven't looked up the numbers or anything, but another thing to consider: I am a straight white man who normally isn't subject to trump's attacks...except I'm an immigrant (I was a baby, but it's not like I forgot)

can we lock this thread?

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, April 21, 2020 9:38 AM (thirty-three seconds ago)

If we do I’m gonna have to post “Trump is gonna win” when I’m stressed out in other threads instead of this one which I made so I wouldn’t do that!!

ftr, I approve of this thread's existence! Give me a few weeks and I'll probably post something stressed out myself; I almost did after watching Biden on Desus & Mero

If we do I’m gonna have to post “Trump is gonna win” when I’m stressed out in other threads instead of this one which I made so I wouldn’t do that!!

― silby, Tuesday, April 21, 2020

I'd prefer that option; this is just one more thread to worry about.

I appreciate your concern for my acid reflux I guess!

By the way, we're long past the containment point and have moved on to the mitigation phase.

I'd prefer that option; this is just one more thread to worry about.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

could you say more about what's worrying you about this thread?

i'm not bothered by people who don't pay attention to the polls. i don't pay attention to the polls. honestly, few things drive me up the wall more than the constant horse race talk, the constant "what will the voters do", because how anybody else votes is, for the most part, completely outside my control. the plethora of "what ifs" and and game theory, i used to indulge in that, and it now comes across as an attempt to control what has been for quite a long time for quite a number of people an uncontrollable situation.

i'd rather people talk about their honest feelings than about how, not to pick on anyone, but how someone else's dad is going to vote. i'm not sure how to concern myself with that and stay sane. we've got some strong challenges among us, and i'd like to see us learn how to be kind to each other, and horse race talk goes nowhere towards accomplishing that.

By the way, we're long past the containment point and have moved on to the mitigation phase.

― Vegemite Is My Grrl (Eric H.)

how do you know so much about silby's acid reflux

could you say more about what's worrying you about this thread?

US Politics, April 2020 -- Where's the Vax Returns?

Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

I’m in a pissy mood so my optimism is gone, to the point that I can’t helping noticing this thread assumes any kind of certifiable election come November. If we even manage to have an election with a grain of integrity, too few congress members have demonstrated their willingness to stand up for the results of an election that doesn’t come out their way.

I feel particularly helpless when I consider that a hostile foreign entity doesn’t even have to impact voter rolls or systems, they just have to boost the message that it’s plausible they have. Just the suggestion would cause enough chaos to destabilize us.

Things are going to get way worse before they get better.

trump is not going to win

Things are going to get way worse before they get better

I have a memory of a He-Man episode where he said it.

I only quote the greats

the whole Biden-Burisma-Hunter Biden thing imo is a GOP attempt to make the Bidens the new Clintons, because they were so successful demonizing the Clinton name among their base, and they think they did the same thing effectively with Obama, but that's not what happened there (that was simple racism). I don't think it's as effective with Joey B because he just doesn't have the charisma needed to inspire that kind of polarization

I think the Burisma stuff will stick because it is pretty transparent corruption and it doesn't matter that Trump is worse in every way, we know the rules don't apply to both sides equally.

Will it matter enough to influence the campaign? Who knows? Will a President Biden get hearings out the ass about it and do a lot of damage to his agenda? Fuuuuuuck yeah.

feel like if trump had a son that was addicted to crack, had an affair with his dead brother's wife, and had a job on the board of a Ukrainian gas company despite not being remotely qualified purely due to his father's clout the democrats would be trying to make hay with that also

good points

biden is a much worse candidate than Clinton and she lost. and trump has the benefit of incumbency. I would put a decent chunk of change on trump winning if the odds weren't so lousy

I think "Burisma" is pretty standard conflict of interests, no more or less corrupt than in any administration in which its satraps have kids wanting to make money on Daddy's name. I don't think anyone gives a shit outside TrumpWorld.

I'd still say history is on Trump's side, but his epochal victory in 2016 needed a particular set of circumstances to happen again. A shame Jim Comey isn't in the FBI no more.

hillary would've made a better president than biden but biden is the better candidate bc he isn't loathed by a large % of the country

if it wasn't for the virus and the subsequent economic catastrophe, i would think was in good shape to win. as it is i don't think so.

biden will hang on by a thread but by the time it's over the burisma story will have been repeated so many times that he will be tainted in the eyes of a lot of america. and maybe that is to be expected but it still sucks.

trump has the benefit of incumbency.

Maybe in Politico-world. Here on Earth, Biden has the benefit of Trump's incumbency. The dude was underwater with the public on the day of his inauguration, and every single day since then he has proved himself manifestly unfit for his office. Unless you've got the memory of a fucking goldfish (or are a political journalist, but I repeat myself), Trump has massively damaged his own reelection prospects. As all honest polls indicate.

the "biden is senile" and "biden is corrupt" arguments don't work together and you notice ppl who want to damage his campaign are focusing on the senile one bc they don't think the corruption charges are going to resonate v well. ppl generally like biden / find him affable and authentic. ppl found hillary cold, guarded and so corruption charges really resonated when made against her.

the thing about smears is they have to work in the greater narrative. ppl will try to smear anyone with anything but only certain smears work and those are the ones that resonate both with a particular voterbase in a particular time and against a particular candidate who magnifies and reaffirms those charges.

Two words why Carter lost in 1980: Billy Beer.

MILLIONS OF AMERICANS HATE DONALD TRUMP WITH THE FURY OF A THOUSAND SUNS. Never let yourself forget that fact. Every time you think about the election, think about that first.

I think "Burisma" is pretty standard conflict of interests, no more or less corrupt than in any administration in which its satraps have kids wanting to make money on Daddy's name. I don't think anyone gives a shit outside TrumpWorld.

Counterpoint: this is the kind of standard issue corruption that everyone has dealt with (the boss's shithead son who's dumber than a box of rocks), innately hates and feeds into the basic cynicism most people have about 'career politicians.'

Trump's corruption (personal and familial) is a little more obscure to people because the scale is so different. They don't know anyone who sold a multi-billion dollar building because of their father-in-law (but they do remember that shithead son).

the "biden is senile" and "biden is corrupt" arguments don't work together

Of course they do. He was corrupt for much longer than he's been senile.

I'm not so sure the Burisma story is gonna be pushed as much as everyone assumes it will - for one, who cares when we're in the middle of a pandemic, for two, this is literally the thing Trump got impeached over, and for three, after 4 years of Ivanka and fucking Don Jr. in the public spotlight I'm not sure if the nepotism line of attack is gonna win over anyone

if the second wave scientists have warned us about happens in the fall, few beyond the loudmouths yelling outside Whitmer's office will give a good goddamn about Burisma.

could you say more about what's worrying you about this thread?

US Politics, April 2020 -- Where's the Vax Returns?

Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

oh, god, you want me to read those threads? i'm not sure i have the stomach for it, sorry alfred

i guess more i'm wondering why you feel the need to keep up with this one? because i think we have different approaches to politics, and i want to be respectful of those differences.

Actually, that's my point -- there's no difference between this thread and the "Joe Biden sucks" thread.

I'm not so sure the Burisma story is gonna be pushed as much as everyone assumes it will - for one, who cares when we're in the middle of a pandemic, for two, this is literally the thing Trump got impeached over, and for three, after 4 years of Ivanka and fucking Don Jr. in the public spotlight I'm not sure if the nepotism line of attack is gonna win over anyone

― frogbs, Tuesday, April 21, 2020 3:28 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

it worked for arcane matters of IT security (i.e., her emails)

Actually, that's my point -- there's no difference between this thread and the "Joe Biden sucks" thread.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

idk if i agree, although i can see why the difference might seem a bit arcane. there are all kinds of reasons trump might win and most of them are unrelated to the suckiness of joe biden... but all people ever seem to want to talk about is joe biden's qualifications or lack thereof as a candidate as if that's the only important consideration. people keep talking past each other, talking about different things. and neither of us, really, have the luxury of disengaging, of not caring, and that is painful.

email thing was so effective because there were millions of people in this country who were conditioned to believe Hillary was corrupt but couldn't quite articulate why outside of shouting "BENGHAZI" over and over

ultimately Trump had two big selling points for persuadable voters in 2020 - "at least the economy is doing well" and "yeah he's an incompetent racist dumbass but none of that really affects ME...", and now we're in a situation where millions are losing their jobs, 100,000 Americans will die, and the economy is cratering, and a lot of that can be traced back to Trump's incompetence. I just don't know who he *gains* in 2020.

― frogbs, Wednesday, April 22, 2020 2:34 AM (three hours ago)

I assume the panic is not over former Hillary Clinton voters switching to Trump, but Trump keeping a fervent base and other voters not being able to hold their nose and vote for Joe Biden, and also the election not going ahead in even the normal shitty national US fashion.

i'd agree with sic here - the panic is more about who actually casts a vote in this election. i totally understand, given this, why my saying that i'm not planning on casting a vote in that particular race might be deeply concerning to a lot of people.

other voters not being able to hold their nose and vote for Joe Biden

Your mistake is in assuming that the majority of Democratic voters will feel the need to hold their nose to vote for Joe Biden. America is not ILX. America is not Lefty Twitter. Joe Biden is a popular politician - much more popular than Donald fucking Trump, who, again, millions and millions of people actively hate.

hope you're right

I believe Trump will lose - on the merits. But as a counterpoint, millions and millions of people actively hated Nixon in 1972 and he won by a fucking landslide.

Nixon was always polling ahead of McGovern, though.

my only point was that the hatred of millions upon millions is not a sufficient guide to a presidential election outcome. I could also have cited the many millions who loathed FDR.

I’m not sure Bernie supporters are dispassionate on this question of whether Biden is liked or electable

i don't think the fact that people hate trump necessarily works against him. being a provocateur was his whole schtick.

i think what will kill him is the fact that our country is in ruins due in part to his dithering on coronavirus.

yeah, people hating him is fine if fine as long as enough love him. polarization isn't necessarily bad for you electorally.

his disapproval rating is only in the 50s

that may tick up over the next few months

"Biden is better liked than Trump" ppl have a poll to consider.

https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-most-trust-fauci-cuomo-on-coronavirus-response-insider-poll-2020-3

(I'm not saying that statement is wrong for sure, but I'm skeptical.)

Lots of politicians who aren't trusted are elected time and again.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html#polls

comparing a dude who is literally given 2 free hours of airtime every day on every news network against someone who can't even get a functioning livestream to work might make that poll a bit misleading

people hating him is fine if fine as long as enough love him. polarization isn't necessarily bad for you electorally

Vancouverian James is monetarially on, here.

For the MAGAnauts, the forces arrayed against you are a large part of the point and most of the motivation. As the opposing sentiment increases, so does the entrenchment.

Premise 1. Liberal elites and coastal snowflakes hate The Donald.

Premise 2. I hate liberal snowflakes and coastal elites.

Premise 3. My hatred of the aforementioned libtards is the main motivating factor in my worldview. (Way more than any active interest in capitalism or free market economics or anti-government sentiment.)

Premise 4. If they (libtards) love a thing, I must hate it. Conversely, if they hate a thing, I must perforce love it.

Premise 5. The more they hate a thing, I must love it more. The more they love a thing, then I must perforce develop yet more hate for that thing.

This pattern cannot be reasoned with, just outvoted.

it's interesting that a lot of polls that show Biden up big head-to-head also have relatively high approval ratings for Trump (45% or higher). His approval bump isn't changing voting intentions.

people hating him is fine if fine as long as enough love him. polarization isn't necessarily bad for you electorally

yeah it's like people have never heard of Obama

I’m not sure Bernie supporters are dispassionate on this question of whether Biden is liked or electable

― Mordy

seriously if this is what passes for "political discussion" why are we even still talking to each other

One of the main reasons people separate into different primary camps is their belief about the electability of the other options.

non-biden-voting bernie supporters seem statistically insignificant in comparison to the amount of suppressed democratic votes that would have existed in general, plus the increase in suppressed democratic votes caused by coronavirus deaths and/or fallout

One of the main reasons...

Hmm. I think this fluctuates quite a bit as a motivator from one election to the next.

I doubt there were a lot of Obama '08 voters or Bradley '00 or etc who thought they were less electable than Hillary or Gore.

The importance of electability to the voter who makes up their mind on the way to the polls may vary from election to election but for the people who 'have' a candidate, how often (barring the Marianne Williamson protest voter or w/e) is that not a major part of the calculation?

As you phrased it, a main concern for primary voters was the lack of electability of the other candidates, which concern became a major reason for eventually choosing the candidate one voted for. This elevates it to a position of equality with every positive reason for being drawn to one's chosen candidate. While this reasoning seemed to play a fairly prominent role for Democrats this year, I don't recall it being nearly as prominent in the majority of presidential primaries in my lifetime, at least for the party which was not running the incumbent.

While this reasoning seemed to play a fairly prominent role for Democrats this year, I don't recall it being nearly as prominent in the majority of presidential primaries in my lifetime, at least for the party which was not running the incumbent.

Because, ILX's tendency toward "they're all equally bad" bullshit aside, there had never been a candidate as glaringly, shit-on-your-chest awful as Donald Trump on the other side.

No, in 2004 the voters' ideas about the electability of respective candidates were a fairly prominent part of the vetting process that produced Kerry. Supposedly his war record and Bronze Star indemnified him against charges of being anti-military during an ongoing war. Didn't work out.

2004 was also the gay marriage wedge election, which sucked.

yes

Your mistake is in assuming that the majority of Democratic voters will feel the need to hold their nose to vote for Joe Biden.

Your mistake is in assuming that I was expressing anything about my own assumptions about what millions of people may or may not do in November, if given the chance, rather than my stating that I was making assumptions about the stresses that led silby to create a contained thread in which to vent, this week

Can we keep this and lock the Joe Bidden thread. The shitposting opportunities are higher here.

Incredible pic.twitter.com/tlDsHLQ7Ic

— Nadine Shah (@nadineshah) April 22, 2020

5 Reasons Pundits Will Overestimate Trump's Odds Of Winning In November

#2 and #3 don't seem like "reasons pundits will overestimate" so much as convincing reasons why his odds of winning are higher, and tellingly, the author doesn't even attempt to explain how these lead to overestimates (ffs, he even calls #3 a "non-superstitious reason"!)

Wonder covid will impact on the shape of the electorate. Might take polls-as-indicator out.

Triden is gonna win.

It is a strangely half-assed article, especially considering that he published this piece the same day:

Trump’s Coronavirus Approval Bounce May Be Gone

Early on in the coronavirus pandemic, Trump was getting narrowly positive reviews for his handling of the crisis, which in turn lifted his job-approval ratings somewhat, though not as much as one might expect when looking at the rallying effect benefiting other national leaders, as Matt Yglesias noted on March 31:

>>[E]ssentially all incumbent leaders appear to be benefiting from a coronavirus-related bump. Compared to the governors of hard-hit states or the presidents and prime ministers of hard-hit foreign countries, Trump’s bump is actually quite small, amounting to maybe 2 or 3 points. Compare that with foreign leaders like France’s Emmanuel Macron or Germany’s Angela Merkel, who have seen double-digit increases in their approval ratings.

A Siena College poll released Monday showed New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) enjoying a 20-point boost in his approval rating.

Since then, public assessments of Trump’s handling of the pandemic have steadily eroded. According to RealClearPolitics’ polling averages, his approval ratio on the coronavirus crisis turned negative on April 5, and now stands at 47/50. And accordingly, his overall job-approval rating has been inching downward in barely perceptible but regular ticks, and reached this point today:

Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
On Super Tuesday (3/3), maybe the last normal-ish day in American politics before COVID became the only story, Trump's approval rating was 43.3 and his disapproval was 52.7. Now? 43.6% approve and 52.4% disapprove. So he's lost his small bounce.

He’s doing a bit better at RealClearPolitics, which doesn’t adjust polls for accuracy or partisan bias, and shows him at 46 percent, but the trend lines are similar.

So Trump’s back at, or near, the narrow band of approval ratings that has characterized nearly all of his presidency, and it places him close enough to reelection territory to keep his team upbeat, but not there yet. Perhaps the wild environment created by the coronavirus and the economic collapse it has generated make these trends largely insignificant. But as noted so many times before, voters tend to really like and really dislike this man in an extremely durable manner. He cannot afford big mistakes on COVID-19, but just muddling along while taking credit for good things and shifting blame for bad things is not going to get him a second term.

but just muddling along while taking credit for good things and shifting blame for bad things is not going to get him a second term.

Narrator:

A lot of people are credulous enough to grant Trump said credit.

Like, there's a whole FB thread that a relative of mine has going that's just copypasta of Trump's "accomplishments," and the conversation going on there is a mirror-universe version of the same conversation happening on the left: that the other side is in denial about the facts. It's pretty wild.

media literacy. the ability to discern between a good and a bad source of information. everyone thinks they have it (including this board). everyone thinks the other side doesn't have it.

karl.....I run Snopes

great example! UMS has been posting on ILX for a long time, and i know they're a trustworthy source. and ilx is full of so many talented and friendly people - it's not a surprise that one of them also runs Snopes on the side!

one kinda funny/sad thing - while doublechecking myself that "media literacy" was actually an appropriate term to use, i ran across this:

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/news-and-media-literacy/what-is-media-literacy-and-why-is-it-important

which is great! but aimed only at children:

https://i.imgur.com/D4cSxSL.png

https://i.imgur.com/4GG2xXZ.png

all ADULTS need to figure this shit out first!

Bold prediction: Trump will start to demurely defer to scientists' & sane governors' decision to remain locked down, until a week or two before the election, when he will revolt against the evil scientists & socialist governors and "free the country".

that would actually be close to the best case scenario with trump, i think

I've seen four polls from PA in last 24 hours: Biden +6 (Ipsos), +6 (Susquehanna), +7 (PPP), +8 (Fox News). Three from MI: Biden +7 (PPP), +8 (Ipsos), +8 (Fox News)... Take em or leave em, but they are there.

— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) April 23, 2020

6.5 months before an election is still an eternity. Trump's impeachment "trial" was only a bit over three months ago. The most predictable thing about November is that nothing about Trump will change, unless it's his health.

I have roughly $2k riding on a trump win (loser pays for all the expenses on an annual trip), a bet installed long before this shit started to go down, and a bet I would be thrilled to lose.

My prediction is that the States is going to be so fucked for the next year that Joe “I Look Like a Stock Photo of a Politician” Biden will win just because people will gravitate to anything that looks like stability — that Citibank branch manager image will push him over the finish line.

My REAL gut feeling is that some insane thing will happen out of the blue that nobody could have predicted and it will throw us all into such a chaotic mess that we will look back on the halcyon days of April 2020 as a blissful, normal time.

would you be willing to be another $2K on the insane thing happening

to BET!

turnip prices

Only if it means I don’t have to pay the first $2k.

Might be willing to bet 2K that by the end of the year both candidates will be insisting they won.

trump will be insisting he won, no matter what. biden will only insist that he won if he actually won the electoral college. if he loses the electoral college while winning the popular vote by 5 million votes or whatever, he will graciously accept defeat and then no one will talk about how to change the system that led to this happening 3 times in 6 elections

Morning, Karl!

those are all hypothetical scenarios, you see

i'm actually feeling pretty good about biden winning this year, believe it or not. :)

no one will talk about how to change the system that led to this happening 3 times in 6 elections

You are wise, Karl, but this is false. Lots of people will talk about it.

In fact lots of people talk about it (here and elsewhere) but changing it will not come from how many people are talking about it. Changing it will come from flipping red states to purple and purple states to red.

The obstacle - in 2000 as now - is always the red stranglehold on big, sparsely populated states. And the desire of Democrats to live in coastal cities and New York and California, where their power is concentrated but ultimately wasted (from the perspective of overturning the EC).

No deep red state is going to agree to reduce its disproportionate power in the Senate or the EC. Not based on strident arguing that these institutions are undemocratic and that they shortchange people of color. None. Flipping flippable states is the only way progress will be made on that issue.

In fact lots of people talk about it (here and elsewhere) but changing it will not come from how many people are talking about it. Changing it will come from flipping red states to purple and purple states to red.

― stone cold jane austen (Ye Mad Puffin)

...purple states to red?

sorry, isolation brain - purple to blue. is what i meant

gah

xposts

i don't see the electoral college changing in my lifetime. if democrats flip more states and get a congressional majority, even a supermajority in the senate, i don't think it changes much because:

1) at that point they'd have just won a series of elections, and that whole "EC is a total joke" thing would be even less talked about then after elections in which the EC did screw them (2000 and 2016).
2) there would be renewed talk about the "permanent democratic majority", rending EC irrelevant in the minds of many of democratic party true believers
3) as always with democrats, a hypothetical supermajority would be a time of great pre-emptive compromise with the republicans, going out of the way to make sure we don't scare any of them off or offend them, and certainly reforming the EC would not be supported at all by republicans. it would be smeared as a ruthless coldblooded political massacre, definitely by all republicans, but also by enough democrats to scare any notion of it happening.

honestly i don't think it'll change until after a second civil war. trenchant but that's actually what i think!

let me lighten the mood, sorry

If the presidential election were held today, polls in crucial swing states like Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania suggest that Joseph R. Biden Jr. would be in position for a narrow victory.

The disquieting news for Democrats is that at the same point in 2016, Hillary Clinton was in a better position.

Some Americans have lost faith in President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, but the country’s deeply entrenched partisan divide has prevented the president from losing more than a few percentage points on his overall approval rating.

Besides, the Electoral College has a meaningful Republican tilt, and those who turn out to vote tend to be slightly more conservative than the general population. Add to that Republicans’ efforts to limit access to voting among predominantly Democratic populations, and Mr. Trump might well become the first president in history to win two full terms without once winning a plurality of the popular vote.

State polls proved problematic during the 2016 presidential race — that much is well known. But with no guarantee that a repeat won’t occur this year, it bears noting that Mrs. Clinton was considerably further ahead of Mr. Trump in many swing state polls in spring 2016 than Mr. Biden is now.

Real Clear Politics polling averages show Mr. Biden leading Mr. Trump in most polls of Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But on average, the former vice president’s lead in each of those states’ aggregates is only about half what Mrs. Clinton’s was at this point in 2016, six months before she was defeated.

oh fuck, sorry!

OOF!

Hispanic voters play an important role in Florida, and in this demographic Mr. Biden looks anemic. He lost the Hispanic vote to Senator Bernie Sanders in many primaries and caucuses this year, and the new Quinnipiac poll of Florida shows him leading Mr. Trump by just eight percentage points among Hispanic voters, 46 percent to 38 percent. In 2016, both pre-election surveys and exit polls showed Mrs. Clinton leading Mr. Trump by three times as many percentage points among Hispanic voters in Florida.

where's Comey?

the new Quinnipiac poll of Florida shows him leading Mr. Trump by just eight percentage points among Hispanic voters, 46 percent to 38 percent

guess those cages weren't that disqualifying to hispanic voters

as always, james comey is in the big and tall menswear online store, posting complimentary non-sequitur comments about james comey under a pseudonym

xp to mordy

yeah, i'm kind of stunned by that. don't know what to say.

"Hispanics" is inaccurate as taxonomy. Peruvians, Ecuadorians, Cubans over 65, Venezuelans over 30, everyone under 30 who mostly voted for Sanders -- we're complex.

"Complex Hispanics" sounds like a new vertical waiting to happen

new nutritional supplement

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/12/04/democrats-hispanic-voters-2020-222751

Gillum/Nelson won the hispanic vote in FL by 8 points in 2018 (54-46), so that's not great...

The electoral college will be rendered obsolete by peaceful democratic processes during my lifetime. Easy. If you don’t think so, but would like to believe otherwise, support NPVIC with some of your time, money, or both.

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/25/trump-biden-texas-coronavirus-poll/

Biden winning Hispanic voters 50-40.

Only somewhere between 10 and 25 points off Hillary's pace.

"Joseph R. Biden Jr."

He’s gonna win

I know you hope so.

I actually don’t hope so thanks

i started getting used to the idea of trump winning the week of super tuesday. i definitely don't hope it's going to happen.

god this place. the second shakey mo leaves, 1000x more irritating and unbelievably arrogant pricks like unperson and iatee fill in. a law of ilx.

iatee has been around for a long time, maybe as long as shakey was?

god this place. the second shakey mo leaves, 1000x more irritating and unbelievably arrogant pricks like unperson and iatee fill in. a law of ilx.

― i am a horse girl (map), Monday, April 27, 2020 10:09 PM (fourteen minutes ago)

as opposed to the fruitless despair of "he's gonna win"?

map, I love you, but c'mon

ahahaha and out of nowhere comes dandydonweiner, proving this law of ilx ;)!

i think "he's gonna win" can actually be fruitful in the sense that it can direct people to not spend so much time freaking out about national politics and more time helping out in their own backyards.

I've mellowed over the years, map. Or tried to.

I like that part about helping out in my own backyard but a lot of people would rather try to cut the head off of the snake.

one can be concerned about both

Many of us do

It's not either/or

as opposed to the fruitless despair of "he's gonna win"?

map, I love you, but c'mon

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

ok, let me be serious here. cw: self-harm.

in 2016, the prospect of a trump presidency terrified me so much that i literally couldn't imagine surviving were he to be elected president

at this point in 2016, i was still telling myself "if donald trump wins election, i am going to kill myself, because i can't live in a world where he is the one running things"

now, obviously, i haven't killed myself, and i'm glad i haven't. and one of the reasons i didn't was because i did a lot of work between april and november to try to imagine _how_ i would survive if donald trump won, even though everybody i knew was assuring me it would never, ever happen

i drank myself to sleep on election day, ignored all the polling and the moment by moment updates because i couldn't handle it, and when i woke up the morning after and heard the news i started shaking uncontrollably, and it wasn't the alcohol

and then my wife and i moved out here and i am doing ok despite the fact that as far as i can tell we are all literally in hell right now

"trump is going to win" isn't a statement anybody can with any confidence make, but i would heartily recommend anybody who wants to outlive this fucker do is _consider the possibility_ that trump will, in fact, win, consider the possibility that whatever happens in november is _out of your control_, and focus on what you can do to keep yourself alive. don't put your faith in elections, people.

I honestly struggle with how anyone can insist with any degree of certainty that this election will be free and fair.

for the record i do have a friend who killed himself in 2016, and i miss him. this shit is not theoretical to me.

I'll never forget the morning after at work, you could identify right away who hadn't slept and who had this guilty look on their face

I took Wednesday off

ha, good idea. maybe i should too. a personal day, if you will.

100% going to anesthetize myself early and deeply and not watch any of it.

tbh being drunk that night and hungover the next morning made it a lot worse

I know it's early but being underwater with Rasmussen seems pretty bad, especially since idk how his numbers get better from here

Trump Job Approval:
Approve 44%
Disapprove 54%@Rasmussen_Poll, LV, 4/23-27https://t.co/BbPYo95zzJ

— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) April 28, 2020

At my old job, there was a guy in his mid-40s that I didn't really know all that well, other than he used to be a MMA fighter and was a super friendly guy. I just never really interacted with him beyond the occasional acknowledgments in passing.

Shortly after the 2016 election, I was talking to another coworker who had spent a lot of time with him. Apparently he was just completely oblivious to politics and didn't care at all, never did (obviously privilege of being a straight white male). Turns out he voted for Trump because his parents were big supporters. But he apparently felt terrible when he came in the day after the election and saw how absolutely destroyed everyone seemed to be. He actually ended up personally apologizing to three coworkers for his vote.

I found it really hard to imagine someone of that age living in Chicago in 2016 being that completely oblivious about politics and can't imagine how many other people like him are out there, but I hold on to the story when I need a tiny glimmer of hope and optimism about how the 2020 election might unfold.

he's been doing that poorly in Rasmussen for a while, though it does fluctuate and some days the numbers aren't as bad. he's actually been worse in the Rasmussen poll, when his polling hit its nadir.

especially since idk how his numbers get better from here

We are in the middle of a national crisis that (despite the widely publicized just-the-flu-make-my-stylist-go-back-to-work protestors) is seen as such even by most Republicans. If we are not still in an acute crisis in November, or even if we still are and people have just gotten used to it, there will be a certain amount of "whew, he got us through it, the country survived" no matter how bad he fucked it up. I mean, if millions actually die, it's a different story, but I think the people in all 50 states who are not Donald Trump are actually going to succeed in keeping that from happening, to Trump's benefit and to ours.

People who support him now are willing to ignore the mass death and incompetence happening today. In several months it'll be even easier to ignore.

Again, they only comprise a fraction of the voters polled. Most of the time his numbers dip it's a combination of losing some R support, some D support, and a lot of I support

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sefhon9CgA

So apparently Trump’s invoking the DPA to...force meat processing plants to stay open. I can only assume this is going to lead to hundreds if not thousands of additional deaths. If he wasn’t certifiably the laziest man alive I’d think he was deliberately trying to see how difficult he can make it to get himself re-elected. Then again, maybe the calculus is that keeping the beef train running is worth more than all those dead factory workers. Yeah that’s probably it.

i tell myself that we don't know yet how bad, if at all, the virus can be spread via humans touching meat, then ingesting said meat after it's been cooked

tell us how you really feel, ulysses

I think the danger of covid-19 infection to meat packing workers mainly consists of standing next to and across from numerous other workers at the conveyor belts, in crowded enclosed conditions, with inadequate PPE.

So apparently Trump’s invoking the DPA to...force meat processing plants to stay open. I can only assume this is going to lead to hundreds if not thousands of additional deaths. If he wasn’t certifiably the laziest man alive I’d think he was deliberately trying to see how difficult he can make it to get himself re-elected. Then again, maybe the calculus is that keeping the beef train running is worth more than all those dead factory workers. Yeah that’s probably it.

― Evans on Hammond (evol j),

hence why these Bush vs. Trump arguments strike me as specious

https://thehobbledehoy.com/2020/04/27/the-irish-times-publishes-devastating-rebuke-of-trump/?

"devastating rebuke"? hmmm.

Fintan O’Toole's perception of the situation and Trump's shortcomings are entirely correct in every particular, but however much this is so, no devastation of Trump will be forthcoming as a result of that critique. First, it arrives from Ireland and will be roundly ignored by all those millions of Americans who might benefit from its truth, and additionally, the man himself has never yet been corrected by criticism, however scathing or accurate it may be; he seems to make it his life's work to derive no benefit, moral or practical, from his failures.

So apparently Trump’s invoking the DPA to...force meat processing plants to stay open. I can only assume this is going to lead to hundreds if not thousands of additional deaths. If he wasn’t certifiably the laziest man alive I’d think he was deliberately trying to see how difficult he can make it to get himself re-elected. Then again, maybe the calculus is that keeping the beef train running is worth more than all those dead factory workers. Yeah that’s probably it.

Meatpacking is the most dangerous job in the country year in year out and no one gives a shit. They're not going to start now.

New Montana poll from @montanastate:

President
Trump - 45% (+5)
Biden - 40%

Senate
Bullock (D) - 46% (+7)
Daines (R-inc.) - 39%https://t.co/Fum3RAOJcl

— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) May 5, 2020

nice!

for anyone else who reflexively checks 538's pollster ratings, here's what they look like for Montana State University:

https://i.imgur.com/Yu0eugO.png

4th poll in a row with Cunningham having a lead in #NCSEN, 2nd in a row that has him up 9 points. North Carolina's polling is pretty blue right now: #NCGOV just got moved to Likely D in our ratings last week. https://t.co/uJh0vK1Acs pic.twitter.com/vnA28xwWBt

— Chaz Nuttycombe (@ChazNuttycombe) May 5, 2020

the coronavirus holding pattern is pretty bad for most parts of life, but i would like to freeze the current condition of the polls in the senate swing states

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/17/politics/state-polls-2020-analysis/index.html

I suspect the betting markets still favor Trump due to how far we are from the election and the sheer advantage of incumbency

https://www.kciiradio.com/2016/08/13/trump-leads-in-iowa-clinton-leads-national-polls/

I'm Pollyanish enough to make the same mistake twice--I don't think Trump will win--but this was interesting:

James Woods is that rare thing in Hollywood: A supporter of Donald Trump. And on Sunday, Woods perfectly encapsulated the message that could get Trump reelected.

He tweeted this (in part):

"Donald Trump is a rough individual. He is vain, insensitive and raw. But he loves America more than any President in my lifetime."

Trump retweeted that assessment; "I think that is a great compliment," he wrote. "Thank you James!"

It's, of course, not a great compliment. If someone called you "vain, insensitive and raw," would you be flattered?

But Woods' tweet is 100% right when it comes to how Trump can win again in November.

"Great compliment"!

http://www.cnn.com/2020/05/18/politics/donald-trump-james-woods-2020-reelection/index.html

But Woods' tweet is 100% right when it comes to how Trump can win again in November.

I didn't even have to glance at the byline to know who wrote this drivel.

I'm not sneering at you, clem, just noting that this person is the most credulous of Beltway hacks, and only he could write a sentence this obvious.

Cillizza bugs me sometime on CNN, for sure. But I think his basic point--pretty much the same argument made in Audience of One--about this strange "he's-awful-but-he's-on-our-side" pull that Trump has for some people isn't that far off from something that exists.

a lot of people on the left are trying to talk themselves into Biden the same way really

the way Cilizza treats this administration like a fun reality show full of quirky characters even as the US nears a 100k death toll thanks in no small part to the president's incompetence is absolutely shameful & honestly makes me wonder if Trump was right about the media all along

trump loves america the way a child loves a milkshake
it's likely analogous to how he loves KFC

a lot of people on the left are trying to talk themselves into Biden the same way really

A less toxic version of awful, I think, but good point.

(Please, please, please--I don't want to argue about Joe Biden.)

it's a stupid thing to say and Cilizza should be embarrassed for writing it, if he was capable of shame. Trump does not love America. he whines about it all the time and has a blatant disregard for over half the country. he does not give two shits about the Constitution or the rule of law beyond what immediately benefits him. he still believes that despite being in control of everything there is still a shadow group working behind the scenes to take him out. he has not and will not sacrifice a single thing for the good of this country. fuck Cilizza and fuck James Woods.

Coronavirus has given me a window into Evan McMullin-voting Respectable Republicans (who I grew up with) degenerating into MAGA/Q people in real time.

I’ve got no answers for combating it, aside from outlawing Protestantism.

I don't think Cillizza is in any way saying he agrees with Woods, he's just using him as a example of a mindset that is out there.

he loves america like a man loves fish; he loves to cook & eat it.

mcdonald's will cook it for you

James Woods Mindset

Step one: destroy your serotonin receptors with cocaine
Step two: ????

"There's so much we can do-o-o-o-o...."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay6GjmiJTPM

yes

maybe this is the wrong thread to say this but

i dont think trump is gonna win

we cannot stop you, we can only hope to contain you

guess we need a rolling "trump is not gonna win" containment thread

i really don't know. some days i lean he'll win some days i lean he'll lose.

I'm no longer as despondently convinced he'll win as I was when I started the thread but I still don't think "a lot of people hate Trump" is much of a winner. I guess the covid depression adds a variable.

otoh a lot of people hate Hillary was a winner tho

I'm assuming he'll barely win and will be pleasantly (there's an understatement) surprised if he doesn't

Whether he wins or loses, I think we are in for a really, really rough winter of court cases, whining and MAGA anger.

https://i.imgur.com/5dv0GB8.png

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-older-voters-turning-away-from-trump/

xxp I think a significant part of it is that democrats think a politician needs some general appearance of being liked or loved, that someone looks and acts presidential, whatever the hell that means

other people will complain about their manager but cheer on when management fires slackers, or even when their department gets eliminated because it's an unprofitable part of the company. and seeing government as a major corporation isn't limited to the left or right. so Trump seems unscrupulous, greedy, and conniving but we've decided government is business and we ended up with President Deals

And that, I think, whatever you might think of Cillizza himself, is the point of the piece I linked to. I also think--he wouldn't say so--that it's aimed at the complacency of thinking Trump can't win, that it's meant as a warning against 2016 happening all over again.

Cilizza doesn't offer warnings. That would imply that he is capable of caring about other people. He knows that whatever happens, his job is secure (and extremely remunerative), and that's all he needs to know. US politics is a sport to him; it has no broader significance, certainly no victims he needs to worry his empty little head about.

I say that in part because I fall into that complacency all the time. (Usual disclaimer: Canadian, etc., etc.) A year ago--like 2016 never happened--I suggested to a friend that Trump couldn't win this time. He, meanwhile, had settled into the opposite view, that Trump couldn't lose.

I know everyone here hates CNN. As I've said, I do too sometimes, especially during the pandemic. My issue has always been with the notion that they're not sufficiently anti-Trump. They are--they're as anti-Trump as you can be, to the point of obsession.

That would imply that he is capable of caring about other people.

I guess that's just a fundamental difference in how I see mainstream journalists. I know they can be glib, I know they simplify things, I know a provocative story is worth a thousand times more than calm analysis, etc. But I don't see them as monsters or anything.

certainly no victims he needs to worry his empty little head about

Two of the on-air people Cillizza works with every day contracted COVID; I'm sure he cared about them.

I know people's attention is elsewhere right now but nobody I know seems complacent about the 2020 election

I guess that's just a fundamental difference in how I see mainstream journalists. I know they can be glib, I know they simplify things, I know a provocative story is worth a thousand times more than calm analysis, etc. But I don't see them as monsters or anything.

Cilizza is not a journalist. He is a political "analyst" - an opinion columnist. (I can say that because I am a journalist. I may focus mostly on music, but I have actual skills - research, finding people who know about things, calling them and asking them questions, asking follow-up questions, asking other people for contrasting perspectives, etc. - that Cilizza either does not possess, or does not use to do his job. And I have not always been only a music journalist. I used to edit local newspapers, interviewing sheriffs and mayors and sitting through town council meetings to report on sewer repairs and the installation of stoplights.) No one is quoted in that piece, except James Woods and Donald Trump. It's just dribble, published because his contract requires him to publish something.

I have no strong feelings about *CNN* one way or another, but Cillizza has become a punching bag precisely because he's such an obvious example of vapid politics-as-sport/horse-race journalism.

I think by concentrating on Trump's appeal and analyzing it only in that way, Cilizza isn't criticizing. It's a very surface read of why "Trump is bad" plays without acknowledging the basic underlying premise that people think politics is about a bottom line, twisting the knife, and should be more straightforward with a clear winners/losers dynamic, no matter if the losers are their fellow citizens. CNN does imply that there's something wrong with that world view in their commentary, but they seldom offer any evidence of why it is bad, or what the alternative would look like.

I can only handle so much of that content because while it's more concise than some more bloviating printed publications, it's still a bizarre echo chamber without clear stances.

in short, jaymc otm

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-older-voters-turning-away-from-trump/

― Karl Malone

Even though it assumes a simple-minded ossified politics that drives me to despair, I think that just as much as Trump's bungling coronavirus, the fact that Joe Biden is a very old white man, who is identified with past politics, is a major factor in the defection of older voters from Trump. They can easily imagine him as president, as opposed to 'that woman' or a 'that socialist'; they trust him to think like one of them, not like somebody with all these strange new ideas. iow, all the same reasons why under-30s look at Biden and want to gouge out their own eyes.

I think saying he's bad at his job is one thing and saying he's incapable of caring about other people--saying he's Trump, essentially--are two different things.

This is sort or where I came into ILX 10 years ago (yikes): pushing back against the horror of horse-race politics. I don't see how threads on ILX that consist of people saying Trump-will-win/no-he-won't/Biden's-doomed/Warren-should-drop-out/Warren-should-stay-in/etc. are any different.

I don't think CNN offers an alternative to the idea that social and economic prosperity, let alone political success, are anything other than a zero-sum game where any republican loss is a gain for democrats, and a corresponding balance of the scales in international relations

Starting to think that maybe “lots of people really hate him” will be more of a deciding factor than I did some weeks ago.

OTOH scenes of widespread looting and lawlessness are the ideal Trump free campaign ad.

just deepfake it to look like Trump was all of the looters

Destroy: all newspaper columnist comparisons to "1968."

all the shots of police brutality will also be a pretty good campaign ad

I was on Facebook saying the same thing--that Nixon had to pay money for this ad in '68, whereas CNN provided him with one for free today (law-and-order speech on the left side of a split-screen, chaos on the right).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEdtwQ8OguY

I don't think it'll work, though. Nixon was (however phony his concern) responding to LBJ's chaos; Trump created this himself.

I don’t think people are going to be rational though, it’s a simple fear reaction and they’ll side with whoever projects toughness and an easy to understand moral schema that demonizes those in the images that scare them.

Imagine if there’d been a candidate who could clearly explain over and over that this is the result of inequitable systems, capitalism, and deliberate creation of division

I’m sure Joe Biden’s vision of “we’ll go back to training cops to shoot you in the lower half of the body, not the top. That’s my promise to you as a Biden” will cut through nearly as well, though

Comparisons to the '60s don't work because liberals are less racist - everyone to the left of Joe Manchin seems to be getting radicalized (in this one area) by all this bullshit. The people who'd latch onto an authoritarian daddy figure were already going to vote for Trump.

^^^ subject to change depending on how long active unrest governs everyone's life

Imagine if there’d been a candidate who could clearly explain over and over that this is the result of inequitable systems, capitalism, and deliberate creation of division

I think this is literally impossible for a huge number of Americans to ever comprehend

it'd help if they got to hear it a lot, though

From those condescending elitists? Pfft

I don’t think people are going to be rational though, it’s a simple fear reaction and they’ll side with whoever projects toughness and an easy to understand moral schema that demonizes those in the images that scare them.

Are you this dumb and easily manipulated? Then maybe don't assume "people" are.

i do think Trump could have used the protests to his advantage if he'd been capable of projecting any sort of gravitas or sobriety. he could even keep his fascism and his law & order bullshit if he'd just been able to be a little grave about it. but the only thing he ever knows how to do is escalate everything to a higher, more insane pitch and I do think there's a substantial set of low-information voters who will be swayed by whoever seems more likely to turn down the temperature.

Noted other places, but one reason he's suddenly on the pose-with-Bibles offensive (I guess he has another church photo op today?) could be due to weakening support among evangelicals. Grain/pillar of salt, etc.

xp unperson: But this is true. There are people like this. Lots of people. I live with some of them. They're watching CNN and supporting Trump and the cops.

Something changed last night. I am hearing from conservative friends and relatives in states like WV, VA, and SC who are finally done with Trump. One is writing in "Romney-Mattis." Another one is voting Biden. He just told me, "I want him [Trump] crushed."

— Matt Lewis (@mattklewis) June 2, 2020

oh cool it's all over!

Some guy is hearing from his friends!

Interested in the very specific breed of brainworm that causes someone to come up with “Romney-Mattis” as a write-in

I want him buried, so I'm gonna....write-in a vote!

I have a fantastic mental image of the Romney-Mattis person and the vibrant green of their incredibly well-manicured lawn.

They haven't read a book that wasn't about World War II since 1973.

The Good Republican Cavalry is on its way.

I think the guy's been found

I got home before the curfew but I passed this truck near 14th street and if this is you, please contact me. pic.twitter.com/r1zKD9990v

— Jane Coaston (@cjane87) June 2, 2020

They'll be here any day now xp

couldn't afford to buy the sticker huh

guys

George W. Bush published something.

The tide has changed. I can hear it.

can't wait to read "Curious George Understands Why We Shouldn't Do Stem-Cell Research"

not surprised by that truck, I feel like I worked with a lot of those dudes in construction

pale manifestations of enlightenment, but don't see why we should mock people who are at least thinking about and maybe reconsidering their positions

Dubya has earned being mocked for the rest of his life, at the very least

these people (other than the Romney-Mattis guy) aren't the butt of the joke. the tweeter is.

oh wait you were talking about Dubya, lol, that didn't even scan cos there's no way taht's happening

wasn't thinking about him

godDAMMIT

W was probably more responsible for the hyper-militarization of the police than any other president. I can't with this new "Gentle George" schtick.

How much credit do we need to give people for merely recognizing that a videotaped murder in broad daylight is a murder?

if you had told me we in 2010 that anyone in america would be looking to W for stable leadership within a decade...

I don’t know how much credit we have to give anyone; I don’t give myself much “credit” for learning and growing over the years, but I accept and recognize that I’ve made progress

Dan did just say he wasn't talkin about Dubya

I am definitely allowed to make “ROMNEY-MATTIS!” joeks though, nobody can take that from me

xxp fwiw I do think people we don't agree with are recalibrating their political opinions

let's pour one out for these three friends of the Daily Beast twitter guy that absolutely, definitely exist

IMO Dan S is trying to make a different, nuanced point and we are kind of being dicks

I mean I do think that I have never seen a more widespread recognition of a police murder as a murder by people across the spectrum. Even Trump kind of sort of tweeted a halfway version of that sentiment. So maybe we have reached some kind of watershed, with people primed by other widely publicized police murders of recent years combined with the fact that this one was just so egregiously obvious and lacking in any plausible justification or excuse. I guess there is some hope in that.

I mean completely politically neutral YouTube millionaire Rhett of Rhett & Link fame is writing about how he’s been complicit in structural racism

(https://medium.com/@rhettmc/letter-to-a-white-man-fbe6efd908b9)

Say what you want about eating beef bile cheesecake on camera for lols but dude’s got 16 million subs

pale manifestations of enlightenment, but don't see why we should mock people who are at least thinking about and maybe reconsidering their positions

― Dan S, Tuesday, June 2, 2020 5:51 PM (forty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

my reaction was sort of "delighted surprise that resulted in a lol"

not in sync with ilx, will go away

Well now we’re just all talking past each other. Come back Dan

i was only making fun of the "lol 3 of my friends have turned on Trump, print it, the tide is turning" tweet for the most part

Yeah I'm glad individuals are changing their views, tbc, I'm just skeptical that there are enough of them to the point that "something is happening." BC I've been hearing that claim since pre-November 2016, and it never seems to materialize into anything meaningful. But I am ready to be pleasantly surprised.

That truck tailgate looks like the Mississippi equivalent of a "Kick Me" sign.

</from-the-next-state-over>

he’s hitting new lows in approval polls, not sure what else you need

the betting markets have shifted from about trump 49 biden 42 to almost even in the past like 4 days

xp is he?
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/

i was only making fun of the "lol 3 of my friends have turned on Trump, print it, the tide is turning" tweet for the most part

Yeah, it's very much in the tradition of enlightened/woke toddler Twitter.

It seems more notable how little deviation there has been in the polling since the end of 2017 - he just bounces around within the margin of a 42% approval no matter what.

his approval ratings are nowhere near his low at this point, but they definitely have sunk. and I wouldn't be surprised if his approval goes down to 42%, but.....I've been wrong the last 7000 times I predicted that.

yeah, there was a lot more fluctuation going on his first year in office. a few polls had him in the lower 30s and he was averaging in the 30s at points. since tax reform, he kinda just goes up and down, up and down, kinda like

a see saw

I think it's inevitable that there will be some increased discontent with him due to news images of protest and riot nationwide. But remember that some of that discontent is from law and order conservatives who want him to squash the protests. I wouldn't fantasize that any of those people have gone BLM, and when the protests subside, those people will probably go back to him rather than switching.

Trump has virtually no room for error, think of all the things that had to go right for him to beat* the most disliked Dem candidate ever in 2016. Trump's re-election chances felt very real before 2020 in that the economy was good, we weren't at war, and unless you lived in Puerto Rico or were a minority the president probably hasn't fucked you over that badly. now there are over 100k dead & 40 million unemployed, with no end to the pandemic in sight, and that was before one of the biggest protests in American history where the POTUS straight up declared war on the American people. this is not a good time to be an American. even the people I know who reliably vote red can feel it.

I mean I definitely think Trump can be beaten but I always thought that. maybe he'll shapeshift

into what, an elephant turd?

A rotting corpse, god willing

it's a completely arbitrary point of contention but I respect the weird political sticker truck guy that was posted on twitter for going with "black live matters" as his taped-on slogan

it's the new slogan line that people and corporations won't cross, due to the prior efforts that were somehow shrugged off. you can say equality, even police brutality, but if you post "black lives matter" then the idiot brigade appears. if you don't post it, then you're shying away from the sentiment that matters

it'll probably lose its weight, or I actually hope it does at it becomes the common currency, but for now it's an arbitrary line

I mean, someone is going to do a "black, south asian, East Asian, African, European, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, aboriginal, native, First Nations lives matter" post eventually followed by some idiot asking "what about white lives? American white lives?" and the response will ask on what day and time they didn't and we'll have hit the end game of righteous indignation

In Indiana's open primary, with about 72% of the vote in, Bill Weld, who dropped out of the presidential race 6 months ago, has gotten 7.8% of the Republican vote.

Like the Dem primaries, I assume it's going to effect delegate representation?

I think Josh is making the point that nearly 8% of likely Republican voters in Indiana fucking hate Trump.

Yeah. At least. Not only that, these are Republicans who went out during a pandemic, etc., to expressly *not* vote for Trump in a GOP primary.

Yeah I'm glad individuals are changing their views, tbc, I'm just skeptical that there are enough of them to the point that "something is happening." BC I've been hearing that claim since pre-November 2016, and it never seems to materialize into anything meaningful. But I am ready to be pleasantly surprised.

His party lost 40 house seats

xpost don't wanna build too much of a lead too early, then Trump will fake his death, and re-enter the race under a pseudonym

His party lost 40 house seats

Oh good milo’s here

so? 40 house pickup was the largest gains made since 1974 in the House and the third-biggest gain by any party in the last 40 years. I wish the 63 in 2010 didn't always get trotted out like it's the only benchmark of solid gains.

largest *Democratic* gains

one of the reasons why the dems took the house in 2018 is that many voters changed their mind about Trump, is all I'm saying. whether they were regretful trump voters, or non-voters in 2016.

yeah, it was a statement

8% of Trump voters went Democrat in 2018 (of the people who voted), according to this exit poll. It's not nothing.

https://www.cnn.com/election/2018/exit-polls

I cannot imagine many voters who changed their minds about Trump sufficiently to vote against Republicans in 2018 will have changed their minds back again to a favorable view based on his subsequent performance in office.

I wish the 63 in 2010 didn't always get trotted out like it's the only benchmark of solid gains.

I didn’t trot it out as any kind of benchmark. It was in response to the idea about drawing conclusions about the Presidential election from a disastrous first midterm. Bill Clinton beat Dole’s ass and Obama whipped Romney’s.

And this is a guy who “won” by like, what, under 50,000 votes combined, across a few swing states?

Exactly. In 2019 you could maybe make the case “he really hasn’t been that bad”, that is if you’re a white dude with a 401k who thinks “climate change is all part of a natural pattern”. I don’t see how you make that argument now. Who does he gain in 2020 that he didn’t have in 2016? Even the fucking Evangelicals are turning against him.

It was in response to the idea about drawing conclusions about the Presidential election from a disastrous first midterm. Bill Clinton beat Dole’s ass and Obama whipped Romney’s.

Well yeah, anything could happen in November

We have five months of COVID, civil unrest, a greater depression and a senile gaffe machine running in opposition. Two weeks ago people were crowing about Biden's lead with senior citizens because of the pandemic... how do those senior citizens feel about tens of thousands of young people of color marching in the streets? No chance that drives them back into the loving arms of the reactionaries.

Drawing lessons from the past, up to and including last week, or making any guesses about the future, including tomorrow, seems foolhardy at this point.

Don't get me wrong, I think he stands a good chance of losing from our current vantage point - I mean, tanking economy, pandemic, nationwide police-protestor clashes. The Democrats have also managed to put up an exceptionally mediocre candidate though, and I also just feel like I've heard it all before about why people who supported trump will finally turn on him.

Not to mention - just like in 2016 - there's always tons of people who will support him without publicly saying so.

and on that day, june 3, 2020, the very last guess about the future was made

there is nothing wrong with guessing about the future, and it's pointless to pretend that people won't do it. the more important thing, i think, is to think about the future with a degree of humility that reflects how uncertain it is

the important thing is to edit your posts retroactively to make it look like u were right all along

We should be worried and sad all the time though because the future might suck and then what do we do? At least if we’re worried and sad we can say “I told you so!” to our neighbors, who we suspect voted for Trump

and they definitely did, fucking neighbors

We can be worried and sad for everything all the time that's happening today AND in the future, come on now.

neighbor to the left has a Confederate/"don't tread on me" mashup flag and neighbor to the right is a Hell's Angel...I suspect they're voting for Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.

the future might suck

might

Say what you want about eating beef bile cheesecake on camera for lols but dude’s got 16 million subs

In Indiana's open primary, with about 72% of the vote in, Bill Weld, who dropped out of the presidential race 6 months ago, has gotten 7.8% of the Republican vote.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, June 2, 2020 10:43 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Weld also got 9% in Nebraska a few weeks ago.

In private polling conducted by Mr. Trump’s campaign, the president is now well behind Mr. Biden, according to people briefed on the most recent round of results. Multiple public surveys this week have found Mr. Trump trailing Mr. Biden, the former vice president, by double-digit margins, including a Monmouth University poll published on Wednesday that showed Mr. Biden ahead by 11 percentage points....

....But Mr. Trump’s belligerent response to protests after the killing of George Floyd, a black man, while in the custody of white police officers in Minneapolis, appears to have worsened his political position even further, officials in both parties said. On an almost daily basis, he has issued a combination of wild threats and complaints about news media coverage and other personal grievances.

“There is no obvious strategy in terms of message,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist based in California. “The president defaults to base messages regardless of strategy, thus the campaign becomes a base-driven campaign.”

Signs of anxiety inside the Trump team are evident across the electoral map. Over the past few weeks, the president’s operation has spent about $1.7 million on advertising in just three states he carried in 2016 — Ohio, Iowa and Arizona — that it had hoped would not be competitive at all this year. Much of that sum went to a concentrated two-week barrage in Ohio, according to the media-tracking firm Advertising Analytics.

The spending in Ohio startled many Republicans, given that four years ago Mr. Trump defeated Hillary Clinton there by eight percentage points.

Perhaps just as telling were two trips last month to Georgia by Vice President Mike Pence. The state has become a source of nagging concern to Republicans, both because of the stakes in the presidential race and because there are two Senate seats up for election this year, including one held by a highly unpopular appointee, Senator Kelly Loeffler, who has been snared in a personal financial scandal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/us/politics/trump-campaign-virus-protests-polls.html

^ Disrespectful to the purview of this thraed imo, why u step on our doomsaying

trump is gonna win...2nd place

https://d146tiw5d2a33m.cloudfront.net/product_images/6853GOM.jpg?width=328&height=297

Perhaps just as telling were two trips last month to Georgia by Vice President Mike Pence. The state has become a source of nagging concern to Republicans, both because of the stakes in the presidential race and because there are two Senate seats up for election this year, including one held by a highly unpopular appointee, Senator Kelly Loeffler, who has been snared in a personal financial scandal.

I'm cautiously optimistic Georgia goes blue in November. But I'm sure the governor will close 90% of the polling places before that happens.

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2020/6/3/21257133/trump-2020-election-meltdown-lawrence-douglas?

the NYT ran a similar story a couple weeks ago

Would really be a fitting end to 2020

A fitting end to 2020 would be Trump losing, millions of Trump supporters coming out to protest, then that asteroid finally hitting the Earth, but somehow killing only the Trump supporters.

that nightmare scenario is the one that's been haunting me all year, but i've been trying to pipe it down so as to not be annoying. but in the context of the current moment, when it seems like biden is starting to gain a real advantage over trump, i'd like to offer a slightly hopeful scenario, where the apocalypse is averted:

if enough people recognize the idea of trump refusing to recognize the results of the election as a real threat, it would be a very good thing for democrats across the country during the election, at all levels. normally, when one candidate is perceived as being well ahead of the other, i think there's usually a point where some people don't bother to vote just because they know it's not close. it's always a shame, because there is much more at stake than just the top line on the ballot. in this case though, there is a very clear incentive to everyone to make the margin as wide as possible, because it's better to trounce him by 20% than it is to trounce him by 10%, or 5%, or 0.8%.

this extra incentive for everyone to vote should always be there, because we already have to deal with voter suppression and gerrymandering. but those issues aren't as well known. trump being a chaotic insane racist asshole, however is very known, and if his plans to endlessly litigate the election results can be publicized well enough, you can add that to the list. who wouldn't love to see him lose by a record margin? there's an extra incentive to "dominate" him that is very uncommon

xp

not being clear or concise enough, sorry. one way to counteract a fascist's plan to dispute election results is to make his loss so very clear that his argument is ridiculous on its face. also, if he goes for ultimate treason and he ends up somehow "winning" the election via the electoral college again, it will be much easier to get the masses of pitchforks going if it is very clear that no, he actually lost for real and HE's cheating (the self-fulfillment of his projections on others, as always)

so concise, oops

(xpost) Has this been posted anywhere?

http://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/trump-election-refusal-leave.html

^ The gist of that article is that Trump could not refuse to leave office without either failing immediately and soon afterward being prosecuted for his failed effort to subvert the constitution, or else sparking off a civil war as his base slavishly follows him into treason and rebellion. What it does not do is argue effectively that he won't try it (e.g. 'he'll be advised not to try it!') or that some large fraction of his followers won't initiate an armed conflict. It does argue effectively that all this would be madness.

I have no real worry he'll refuse to leave, but I think it's inevitable if he loses that he will cast doubt on the results and foment anger among his followers. I think Biden et al would be wise to have a plan in place for that, too.

xp aimless

exactly. it's like the related argument that "he's just doing this all for show, to save face", which is supposed to imply that he'll give it up eventually and go away. but he has does many things, just for show, and continued to do them long after it had passed completely into the realm of the absurd

ha xxp exactly—the concern isn't that he'll "get away with it." It's that he'll amost certainly call the results fraudulent/invalid, potentially stirring his base to violence, leaving us at a minimum with 4 years of people refusing to acknowlege the transfer of power and breaking laws on that basis

it's not the transfer of power that's in jeopardy, it's "peacful transition"

"foment anger among his followers"

"potentially stirring his base to violence"

Yeah they're already there

the proud boys are ready for a disputed election, that's for fucking sure. it's terrifying

especially because they're allies to the police now (at least in chicago)

I would hope that the strength of the one argument--he can't do this, he'd go to jail--would preclude him seriously attempting anything; forced to choose between jail or his former life + a few million acolytes, he'd opt for the latter. He'll make lots of threats, though, for sure.

especially because they're allies to the police now

normally, when one candidate is perceived as being well ahead of the other, i think there's usually a point where some people don't bother to vote just because they know it's not close.

in normal times yes but I feel like the "c'mon, no fucking way is he gonna win" factor is a lot smaller this time around

the wild card's gonna be the pandemic/mail-in voting and I think Trump has already laid the groundwork to call all that fraudulent

xxp do you think Trump will believe for a second that he could ever go to jail?

More likely he'll go off on a 'fact-finding mission' to Russia and not come back, living out his days as Putin's court jester. Still hoping he shoots himself in the head in the Oval Office once the jig's fully up - and only succeeds in blasting the lower part of his jaw off, thus being tried while looking like Popeye after a chemical face-lift.

More likely he'll have his own TV network and face zero accountability for anything in his life.

^^^ this

It's the only thing keeping me from thinking he'll stay in office should he lose.

I hope he does try some shit, will only turn more ppl against him

i hope he wins the 2016 primary, because it will be easier to defeat him in the election than ted cruz or kasich

wait, sorry - i flashed back for a second

sad lol

The point of the article isn't that he won't try it, it's that a bunch of fear-mongering is going on as if Trump can merely snap his fingers on Inauguration Day and say FRAUD and boom, he's emperor for life.

It would require a grand conspiracy that neither he nor his disorganized aides, Cabinet, or any of his allies have shown any capability for being able to pull off.

And the problem with this fear-mongering is I'm already seeing people using this as an excuse not to vote - "Well I hate Biden, and Trump is obviously not going to give up the White House even if he loses, so what's the point".

But Trump hasn't shown much in the way of balls when it comes to lawbreaking. Yeah, he's violated some by having his White House counsel come up with crazy interpretations of the law, knowing it will get tied up in court challenges, but even then, they've complied with injunctions against these actions.

And there have been way more instances where he threatened to do illegal things and backed off because he either knew he couldn't and was posturing, or his aides told him he couldn't. He is still an autocratic fascist wannabe that has managed to injure the rule of law, used the Attorney General as his own personal lawyer, destroyed the independence of the Judiciary branch, and other heinous things, but he hasn't managed to pull off a Viktor Orban styled soft autocracy where he has enemy press shut down entirely, has opponents jailed, or has his ruling party pass new laws that make it easier for Fidesz to ever lose control.

Trump is too inept to do those things, and look, maybe his armed redneck base wants to uprise if he l
loses, but look how many of them showed up to protests with inert rocket launchers and wooden guns.

Scary shit might happen, but getting an ulcer worrying about it isn't my jam. We can take to the streets too.

it doesn't require a grand conspiracy. the vox article upthread presents one plausible scenario:

Imagine that it’s November 3, 2020, and Joe Biden has just been declared the winner of the presidential election by all the major networks except for Fox News. It was a close, bitter race, but Biden appears to have won with just over 280 electoral votes.

Because Election Day took place in the middle of a second wave of coronavirus infections, turnout was historically low and a huge number of votes were cast via absentee ballot. While Biden is the presumptive winner, the electoral process was bumpy, with thousands of mail-in votes in closely fought states still waiting to be counted. Trump, naturally, refuses to concede and spends election night tweeting about how “fraudulent” the vote was.

We knew this would be coming; he’s been previewing this kind of response for a while now.

One day goes by, then a few more, and a month later Trump is still contesting the outcome, calling it “rigged” or a “Deep State plot” or whatever. Republicans, for the most part, are falling in line behind Trump. From that point forward, we’re officially in a constitutional crisis.

and there's proud boys walking the streets of chicago with baseball bats, "protecting" the streets, with the chicago police standing right there as willing partners.

my takeaway from knowing all that is possible is just a stronger conviction that we need to absolutely obliterate trump in november so that the actual result of the election can't be disputed in a way that's taken seriously

oooh the proud boys I'm scared

we’re officially in a constitutional crisis.

but think of all the strongly worded letters from democrats we'll be alerted to thanks to cnn and the new york times

While I don't think you need to be scared of them, I think it's legit scary that the CPD is cozying up with them and implicitly supporting their actions.
xpost

Neanderthal otm

Obv that's not good and should be dealt with, but barely >50% of CPD is white. What's the % of those that are white power racists?

great response to white supremacy in the streets with violent weapons with cops, "oooooh, i'm scared"

what would you say to someone who IS scared? in the video clips i'm seeing, people seem to be scared.

way to mock whoever is frightened up something that is real

way to respond to intimidation by being intimidated

granny dainger:

last night, in bridgeport, on the south side, two people were leaving a protest when they were cornered by 7 proud boys. they tried to turn to the police for help but they didn't do anything. at all. they ended up escaping, but lost all their shit, and their tires were slashed

"ooooh, i'm scared"

for the millionth time on ilx in the last few days

FUCK YOU

my partner is out there in the middle of the night helping out there

FUCK YOU, UNHELPFUL PIECE OF SHIT

anybody else want to be an unhelpful piece of shit in public today?

being scared doesn't help anything. that's exactly the reaction they want.

Not belittling fears, but...back upthread to that Vox article, it doesn't really give specifics as to how this consolidation of power is supposed to happen. The Republicans all "fall in line"? What does that mean? Every Republican state official in charge of certifying state results will refuse to do so, or instruct to electors to be faithless electors?

Someone will file a lawsuit challenging the election results, not demanding a new election, but arguing Trump won, or that it's unclear so he should retain power, and Roberts's court somehow hears the case and rules in his favor?

Articles like Vox seem to assume all that's required for him to keep his office is that he says "hell no, i won't go", and by virtue of enough Republican politicians saying "we agree", boom, he keeps his job.

There would have to be several intricate layers of deception. Congress can't just say ELECTION INVALID. And even if they somehow had any control over election results, Dems have the House.

do me a favor, granny dainger:

get out there and kick some proud boy ass. i mean it. get out there and show those fuckers who is boss

Xpost It also mentions Trump refusing to concede, and concession isn't legally required. Roy Moore never conceded in Alabama, Doug Jones was still certified. It's just a formality.

everyone, look out on the streets tonight: granny dainger isn't afraid of proud boys with baseball bats and the police, because that's just what they want. so they're going go kick some proud boy ass tonight. thanks for standing up for us!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not scared of anyone and have the scars to prove it, so fuck off

Can we not do this, GD

I am definitely not "not afraid" of far-right wing hate groups or the rest of the country that's armed to the teeth. I may not be worried about Trump refusing to leave office or shit that could happen 6 months from now, but i am afraid of the lunatic violent right wing kooks that are in the street right now, and the cops that let them slide cos "lol libs"

Good, get out there and take care of business rambo

woah i didn't realize cottonwood arizona was like a wesley snipes movie

granny come on, you're perennially worried that trail runners are breaking their ankles i don't think you're a black belt

Articles like Vox seem to assume all that's required for him to keep his office is that he says "hell no, i won't go", and by virtue of enough Republican politicians saying "we agree", boom, he keeps his job.

Lol, someone was born after Nov. 2000. Enough Republicans = 5 very specific ones if things are close enough.

We need Biden to win convincingly so that even if there are 1-2 close/disputed races, everyone can shrug and say it wouldn't make a difference. Plus, I just want to see Trump emasculated.

whats gonna suck is the massively increased # of mail in ballots delaying the results for several days

except that they will actually get counted for once?

Lol, someone was born after Nov. 2000. Enough Republicans = 5 very specific ones if things are close enough.

We need Biden to win convincingly so that even if there are 1-2 close/disputed races, everyone can shrug and say it wouldn't make a difference. Plus, I just want to see Trump emasculated.

― Night of the Living Crustheads (PBKR), Thursday, June 4, 2020 5:26 PM bookmarkflaglink

I'm 39, motherfucker, and I live in Florida. You think I don't remember that election?

whats gonna suck is the massively increased # of mail in ballots delaying the results for several days

Yeah, I'm dreading the thought of the night of November 8, 2016 dragging out for a week instead.

It's perfectly reasonable and rational to fear armed men who roam the streets and attack unarmed people with impunity while the police look the other way. That's sort of the definition of the kind of thing a normal person fears.

it's not about what white men think, though. it doesn't matter how scared i am or you are about the proud boys. they're not targeting me. so when people ARE scared, and it's the very people they're targeting, it's more than appropriate to take them seriously - it is necessary. it's the least we can do, to take at least listen and take it seriously. actually, the least we can do is mock the concern entirely and advise scared, targeted people to fight back, without being right there next to them to back up words with actions

that's what's pissing me off. missing the forest for the trees, a life

Besides, that is very different than what is being described. SCOTUS didn't unilaterally step in and overturn election results. They ruled on a recount in one state.

Gore lost Florida on the initial count and the state-mandated recount (largely because of two counties that didn't complete their recount on time, which meant going with their original results). He tried to contest the results, originally got the Florida Supreme Court to grant a recount of undervotes, before SCOTUS overruled the lower court and sent it back to them mere hours before the deadline.

That's a fairly far cry from Trump going I LOST BUT I THINK A LOT OF ILLEGAL PEOPLE VOTED SO I SHOULD BE PRESIDENT, and SCOTUS ruling "ok, yr still President". They couldn't do that if they wanted to. There isn't any framework for it.

But if there's a dispute in a specific State and a candidate is contesting a result, yeah, they can rule on the legal ramifications of a State Supreme Court ordered recount.

Xxxxposts

Who are we arguing with at this point? GD stopped posting and I said above I am scared of these hate groups (well ok, I said not "not afraid", which is the same thing).

I am afraid of people in the street that yell "hey" at me, much less armed hate groups

I think there's a difference between "fear" and being terrified, fwiw. Fear is an appropriate response to something dangerous. Being terrified is what happens when you are completely powerless against the dangerous thing. I don't think we should believe we are completely powerless at this point.

xpost i don't know, not with you though! i think it's mainly because i mentioned the proud boys stuff yesterday (not on ilx), that same incident, and got a very similar, dismissive reaction. from a white guy, of course. so mainly i'm here yelling at clouds now

Yeah i think fear of the Proud Boys is nothing to make light of for sure!

Thinking that two people who are confronted with seven baseball bat wielding people, surrounding and threatening them, won't be "scared" because they can simply decide not to feel fear is beyond ridiculous.

thanks! i needed to hear that, even though it seemed obvious. sometimes i feel like i am losing my mind

Sorry Neanderthal, just meant it as gentle ribbing.

I'm just saying I'm not really worried about Trump in a Tony Montana scenario in the White House, I'm worried about a close election being thrown to the Supreme Court.

it's ok, was exhausted after a long day of training. sorry for being mr blunt force :/

We're good.

"Well I hate Biden, and Trump is obviously not going to give up the White House even if he loses, so what's the point".

is the second part here really a thing? People are saying they won't vote because they don't expect Trump to leave if he loses? This is the first I'm hearing this.

This thread is in essence a lot of white male writhing.

I mean it might not be a national 'thing', but it's definitely a 'thing' i've seen in quarters recently. though the real reason they won't vote is cos Bernie lost, they don't like Biden, and they think Biden has no chance (or that even if he wins, Trump will never leave)

iow, a bunch of rationalizing

xxpost Feel like there should at least be some Erasure throbbing in the background or something.

Give this thread no credit for writhing.

People are saying they won't vote because they don't expect Trump to leave if he loses? This is the first I'm hearing this.

I hadn’t heard this either. It is a supremely dumb attitude. If Trump loses the election, he is leaving.

if he loses we get to throw tomatoes at him until he gets removed from the white house by one of those offstage cartoon canes

It will be a beautiful day.

I mean I know he absolutely loves being on TV all the time but I've never seen a more miserable looking president in my life

the chestburster's been tryin to get out for 3 years

why would you waste tomatoes I can use in one of my lunch wraps

throw human waste at trump on his way out of office

Like throwing bricks at a brick wall afaict

always got that huffy pouty look of a toddler who knows you know he's lying, but trying to bluff it out

this whole thing is crazy right? https://www.newsweek.com/how-trump-could-lose-election-still-remain-president-opinion-1513975

pretty cursed

does it make you feel better or worse to know that "obama will refuse to step down after his terms end" was a staple of hysterical right-wing fantasy?

talking about how a President could retain power due to using voter disenfranchisement is a worthy discussion.

talking about how a President could retain power in the context of shitty Tom Clancy fanfic that has zero chance of materializing is not only tedious by now, but should be read by nobody.

I blame umair haque for its resurgence, fair or not.

like I seriously want to know what people get out of it. It's not "telling uncomfortable truths" because it's not based in any fact, just unhinged speculation. and it's described in ways that clearly indicate that the "people" would have no way of stopping it, and it keeps imploring people to "act now", but how can you "act now" against a threat that nobody has actually made?

umair haque is such a worthless idiot. I read one or two of his interminable Medium posts and couldn't believe I had wasted time I could have spent watching actual pornography.

if we do manage to beat this motherfucker i am luxuriating in the certainty that none of the republicans will learn the tiniest thing from it. they won’t reflect on the unpopularity of their policies with the broader electorate. they’ll find excuses in the pandemic. good.

xxpost and almost every one of these writings seems to come from people that think Trump could steal the election by calling Mr SCOTUS on teh phone and saying "I disagree with the results" and them replying "OVERTURNED, UR STILL PRESIDENT". or that he could snap his fingers and the entire US Army will show up

Tracer brings wisdom

none of the republicans will learn the tiniest thing from it. they won’t reflect on the unpopularity of their policies with the broader electorate. they’ll find excuses in the pandemic. good

And in the inevitable howls of "mAiL VotE Fraud!!!eleventy!!!"

I tend to agree that they will double down on the three-legged stool of white grievance, crony capitalism, and evangelical death-cult shit.

Remember the Obama-era "postmortem" report where the GOP was like, "hey maybe we need some outreach to minorities and woman?" Didn't happen, of course - but I don't think the broad R camp could even be able to formulate thoughts like that anymore (apart from yr fringey George Conway types whom everyone hates).

While I'm not in the mood to rule out anything at this point, it seems like that entire newsweek spec fic piece hinges on this sentence, which is just doing way too much work:

Attorney General William Barr, known for his extremist view of the expanse of presidential power, is widely believed to be developing a Justice Department opinion arguing that the president can exercise emergency powers in certain national security situations, while stating that the courts, being extremely reluctant to intervene in the sphere of a national security emergency, would allow the president to proceed unchecked.

"Widely believed" by whom? And who is the subject of "while stating that the courts..."?

newsweek's really gone to shit huh

I am 95% sure that this is mostly a fantasy, however that 5% chance of being a hubristic fool is enough to stop me tempting fate and mocking the article.

does it make you feel better or worse to know that "obama will refuse to step down after his terms end" was a staple of hysterical right-wing fantasy?

― Mordy

worse. conservatives, and especially trump people, have a habit of projecting their own desires onto their enemies. they were worried that obama would refuse to step down because they can easily imagine a scenario where their own favorited candidate (*cough cough, trump*) refused to step down.

i had Republicans telling me Kerry was "dictator material" in 2004

i then schooled them and asked them how my dic-tate

I thought we all new that current day Newsweek was click farm crap like forbes.com

Remember the Obama-era "postmortem" report where the GOP was like, "hey maybe we need some outreach to minorities and woman?" Didn't happen, of course

And turned out they did not, in fact, need to do that. Repeated lesson for republicans in recent decades has been, don't give an inch, just get more mad, and the pendulum will swing back soon enough

The Democratic Party needs to sort the fuck out of its nominating procedure

Hillary in 2016, and Joe this time.

Brilliant work everyone

is that a leftover post from February?

It's evergreen my friend

The pendulum keeps swinging back because we keep sucking

Hold on, Biden is a Catholic? How did he slip through the net?

If only my dad was still around he'd be on the first plane to the States to campaign for Biden in person.

Alfred I realise I'm not breaking any ground here but I see this as a venting thread of sorts

I'm just beyond fed up with the national party

And turned out they did not, in fact, need to do that. Repeated lesson for republicans in recent decades has been, don't give an inch, just get more mad, and the pendulum will swing back soon enough

― Appleman Appears: 20/2/2020. Whose Cider You On? (Bananaman Begins)

republicans haven't read poe

last word's redundant

Vent away!

I'm in the minority but I think Trump will walk away pretty quickly, he'll say that the election was fake news etc but I think he's really looking forward to monetizing his base even more, basically becoming a traveling tent revival show, the also probably start some kind of television effort, maybe with OANN

you can see him do this when things don't work he'll be venting while it happens but then two days later he'll be like "Well, it was very unfortunate, very unfair, but we'll see what happens" type stuff

Ultimately he doesn't have any core beliefs other than "people should say nice things about Donald Trump" so it's not like he cares about any of this

Agree with that 100%

I think this is the likely scenario but that it will follow a sustained bout of protesting, cries of rigged, demands for recount etc. In order to remain on brand for whatever comes next he needs to keep the base ginned up and feeling cheated.

He'll have amped them up for so long abt a rigged election by Nov. that he'll really have no choice but to follow through at least for a spell

yeah I agree with ums, as fashy and power hungry as Trump is his defining characteristics have always been stupidity and laziness. his shtick works way, way better when he's not actually in charge of anything.

The initiative here is not going to come from Trump because, stupid and lazy. But if the republican party organisation is prepared to do the work and desperate enough to cling to the presidency, he'll front it out

He'll have amped them up for so long abt a rigged election by Nov. that he'll really have no choice but to follow through at least for a spell

Lol this is true too

He should be a blast when he really has nothing better to do and the dementia truly kicks in.

Well, this is something.

President Donald Trump is now an underdog to win a second term, and Republicans’ Senate majority is in serious danger of being swept out with him, according to the latest edition of POLITICO’s Election Forecast.

A series of crises over the past three months has seen the political environment deteriorate markedly for Trump and his party. The percentage of voters who think the country is headed in the wrong direction is hitting new highs — a record 75 percent in the latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll — and Trump’s approval rating is settling near his all-time lows.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s lead over Trump is swelling to roughly 10 points nationally — and for the first time, our forecast classifies Biden as the clear favorite in the race.

The national atmosphere is toxic enough that Senate Republicans, who currently hold a three-seat majority, no longer have a significant edge in their quest to retain control of the chamber next year. Democrats have both built leads in states that were previously considered up-for-grabs and put new states firmly on the map, expanding their path to a majority and potential unified control of government in 2021.

gotta forget i read that lest i jinx the future

honestly I think the majority of the Republican party will start saying "Donald who??" the moment he loses the election but I may be wrong

Oh we’ll remind them.

Again and again for the rest of their lives.

WE WERE JOKING!

no doubt, many republicans, maybe even the majority, will do that. there will be the marco rubios and the john thunes and other complete bastards who will pay lip service to moving toward a new republican party, there will even be a few trump-alumni like nikki haley who people can gravitate to. mitt romney will be around. kasich might get some air-time again.

but if even 20% of their base takes the trump/8chan path, semi-permanently, the GOP could be in big trouble. especially if - here comes my wild prediction - trump ends up being a precursor to someone that is similar, but actually smart and competent. a competent troll fascist who has a sense of humor would be a very popular politician. i feel like there's a whole room of incredibly dumb people waiting to be scooped up

Trump's motivation for trying to hold on to the office after a clear loss would probably be the Presidential immunity from legal peril he thinks the Supreme Court will provide him (although he may be more unsure about that after recent days). On the other hand, I remember last year when he couldn't even win a standoff w Pelosi about what day to give the SOTU address.

I still stand by my assertion from years ago that a candidate who is in every way similar to Trump but who hasn't been a ubiquitous pop cultural reference point for decades wouldn't get within spitting distance of the WH.

but if even 20% of their base takes the trump/8chan path, semi-permanently, the GOP could be in big trouble. especially if - here comes my wild prediction - trump ends up being a precursor to someone that is similar, but actually smart and competent. a competent troll fascist who has a sense of humor would be a very popular politician. i feel like there's a whole room of incredibly dumb people waiting to be scooped up

that's the future I see for the usa

I'd worry about the same thing if there seemed to be someone waiting in the wings. I can see a guy like Dan Crenshaw maybe taking on that role but people fucking hate that guy right now. Trump's stupidity and shamelessness is part of his appeal.

Turning point USA has been grooming the next generation of charismatic fascists

true but none of them have the generational wealth/celebrity/foreign connections that Trump has

I do agree that if it were to happen it would probably be someone who isn't currently a politician

Tucker Carlson in 2024 seems more and more likely

tucker carlson would have been a great fit for the CRT, square aspect ratio era. his giant square unmoving fascist head was made for CRT, but he just missed his time

see, doesn't this seem right?

https://i.imgur.com/nXhNpu6.jpg

Here's the thing:

People keep conjuring up the "smart, charismatic fascist" that's gonna be "Trump, but competent" and sweep in and institute a thousand-year Republican Reich, but here's why that's not gonna happen:

1) There aren't any smart, charismatic fascists. Name some names. Tom Cotton? Dan Crenshaw? Jim Jordan? Fuuuuuck all those worthless turds. If you're far enough to the right to win the Republican nomination, you're by definition a stupid, obnoxious asshole that 60% of the viewing public is gonna see right through and be repulsed by.

2) There aren't enough white people to go for this bullshit anymore. Democrats are winning the demographic war, and Trump poisoned the well with a lot of white people but good. Political journalists (and posters on this board) seem to think voters have the memories of goldfish, but I don't think so. A lesson has been taught day by day over the last three and a half years. Now, does that mean Bernie has a chance? Fuck, no. But it means that the Democratic party has a real opportunity to move closer to Warren, AOC, Omar, et al. than fucking Schumer, and that's something.

WE WERE JOKING!

"The Aristocrats!"

People keep conjuring up the "smart, charismatic fascist" that's gonna be "Trump, but competent" and sweep in and institute a thousand-year Republican Reich

haven't read the rest yet, but this conjurer would like to point out that i don't think it means republicans (or the third party fascist spin-off party) is going to win. it makes it less likely.

Agreed. I think that the extremely-online stochastic bloc formed by the trollish, violently-disposed, conspiracy-minded, fearful agitators, and radicalized-in-any-direction is one whose influence has not been appropriately accounted. I think that undervaluing this shaggy mass it is to the peril of centrist and left-of-center politics, viz. the 'reasonable' establishment Democratic Party. Now and ... for the future.

This is to say that, while there are loons of every stripe and color that comprise the online-weirdos bin, looniness by definition arcs toward extremism and radical rhetoric. The zero-sum tropes ('culture war!' erasing history') and binary thinking embodied (at the moment) by 45's re-election campaign are more appealing to this group than any market-tested campaigns mounted by a stodgy DNC and a stodgy ol' candidate. This is why 'Sleepy Joe' works so well as an insult to a certain segment. As long as Biden's staid and uninteresting and un-meme-able, his support doesn't quicken the pulse of the extremely-online bloc. The left end of the online folks stays docile and boring, and the right-end dominates.

This isn't to say that Biden's campaign needs to start using terrible rhetoric, hate-speech, conspiracy ... but it does need to grapple with the fact that the extremely-online folks have more options, more organizing, more community, more forums, more presence on the right than the left. The danger of this, to me, seems to be that when the general election results trickle in and they're *not* conclusive or consistent or part of an expected narrative, there's a constituency who're primed to explode. And nobody's gassing up the tank and mounting for uncle Joe.

(I hope I'm wrong).

This is why 'Sleepy Joe' works so well as an insult to a certain segment.

But...it...doesn't. The whole reason Trump has been flailing around for a new insult for Biden is that his go-to isn't working.

As long as Biden's staid and uninteresting and un-meme-able, his support doesn't quicken the pulse of the extremely-online bloc.

Do they need to be excited about Biden, though? They seem to have a lot on their minds already.

The left end of the online folks stays docile and boring, and the right-end dominates.

Uh, have you looked out in the street recently?

This isn't to say that Biden's campaign needs to start using terrible rhetoric, hate-speech, conspiracy ... but it does need to grapple with the fact that the extremely-online folks have more options, more organizing, more community, more forums, more presence on the right than the left.

No. No, they don't. And even if that were true, their influence is limited to online. BLM marches etc. are fucking massive, filling city blocks day after day, meanwhile the Proud Boys can muster two dozen assholes to a bar, if they're lucky. Both sides are organizing online, but only one side really has the numbers when things move into the streets. (Unless you count the police as de facto right-wing shock troops...which they kind of are, but only as tools of local/state power. They're not lining up for Trump.)

police unions sure have lined up for trump

Thank you for tearing my post apart point by point, I am sorry I dared to post in a thread with somebody of your intellect.

also i think it's a mistake to correlate BLM with "democrats" and proud boys with "GOP", although obviously they represent edges of both parties.

in general though, just to repeat what i said upthread, i'm not saying we're doomed for a continuing era of GOP fascism. i'm saying that it seems likely that the GOP will split into more explicitly fascist and whatever the 2020 version fo "compassionate conservatism" looks like, and that will be bad for them (electorally) and bad for the country (in having a semi-permanent fascist party)

Having far-right politicians in head of state as an emerging trend around the globe is also not helping matters

my dad hates trump but likes dan crenshaw. I wind this worrisome but not quite worth full blown fretting about yet

I think the advantage, if we're actually talking about this, is to the so-called GOP moderates, like Mitt or Kasich, who suddenly seem downright liberal compared to Trump. In Mitt's case, that might hurt him, because Trump supporters have been trained to hate him. But someone like Kasich, if anything he has a little more wiggle room to go farther to the right (if needed) and still be appealing to enough middle of the road Republicans.

this isn’t in response to you km—I know it’s not your implication—but you just reminded me I’m increasingly seeing this construction GOP:MAGA::DEMS:BLM forwarded in news and opinion pieces and finding it really maddening

dan crenshaw literally looks like a GI Joe villain I don't see him gaining traction with the general public

a lot of the appeal of Trump is that he's entertaining, he's a showman, none of the right wing guys mentioned are entertaining

imagine people lining up at a basketball arena to hear....Tucker Carlson speak.

Sadly I can imagine that.

an eyepatch despot does seem like the next logical phase

probably still a good decade out from hairless cat accessory

it seems likely that the GOP will split into more explicitly fascist and whatever the 2020 version of "compassionate conservatism" looks like

Trump's approval rating among Republicans hovered near 90% for his first 3 years in office. It is only during the current catastrophe that it has dipped closer to 80% approval. Whatever one might say about self-identified GOP adherents, the 'Bush wing' of the party has nowhere else to go and has mostly chosen fascism as more palatable than any form of, say, national health care and the Green New Deal.

I don't know if I can deal with having to think about Tucker Carlson every single day.

I remember reading on ILE about "this is the end of the Republican Party" in 2008. And in 2012...

my dad hates trump but likes dan crenshaw. I wind this worrisome but not quite worth full blown fretting about yet

― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.), Monday, July 6, 2020 9:41 AM (fifty-four minutes ago)

is your dad also canadian? also who the fuck is dan crenshaw

Dan Crenshaw is a gi joe supervillain

Ben and Marshall still more famous.

https://thumbnails.texastribune.org/vEuZJy2M7tfRwOIDhUKJSPVLuJk=/1200x804/smart/filters:quality(95)/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/1935996da25ceaf4f85cb22a6b963406/crenshaw-davidson-snl-20181110.jpeg

I just looked it up and Tucker Carlson is the highest rated cable news show and the highest rated with 18-54

which still means only 660ish thousand people under the age of 54 watch his show in a country of 320M people

Yeah, "highest rated cable news host" is some real "tallest dwarf" stuff.

it seems likely that the GOP will split

Why tho?

They appear to know that their path to power is still to ride the MAGAwave, no matter how distasteful they find (or found) the trumpster himself. That's why yr Graham, Rubio, Cruz, Collins, Murkowski types will only pronounce themselves "concerned" about uncouth tweets while still doing everything the MAGAnauts want. They will not withhold votes.

Actual renegades from Trumposity - Evan McMullin, Mitt - have no sway on the direction of the national party and they know it. Personally I don't see that changing even after His Orangeness is out of office. They may withhold votes but they don't command a lot of them anyways.

Or am I misunderstanding you, KM?

Frankly I see as much, or more, energy for fractures in the Democratic coalition. See Tracer above. If the economic left, Bernard Brethren, BLM, police abolitionists, and whatever Morbz is ALREADY preemptively feel betrayed by DNC centrism, imagine how betrayed they'll feel a short ways into a Biden administration that delivers basically nothing for their priorities. At least some of these discontents can, and will, withhold their votes.

Feel like at least a few stalwarts have gotta be looking askance at the long-term GOP project after a few of these recent SC decisions.

The Democratic leadership has an erection of hardened steel at the prospect of capturing the Mitt Republicans. In no way can this be read as a boon for progressive or liberal causes. Gonna be a lot of kente cloth events hoping you don’t notice that Black Americans have less wealth than 1980.

2) There aren't enough white people to go for this bullshit anymore.

― but also fuck you (unperson)

yep. i mean, to me this is the argument of the people who won't vote for trump because he's "vulgar". they're envisioning this mass of people, people who are a lot like them, who wouldn't vote for trump but who totally would have voted for reagan, given the opportunity. (we all know trump did better with white people than reagan did, right?)

that's what people are afraid of, right? we went through this apocalypse before. the republican party melted down in 1974 over watergate and everybody pretended like it was just some weird aberration and six years later reagan swept into office on a white horse.

this ain't 1974. worry about the ghost of reagan or the ghost of stalin or the ghost of whoever, but i got my hands full with people who aren't dead.

the only path forward for the republicans is the one that got them to the point where they are now: voter suppression and disenfranchisement. i expect that they'll keep along that general path, and i expect that the liberals will keep not calling them on their bullshit and conceding rigged elections to them "for the good of the country".

It’s a fantasy to assume that more white people can’t become fascists or fascist-adjacent in a time of greater strife or that the GOP can’t do some kind of realignment on their targets to bring Latino voters back to George W levels.

Gen X has become markedly more conservative as its household wealth has increased, this will continue, and eventually will be true of millennials as well.

I just looked it up and Tucker Carlson is the highest rated cable news show and the highest rated with 18-54

which still means only 660ish thousand people under the age of 54 watch his show in a country of 320M people

not sure how the stats with this work, but this was from a few days ago:

"Tucker Carlson Tonight" finished the quarter as the highest-rated program in cable news history, tallying an average of 4.33 million viewers. "Hannity" was a close second, with 4.31 million, followed by three other Fox programs: "The Five," with 3.9 million; "Special Report with Bret Baier," with 3.66 million; and "The Ingraham Angle" with Laura Ingraham, with 3.62 million.

i'm not sure of the age breakdown of the 4.33M viewers. most of them elderly, probably. but i'd guess that more than 660K are under the age of 54.

Thats still lower than viewing figures for some leftist youtube channels (never mind right wing channels). Not to say thread of Tucker isn't real, but cable news viewing figures need to be put in some sort of content

context!

threat!

context needed: do those youtube channel counts show you the number of people who watched in one day, or are the cumulative totals over time?

also not sure what the argument is here - tucker carlson is actually not influential and not watched very much? i think that's the argument, but just want to make sure

its just...fucker failson, the memes write themselves

xp
er doh, sorry anvil - i got mixed up in the content and thread / context and threat stuff and see you already said the threat of Tucker was real, haha. i'm not saying he's the antichrist or anything (that's mike pence), but i also don't think their viewing numbers are inconsequential. they pull in that many viewers every day, reliably. if you take all those left-wing youtube channels and compare the views, you also have to see if they're putting out new content every single day that gets 4 or 5M views. if they're doing that, then yeah i guess their reaching as many people as those tucker carlson shows, eventually

I'm not making a particular argument here (as I do think Tucker Carlson is influential and watched by a lot of people - tho the question is in the age breakdown and whether we shouldn't overstate it if it just pops him at the level of some youtubers)

context needed: do those youtube channel counts show you the number of people who watched in one day, or are the cumulative totals over time?

Looks like you're correct here, checked a couple and judging my views of most recents...much lower

- i got mixed up in the content and thread / context and threat stuff

Awful clarity on my part! actually managing to get all the key words wrong

Karl since apparently you think I just pull stuff out of my ass here's the quote (was 680k not 660k)

Among viewers 25-54, the demographic group favored by advertisers, Carlson remained on top with 680,000—the largest audience in cable news. Carlson was followed by Sean Hannity (633,000 viewers) and Laura Ingraham (621,000 viewers).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2020/06/16/tucker-carlson-takes-title-as-most-watched-host-in-cable-news/

I mean there COULD be like 500k Tucker Carlson viewers under 25 but doubt it

jeez i don't think you pull stuff out of your ass, UMS! it just seems crazy! only 680K out of the 4M+ are under 54?! holy shit. i knew it was lopsided, but whoa

still, that lets us do an apples-to-apples comparison. about 38% of the country is in the 25-54 age range, so that's about 125 million people. so 680K people out of 125 million are watching fucker carlson's show every night. less than 1 out of 100! that's good

sorry, i'm still kind of staggered by how unrelentlessly old fox's viewership is, wow

It’s a fantasy to assume that more white people can’t become fascists or fascist-adjacent in a time of greater strife

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z)

here's the thing: speaking as a white person, pretty much all of us are already fascists or fascist-adjacent. and i ain't excluding myself from that judgement. people all wanting to play the popular parlor game "who goes fascist?" and they all write the rules in such a way as to exclude themselves from the equation, which just seems bizarre and fucked up because, i mean, there's only one person where i have any say whatsoever as to whether they go fascist or not, and it's me, i'm the monster at the end of the fuckin' book.

people want to worry about fascism, fine, but if you're gonna do it start by asking yourself by what would make you a fascist, and do what you can to minimize that risk. if you got time left over for other stuff, i don't know, post on an internet message board or something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNMwRH5UGYY

people want to worry about fascism,

I’m not “worrying about fascism” I’m responding to the demographics are destiny arguments being presented that accept the decline of the GOP as fait accompli.

That’s predicated on a lot of stasis in voting patterns.

I’m not “worrying about fascism” I’m responding to the demographics are destiny arguments being presented that accept the decline of the GOP as fait accompli.

That’s predicated on a lot of stasis in voting patterns.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z)

if this thread isn't worrying about fascism, what is? i mean, none of us have any hard data that would allow us to accurately predict the future, do we? oh god, who's going to run in 2024? will he win? what happens to the republican party in 2021? will the president concede? i mean, aren't these questions basically just creative writing prompts, giving us the opportunity to fantasize about things we have no control over?

i mean, this isn't a serious discussion, this can't possibly be a serious discussion, because there's nothing to discuss here. it's just wouldn't this be awful, i wonder if this will happen, or maybe this will happen instead, or who knows?

sorry i'm being so argumentative today

just leavin this here

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/24/2020-election-disaster-perfect-storm-372778

phew

I mean, it’s a good piece, pretty comprehensive

i think at this point assuming there will be a national election held in the united states of america on november 3, 2020 is a pretty big leap. if you haven't started to question this assumption already, it is time to start.

There's nothing he can do to stop an election.

The scenarios in the Politico article are more plausible than a cancellation of Election Day.

Congress is extremely unlikely to move the election. The end of the President’s term is set in the Constitution. I’m not buying any of the “he won’t concede” fantasies. It doesn’t matter if he concedes.

It seems like a good idea to think and prepare and write about this stuff, but I also cringe inwardly at the thought that Trumpy and the MAGAnauts are reading these pieces and saying "hmm, good idea, I hadn't thought of THAT strategy," while frenziedly fapping.

There's nothing he can do to stop an election.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

he is literally starting a civil war in several cities simultaneously right now

Yes he is. If he loses an election and refuses to leave, it doesn't matter because he's no longer president.

ok i questioned the assumption. it refused to tell me anything new tho. i assume i should start waterboarding it to get it to spill?

kinda tough to lead a coup when the military doesn't even like you

Kate, with all due respect, I just don't find it plausible whereas, yeah, I find it quite plausible he'd send unrequested federal agents into cities.

kinda tough to lead a coup when the military doesn't even like you

― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.)

which is why he's trying to lead a coup with DHS contractors, which he has the legal authority to do. which he seems to be doing just fucking fine with at this time. oh, the military don't like him and they won't show up to enforce martial law over the mayors, you know what, they won't act against him, because if they did so _they_ would be the ones conducting a military coup, which literally nobody wants.

i don't find what's happening right now in my city particularly plausible either, alfred, but my opinions regarding its plausibility don't seem to be preventing it from happening.

I'm gonna need somebody smarter than me to draw a bright clean line from "mercenaries vs protesters in US cities" to "there is no election, Trump remains president indefinitely". Cause I'm not seeing it.

i'm not postulating trump remaining president indefinitely, unperson. i'm postulating a breakdown of the effective rule of law. which isn't much of a stretch imo.

like, in portland, do we have any effective legal recourse whatsoever against what the president is doing? if so, what is it?

I don't know what you'd count as effective, but I think there are several lawsuits in progress.

I don't know what you'd count as effective, but I think there are several lawsuits in progress.

― Josh in Chicago

i would count as "effective" anything that gets the federal mercenaries to leave portland.

The city and the state could file against DHS and the administration and tell them to fuck off. The rule of law depends on people exercising it.

nb the DHS FPS cops are not contractors

I opened but then didn't read that Politico piece, btw, as soon as I saw the "8 Things ..." clickbait sort of headline. What is this, Cosmo? Why 8? There has been so much shit that's happened in the past four years, let alone four months, or hell, four weeks, that no one really expected that I'm reluctant to read about more predictions, however well considered.

The city and the state could file against DHS and the administration and tell them to fuck off. The rule of law depends on people exercising it.

― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto)

and who would enforce these actions? the police. and do the police obey the mayor? they do not, tombot. and the mayor, he would prefer to pretend otherwise. so the mayor is not taking action, unless by "taking action" you mean "going downtown to get jeered and teargassed".

I go back and forth on the plausibilty of these scenarios. The thing that always has me erring on the side of plausible is the lack of recent precedent for conscientious obhjection inside the system

like ok the military "doesn't like" Trump, but I've not yet read about a single "soldier" in the nat guard or one of these agencies, ICE, etc., who has resigned or refused in protest

Why 8?

Because the Antichrist is the eighth king according to the Book of Revelation, duh.

I'm gonna need somebody smarter than me to draw a bright clean line from "mercenaries vs protesters in US cities" to "there is no election, Trump remains president indefinitely"

I think this is part of the problem though, in real life we don't get these bright lines, only subtle gradations. Everybody keeps looking for markers and clear signs when the slippage is constant and daily

Hadrian there are plenty of people who have left under this administration, it’s just not newsworthy. Most if not all of them are quietly moving on to their next career and not interested in talking to journalists about why they quit

It's true, they've left, but almost w/o exception they have the privilege of leaving quietly and w/o having to run publicly afoul of the WH or "refuse orders."

Kate I can’t extrapolate from the particular breakdown of civil authority / chain-of-command disasterfuck happening in Portland to the rest of the country. I understand why it makes you feel the way you do, that sucks.

Why doesn’t the mayor have any control over the local police?

By and large we have not seen any systemic resistance to these policies—just the broken, exhausted anomalies who throw in the towel.

The lesson I fear most will take from the whistelblowers, IG's, Col. Vindeman etc., is you just "don't* do that.

I often think back to Barr's nomination, the consensus take that he was a lifer, an institutionalist, "bigger than the moment," etc.

I am no longer confortable believing the same about a given general

“by and large” doing a lot of work there but fine, I’ll acknowledge I have my own biases and leave it there. It’s not like I’m going to convince anybody of what I think

To be clear I don't think it will come to this. But no way in hell am I handwaving the possibilty. It seems dangerous at the moment to discourage imagination.

i guess what's weird to me is that the defining characteristic of trump is his incompetence but my expectations for a coup in the US requires someone with immense competence and ability to coordinate among many different people, organizations etc skills i've never seen from the potus. if ppl haven't aggressively stopped trump yet that's bc he's the legal president and they respect the office and system, not bc he commands their undying loyalty.

I often think back to Barr's nomination, the consensus take that he was a lifer, an institutionalist, "bigger than the moment," etc.

Why doesn’t the mayor have any control over the local police?

Because Portland is a city in the United States.

I think some of the distaste for this speculation has to do with ppl conflating "acknowleging the possibility" and remaining on guard w/ alarmism

some sentiments expressed itt have the undeniable flavor of alarmism tho

It doesn't require a huge amount of competence and ability to sow complete chaos.

I remember reading a lot of, yeah, Barr's an ideologue but he's ultimately independent, takes the long view, etc.

ending american democracy and installing oneself as a dictator != sowing chaos

end != means

I think we should be alarmed about what's happening today

and that alarm should inform preparedness for what "could" happen tomorrow

there will always be people who say down to the very last moment that everything is fine

yep

I've mentioned this before, and (duh) it's an extreme example, but I've been reading "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," and while there are some striking similarities, there are also many striking differences. At the beginning of the book the author says that for all the bad things he says and will say and everyone else will say about Hitler, he was no a coward, and indeed it's that monomaniacal conviction maintained over many years that finally gets him to his goal. Trump, on the other hand, is absolutely a coward and lacking pretty much any convictions beyond self preservation. It's hard to foment political and cultural revolution without convictions. Chaos for chaos sake, on the other hand, sure. That's what we're seeing now and have been getting for years.