rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

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