rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

Xpost Agreed. I was saying to my husband last night that the problem isn't that I didn't know this country was full of racist idiots, but that the full extent of its idiotic racism is on full display during elections, and makes me never want to leave my majority-minority home city ever again, except to move to another place that isn't so godforsaken

if it makes you feel any better, my "haha" is more extreme bitterness than boastful dunking

i run into racist idiots all the time in my deep blue state. if i had to live in a red state i'd be even more hopeless

Purposely didn't post (or read) the thread up until now, partly because I thought it would be a rollercoaster of seeming different ways at different times. Mainly because of the red mirage stuff. Knowing about the red mirage factor didn't help the feeling of riding the rollercoaster

the red mirage will turn into a red dawn; with the help of mr. putin, we will drive these commie liberals from our shores once and for all

I was very optimistic. The polling was super stable (which to me implied it was accurate) and common sense told me any polling error would likely be in Biden’s favor. I’ll push back against the narrative that polls were wrong in 2016...they were only off by a point. And in 2018 they were pretty spot on. They missed big this time though. Bigger than Obama in 2012

to think that the type of person who'd vote for 2scoops might lie to pollsters. why i never

i still want to move to New Zealand

I’m sorry you got shook, but come on, Biden voters, JFC. There have been plenty of people everywhere — even on ILX — talking about how this would play out, from places of knowledge and experience, and you refused to actually honor them.

Now you’re stuck backpedaling furiously on the landslide narrative, in an effort to save face. Meanwhile, if Biden does somehow eke out a win, you’ll forget about this moment of uncertainty and double-down on your initial position and we’ll do some variation of this in four years.

If they were lying to pollsters then that’s a new thing that they didn’t do in 2016. And only in certain states it seems. There’s got to just be a major flaw in the polling methodology this year

what is with these sweeping generalizations that seem to be conflating ILX 2016 and ILX 2020.

Continued marginalizing of unorthodox voices by the politix threads’ ruling elite?

I get what you're saying, this is gonna be an all-time high turnout election and it's not 100% clear who all these new voters are

that said

1) there's a reason the GOP is trying so hard to get votes thrown out right now and
2) 2018 was a record setting midterm and that went pretty well for Dems

I can't see there being a significant chunk of people who didn't vote for Trump in 2016 who have been convinced based on how this term has went. but I do see plenty of people who didn't vote Clinton who are now very very enthusiastic about never having to hear from Donald Trump again. so my feeling is pretty good right now. but after 2016 I'm not gonna feel great until it's 100% clear that Biden won.

― frogbs, Tuesday, November 3, 2020 4:34 PM bookmarkflaglink

otm. Midterm /= presidential elections, but, uh, that evening Dems exceeded every expectation, the size of which became apparent a few days later.

― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 4:39 PM bookmarkflaglink

Trump's base didn't grow and if anything may have shrunk a tiny amount in four years, and it was only ever a third or less of the population. plus a lot of them died because they were 116 years old.

I am feeling ok so far.

― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 4:46 PM bookmarkflaglink

― reggie (qualmsley), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 5:38 PM bookmarkflaglink

Thanks guys

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 5:39 PM bookmarkflaglink

if this election is even close there’s a pretty simple chant for democrats

COUNT
THE
VOTES

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 5:45 PM bookmarkflaglink

just had a small panic attack

sometimes I like to make orrible jokes with me ilxor chums to pretend like I don't care that much but then it creeps up and honestly if Trump wins how do we go on??

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 5:50 PM bookmarkflaglink

who has standing to sue the Postal Service?

cos this isn't "someone got an absentee ballot and didn't return it", this is someone completed a ballot, sent it, had it accepted by USPS, and then never had it delivered.

hopefully some of them noticed and went to vote in person (if their state allows them to spoil it). but file lawsuit IMO - even if Biden wins, this cannot stand.

― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 5:54 PM bookmarkflaglink

yeah i was feeling good this morning but i'm a little panicky now

― Give me a Chad Smith-type feel (map), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 5:55 PM bookmarkflaglink

i'm panicky but not because of any reason other than "fuck, we're here"

― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 5:58 PM bookmarkflaglink

yeah

― Give me a Chad Smith-type feel (map), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 5:59 PM bookmarkflaglink

i could do with a snack tbh

― Give me a Chad Smith-type feel (map), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 5:59 PM bookmarkflaglink

i can do with a pill that ends in -cet

― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 6:01 PM bookmarkflaglink

Fuck I would gobble a perc

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 6:05 PM bookmarkflaglink

man look at how cocky we all were!

You’re not implicated ! And also I’m not talking about yesterday, but the 27438283 days prior where rather than engaging with minority points or view, there’s a tendency to ignore, denigrate and mansplain.

If they were lying to pollsters then that’s a new thing that they didn’t do in 2016. And only in certain states it seems. There’s got to just be a major flaw in the polling methodology this year

the major flaw is failing to account for republican cheating. how does nate silver factor in "conservative" dirty tricks? we all know they do it, but how do you quantify it? that's gotta be a tough one

xp
I got tired of all the excited early turnout reporting in the run-up, but saw it as mostly people not having anything actually concrete to discuss while being unable to talk about anything else, not so much a "landslide narrative."

OTOH, today isn't really the day for this, but there are def some frustrating tendencies in the US politics threads.

Isn't 306-232 still on the cards as a distinct possibility? Not a landslide but not ekeing either

it's not trump winning that is depressing the <50% of americans who aren't complete fucking racist morons. trump is not going to win.

it's the senate. democrats are probably not going to take back the senate. there's a chance, but not a good one. that's what depressing the <50% of americans who aren't complete fucking racist morons.

just a tip for people from out of the states

and what that means, for people out of the states and also the <50% of americans who aren't complete fucking racist morons who might be able to understand this sentence: we're still stuck in fucking hell for at least 2 more years, until the next elections

taking my bleak thoughts to this thread, rather than the general US politics thread.

i am not feeling good right now. i am so fucking disappointed in "my fellow americans". this is wrong.

the Senate is fucked because if it doesn't go Dem (which we may not know for eons due to runoff - though admittedly I'm lost on how that works), there goes the court-packing we promised...for at least another 2 years. as well as the nuclear option.

what does the Senate climate look like in 2022? if we can't take it now...I am losing confidence that we'll ever get it back

right there with you, this is depressing. i'm so tired xp

KM, yeah.

I think the evergreen ILX divide and sensitivities around "pessimism" comes down to deeply personal psychological stuff, personal ways of coping. For me, it's like...we’ll mostly be okay, as individuals, of course some of us impacted more than others for all kinds of reasons. By and large, even for the most marginalized, it’s not our personal fates—not our personal happinesses—that are being foreclosed on. We can and will continue to try and make the most of our own lives.

But the future of this country—the immediate future—is extremely bleak. It’s just the reality. The American population is just a deeply hateful, racist, selfish, one. That this has not been glaringly evident to the vast majority of Americans can be chalked up in part to the nice faces we’ve put on it—Reagan’s and Clinton’s and Bush’s and Obama’s. It was easy to ignore for most.

But then we had what seemed like *maybe* the good fortune to put an ugly face on it—the very ugliest imaginable—shattering the illusion and dragging that ugliness into the light. It gave us a chance to have a referendum on hatred. And it turns out, as a country, that America is ok with it.

Why did you have expectations any higher, why expect anything other than grimly principled failure from the Democratic Party and its gang of Clinton-era revenants

Soda, I am not sure who was pushing a "landslide narrative" and is now "backpedaling."

I have seen people posting analyses from elsewhere (538 et al.) that looked encouraging. I am pretty sure I participated in that activity.

And we were well within our rights to do so - it's less "Biden will definitely win in a landslide," more "Lookit this Philip Bump (or whoever) piece that says Biden's in really good shape based on polls." Some of these were explicitly posted in a "if you are nervous and you are looking for encouraging takes, here is one."

Polling is known to be a flawed human institution with potential to be wrong. Everyone understands that and it's why Silver expresses things as potential, probable, etc., and why Silver has run like a billion posts about how wrong the polls could be. And about how something with a 10% chance of happening can still, um, happen.

Polling is pretty broken, but it's what we have in between elections. We sometimes go with gut feelings, but those are also flawed and can be wrong.

Should we all henceforth append a "but I could be wrong" to every post, in the way that milo does with the "Trump also sucks" disclaimer for all their "Biden sucks" content?

what does the Senate climate look like in 2022? if we can't take it now...I am losing confidence that we'll ever get it back

― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Wednesday, November 4, 2020 9:26 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's not too terrible. The Dems up for reelection are all in fairly blue states. Depending on the challenger, the seats held by Cortez Masto (NV) or Hassan (NH) might be competitive.

Meanwhile, Rs up for reelection include Burr (NC), Grassley (assuming he doesn't retire) (IA), Johnson (WI), Portman (OH), Rubio (FL), Toomey (PA). A couple of those could be flippable.

That said, I feel less optimistic about the Senate in general given the current results.

eh, whatever. i'm so fucking pissed right now. honestly, i haven't looked too closely, but to anyone who is using this morning to criticize others for hoping for a positive outcome, or, even, if someone hyhothetically DID boldly predict a biden landslide - who the fuck cares? we live in hell, here, and some people choose to consider the possibility of victory as a way to cope with that.

xp

there goes the court-packing we promised

who promised this exactly

The real winners in all of this are the 9/11 conspirators, who fatally wounded a vulnerable USA. We’re still living with the consequences of letting the terrorists win

what if we don't win Pennsylvania, NC or Georgia, the count ends up being 270-268, and there a few faithless electors? What would the SC would do with that

xxp we were promsied a commision to "look into it" lol

Hadrian OTM.

Even if I will personally be okay (um, well, probably), my politics is a politics of empathy. So if anyone is getting kicked around, I am not okay with it.

I have a vested interest in a kinder and better future world for everyone and everyone's children. Not just for me and for my own personal children. (BTW, one of whom is gay and one of whom is severely disabled - so, both are potentially emperiled by toxic politics).

There’s clearly a massive problem in Miami-Dade, but it’s not the whole story in Florida. Consider: **Even if Biden had pulled off the same margin in Miami-Dade as Hillary Clinton in 2016, he still would have lost Florida by a 170K vote margin.** The issue is broader/deeper.

— Carlos Odio (@carlosodio) November 4, 2020

oops wrong thread but whatever

I struggle to say “I’m not pessimistic, I’m speaking based on tendencies and trends that have emerged to me over the past few years, one of which is the emergence of the kind of Authorative Liberal Voice which is a weird centrism that doesn’t like me speaking out of turn, and that you are using against me right now.”

the way I see it...

I'm never gonna be the one ratfucked by the government. I'm just a weirdly lucky person, and I'm tall and fairly big and look like a homeless Satanist, so people on the street don't harass me.

but god, I can't take many more stories of people being shot in the street like dogs by armed thugs, or civilians being executed by police, or friends being roughed up by cops and arrested during non-violent protesting, or actual NAZIS HOLDING RALLIES COMFORTABLY.

how the country goes, my mental state goes, and it's why I was so miserable during the Dubya era. my life will always be decent (even if it's been trying the last few years). but I can't live in a country full of hate, my environment becomes me, and it's sickening.

I remember the few moments in 2012 where gay marriage was made legal nationwide, and ACA was upheld, and the brief jubilation was short-lived re: the latter, but it was nice to feel that some progress, however marginal, was possible, if even for a minute.

massive ugliness didn't even need the Trump campaign - the Bundy family shit, the Planned Parenthood shooting, Pulse, Sandy HOok, Boston Marathon Bombings, Dylan Roof, Giffords shooting - these things were out there and were scaring me but at least we had a sympathetic President in charge that made me think we might be ok.

at least we might get that back, but...there's no putting the cat back in the bag here.

kinda glad i'm already middle-aged and didn't want to live past 50 anyway

the purpose of the state, and for the law, is all about providing protection to people. at least, it was supposed to be, once.

now we elect politicians whose platform is to be cruel and deny protection to people.

I think the evergreen ILX divide and sensitivities around "pessimism" comes down to deeply personal psychological stuff, personal ways of coping. For me, it's like...we’ll mostly be okay, as individuals, of course some of us impacted more than others for all kinds of reasons. By and large, even for the most marginalized, it’s not our personal fates—not our personal happinesses—that are being foreclosed on. We can and will continue to try and make the most of our own lives.

But the future of this country—the immediate future—is extremely bleak. It’s just the reality. The American population is just a deeply hateful, racist, selfish, one. That this has not been glaringly evident to the vast majority of Americans can be chalked up in part to the nice faces we’ve put on it—Reagan’s and Clinton’s and Bush’s and Obama’s. It was easy to ignore for most.

The thing I am struggling with is the degree to which my assessment about the future of the country influences my own well-being. I was in full-blown panic mode last night after it was clear Florida would go to Trump, and the thing I couldn't stop thinking about was "How do I let this affect me less?" I feel like the last few years have been generally pretty bad for my psyche, and I don't want that to continue to be the case, no matter what the final result is. But is that because I don't have good coping mechanisms, or because I live in a country that is objectively getting worse and in a culture where politics now plays an outsized role?

Good question.

My Marxist friends tell me the purpose of the state is to protect private property and its owners

KM, yeah.

I think the evergreen ILX divide and sensitivities around "pessimism" comes down to deeply personal psychological stuff, personal ways of coping. For me, it's like...we’ll mostly be okay, as individuals, of course some of us impacted more than others for all kinds of reasons. By and large, even for the most marginalized, it’s not our personal fates—not our personal happinesses—that are being foreclosed on. We can and will continue to try and make the most of our own lives.

But the future of this country—the immediate future—is extremely bleak. It’s just the reality. The American population is just a deeply hateful, racist, selfish, one. That this has not been glaringly evident to the vast majority of Americans can be chalked up in part to the nice faces we’ve put on it—Reagan’s and Clinton’s and Bush’s and Obama’s. It was easy to ignore for most.

But then we had what seemed like *maybe* the good fortune to put an ugly face on it—the very ugliest imaginable—shattering the illusion and dragging that ugliness into the light. It gave us a chance to have a referendum on hatred. And it turns out, as a country, that America is ok with it.

― early-Woolf semantic prosody (Hadrian VIII), Wednesday, November 4, 2020 7:32 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Can't be repeated enough. The worst writing that came out of 2016 was the "we're better than this, we lost our innocence that election day." What 2016 and 2020 have showed me is that what I suspected to be true was even more true than I thought: half of the population of this country is embroiled in a racist honky death cult, and want to impose that cult's immiseration on the rest of us.

xpost your Marxist friends are correct.

idk if you use social media a lot but the magnitude of how government affects those around you, at least for me, was magnified intensely once I started using it a lot. things that pre-social media I was probably willfully ignorant about and ergo not as bothered by.

coping mechanisms are important though. have to take time for yourself and have a few diversions here and there - but nobody could be blamed for struggling to do that during the Trump era. i sure as hell didn't master it.

Anyway I feel owned even if Biden wins, so Trump wins even in defeat of course

I can tell you that, well c'a depends. Even in a comfortable MDC enclave, I have always felt besieged, and as a result it's toughened me. But I'm blessed in not suffering from anxiety or PTSD; if I did I'd have a different take.

It's quite true, though, that I wish I were more detached from the daily scrim. My brother-in-law, a country club Republican cuz he's young, doesn't care for politics much and went to bed early, no more euphoric than if his favorite college football team had won a game.

xposts

i knew that was coming, and was halfway through a post about how the category of who should be protected has grown over time, starting from a base of wealthy white men and slowly expanding out. to me, that's a pretty well-known thing at least among ilx, but it still has to be said every time.

and my dread is that we now seem to be strongly swinging back in the other direction, back to cruelty. what mcconnell is doing (by not passing covid-19 relief) directly leads to many deaths, and just worse lives, for so many people.

The thing I am struggling with is the degree to which my assessment about the future of the country influences my own well-being. I was in full-blown panic mode last night after it was clear Florida would go to Trump, and the thing I couldn't stop thinking about was "How do I let this affect me less?" I feel like the last few years have been generally pretty bad for my psyche, and I don't want that to continue to be the case, no matter what the final result is. But is that because I don't have good coping mechanisms, or because I live in a country that is objectively getting worse and in a culture where politics now plays an outsized role?

This is a terrific post and really gets to the heart of some things I've been struggling with. Pessimism was something embedded in my psyche really early on as a coping strategy and, even after years of deliberate work on it, hard as fuck to undo. I know it isn't helpful and I was pretty quickly reminded so in the politics thread, but it's what I'm working with, as much as I wish it weren't. Sadly, a lot of last night reinforced my pessimism, while I struggled to hold on to the hope.