US Presidential Election 2020 Thread II - Judgement Day(s)

BobbyMalone

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

I'd be careful as the dems to assume kneecapping progressives or vice versa is the answer so soon before the nature of Georgia's vote is looked at.

Considering how close it was in Georgia and the numbers that came out it might be the progressives that pushed the dems over the top there (judging by who they're giving most of the credit to). We've yet to see how much actual influence the Lincoln Project has actually had on the election vs progressives.

Stacey Adams is credited for getting the democrats out to vote and from what I've read she primarily got out young black voters, so rolling back on progressive policies between now and the senate race could end up alienating them so soon after finally engaging them.

In contrast the republican base did no sleep in Georgia they did come out to vote, It is safe to assume beyond Trump making such a show of himself between now and the senate vote that they'll be back out to vote in the same numbers.

It may end up being the wrong image to send to blame progressives for losses in other states when they are who the dems will be relying on to get Georgia back out in the same numbers in January.

Indeed, and on the reverse, there has been much talk about how Kasich was so pivotal for turning this election, yet others have stated that it's odd if this was the case, as Ohio remained staunchly Republican during the election.

First Up

I don't normally watch Fox News but I tuned in yesterday to see how they were dealing with it.

Sure enough, there was a woman saying Nancy Pelosi has shares in a company that has created an algorithm that either forced people to vote for Biden against their will or changed their vote from Trump to Biden. (Apparently this also worked with hand written postal votes so it's one heck of an algorithm. )

Fox were taking her very seriously. Enough said.

letowski

BobbyMalone wrote: »

Indeed, and on the reverse, there has been much talk about how Kasich was so pivotal for turning this election, yet others have stated that it's odd if this was the case, as Ohio remained staunchly Republican during the election.

I think the Dems ought to thread carefully with the LP. At the end of the day, these guys are neo-conservatives of the old Bush/Reagan party, that's where their interests lay. They now have a broad outreach established among center left liberals and make no mistake, if the 2024 GOP nominee is a neo-con, they will look to target those center left liberals to get a republican back into the presidency.

As a side note, they seemed to have made themselves very rich this past year, funnelling 2/3 ($40m) of their funding (mostly Democratic donors) into communication firms, owned by the LP founders themselves. I think the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' mutual agreement ends after this election.

everlast75

First Up wrote: »

I don't normally watch Fox News but I tuned in yesterday to see how they were dealing with it.

Sure enough, there was a woman saying Nancy Pelosi has shares in a company that has created an algorithm that either forced people to vote for Biden against their will or changed their vote from Trump to Biden. (Apparently this also worked with hand written postal votes so it's one heck of an algorithm. )

Fox were taking her very seriously. Enough said.

Just wait until the usual culprits here come in to echo those unfounded allegations...

First Up

everlast75 wrote:

Just wait until the usual culprits here come in to echo those unfounded allegations...

I'd be more concerned about the numbskulls who attend the rallies Trump is threatening to hold.

ancapailldorcha

everlast75 wrote: »

Just wait until the usual culprits here come in to echo those unfounded allegations...

First Up wrote: »

I'd be more concerned about the numbskulls who attend the rallies Trump is threatening to hold.

Mod: No sniping and other users and/or insults please.

Brussels Sprout

letowski wrote: »

I think the Dems ought to thread carefully with the LP. At the end of the day, these guys are neo-conservatives of the old Bush/Reagan party, that's where their interests lay. They now have a broad outreach established among center left liberals and make no mistake, if the 2024 GOP nominee is a neo-con, they will look to target those center left liberals to get a republican back into the presidency.

As a side note, they seemed to have made themselves very rich this past year, funnelling 2/3 ($40m) of their funding (mostly Democratic donors) into communication firms, owned by the LP founders themselves. I think the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' mutual agreement ends after this election.

The Lincoln Project announced that they would continue to support the Democrats for the upcoming runoff elections in Georgia. I thought that was odd considering that their motus operandi was chiefly to oust Trump.

Now I suppose they did have a few ads that were bashing the Senate Republicans so if one were to be charitable you could say that they want the modern iteration of the Republican party to be razed to the ground in order that it can be rebuilt again in their preferred image.

Gbear

It's far too early to be trying to peddle one narrative or another about who voted and why.

Not only are there likely to be a broad set of reasons why people voted the way they did, it won't necessarily be consistent from state to state.

The obvious example is Miami Dade, which has nominally Democrat-favouring demographics, but lost the state for Biden.
As well as the Cuban American problem, it's also not clear how Latin Americans feel about things like Black Lives Matter.
They are, I think, more Christian (usually Catholic, I assume), and more generally conservative than the population as a whole.

With many, mostly male minorities voting for Trump, while Biden appears to have improved his vote share with white people, it could be that the traditional understanding of demographic splits has to shift. Until that analysis is done, it would be a mistake to hold to strongly onto opinions about the electorate.

There's lots of ways you could lay out a flexibile, rationally determined electoral college vote system.

If it was just something like 1 vote per 500k population + 2, you'd end up with:

California

---

55 -> 81
Texas

---

38 -> 60
Illinois

---

20 -> 27
Massachusetts -- 11 -> 15
Nevada

---

6 -> 8
Wyoming

---

3 -> 3

That'd mean that California would go from having only about 18 times the electoral votes with about 80 times the population, to 27 times the electoral votes as Wyoming.

You could skew it further towards the smaller states if you made it +3 (California would still have 20 times the electoral votes).

It would still heavily favour the smaller states, but at least if they established a system like that, it would maintain an appropriate weighting as populations continue to change.

harr

These fraud allegations are dangerous not only in US but for most countries.
You now have the usual conspiracy nuts on social media here and U.K. spouting nonsense but it has a lot of people put into the mind frame
“ why should I even bother voting if it can be rigged “
Fox News not helping matters by giving a voice to some of the outlandish claims.
It’s really time for senior republicans to stand up and refute the claims because if they don’t people will be shouting fix forever more .
Trump was shouting fix even before the election.
Not one claim has yet been backed up by any credible proof.

everlast75

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

The Lincoln Project announced that they would continue to support the Democrats for the upcoming runoff elections in Georgia. I thought that was odd considering that their motus operandi was chiefly to oust Trump.

I think that their problems relate to the party which Trump has taken over.

Perhaps they know that there is no future in the GOP at present.

They want a viable Republican party, so trump and his enablers are legit targets until then.

L1011

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

The Lincoln Project announced that they would continue to support the Democrats for the upcoming runoff elections in Georgia. I thought that was odd considering that their motus operandi was chiefly to oust Trump.

Now I suppose they did have a few ads that were bashing the Senate Republicans so if one were to be charitable you could say that they want the modern iteration of the Republican party to be razed to the ground in order that it can be rebuilt again in their preferred image.

I'm sure it had already been said they were going to go against Trump-aligned Republicans in both houses through the mid-terms and possibly 2024 if there's still enough around.

Quin_Dub

everlast75 wrote: »

I think that their problems relate to the party which Trump has taken over.

Perhaps they know that there is no future in the GOP at present.

They want a viable Republican party, so trump and his enablers are legit targets until then.

Especially given that both the GOP candidates are arch "Trumpists" , Loeffler in particular has gone down the QAnon rabbit hole hard in recent times.

Gbear

The notion that the Presidential election was rigged is so intellectually shallow that it only further exposes that the people who have been trying to argue it are simply authoritarians who want single party rule.

Alleging widespread voter fraud is a remarkable thing to do, and any sane person would immediately begin to game it out and try to pick holes in it. Why did it happen in states with Republican control of the AG, the Governorship, the state legislature? Why was there no fraud committed on the same ballots for the House and Senate? Why did deeply unpopular Senators like Graham and McConnell still win in a landslide?

As with most things over the last 4 years, authoritarians make very little effort to excuse their bull****, safe in the knowledge that they can shriek about freedom of speech when they're called on it.

prawnsambo

harr wrote: »

These fraud allegations are dangerous not only in US but for most countries.
You now have the usual conspiracy nuts on social media here and U.K. spouting nonsense but it has a lot of people put into the mind frame
“ why should I even bother voting if it can be rigged “
Fox News not helping matters by giving a voice to some of the outlandish claims.
It’s really time for senior republicans to stand up and refute the claims because if they don’t people will be shouting fix forever more .
Trump was shouting fix even before the election.
Not one claim has yet been backed up by any credible proof.

It would be amusing if the people who support Trump and by extension the GOP would be put off voting because they believe the narrative that Trump and his enablers are putting out. The irony would be truly ironic.

OhHiMark

Gbear wrote: »

The notion that the Presidential election was rigged is so intellectually shallow that it only further exposes that the people who have been trying to argue it are simply authoritarians who want single party rule.

Alleging widespread voter fraud is a remarkable thing to do, and any sane person would immediately begin to game it out and try to pick holes in it. Why did it happen in states with Republican control of the AG, the Governorship, the state legislature? Why was there no fraud committed on the same ballots for the House and Senate? Why did deeply unpopular Senators like Graham and McConnell still win in a landslide?

As with most things over the last 4 years, authoritarians make very little effort to excuse their bull****, safe in the knowledge that they can shriek about freedom of speech when they're called on it.

It's because they won't argue in good faith.

If you pick apart an argument they'll find another one. It doesn't matter what it is because the people who believe it was fixed will believe anything they put forward. So you keep refuting every ludicrous thing they come out with until you can't be bothered anymore, and then they say, "ha, you have no argument against that, do you?".

briany

Gbear wrote: »

The notion that the Presidential election was rigged is so intellectually shallow that it only further exposes that the people who have been trying to argue it are simply authoritarians who want single party rule.

Alleging widespread voter fraud is a remarkable thing to do, and any sane person would immediately begin to game it out and try to pick holes in it. Why did it happen in states with Republican control of the AG, the Governorship, the state legislature? Why was there no fraud committed on the same ballots for the House and Senate? Why did deeply unpopular Senators like Graham and McConnell still win in a landslide?

As with most things over the last 4 years, authoritarians make very little effort to excuse their bull****, safe in the knowledge that they can shriek about freedom of speech when they're called on it.

And the most worrying thing is that the Trumpist movement in the United States has gone beyond the critical mass point of being gently persuaded back off the ledge. It's now mainstream and self-sustaining. So the only way, that I can see, it backs down is either that some other external crisis comes along which forces people to forget about their political differences, or else a physical showdown.

Gbear

OhHiMark wrote: »

It's because they won't argue in good faith.

If you pick apart an argument they'll find another one. It doesn't matter what it is because the people who believe it was fixed will believe anything they put forward. So you keep refuting every ludicrous thing they come out with until you can't be bothered anymore, and then they say, "ha, you have no argument against that, do you?".

Then the question becomes why they won't argue in good faith.

One reason might be a "hiding your power level" sort of situation. It's something common on private message boards about how nazi types are aware about how offputting it is to lead with the nazi stuff, so they don't come right out and say it. They couch it in language of law and order, or they say they're trolling or whatever. It's pretty transparent when the far right start going on about how they just want a fair election, what they actually mean. It's fair if they win. It's not fair if they lose.

Another might be self-deception and a lack of self-knowledge. If someone is applying the above logic to themselves, and they've been brought up believing that democracy is virtuous, if they deep down believe that we should live in a white christian ethnostate they need a quick and dirty argument to prevent them suffering cognitive dissonance. Any will do. It's not about it making sense. It's about them not having to think about it anymore, and stick to the authoritarian beliefs they're comfortable with.

transylman

briany wrote: »

And the most worrying thing is that the Trumpist movement in the United States has gone beyond the critical mass point of being gently persuaded back off the ledge. It's now mainstream and self-sustaining. So the only way, that I can see, it backs down is either that some other external crisis comes along which forces people to forget about their political differences, or else a physical showdown.

Do you think covid deaths spiking above peak levels back in March/April will qualify as external crisis?

Nah, me neither.

O'Neill

briany wrote: »

And the most worrying thing is that the Trumpist movement in the United States has gone beyond the critical mass point of being gently persuaded back off the ledge. It's now mainstream and self-sustaining. So the only way, that I can see, it backs down is either that some other external crisis comes along which forces people to forget about their political differences, or else a physical showdown.

I mean that should have been Covid tbh

briany

transylman wrote: »

Do you think covid deaths spiking above peak levels back in March/April will qualify as external crisis?

Nah, me neither.

O'Neill wrote: »

I mean that should have been Covid tbh

The problem with Covid was that Trump quickly drew battle lines on it at a time when it still seemed like an abstraction and not a very real problem that could kill hundreds of thousands of people.

everlast75

A trump surrogate jumps on the possible release of a vaccine... only for the company to distance themselves by factually stating they were not part of trump's scheme

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1325787018333401091?s=19

Non solum non ambulabit

Gbear wrote: »

. Why did it happen in states with Republican control of the AG, the Governorship, the state legislature? Why was there no fraud committed on the same ballots for the House and Senate?

This can not be emphasised enough

BonnieSituation

terryduff12 wrote: »

4 years later and people couldn't accept the fact trump won, tried everything to get him out. So if trump goes down the same route it will go to show both sides are as bad as each other.

This nonsense pooped its head up constantly since last Tuesday.

People are allowed be unhappy that Trump won. It's pretty normal. I don't recall anyone on the Dem side trying to litigate the result. And Clinton conceded on election night.

I've accepted that Kerry won the All-Ireland in 2014, it doesn't mean I have to be happy about it.

Jack1985

Really telling, Pfizer know who they will be working with for vaccine roll-out.

https://twitter.com/mikememoli/status/1325788528412921857?s=20

Safehands

briany wrote: »

The problem with Covid was that Trump quickly drew battle lines on it at a time when it still seemed like an abstraction and not a very real problem that could kill hundreds of thousands of people.

This Covid has been a shocking virus which has done incredible damage to the whole world. But maybe we need to look at it a bit more positively. If this virus had not happened, it is possible, or even probable, that Trump would have been re-elected and then an even worse catastrophe could have hit the world. Fortunately we will never know. Nobody could possibly have realised back in 2016 just how bad, how dreadful, how catastrophic his first term in office would be.
A second term for Trump may well have been a lot worse.
So, reluctantly I say, to Covid, you've done your job, now go away and take Trump with you!

BonnieSituation

murpho999 wrote: »

I really think CNN did a great job on this and really said that you have to wait for votes to be counted. Going in at country level and showing what votes are still to come on and how they compared to 2016 really showed to me that Biden always had a chance.

People calling this as a done deal for Trump and relying on betting exchanges for results were wide of the mark.

While I am having some withdrawals, I have to say the CNN coverage including John King and his Magic Wall was imperious. Myself and it seems most of Ireland was glued to it. How they handled the klaxons to call the race was great.

I love elections and draws and the like so I was in heaven this week. Well, heaven after the hell of Wednesday morning.

---

The cathartic release from Don Lemon, Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper was a sight to behold.

everlast75

Jack1985 wrote: »

Really telling, Pfizer know who they will be working with for vaccine roll-out.

https://twitter.com/mikememoli/status/1325788528412921857?s=20

Donny Jnr smells a rat

https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1325791542490050561?s=19

For those who metaphorically spat in the face of science, they sure are salty when they can't claim credit for it...

pixelburp

everlast75 wrote: »

Donny Jnr smells a rat

https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1325791542490050561?s=19

For those who metaphorically spat in the face of science, they sure are salty when they can't claim credit for it...

You'd think it would be tiring, being that rich and powerful yet still believing the world was arrayed against you.

Quin_Dub

everlast75 wrote: »

Donny Jnr smells a rat

https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1325791542490050561?s=19

For those who metaphorically spat in the face of science, they sure are salty when they can't claim credit for it...

I think it's all the more irritating for them that it's Pfizer that have come out first as they were not part of the much touted "Project Warp Speed" at all.

So insofar as a President can help with a vaccine , the Trump administration had absolutely no involvement in this at all.

Manic Moran

moon2 wrote: »

As with all things, population growth and time have strained things. The US allocation could do with a review.

It's getting one. The Congressional respresentation (and thus electoral college votes) get redone after every census, which is every ten years.

It's been theorised for a while that with the emigration from California that it will lost one Congressional seat and thus one EC vote, from 55 to 54. It seems now that this is, indeed, likely.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/01/03/california-lose-congressional-seat-reapportionment-2020-census/

California is likely to lose a congressional seat for the first time in history after this year’s Census, with the state’s slowing growth rate trimming its political clout, according to an analysis of new population data released this week.

The projected drop from 53 to 52 seats in the House of Representatives will lead to a reshuffling of the state’s political map, and potentially divisive congressional races between incumbents in 2022. It will also shape presidential politics, as California loses one of its votes in the electoral college and other states like Texas are expected to gain as many as three new seats.

To use the language of economics every vote that a candidate gets in excess of a 1-vote win is wasted. This is because any extra votes beyond that in a particular state are not helping the candidate obtain any additional electoral college votes.

The State has already been won. Since the States are voting for their President, it doesn't matter how much excess there was or was not. There is an argument for a splitting of a state's vote like Maine and Nebraska, but the chances of the big States doing this are negligible. It's just not in the interest of the dominant party of the State.

~Rebel~ wrote: »

You're right that it takes away one aspect of a states power - but ultimately it feels like the Presidency has evolved to become a position that is the will of the people rather than the will of the distinct states.

The President used to regulate the states, which in turn had the autonomy to regulate their people - but things have changed, and the President has a far more direct relationship with the public now. And he is also their direct representative within a global market, which in the modern world of people working for multi-national businesses, and even small companies trading on a global scale, means much more than it used to. So I think the vote should change to reflect those realities.

This is all true, but the President has always been tasked with foreign relations, it's not a new concept. It's about the only tasking specifically called out in the Constitution, and until under a century ago, the only significant Federal expenditure was defence (Which at the time was heavily oriented around protecting foreign commerce). I'm not sure he has much more of a direct relationship with the public, though: Most of my daily issues are still regulated by the State, not Congress, and there are still plenty of folks in 'conservative' states who don't want the President to get involved with the domestic public, the folks who know off the top of their head what the Tenth Amendment says. If Californians want mandatory healthcare, to ban guns, or whatever, a Wyomingite will tell them to go do whatever they want, they don't care. They will not like, however, Californians telling Wyomingites what's good for them and how to live their lives, which is a significant reason why they will be adamant about not reducing their leverage in Presidential elections.