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

josip

How hard do you have to try, to find someone less appealing than Mitch McConnell?

Water John

josip wrote: »

How hard do you have to try, to find someone less appealing than Mitch McConnell?

I'll up you and give you, Ted Cruz. Just don't understand how anyone votes for them. You have Mitch wanting peoples unemployment benefit cut in return for the next Covid relief cheque.

TomOnBoard

josip wrote: »

How hard do you have to try, to find someone less appealing than Mitch McConnell?

A lad from Michigan said to me before 2018 mid-terms: "Mc Connell is a pig.. But like all pigs, when he goes back to Kentucky, he brings home the bacon". And that's Mc Connell in a nutshell- he wont win beauty contests, nor is he particularly charismatic/popular, but he is very effective...

Itssoeasy

josip wrote: »

How hard do you have to try, to find someone less appealing than Mitch McConnell?

What deal with whatever higher being did the great state of Kentucky do to have McConnell and rand Paul. McConnell it seems at least in the past before trump wasn’t a complete eijit, but rand Paul has no such excuse.

jamule

The only thing they hate more than Mitch is the Dems

MJohnston

josip wrote: »

How hard do you have to try, to find someone less appealing than Mitch McConnell?

The only senator with consistently worse approval ratings is safely re-elected Susan Collins! Approval ratings are weird!

Rjd2

MJohnston wrote: »

The only senator with consistently worse approval ratings is safely re-elected Susan Collins! Approval ratings are weird!

Their bull**** tbh.

Mc Connell is awful, but he is clearly popular in Kentucky or he wouldn't win so comfortably all the time. Mc Grath was an awful candidate, the "left" version of Nikki Haley but even still she had a massive war chest and corporate media support and got walloped.

A lot of money was set on fire trying to defeat McConnell and Graham which could have been spent elsewhere.

Tell me how

Time Person of the Year jointly awarded to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Wouldn't have been my choice, Medical Staff and Dr Fauci were also on the short list.

Interesting element will be Trump having been beaten by Biden again. No doubt he'll be congratulatory when he refers to it.
Hell, given the influence he has had on the year, I would actually have given it to him ahead of the winners as it is not a popularity contest but rather who was the most influential person throughout the year.

BonnieSituation

Tell me how wrote: »

Time Person of the Year jointly awarded to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Wouldn't have been my choice, Medical Staff and Dr Fauci were also on the short list.

Interesting element will be Trump having been beaten by Biden again. No doubt he'll be congratulatory when he refers to it.
Hell, given the influence he has had on the year, I would actually have given it to him ahead of the winners as it is not a popularity contest but rather who was the most influential person throughout the year.

Biden/Harris have succeeded, before even taking office in changing the narrative and even the perception of the US in a few short weeks.

If anything they've been more influential than the Dumpster fire that preceded them.

Tell me how

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Biden/Harris have succeeded, before even taking office in changing the narrative and even the perception of the US in a few short weeks.

If anything they've been more influential than the Dumpster fire that preceded them.

If you were meeting a friend for a socially distant drink on New Years eve, and you were talking about the people who would attracted most attention this year, you'd spend 70% of the conversation talking about Trump.

Again, that doesn't mean that you'd be praising him but he attracted so much attention for 3 very distinct things; his Covid performance, his reaction to BLM protests and his campaign, defeat and subsequent post election behavior.

BonnieSituation

Tell me how wrote: »

If you were meeting a friend for a socially distant drink on New Years eve, and you were talking about the people who would attracted most attention this year, you'd spend 70% of the conversation talking about Trump.

Again, that doesn't mean that you'd be praising him but he attracted so much attention for 3 very distinct things; his Covid performance, his reaction to BLM protests and his campaign, defeat and subsequent post election behavior.

In the sense of grabbing attention you are correct, but the Persons' of the Year have in a matter of weeks neutralised him and changed the narrative. It took no time to quell the bully and as such I doubt he will be a topic of conversation at all. I know I haven't brought him up for weeks, bar the odd minor foray into his thread.

For that their influence on this year has been magnified and magnificent and the award sensible and deserved.

dogbert27

Tell me how wrote: »

If you were meeting a friend for a socially distant drink on New Years eve, and you were talking about the people who would attracted most attention this year, you'd spend 70% of the conversation talking about Trump.

Again, that doesn't mean that you'd be praising him but he attracted so much attention for 3 very distinct things; his Covid performance, his reaction to BLM protests and his campaign, defeat and subsequent post election behavior.

If you tell a narcissist they are person of the year, even for the wrong reasons, they will only see it as a positive for them.

Times Magazine was right to not feed the bad behaviour.

paul.duka

dogbert27 wrote: »

If you tell a narcissist they are person of the year, even for the wrong reasons, they will only see it as a positive for them.

Times Magazine was right to not feed the bad behaviour.

I totally agree with you, giving visibility to a narcissistic person is the worse you can do, as that is exactly what they are looking for. The strongest punishment for that kind of person is ignorance... 0 visibility... then first they get crazy, then they start feeling very weak because attacks its huge ego (no body likes me?)

MJohnston

It's a strange choice. Time have given person of the year to generic groups before, like persecuted journalists, people who spoke out during #MeToo, and famously "You" back in 2006.

I would definitely have given it to something like frontline workers.

Christy42

MJohnston wrote: »

It's a strange choice. Time have given person of the year to generic groups before, like persecuted journalists, people who spoke out during #MeToo, and famously "You" back in 2006.

I would definitely have given it to something like frontline workers.

It seems traditional for the election winner to get it. Maybe they thought it would be a bigger message if they didn't get it?

I would have given it to the front like workers myself though but I can't say it is a strange choice given the last one not to get it on winning an election was Clinton in 96 who got in 98 anyway (and had it from his 92 win as well).

FreudianSlippers

Water John wrote: »

I'll up you and give you, Ted Cruz. Just don't understand how anyone votes for them. You have Mitch wanting peoples unemployment benefit cut in return for the next Covid relief cheque.

I'd nominate Jim "Gym" Jordan as being up there with Mitch and Ted as well.

Rjd2

Tell me how wrote: »

If you were meeting a friend for a socially distant drink on New Years eve, and you were talking about the people who would attracted most attention this year, you'd spend 70% of the conversation talking about Trump.

Again, that doesn't mean that you'd be praising him but he attracted so much attention for 3 very distinct things; his Covid performance, his reaction to BLM protests and his campaign, defeat and subsequent post election behavior.

Depends on how you define the award, ultimately nobody in the world has been as consequential as Trump has been if obviously for less than ideal reasons he should have won, but probably would not have been worth the incredibly boring debate afterwards.

Probably should have given it to George Floyd tbh.

Brussels Sprout

Electoral College votes are happening from 3pm -> 8pm our time

looksee

I understand, I think, how the Electoral College works, and I understand that there can be faithless electors who do not go with the popular vote, but vote on their own preference. Many states have some sort of laws to ensure this does not happen, and electors have to vote with the popular vote, and the Supreme Court upheld this.

So why is the Electoral College needed at all? It is not unreasonable to weight the system a bit, the EU does the same thing I think to ensure that smaller countries do have a voice. So why not just automatically add up the votes that would be given to each state if electors were true to the popular vote? Am I missing something?

ancapailldorcha

looksee wrote: »

I understand, I think, how the Electoral College works, and I understand that there can be faithless electors who do not go with the popular vote, but vote on their own preference. Many states have some sort of laws to ensure this does not happen, and electors have to vote with the popular vote, and the Supreme Court upheld this.

So why is the Electoral College needed at all? It is not unreasonable to weight the system a bit, the EU does the same thing I think to ensure that smaller countries do have a voice. So why not just automatically add up the votes that would be given to each state if electors were true to the popular vote? Am I missing something?

My understanding is that it's a relic from the days of slavery where southern states wanted slaves to be weighted but not represented. The result was that every five slaves would count as three people for the purposes of adding electors, known as the three-fifths compromise.

robinph

...because it's the way they have always done it and was set out in the constitution (don't think it actually was) and because the people who wrote the constitution were infallible (they weren't) nobody should ever dispute the wording of the first version of the constitution...well except for any amendments that were subsequently made, but they were clearly always intended by the authors of the constitution and they had written them right from the start but decided not to include them for some reason at the time...but the constitution is an unchangeable document except for the changes that have been made to it.

Or something along those lines is the reason that the daftest and most complicated election system on the planet is what the USA uses.

Brussels Sprout

looksee wrote: »

So why is the Electoral College needed at all? It is not unreasonable to weight the system a bit, the EU does the same thing I think to ensure that smaller countries do have a voice. So why not just automatically add up the votes that would be given to each state if electors were true to the popular vote? Am I missing something?

There's nothing in the US Constitution saying that there needs to be a popular vote for President. The framers didn't trust that the uneducated general public wouldn't pick some populist (ha!) so they conceived of the electoral college to vote for the President directly. The idea would be that the public would vote for the electors and then the electors would have the wisdom and knowledge to choose the best candidate of their own choosing.

However, despite the framers intentions the convention quickly became what it is today, whereby the electors were voted for purely on the basis that they would vote for a specific candidate. In some states to this day it still says "Electors for candidate XYZ" on the ballot. The constitutional roots of the role are also why it is so difficult to stop "faithless electors" from exercising their own free-will when casting their votes.

Gbear

There's nothing wrong with weighting electors unequally to give smaller states more representation. You don't need a simple national majority to drastically increase the enfranchisement of 75% of voters in the country, whose votes are essentially worthless because of the state they live in.

The US isn't a single state, and just as in the EU, where countries like Ireland have a stronger voice in proportion to their population than Germany does, you need to make it worthwhile to the smaller states for them to value the Union.

The real issue is that electors aren't appointed in proportion to the votes within a state. Democrats in Kentucky, or Republicans in California may as well not bother turning up, and that's unacceptable, but if each of those states' electors were awarded in a 60/40 or 70/30 split, or however the vote breaks down, then every vote would count, but the smaller states wouldn't be totally drowned out.

looksee

At this moment the electoral college votes are 108 - 56 to Biden. Obviously Biden has won! I wonder why Trump isn't tweeting this, it seems to be the way he sees voting results?

Water John

I think the EC was an agreed compromise in 1789.
Texas had 2 faithless electors in 2016 who did not vote for Trump.

MadYaker

looksee wrote: »

I understand, I think, how the Electoral College works, and I understand that there can be faithless electors who do not go with the popular vote, but vote on their own preference. Many states have some sort of laws to ensure this does not happen, and electors have to vote with the popular vote, and the Supreme Court upheld this.

So why is the Electoral College needed at all? It is not unreasonable to weight the system a bit, the EU does the same thing I think to ensure that smaller countries do have a voice. So why not just automatically add up the votes that would be given to each state if electors were true to the popular vote? Am I missing something?

It’s because Americans are slaves to their constitution and the two party system that has evolved makes it very hard to amend it.

looksee

Biden takes it!

sliabh 1956

Trump has sacked Bill Barr the circus goes on

looksee

I'd say Barr quit. He said he would stay until he saw the axe falling - well more or less he said that. Then he would quit.

Rjd2

looksee wrote: »

I'd say Barr quit. He said he would stay until he saw the axe falling - well more or less he said that. Then he would quit.

Best for all involved really, Barr will be one of the few trump employees who won't hammer him in the next few years while in return an amicable break up means a political run if he is that way inclined won't be derailed by a bitter Trump.