Election 2020

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fbmf
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Election 2020

Post by fbmf »

Lago wrote:Just reminding people that the world is melting down and the old days of politically neutral* snark ain't never coming back. Maybe they'll return in a different form if something rises from the ashes of the liberal-conservative consensus. But I hope you enjoyed the old days of riffing on WH40K and Shitmuffin, because the conditions that led rise to those salad days are pemanently over -- even if WotC comes out with a 6E D&D.
This resonated with me. I've re-read it several times. But it bothers me that this is the first presidential election since 2004 where there has been no discussion of the election on TGDMB. As previously discussed, I'm willing to try a soft re open of politics after election day. I want to start with a discussion of election results.

If there is no interest or if it spirals out of control* I'll shut it down because, also as previously discussed, I have neither the time or the energy to moderate that closely.

*-Yes, I realize that this is probably inviting disaster.

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Post by The Adventurer's Almanac »

Nobody can bitch at me for not voting this time around. As predicted, Texas went fully Trump and my vote was completely worthless, but hey, maybe the Greens will have better luck next time. (They won't)

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Post by Thaluikhain »

Kanye West seems to have gotten about 60,000 votes.

While I'm glad he's rather unlikely to win, sorta feel a bit sorry for him. Not the lack of votes, though, just in general.
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Post by fbmf »

Came across this while looking at individual state results. Apparently it is only a thing in Nevada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/None_of_These_Candidates

Game On,
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Post by Kaelik »

The seeming most likely outcome appears to be Biden presidency and two run offs in Georgia for two seats that if the dems win both will pull them up to 50 in the Senate.

What this probably means is that Joe Biden will sit down and negotiate his cabinet with Mitch McConnell and that Joe Biden being president will be actually worse than if the office sat empty for four years because his admin staff are all going to be the worst possible person for each position.

What he could do instead is just appoint a bunch of acting/recess appointments and tell McConnell to suck it. But I seriously doubt that will happen.

Georgia runoffs are insanely important now in giving democrats even the minimum ability to run a government at all.

Also we are sitting theoretically in the point where Arizona or Nevada could end up going for Trump and making Trump president in which case oops fucked, but probably they won't and it seems pretty likely now that PA and maybe Georgia will go Biden.


EDIT: Re: the Green Party. I think while it's obviously true that the Democrats have been a dumpster fire of terrible causing untold terror and pain to the people by both their incompetence at beating the republicans and their ideological commitment to avoid doing good things and to do bad things, it should also be obviously true that the Green Party has been able to do absolutely nothing even close to providing an alternative path to power or influencing democrats. Bernie Sanders 2016 primary runs spurring DSA and Justice Democrat organizations to new heights and the work they have done in getting some actual good democrats into office over bad ones has done more in 4 years than the Green Party has in 30. To the extent the question existed about co-opt vs oppose it seems to have been answered.
Last edited by Kaelik on Thu Nov 05, 2020 4:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Pseudo Stupidity »

This appears to be a very bad election. Like sure, Biden wins, but the Democratic lead in the House is going to be super narrow and the Democrats will probably not get the Senate. I'm not confident they'll even tie it up, making the VP a nonfactor.

Biden is going to preside over an economic crash and the rest of COVID-19, doing virtually nothing to help anyone, and then the Democrats are going to get trounced in elections for the next 4 years. Biden needed a resounding victory and to get the Senate to be a remotely effective (for Biden, not for people who actually want to see progress) president and he's not going to get it.

All in all I'm excited for 4 years of nothing getting better and everything getting worse. Let's do it folks, we are on track for 2020 not even being the worst year of this decade.


Edit: At least we'll be able to bitch about it on TGDMB, it was cool to reopen politics fbmf.
Last edited by Pseudo Stupidity on Thu Nov 05, 2020 4:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Shatner »

Glad to see political discourse creeping back into the Den. I've missed it... Though I do wish the election being discussed were going otherwise.

It really does look like Biden's gonna win this thing (though how things'll shape up in the House and Senate has yet to be determined, as if this weren't enough of a nail-biter already), but the biggest concern I've got is the Trump camp's response to losing. The bids for ending vote counting and recounts that I'm aware of have, thus far, fallen flat. But the fact is that if this can, somehow, be dragged before the Supreme Court then it seems like things are gonna go sideways in a hurry.

Also, violence. Again, I haven't heard anything substantive on that front as well, but I can't be the only person braced for news of politically-motivated domestic terrorism happening somewhere.

Texas keeps getting more purple (52.2% R vs. 46.3% D as of the time of this posting), but we ain't a proper swing state yet. Still, per the image below, that ratio keeps leveling out.

Image
Source

Anyway, back to self-imposed news isolation. I treat it like taking Tylenol: no more than one dose every couple of hours. Though it tends to have the opposite effect regarding headaches.
Last edited by Shatner on Thu Nov 05, 2020 8:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by PhoneLobster »

You can call this election what you like, but the promised big wave win for the democrats it definitely isn't.

It's almost like the incompetent democrat leadership that are the same people from 2016 using the same tactics as 2016 completely failed again in almost the exact same way but more so and the only single thing that means they MIGHT eek out a bare victory. IF they have the spine to stand up to Republicans in the courts (historically they do not). Was covid. Without Covid this probably would have been a sweeping Trump victory.

Aside from that I say it proves my theory that the death of the republican party by demographic changes was ALWAYS a neoliberal shill lie to keep the left quiet. And that the proof of that is here now that the demographics and the turn outs have arrived and NOT sided with the party that not only demanded their votes while it offered them nothing but explicitly and repeatedly spat in their faces instead.

Biden winning was never going to be good for anyone regardless of getting rid of Trump. But him "winning" like this is the worst outcome possible. IF he even manages to win. And it's all his fault, all the fault of the fuckers that stole it from Sanders, again, and more blatantly, and yeah. In the end we can look at this mess you guys are producing this month and once again say.

"Thanks Obama".
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Post by JourneymanN00b »

Yep yep yep. I still think Biden is going to win, but Bernie would have won by a bigger margin AND gotten the Senate for us.

And to everyone who thinks Trump would have blown Bernie out in Florida, I got news for you: Florida is not a swing state anymore. It is firmly a red state. That has been obvious for the past several years now.

Bernie should have been the Democratic nominee. PERIOD. He would have gotten a lot more Hispanic support in the general election, which would have given the Democrats much better margins in quite a few races down the ballot.
Last edited by JourneymanN00b on Fri Nov 06, 2020 4:00 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

Keys to the Presidency 2024:
(assuming Biden wins after the 2020 lawsuits settle and the republic endures another 4 years)

Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.

This will be false. The midterms will go against the party of the sitting president. Especially so given the likely course of Covid and the economy over the next two years.

Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.

This is probably false.

Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.

This will likely be true.

Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.

This will probably be true.

Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.

Who the fuck knows when the big one is gonna hit? Completely unknown.

Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.

Given Covid's now-inevitable continuation throughout the whole of 2021 and the inevitable boil-up of the K-shaped recovery to the Stonk Market, this will be false.

Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.

With McConnel breathing? Hells no.

Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.

This is likely to be false

Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.

Unknown.

Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.

Unknown.

Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.

Unknown.

Incumbent (party) charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.

Okay, these last two are waffle questions that let Lichtman retcon his system to fit historical facts. But few will catrgorize Biden as either.

Challenger (party) charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

Again, bullshit key, but this one is unknown.

**********************************************************

So any whiff of scandal, drawn out protests, or the market correction hitting in the election year mean that Cruz or Ivanka wins in four years.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Fri Nov 06, 2020 6:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Blade »

- Armed people threatening citizen trying to vote against the regime.
- A few days after the elections both main candidates say they're winning.
- International observers calling out fraud the behavior of the president.
- Current leader barricading himself in the presidential palace.

Well, after all the US is a former European colony.
Last edited by Blade on Fri Nov 06, 2020 2:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Kaelik »

Absolutely bullshit sentence fragment: "international observers calling out fraud."

Our election system is a pile of fucking garbage and people in power regularly cheat in lots of ways at elections, but a) the vast majority are open and b) none of them involve fraudulent ballots. c) This sentence seems specifically designed to imply that Trump's whining is justified, which it of course is not.



Biden ahead now in Georgia and PA as well, PA called, so but for a very explicit level of bullshit in the courts this part is over.

But yes, Biden's absolutely cratering of support amongst Latinos shows that contrary to everything the Democratic Party has acted on for 30 years running as a republican with a D in front of your name does in fact come at some cost amongst people who could be part of your base if you given them literally any evidence that you are going to materially improve their lives. Joe Biden took more white men votes in the suburbs and rural areas than any other democrat could ever expect with a campaign solely and exclusively devoted to campaign explicitly to those republicans, but instead of making him the most electable candidate ever it made him barely capable of squeaking out wins because of suppressed and diverted Latino and Black Vote. Trump did better as a percentage with every single demographic than he did in 2016 except white men, especially the Latino vote.

Meanwhile, in Florida 60% voted for a $15 minimum wage ballot initiative that Democratic Party of Florida refused to support because their donors didn't like it and nationally 73% of voters supported a Government Run Healthcare Plan. The lessons the Democratic party officials are taking is that they need to be more anti-trans and more racist and more pro cop, because they are really bad at this, but one lesson might be that if you center your campaign on helping people by making their life better instead of playing from a defensive crouch and defending yourself from Republican attacks by swearing up and down that you won't help anyone and hardly anyone will get to use your Public Option and you love cops shooting people, you might build you base.

And maybe your base will even elect Democratic Senators so you can do the things you promise, instead of splitting ticket because they are republican white men in the suburbs who have no reason to give you a legislative majority to pass anything.
Last edited by Kaelik on Fri Nov 06, 2020 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Grek »

Biden is going to have a hell of a time in his first year in office, trying to get a meaningful Covid-19 response together, figuring out how to rescind the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (AKA: Republican ratfuckery which cuts taxes during Trump's term but has baked in tax spikes for the poor once Biden takes office), dismantling the concentration camps on the border and undoing all of the diplomatic damage that Trump did. Let alone trying to do something about healthcare or police reform. The big question at this point isn't whether Biden wins, it's whether we see two more years of McConnell successfully keeping the Senate from accomplishing anything.
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Post by Blade »

My choice of words was bad. The international observers I had in mind was the OSCE criticizing Trump's interventions, which is different from fraud, I'll fix that.
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Post by Kaelik »

Grek wrote:Biden is going to have a hell of a time in his first year in office, trying to get a meaningful Covid-19 response together, figuring out how to rescind the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (AKA: Republican ratfuckery which cuts taxes during Trump's term but has baked in tax spikes for the poor once Biden takes office), dismantling the concentration camps on the border and undoing all of the diplomatic damage that Trump did. Let alone trying to do something about healthcare or police reform. The big question at this point isn't whether Biden wins, it's whether we see two more years of McConnell successfully keeping the Senate from accomplishing anything.
Important to create the distinctions between:

a) Things Biden wants to do but can't because of the republican senate, like COVID-19 response.

b) Things Biden doesn't want to do but would be stopped by republicans (repeal the tax cuts).

c) Things republicans can't really stop Biden from doing, but he won't do anyway: dismantle the concentration camps, stop using the military to carry out persistent wars and the CIA to do coups on democratically elected governments while supporting apartheid and dictatorships.

Probably best to focus pressure on the things in C, since they are at least theoretically possible, even if they won't happen because Biden explicitly opposes them.
Last edited by Kaelik on Fri Nov 06, 2020 2:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Grek »

I'm pretty sure that Biden would like to repeal the tax cuts, if only for realpolitik reasons not not pissing off voters.
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Post by Kaelik »

Grek wrote:I'm pretty sure that Biden would like to repeal the tax cuts, if only for realpolitik reasons not not pissing off voters.
He promised on multiple occasions that he would not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400k a year and his official website showed a tax plan that 1) didn't increase taxes on anyone making less than $400k, which definitely means not repealing the tax cuts for the vast majority of all people and 2) Raised the top corporate tax rate to 28% (It was 35% under Obama and Trump lowered it to 25%).

So if Joe Biden wants to repeal Trump's tax cuts someone should tell him and his staff that because his entire campaign including his own statements were premised on him not doing that.

Which is to say, it's almost like while republicans control the senate and no legislation can be passed, the specific tax policies of the primary candidates don't matter, but the actual person the democratic party choose was so much of a right wing asshole that he thought Obama's tax rates were too high and it is important to cement in most of the tax cuts of the Trump admin because centrist democrats are monstrous cowards who can't do even the most basic good political work of reversing republican monstrosity, instead choosing to legitimize the work of republican administrations by keeping most of their tax cuts every time.

EDIT: And to be clear, Biden is worse in basically all respects the same amount or more, including the ones he actually does have control over without a Republican Senate, like his promise to coup Venezuela better than Trump did.
Last edited by Kaelik on Fri Nov 06, 2020 4:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
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Post by Grek »

Biden promised two things: no tax increases on anyone making less than $400k and increased corporate income taxes. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has tax increases on the poor scheduled to happen once Biden takes office (technically cuts expiring, but call a spade a spade)and a permanent tax break for corporations. On purpose, so that McConnell could crow about Biden breaking promises and raising taxes in 2022.

Biden obviously does not want this to happen. He would very much like for the Senate to repeal the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and replace it with his own tax plan that doesn't have the baked in tax increases on the poor for him to get blamed for. I will agree that Biden probably doesn't actually want to go through with the 'raise taxes on corporations' half of the equation (it'd piss off donors), but it's already in his tax plan and he's already taken most of the lumps for it already. He'd be quietly relieved when that half of his tax plan dies in the Senate, for sure, but I don't think he'd lose sleep over it if he actually got the Senate to abolish some corporate tax cuts. The thing he'll actually be worried about is the tax ratfuckery that McConnell is going to try to pin on him during the mid terms, as was always the Republican plan from day one.
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Post by ...You Lost Me »

I'm actually skeptical that Biden's struggles here are the result of over-appealing to white Republicans. It looks like some of the Dems biggest losses, particularly re:latinos, were associated with social conservative issues.
  • States like Florida indicate a shift towards socially conservative and fiscally liberal. That group favored Trump in 2016, and they see to do the same now.
  • One of the biggest surprises in Florida was how strong the pro-Trump Cuban vote was in Miami-Dade, an area known specifically for disliking communism that has been shifting towards Trump because they consider Biden part of the radical left.
  • Latino evangelicals are pro-lifers, and their share of the latino population in the US is increasing relative to catholics (page 62), the consistent Dem-voting religion. Winning these voters off of their left-leaning beliefs means somehow compromising with their evangelical social beliefs, i.e. having a more socially conservative platform.
  • Other non-white groups like Chaldeans swing towards Trump because they blamed Obama for the rise in ICE, and because of his conservative policies. The only thing that pushed Chaldeans to the left was the fact that Trump's shitty deportation policies broke up Chaldean families. Imagine living in a community where everyone knows someone who was deported in the last 4 years... and that group might still vote Trump. That is how entrenched these ideologies are.
  • Biden's nationwide results are better than the results for the house. That means there are Republican holdouts who don't want Trump, but do want Republican control of the government. That overlap is also pronounced in states likes Pennsylvania which are ~80% white and split very tightly on abortion.
I absolutely hate that I'm about to write this: Looking at results from 2020, I think Democrats have to go further to the right to get meaningful wins. Specifically, they need to move to the right on social issues.

These are also reasons that I am deeply skeptical about a Sanders victory, particularly a Sanders victory that also somehow gets us the senate. Sanders would run a platform where Trump's primary rhetoric ("radical left") lands better, and his lack of coalition-building means he won't have as much institutional support. Like if you think the establishment Democrats stole the primary from Sanders, how on earth do you think his campaign would survive 2 years of pre-election resistance from the governors of 50-odd states? The institutional resistance would be bipartisan and devastating. Also, here's a relevant meme.
DSMatticus wrote:Again, look at this fucking map you moron. Take your finger and trace each country's coast, then trace its claim line. Even you - and I say that as someone who could not think less of your intelligence - should be able to tell that one of these things is not like the other.
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Post by Kaelik »

Grek wrote:Biden promised two things: no tax increases on anyone making less than $400k and increased corporate income taxes. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has tax increases on the poor scheduled to happen once Biden takes office (technically cuts expiring, but call a spade a spade)and a permanent tax break for corporations. On purpose, so that McConnell could crow about Biden breaking promises and raising taxes in 2022.

Biden obviously does not want this to happen. He would very much like for the Senate to repeal the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and replace it with his own tax plan that doesn't have the baked in tax increases on the poor for him to get blamed for. I will agree that Biden probably doesn't actually want to go through with the 'raise taxes on corporations' half of the equation (it'd piss off donors), but it's already in his tax plan and he's already taken most of the lumps for it already. He'd be quietly relieved when that half of his tax plan dies in the Senate, for sure, but I don't think he'd lose sleep over it if he actually got the Senate to abolish some corporate tax cuts. The thing he'll actually be worried about is the tax ratfuckery that McConnell is going to try to pin on him during the mid terms, as was always the Republican plan from day one.
Again, his actual plan is to raise the top corporate tax rate 3% after it was cut 10% because he does not believe it is his job to reverse Trump's tax cuts, he believes it is his job to only undo 1/3rd of Trump's tax cuts.

The tax cuts Trump passed expire in 2025, not right now. Biden's plan would also not raise taxes on anyone from the 82,501 threshhold to the 424,950 threshhold who repealing the act would also increase taxes on (there is on bracket, $157-195 that actually had a tax increase from the Trump tax plan so straight repeal would lower their taxes, but Biden also won't raise taxes on them) and should also have their taxes increase a) Above Obama rates, and b) surely at least to Obama rates which is what repealing the Trump tax bill would do.

Joe Biden does not want to repeal Trump's tax cuts on either corporations or individuals. He wants to raise taxes slightly on the highest corporate rate, but not to Obama levels, keeping most of Trump's tax cuts, and he wants to raise taxes only on people making more than $400k cementing Trump's tax cuts for everyone else. This is just flatly not "repealing Trump's tax cuts." It would be repealing Trump's tax cuts to raise taxes to their Obama levels, a thing Biden explicitly does not want to do.
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The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

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Post by Kaelik »

...You Lost Me wrote:I'm actually skeptical that Biden's struggles here are the result of over-appealing to white Republicans. It looks like some of the Dems biggest losses, particularly re:latinos, were associated with social conservative issues.
When a county that goes for Clinton by 60 points in 2016 goes for Biden by 8 points in 2020 it isn't just that they are socially conservative. It is that they have ALWAYS been socially conservative but voted Democrat anyway because the democratic party is the one that promised them something else they wanted. But if both parties promise you nearly identical economic and immigration and foreign policy platforms, you are much more likely to vote on your social conservatism or not vote.
...You Lost Me wrote:Biden's nationwide results are better than the results for the house. That means there are Republican holdouts who don't want Trump, but do want Republican control of the government. That overlap is also pronounced in states likes Pennsylvania which are ~80% white and split very tightly on abortion.
Same here. This is the expected outcome when you hard focus your campaign on republicans with messages about Trump's unfitness (which Covid attacks that pretend he's different from other republicans and uniquely bad with COVID are) or indecency.

You bring more white dude suburban republican voters to Biden but alienate your base. And the result is that when those white dude suburban voters vote, they ticket split and you lose down ballot.
Last edited by Kaelik on Fri Nov 06, 2020 4:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by ...You Lost Me »

Good points.

I at least thought that Florida lined up with Biden's economic plan, which was strange. They voted for a $15/hr minimum wage, but then voted against the guy who included that in his campaign promises.
DSMatticus wrote:Again, look at this fucking map you moron. Take your finger and trace each country's coast, then trace its claim line. Even you - and I say that as someone who could not think less of your intelligence - should be able to tell that one of these things is not like the other.
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Post by Kaelik »

...You Lost Me wrote:Good points.

I at least thought that Florida lined up with Biden's economic plan, which was strange. They voted for a $15/hr minimum wage, but then voted against the guy who included that in his campaign promises.
Lots of factors impossible to ever know exactly but I think this mostly comes down to "people dont know what politicians policies are, they know how someone feels and what they are told" a certain amount of "what they are told" is fox news stuff that we can never change but for example joe biden selected Anna Navaro a republican proud contra daughter as his latino outreach in florida and the democratic party of florida refused to support the 15 dollar minimum wage.

So people probably didnt hear as much about the 15 dollar minimum wage from bidens own picked campaign spokespeople or the state democratic party. And bidens national coverage was one debate question where he said $15 minimum wage and 500 times he said that black lives should be shot in the leg. Part of that is bidens fault because he is really bad at redirecting the conversation and that could be fixed by another candidate but part of that is that MSNBC and cnn hate good economic policies and exist solely to push to democrats to the right on every issue.

It's certainly an uphill battle to convey the good parts of the democratic party platform but joe Biden's own decisions about his own surrogates and the state democratic party sure arent helping.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
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Post by PhoneLobster »

Biden could have repeated "15 dollar minimum wage" every time he opened his mouth if he wanted to. That sort of tactic is bog standard politics it works.

He could have ran hard on that one policy.

He didn't.

It wasn't because it was too hard (I mean yes, he and his campaign are so damn LAZY but still). It wasn't they felt they had a better way of selling the campaign (they certainly didn't present one).

They kept quiet about the 15 dollar minimum wage because it was an obviously fake policy they never intended to implement that was only there so they could point anyone to the left of Ronald Reagan to an obscure document on the internet to make them shut up.

It's transparent babies first political lie stuff. Falling for that sort of obvious misdirection is neo-liberal brain rot.
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Fri Nov 06, 2020 9:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by DSMatticus »

I haven't really been following this thread, don't really know who's reading, and don't really know where people are getting their information from, but the media coverage of this election has kinda sucked and as someone who has been following county by county data and building their own battleground spreadsheets since early Wednesday because I am a compulsive doomscroller who copes with anxiety by attempting to grasp some degree of control and understanding, I feel somewhat compelled to share what pretty much every analyst nerd (official or amateur) knew by Wednesday night in case you don't:

Biden is winning PA and it's not really close. He's going to take PA out of recount range, and out of the range that the "controversial" ballots could "legitimately" be thrown out and change the election.

His lead in GA is stable, and I've mostly just been wavering about whether it'd be 1k or 2k. It turns out the answer was 4k.

NV was never really that much of a doubt. We knew the remaining ballots should look good for him, but unlike PA and GA we weren't getting steady drips of them to confirm our suspicions. So we had to pretend there was a chance that Trump would just magically do well in a county he had no reason to do well in because why not? Anything is possible, it's 2020. Then the ballots started coming in and Biden's lead grew, like we all knew it would, and that was that.

The AP and Fox called AZ very early. That was fucking stupid. It was mildly annoying and irresponsible at the time, but I didn't care because it wasn't likely to determine the election at that point. It's become fucking infuriating since then. Do you know why the race hasn't been called yet? Because they called AZ and they've been scared shitless that they'll need to retract it. That's it. They are scared of having to call PA, which calls the election, then immediately retract AZ, and then convince everyone that "well, Biden's still over 270, and we definitely won't have to retract PA, you can believe us!" That's it. That's why they're still on television pretending this shitshow isn't over. And the ultimate effect of not calling the race for Biden is to give the Supreme Court more room to toss out ballots without appearing to "change the outcome" and in this environment that's simply irresponsible. It's especially irresponsible now that the Maricopa ballots are coming in and Trump isn't winning them by enough to catch up. The AZ call is likely to hold.

The Supreme Court can do anything it wants, obviously, but it would be a very blatant coup at this point. And if they'd just fucking call the election, maybe people would understand better if it happens that it is, in fact, a fucking coup. A lot of the people I'm talking to didn't even seem to know Biden had PA on lock until shortly before that victory speech that everyone had to pretend wasn't a victory speech. I think even the Biden campaign is surprised at this point. To give you an idea of how exasperated people behind the scenes are with the media right now, there was yet another drop of ballots in PA that went 90% Biden, and Biden's Pennsylvania campaign director had one response on Twitter: "lol". That's where everyone is at right now. It's like watching the New Year's Eve Times Square countdown hit zero and just keep going as the ball slowly sinks into the earth. "-1, -2, -3..." This is simply unbelievable.

I have exactly zero energy to consider the next four years. They suck, but they suck less than they could have. Conversation over.
Last edited by DSMatticus on Sat Nov 07, 2020 5:12 am, edited 3 times in total.
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