2020 Election Thread!!!!!!!!!

[Dr Roach]

Well, do you guys think there is any possibility that say Mike Pence will be president by the 2020 elections?

 

[caketastydelish]

If Trump gets assassinated (there is a decent chance of it happening) then absolutely. Otherwise, no. You can 'impeach' Trump but the Republicans have both the senate and the house. Even if you have all the proof in the world of him doing illegal things, it's irrelevant if the majority of the senate/house are not willing to punish him for it. But it makes me wonder for the 2018 election. Not a presedential election but getting more democrats in the house and senate might at least do something.

Moderator Action: Please stop talking about assassination of US officials. You've made several posts over the weeks about this, and while you're not advocating for it you're certainly bringing a lot of inappropriate attention to the idea. - Vincour
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Ajidica]

Well, do you guys think there is any possibility that say Mike Pence will be president by the 2020 elections?

His Trumpiness will be around in 2020 unless something really major comes out of the Russia investigations. I'm fully expecting Mueller to find strong indications Trump's fraudulent enterprises business activities were involved in money laundering with Deutsche Bank and shady Eastern European oligarchs* but nothing quite firm enough to prevent Trump from playing the "innocence through stupidity" card. He'll claim he was just handling the branding and big-picture thinking while throwing his sons (or just Eric) under the bus.

*Deutsche Bank has already been fined heavily for engaging in money laundering with Russians.

 

[danjuno]

I'd throw Eric under an actual bus if he was my son.

 

[onejayhawk]

His Trumpiness will be around in 2020 unless something really major comes out of the Russia investigations. I'm fully expecting Mueller to find strong indications Trump's fraudulent enterprises business activities were involved in money laundering with Deutsche Bank and shady Eastern European oligarchs* but nothing quite firm enough to prevent Trump from playing the "innocence through stupidity" card. He'll claim he was just handling the branding and big-picture thinking while throwing his sons (or just Eric) under the bus.

*Deutsche Bank has already been fined heavily for engaging in money laundering with Russians.

Assuming he wants to run. I doubt that.

J

 

[FriendlyFire]

Assuming he wants to run. I doubt that. J

Come on Every 8 years you can have a new Trump presidency, Ivank Trump, Eric Trump and so on
YES WE CAN !

 

[onejayhawk]

Come on Every 8 years you can have a new Trump presidency, Ivank Trump, Eric Trump and so on
YES WE CAN !

Considering the alternative is likely to be Cruz, I understand. Still, even an Ivanka Presidency would be better than a Chelsea Presidency.

J

 

[danjuno]

I'd rather move to North Korea than be faced with another Clinton v. Trump.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Openly siding with nazis. Trying to get Muslims banned from their own country. Trying to rewrite the laws in sexual assault court cases, removing good measures that make it illegal for the defense to bring up how many people the victim as slept with. That is one very specific example, but he has done tons of things of this nature which are trying to reverse social progress. It does not appear he was really serious about helping ordinary, blue collar whites even, so he definitely doesn't care about anyone else. Trying to ban transgender soldiers from the military. Refusing to sign the Paris environment/green deal. I could really be here till the cows come home.

You don't need to be lectured about it now, because you've come over to our view, but it was anticipating these kinds of things out of Trump that made those of us who were willing to support Hillary as the lesser evil willing to do so. But thanks, in any case, for spelling out the things that have proved meaningful to you.

 

[Martin Alvito]

The not-for-profit media that we have has the same problem with artificial "fairness" that directs its coverage. It's not so much that for-profit media is awesome, as it is the alternatives seem no better, or worse. The profit motive isn't the primary offender here; nobody was worse at covering the election than the New York Times, and the reason why is not because they were trying to sell more papers.

While Lexicus has a point that sensationalism sells, I tend to agree that the commitment to "fairness" was a more substantial problem in the election. If the news media broadly (for-profit or otherwise) had seen fit to hold Trump up as an object of ridicule (like they would treat, say, a neo-Nazi) rather than effectively legitimizing him through treating him in a "fair" manner, then I think Trump loses.

Now, before you say, "But the late-night media ridiculed Trump!" it is important to realize that they do that to everybody. If you're at all conversant with US Civil War history - imagine what they would have said about Lincoln at the time. Or Churchill in 1940, if you're from that part of the world.

Losing Carson wasn't what troubled Johnson. It was losing Cronkite that mattered. Sure, no one (except possibly the Fox slice of the electorate) trusts any given outlet the way people trusted Cronkite, but if you believe Zaller's model of political survey response (which remains the gold standard) then the signals the more centrist outlets send do matter.

Where the profit motive becomes a substantial problem is in editorial decisions about what to run as a story. For example, in the health care debate in the United States, you almost never hear about the huge inefficiencies that private insurers introduce into the system because they fully participate in the benefits of finding excuses to deny care but do not fully participate in the administrative expenses associated with those systems (which are partially borne by doctors/hospitals and state regulators). The insane result is that (per the NYT), between people the insurer employs to deny things and people that doctors employ to get necessary care approved (and legitimate claims paid), there are TEN people employed by the US health care system for every doctor that sees patients. TEN.

Another good example is the recent, multi-billion dollar Medicare Advantage fraud perpetrated by United Healthcare that DOJ sued them over - unless you read print media, you didn't hear about it. That's in part because the story is somewhat complex, but you might also have noticed a recent series of television ads on the major networks run by United's Optum subsidiary. If you think that the two aren't related, then you're naive.

Money talks. Sometimes, it even does it with Brian Johnson's voice. Though in the wake of Citizens United, it generally tends to speak with a more subtle and insidious voice. It's more like the Anthony Hopkins portrayal of Hannibal Lecter than Brian Johnson's frog-croak-crossed-with-a-stepped-on-cat. (And I'm a fan wearing the Back In Black concert shirt at the moment to prove it, if you're wondering.)

 

[Lexicus]

While Lexicus has a point that sensationalism sells, I tend to agree that the commitment to "fairness" was a more substantial problem in the election. If the news media broadly (for-profit or otherwise) had seen fit to hold Trump up as an object of ridicule (like they would treat, say, a neo-Nazi) rather than effectively legitimizing him through treating him in a "fair" manner, then I think Trump loses.

Now, before you say, "But the late-night media ridiculed Trump!" it is important to realize that they do that to everybody. If you're at all conversant with US Civil War history - imagine what they would have said about Lincoln at the time. Or Churchill in 1940, if you're from that part of the world.

The normal, not late-night media did this to Trump too, as far as I can tell. It only helped him by playing into the "mainstream media is the propaganda arm of the establishment that hates me" narrative. In my opinion the best thing for the media to do would have been to largely ignore Trump, but that was never going to happen.

 

[Sommerswerd]

And its still the best thing... as I have mentioned before... but as you say, it wont happen. Everyone luvs talking about Trump... Just look at us here on CFC... we can't get enough Trump talk. The media would be fools to ignore him. The man simply commands eyeballs and clicks... eyeballs and clicks... that's all there is to it.

 

[caketastydelish]

It's one thing to talk about him now since he is obviously the President. However, they gave him far too much coverage even in the earliest parts of his campaign.

 

[Hamilton321]

If someone didn't vote for you, that is your fault for not voting for you, not their fault for failing to see how great you are.

Something Mitt Romney never learned

 

[caketastydelish]

There's never been a shortage of sore losers from both the Republicans and the Democrats, and for politicians of all kinds for that matter.

 

[Hamilton321]

I'm fully expecting Mueller to find strong indications Trump's fraudulent enterprises business activities were involved in money laundering with Deutsche Bank and shady Eastern European oligarchs* but nothing quite firm enough to prevent Trump from playing the "innocence through stupidity" card.

Its a very effective card, just ask Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan.

 

[Ajidica]

Gah, Reagan's entire presidency was "innocence through stupidity".

 

[caketastydelish]

He had Alzheimer's literally while in office. Or were you referring to something else?

 

[Ajidica]

He had Alzheimer's literally while in office. Or were you referring to something else?

A whole bunch of stuff, with him playing up the "Aw Shucks Cowboy" shtick while skipping down the paths to nuclear war, complete disregard for decency in foreign policy, selling out the country to financial interests, systematically destroying labor protections, and actively promoting a conservative Christian morality in the face of the AIDS epidemic and the advice of his Surgeon-General.

The best single example for me is the Iran-Contra affair. Dingbats in the NSC decided to bribe work with Iran by shipping them arms (while Iran was under an arms embargo) to try and 'keep contacts open' and some pie-in-the-sky nonsense involving Iran maybe getting involved in Lebanon. That's all standard US silliness. Then this group in the NSC decided to directly and knowingly violate the Boland Amendment which prohibited the funding of the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. The NSC realized that since they weren't supposed to be selling weapons to Iran, they had this cash off the books Congress didn't know about, and decided to funnel it to the Contras.
Reagan initially denied it in an so-specific-as-to-be-admitting it way, saying we didn't trade arms for hostages. Something which was correct as we didn't get any of the hostages in Lebanon back. Then as more information came out about it, Reagan blithely ignored the Contra aspect in his statements and said asinine stuff like "My heart tells me it didn't happen, but the facts tell me it did." That gives His Trumpiness a run for his money for sheer nonsense. But Reagan ratcheted up the charm and "Oooh boy, I'm just trying to keep Americans safe and fight communism" and most people have either forgotten it occurred or forgot the sheer implications it had for US law and government.
Furthermore, we have two options for what happened:
1) Reagan knowingly approved a NSC operation that directly and knowingly violated US law -the Boland Amendment. The Boland Amendment wasn't some ancient law every forgot about, like the Logan Act. It was passed in various forms in 1982/83/84 which specifically denied the US government from funding the Contras. If that isn't grounds for impeachment I don't know what is.
2) Reagan had no idea what his NSC was doing, either because the NSC was acting without his input or he was too detached to care. Either of those is grounds for removal from office under the 25th Amendment and potential disbandment/bottom to top shake up of the NSC.

 

[Hamilton321]

I would like to go back to talking about future elections and say something about 2018, I think it will be a very unpredictable year, we have a unpopular president and congress on one side, but also lingering anger from the right at the Democrat establishment. Very important election for both sides, lots of governorships up, dems need those if they want any chance of blocking Trump's immigration agenda, plus whoever has the governors going into 2020 will have influence over the census.

The other thing is the congress, a lot of dem senators who are aging, yet have not yet experienced a tough election, who are also in the states that Trump flipped in 2016, we'll see how that goes. This is the first time in twenty years since it was plausible that the Republicans could gain 3/5 control of the senate, I wouldn't worry about that though as the party of elephants will likely fumble just like they did back then. Control of the house will almost certainly depend on 3 things: I how unified the Republican party is, II How well Trump and the Republicans handle hurricane relief efforts, III how well the economy is doing.

I personally think that Russia investigation will not be a major factor as the quest to dig up information of Russia/Trump collusion seems to have largely run aground. I think that most dems both at the top and at the bottom go in to 2018 and 2020 too confident and reckless and not focused or worried enough, I think everyone should always be at least a little worried and very focused when going into such important elections.