2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Zardnaar]

The level of disgust with Trump is so high that states not normally associated as 'swing' may actually come into play. There are very serious senate campaigns being waged in states where the idea of a Democrat even trying was basically absurd in the recent past. For example: Mitch McConnell in Kentucky has always been far more concerned about getting primaried than about actually losing in November. The democrats who have run against him have been either vanity candidates* or resume candidates**. This year McGrath is a real candidate and is deadly serious about winning...and is polling really well currently. The damage that Trump has piled onto the Republican brand is very real, and there are very few states that are "lock red" at this point.


*Candidate knows they aren't going to win, but for the sufficiently rich saying "oh I ran for Senate" is sort of like "I did a volunteer shift down at the hospital" is for normal people. Sort of a 'look how civic minded I am, and have I got some stories' thing.
** Candidate is politically connected and could be tapped for some sort of appointment. Ran for the Senate is a good line on the resume.

Hope so. GoP seems highly vulnerable on health care atm.

Bigger, better cheaper how did that work out again?

 

[Nexlev]

I face this choice most elections, as an ornery libertarian. "You're throwing your vote away!" and "You're helping the other guy win!" are the two things I usually hear. In 2016 I didn't vote for either Trump or Clinton, they were both such miserable options to me. This election is I think the first time I've ever truly felt like one candidate was so bad that I'd vote against them with the other candidate, no matter what. And I'd vote for Biden even if I lived in Massachusetts or Wyoming, because I'm not just concerned about who wins, but by how much because a narrow victory might enable Trump to stir the pot. So yeah, for once I am on the other side of that fence, voting for the lesser of two evils.

Same. I think Trump is toast with his coronavirus response the final nail in the coffin

 

[Berzerker]

If folks want to vote third party, great, they should do so and support their candidate. I'm all for people making a positive case for who they like. I am not in favor of constant negative posting. Truth in advertising: I do violate this by being negative about Trump because he has demonstrated his lack of respect for US law and the constitution and has brought criminal elements into his administration. I am for anyone but him to be president. If the Lincoln Project ran a candidate for president, they would be better than Trump. I'd be quite happy to discuss any third party candidates. Who are they? November is an important election; the stakes are high for US citizens. Who are you going to vote for?

So only Biden supporters can criticize the other candidates but anyone criticizing Biden is a Trump supporter. I wouldn't describe Joe as someone who respects US law and the Constitution, various foreign and domestic wars he pushed exclude him from such esteemed company.

Thanks for admitting that your only real interest on internet forums is in picking fights. There's a word for that, right? Ummm...what is that word again? @Arakhor? @Lemon Merchant? What is that word for posters who just come on forums looking to cause disruptions? I'm sure you must be familiar with it and get more reminders than I do...I've forgotten...

I have many interests, shining a light on Pharisaic hypocrisy is just one of them. You guys trash talk people all the time and you accuse them of picking fights? Make your criticisms of Trump fair and accurate and I wont object, constantly smearing other people and complaining to the mods about trolling needs illumination.

 

[IglooDame]

That's the spirit. In a normal election I agree with your sentiment's.

This is not a normal election.

Indeed. It's worthwhile to remember that Hitler, Mussolini, Putin, and Chavez, for four, all were essentially dictators originally elected to their leadership positions (or to be more precise in Hitler's case at least, brought to power via democratic processes). I suspect our OT folks can name more. Trump has been saying and doing many of the same things as these four did.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So only Biden supporters can criticize the other candidates but anyone criticizing Biden is a Trump supporter. I wouldn't describe Joe as someone who respects US law and the Constitution, various foreign and domestic wars he pushed exclude him from such esteemed company.



I have many interests, shining a light on Pharisaic hypocrisy is just one of them. You guys trash talk people all the time and you accuse them of picking fights? Make your criticisms of Trump fair and accurate and I wont object, constantly smearing other people and complaining to the mods about trolling needs illumination.

I'm guessing this bit of nonsense is just furthering your attempt at picking a fight so as to disrupt the forum.

 

[Zardnaar]

Indeed. It's worthwhile to remember that Hitler, Mussolini, Putin, and Chavez, for four, all were essentially dictators originally elected to their leadership positions (or to be more precise in Hitler's case at least, brought to power via democratic processes). I suspect our OT folks can name more. Trump has been saying and doing many of the same things as these four did.

Yup, Hitler was elected as well on 33% of the vote.

 

[Berzerker]

I'm guessing this bit of nonsense is just furthering your attempt at picking a fight so as to disrupt the forum.

I dont lie about people and then complain to the mods, to me thats picking a fight.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

I face this choice most elections, as an ornery libertarian. "You're throwing your vote away!" and "You're helping the other guy win!" are the two things I usually hear. In 2016 I didn't vote for either Trump or Clinton, they were both such miserable options to me. This election is I think the first time I've ever truly felt like one candidate was so bad that I'd vote against them with the other candidate, no matter what. And I'd vote for Biden even if I lived in Massachusetts or Wyoming, because I'm not just concerned about who wins, but by how much because a narrow victory might enable Trump to stir the pot. So yeah, for once I am on the other side of that fence, voting for the lesser of two evils.

Are we watching the same news cycle? Because Republicans are literally proposing a stimulus package and cash checks for working Americans, while Democrats say we can't do that. Mitt Romney said what, like 2k per adult? And then Kamala Harris came up with "up to 500 per family" statement. Hello? Trump has also ordered an increase in medical supplies and a suspension on foreclosures and evictions. Who do you think it benefits the most, and who do you think these people will vote for in November. Trump is literally outflanking the Democrats on the economic left, and they are too craven to piss off their corporate overlords.

Trump's trade war with China was also correct in its intent to bring jobs back to America and force corporations to pull out of China, which is where Democrats sold us to. Because we are seeing right now that having all our supply chains depend on China doesn't work well in times of crisis. Even if China had the best intentions, shipping and handling alone is a significant burden, and we need medical supplies immediately.

To sum it up, Trump and the GOP are swiftly becoming a culturally right/economically left party (so think like "Build the wall! Mexicans are rapists! But let's bring the jobs back and empower the American working class"), and the Dems are culturally left/economically right (so like "First woman president!! Poor people please go die in a ditch!"). But in the end, people vote on their economic interests and not based on identity politics and cultural wokeness.

Moderator Action: Don't post trollish images. ~ Arakhor

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I dont lie about people and then complain to the mods, to me thats picking a fight.

Neither do I. You said your objective is to be "contrarian." You said that you have no interest in expressing honest opinions and just try to be as objectionable as possible wherever you go. That, in my opinion, might be the only honest thing you've ever posted.

And I didn't report you, I just wanted your admission of your objectives noted by the appropriate people so that next time you successfully lure someone into breaking the rules so you can report them they have the context.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Here is an example. My mother is a Trump supporter. She voted for Trump in 2016. I jokingly said that Trump called coronavirus a hoax, and she said she agrees with him. You know what she does for a living? A nurse. And she will happily vote for him in November. And if Trump does the right thing and comes on top of this coronavirus crisis victorious, who do you think people will for?

I know quite a few Trump supporters, and none of them faltered in their support of Trump. Just saying. But coastal liberals in their bubbles can continue believing in Biden, I guess? But I also live on the coast, and like 80% of tech workers supported Bernard. So idk even who votes for Biden.

 

[Patine]

I like your post because even if we don’t necessarily agree, we can still have a civil and friendly discussion!

Hey, that's understandable. @Birdjaguar has liked my posts several times when I've eloquently defended myself or put him in his place when he's initially tried to shut me down or smack talk me, which is amazing grace and maturity on any Internet forum.

Yeah, keep counting your chickens… We’ll see.

"All the chickens are eventually going to come to roost,"
-Malcom X (and he didn't say it like it was a good thing)

You do what you must. He would have been had the DNC, media, Obama and that SC rep. not screwed the American people over.

If only those were the only American domestic forces of power screwing over the American people - and getting away with it...

How is that a strawman? You said those forces screwed the American people. I made fun of the logistics of that notion but I did not make a straw man of the bail of hay you threw down and lit on fire.

Not all screwing over of the people, rigging elections, and corruptly serving plutocratic and other elitist masters over their constituents is done as overtly in all countries. There's different degrees.

Moderator Action: Use the Multi-Quote function in future. Thank you. ~ Arakhor

 

[IglooDame]

Are we watching the same news cycle? Because Republicans are literally proposing a stimulus package and cash checks for working Americans, while Democrats say we can't do that. Mitt Romney said what, like 2k per adult? And then Kamala Harris came up with "up to 500 per family" statement. Hello? Trump has also ordered an increase in medical supplies and a suspension on foreclosures and evictions. Who do you think it benefits the most, and who do you think these people will vote for in November. Trump is literally outflanking the Democrats on the economic left, and they are too craven to piss off their corporate overlords.

Trump's trade war with China was also correct in its intent to bring jobs back to America and force corporations to pull out of China, which is where Democrats sold us to. Because we are seeing right now that having all our supply chains depend on China doesn't work well in times of crisis. Even if China had the best intentions, shipping and handling alone is a significant burden, and we need medical supplies immediately.

To sum it up, Trump and the GOP are swiftly becoming a culturally right/economically left party (so think like "Build the wall! Mexicans are rapists! But let's bring the jobs back and empower the American working class"), and the Dems are culturally left/economically right (so like "First woman president!! Poor people please go die in a ditch!"). But in the end, people vote on their economic interests and not based on identity politics and cultural wokeness.

Policies and issues isn't really why I'm so vehemently anti-Trump. It's how he's attacking democracy itself. Starting prior to the actual 2016 election where he mused that he might not accept the results of the election if Hillary won, to the big voter fraud claims, to wanting his very own parade, to the blatant demand for kowtowing from his subordinates, to the churn of his administration until he gets his yes-men, to his regarding Twitter as official dispensation of policy/orders, to his attacks on the media in so many ways, to his favoring the word of Putin over his own intelligence agencies, to how the State and Justice department rank-and-file have been attacked as "Deep State", to his executive decisions like that of pulling out of Syria that go against the advice of every single person on his staff, to his claiming of credit for anything that goes right and denial of responsibility for anything that goes wrong, to his blatant lying over and over and over again, to... shall I go on? None of those are economic or social policy positions.

 

[Traitorfish]

To sum it up, Trump and the GOP are swiftly becoming a culturally right/economically left party (so think like "Build the wall! Mexicans are rapists! But let's bring the jobs back and empower the American working class"), and the Dems are culturally left/economically right (so like "First woman president!! Poor people please go die in a ditch!"). But in the end, people vote on their economic interests and not based on identity politics and cultural wokeness.

I don't think you could make this argument without a screwy-louie idea of what constitutes "the economic left".

From the outside, it seems fairly clear that the leadership of the Republican and Democratic parties occupy similar economic positions. What distinguishes them is that the Republican voter-base has a clearer image of a deserving "us" who will benefit from this sort of spending, to the exclusion of an undeserving "them", and that these voters assume the Republican Party leadership shares, and will act upon, these assumptions. Access to this spending is assumed to be qualified because Republicans are proposing it.

The Democratic Party has a more demographically and ideologically diffuse voter base, who are more acutely aware than Republican voters of the differences within their party, and between ordinary voters and leadership, so there policies are not inherently coded with an "us" and a "them". The Democratic leadership are too conservative, and assume American voters to be still more conservative, to adopt a truly universal approach, to take the stance that no qualification should be required to access this spending, so they are forced to invent a spectre of "rational" and "objective" qualification, realised as economic means-testing.

Trump can play the benevolent ruler not because he is "economically left-wing", or because his supporters are enthusiastic about such policies, but because his supporters implicitly assume that the beneficiaries of his spending plans will be overwhelmingly white.

edit note: this has been re-written a couple of times to make more sense.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Here is an example. My mother is a Trump supporter. She voted for Trump in 2016. I jokingly said that Trump called coronavirus a hoax, and she said she agrees with him. You know what she does for a living? A nurse. And she will happily vote for him in November. And if Trump does the right thing and comes on top of this coronavirus crisis victorious, who do you think people will for?

I know quite a few Trump supporters, and none of them faltered in their support of Trump. Just saying. But coastal liberals in their bubbles can continue believing in Biden, I guess? But I also live on the coast, and like 80% of tech workers supported Bernard. So idk even who votes for Biden.

Where on which coast? Sanders did well in California, but lost in Washington. In both states his support was down from 2016.

As to anecdotes, my gf is a republican and is surrounded by republicans at work. They were pretty universal in their "give him a chance" vs "we hate Hillary with blinding unreasoned passion" stance four years ago. She and most of her co-workers will be voting for Biden. She wouldn't have wanted to vote for Sanders and I suspect many of her co-workers wouldn't either. Faced with a Trump/Sanders choice I can't guess what they would have done.

 

[Patine]

Truth in advertising:

"Truth in advertising." How naïve. If you, hypothetically, for the sake of argument, had a law that held all electoral campaign advertising, including PAC's and Super PAC's, the same standards of integrity, and honesty as the stiffest State laws around advertising commercial products for sale, and it was, for the sake of argument, enforceable, these electoral campaigns would be completely UNRECOGNIZABLE - maybe for like '50's-'80's public service announcements (and the more boring of those), or some such.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

"Truth in advertising." How naïve. If you, hypothetically, for the sake of argument, had a law that held all electoral campaign advertising, including PAC's and Super PAC's, the same standards of integrity, and honesty as the stiffest State laws around advertising commercial products for sale, and it was, for the sake of argument, enforceable, these electoral campaigns would be completely UNRECOGNIZABLE - maybe for like '50's-'80's public service announcements (and the more boring of those), or some such.

LOL...no kidding. Also, this just in, if pie in the sky with ice cream actually started falling on people it would make a big difference!

 

[innonimatu]

Are we watching the same news cycle? Because Republicans are literally proposing a stimulus package and cash checks for working Americans, while Democrats say we can't do that. Mitt Romney said what, like 2k per adult? And then Kamala Harris came up with "up to 500 per family" statement. Hello? Trump has also ordered an increase in medical supplies and a suspension on foreclosures and evictions. Who do you think it benefits the most, and who do you think these people will vote for in November. Trump is literally outflanking the Democrats on the economic left, and they are too craven to piss off their corporate overlords.

Trump's trade war with China was also correct in its intent to bring jobs back to America and force corporations to pull out of China, which is where Democrats sold us to. Because we are seeing right now that having all our supply chains depend on China doesn't work well in times of crisis. Even if China had the best intentions, shipping and handling alone is a significant burden, and we need medical supplies immediately.

To sum it up, Trump and the GOP are swiftly becoming a culturally right/economically left party (so think like "Build the wall! Mexicans are rapists! But let's bring the jobs back and empower the American working class"), and the Dems are culturally left/economically right (so like "First woman president!! Poor people please go die in a ditch!"). But in the end, people vote on their economic interests and not based on identity politics and cultural wokeness.

I had already warned here that if Trump was really put against the wall he'd adopt M4A by another name and claim the credit. And that will work fine against Biden. It wouldn't against Sanders. I thing you're pointing out a new development yes: Trump will play the "i give you money" card also. The only hindrance is time, but if the elections get postponed he can even go as far as dressing himself up as a "modern FDR". No matter it wouldn't be true, he'd managed to trick enough people.

But the true believers in the DNC won't want to hear the warnings. Good thing it isn't my country, I'd be in despair at the level of political incompetence.

 

[Patine]

LOL...no kidding. Also, this just in, if pie in the sky with ice cream actually started falling on people it would make a big difference!

Here's a newsflash! If everyone on this thread pushed "the magic button" on you, the quality of content and debate would not diminish, but would probably only be bettered by the belligerent loudmouth - whose at least chosen a very apt avatar image for the role - stopping his bellicose running down of everyone and what they think and believe, like a wannabe tyrant's censor.

 

[Berzerker]

Neither do I. You said your objective is to be "contrarian." You said that you have no interest in expressing honest opinions and just try to be as objectionable as possible wherever you go. That, in my opinion, might be the only honest thing you've ever posted.

And I didn't report you, I just wanted your admission of your objectives noted by the appropriate people so that next time you successfully lure someone into breaking the rules so you can report them they have the context.

You lied about me in the same post you complained to the mods and you're lying about me now. When have I shied away from telling people I'm not here to agree with them? If we agree, then we agree, if we dont, then we dont.

I said I lean contrarian (eg I'm more likely to defend the person being piled on rather than jumping on the pile), I didn't say I have no interest in posting honest opinions. All my posted opinions are sincere unless I'm joking (or being sarcastic which is rare).

I didn't say you reported me, I said you complained to the mods which is what you did. Now whats this about luring you into breaking forum rules to report you? If that was my nature I would have shared my inbox with the mods and gotten you banned a looong time.

 

[innonimatu]

Governments around the world are moving no nationalize companies, and are doing MMT and UBI. Not experimenting with, doing it. Albeit for the duration of the crisis - presumably. The rules of the game have changed. It makes no sense to talk of future elections without taking this into account.

As to anecdotes, my gf is a republican and is surrounded by republicans at work. They were pretty universal in their "give him a chance" vs "we hate Hillary with blinding unreasoned passion" stance four years ago.

And despite that you here, four years ago, refused to acknowledge that Hillary was the worst possible candidate to run against Trump?