2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Kyriakos]

Pretty interesting how a US president can profit from deals with foreign countries - let alone dictatorships. For a number of hotel-branding projects.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

That was a case where Trump interrupting him helped Biden, same on Trump interrupting Biden when Wallace was trying to get him to respond to the Hunter allegations instead of dodging to Beau.

Though as a friend mentioned, filibuster removal is technically the purview of the Senate and Senate only. Biden's opinion on the filibuster and 25 cents is worth 25 cents.

When Trump started to say that shutting down the economy was a bigger risk to people's health than covid and that many people were turning to drugs and alcohol out of despair, I thought it was a really powerful argument. I thought it was one that threatened to turn the entire Covid argument in Trump's favor in a big way - people want to hear that right now given the economic misery that is taking its toll.

Thankfully, Trump stood on his own shoes not 2 seconds later as his verbal diarrhea shifted to some other horse crap and he lost all ability to carry any argument, much less a persuasive one.

What strikes me the most is how people are focusing on the "Trump is a clown with verbal diarrhea" bit and not on, you know, the "he just told white supremacists to 'stand by' and encouraged intimidation at polls" bit

I don't laugh at Trump or his goons because they're not funny. There is nothing funny about this. Trump is publicly normalizing political violence and all people will focus on is "haha he's orange" and "wow, what a child."

I dunno, that's about all my friend group is talking about, even the non-political junkies.

PBS Newshour devoted an entire 15 minute segment to 'Stand back and stand by'; that was the single biggest news story of this week until this morning. People noticed, though many didn't catch it in the moment and only found out about it from after-analysis. My wife was watching and paying attention when that was said but she didn't realize what exactly he had said until it hit Reddit in the morning; it was so chaotic that many simply didn't hear it in the moment.

Trump later said he never heard of the Proud Boys but best I can tell, he was the first to name them at the debate. (It's really hard to tell though because at that instant, all three were talking over each other)

 

[Lexicus]

When Trump started to say that shutting down the economy was a bigger risk to people's health and that many people were turning to drugs and alcohol out of despair, I thought it was a really powerful argument and was one that threatened to turn the Covid argument in Trump's favor in a big way. People want to hear that right now given the economic misery.

There are so many levels on which this argument is absolute nonsense, though. Trump's own party is more or less the only reason there is economic misery. The economy will not just go back to normal if we pretend the virus doesn't exists. And so on.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

People almost always like to hear absolute nonsense though. Certainly most prefer it to facts.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah it's a stupid argument but it has a killer ring of truthiness and some people are desperate to get back to normalcy and lap up any promises from on high that it will be so.

 

[Ajidica]

There are so many levels on which this argument is absolute nonsense, though. Trump's own party is more or less the only reason there is economic misery. The economy will not just go back to normal if we pretend the virus doesn't exists. And so on.

But as hobbs said, it has the ring of truthiness to it, and it plays in nicely with Trump's "factories scattered like tombstones" shtick from 2016.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

They are choking on his promises about normalcy right now. And I am hard pressed not to just laugh at them.

 

[Lexicus]

Let's remind everyone that the Republicans locked us into this idiotic "take the virus seriously and destroy the economy" or "pretend the virus isn't real and also destroy the economy because it is actually real" thing in the first place by treating the virus as a partisan issue, refusing to go beyond the $1200 checks and allowing the extra unemployment money to expire, and that Trump decided not to actually use that early time we bought with the lockdown to develop an actual COVID strategy because he and Kushner figured it would only hurt people in the blue states.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Even if it were self-defence, self-defence doesn‘t make the fact go away that he killed someone. Destruction can be rebuilt, a life cannot be given back. So yes, the harder violence came clearly from the right-wing counter-protesters. Just like it did in Charlotteville where someone drove into protestors, killing a woman and thereby also prompting Joe Biden to run as he pointed out in the debate. So the Sanders-wing can blaim Trump‘s right wing radicals / neo-fascists also for Joe Bidens primary win.

It seemed almost every day over the last week, I have woken up to news of right wingers driving cars through local BLM protestors. They're doing their best to start a full on race war and it's only gone unnoticed because of the nonstop flak machine that is Trump.

I'm not sure. Sander's best debate performances came when he wasn't viewed as a major candidate -even by himself- in 2016 or the early days of 2020 when the Democrats were doing their best to present a united front. Once things got even moderately heated, but still with acceptable decorum, Sander's debate performance took a nosedive. When challenged on specific points of his plans, or had them presented in an unflattering - but still defensible - light, I felt he often got flustered, snippy, and evasive. The artificial nature of presidential debates does not play to Sander's strengths.

I don't think Bernie's diehard supporters ever got how jarringly annoying and off-putting 'I wrote the damn bill!' became as an answer to every question for his less diehard fans and everyone else.

Trump is being given Zoom classes over Fox News.

Imagine how crazy it would be, if Obama had watched like 8 hours of MSBNC every day, and literally just parroted whatever they had said, at press conferences.

Watching that debate was one of the most stressful things I've gone through in the last year. It was intensely unpleasant and I vowed not to watch another. I was so distraught that I didn't really know what to think as far as who won it.

The first time I saw that picture the next morning was the instant I knew Biden had won the debate, hands down.

 

[Lexicus]

btw any rumors that i have made offerings of any kind to the virus asking it to infect certain individuals are slanderous lies

 

[Arwon]

When Trump started to say that shutting down the economy was a bigger risk to people's health than covid and that many people were turning to drugs and alcohol out of despair, I thought it was a really powerful argument. I thought it was one that threatened to turn the entire Covid argument in Trump's favor in a big way - people want to hear that right now given the economic misery that is taking its toll.

Not that anyone cares but it's also turned out to be fairly precisely untrue. In terms of rich country and even middle income country comparisons, less infections and deaths have been clearly better for economies and social well-being.

 

[r16]

once again people have been forgetting that the New has even fewer moral values than what used to pass as scum of the Old . Happens all the time , this person so famous for insulting everyone died on Pilgrimage or its religiously non-necessary touristic version , supposedly after taking vi_gra (might even for a boy if you were to stoop even lower) and he was the nicest person in eulogies and anyone who said anything bad about him was evil !

pence will be even less amenable to attack New Turkey .

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Not that anyone cares but it's also turned out to be fairly precisely untrue. In terms of rich country and even middle income country comparisons, less infections and deaths have been clearly better for economies and social well-being.

Only in the time of Trump could "less infections and deaths have been clearly better" be considered like an "I told you so" moment.

 

[Takhisis]

There are so many levels on which this argument is absolute nonsense, though. Trump's own party is more or less the only reason there is economic misery. The economy will not just go back to normal if we pretend the virus doesn't exists. And so on.

This could be applied to so many countries… coincidentally, all of them ruled by megalomaniacs south of the Rio Grande, so once again my theory that the US has a caudillo for a ruler is vindicated.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

One of the funniest moments was when Biden had confronted Trump with the $750 in taxes, and Trump actually said "I was able to do that because of the tax code approved by Congress, including by you, Joe." Biden missed the opportunity here. He should have done one of his turns to the camera to directly address the viewer and said, "Do you see what Trump just openly admitted here: that the tax code is designed so that the super-rich can avoid paying taxes? If you elect me, I'll change that."

He could have also pointed out that in some years, Biden has paid (IIRC) over $200k in taxes.

My mail-in ballot went to the dropbox yesterday. I ended up voting for Biden, but wasn't very happy about it.

I'm using a dropbox this year too. It's a bit far from the house but it's still within walking distance so we're going to turn it into a pilgrimage of sorts. I want to use the mail almost as an act of defiance but I don't want to risk it.

Thats true - there would be no clear alternative to Trump other than Pence.

If it were Biden though it would be a problem - who gets the presidential ticket, Harris isn't the automatic candidate, would it be Sanders who was runner up or some compromise like Pelosi?

I agree that it is already very late - people are already voting by mail i imagine.

Pence would not become the automatic pick if Trump passed away. The RNC has reserved the right to chose someone else to replace either the President or Vice President in the event of death or incapacitation. Things would get really ugly, really quick, as people in the party jockey to support their pet candidates.

 

[Arwon]

Only in the time of Trump could "less infections and deaths have been clearly better" be considered like an "I told you so" moment.

To be perfectly fair there have been any number of ghoulish economists arguing that side of this question and places like the UK and I think Sweden also at points convinced themselves of it.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Pence would not become the automatic pick if Trump passed away. The RNC has reserved the right to chose someone else to replace either the President or Vice President in the event of death or incapacitation. Things would get really ugly, really quick as people in the party jockey to support their pet candidates.

They reserved the right but it's too late to do it once the voting starts.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

To be perfectly fair there have been any number of ghoulish economists arguing that side of this question and places like the UK and I think Sweden also at points convinced themselves of it.

Without Trump the rest of the world's wing nuts would be far more circumspect about being openly stupid.

 

[Zkribbler]

Pence would not become the automatic pick if Trump passed away. The RNC has reserved the right to chose someone else to replace either the President or Vice President in the event of death or incapacitation. Things would get really ugly, really quick, as people in the party jockey to support their pet candidates.

because things here can't get any weirder.

 

[mitsho]

This morning I just feel like wanting to fast forward 5 days or so to see what happened with Trump.

But in the larger picture, it‘s all just another distraction and when you take a step back it‘s clear: Whatever happens with this election, the status of the US in the world has been badly damaged by the four Trump years and this election. Moral superiority of Democracy has gone up in the flames of a US system that was not flexible enough to reform itself enough since it started in 1776.