2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Sommerswerd]

Would a moderator be kind enough to split this discussion into another thread? @Arakhor?

What "discussion"?? It's just one off topic post, by you. Just start another thread.

Please remember, I predicted 2-3 weeks back that Fox will call the election for Biden by 1 am Nov 4.

And yes, let's pick up some of these delicious Senate seats. Frankly, that (loss of the Senate) is the only way to make the GOP feel like supporting Trump was a mistake.

That's one hell of a prediction... but I hope it comes true because then Trumps folks get to sleep on it and hopefully move through some of the stages of grief.

 

[Gori the Grey]

It was over in Tim's thread about the Election Day Trainwreck:

Fox News will call the election for Joe Biden by 1:00 a.m. November 4th (MSNBC and CNN having called it for him by midnight).

I'm not even worried about the ruling in Texas. People are going to crawl through broken glass to vote this guy out of office. And the complicit GOP out of Senate seats.

 

[uppi]

I've said it before, and I'm obviously not the first person to say it, but Trump is an expression of what's happening in this country, as much as or more than, a cause of it. We can see from his pivoting on issues and backtracking on pledges that he's mainly just looking for whatever he can say that will get people to like him and vote for him and give him money. (If you're thinking, "If that were true, if he were just a mercurial chameleon who'll say anything, why didn't he run as a Democrat?" The answer is, he would have. I bet he wanted to. The Democratic Party is where the power base lies in some of the cities and social circles where he would like to be powerful, New York and Los Angeles. If he could've won office running as a Democrat, he'd have done it, but they wouldn't have him. ~20 years ago, some people actually looked at him as a potential candidate for the Democrats - Woody Harrelson was one of them - but when they met with him in person, they realized he was a narcissistic, dimwitted windbag and couldn't leave the room fast enough.)

I wonder what a hypothetical Trmup presidency as a Democrat would have been. Probably still a disaster, but a different kind of disaster. Which brings me too:

I guess a more optimistic view would be that being a racist, nationalist, anti-democratic authoritarian and being a cunning political mind are mutually-exclusive. I certainly hope that's true.

The authoritarian component is required, but such a cunning politician would not necessarily be racist and nationalist themselves. They would just have to be flexible enough to align themselves with those ideologies and ideological flexibility is almost a precondition of a cunning political mind.

Which leaves the question whether you can be a cunning political mind and be an authoritarian. In my opinion, Putin is a good example, that yes you can be both.

Someone who is not Trump will try this again, sooner or later. How soon will depend on many factors, like who would win the power struggle in the Republican party after a Trump defeat, how successful a Biden presidency would be, etc. I would hope that the time until then is used to strengthen the defenses against such a thing, so that it fails.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Someone who is not Trump will try this again, sooner or later. How soon will depend on many factors, like who would win the power struggle in the Republican party after a Trump defeat, how successful a Biden presidency would be, etc. I would hope that the time until then is used to strengthen the defenses against such a thing, so that it fails.

Pelosi's efforts towards establishing a Congressional body that could evaluate the President's mental fitness and temporarily remove him from office seems like it could be an example of the kind of defenses you are referencing.

 

[Lexicus]

Pelosi's efforts towards establishing a Congressional body that could evaluate the President's mental fitness and temporarily remove him from office seems like it could be an example of the kind of defenses you are referencing.

I am pretty against concentrated executive power but this way is folly. It would take all of five seconds for such a body to determine a left-wing president enacting left-wing policy is insane and must be removed.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I am pretty against concentrated executive power but this way is folly. It would take all of five seconds for such a body to determine a left-wing president enacting left-wing policy is insane and must be removed.

I agree and I regard the whole effort as theater anyway since Pelosi knows that they don't have the votes to pass any such measure. I believe the real intent of this stunt is to troll Trump and draw attention to his coronavirus infection, hospitalization, and woeful unfitness for office.

There is already a tool for removing an unfit President, Impeachment-and-Removal. It just doesn't get used very often because, as you allude to, its wholly political, as would any removal tool be in the hands of Congress.

 

[Yeekim]

The authoritarian component is required, but such a cunning politician would not necessarily be racist and nationalist themselves. They would just have to be flexible enough to align themselves with those ideologies and ideological flexibility is almost a precondition of a cunning political mind

We have a guy like this running a far-right/national-conservative party here.

He is a total political animal and, despite having barely around 15% of the vote (the most reactionary, gullible and downright crazy cohort) is totally dominating the current coalition. It's a disaster.

Be glad Trump is the buffoon he is...

 

[Kyriakos]

I am pretty against concentrated executive power but this way is folly. It would take all of five seconds for such a body to determine a left-wing president enacting left-wing policy is insane and must be removed.

Which is why this plan, which (obviously) won't affect Trump, is a bad precedent and may be picked up in the future. Including being picked up by a republican side, not just the Dnc establishment.

 

[Lexicus]

Which is why this plan, which (obviously) won't affect Trump, is a bad precedent and may be picked up in the future. Including being picked up by a republican side, not just the Dnc establishment.

Ehh, I dunno. What with the Barrett nomination I think we're way past the point where either side can score points by playing to the hypocrisy of the other side.
To illustrate the point...

 

[innonimatu]

Another follow-up, Egon, might be "How Democracies Die." I haven't read it, but I saw the authors for an hour on Booknotes. One of their points is that there is always about a third of the populace in a given democratic society that would actually prefer autocratic rule by a strongman. It is just a psychological predisposition that some people have.

Throw it in the rubbish bin then. It's not true.

 

[IglooDame]

The authoritarian component is required, but such a cunning politician would not necessarily be racist and nationalist themselves. They would just have to be flexible enough to align themselves with those ideologies and ideological flexibility is almost a precondition of a cunning political mind.

Which leaves the question whether you can be a cunning political mind and be an authoritarian. In my opinion, Putin is a good example, that yes you can be both.

Someone who is not Trump will try this again, sooner or later. How soon will depend on many factors, like who would win the power struggle in the Republican party after a Trump defeat, how successful a Biden presidency would be, etc. I would hope that the time until then is used to strengthen the defenses against such a thing, so that it fails.

You mean like, say, Richard Nixon?

 

[uppi]

Pelosi's efforts towards establishing a Congressional body that could evaluate the President's mental fitness and temporarily remove him from office seems like it could be an example of the kind of defenses you are referencing.

A President could be completely fit for office and still be an authoritarian -- and would be much more dangerous than one who was not. You could abuse such a body to stop a healthy President from grabbing power, but that would be an abuse.

No, the defenses need to focus on being substantial instead of focusing on the person of the president. A start would be to rescind some of those powers congress has granted the executive (for example related to the so-called War on Terror)

 

[Birdjaguar]

Trump has demonstrated how branch warfare can be played to the detriment of a functioning government. Congress needs a way to command under oath testimony by the executive branch with the ability to lock them up if they don't.

 

[innonimatu]

I am pretty against concentrated executive power but this way is folly. It would take all of five seconds for such a body to determine a left-wing president enacting left-wing policy is insane and must be removed.

Oh come on, the intended inaugural target is not left-wing at all!

I do wonder of Pelosi can somehow get rid of Harris too?

 

[Edmund Ironside]

The US 2020 presidential election in 5 maps.

What the 2016 map looked like:

Spoiler :

Trump won 306 to Clinton's 232

If the polls are bang on the money...

Spoiler :

Biden wins 377 to Trumps 161 (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/)

If the were wrong like they were in 2016...

Spoiler :

Biden wins 390 to Trumps 148 (calculated by comparing 2016 polling average to election results and seeing how much things swung one way or the other and then applying it to the 2020 polls)

If the 2018 midterm results repeat themselves (ie results before we had the whole pandemic)..

Spoiler :

Biden wins 315 to Trumps 223 (calculated by looking at who won the senate race, if no senate race then seeing who won the governor race, if no governor race then seeing who won the most house seats)

If all the undecided voters decide to vote for Trump..

Spoiler :

Biden wins 273 to Trumps 265 (calculated simply by looking to see if over 50% of voters for a state had decided to vote for Biden, if they hadn't reached the magic 50% it was assumed that Trump would win it)

I do not have a map for if there is massive voter suppression or voter fraud...

 

[Ajidica]

Ehh, I dunno. What with the Barrett nomination I think we're way past the point where either side can score points by playing to the hypocrisy of the other side.
To illustrate the point...

To think I once actually liked Graham as a 'moderate Republican'.

 

[Drakle]

It's ok, Biden can always fall back to the enthusiasm he causes young people to go vote, no need to just rely on the ancient folk.

Except Biden has majority approval rating of him personally, both nationally and in state polls. People like him

Biden's favorable/unfavorable ratings in NYT polls... Michigan: 54/42... Wisconsin: 55/42.... This isn't a lesser of two evils vote. Voters actually like Biden. HUGE difference with 2016. https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/miwi1020-crosstabs/b0a09cd1cd0048df/full.pdf…

Not only that, he has improved his favourabilities going into the general election, and throughout, which is normally the exact opposite of how it works. Trump's 1 billion dollar ad war chest was supposed to sink Biden's favorability, and instead, it just utterly failed. Maybe because they keep shouting Senile, Socialist, and he isn't either one of those things, and it is clear he isn't.

Another follow-up, Egon, might be "How Democracies Die." I haven't read it, but I saw the authors for an hour on Booknotes. One of their points is that there is always about a third of the populace in a given democratic society that would actually prefer autocratic rule by a strongman. It is just a psychological predisposition that some people have.

I suspect a very similar trend (and basically the same people), in the people seeking an authoritarian religion. You know the types who move from normal Catholic or Protestant churches to Trad Catholic Latin rite churches, evangelical Protestant churches, or Orthodox churches. The really advanced ones switch around in those ones as well. They want a religion that punishes them and tells them what to do.

Oh come on, the intended inaugural target is not left-wing at all!

I do wonder of Pelosi can somehow get rid of Harris too?

Why would Pelosi get rid of Harris? Pelosi is a founding part of the House Progressive, and she shares the same politics and donor base as Harris.


Anyway, Trump is back to retweeting Qanon people on Twitter.



Also, the stimulus talks at the moment are great. Left Democrats have gone from being extremist 'We want everything now, damn the cost, hardball tactics to everything', to begging Pelosi to take the low ball stimulus deal on the table (it isn't actually on the table, no bill has been sent to the House), while Pelosi refuses them and calls them out for not understanding the situation. All the while no one is paying attention to the Senate, who is the actual roadblock and has been for months.

 

[Takhisis]

I've long had a pet peeve against the idea of "totalitarianism", which has its roots in trying to carve out a special type of dictatorship to stick the "unholy trinity" of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao into; drawing an ideological link between Nazism and Soviet Communism for the Cold War.
Plus, it created a sort of "safe zone" for sordid little dictators and El Presidentes - as long as you were vaguely pro-west, talking about remaking society, rooting out saboteurs and infiltrators, and dissapearing people was treated as a local eccentricity and not as a sign of "totalitarianism".

Let me answer with a quote:
‘He's a Nazi, but he's our Nazi.’
General-President Eisenhower of the United States, on Colonel-President Perón of Argentina.

I do not have a map for if there is massive voter suppression or voter fraud...

I believe that the correct idiom here is that it'd make you see red…

 

[Ajidica]

Let me answer with a quote:
‘He's a Nazi, but he's our Nazi.’
General-President Eisenhower of the United States, on Colonel-President Perón of Argentina.

General, if it hadn't been for you, the whole thing would have collapsed and the Communists would have taken over.

• John F. Kennedy during Mobutu's May 1963 visit to the White House.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sésé_Seko

 

[Phrossack]

I do not have a map for if there is massive voter suppression or voter fraud...

I think those factors are going to entirely decide this election. The age of votes mattering has ended; now it's purely about who counts the votes, who rules on the lawsuits, and who has the guns.