2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Lexicus]

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

I'm talking hypothetically, in the future.

 

[Takhisis]

@Ajidica: my point exactly. That was the exact same excuse used in Argentina's case.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Max Boot wrote a nice follow-up to my post of yesterday. Thanks, Max!

The Washington Post, 14 Oct 2020 - "How can 42 percent of Americans still support the worst president in our history?"

Trump is on track to be the first president since World War II to see a net loss of jobs during his term. Even worse, he has presided over the loss of 214,000 lives and counting from covid-19. That’s already nearly four times the U.S. fatalities in the Vietnam War, previously the nadir of presidential bungling. Even now, after having contracted covid-19 himself, Trump refuses to take the pandemic seriously. He keeps promising it will magically disappear of its own accord while holding rallies practically guaranteed to spread the disease.

As if that weren’t reason enough to vote for Biden, there is also the fact that Trump has abused his power; he was even impeached for doing so. He has trafficked in racism and xenophobia. He has incited violence. He has kowtowed to dictators and trashed our alliances. He has welcomed Russian attacks on our elections. He has locked children in cages. He has called for his opponents to be locked up. In sum, Trump has made a strong case that he is the worst president in our history.

The very fact that so many are so willing to believe such balderdash about Biden — a lifelong centrist who remains far more articulate and coherent than Trump — is a worrisome sign of how cut off from rational, factual discourse so much of the country has become. Many voters are still supporting Trump because they’re living in a hermetically sealed disinformation bubble that is impermeable to reality.

I’m sorry, these are not issues on which rational people can legitimately disagree. Trump’s covid-19 message — that, as he said Saturday, “it is disappearing” — is objectively false. In the past week, daily confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States have increased by 13.3 percent and hospitalizations by 9.8 percent. Trump’s claims to the contrary, we have done far worse during the pandemic than most wealthy countries. If we had the same death rate as Canada, 132,000 victims of covid-19 would still be alive. And it should go without saying that QAnon, whose adherents have been linked to numerous acts of violence, is a bane, not a boon.

If you're not familiar with Boot, he's no progressive. He's a lifelong conservative. He was a campaign advisor to Marco Rubio; he was a Neocon before deciding that the label didn't suit him anymore; before writing for the Post, he wrote for the Wall Street Journal (he may still, I'm not sure). He's a hawk on foreign policy: In October 2001 he published an article in The Weekly Standard titled "The Case for American Imperialism" and he was a proponent for the invasion of Iraq. Yeah, he and I would have words about US foreign policy. But we'll be arm-in-arm in running Donald Trump out of town on a rail, and we're both concerned about whatever in(s)anity got him into the Oval Office in the first place, because that's probably not going to magically evaporate on January 20th.


p.s. "living in a hermetically sealed disinformation bubble that is impermeable to reality." That's awesome. There's gotta be a way to make that a bumper-sticker, or a tee-shirt or something.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Good line. As I was scrolling down, before I'd seen that you had highlighted it, I was going to cull it out of your Boot quotes for special emphasis.

 

[mitsho]

I'd thought you would pick out "balderdash" - that is clearly an opinion of someone belonging to the future ;-)

But yeah, if history happens as the polls predict it now, it will really be interesting how the next phases will go:

1. Transition of Power & setting up of the Democratic Trifecta (How long will it take?)
2. Up to two years of Full Democratic Governing,
   • Ambitious or Conciliatory Democratic Policy?
   • With the Republicans: Rightwing-radicals stay in charge, Moderates retake the lead or the party splits up?
   • Trump able to throw in smoke bombs from the sideline or indicted and jailed?
3. Two years of Republicans taking back some sort of veto-power (House, Senate?) WHILE Presidential Election Season begins way early for BOTH parties. Unlikely: two more years of full democratic governance - but even then you can't count on that in your plans.

Fun times ahead, and this is without any exogene event happening - which there will be. Since transition and rebuilding will take up to half a year, and implementation usually takes another half year to a year - there will actually only be one half year (Summer 21 to Christmas) where the Democratic Party will be able to bring real change. They better use it wisely. The American system is crazy with its continuous election season.

 

[Kyriakos]

Max Boot wrote a nice follow-up to my post of yesterday. Thanks, Max!

The Washington Post, 14 Oct 2020 - "How can 42 percent of Americans still support the worst president in our history?"



If you're not familiar with Boot, he's no progressive. He's a lifelong conservative. He was a campaign advisor to Marco Rubio; he was a Neocon before deciding that the label didn't suit him anymore; before writing for the Post, he wrote for the Wall Street Journal (he may still, I'm not sure). He's a hawk on foreign policy: In October 2001 he published an article in The Weekly Standard titled "The Case for American Imperialism" and he was a proponent for the invasion of Iraq. Yeah, he and I would have words about US foreign policy. But we'll be arm-in-arm in running Donald Trump out of town on a rail, and we're both concerned about whatever in(s)anity got him into the Oval Office in the first place, because that's probably not going to magically evaporate on January 20th.


p.s. "living in a hermetically sealed disinformation bubble that is impermeable to reality." That's awesome. There's gotta be a way to make that a bumper-sticker, or a tee-shirt or something.

Max Boot should have never usurped the work of his more talented friend, Franz Kerka.

 

[EgonSpengler]

So now I'm reading that, instead of the debate, the two candidates will have separate "town hall"-style meetings tomorrow night, at the same time. I guess that's kind of what "debates" have been for a while, anyway, so maybe it's just as well that they're dropping all pretense.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yeah, when Trump backed out of the one for tomorrow, Biden booked a town hall with ABC. Then NBC booked Trump for that same slot on Thursday.

But no, it isn't what the debates had become. I know why you say that: not really debating, just trading pre-rehearsed talking points. But here you have to choose between which one to watch. Frankly, who will watch either?

Or more precisely, people will watch Trump's (and he'll brag about the ratings) but just to see if he has a meltdown.

Anyway, it's all utterly pointless. People already know who they want to vote against.

I doubt either one will get much by way of ratings.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I don't think I'll be watching any Town Halls. There's too much stuff on NETFLIX and AMAZON Prime I need to catch up on.

 

[Bugfatty300]

I'll put Biden's stream on in another room and mute it just to add to his Town Hall viewership.

 

[Kyriakos]

I hope this sense that Biden will certainly win, won't end up costing a defeat. But then again, Biden does nothing not because he can afford to, but since this is the only thing he can do.

 

[IglooDame]

I hope this sense that Biden will certainly win, won't end up costing a defeat. But then again, Biden does nothing not because he can afford to, but since this is the only thing he can do.

That's the positive thing about Trump's comments about voting by mail and other ballot fraud. Unlike pretty much any other election where voters lose enthusiasm when the polls show comfortable wins, many voters opposed to Trump think that a larger margin of victory by Biden actually matters.

 

[Kyriakos]

That's the positive thing about Trump's comments about voting by mail and other ballot fraud. Unlike pretty much any other election where voters lose enthusiasm when the polls show comfortable wins, many voters opposed to Trump think that a larger margin of victory by Biden actually matters.

I hope so. We will see soon enough...

 

[Gori the Grey]

Biden does nothing not because he can afford to, but since this is the only thing he can do.

Biden does nothing based on the maxim "never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." Trump doesn't give him time to do anything.

 

[Kyriakos]

Biden does nothing based on the maxim "never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." Trump doesn't give him time to do anything.

I seriously doubt this is the case. Biden became the nomination by doing nothing. This is no longer a Dnc-controlled race, though, so the same strategy may produce a very different result. I expect most dem voters to mail in the vote, while Trump has actual appeal to his own voters.

 

[Gori the Grey]

My point is there's an appetite for nothing. Trump has been too much something.

 

[Bugfatty300]

In other words you can suck on a diseased rancid mold covered maggot infested orange for the next 30 seconds or you can just do nothing for the next 30 seconds.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yum
(to the nothing)

 

[Ironsided]

Yum to the nothing. Forty years of the Overton window creeping to the right and there is now a neofacist alternative or a vapid hollow one.

Here is a particularly good three minute analysis of the rise of the ‘extreme centre’ and its message of ‘yum to nothing’.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Again, when the alternative is

a diseased rancid mold covered maggot infested orange

nothing sounds pretty tasty.

As he says, "the only possible appeal of that politics is, 'well, at least they're not Nazis.'" When the alternative is Nazis, that's an appeal--about which your Graeber fellow shouldn't be so glibly dismissive.

And by the way, it's XXXTREEEEEEEME Centrism, thank you very much. At least have the decency to spell our movement's name correctly.

The deepest weakness in his argument is the "they" at :22. Who's that "they"?