2020 US Election (Part Two)

[IglooDame]

Gosh, if only Trump were an authoritarian xenophobe, so many lives would have been spared.

He IS an authoritarian xenophobe. But if he was a smart authoritarian xenophobe, or at any rate smart enough to overcome his breathtakingly epic narcissism, the US response could have been very very good instead of very very bad. We'd be marveling (or lamenting, if Democrats) how the pandemic played right into his hands.

Nothing in my alternate history is really outside the purview of what Trump could do. He's got few ideological keystones and no particular need for consistency anyway.

 

[Farm Boy]

I don't know, I just wish they didn't **** over the result of us by voting for an evil party

That'd be nice.

It's faith territory at that point, but yes, it'd be nice.

 

[Edmund Ironside]

@Lexicus You reduced my well constructed argument with references and graphs down to 'EdmundIronside said "stuff."
To paraphrase Arthur Dent "'Stuff'. Stuff? Is that all it’s got to say?! One word! “Stuff”!? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?"

According to polls. However, seeing as Trump won all four of those states in 2016 when polling data back then said those states were "competitive", we now know polling data means precisely nothing when it comes to predicting elections. There's just too much that can go wrong with polling data for it to be reliable. The biggest problem being that a lot of people simply don't give honest answers to pollsters.

Most polls have a 4% margin for error. That means in 2016 the only state they entirely whiffed on was Wisconsin.
So as we get closer to the November, its important to remember any state that either Biden or Trump lead in by less than 4% is effectively a toss up.

On the topic of 2016, a Youtube channel I follow looked at the results compared to the polls for each state and how much the swing was, and then used that to see what would happen if we have the same 'swing' in 2020. It would cause the rustbelt to tighten up considerably, but it would also make the sunbelt even more problematic for Trump (it is often forgotten that the 2016 polls overestimated Trumps support in the sunbelt).

Of course a lot can change, I think in 2016 there was a late swing against Clinton in the last couple of weeks.

 

[Lexicus]

To paraphrase Arthur Dent "'Stuff'. Stuff? Is that all it’s got to say?! One word! “Stuff”!? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?"

It just means quoting your whole post would have taken up a lot of screen space

 

[Zardnaar]

@Lexicus You reduced my well constructed argument with references and graphs down to 'EdmundIronside said "stuff."
To paraphrase Arthur Dent "'Stuff'. Stuff? Is that all it’s got to say?! One word! “Stuff”!? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?"



Most polls have a 4% margin for error. That means in 2016 the only state they entirely whiffed on was Wisconsin.
So as we get closer to the November, its important to remember any state that either Biden or Trump lead in by less than 4% is effectively a toss up.

On the topic of 2016, a Youtube channel I follow looked at the results compared to the polls for each state and how much the swing was, and then used that to see what would happen if we have the same 'swing' in 2020. It would cause the rustbelt to tighten up considerably, but it would also make the sunbelt even more problematic for Trump (it is often forgotten that the 2016 polls overestimated Trumps support in the sunbelt).

Of course a lot can change, I think in 2016 there was a late swing against Clinton in the last couple of weeks.

I think the last polls 3 days out were broadly accurate.

The problem being the people didn't pay attention or had made their minds already made up.

I mentioned 7% earlier, I suppose that's a 3% lead and 4% to account for margin of error.

 

[El_Machinae]

@Lexicus You reduced my well constructed argument with references and graphs down to 'EdmundIronside said "stuff."

CFC has a rule about not editing people's quote boxes to make them say stuff they didn't say, it can get out of hand. That said, "stuff" is kind of culturally a shorthand for quickly replying to somebody. That way you know you've been replied to and we all know what Lex is referring to.

Theoretically they just could have tagged you, it's usually quite similar with regards to what it means

 

[Edmund Ironside]

It just means quoting your whole post would have taken up a lot of screen space

I figured, but it gave me a chance to quote from my favorite book Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy!

 

[Berzerker]

It just means quoting your whole post would have taken up a lot of screen space

but it helps others keep track of the discussion

 

[Takhisis]

I figured, but it gave me a chance to quote from my favorite book Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy!

Like any capable striker in the sport of non-handegg football, you should create your own chances.

 

[Patine]

I don't know, I just wish they didn't **** over the result of us by voting for an evil party

So, where's the "Good Party," in the U.S. that people SHOULD be voting for that was any chance of winning? The "Lesser Evil," Party, is always being touted - the one who all of their endless crimes, corruption, abuses of power, and atrocities are demanded to be fully forgiven and overlooked, because they're supported to take on Donald Trump in 2020 - and Joe Biden, the long-standing Senator and member of the Military and National Security Committees has given his vote to most of the worst high crimes, brutality, wars, betrayal, and atrocities decades in the Senate, is suddenly now almost a "Messianic figure," to take on the horrid, monstrous cult of personality around Donald Trump. But where is the "Good Party," or at least the "Non-Evil Party," everyone should be voting for and supporting? This I ask.

 

[r16]

if Americans choose the more evil option they will suffer faster

if Americans choose the lesser evil option they will also suffer , but there is far more chance of reversing it . Not because anything except the fact that the lesser evil has so many of weaklings who think people must have a voice . Even preferring laws for guncontrol is a bonus , because having lived through the same already the more evil option people is more likely to come and shoot you in the face if they loose any vote . Lesser evil when people still have a chance .

 

[Sommerswerd]

Exactly! Because their message was "Republicans aren't bad, we're actually kinda like them. So much so that an anti-choice deficit hawk like Kasich is totally on board with us."

I follow what you're getting at, but I think its more accurately stated "All Republicans aren't bad, some of them are actually reasonable. So much so that they are able to reject Trump and stand with us."

The shortest path to beating Trump is to win Florida. Without Florida Trump has a very difficult path to 270.

My wife likes this grilled calamari dish from our favourite local Chinese restaurant. It comes with a delicious sweet chili dipping sauce. I find myself wondering if it would taste better with a baseball cap or a winter hat...

I will add that in the pie-in-the-sky scenario where Trump is really unpopular enough to lose Florida... his "path to 270" is the least of his worries. In that scenario, he would be hoping to just crack 150. In that scenario, he risks losing North Carolina, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, Arizona, maybe even Texas, and the Democrats would possibly even take the Senate.

So yep... sweet chili sauce.

Yes, but there's a thing here. One of Trumps sons (they're more or less exchangeable at this sort of thing) was on yesterday saying how growth, etc. were higher than with ‘slow’ Obama. Of course there was the implicit lie by omission that the eight years of Bush's Republican administration had left the Obama administration a legacy of a catastrophic crisis that had resulted from the same ‘tax the poor, unleash the rich’ and very bad international goodwill from erratic interventionism including two major full-scale invasions with subsequent occupations, and this time around the same is being done under the Donald, but while the coronavirus has ensured that this collapse would start with Trump as sitting president instead of maybe his successor (thing might just have held out) it has also given him, as it has so many self-worshipping autocrats here and elsewhere, the ready-made excuse that ‘it's not my policies, it's the virus’.

Silly Tak, you're still entertaining the notion the Trump needs a "ready-made" or otherwise rational/reasonable "excuse" for anything. He is perfectly content to pull some nonsensical, absurd horsesqueeze out of his ass that he just made up on the spot, and faces zero consequence for it.

 

[Takhisis]

I'll mark in passing my interest in grilled calamari, but about Trump, it's not just about him but about his movement. They need to have… 4? days' worth of convention material to appeal to everybody from every angle. There's people to whom Melania and Ivanka Trump appeal to because they are what they aspire to. That's right, there's women who want to live the life of Mrs. Trump. Or that of his daughter, objectified by her own father.

They need a division of labour. E.g. Melania taking the feminine role of engaging emotionally with Covid victims while Trump the victimary acts tough (I won't say looks because he doesn't, he just looks like a constipated traffic cone).

Remember, while all the parts are mutually contradictory as a whole, you need to offer enough tidbits for people to project themselves onto and empathise with the great leader.

 

[Hrothbern]

Faith does not need consistency
Neither do love or hate

 

[Birdjaguar]

GOP Policies Are Shortening American Lives
A new study suggests that state disparities in life expectancy come down to the conservative-liberal divide.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/us-life-expectancy-republican-policies_n_5f45845ac5b6cf66b2afc90c

 

[Sommerswerd]

Kellyanne Conway's speech was pretty generic... I have to say I am disappointed. It also had a hostage video flavour to it, as she stood rigid as a board for the entire time, with her hands at her sides as if she was a soldier standing at attention... no hand gestures whatsoever. It was extremely muted, given what I was expecting...

Anyway, the one good thing about tuning into Kellyanne's speech is I got to hear the heartfelt speech of the nun who went after her. I immediately thought "Wow a nun... I wonder what she has to say." Her remarks were immediately engaging, and although her message ended up, at the end, focused on a pro life theme, at least I felt like she was credible and genuine and thus thought provoking.

Overall, the night seems focused on women and on combating the notion that the Republicans are unpopular with women.

 

[Sommerswerd]

This convention format and music reminds me of the hunger games movies. Am I alone in that?

 

[Takhisis]

I've just updated DotA, so I'm not watching.

 

[Edmund Ironside]

I will add that in the pie-in-the-sky scenario where Trump is really unpopular enough to lose Florida... his "path to 270" is the least of his worries.

I'm not sure I would categorize Florida (the ultimate swing state) as a pie-in-the-sky scenario for the Democrats. Biden currently has a mild 3.7 lead there in the polls and Trump only won it in 2016 by a 1.2 margin. Since about 1992 the only thing you can count on with Florida in presidential elections is that it will be close! I expect this election to be no different. Though I guess the only concerning thing is that until the pandemic struck, Trump had been doing well in the state, (polling well and with the GOP doing well in the 2018 midterms) which contracts with say Michigan & Pennsylvania (where Trump has been polling badly for a substantial period of time and had done poorly in the midterms). So I would say Florida is more likely then some other battleground states to turn positive for Trump again.
I think a lot of election forecasters have predicted that IF Biden were to win it would be by winning Michigan & Pennsylvania, and 1 out of Arizona, Florida and Wisconsin.

 

[Estebonrober]

This convention format and music reminds me of the hunger games movies. Am I alone in that?

You are not alone in that at all