2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Sommerswerd]

Again, I ask. Where are these teaming legions of Nazis, or these Nazis allegedly running the U.S. Government. It's a tragedy the people who fought in and otherwise lived during WW2 very old and are passing away rapidly, if they haven't already (the vast majority). Most people young enough to be using the Internet regularly have no clue AT ALL what Nazism is or means, or even Fascism in general. It's been watered down and neutered to generic political invective and scare tactics terminology, like Communism has among more right-wing pundits, politicians, and speak. Most people in the modern world wouldn't know a real, died in the wool Nazi if they came up kicked them in the butt with their jackboot while goose-stepping. Frankly, only a tiny minority - less than a fraction of a percentage point - of the U.S. population could truly be called "Fascist," or "Nazi," - and they tend to live in very small isolated, rural communities - sometimes compounds or bunkers, certainly - in the middle of nowhere, except for some burnt-out and aging skinheads in a few suburban areas. But that's about it. And, they're more likely to vote for the Constitution Party of the United States over the Republican Party of the United States, or wacko Independents like that flamboyantly xenophobic Florida preacher who ran as a minor Independent in 2016, and they strongly attracted to the Populist Party in 1984, 1988, and 1992. Collectively, they have next to no power or influence, and several groups of them have been declared Domestic Terrorist Organizations, especially after McVeigh's bombing of the Oklahoma City Government Building, and the Trans Rights Lobby alone dwarfs them for influence. The Charlottesburg Rally was almost certainly a "call to arms from across the nation," in advance - not a gathering of that many of them in the local area. As I often like to say - perspective and proportion, please.

*sigh*.. Another absurd wall-of-text rant in response to what was clearly a joke you just didn't get? (It's a line from Inglorious Basterds, just so you know) And the craziest part is... this time the joke wasn't even directed at you or anything you said Dude you need to relax. And now that I think about it... whatever happened to...

This conversation is just getting pitiful, and I'm departing until something worthwhile is said on the thread again - of ever.

??? You said these words less than 16 hours ago!! And you're back already? I thought you were leaving?? How can you expect us to take your threats to leave seriously If.You.Never.Actually.Leave.???

Sommer wasn't claiming Nazis are running the US government. He was mock-quoting a hypothetical poorly-educated WWII soldier. For fun. As though Farm Boy's comment were a statement, rather than part of an exchange about English usage. And this soldier, whom we can all conjure up in our imaginations just by the way he talks, was giving his earnest, heartfelt response to Farm Boy's claim.

Yes pretty close close. I was actually referencing this (Time index 2:00)

 

[Gori the Grey]

Oh, ok. Film I haven't seen.

 

[Estebonrober]

You cannot make this kind of thing up.

Donald Trump jokes about staying in power for '12 more years' at Atlanta rally – video

Donald Trump made light of fears he will not accept the result of the election if he loses to Joe Biden in November. 'Will we be president in 10 years?' he asked, before claiming he was joking.

'You know, you can't joke,' he told supporters in Atlanta. '[The media] always cut it before the laugh so they think he's serious.'

The crowd then chanted '12 more years!' to laughter from the president.

• Top Republicans dismiss Trump's refusal to commit to peaceful transfer
• Donald in Blunderland: Trump won't commit to peaceful power transfer at surreal press briefing
• US politics live

This part of this has always been easy to ignore and write off as nonsense. . .

Also, an excerpt from another article:

There is one trick up Republican sleeves so outrageous that no one had even contemplated it until now. It’s technical, but bear with me. The president is chosen by an electoral college, made up of electors from all 50 states. For more than a century, those electors have been chosen to reflect the winner of the popular vote in that state. But Republican officials have noted that there’s nothing in the constitution that says it has to be that way. The legislatures – the mini-parliaments of each state – have the power to choose the electors themselves. And guess what: Republicans control the legislatures in the six most hotly fought battleground states. If they declare that the official vote tally showing Biden the winner is unreliable – on the grounds that, as Trump says, all postal votes are suspect – there is nothing to stop them choosing a slate of pro-Trump electors instead, claiming this reflects the true will of the people of their state.

It sounds like a Lukashenko manoeuvre, a coup against democracy – and that’s exactly what it would be. And yet there are Republican party officials talking on the record of how they are contemplating that very move.

Ah, but surely the supreme court would never allow such a thing. And yet, as of last week, there is a vacancy on that court. Trump plans to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg at speed, aiming to seat his own handpicked judge in time to settle any election-related cases in his favour. That too he says out loud. Again, the Belarusian reek is unmistakable.​

Edit: the pick is supposed to be one Amy Coney Barrett.
Edit2: The author of the lines above refers to this:

Could Republicans ignore the popular vote and choose their own pro-Trump electors?
Reports suggest strategy to bypass results in key states under discussion, but legal experts say such an effort is likely to fail

Spoiler :

Donald Trump escalated his efforts to undermine the 2020 election this week.

Republicans are reportedly considering the possibility of asking state legislatures to ignore the will of the popular vote and appoint electors favorable to the president. Trump also declined to say whether he would accept a peaceful transfer of power this week, comments that many Republicans distanced themselves from. Trump said he needs to put a new supreme court justice in place to resolve election disputes.

The US constitution gives state legislatures the authority to appoint the 538 electors to the electoral college who ultimately elect the president. States have long used the winner of the popular vote to determine who gets the electoral votes in their states, but Republicans anonymously told the Atlantic the campaign has discussed the possibility of using delays in the vote count as a basis to ask Republican-controlled legislatures to appoint their own electors, regardless of the final vote tally.

“The state legislatures will say, ‘All right, we’ve been given this constitutional power. We don’t think the results of our own state are accurate, so here’s our slate of electors that we think properly reflect the results of our state,’ ” a Trump campaign legal adviser told the Atlantic.

A Trump campaign spokesperson said the report in the Atlantic was not true.

“The Atlantic story is false and ridiculous. The types of contingency plans included in the story are impossible,” the spokesperson said. “States have laws that determine how electors are selected. Especially if we’re looking at states that could have mail ballot problems (eg Pennsylvania, Michigan), no Democrat governor is going to sign a bill repealing those laws.”

Experts cast doubt on the feasibility of such an effort.

“It’s the ultimate nightmare scenario for the country. There’s no reason to think there would be any appropriate basis for doing this. It’s not at all clear that the legal power to do it even exists,” said Richard Pildes, a law professor at New York University. “There’s a delicate line in talking about and educating people about all sorts of potential scenarios that could emerge and creating unwarranted anxiety about what is likely to be a relatively well-functioning election process.”

Such a scenario is unlikely, Richard Hasen, a law professor and election expert at the University of California, Irvine tweeted Thursday. He noted he did not see a way lawmakers could legally change the manner in which they chose electors after people started voting. Several battleground states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, also have Democratic governors who could serve as a check on the legislature.

It’s also not clear how widespread or serious the Republican effort is. Joseph Kyzer, a spokesman for the North Carolina speaker, Tim Moore, said it wasn’t something being discussed among lawmakers. Andrew Hitt, the chairman of the Wisconsin Republican party, also told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Wednesday it wasn’t something that was being discussed.

Because of a surge in mail-in balloting, election officials are likely to continue counting votes after the polls close on 3 November. There is nothing unusual about that kind of delay, but experts are increasingly worried Trump could use it to claim victory if vote tallies show him ahead on election night. There is a push to prepare the public to understand such a wait is normal to gird against claims of fraud.

“Unnecessarily sowing doubt and confusion in voters’ mind can alienate some voters from even participating at all and can fuel anxieties that put people on a razor’s edge,” Pildes said.

This part is so disconcerting as to be a very legitimate cause for open warfare.

 

[Estebonrober]

[


More and more, nowadays, a lot of people, especially on the Internet, are becoming convinced that anecdotal arguments are effective and convincing in countering and disproving entire broad-scale, general statements of affairs. The naivety and self-delusion are gobsmacking.

Yes because when we keep on finding nazis all around its still just naivety and self-delusion to believe a government that consistently employs these people might have white supremacist tendencies. I'm sure you read my statement that they "may not be run by nazis, but they are getting advice and consent from them" I stand by that and not as just anecdotal. . .

Or in other words, sit down and hush. I've heard enough of your both sidesing it for a lifetime.

 

[Patine]

Yes because when we keep on finding nazis all around its still just naivety and self-delusion to believe a government that consistently employs these people might have white supremacist tendencies. I'm sure you read my statement that they "may not be run by nazis, but they are getting advice and consent from them" I stand by that and not as just anecdotal. . .

Or in other words, sit down and hush. I've heard enough of your both sidesing it for a lifetime.

Not all White Supremacists are Nazis. A Nazi, ideologically, is much more specific than just a White Supremacist, or just a right-wing authoritarian Nationalist. This is a big part of the problem with your fast-and-loose, clumsy, and inappropriate terminology. Soon you'll be as slipshod as Glen Beck - who called Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, of all people, full-out COMMUNISTS - in your political labelling and terminology, if you aren't already that bad.

*sigh*.. Another absurd wall-of-text rant in response to what was clearly a joke you just didn't get? (It's a line from Inglorious Basterds, just so you know) And the craziest part is... this time the joke wasn't even directed at you or anything you said Dude you need to relax.

And, again, as above, you seem to show a sense of entitlement that your jokes are to be automatically appreciated and appreciated as much by all, always considered "funny," or at least "amusing," and immune to bombing horribly. Well, that's not the way it works.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I'm still catching up with the thread so these are old

I don't think I mentioned the military at all. That still leaves a lot of scope for a crisis with lots of chaos and violence, however. State by state certification of results, with the variety of political forces arrayed in each of them, including at this point actual organised pro-Trump paramilitaries, would be likely to get messy and dirty.

Trump this week called on states controlled by Republican legislatures to ignore the popular vote and certify him as the winner for their EC electors. Several states replied they intend to do that. I counted I over 300 EC votes in states controlled by GOP legislatures, which would put him over the 270 required to win if they all moved en masse. I did not discount the EC votes of states that have Democratic governors, so at least some of those 300 would not be able to override a Democratic veto. Still, it's quite scary because this could conceivably be used to circumvent the national vote.

Worse, it's totally legal. The constitution does not demand a popular vote for the president, it only proscribes how many electors each state gets. The states are free to use whatever corrupt system they want to determine how to apportion those electors. It's almost an accident of history that we wound up with a popular vote determining each state's electors and it was not always this way either.

It's the pandemic that makes this especially dicey. The pandemic has shifted far more of the vote into early/postal/absent voting, meaning modelling results from on-the-night counting of in-person election day votes will be especially difficult. There'll be a lot more counting left to do than normal and no precedent data to guide projections. States that could normally be "called" with confidence are likely to be far less certain until those pandemic-induced late counts come in.

In anything short of an obvious election night win for the Dems, since Trump is planning to attack the legitimacy of counting that occurs after that night, they're going to at least have this messy state by state fight over results certification. That means likely lots of court cases with rowdy protests and gun-toting militias showing up outside inflaming things. It also means scope for partisan state legislatures to intervene and stop counting or declare a result early. And with Trump loudly insisting the late votes, much bigger than normal, are faked by the Democrats to steal the election.

It's sort of a unique recipe for chaos caused by the both the wannabe autocrat and the pandemic in conjunction. Any other year, there'd be far less uncertainty on election night (albeit still lots of the vote suppression that usually tilts things).

A lot of states do actually count mail-in ballots and dropped-off ballots before election day, so that will mitigate some of the issues with respect to counting all of the mail in votes. Not all of them, and maybe not enough, but many do and this will help us get to a real answer that much more quickly.

The GOP has historically challenged every ballot in contested districts to slow down the process and in hopes that they can throw out more Democratic votes than GOP votes. They have telegraphed that they are going to double down on this and have been helped by SCOTUS rulings that will allow for more ballot challenging in states where it was previously restricted and will also allow for voter intimidation by relaxing rules on GOP operatives posting up near polling centers. And you're also going to have people showing up with guns to scare people - and this is already happening in states with early voting.

Does the law provide for a president to remain in office after his term in a "care-taker" role? From what I understand, the Presidential Succession Act dictates that the role of acting president would fall to the Speaker of the House.

The constitution itself doesn't specify a line of succession, but it does specify that the position of acting president has to be filled by a federal officeholder; if Trump's re-election is not confirmed, then he is not an office-holder and would be ineligible for the appointment even if the Presidential Succession Act were somehow circumvented.

The senate could attempt to declare Trump acting president, but as they do not possess the legal power to do so, it would be unenforceable.

You're right, he'd theoretically be out. But then again, most of his 'acting appointments' are also illegal and yet nothing is done. Yesterday a court finally removed the acting head of the Burea of Land Management who was illegally appointed....500 days ago.

We have to stop thinking in terms of what is legal for Trump to do and instead think in terms of what he can get away with. If the GOP Senate* does not move to stop him from installing himself for a second term, he will. At that point we only have the courts to fall back on and with a 6-3 SCOTUS (with 3 of those 6 being Trump appointees), we can't count on that either. And we can't discount that he would just ignore a court order as well.

*I don't think the Senate has much of a formal role in this process but the GOP Senate leadership are currently the only powerful group that can really stand up to Trump in a meaningful way at the moment and I do not think he'd stay on if McConnell told him to leave after losing the election. I don't actually see McConnell saying such a thing, even if he huffs and chuffs about respecting the election results now. The GOP senators say a lot of things they later ignore when they feel like it, like how they wouldn't vote for a SCOTUS nominee in 2020.

 

[Patine]

Trump this week called on states controlled by Republican legislatures to ignore the popular vote and certify him as the winner for their EC electors. Several states replied they intend to do that. I counted I over 300 EC votes in states controlled by GOP legislatures, which would put him over the 270 required to win if they all moved en masse. I did not discount the EC votes of states that have Democratic governors, so at least some of those 300 would not be able to override a Democratic veto. Still, it's quite scary because this could conceivably be used to circumvent the national vote.

Worse, it's totally legal. The constitution does not demand a popular vote for the president, it only proscribes how many electors each state gets. The states are free to use whatever corrupt system they want to determine how to apportion those electors. It's almost an accident of history that we wound up with a popular vote determining each state's electors and it was not always this way either.

Sold Red State Governors and Legislators aside, are Purple State Republican Governors and Legislators - all the bad stereotypes of the modern, toxic, and divisive socio-political zeitgeist aside - REALLY willing to commit political suicide in their home States for Donald Trump?

 

[HEF]

Oh, ok. Film I haven't seen.

Hated that movie.

Hated that movie to pieces.

 

[Naskra]

Trump this week called on states controlled by Republican legislatures to ignore the popular vote and certify him as the winner for their EC electors

This did not happen.

 

[Farm Boy]

NPR spent about 15 minutes destroying the myth that the doctor doing unnecessary surgeries on immigrants had anything to do with Assclown or racial reproductive politics. Just a corrupt pos on government contract milking all the unnecessary work he could get. But he's the type that cuts that unnecessary work out of people with a knife. Horrific enough to need no additional salaciousness.

 

[Lexicus]

NPR spent about 15 minutes destroying the myth that the doctor doing unnecessary surgeries on immigrants had anything to do with Assclown or racial reproductive politics. Just a corrupt pos on government contract milking all the unnecessary work he could get.

Hard disagree. Those people are mostly in detention in the first place because of Assclown and racial politics. The whole context is shaped by Assclown and racial politics, or rather, to use the less politically correct formulation, racism.

 

[Farm Boy]

Nah. We had immigration detention before Assclown. We'll have immigration detention after Assclown. It will then outlive Assclown. The other term was racial reproductive politics. Which is not the same once you remove political sterilization component and make it about standard old graft that doesn't care if it hurts people. So you can't take the word out without it being a rhetorical slip in the conversation to change the topic.

Though, I mean, sure. Let's go with it. Policies that have an outsized effect on preventing certain ethnicity from becoming living human beings are all intentionally racist policies. You want that premise chiseled? ~10.8k kills a year, disproportionately borne(10x the issue of police kills). We need a subsidy for more, clearly, specifically targeted at social groupings.

 

[Patine]

Hard disagree. Those people are mostly in detention in the first place because of Assclown and racial politics. The whole context is shaped by Assclown and racial politics, or rather, to use the less politically correct formulation, racism.

Ah, the despicable and shameless liar and slanderer, whose baseless personal attacks are transparent for the fallacies they are, has emerged from his cave of cowardice, fully expecting to have his credibility and believability intact.

Moderator Action: Flaming doesn't look good on anyone. Don't do it. --LM

 

[Lexicus]

Nah. We had immigration detention before Assclown. We'll have immigration detention after Assclown. It will then outlive Assclown. The other term was racial reproductive politics. Which is not the same once you remove political sterilization component and make it about standard old graft that doesn't care if it hurts people. So you can't take the word out without it being a rhetorical slip in the conversation to change the topic.

Assclown vastly expanded it. He made it more racist by creating policies that ensured many more people whose only "crime" is crossing the border will be detained as if they were dangerous criminals. He created the context in which this sociopathic doctor was able to do his thing. The fact that this wasn't a direct, ordered-from-the-top instance of an actual sterilization policy wrt detained immigrants doesn't mean that Assclown and racism aren't relevant.

Though, I mean, sure. Let's go with it. Policies that have an outsized effect on preventing certain ethnicity from becoming living human beings are all intentionally racist policies. You want that premise chiseled? ~10.8k kills a year, disproportionately borne(10x the issue of police kills). We need a subsidy for more, clearly, specifically targeted at social groupings.

You still haven't been clear about what you're actually referring to here, but I'm (at least conditionally) with you on believing it's desirable to decrease the abortion rate. Not because I consider abortion to be murder, but a high abortion rate probably reflects other failures I'd like to correct, like availability of contraception and sex education, the status and economic independence of women, etc, etc.

Ah, the despicable and shameless liar and slanderer, whose baseless personal attacks are transparent for the fallacies they are, has emerged from his cave of cowardice, fully expecting to have his credibility and believability intact.

take some deep breaths buddy. Now realize that if you think Biden and Trump are equally bad, then I sincerely believe that means you support Trump. In effect if not in intention.

 

[Patine]

take some deep breaths buddy. Now realize that if you think Biden and Trump are equally bad, then I sincerely believe that means you support Trump. In effect if not in intention.

You obviously haven't been reading my posts at all. I have made very clear, consistently and unwaveringly, that I strongly believe the fact that the rigged and corrupt American electoral system only ALLOWS one of Biden or Trump, and one of the two organized crime cartels posing as political parties as having any REMOTE CHANCE to win as a major injustice, a cheating and robbing of Americans of their vote, and a lack of true power by American voters to truly have choice in their leadership. Also, declaring that if one does not fully support Biden, they fully support Trump is a symptom of the broken, divisive, ruinous, bloc-thinking, and "divide-and-conquer," viciously deteriorating state of American society, culture, and politics (a stage in the history of great empires where a deep decline can be seen, even before external military and economic power truly wane). Living in Canada, this is not my way of thinking, and it's disingenuous to arbitrarily declare me into such a toxic socio-political viewpoint - especially when all evidence from my posts say otherwise.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I don't think you're reading Lex, and here is my indicator:

this is not my way of thinking

Lex has said that regardless of what your intentions may be, the course of action you have been proposing (not voting), in effect supports Trump. Decreased turnout makes a Trump victory more likely. Inaction has consequences. Much as one might like to sequester oneself within a tower of moral rectitude from which one can condemn the moral repugnance of others, there is no such position in the world. Your inaction defines you. Hence you are in effect a supporter of Trump, whatever your intentions may be. And in fact, "all evidence from your posts" (the only evidence there is of anything in any of your posts) says exactly that. Guess whose appeal "both sides are equally bad (and thus you need an outsider)" was in 2016.

 

[Patine]

I don't think you're reading Lex, and here is my indicator:


Lex has said that regardless of what your intentions may be, the course of action you have been proposing (not voting), in effect supports Trump.

Oh, the onus and blame - the scathing and harsh abdication of virtue - for not voting for Biden and enabling a Trump victory when I am INELIGIBLE to vote in American elections of any kind due to citizenship and residency (and quite relieved that I don't have pressure to put my stamp of approval on one monster or the other in this upcoming trainwreck election). Funny how you missed, "Living in Canada," which was literally right before, and part of the same sentence, as the quote you so self-righteously and imperiously made - Mr. Grammar School Teacher!

 

[AmazonQueen]

Oh, the onus and blame - the scathing and harsh abdication of virtue - for not voting for Biden and enabling a Trump victory when I am INELIGIBLE to vote in American elections of any kind due to citizenship and residency (and quite relieved that I don't have pressure to put my stamp of approval on one monster or the other in this upcoming trainwreck election). Funny how you missed, "Living in Canada," which was literally right before, and part of the same sentence, as the quote you so self-righteously and imperiously made - Mr. Grammar School Teacher!

But you are advocating a course of action for US citizens to take that benefits Trump.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

But you are advocating a course of action for US citizens to take that benefits Trump.

We have a winner here!

 

[Patine]

But you are advocating a course of action for US citizens to take that benefits Trump.

No, I have never advocated for any such thing, regardless of baseless accusations by people who aren't reading my posts. I am advocating for Americans to show they care about their nation and it's advancement and better, and the power of THEY THE PEOPLE over malign, twisted, and treasonous government agendas, plutocratic rule through rampant corruption, and high crime at the highest level, and vote out BOTH major parties in the same election, and end the seditious and criminal soft tyranny of the Duopoly. I am unaware of having advocated for anything else as far as U.S. politics are concerned.