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Mail in voting and the election day train wreck

Unlikely. Like mask-wearing/taking COVID seriously... the mail-in voting has been politicized to the point where many Republicans are going to feel like its a loyalty test. So if they are voting by mail they'll want to keep it to themselves lest they be seen as siding with the liberals.

Reporters are never sufficiently quick-witted. You'll never meet a guy more slow on the uptake than me, but when on that tarmac in NC, he said his supporters should go to the polls to see if their mail in votes had been counted, the reporter should have said "So you're encouraging your supporters to vote by mail?"

Instead people are just agog that he suggests voting twice and don't take the occasion to check him on the dogging of mail-in voting he'd been doing (is still doing).
 
Reporters are never sufficiently quick-witted. You'll never meet a guy more slow on the uptake than me, but when on that tarmac in NC, he said his supporters should go to the polls to see if their mail in votes had been counted, the reporter should have said "So you're encouraging your supporters to vote by mail?"

Instead people are just agog that he suggests voting twice and don't take the occasion to check him on the dogging of mail-in voting he'd been doing (is still doing).
Sure, I mean of course Trump and Co., say that mail-in voting is totally fraudulent and a scam by Democrats and wink-wink Republicans you should all totally go mail-in vote because its totes OK. He is talking out of both sides of his mouth, as always... and trying to have it both ways, as always... and engaging in complete double-standard hypocrisy, as always.

However, he has also stated very plainly that the reason that he opposes mail-in voting is because "another Republican will never get elected in this country" or something along those lines if there was widespread mail-in voting. Trump, like all Republicans fully realize that the more people vote, the more they lose... so while of course they want their voters and only their voters to vote by mail, they also want to discourage states from allowing Democratic areas/states/cities to facilitate mail-in voting... or any ballot access increasing measure FTM... They want Democrats to just go stand in long lines in the rain and blazing heat... at the one or two polling stations that they leave open out of obligation.
 
I wish just once someone would come out on a MSM outlet and forcefully say "if you're worried that more people voting will hurt your chances you need to check your own ideology."

Trump has said that thing about "if mail in voting were easy no Republicans would win" more than once. If that's the case you're preaching a losing message Donny Tiny-hands.
 
Sure, I mean of course Trump and Co., say that mail-in voting is totally fraudulent and a scam by Democrats and wink-wink Republicans you should all totally go mail-in vote because its totes OK. He is talking out of both sides of his mouth, as always... and trying to have it both ways, as always... and engaging in complete double-standard hypocrisy, as always.

However, he has also stated very plainly that the reason that he opposes mail-in voting is because "another Republican will never get elected in this country" or something along those lines if there was widespread mail-in voting. Trump, like all Republicans fully realize that the more people vote, the more they lose... so while of course they want their voters and only their voters to vote by mail, they also want to discourage states from allowing Democratic areas/states/cities to facilitate mail-in voting... or any ballot access increasing measure FTM... They want Democrats to just go stand in long lines in the rain and blazing heat... at the one or two polling stations that they leave open out of obligation.

Trump is actually not just "lying as always." The pressures of the campaign have pushed him to new heights and he recently established a new benchmark by lying four times in a single sentence.

Congratulations to President Trump, and Republicans everywhere.
 
What (R) hear when he says that is "mail-in voting makes it easy to cheat, and Democrats will cheat so another Republican will never get elected in this country"
 
I wish just once someone would come out on a MSM outlet and forcefully say "if you're worried that more people voting will hurt your chances you need to check your own ideology."

Trump has said that thing about "if mail in voting were easy no Republicans would win" more than once. If that's the case you're preaching a losing message Donny Tiny-hands.

El Mac is partly correct in that the cheating aspect is embedded in the GOP's big bank of false beliefs, but I think more importantly the GOP, especially the Trumpists, have been thoroughly prepared for abandoning even a pretense of democracy. The old days of "we represent a silent majority" are gone. The Trumpists by and large accept that they are a minority but believe that they are the only defense against a "delusional and dangerous" majority that justifies a "win by any means possible" approach.

Trump is preaching what should be a losing message, but to the faithful it is not.
 
El Mac is partly correct in that the cheating aspect is embedded in the GOP's big bank of false beliefs, but I think more importantly the GOP, especially the Trumpists, have been thoroughly prepared for abandoning even a pretense of democracy. The old days of "we represent a silent majority" are gone. The Trumpists by and large accept that they are a minority but believe that they are the only defense against a "delusional and dangerous" majority that justifies a "win by any means possible" approach.

Trump is preaching what should be a losing message, but to the faithful it is not.
I'm not worried about those dildos. Just the actual majority. Not every Republican voter is the crackpot we think they are. They're worried their beliefs are in the minority. That's why guys like Commodore fight so hard for minority power.

Every Republican isnt that toothless goober chanting "build the wall." They're just the loudest.
 
I'm not worried about those dildos. Just the actual majority. Not every Republican voter is the crackpot we think they are. They're worried their beliefs are in the minority. That's why guys like Commodore fight so hard for minority power.

So again, 90% of Republicans (as of the latest Gallup poll) approve of Trump. Who exactly among these 90% are not the crackpots I think they are? Why should we not be worried about these people trying to establish minority rule because they know they'll never convince a majority of Americans to go along with their crap?
 
I'm not worried about those dildos. Just the actual majority. Not every Republican voter is the crackpot we think they are. They're worried their beliefs are in the minority. That's why guys like Commodore fight so hard for minority power.

Every Republican isnt that toothless goober chanting "build the wall." They're just the loudest.

They aren't chanting "build the wall," but at this point I think it is almost universally accepted among Republicans that the Democrats, while they are a majority, have to be stopped by whatever means necessary; including the abandonment of the democracy experiment.
 
So again, 90% of Republicans (as of the latest Gallup poll) approve of Trump. Who exactly among these 90% are not the crackpots I think they are? Why should we not be worried about these people trying to establish minority rule because they know they'll never convince a majority of Americans to go along with their crap?

They aren't chanting "build the wall," but at this point I think it is almost universally accepted among Republicans that the Democrats, while they are a majority, have to be stopped by whatever means necessary; including the abandonment of the democracy experiment.
They approve his performance. You guys are equating that with lockstep support. Stop it. That's not what those polls are asking. Get back to me when he has majority support for an illegal coup.
 
They approve his performance. You guys are equating that with lockstep support. Stop it. That's not what those polls are asking. Get back to me when he has majority support for an illegal coup.
A coup would involve using the military to overthrow the government. Trump is the government and will not overthrow himself, and I don't see anyone suggesting he'll get the military to overthrow Biden if he loses.

Rather, the consistent concern people have stated here is that he will sabotage the election as much as possible, cast as much doubt on the outcome as possible, and incite supporters to take up arms and attack opponents if the outcome isn't to his liking, as well as deploying CBP, DHS, and so on to attack enemies.

And the thing is, he's already doing all of these things!
 
They approve his performance. You guys are equating that with lockstep support. Stop it.

If you want me to "stop it," please sketch out a plausible theory by which anyone who approves of his performance at this stage of his presidency is not in "lockstep support."

Get back to me when he has majority support for an illegal coup.

I did not say anything about Trump pulling off an illegal coup. I said "trying to establish minority rule", as in:
Like I keep saying, the real threat isn't a Trump dictatorship, it's durable minority rule by the political coalition represented in the Republican Party. Trump's Presidency, whether we call it a failure or not, is only one aspect of that problem and it's not clear that it's the most immediately threatening aspect of the problem.
 
Newsflash, they said that in 2018 too and he got curbstomped in his midterms.

How do you guys see this stuff playing out? My neighbor is a Trump fanatic but I share beers with him all the time. Is he going to change his mind and start shooting up neighborhoods? The civil war had clear lines (an idiotic move by the founders, fudge those guys), where are the lines here? There's opposing signs all across the state. Where does the shooting start?
Outside of a few Kyle Rittenhouse type nutjobs I dont see GoP voters getting violent. Isolated violence only reflects negatively on a party so I see any crackpots using their 2A to oppose Biden pushing support his way. I mourn any lives lost but those are 100% on Trump's shoulders.
 
If you want me to "stop it," please sketch out a plausible theory by which anyone who approves of his performance at this stage of his presidency is not in "lockstep support."



I did not say anything about Trump pulling off an illegal coup. I said "trying to establish minority rule", as in:
There are a lot of people who are happy with his judge picks, happy with certain policies, happy with owning the libs. It doesn't mean they'll support upending the constitution by committing treason. The results would have to be extremely close to actually cause trouble and even then itd be extremely isolated. Most conservatives will just shift to rage tweeting and whacking off to Limbaugh if Biden wins.

GWB actually had a 1 state election. Right now it looks like Trump would have a hard time even hitting that. Texas is in the margin of error ffs. The most hell be able to pull off is a successful show on OAN.
 
How do you guys see this stuff playing out?

A combination of voter suppression, partisan gerrymandering, partisan court decisions, and reliance on the built-in institutions of minority rule like the Senate and the electoral college at the federal level, and the fact that many state legislatures are gerrymandered to give rural voters much more voting power than urban voters. You know, all the things the Republican Party has been doing for decades to maintain power despite representing a shrinking minority of the country.

Where does the shooting start?

You have to ask the Turner Diaries cosplayers, or perhaps Bill Barr, that question.

There are a lot of people who are happy with his judge picks, happy with certain policies, happy with owning the libs. It doesn't mean they'll support upending the constitution by committing treason.

The other point here is that you are disregarding the long list of things that these people must be, at the very least, tolerating to maintain their support for Trump until now. One of those things is telling lies that are responsible for the deaths of perhaps 150,000 Americans (just a random number I picked assuming that even with a perfect pandemic response we would still have seen a substantial number of deaths). If they are willing to support him, in spite of those deaths, because of "judge picks", "certain policies", and "owning the libs", what on Earth makes you think they won't support him while he commits treason and upends the Constitution? And if they are lying to themselves that he isn't responsible for those 150,000 deaths, what makes you think they'll be incapable of lying to themselves about his treason and upending of the Constitution?

No offense, but my sense of this is that because of your personal relationships with many Trump supporters, you are just unwilling to entertain the possibility that they might support such an action.

Anyway though, the danger as I see it is less in Trump pulling off some kind of dramatic, explicit coup and more along the lines of the violent "mess" mentioned by @Gori the Grey and @Timsup2nothin among others. Maybe most of Trump's supporters won't pick up their guns and play militia, but a substantial number of them have already shown willingness to do precisely that.
 
Interesting example last weekend in Germany: The local elections in Nordrhein-Westfalen, the biggest Bundesland of Germany. Due to Corona, many more voted by mail, and for the in-person voting the queue took longer due to social distancing and more space allocated. This made the Exit-Polling more difficult which is used for the 6pm forecast resulting in the fact that they were off by 2,5% for the voting share of the CDU, relevant for whether Laschet kann stay on as „Governor“, as reported in the official result which came some hours later.

I think you got that wrong. Laschet's job was not on the line in any way. The only exception would have been a resignation in case of a crushing defeat, but 2.5% would not have made any difference there. The only thing that mattered beyond the local scope was how believably he could claim victory in support for his bid to become chancellor next year.

Local elections are notoriously hard to poll. I am even surprised that there were exit polls at all.
 
A combination of voter suppression, partisan gerrymandering, partisan court decisions, and reliance on the built-in institutions of minority rule like the Senate and the electoral college at the federal level, and the fact that many state legislatures are gerrymandered to give rural voters much more voting power than urban voters. You know, all the things the Republican Party has been doing for decades to maintain power despite representing a shrinking minority of the country.



You have to ask the Turner Diaries cosplayers, or perhaps Bill Barr, that question.



The other point here is that you are disregarding the long list of things that these people must be, at the very least, tolerating to maintain their support for Trump until now. One of those things is telling lies that are responsible for the deaths of perhaps 150,000 Americans (just a random number I picked assuming that even with a perfect pandemic response we would still have seen a substantial number of deaths). If they are willing to support him, in spite of those deaths, because of "judge picks", "certain policies", and "owning the libs", what on Earth makes you think they won't support him while he commits treason and upends the Constitution? And if they are lying to themselves that he isn't responsible for those 150,000 deaths, what makes you think they'll be incapable of lying to themselves about his treason and upending of the Constitution?

No offense, but my sense of this is that because of your personal relationships with many Trump supporters, you are just unwilling to entertain the possibility that they might support such an action.

Anyway though, the danger as I see it is less in Trump pulling off some kind of dramatic, explicit coup and more along the lines of the violent "mess" mentioned by @Gori the Grey and @Timsup2nothin among others. Maybe most of Trump's supporters won't pick up their guns and play militia, but a substantial number of them have already shown willingness to do precisely that.
You're asking me for proof of the less extreme position. I dont think I'd be wrong to turn it around because you're asking me to prove a negative. I need something way more concrete than a job approval Gallup poll.

Barr hasn't called for shooting, why ask him where it starts?

You cited my personal relationship with Trump supporters as influencing my opinion, would I be wrong in pointing out that you and Tim are in NJ and CA respectively so you might be in a bit of an echo chamber? I'm telling you now his support is way more tepid than you think. Republicans are thin blue line goons who absolutely believe healthcare comes from an employer. That's not a base to gain support for illegal activity from. Just isn't.

I'm arguing the moderate position, dont demand proof from me. Give me proof that the extreme will happen.
 
Barr hasn't called for shooting, why ask him where it starts?

https://www.theolympian.com/news/local/crime/article245495910.html

In his statement, Barr calls Reinoehl’s killing “a significant accomplishment in the ongoing effort to restore law and order to Portland and other cities.”

One witness claims this is how that killing went down:

Officers who first confronted Michael Forest Reinoehl outside an apartment complex in Washington last week yelled no warnings or commands before firing and killing the Oregon man wanted on a murder warrant in the death of a right-wing demonstrator in Portland, according to a witness now represented by a lawyer.

There are conflicting accounts, so I would not consider this anything like certain. But, I did say "maybe Bill Barr."

Give me proof that the extreme will happen.

I can't give you proof the extreme will happen. I am not sure what actually will happen. All I can do is show you the pattern of increasingly extreme things and ask why you believe the pattern will not continue.
 
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