The Bannon thing was not a joke. He has lost his mind. And his Twitter account was suspended soon after. Behead Fauci and Christopher Wray and put their heads on pikes outside the White House is what he said. The hardcore base is not gonna take this well.
The Bannon thing was not a joke. He has lost his mind. And his Twitter account was suspended soon after. Behead Fauci and Christopher Wray and put their heads on pikes outside the White House is what he said. The hardcore base is not gonna take this well.
Good. I know folks on the left are disappointed. But when the dust settles, it's going to be conservatives/Republicans that are going to be furiously divided.
The remaining outstanding ballots in Philly alone will put Biden over the top in PA, and there will still be about another 150,000 swinging 70-30 his way after that. It honestly should just be called now, but they are gonna wait til the moment Biden takes the lead. AZ is getting alot closer, and I'm kinda perplexed FOX and the AP haven't retracted their call yet. I think everyone is waiting for PA to make it meaningless.
I don't believe Democrats defraud elections because if they did, they would have done so during Bush vs. Gore. That one was heated, to say the least.
This will likely be one of the most investigated elections in recent memory, which I can't say is a bad thing. If nothing else, it should do something to restore faith in the process.
The remaining outstanding ballots in Philly alone will put Biden over the top in PA, and there will still be about another 150,000 swinging 70-30 his way after that. It honestly should just be called now, but they are gonna wait til the moment Biden takes the lead. AZ is getting alot closer, and I'm kinda perplexed FOX and the AP haven't retracted their call yet. I think everyone is waiting for PA to make it meaningless.
I honestly think the game is: Dont retract the call until you're certain you're wrong. If AZ stays with Biden (which is super plausible and perhaps likely) - then they dont really look bad or anything.
TBH - the bad AZ call is only reason we dont have an NV call. Yeah, they're taking forever to count the votes: but most people are a LOT more certain NV is in the Biden column than AZ at this point. However, he's only six EVs short of the presidency, and AP doesnt want to make the call giving him the presidency only to retract it if AZ does go back.
Long story short: PA will decide the presidency call. GA wont come through for a while since they still have to count the overseas ballots and such (since it's so, so, so close).
I don't believe Democrats defraud elections because if they did, they would have done so during Bush vs. Gore. That one was heated, to say the least.
This will likely be one of the most investigated elections in recent memory, which I can't say is a bad thing. If nothing else, it should do something to restore faith in the process.
I know what you mean, and in general I agree. My concern is that there will also be a lot of Project Veritas like attempts to investigate the election, with a predetermined finding of fraud.
In sum, I think Trump (and the PA's GOP legislature's) antics in this whole thing will be damaging to faith in the system, not beneficial.
I don't believe Democrats defraud elections because if they did, they would have done so during Bush vs. Gore. That one was heated, to say the least.
This will likely be one of the most investigated elections in recent memory, which I can't say is a bad thing. If nothing else, it should do something to restore faith in the process.
The other MAJOR flaw in this argument would be the question "if they were rigging the votes, why didn't they bother to pick up more Senate and House seats??"
I don't believe Democrats defraud elections because if they did, they would have done so during Bush vs. Gore. That one was heated, to say the least.
This will likely be one of the most investigated elections in recent memory, which I can't say is a bad thing. If nothing else, it should do something to restore faith in the process.
The last election was also heavily investigated... maybe it’s going to be the new norm in the US until the States give up their rights to hold them however they want.
I don't believe Democrats defraud elections because if they did, they would have done so during Bush vs. Gore. That one was heated, to say the least.
This will likely be one of the most investigated elections in recent memory, which I can't say is a bad thing. If nothing else, it should do something to restore faith in the process.
The last election was also heavily investigated... maybe it’s going to be the new norm in the US until the States give up their rights to hold them however they want.
I think that's probably where all this election fighting will eventually lead. States rights are important but with an event that carries such national importance there really needs to be more standardization.
I don't believe Democrats defraud elections because if they did, they would have done so during Bush vs. Gore. That one was heated, to say the least.
This will likely be one of the most investigated elections in recent memory, which I can't say is a bad thing. If nothing else, it should do something to restore faith in the process.
The last election was also heavily investigated... maybe it’s going to be the new norm in the US until the States give up their rights to hold them however they want.
I think that's probably where all this election fighting will eventually lead. States rights are important but with an event that carries such national importance there really needs to be more standardization.
I think there needs to be TOTAL standardization, but that won't ever happen. That being said, it is an absolute fact that these mail-in votes are coming in at the end because the Republican legislature wanted it that way. Their claims about it being suspicious are totally bad faith.
Another pragmatic argument against the Electoral College is ability to defuse the nonsense we are seeing right now. Biden already had something like a 1.5-2 million advantage around midnight on Tuesday. That number has climbed to 4, and it will continue to climb. As I said above, the race is not close from a popular vote point of view.
I actually do think the distributed way we do elections is good from a normative perspective. Even if it results in a few states being frustrating. But it also prevents anyone who controls the federal government from directly controlling their reelection. So I'm not advocating for changing that.
But if popular vote determined the winner, there'd be no reason to sweat a few ten thousand votes in Pennsylvania, for example.
Also worth noting that it's incredibly troubling that in a number of key states, the final votes to be counted were disproportionately from majority black areas -- Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Atlanta. That's obviously why we saw a surge in Biden votes. I'm not alleging a conspiracy here, but if any of these states had stopped their counts, that's who would have been disenfranchised.
I would take better representation and some people having any representation at all over more election stability, myself. If those were my choices I would say keep the chaos flowing. Living in a system that never represents 45% of the population isn't a system I want to live under.
Also worth noting that it's incredibly troubling that in a number of key states, the final votes to be counted were disproportionately from majority black areas -- Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Atlanta. That's obviously why we saw a surge in Biden votes. I'm not alleging a conspiracy here, but if any of these states had stopped their counts, that's who would have been disenfranchised.
I mean - I dont think there can be any doubt about that. Voter suppression has always targeted minorities. The new wrinkle is trying to suppress their vote *after* it has already been cast. It's a pathetic new low.
I would take better representation and some people having any representation at all over more election stability, myself. If those were my choices I would say keep the chaos flowing. Living in a system that never represents 45% of the population isn't a system I want to live under.
All you're saying here is that one party should not have to moderate its view to be more in line with the citizens of its country.
Sean Hannity is suggesting Pennsylvania should have a "do-over" election. Things are getting MIGHTY desperate in Trumplandia. This refusal to accept reality did not happen to this extent in 2008 or 2012 for them (aside from a small fit thrown by Karl Rove).
I would take better representation and some people having any representation at all over more election stability, myself. If those were my choices I would say keep the chaos flowing. Living in a system that never represents 45% of the population isn't a system I want to live under.
Instead we have a system that never represents 55% of the population.
It won't be official til a recount and absentee/overseas, but Biden is going to overtake Trump in Georgia. This is mostly due to the work of Stacey Abrams, who I believe was robbed of a governorship in 2018, and has spent the last two years not whining about it (she has complained about it less than I have) but instead making the idea of democracy itself in Georgia her cause in life. And it may have just turned Georgia blue.
Lindsey Graham is openly suggesting that Pennsylvania should send faithless electors for Trump, regardless of the vote total. Newt Gingrich is suggesting that Bill Barr arrest poll workers and throw out the results of the election. This is what is broadcasting to millions of people on FOX News tonight. Absolute fascistic garbage coming out of a fire-hose. The Republican Party as it is currently constituted must be destroyed.
Lindsey Graham is openly suggesting that Pennsylvania should send faithless electors for Trump, regardless of the vote total. Newt Gingrich is suggesting that Bill Barr arrest poll workers and throw out the results of the election. This is what is broadcasting to millions of people on FOX News tonight. Absolute fascistic garbage coming out of a fire-hose. The Republican Party as it is currently constituted must be destroyed.
The election being this close means that all of the above will be baked in for the next 4 years. Trumpism and the right wing anti democratic machine will have a meaningful place in politics until the voters reject it. Fox News will make that very hard. The hyper polarization of the country will make that very hard.
Lindsey Graham is openly suggesting that Pennsylvania should send faithless electors for Trump, regardless of the vote total. Newt Gingrich is suggesting that Bill Barr arrest poll workers and throw out the results of the election. This is what is broadcasting to millions of people on FOX News tonight. Absolute fascistic garbage coming out of a fire-hose.
At the risk of obnoxiously banging the same drum, we are seeing extremely compelling evidence for what I'm talking about in regards to the Senate and the EC.
Once you start indulging in the idea that your party or faction should win control of legislatures and presidencies with fewer votes, it's not much of a leap to start suggesting all sorts of other anti-democratic pretexts for how and why you should be in power.
One person one vote really needs to be the bedrock principle everything else emanates from.
I am struck by just how closely this election is following the narrative most people have sketched out in this thread for months now. The fact that the polls appear to have understated Trump's support slightly nationally (and in one state, Florida, significantly understated) gave rise to hopes that we wouldn't be in this position. It's really no surprise though that we've ended up with a election competitive enough for Trump to claim it was being swung by fraud.
I'm pretty sure his narrative would have been the same even if the polls had been perfect, i.e. that the votes counted first were legitimate and those counted later were fraudulent. The messages he'd been giving in the long run up to the election ensured that he would have a lead in many states at some point - even if ultimately he lost in what would normally be termed a landslide.
There was a lull for a while after the election when things seemed to be progressing relatively normally. My own suspicions are that reflected mainly that Trump was tired. He showed a lot of energy in the last days of campaigning and probably needed to rest. However, I don't think any of us expected him to ultimately go quietly. There are many Republicans who would like him to do so and that's going to result in in-fighting in the party for a long time to come. Just for now though he's going to continue to spout nonsense and it doesn't really matter whether you think that's because he has no sense of reality or because he's deliberately following a strategy to retain power against the will of the people.
Although the concentration at the moment is on the multitude of legal cases the election has spawned, I can't see that leading to much. Even if you assume that judges would show partiality to Trump given the chance, they still need something to work with - and nothing suggested so far would come remotely close to being genuine grounds to change the result of the election. The very best he could hope for would be a re-run in certain places (like Nevada), but I wouldn't expect that to change any results anyway.
That still leaves though one danger that's been pointed out before, i.e. civil unrest. The protests in certain places in the country in recent months have shown the potential for that and Trump is busily stoking those fires. There are a significant number of people that seem to believe his narrative - and even if all other Republican leaders were to denounce that (which they won't), that would just be seen as evidence of how deep the deep state conspiracy is. I'll be pleased if all the current fuss just proves to be election fluff and peters out ahead of a normal transition in January, but I think there's a genuine risk that won't happen so smoothly.
This is part of the reason why it won't matter. I don't believe either the Secret Service OR the military will go along with his attempts at what can now only be described as a coup (however inept):
This is part of the reason why it won't matter. I don't believe either the Secret Service OR the military will go along with his attempts at what can now only be described as a coup (however inept):
We're just hours away now. So, I've been formulating some thoughts about Biden. He famously said at a campaign stop in the primary (when he wasn't doing all that well) that Trump was going after him on the Ukraine stuff because he knew Biden would "beat him like a drum". And, well, he was pretty much correct. Joe Biden may have been the only one that could have pulled this off now that we know Trump's support was VASTLY undercounted in the polls. It seems silly on the surface, but Joe Biden is what you'd create in a lab as Trump's political kryptonite, and what's more is that Trump seemed to recognize this himself a LONG time ago. And Biden's public facing stature and comments the last 48 hours have been pitch perfect. This was the campaign that was needed to beat Donald Trump. If it cost us some down-ballot races, so be it. It's a small price to pay for saving the Republic from this thug.
This is part of the reason why it won't matter. I don't believe either the Secret Service OR the military will go along with his attempts at what can now only be described as a coup (however inept):
I'm not concerned that he will successfully carry out a coup, but that doesn't mean there's no chance of civil unrest.
Comments
https://www.thedailybeast.com/steve-bannon-muses-about-beheading-dr-anthony-fauci-and-fbi-director-chris-wray-in-podcast
Here's a few 'bad apples'
Alabama police captain on social media about Biden voters: 'Put a bullet in their skull'
https://abc3340.com/news/local/alabama-police-chief-on-social-media-about-biden-voters-put-a-bullet-in-their-skull
Colorado police officer placed on leave for threatening Biden voters on Facebook
https://www.revolt.tv/2020/11/5/21551901/colorado-cop-threatening-biden-voters
Good. I know folks on the left are disappointed. But when the dust settles, it's going to be conservatives/Republicans that are going to be furiously divided.
This will likely be one of the most investigated elections in recent memory, which I can't say is a bad thing. If nothing else, it should do something to restore faith in the process.
I honestly think the game is: Dont retract the call until you're certain you're wrong. If AZ stays with Biden (which is super plausible and perhaps likely) - then they dont really look bad or anything.
TBH - the bad AZ call is only reason we dont have an NV call. Yeah, they're taking forever to count the votes: but most people are a LOT more certain NV is in the Biden column than AZ at this point. However, he's only six EVs short of the presidency, and AP doesnt want to make the call giving him the presidency only to retract it if AZ does go back.
Long story short: PA will decide the presidency call. GA wont come through for a while since they still have to count the overseas ballots and such (since it's so, so, so close).
I know what you mean, and in general I agree. My concern is that there will also be a lot of Project Veritas like attempts to investigate the election, with a predetermined finding of fraud.
In sum, I think Trump (and the PA's GOP legislature's) antics in this whole thing will be damaging to faith in the system, not beneficial.
The other MAJOR flaw in this argument would be the question "if they were rigging the votes, why didn't they bother to pick up more Senate and House seats??"
The last election was also heavily investigated... maybe it’s going to be the new norm in the US until the States give up their rights to hold them however they want.
I think that's probably where all this election fighting will eventually lead. States rights are important but with an event that carries such national importance there really needs to be more standardization.
I think there needs to be TOTAL standardization, but that won't ever happen. That being said, it is an absolute fact that these mail-in votes are coming in at the end because the Republican legislature wanted it that way. Their claims about it being suspicious are totally bad faith.
I actually do think the distributed way we do elections is good from a normative perspective. Even if it results in a few states being frustrating. But it also prevents anyone who controls the federal government from directly controlling their reelection. So I'm not advocating for changing that.
But if popular vote determined the winner, there'd be no reason to sweat a few ten thousand votes in Pennsylvania, for example.
Also worth noting that it's incredibly troubling that in a number of key states, the final votes to be counted were disproportionately from majority black areas -- Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Atlanta. That's obviously why we saw a surge in Biden votes. I'm not alleging a conspiracy here, but if any of these states had stopped their counts, that's who would have been disenfranchised.
I mean - I dont think there can be any doubt about that. Voter suppression has always targeted minorities. The new wrinkle is trying to suppress their vote *after* it has already been cast. It's a pathetic new low.
All you're saying here is that one party should not have to moderate its view to be more in line with the citizens of its country.
Instead we have a system that never represents 55% of the population.
And here we go. This was INEVITABLE:
The election being this close means that all of the above will be baked in for the next 4 years. Trumpism and the right wing anti democratic machine will have a meaningful place in politics until the voters reject it. Fox News will make that very hard. The hyper polarization of the country will make that very hard.
At the risk of obnoxiously banging the same drum, we are seeing extremely compelling evidence for what I'm talking about in regards to the Senate and the EC.
Once you start indulging in the idea that your party or faction should win control of legislatures and presidencies with fewer votes, it's not much of a leap to start suggesting all sorts of other anti-democratic pretexts for how and why you should be in power.
One person one vote really needs to be the bedrock principle everything else emanates from.
I'm pretty sure his narrative would have been the same even if the polls had been perfect, i.e. that the votes counted first were legitimate and those counted later were fraudulent. The messages he'd been giving in the long run up to the election ensured that he would have a lead in many states at some point - even if ultimately he lost in what would normally be termed a landslide.
There was a lull for a while after the election when things seemed to be progressing relatively normally. My own suspicions are that reflected mainly that Trump was tired. He showed a lot of energy in the last days of campaigning and probably needed to rest. However, I don't think any of us expected him to ultimately go quietly. There are many Republicans who would like him to do so and that's going to result in in-fighting in the party for a long time to come. Just for now though he's going to continue to spout nonsense and it doesn't really matter whether you think that's because he has no sense of reality or because he's deliberately following a strategy to retain power against the will of the people.
Although the concentration at the moment is on the multitude of legal cases the election has spawned, I can't see that leading to much. Even if you assume that judges would show partiality to Trump given the chance, they still need something to work with - and nothing suggested so far would come remotely close to being genuine grounds to change the result of the election. The very best he could hope for would be a re-run in certain places (like Nevada), but I wouldn't expect that to change any results anyway.
That still leaves though one danger that's been pointed out before, i.e. civil unrest. The protests in certain places in the country in recent months have shown the potential for that and Trump is busily stoking those fires. There are a significant number of people that seem to believe his narrative - and even if all other Republican leaders were to denounce that (which they won't), that would just be seen as evidence of how deep the deep state conspiracy is. I'll be pleased if all the current fuss just proves to be election fluff and peters out ahead of a normal transition in January, but I think there's a genuine risk that won't happen so smoothly.
Man. When it's phrased like that, it's pretty insane the level of protection for one man.
It makes sense of course, but I never really thought about it more than a few dozen dudes in black suits and bulletproof SUVs...
I'm not concerned that he will successfully carry out a coup, but that doesn't mean there's no chance of civil unrest.