Kamala Harris is going to have a strong opportunity to win over people to her side. She shouldnt take it for granted. Biden was a pretty good VP (as much as one can be, I suppose). I think Biden's real strength out of being VP was that he was seen to be very well liked and had a very positive connection to Obama.
Harris probably wont have much to bank on in that regard, since I dont think Biden is going to ever be viewed as positively as Obama was. She'll have to chart her own path.
and though I know I'm banging a drum for the 100th time, she was one of the most progressive senators in the senate, signing onto the GND and MFA in the early days.
Recent VPs:
Quayle- LOL
Gore- Technocratic, boring
Cheney- Power behind the throne
Biden- Legitimate bond with Obama, made him acceptable to many white voters
Pence- Pathetic syncophant
Cheney is the only substantial VP in recent memory. He was the absolute driving force behind the entire foreign policy apparatus, and without him and his band of neo-cons, the 2000s would have been VERY different. Bush wasn't viewed as a puppet with him pulling the strings for no reason. It was only after 2006 midterms that Bush finally stopped deferring to Cheney's judgement. Remember, Cheney was asked to lead the VP search for W. And he ended up picking HIMSELF.
I actually have ?? The Age of MAGA ?? collections on YouTube, of meme music that I have collected in the past four years. Sadly, as the Age of MAGA is coming to a close, soon I will not be adding any more new music to my collections. ?
Nor does the reference to scrubbing social media history fit with the idea of voters. Finally the use of "responsible for their behavior over last four years" implies far more than voting a couple of times.
In that I have to disagree. To me, that's the biggest red flag that the whole thing has the subtext that you should target supporters. There is a pretty toxic undercurrent of political social media that basically involves revealing peoples addresses, places of employment, etc. based on searching years of their social media history. It's called doxing and it's become sadly rather commonplace in the past several years.
But if people can see where i'm coming from, that's enough for me. I don't expect complete agreement.
I look at this and I just see a lot of projection. The GOP has no problem using these kind of threats so obviously the "other side" MUST do the same. So of course "subtext" must be applied to justify the mental gymnastics of a politician somehow threatening voters where voters are nowhere mentioned.
Yep, conservatives play this game where they invent potential offenses and then use those inventions as grievances about how awful liberals/leftists are. If AOC has in the past targeting random nobodies on social media this would have weight.
Thank you to all who contribute to this thread. I don’t post regularly but it’s usually interesting to look through. A few random comments on recent issues.
Reading J.K. Rowling’s essay made her feel a little sad for her, leaving aside the issues that she is trying to deal with. She knows that what she says will not necessarily be received well, but feels a responsibility to do so. And it’s not going to make her any happier in the long run most likely... unless she can drag herself away from Twitter. If I were to become rich and famous then I think there’s a very good chance that I’d quickly make myself unhappy trying to use that money and fame to shift the public debate on immigration or some such topic a tiny bit.
Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension and the problems with antisemitism in the Labour party can probably be traced in large part back to the protests against the second Iraq War. The Labour Government sowed the seeds of its own unelectability at a vital time...
Biden will probably have a tough time doing more than calming the tone of public debate without a Senate majority. The considerable increase in turnout is an interesting phenomenon though. The more elections become questions of values rather than facts the more turnouts may improve, amplified by the divisions social media promote and exploit. Hopefully we’ll be able to find ways to sustain public engagement with democratic elections without sacrificing some of the norms which are required for democracy to be successful and self-sustaining.
Re Jeremy Corbyn he was a terrorist apologist with questionable views and friends for long before the Iraq war. His opposition to Iraq helped to rehabilitate him. Labour needs to stop navel gazing and focus on pulling together, you don’t see the Tories attacking their previous disastrous records of when they were in power.
A friend of mine had this to say on facebook today:
"It's crazy how easily the "he's the president, deal with it/lib tears taste so sweet/poor snowflake" folk turned into the the utter and complete meltdowns I see all over Twitter and Facebook right now. It's almost as if the "will of the people" only mattered when it agreed with you."
The 3 days of needless anxiety the forced late-counting in PA caused 10s of millions of people is kinda infuriating. This should have been over at 3am Wednesday morning. I believe Biden's lead is now safe in GA even in a recount. Nevada is obvious. AZ may still come down to the last ballot dump. But it no longer matters.
- Wah
- Selfish
- Trump will still be president over Christmas.
- Trump's failed coronavirus response might require lockdowns to fix to stop people dying.
Historically, a one-term Presidency is a mark of an incredible failure happening on the watch of the incumbent's first term. Jimmy Carter was swept into office almost ENTIRELY because he was the antithesis to Richard Nixon's brazen criminality and lies (not unlike now). But he lost his bid because of an economic crisis he couldn't get a handle on and a hostage crisis he couldn't solve (though there was alot of nefarious bullshit Reagan's people were pulling behind the scenes on that).
Bush Sr. took office at a time when Republicans believed they had a permanent lock on the Presidency, but 12 years of trickle-down caused the economy to sputter, and Clinton's strategy of triangulation ended the vice-grip the GOP thought they had permanently attained.
It is hard to defeat an incumbent. This one had more support than I wanted to believe, but it is now obvious he did. People will bemoan how Trump was "under assault" from day one, but it was the majority of the American people who were under assault the moment he took office, and they weren't going to take it lying down. Eventually, the crisis every President faces came. It was historic, and Trump was so far from up to the task it wasn't even funny. In the end, COVID-19 didn't play as much of an electoral part in this cycle as I was SURE it would, and that distresses me. 70 million people see a once in a century crisis as ancillary to their cultural identity.
But 75 million saw it the other way. And the collective release and spontaneous celebrations of joy you are seeing across the country right now (with masks, of course, thank god) are not contrived or fake. This is four years of constant anxiety and frustration being let go of. It's catharsis. It's relief. For those who feel they have been living under minority rule with no power for the duration of this administration, it's finally over. And it feels like a psychic weight has been lifted.
Two census takers told The Associated Press that their supervisors pressured them to enter false information into a computer system about homes they had not visited so they could close cases during the waning days of the once-a-decade national headcount.
...
After the Supreme Court decision (which sided with the administration), local governments and advocacy groups documented other cases in which census takers were instructed to falsify information or cut corners in order to finish the count.
I know a friend who worked the census and said the same thing. They were told it came from the top to close out the census and just guess 1 or zero for the remaining houses they didn't actually check. Complaints were lodged with the department of commerce IG about this issue I believe, for whatever that's worth considering Trump fired a bunch of IGs.
Historically, a one-term Presidency is a mark of an incredible failure happening on the watch of the incumbent's first term. Jimmy Carter was swept into office almost ENTIRELY because he was the antithesis to Richard Nixon's brazen criminality and lies (not unlike now). But he lost his bid because of an economic crisis he couldn't get a handle on and a hostage crisis he couldn't solve (though there was alot of nefarious bullshit Reagan's people were pulling behind the scenes on that).
Bush Sr. took office at a time when Republicans believed they had a permanent lock on the Presidency, but 12 years of trickle-down caused the economy to sputter, and Clinton's strategy of triangulation ended the vice-grip the GOP thought they had permanently attained.
It is hard to defeat an incumbent. This one had more support than I wanted to believe, but it is now obvious he did. People will bemoan how Trump was "under assault" from day one, but it was the majority of the American people who were under assault the moment he took office, and they weren't going to take it lying down. Eventually, the crisis every President faces came. It was historic, and Trump was so far from up to the task it wasn't even funny. In the end, COVID-19 didn't play as much of an electoral part in this cycle as I was SURE it would, and that distresses me. 70 million people see a once in a century crisis as ancillary to their cultural identity.
But 75 million saw it the other way. And the collective release and spontaneous celebrations of joy you are seeing across the country right now (with masks, of course, thank god) are not contrived or fake. This is four years of constant anxiety and frustration being let go of. It's catharsis. It's relief. For those who feel they have been living under minority rule with no power for the duration of this administration, it's finally over. And it feels like a psychic weight has been lifted.
Just to add a little context to this: It's hard to hold the presidency for 3 consecutive terms. It hasnt happened since H.W Bush won in 1988, and before that, hadnt happened since FDR+Truman went 5 in a row (Which was far enough ago as to be less useful for comparisons).
In order to get Bush Sr out of the WH, it took the reversion to the mean against a 4th term, a 3rd party candidate, a significant recession and probably one of the most talented politicians in our lifetime (Clinton, love him or hate him, was uncannily good).
Trump was just washed out of the WH after one term by Biden, who is no where near as talented as either Clinton or Obama, and the pandemic. You can infer two things there: A - Trump was historically awful as president or B - the Pandemic is one of the most important events in our nation's history. It's probably a bit of A+B.
Historically, a one-term Presidency is a mark of an incredible failure happening on the watch of the incumbent's first term. Jimmy Carter was swept into office almost ENTIRELY because he was the antithesis to Richard Nixon's brazen criminality and lies (not unlike now). But he lost his bid because of an economic crisis he couldn't get a handle on and a hostage crisis he couldn't solve (though there was alot of nefarious bullshit Reagan's people were pulling behind the scenes on that).
Bush Sr. took office at a time when Republicans believed they had a permanent lock on the Presidency, but 12 years of trickle-down caused the economy to sputter, and Clinton's strategy of triangulation ended the vice-grip the GOP thought they had permanently attained.
It is hard to defeat an incumbent. This one had more support than I wanted to believe, but it is now obvious he did. People will bemoan how Trump was "under assault" from day one, but it was the majority of the American people who were under assault the moment he took office, and they weren't going to take it lying down. Eventually, the crisis every President faces came. It was historic, and Trump was so far from up to the task it wasn't even funny. In the end, COVID-19 didn't play as much of an electoral part in this cycle as I was SURE it would, and that distresses me. 70 million people see a once in a century crisis as ancillary to their cultural identity.
But 75 million saw it the other way. And the collective release and spontaneous celebrations of joy you are seeing across the country right now (with masks, of course, thank god) are not contrived or fake. This is four years of constant anxiety and frustration being let go of. It's catharsis. It's relief. For those who feel they have been living under minority rule with no power for the duration of this administration, it's finally over. And it feels like a psychic weight has been lifted.
Just to add a little context to this: It's hard to hold the presidency for 3 consecutive terms. It hasnt happened since H.W Bush won in 1988, and before that, hadnt happened since FDR+Truman went 5 in a row (Which was far enough ago as to be less useful for comparisons).
In order to get Bush Sr out of the WH, it took the reversion to the mean against a 4th term, a 3rd party candidate, a significant recession and probably one of the most talented politicians in our lifetime (Clinton, love him or hate him, was uncannily good).
Trump was just washed out of the WH after one term by Biden, who is no where near as talented as either Clinton or Obama, and the pandemic. You can infer two things there: A - Trump was historically awful as president or B - the Pandemic is one of the most important events in our nation's history. It's probably a bit of A+B.
Like I mentioned the other day, when you look at Biden's margins in some of these states, and then realize Obama won them running away, you come to realize just how much a political prodigy he really was.
Generally, the bigger "personality" wins the Presidential contest. In fact, this is almost always the case. And Trump is, arguably, the biggest personality who has ever held the office. And it carried him to a massive number of votes. But he lost to someone who is basically now America's grandfather.
Which isn't to take anything away from the Biden campaign. They shut out all the noise, didn't believe the polls and stayed LASER focused on picking up those lost 2016 votes in WI, MI and PA. And that is EXACTLY what they did.
Rupert Murdoch has clearly turned on Trump, and he is not going to go to the mattresses for him. If Laura frickin' Ingraham is telling him to concede graciously, then the battle for post-election shenanigans is already lost. This is gonna set up an AMAZING media-venture fight in the coming years.
- Wah
- Selfish
- Trump will still be president over Christmas.
- Trump's failed coronavirus response might require lockdowns to fix to stop people dying.
This is such great news for the whole world, especially in terms of combating climate change and standing up for democracy and the rule of law.
From the U.K. perspective, our mini trump now stands isolated and he has much more incentive to reach a deal with the EU before 2021. He has made no effort with Biden and been very rude about Obama, saying he hates the British Empire and some other rubbish. He refused to comment on Trump’s lies until the last possible minute and his forced congratulations to Biden omit mention of Harris’ achievement. If only we could vote him out before 2024.
I still won't believe Trump can't pull something out of his ass until Biden pulls him out of the White House by his ear and slams the door in his face...
I still won't believe Trump can't pull something out of his ass until Biden pulls him out of the White House by his ear and slams the door in his face...
The problem is, they didn't put together their legal "strategy" til AFTER the election. In 2000, Bush had the biggest legal heavyweights in the Republican Party on stand-by ready to go and they hit the ground running, and the Gore team was on their heels from the start. The Biden team has outplayed him on the post-election front in a total shut-out, and what's more, is that the election officials in PA anticipated their arguments (because they telegraphed them) and made them meaningless. The ballots they are arguing about arriving late (postmarked on election day but arriving later) are NOT in the current count. They have already been segregated in anticipation of this.
So what you have is human ghoul Rudy Guliani giving press conferences outside a landscaping company. Why a landscaping company?? Because it appears they THOUGHT they were booking time at Four Seasons Hotel, it turned out to be Four Seasons Landscaping, and they just decided to go with it. It's Larry, Moe and Curly hitting each other with frying pans and eye gouges.
I still won't believe Trump can't pull something out of his ass until Biden pulls him out of the White House by his ear and slams the door in his face...
Others have said it before me, but the blessing here is that Trump is pathologically lazy. He simply doesn't have the temperament to concoct a plan and to stick to it.
Comments
Recent VPs:
Quayle- LOL
Gore- Technocratic, boring
Cheney- Power behind the throne
Biden- Legitimate bond with Obama, made him acceptable to many white voters
Pence- Pathetic syncophant
Cheney is the only substantial VP in recent memory. He was the absolute driving force behind the entire foreign policy apparatus, and without him and his band of neo-cons, the 2000s would have been VERY different. Bush wasn't viewed as a puppet with him pulling the strings for no reason. It was only after 2006 midterms that Bush finally stopped deferring to Cheney's judgement. Remember, Cheney was asked to lead the VP search for W. And he ended up picking HIMSELF.
So, allow me to share a few selections from my ?? The Age of MAGA ?? collection:
Yep, conservatives play this game where they invent potential offenses and then use those inventions as grievances about how awful liberals/leftists are. If AOC has in the past targeting random nobodies on social media this would have weight.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-07/trump-s-chief-of-staff-mark-meadows-infected-by-coronavirus
At least 3 other staff are infected.
This is the dickhead who threw a hissyfit when reporters requested he wear a mask and then walked away.
Also the same guy that said Trump was just going to wave the white flag with coronavirus because it was too hard or something.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/25/coronavirus-mark-meadows-says-were-not-going-to-control-the-pandemic-.html
Here he is at Trump's headquarters speech on Election day, without a mask of course (on the right)
Joe biden is going to need gallons of disinfectant.
Reading J.K. Rowling’s essay made her feel a little sad for her, leaving aside the issues that she is trying to deal with. She knows that what she says will not necessarily be received well, but feels a responsibility to do so. And it’s not going to make her any happier in the long run most likely... unless she can drag herself away from Twitter. If I were to become rich and famous then I think there’s a very good chance that I’d quickly make myself unhappy trying to use that money and fame to shift the public debate on immigration or some such topic a tiny bit.
Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension and the problems with antisemitism in the Labour party can probably be traced in large part back to the protests against the second Iraq War. The Labour Government sowed the seeds of its own unelectability at a vital time...
Biden will probably have a tough time doing more than calming the tone of public debate without a Senate majority. The considerable increase in turnout is an interesting phenomenon though. The more elections become questions of values rather than facts the more turnouts may improve, amplified by the divisions social media promote and exploit. Hopefully we’ll be able to find ways to sustain public engagement with democratic elections without sacrificing some of the norms which are required for democracy to be successful and self-sustaining.
Be nice to be rid of this pro-covid administration.
"It's crazy how easily the "he's the president, deal with it/lib tears taste so sweet/poor snowflake" folk turned into the the utter and complete meltdowns I see all over Twitter and Facebook right now. It's almost as if the "will of the people" only mattered when it agreed with you."
Biden is the president elect.
Trump is a one-term loser.
This is pathetic.
The "I know you are but what am I" President.
"no loser, no loser, you loser"
One of the replies:
- Wah
- Selfish
- Trump will still be president over Christmas.
- Trump's failed coronavirus response might require lockdowns to fix to stop people dying.
Bush Sr. took office at a time when Republicans believed they had a permanent lock on the Presidency, but 12 years of trickle-down caused the economy to sputter, and Clinton's strategy of triangulation ended the vice-grip the GOP thought they had permanently attained.
It is hard to defeat an incumbent. This one had more support than I wanted to believe, but it is now obvious he did. People will bemoan how Trump was "under assault" from day one, but it was the majority of the American people who were under assault the moment he took office, and they weren't going to take it lying down. Eventually, the crisis every President faces came. It was historic, and Trump was so far from up to the task it wasn't even funny. In the end, COVID-19 didn't play as much of an electoral part in this cycle as I was SURE it would, and that distresses me. 70 million people see a once in a century crisis as ancillary to their cultural identity.
But 75 million saw it the other way. And the collective release and spontaneous celebrations of joy you are seeing across the country right now (with masks, of course, thank god) are not contrived or fake. This is four years of constant anxiety and frustration being let go of. It's catharsis. It's relief. For those who feel they have been living under minority rule with no power for the duration of this administration, it's finally over. And it feels like a psychic weight has been lifted.
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-massachusetts-census-2020-98d187302fbcec5e422fa43522d51dfe
Two census takers told The Associated Press that their supervisors pressured them to enter false information into a computer system about homes they had not visited so they could close cases during the waning days of the once-a-decade national headcount.
...
After the Supreme Court decision (which sided with the administration), local governments and advocacy groups documented other cases in which census takers were instructed to falsify information or cut corners in order to finish the count.
I know a friend who worked the census and said the same thing. They were told it came from the top to close out the census and just guess 1 or zero for the remaining houses they didn't actually check. Complaints were lodged with the department of commerce IG about this issue I believe, for whatever that's worth considering Trump fired a bunch of IGs.
Just to add a little context to this: It's hard to hold the presidency for 3 consecutive terms. It hasnt happened since H.W Bush won in 1988, and before that, hadnt happened since FDR+Truman went 5 in a row (Which was far enough ago as to be less useful for comparisons).
In order to get Bush Sr out of the WH, it took the reversion to the mean against a 4th term, a 3rd party candidate, a significant recession and probably one of the most talented politicians in our lifetime (Clinton, love him or hate him, was uncannily good).
Trump was just washed out of the WH after one term by Biden, who is no where near as talented as either Clinton or Obama, and the pandemic. You can infer two things there: A - Trump was historically awful as president or B - the Pandemic is one of the most important events in our nation's history. It's probably a bit of A+B.
Like I mentioned the other day, when you look at Biden's margins in some of these states, and then realize Obama won them running away, you come to realize just how much a political prodigy he really was.
Generally, the bigger "personality" wins the Presidential contest. In fact, this is almost always the case. And Trump is, arguably, the biggest personality who has ever held the office. And it carried him to a massive number of votes. But he lost to someone who is basically now America's grandfather.
Which isn't to take anything away from the Biden campaign. They shut out all the noise, didn't believe the polls and stayed LASER focused on picking up those lost 2016 votes in WI, MI and PA. And that is EXACTLY what they did.
Rupert Murdoch has clearly turned on Trump, and he is not going to go to the mattresses for him. If Laura frickin' Ingraham is telling him to concede graciously, then the battle for post-election shenanigans is already lost. This is gonna set up an AMAZING media-venture fight in the coming years.
That’s a bot.
From the U.K. perspective, our mini trump now stands isolated and he has much more incentive to reach a deal with the EU before 2021. He has made no effort with Biden and been very rude about Obama, saying he hates the British Empire and some other rubbish. He refused to comment on Trump’s lies until the last possible minute and his forced congratulations to Biden omit mention of Harris’ achievement. If only we could vote him out before 2024.
The problem is, they didn't put together their legal "strategy" til AFTER the election. In 2000, Bush had the biggest legal heavyweights in the Republican Party on stand-by ready to go and they hit the ground running, and the Gore team was on their heels from the start. The Biden team has outplayed him on the post-election front in a total shut-out, and what's more, is that the election officials in PA anticipated their arguments (because they telegraphed them) and made them meaningless. The ballots they are arguing about arriving late (postmarked on election day but arriving later) are NOT in the current count. They have already been segregated in anticipation of this.
So what you have is human ghoul Rudy Guliani giving press conferences outside a landscaping company. Why a landscaping company?? Because it appears they THOUGHT they were booking time at Four Seasons Hotel, it turned out to be Four Seasons Landscaping, and they just decided to go with it. It's Larry, Moe and Curly hitting each other with frying pans and eye gouges.
Others have said it before me, but the blessing here is that Trump is pathologically lazy. He simply doesn't have the temperament to concoct a plan and to stick to it.