It's not at all clear that Biden will win PA by more than 120k votes. This mattered. I'm not sure there was another candidate in the field that could have managed this.
It's not at all clear that Biden will win PA by more than 120k votes. This mattered. I'm not sure there was another candidate in the field that could have managed this.
It should also be a warning for next time.
Obama calling Mayor Pete and Klobuchar the weekend before Super Tuesday probably saved the entire ball of wax. As I've said, they had one line of attack, which was "socialism". They planned on Bernie. They didn't want to run against Biden. When he won the primary anyway (against what I thought would happen), they didn't even bother to change their playbook. They tried to make the label stick to Joe and it didn't. Perhaps Obama does, in fact, understand something about how to win elections. I love Bernie, I would like someone with his policies in the highest office some day. I don't think he wins this election looking in the rear-view mirror.
Doug Jones should be AG. His tireless pursuit of justice for the girls killed in the church bombing in the '60s proves his integrity in my mind. If you absolutely HAVE TO appoint a Republican to some position, for god sakes just make it the Small Business Administration and leave it at that. Susan Rice is front-runner for Secretary of State.
But the last line had me laughing: “ The statement was issued while Trump was golfing at his club in Virginia.”
I will say, Trump has the legal option to challenge the count of any states. If the results were reverse and Biden was challenging I think a lot of people would be in favour of it. I don’t think those legal challenges will go anywhere however. Same with the recounts. Trump is allowed to ask for recounts, but once again, I don’t think it will go anywhere.
Trump will never concede. He’ll keep holding rallies and profiting off of them because his supporters are, to put it frankly, stupid or brainwashed beyond the point that they can’t think critically for themselves. There is a difference between them and a person like @WarChiefZeke or @Balrog99, two people who IMO challenge me mentally with their point of view when they post, and I hope both do continue to post and hold this new administration accountable as much as everyone else held Trump accountable here.
The next four years are going to be a sigh of relief, but that doesn’t mean nothing controversial will happen. Please keep a higher standard for the political class and don’t let the last four years degrade into a ‘what aboutism’ argument for future administrations. That is the only way to truly recover from this.
Many of Trump's most controversial actions aren't going to survive a week after he is gone. Since he relied so heavily on Executive Orders (really the only thing he ever passed in Congress was the tax cuts), there is very little that can't be remedied. Also hearing talk of a task force to reunite the 500+ children with their parents. Don't tell me elections don't have consequences or that the parties are the same. The judges will haunt us for decades, but everything else can be healed.
Pretty good video essay on propaganda and the normalization of death, disaster and general tragedy. Its an hour long, but if you have the time, I recommend the watch.
I have seriously underestimated Joe Biden from the beginning of this primary. Truly was the man for this moment. I don't think we can ignore the psychological impacts of the last four years, but especially 2020. Biden isn't only not ignoring it, he is framing his Presidency around it.
Just for the record, the moment I heard Trump utter the phrase "Two Corinthians", I knew everything he said about his religion was a fraud. By contrast, the moment I heard Biden quote "On Eagle's Wings" tonight in his speech, I knew he was a legitimate Catholic who takes his faith seriously. Because I heard that song hundreds of times in my youth at church. Authenticity isn't hard to recognize.
Yeah, Second Corinthians. Never even imagined he ever went to church though so, not in the least surprised.
It really feels like a boyfriend I had, didn’t want me. He was so embarrassed about who I was even though no one else seemed to mind, he detested seeing me with someone else though. From all I have seen Don is tired of being president, but his ego can’t handle everyone else wanting someone else. He may not care about being president but he has convinced himself that he was the best ever, now he has to confront the fact the the country chose someone else to lead them even though he has a ton of hollow brain coolaid drinkers worshipping him.
I hope that all he has done falls on his shoulders and drags him down. Maybe though, 2,000 Years from now people will say,”In Trump’s name, amen.” I hope that he is forgotten and no one ever remembers his name though. I hope he is reviled but I don’t think he has done enough to get there among his supporters. In 1990 I drove a CHET in Germany, hauled tanks and such. At a Raststätte when we stopped one time and had a M1A1 Abrams on the back an old man sat and stared at it. When I asked him about it he, no lie had tears in his eyes, said “We were there, not like this of course, more primitive. It was glorious! Did we fail him or did he fail us?“ Verbatim, you never forget a conversation like that. I see this happening. He questioned but you could see the look in his eyes, the glory, the time, the feel it engenders. I don’t blame Trumpists, I hope that one day they see the error of their ways, or at the very least question like that man that stared at that tank I was hauling that day.
Some of them are friends though, I hope to never see that look on their face.
It's all rumors and the sort, but people are saying even Trump himself has admitted that it's over personally, but doesnt want to give up the fight. I tend to believe he knows he's beaten, but he keeps fox news on and their primetime hosts keep inventing frauds that get him all ginned up to fight.
I dont know that Trump has it in him to actually concede, but I could see him just letting everything drop and go through the motions as if he had conceded.
I've been reading Bob Woodward's "Rage" book about the Trump presidency, and Kushner is probably Trump's most trusted advisor. Trump appointed him to head a bunch of priority projects: building the wall, Middle East diplomacy and as a member of the COVID task force.
The two are also kind of kindred spirits in that they are both scions of wealth New York families, who inherited their families' business empires. Interviews with Kushner in the book show him taking credit for much of the political rhetoric, especially during COVID. The blaming of blue state governors for example.
Whether he listens to Kushner now, I can't say. But that's also not someone he's going to dismiss.
It's fairly clear after Biden's pretty superb and powerful speech tonight, not to mention the widespread spontaneous outpourings of joy that literally resulted in total strangers having dance parties at gas stations, that the country has moved on from Donald Trump. While there may be individual justices on the Supreme Court who would possibly rule in Trump's favor simply out of partisan loyalty (Kavanaugh and Barrett), I doubt Roberts is going to let the court touch any of this with a ten-foot pole. The judges in the lower courts so far have seen the attempted lawsuits as almost comical in their lack of standing.
The vote differential in 2000 was 500 votes in one state. Biden's lead is 10s of thousands in multiple states. But moreover, Bush was always PERCEIVED to be the winner in 2000 because of the early call by FOX News which prompted the other networks to jump the gun. So even when it was retracted, the IDEA of Bush being the winner had already been cemented in the minds of the public for hours. That never changed. Gore was always viewed as the loser making a fuss (even though this was nearly entirely unfair). The network calls for Biden's win took place after 4 days of meticulous counting, and it could be argued that the networks took even MORE time than they should have to be absolutely sure.
There just isn't any realistic scenario where this result doesn't stand. The best case scenario for the next 70 days is for Trump to bitch about the results, simply so he doesn't have time to do anything else. Since he isn't going to do a damn thing about COVID-19 anyway, let him golf on our dime 5 times a week.
What we've seen from Trump the last 3 days is sort of a microcosm of his Presidency. Trump's tone and rhetoric are that of an authoritarian. Those who have always pointed that out have been absolutely right to do so, because you never want to do so too LATE rather than too early. What we'd sometime forget in the midst of most of his antics is that, in most, but not all cases, he was simply too incompetent with too short of an attention span to actually carry anything out. He went to the brink many times, but at heart, he's a coward, and could never actually commit. His final days as President are going to paint a picture of a sad sack loser, a mistake that was corrected in time. And I think if there is one word that will describe him in the history books it will simply be "pathetic".
All world leaders (even Bibi) rushed to give Biden congratulations. His propoganda network has abandoned him (they'll still peddle the bullshit, but Murdoch is not going to let them actively push to keep him in power). Of course, in the end (minus Mitt Romney) it's the complicit Republican elected office holders who are the last to jump ship. Because they are still mortally terrified of his base. They'll jump eventually too, but don't mistake that act as something worth applauding.
I read on Twitter that a Trumper has gone on TV saying Trump should be given a couple of weeks to come to terms with losing and we should bear with him - like a toddler
I read on Twitter that a Trumper has gone on TV saying Trump should be given a couple of weeks to come to terms with losing and we should bear with him - like a toddler
Most people have already come to terms with it. He's going to be the absolutely last person to do so. It's really the ultimate punishment for him. He's been soundly rejected. He came back from his golf outing today to find a crowd outside the White House celebrating his defeat. He's had to watch his loss in slow motion. His need for adulation is bottomless, and he is now confronted with the reality that the majority of the country hates his guts to the point that their lives, quite literally, felt EXPONENTIALLY BETTER the moment the race was called. I sent a text tonight to my aunt, that said something along the lines of "so this is what normal feels like, I'd almost completely forgotten".
The problem people like you are gonna have if you want a new candidate on the right is that the people who might embrace a populist economic message in the GOP (Cotton, Hawley) are also unabashed war hawks of the highest order. The first still being obsessed with the Middle East, and the other seemingly itching for armed conflict with China. Hawley, on the surface, wants to move out of Middle Eastern conflicts, and transfer the troops to Southeast Asia.
These are the two men, as a Democrat, who worry me that most in advance of 2024, unless (god help us) Don Jr. somehow manages to actually have a significant groundswell of support similar to his father. He knows the words to what his father was laying down, but I'm not sure he can sing the song. You'd like to think more is required to get the nomination than talking about safe spaces and campus speech codes. And that is the part of the Trump coalition where Don Jr. threw nearly ALL his weight.
I'm not totally against foreign wars. It depends on why we're fighting, what goals we want to achieve and whether I agree or not. This is probably the main point of contention between me and @WarChiefZeke. Sometimes war is inevitable, or at least a line-in-the-sand with total conviction (IMHO).
The appeal to moderates with John Kasich and the Lincoln Project never Trumpers accomplished nothing.
The fact is that neither side delivered shit in this election. The main take-away for me is that Trump was unpopular with all but his base, but the Democrats are just as unpopular with all but their base. Congratilations, we already knew this. Trump was just more unpopular with his NON-BASE! There is absolutely 'NO' mandate for the Democratic party to look to further rheir aims. They can only cancel Trump's unpopular bullshit executive orders, which were never law anyway...
It works both ways. Either side saying the other was only a detriment is wrong. Biden outpaced Ilhan Omar in her own district in MN. House republicans won 100k more votes than house democrats did. That means people were splitting their ticket between Biden and downballot Republicans.
I am already over this intra-party fight the day after one of the most important days for the Democrats in history, but I'll say two things:
1.) John Kasich's appearance at the convention did jack shit.
2.) AOC is the type of fighter the party needs, and she is totally right about focusing outreach online, but she also seems to think every race in the country is being run in Brooklyn, when some of them are being fought in rural Pennsylvania. They aren't the same and you can't run the same candidates.
I am already over this intra-party fight the day after one of the most important days for the Democrats in history, but I'll say two things:
1.) John Kasich's appearance at the convention did jack shit.
2.) AOC is the type of fighter the party needs, and she is totally right about focusing outreach online, but she also seems to think every race in the country is being run in Brooklyn, when some of them are being fought in rural Pennsylvania. They aren't the same and you can't run the same candidates.
I don't disagree about needing young people like AOC, but in the short-term she and the rest of 'The Squad' are going to make for some hairy politics...
It works both ways. Either side saying the other was only a detriment is wrong. Biden outpaced Ilhan Omar in her own district in MN. House republicans won 100k more votes than house democrats did. That means people were splitting their ticket between Biden and downballot Republicans.
Both sides contributed.
Look, I am an Ilhan Omar fan. But I can categorically state Colin Peterson lost because of her (though I personally don't care because he was basically a Republican anyway). I lived in his district my entire life and live adjacent to it now. And his opponent wasn't even running against Peterson. She was running against Omar and AOC. How do I know this?? Because I would see her ads at least 5 times an hour on the TVs at the gym the last month. And that association cost a Democrat who had survived every two years in a DEEP red district for three decades his seat. And again, I have no love for the guy because he might as well have been a Republican except on a couple issues. But this is what I'm talking about. I'd say put Stacey Abrams in charge of the DNC, but I'm not sure I want to waste her talent on such a thankless position.
Watch this, the data supports AOC and not right wing Democrats. Even Fox News viewers back Medicare for all. Voters approved minimum wage hike overwhelmingly in Florida and recreational marijuana passed in deep red states like montana.
The AOC approach works in pennsylvania and brooklyn. Her pint is Democrats need to Stand for something - not platitudes, not half measures, not Conservative measures, not cowardice. Don't run away from an energized base.
Stand for something, dammit.
Democratic voter registrations skyrocketed after George floyd black lives matter protests, not after your John Kasich and the Lincoln Project and the "nothing will fundamentally change" promise.
I think the "defund the police" message did hurt them in non-urban, down-ballot races. Mind you, not the aims behind it, but who the hell settled on THAT from a messaging standpoint?? And I'll reiterate, all the Republican candidate had to do in the West Central Minnesota district I am talking about above is put pictures of Ilhan Omar in a hijab on TV 3 or 4 times an hour. Democrats need to get about 100x better at electioneering, and the only people this time around who seemed to understand what was needed to win their PARTICULAR race was the Biden camp. Now, if they are SMART, they'll make the entire Georgia Senate run-off about Kelly Loefflers's COVID-19 insider trading.
The fact is that neither side delivered shit in this election. The main take-away for me is that Trump was unpopular with all but his base, but the Democrats are just as unpopular with all but their base. Congratilations, we already knew this. Trump was just more unpopular with his NON-BASE! There is absolutely 'NO' mandate for the Democratic party to look to further rheir aims. They can only cancel Trump's unpopular bullshit executive orders, which were never law anyway...
It's going to be the highest popular vote margin since 2008. And the second highest popular vote margin since 1996.
The fact is that neither side delivered shit in this election. The main take-away for me is that Trump was unpopular with all but his base, but the Democrats are just as unpopular with all but their base. Congratilations, we already knew this. Trump was just more unpopular with his NON-BASE! There is absolutely 'NO' mandate for the Democratic party to look to further rheir aims. They can only cancel Trump's unpopular bullshit executive orders, which were never law anyway...
It's going to be the highest popular vote margin since 2008. And the second highest popular vote margin since 1996.
The fact is that neither side delivered shit in this election. The main take-away for me is that Trump was unpopular with all but his base, but the Democrats are just as unpopular with all but their base. Congratilations, we already knew this. Trump was just more unpopular with his NON-BASE! There is absolutely 'NO' mandate for the Democratic party to look to further rheir aims. They can only cancel Trump's unpopular bullshit executive orders, which were never law anyway...
It's going to be the highest popular vote margin since 2008. And the second highest popular vote margin since 1996.
Republicans claim an absolute mandate when they squeak by in the EC and lose the popular vote. Democrats are scolded and browbeaten into thinking they don't have one when they win by 4-5% nationally and comfortably win the EC. Even when they prevail, the balance of power is completely asymmetrical.
Comments
It's not at all clear that Biden will win PA by more than 120k votes. This mattered. I'm not sure there was another candidate in the field that could have managed this.
It should also be a warning for next time.
Obama calling Mayor Pete and Klobuchar the weekend before Super Tuesday probably saved the entire ball of wax. As I've said, they had one line of attack, which was "socialism". They planned on Bernie. They didn't want to run against Biden. When he won the primary anyway (against what I thought would happen), they didn't even bother to change their playbook. They tried to make the label stick to Joe and it didn't. Perhaps Obama does, in fact, understand something about how to win elections. I love Bernie, I would like someone with his policies in the highest office some day. I don't think he wins this election looking in the rear-view mirror.
Doug Jones should be AG. His tireless pursuit of justice for the girls killed in the church bombing in the '60s proves his integrity in my mind. If you absolutely HAVE TO appoint a Republican to some position, for god sakes just make it the Small Business Administration and leave it at that. Susan Rice is front-runner for Secretary of State.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/world/america-votes/text-of-statement-from-u-s-president-donald-trump-1.5179222
But the last line had me laughing:
“ The statement was issued while Trump was golfing at his club in Virginia.”
I will say, Trump has the legal option to challenge the count of any states. If the results were reverse and Biden was challenging I think a lot of people would be in favour of it. I don’t think those legal challenges will go anywhere however. Same with the recounts. Trump is allowed to ask for recounts, but once again, I don’t think it will go anywhere.
Trump will never concede. He’ll keep holding rallies and profiting off of them because his supporters are, to put it frankly, stupid or brainwashed beyond the point that they can’t think critically for themselves. There is a difference between them and a person like @WarChiefZeke or @Balrog99, two people who IMO challenge me mentally with their point of view when they post, and I hope both do continue to post and hold this new administration accountable as much as everyone else held Trump accountable here.
The next four years are going to be a sigh of relief, but that doesn’t mean nothing controversial will happen. Please keep a higher standard for the political class and don’t let the last four years degrade into a ‘what aboutism’ argument for future administrations. That is the only way to truly recover from this.
1.) Rejoining Paris Climate Accord
2.) Rejoining WHO
3.) Repealing Muslim ban
4.) Reinstating protection for DREAMERS
Many of Trump's most controversial actions aren't going to survive a week after he is gone. Since he relied so heavily on Executive Orders (really the only thing he ever passed in Congress was the tax cuts), there is very little that can't be remedied. Also hearing talk of a task force to reunite the 500+ children with their parents. Don't tell me elections don't have consequences or that the parties are the same. The judges will haunt us for decades, but everything else can be healed.
It really feels like a boyfriend I had, didn’t want me. He was so embarrassed about who I was even though no one else seemed to mind, he detested seeing me with someone else though. From all I have seen Don is tired of being president, but his ego can’t handle everyone else wanting someone else. He may not care about being president but he has convinced himself that he was the best ever, now he has to confront the fact the the country chose someone else to lead them even though he has a ton of hollow brain coolaid drinkers worshipping him.
I hope that all he has done falls on his shoulders and drags him down. Maybe though, 2,000 Years from now people will say,”In Trump’s name, amen.” I hope that he is forgotten and no one ever remembers his name though. I hope he is reviled but I don’t think he has done enough to get there among his supporters. In 1990 I drove a CHET in Germany, hauled tanks and such. At a Raststätte when we stopped one time and had a M1A1 Abrams on the back an old man sat and stared at it. When I asked him about it he, no lie had tears in his eyes, said “We were there, not like this of course, more primitive. It was glorious! Did we fail him or did he fail us?“ Verbatim, you never forget a conversation like that. I see this happening. He questioned but you could see the look in his eyes, the glory, the time, the feel it engenders. I don’t blame Trumpists, I hope that one day they see the error of their ways, or at the very least question like that man that stared at that tank I was hauling that day.
Some of them are friends though, I hope to never see that look on their face.
Umm... sorry. Rastplaz? Rest stop?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.jpost.com/breaking-news/jared-kushner-approaches-donald-trump-about-conceding-election-648384/amp
I dont know that Trump has it in him to actually concede, but I could see him just letting everything drop and go through the motions as if he had conceded.
I've been reading Bob Woodward's "Rage" book about the Trump presidency, and Kushner is probably Trump's most trusted advisor. Trump appointed him to head a bunch of priority projects: building the wall, Middle East diplomacy and as a member of the COVID task force.
The two are also kind of kindred spirits in that they are both scions of wealth New York families, who inherited their families' business empires. Interviews with Kushner in the book show him taking credit for much of the political rhetoric, especially during COVID. The blaming of blue state governors for example.
Whether he listens to Kushner now, I can't say. But that's also not someone he's going to dismiss.
The vote differential in 2000 was 500 votes in one state. Biden's lead is 10s of thousands in multiple states. But moreover, Bush was always PERCEIVED to be the winner in 2000 because of the early call by FOX News which prompted the other networks to jump the gun. So even when it was retracted, the IDEA of Bush being the winner had already been cemented in the minds of the public for hours. That never changed. Gore was always viewed as the loser making a fuss (even though this was nearly entirely unfair). The network calls for Biden's win took place after 4 days of meticulous counting, and it could be argued that the networks took even MORE time than they should have to be absolutely sure.
There just isn't any realistic scenario where this result doesn't stand. The best case scenario for the next 70 days is for Trump to bitch about the results, simply so he doesn't have time to do anything else. Since he isn't going to do a damn thing about COVID-19 anyway, let him golf on our dime 5 times a week.
What we've seen from Trump the last 3 days is sort of a microcosm of his Presidency. Trump's tone and rhetoric are that of an authoritarian. Those who have always pointed that out have been absolutely right to do so, because you never want to do so too LATE rather than too early. What we'd sometime forget in the midst of most of his antics is that, in most, but not all cases, he was simply too incompetent with too short of an attention span to actually carry anything out. He went to the brink many times, but at heart, he's a coward, and could never actually commit. His final days as President are going to paint a picture of a sad sack loser, a mistake that was corrected in time. And I think if there is one word that will describe him in the history books it will simply be "pathetic".
All world leaders (even Bibi) rushed to give Biden congratulations. His propoganda network has abandoned him (they'll still peddle the bullshit, but Murdoch is not going to let them actively push to keep him in power). Of course, in the end (minus Mitt Romney) it's the complicit Republican elected office holders who are the last to jump ship. Because they are still mortally terrified of his base. They'll jump eventually too, but don't mistake that act as something worth applauding.
Most people have already come to terms with it. He's going to be the absolutely last person to do so. It's really the ultimate punishment for him. He's been soundly rejected. He came back from his golf outing today to find a crowd outside the White House celebrating his defeat. He's had to watch his loss in slow motion. His need for adulation is bottomless, and he is now confronted with the reality that the majority of the country hates his guts to the point that their lives, quite literally, felt EXPONENTIALLY BETTER the moment the race was called. I sent a text tonight to my aunt, that said something along the lines of "so this is what normal feels like, I'd almost completely forgotten".
Doesn't look like folks are buying it given the ratio.
The problem people like you are gonna have if you want a new candidate on the right is that the people who might embrace a populist economic message in the GOP (Cotton, Hawley) are also unabashed war hawks of the highest order. The first still being obsessed with the Middle East, and the other seemingly itching for armed conflict with China. Hawley, on the surface, wants to move out of Middle Eastern conflicts, and transfer the troops to Southeast Asia.
These are the two men, as a Democrat, who worry me that most in advance of 2024, unless (god help us) Don Jr. somehow manages to actually have a significant groundswell of support similar to his father. He knows the words to what his father was laying down, but I'm not sure he can sing the song. You'd like to think more is required to get the nomination than talking about safe spaces and campus speech codes. And that is the part of the Trump coalition where Don Jr. threw nearly ALL his weight.
The appeal to moderates with John Kasich and the Lincoln Project never Trumpers accomplished nothing.
The fact is that neither side delivered shit in this election. The main take-away for me is that Trump was unpopular with all but his base, but the Democrats are just as unpopular with all but their base. Congratilations, we already knew this. Trump was just more unpopular with his NON-BASE! There is absolutely 'NO' mandate for the Democratic party to look to further rheir aims. They can only cancel Trump's unpopular bullshit executive orders, which were never law anyway...
Both sides contributed.
1.) John Kasich's appearance at the convention did jack shit.
2.) AOC is the type of fighter the party needs, and she is totally right about focusing outreach online, but she also seems to think every race in the country is being run in Brooklyn, when some of them are being fought in rural Pennsylvania. They aren't the same and you can't run the same candidates.
I don't disagree about needing young people like AOC, but in the short-term she and the rest of 'The Squad' are going to make for some hairy politics...
Look, I am an Ilhan Omar fan. But I can categorically state Colin Peterson lost because of her (though I personally don't care because he was basically a Republican anyway). I lived in his district my entire life and live adjacent to it now. And his opponent wasn't even running against Peterson. She was running against Omar and AOC. How do I know this?? Because I would see her ads at least 5 times an hour on the TVs at the gym the last month. And that association cost a Democrat who had survived every two years in a DEEP red district for three decades his seat. And again, I have no love for the guy because he might as well have been a Republican except on a couple issues. But this is what I'm talking about. I'd say put Stacey Abrams in charge of the DNC, but I'm not sure I want to waste her talent on such a thankless position.
The AOC approach works in pennsylvania and brooklyn. Her pint is Democrats need to Stand for something - not platitudes, not half measures, not Conservative measures, not cowardice. Don't run away from an energized base.
Stand for something, dammit.
Democratic voter registrations skyrocketed after George floyd black lives matter protests, not after your John Kasich and the Lincoln Project and the "nothing will fundamentally change" promise.
It's going to be the highest popular vote margin since 2008. And the second highest popular vote margin since 1996.
Republicans claim an absolute mandate when they squeak by in the EC and lose the popular vote. Democrats are scolded and browbeaten into thinking they don't have one when they win by 4-5% nationally and comfortably win the EC. Even when they prevail, the balance of power is completely asymmetrical.