Mega-Thread: 2020 United States General Election

[Levelfive]

That's heroin.

That's the White Horse.

[eschatological]

So, your reaction to Bearnie Sanders not getting enough votes from democratic voters in the 2016 primary is... To vote for what he's absolutely AGAINST!?
That just doesn't make a lick of sense.

The accelerationalist playbook summarized in 2 sentences.

[kaid]

I wonder how mandating the wearing of clothing in general jives with that. Being nude is an act of self expression. But we are required to wear clothing by law. Wouldn't being forced to wear a mask be no different? And in this case, more so important as it is for the purpose of public health and safety?

This is always what confuses me. If the govt can make me wear pants when I go to the store by the very same authority they can force me to wear a mask.

[Levelfive]

No the truth of reality disagrees with your entire premise believing Bernie voters owed a damn thing to Hillary or Biden. Again, more Sanders voters voted for Clinton then Clinton voters voted for Obama. SO the problem clearly wasn't Bernie or Bernie voters, but lied with the candidate.

There is nothing wrong about what I said above. Clinton lost, because she ran to the center and courted Republican voters who were never going to vote for her. There are also people who will never vote for Trump and there are some who will never vote for Biden. That doesn't make their opinions or concerns invalid. So please spare me your contrived statistics that aren't based in reality when many Bernie voters help get a whole lot of women of color elected in 2018. Each of your articles break down to nothing more than an opinion piece (One literally is an one) that is backed by some cherry picked data points. Bravo! /clap

One of your own sources is in disagreement with your own source. Good Job.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ith-economics/


I can see you all already paving the way to take all the credit if Biden wins and blame Bernie Sanders voters if he loses. Per usual with the people who view politics likes it's a sporting event.

Nope, you're still wrong. We know this because anti-Hillary Bernie's supporters went to Biden--it's not because they're progressive, it's because they're conservative. I don't know if you're so used to getting away with lying you think that's going to fly with me, but what I linked is backed by actual data and analysis. Also, are you saying an actual opinion article I didn't cite disagrees with the peer reviewed study I did cite? Here's another way we know the whole "economic anxiety" explanation is self-serving, myopic nonsense--it only addresses anxious white people's votes, who, though they were "satisfied with their immediate economic situation" were "pessimistic about the future." Which sounds suspiciously like status threat. Here's another way we know it's nonsense: black people, who arguably experience more economic anxiety, were largely impervious:

Perhaps the most prominent data point for the Calamity Thesis is a pair of recent Brookings Institution studies by the professors Anne Case and Angus Deaton, which showed that life expectancy has fallen among less-educated white Americans due to what they call “deaths of despair” from drugs, alcohol, and suicide. While the studies themselves make no mention of Trump or the election, the effects they describe are frequently invoked as explanations for the president’s appeal: White people without college degrees are living in deprivation, and in their despair, they turned to a racist demagogue who promised to solve their problems.

This explanation appeals to whites across the political spectrum. On the right, it serves as an indictment of elitist liberals who used their power to assist religious and ethnic minorities rather than all Americans; on the left, it offers a glimmer of hope that such voters can be won over by a more left-wing or redistributionist economic policy. It also has the distinct advantage of conferring innocence upon what is often referred to as the “white working class.” After all, it wasn’t white working-class voters’ fault. They were suffering; they had to do something.

The studies’ methodology is sound, as is the researchers’ recognition that many poor and white working-class Americans are struggling. But the research does not support the conclusions many have drawn from it—that economic or social desperation by itself drove white Americans to Donald Trump.

It’s true that most Trump voters framed his appeal in economic terms. Kelly, a health-care worker in North Carolina, echoed other Trump supporters when she told me that to her, “Make America great again” meant “people being able to get jobs, people being able to come off food stamps, welfare, and that sort of thing.” But a closer look at the demographics of the 2016 electorate shows something more complex than a working-class revolt sparked by prolonged suffering.

Clinton defeated Trump handily among Americans making less than $50,000 a year. Among voters making more than that, the two candidates ran roughly even. The electorate, however, skews wealthier than the general population. Voters making less than $50,000, whom Clinton won by a proportion of 53 to 41, accounted for only 36 percent of the votes cast, while those making more than $50,000—whom Trump won by a single point—made up 64 percent. The most economically vulnerable Americans voted for Clinton overwhelmingly; the usual presumption is exactly the opposite.

If you look at white voters alone, a different picture emerges. Trump defeated Clinton among white voters in every income category, winning by a margin of 57 to 34 among whites making less than $30,000; 56 to 37 among those making between $30,000 and $50,000; 61 to 33 for those making $50,000 to $100,000; 56 to 39 among those making $100,000 to $200,000; 50 to 45 among those making $200,000 to $250,000; and 48 to 43 among those making more than $250,000. In other words, Trump won white voters at every level of class and income. He won workers, he won managers, he won owners, he won robber barons. This is not a working-class coalition; it is a nationalist one.

But Trump’s greater appeal among low-income white voters doesn’t vindicate the Calamity Thesis. White working-class Americans dealing directly with factors that lead to a death of despair were actually less likely to support Trump, and those struggling economically were not any more likely to support him. As a 2017 study by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic found, “White working-class voters who reported that someone in their household was dealing with a health issue—such as drug addiction, alcohol abuse, or depression—were actually less likely to express support for Trump’s candidacy,” while white working-class voters who had “experienced a loss of social and economic standing were not any more likely to favor Trump than those whose status remained the same or improved.”

Trump’s support among whites decreases the higher you go on the scales of income and education. But the controlling factor seems to be not economic distress but an inclination to see nonwhites as the cause of economic problems. The poorest voters were somewhat less likely to vote for Trump than those a rung or two above them on the economic ladder. The highest-income voters actually supported Trump less than they did Mitt Romney, who in 2012 won 54 percent of voters making more than $100,000—several points more than Trump secured, although he still fared better than Clinton. It was among voters in the middle, those whose economic circumstances were precarious but not bleak, where the benefits of Du Bois’s psychic wage appeared most in danger of being devalued, and where Trump’s message resonated most strongly. They surged toward the Republican column.

Yet when social scientists control for white voters’ racial attitudes—that is, whether those voters hold “racially resentful” views about blacks and immigrants—even the educational divide disappears. In other words, the relevant factor in support for Trump among white voters was not education, or even income, but the ideological frame with which they understood their challenges and misfortunes. It is also why voters of color—who suffered a genuine economic calamity in the decade before Trump’s election—were almost entirely immune to those same appeals."

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...lusion/546356/

I'm not under the illusion that you're here to actually learn or even have a genuine conversation, so the above isn't really for you. It's for others, so that when they see this self-serving bullshit trotted out like gospel, they'll know better.

[Endus]

That's a big old wall of text and a whole lot of bullshit trying to ignore the reality Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump showing what a weak an ineffective candidate she was in the electoral college.

That isn't even how the electoral college works.

She won the popular vote by millions of votes. The electoral college works to weight those votes, giving more value to votes in certain regions. At best, her loss argues against strategy, not strength; that her strong performance overall failed to achieve victory because it was directed poorly.

[Edge-]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/25/polit...ies/index.html

In the years before she ran for office, GOP congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote two conspiracy-laden blog posts speculating that the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that led to one counter-protester's death was an "inside job" and promoting a debunked conspiracy alleging some Democratic Party leaders were running a human-trafficking and pedophilia ring -- known as "Pizzagate" -- was real.

Greene, running now to represent in the northwest corner of Georgia in the US House, made the comments in 2017 and 2018, writing for the now-defunct website of American Truth Seekers, a conspiracy-laden blog.

In a Facebook post, Greene wrote that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was guilty of treason and suggested she could be executed.

Republicans are not sending their best. Some, I assume, are not unhinged conspiracy theorist lunatics, but I'm struggling to find them.

[Adam Jensen]

That isn't even how the electoral college works.

She won the popular vote by millions of votes. The electoral college works to weight those votes, giving more value to votes in certain regions. At best, her loss argues against strategy, not strength; that her strong performance overall failed to achieve victory because it was directed poorly.

Not to mention the key states she lost, she lost by low margins.

It was not the landslide victory some people claim it to be.

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/25/polit...ies/index.html



Republicans are not sending their best. Some, I assume, are not unhinged conspiracy theorist lunatics, but I'm struggling to find them.

Ben Carson

But only because he's slept through the last 4 years.

[Levelfive]

snip

Like I said:

I'm not under the illusion that you're here to actually learn or even have a genuine conversation, so the above isn't really for you. It's for others, so that when they see this self-serving bullshit trotted out like gospel, they'll know better.

Thanks for being predictable, though.

[Milchshake]

Not to mention the key states she lost, she lost by low margins.

It was not the landslide victory some people claim it to be.

Those key states also had among the worst voter purges, voter ID laws, passed since the Voter Right's Act was gutted by the Roberts Court just before.

2016 was the first major election since the VRA rollbacks were implemented. So the damage to voter access was unknown and under reported. But those emails sure dominated the news.

[Levelfive]

That isn't even how the electoral college works.

She won the popular vote by millions of votes. The electoral college works to weight those votes, giving more value to votes in certain regions. At best, her loss argues against strategy, not strength; that her strong performance overall failed to achieve victory because it was directed poorly.

Yes, the affirmative action "win."

[Edge-]

Ben Carson

But only because he's slept through the last 4 years.

Erm...*ahem* Ben Carson believes Joseph built Egypt’s pyramids to store grain

[PhaelixWW]

Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump showing what a weak an ineffective candidate she was in the electoral college.

Um...

Not to mention the key states she lost, she lost by low margins.

It was not the landslide victory some people claim it to be.

Yeah, I mean I literally posted about this two days ago...

So only about 78k votes meant the difference between the Trump Presidency we've suffered under for the last four years, and a Clinton Presidency that the majority of the population voted for.

I mean, it's no surprise that Trump is doing whatever he can to suppress votes.

[Endus]

She was a terrible candidate, because she lost to a terrible candidature. That was proven before the election even took place.

I'll blame the voters for their own choices, thanks. Nobody forced their hands.

[Levelfive]

Why you feel the need to explain exactly what I had said in my quotation. In that Clinton was an ineffective candidate in the electoral college. Then you proceed to say, "that isn't even how the electoral college works", refer to the popular vote that matters fuck all. So you all should stop citing it and then proceeding to explain the electoral college to anyone. She was a terrible candidate, because she lost to a terrible candidature. That was proven before the election even took place.


https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/blog...sm-voting-2016

Odd low enthusiasm leads to low voter turn out. How very strange.
Clinton campaign had been directed the same way as Biden's campaign is now. I honestly think it'll be enough in 2020, but it wasn't in 2016.

- - - Updated - - -



Well when you spout nonsense, it's not hard to foresee being called out as spouting bullshit.

Then you should have no trouble refuting specifics. By all means, try. I'd welcome it.

- - - Updated - - -

Um...

Yeah, I mean I literally posted about this two days ago...

Yep, ~78k across 3 states.

[Endus]

No one is suppose to force their hand. Just the opposite, and that's why you're wrong here and have been in the past. As is anyone who wants to blame voters when their candidate of person choice ends up not winning.

Nobody's hands were "forced" in 2016. That's utter tosh. People made a free and open decision, and nobody forced them in any way whatsoever.

[Adam Jensen]

Erm...*ahem* Ben Carson believes Joseph built Egypt’s pyramids to store grain

Slightly less dangerous than believing JFK Jr is about to assume the presidency any day now I guess.

But I take your point.

[lockybalboa]

I'd have to agree with Endus here. If you are not voting for Biden you are doing something wrong. We need to vote the tyrant out even if a monkey is put in place against him.

[Endus]

I literally agreed that no one forced their hands, and Just the opposite, "no one is supposed to force their hand". FFS.

It doesn't take away that a terrible candidate vs a terrible candidate gave us a terrible president. That isn't on the voters or non-voters for that matter.

The latter argues that hands were forced. It's also "both sides" malarkey. Clinton wasn't an inspiring candidate, but claiming she was "terrible" in the same sense as Trump is just patently ridiculous. She was one of the most eminently qualified candidates that has ever run for the Presidency. She lacks a bit of charisma in big public events. That's about it.

I won't accept "But her emails" as an argument, either now or in that time, because it was never an issue for anyone else, before or after, even though they all did pretty much the same thing.

[Levelfive]

Well then you are blaming largely the poor, minority, and disenfranchised. It won't help you win an election, but I suppose it can make you feel better about your own decision. Doesn't make their decision wrong.

How is he blaming "poor, minority, and disenfranchised" voters?

[Endus]

Right,.... keep telling yourself that.

The reality of the last four years says otherwise, because an eminently qualified candidate wouldn't lose to a billionaire reality TV star.

If it was just down to their objective qualifications, you'd be right.

It wasn't.

It was down to voters' subjective impressions and prejudices, at least as much as any such analysis. There's literally nothing Clinton could have done to secure the vote of a hardline misogynist.