Mega-Thread: 2020 United States General Election

[Felya]

Oh and Trump released his covid plan on Twitter... I’d post it, but I don’t want to get dinged for posting conspiracy theories.

[Edge-]

Oh and Trump released his covid plan on Twitter... I’d post it, but I don’t want to get dinged for posting conspiracy theories.

I see something about vaccine approvals in between him falling out of love with Fox and in love with Newsmax. I guess his timeline is now basically a Newsmax RSS feed.

[Belize]

Opened the door to the DOJ investigation voter fraud claims, but he only opened it to "genuine" claims with evidence behind them. So as long as career lawyers aren't getting heavy political pressure they can likely functionally completely ignore this as there's yet to be a single instance of alleged voter fraud that I've seen hold up to even the lightest scrutiny.

Any bets it'll end the same way the 2016 investigation did, and they'll only find Republicans cheating again?

[Felya]

I see something about vaccine approvals in between him falling out of love with Fox and in love with Newsmax. I guess his timeline is now basically a Newsmax RSS feed.

It’s between those and the Ken Star bullshit... He is claiming that vaccine coming out after the election is a conspiracy.

[Edge-]

Any bets it'll end the same way the 2016 investigation did, and they'll only find Republicans cheating again?

And the re-investigation of Clinton and the investigation of Muellers report, which turned up fuckin nothing, or the upcoming Durham investigation which is also apparently a whole lotta nothing?

I'm bettin big on that one. BET IT ALL ON BLACK!

[Felya]

Any bets it'll end the same way the 2016 investigation did, and they'll only find Republicans cheating again?

Technically, it ended up being destroyed by Trump admin, without an official reason given... aka... nothing there...

[Edge-]

It’s between those and the Ken Star bullshit... He is claiming that vaccine coming out after the election is a conspiracy.

I mean...if a private company decided, in their capacity as a private company, to withhold results until after the election (OF WHICH THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF) like...tough shit? Maybe he should nationalized the drug companies, eh? : D

[Felya]

I mean...if a private company decided, in their capacity as a private company, to withhold results until after the election (OF WHICH THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF) like...tough shit? Maybe he should nationalized the drug companies, eh? : D

It’s like claiming Putin injecting his own daughter with a “vaccine” was to help Trump.

[beanman12345]

I'll say the vaccine info even if it's early it's really encouraging maybe more so than biden winning. 90+% (if it ends up panning out) effective means I won't have to worry as much about whackjobs who refuse to get vaccinated. Still gonna wear a mask every fucking day for idk how long, especially since we'll have to get the vaccine every year.

[Very Tired]

This one is for all the, "WE NEED THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SO THAT A FEW BIG CITIES DON'T PICK THE PRESIDENT!" crowd - https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bid...s-swing-states



That's literally the situation that exists now, and a tiny minority of Americans end up choosing the president anyways. Hell, the populations of every "BIG CITY" that would have "picked the president" is bigger than that.

Using the popular vote, like it's used for literally everything else up for vote, is obviously a better choice than the system we have now. But the system never changes unless the people in power see themselves as able to benefit from it.

And it's nothing new here. If I recall correctly from my history class, women in America weren't given the right to vote because men suddenly decided it was the right thing to do. They were given the right to vote because research showed their votes were more than likely to be the same as their husband's, hopefully doubling the white vote against black votes who they were trying to minimize.

Though I learned that years ago, someone correct me if I'm off.

[Thepersona]

I'll say the vaccine info even if it's early it's really encouraging maybe more so than biden winning. 90+% (if it ends up panning out) effective means I won't have to worry as much about whackjobs who refuse to get vaccinated. Still gonna wear a mask every fucking day for idk how long, especially since we'll have to get the vaccine every year.

It's better than that. It proves that an effective vaccine IS possible, so it makes the path of the very next ones (Sinovac, Oxford, etc) WAY easier.

[Mormolyce]

I don't understand how Hillary tanked the election. It's people who vote and they either voted for Trump or decided he was good enough not to oppose.
It is the same thing with Biden. Only way one tanks an election is by doing things that Trump and GOP did in 2016 primary.
I also don't understand how you say progressive would do better in this election when with record turnouts the most progressive candidate on the ballot lost. But if an even more progressive candidate was on ballot somehow even more people will vote. Are you saying that people voted or chose not to oppose a conservative because they wanted a true progressive, not a moderate and are okay delaying anything progressive or going backwards for next 4, 6, ... Years instead of moving forward.

I'm saying that the message "Vote for me, the other guy is horrible!" "Okay, but what do I get if I vote for you?" "Nothing, I can't afford to give you anything you want because I'm marketing myself to the supporters of the aforementioned horrible guy!" does not energise voters or win many people over. And the last two elections prove that. The guy who won in 2016 made the least attempt at outreach beyond his base of any candidate in living memory. Why wasn't he punished by this same logic?

[Edge-]

Because the saga of the Four Seasons Landscaping Company parking lot press conference is the gift that keeps on giving, Slate interviewed the guy that owns the porn shop next door, Bernie D'Angelo - https://slate.com/human-interest/202...ladelphia.html

I can’t imagine Rudy Giuliani, the former big-time mayor of New York, 9/11, you know, handled that and then all of a sudden, now he’s in someone’s backyard, so to speak. To think that he’s in an industrial commercial area where there’s no one here except a landscaping business and an adult bookstore and a crematorium across the street. There was no reason why they would be in this area. It’s funny. I’ve stayed at the Four Seasons. I know the difference between the two Four Seasons. One’s a landscaping business, and one’s a nice hotel.

You know you've taken a wrong turn in your career path when you go from Time Person of the Year and "Americas Mayor" to, "A guy who owns a porn shop in an industrial part of town is throwing shade at you."

[Mormolyce]

The logic of appealing to the middle did make sense. Decades ago. The problem is that the facts have changed, and the Democrats haven't made efforts to try and adjust accordingly; they're still playing by that decades-old playbook.

Here's what I mean; the political landscape among voters used to, roughly, look like a bell curve; most Americans were centrist, and could swing either way depending on the candidate. That's how Lyndon Johnson won more than 60% of the popular vote, as a Democrat, and just 8 years later, Nixon did the same as a Republican. At least 20% of the population was willing to swing their votes, depending on the campaigns and platforms and candidates.

That middle has collapsed. The graph doesn't look like a bell curve anymore; it looks like two bell curves, with two distinct peaks, and a chasm in the middle. That's the "center", and why there's effectively no swing votes and why election results have been so narrow in the 2000s. And yes; just the 2000s. The process started before that, but it wasn't really apparent how significant the shift was until then.

It looked like this, to graph it out;



And that's why appealing to the center is a fool's errand, now. The swing votes aren't there, and if you design your platform to appeal to that center, you risk leaving the larger chunk of your potential electorate out in the cold. The Democrats had a gift, with Donald Trump, in that he presented such a clear danger that people likely overlooked this, but that's not a vote for the Democratic agenda, it's a vote against Donald Trump. Not the same thing.

Nor can you try and drag that population back to the center. That's not how politics works. Politicians represent the people, and refusal to represent the electorate is how you lose elections, and become irrelevant as a party in the long term, and some new party who does takes your place.

The logic of appealing to the center was fine. In the '60s, and even the '80s. In the 2000s? It's willfully ignorant.

Yes and frankly, the more I've read about it the more I've become convinced that the real reason for the separation of the two sides and collapse of the "middle" is not actually anything ideological, but rather that the party shift of the mid-20th Century has finally completed. The two groups were always polar opposites but because of the slow transition of the parties they were spread across the aisle - now all the yellow dogs have died and everyone more flexible has jumped to the appropriate ship. Ie, there were never truly moderates, just people on the wrong side of the fence for historical reasons, and people get stuck in their ways.

The outcome of this is pretty concerning - now that the parties are truly separated partisanship will spiral out of control and eventually you'll either have one party or the other collapse or you'll head into another civil war.

[postman1782]

https://twitter.com/tomselliott/stat...11981304504321

Biden is already “having phone calls” with foreign leaders about “the agenda they’re going to pursue January 20th”

Republicans claiming logan act violations already. This is going to be a shitshow lol.

LOL, talk about fucking ironic.

[Mormolyce]

Because the saga of the Four Seasons Landscaping Company parking lot press conference is the gift that keeps on giving, Slate interviewed the guy that owns the porn shop next door, Bernie D'Angelo - https://slate.com/human-interest/202...ladelphia.html



You know you've taken a wrong turn in your career path when you go from Time Person of the Year and "Americas Mayor" to, "A guy who owns a porn shop in an industrial part of town is throwing shade at you."

Can't remember if this came up earlier in the thread but apparently the first guy Rudy had on the podium to talk about all that nefarious voter fraud that definitely exists was a convicted sex offender:

https://www.politico.com/states/new-...fender-1335241

[Edge-]

Can't remember if this came up earlier in the thread but apparently the first guy Rudy had on the podium to talk about all that nefarious voter fraud that definitely exists was a convicted sex offender:

https://www.politico.com/states/new-...fender-1335241

From another state, to boot.

I know it's likely not why, but I enjoy musing about the reason why they had to chose that Four Seasons was because the Four Seasons hotel is 1 block away from a charter school and he wouldn't have been allowed to attend.

[Breccia]

So we've talked about the story, but these numbers:



Earlier I posted a similiar screenshot from TheHill and used it as an exmaple of the rabid fanbase having very few options for good news anymore, and compared it to FOX News getting good ratings because the other 199 stations showing real news don't get Trump supporters to watch.

Anyhow, the number I posted at the time was a whopping 23k and change -- and this blows it out of the water. I think we have some loose bots, guys, designed to find anything with Trump, FOX News, or McEnemy in it, to like/share and artificially boost it.

And...yeah. This is why AI is so...A.

"Yeah yeah, what's #5 there?"

Oh, Trump ordered his COVID-stricken Bossie to file yet another lawsuit against Pennsylvania. Specifically challenging that there were two standards for ballots, an easier one for mailed ballots and a harder one for in-person, and as such, intentionally designed to screw Trump voters.

This is the latest meritless lawsuit to challenge Pennsylvania’s election, which was overseen by bipartisan election officials and was lawful, fair and secure. For months, the vast majority of these lawsuits have been dismissed and found to have no merit by Courts at all levels, and this one is no different.

I am confident Pennsylvania law will be upheld and the will of the people of the Commonwealth will be respected in this election.

-- PA AG

"Interesting that we hadn't heard of it."

Oh, that's the gag. McEnemy announced it. After everyone cut away.

- - - Updated - - -

Trump campaign begins mass firings.

"Is that unusual?"

I mean, normally no. Normally the election is over by now. Trump insists this one is not.

Also in the same article: Trump has not yet paid Wisconsin for a recount. Wisconsin isn't stupid enough to assume Trump will pay them back.

[Mormolyce]

Opened the door to the DOJ investigation voter fraud claims, but he only opened it to "genuine" claims with evidence behind them. So as long as career lawyers aren't getting heavy political pressure they can likely functionally completely ignore this as there's yet to be a single instance of alleged voter fraud that I've seen hold up to even the lightest scrutiny.

Except this one:

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/b...ear-pa-2020-11

But I have a funny feeling Barr won't be interested in that.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh and Trump released his covid plan on Twitter... I’d post it, but I don’t want to get dinged for posting conspiracy theories.

Apparently it involved firing Fauci. His literal, actual policy is "shoot the messenger".

According to reports Bannon said his head should be on a pike to send a message lol. To... science?

[Edge-]

Except this one:

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/b...ear-pa-2020-11

But I have a funny feeling Barr won't be interested in that.

Well, that's less "fraud" and more "domestic terrorism/political intimidation" : |