Mega-Thread: 2020 United States General Election

[TigTone]

That is disturbing, and potentially accurate. I could easily see battleground states going Trump, even fairly strongly, during in person voting, then going Biden with mail-in voting. Which will be absolutely catastrophic for election confidence.

I really recommend in person voting if you can manage it at all. Not because I don't believe in mail in voting, but just to head off bullshit like that. Yes, I know Covid will still be a risk, but some personal risk is acceptable to make sure your vote gets counted, and gets counted early.

Assuming they are not scared off by Armed “poll watchers”

[Thepersona]

It's a common effect in electoral statistics across the world. Many people even in an anonymous phone call will be shy to admit their preference for an unpopular party.

Then dont vote for said party?

[Thekri]

Assuming they are not scared off by Armed “poll watchers”

Wear a fucking MAGA hat to the polls to go vote for Biden then. They don't get to come into the booth with you.

[TigTone]

Wear a fucking MAGA hat to the polls to go vote for Biden then. They don't get to come into the booth with you.

At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried. I want to say I’m being cynical but damn this year has been a wild one.

[Edge-]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/31/polit...ifa/index.html

President Donald Trump retweeted on Sunday a tweet that falsely blamed "Black Lives Matter/Antifa" for a random 2019 crime in which a Black man shoved a White woman into a New York City subway train.

The assault, captured in a video embedded in the tweet, had nothing to do with either the Black Lives Matter movement for racial justice or with Antifa, a loose collection of anti-fascist activists. The man shown in the video has a long history of offenses on New York City's transit system; he was arrested again last year over this incident.

The tweet Trump retweeted was from a Spanish-language pro-Trump account. The actual video used in the tweet, though, had been posted by a White nationalist user who goes by the handle "I'm With Groyper"; "groyper" is an identifier often used by the racist "alt-right" and others on the far right.

The user posted the subway video as part of a thread of dozens of videos depicting Black people assaulting White people. Contacted by CNN, the user identified himself as an advocate of White people creating their own "nations" for supposed "protection" from racial minorities.

The user noted that he did not himself "say the attack had anything to do with BLM and Antifa, like the post the president retweeted suggested."

What's goin on? Not much, just Trump sharing content from white supremacists, filtered through his own orgs, who advocate for a white nation to "protect" themselves against racial minorities.

Trump is a white supremacist, y'all. That or he's even dumber than white supremacists and is getting cucked into sharing their content. Neither option is good.

[cubby]

The Chads has better stay the fuck outta this election, this time.

Lol, man, I remember that shit show. And that was before social media.

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I understand the unique difficulties of voting in the US but damn is that absolutely a weird way to have elections.

It really is. The Democrats have tried to pass election reform for decades, and in some places have been successful (on the state level), but the GOP prevents any kind of updating or modernizing our election system.

[starlord]

Always thought he is more of a casual racist and his support for white supremacism is a faction of his narcissism; they like him so he likes them back.

considering his family history of being involved with the KKK, i think its more of a deeply nurtured belief he feels more comfortable sharing in public.

[cubby]

That is disturbing, and potentially accurate. I could easily see battleground states going Trump, even fairly strongly, during in person voting, then going Biden with mail-in voting. Which will be absolutely catastrophic for election confidence.

I really recommend in person voting if you can manage it at all. Not because I don't believe in mail in voting, but just to head off bullshit like that. Yes, I know Covid will still be a risk, but some personal risk is acceptable to make sure your vote gets counted, and gets counted early.

Agreed. I think part of us knew it could/would go down like this, but to have Axios "confirm" it just makes the concern that much more palpable.

And Trump will be at a new level of Tweet-storm insanity during those post-election weeks.

[Edge-]

Always thought he is more of a casual racist and his support for white supremacism is a faction of his narcissism; they like him so he likes them back.

I think he started out as a casual malignant racist, but he's seen how much purchase he has with the extreme right and white supremacist crowd so has stopped dog whistling for them and just started outright calling on them by name.

This is why there's usually a bit of a chain of reviews on materials sent out on behalf of someone like POTUS or a big CEO through official channels (again, Trump's Twitter is an official government channel, he decided to make it so). It's to vet content like this and make sure that they're not "accidentally" sharing content sourced to Stormfront or some shit.

Trump, being Trump, just acts emotionally from his "gut", which means uncritically sharing anything he thinks will make him look good. Even if that means appealing to white supremacists, which he has repeatedly done.

[cubby]

Assuming they are not scared off by Armed “poll watchers”

I still can't believe that will happen, even though I myself have posted articles showing the MAGAhats are planning just that very thing. What's worse, is that if it does happen, and the police are called in, it might/will turn violent, which will scare more voters away, which in the end is the win Trumpsters were originally looking for by showing up as armed poll watchers.

[UnifiedDivide]

Biden: "Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting... it's lawlessness, plain & simple... violence will not bring change. It will only bring destruction... this POTUS long ago forfeited any moral leadership. He cannot stop the violence b/c for years he has fomented it."

Biden: "They are running on this and I find it fascinating -- 'you won't be safe in Joe Biden's America.' And what is their proof? The violence we are seeing in Donald Trump's America ... these are images of Donald Trump's America today ... it's getting worse."

Biden: "Trump, you want to talk about fear? Do you know what people are afraid of? They're afraid they're gonna get Covid. They're afraid they're gonna get sick and die. And that is in no small part b/c of you. We're now on track for more than 200,000 deaths in this country."

I think someone mentioned that Biden needs to be saying these kinds of things. So, there you go.

[eschatological]

Wear a fucking MAGA hat to the polls to go vote for Biden then. They don't get to come into the booth with you.

You're not allowed to wear campaign materials anywhere within 100 feet of a polling place.

[nonameelf]

As I allude to above, it is clearly not really boycotting either as Jon Ronson described or Ben Burgis is describing. So again I refer to my earlier post.

It's literally boycotting. Just because you gave it a different name doesn't mean it's something different.

[Thekri]

I honestly don't see how violence will be avoided if in the most polarized climated you have had in the US in ages, in a heavily armed population, you have early results with Trump clearly winning only for them to reverse with Trump tweeting 24/7 about how they are stealing the election. That's a powderkeg.

Entirely precedented, unfortunately. Allow me to introduce one of the most important US Presidential Elections of all time, that produced an illegitimate President that stole the election, and rolled back decades of civil rights progress. No, I am not talking about 2016. I am talking about 1876.

1876 was bad. Like, way fucking worse then now. The race was between the Democratic Tilden, and the Republican Hayes. At stake was the future of the reconstruction governments across the south. The results of the election are... still heavily disputed to this day. Tilden apparently won, by a lot, with 184 Electorial votes to Hayes 164. Tilden also won the popular vote comfortably. That total doesn't include 3 southern states, Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana though. All three states had Republican reconstruction governments, and also a massive up-welling of Klan and Neo-Confederate groups resentful of that control. These groups barricaded polling places, threatened, attacked, and lynched black voters, and packed ballot boxes with democratic votes. Resulting in all three states reporting results of overwhelming support for Tilden, but the Republican government invalidated the results, threw them out, and declared for Hays.

How bad was all this? Well, in Louisiana, part of the run up to this was the "Battle of Liberty Place", where 5,000 members of the White League (Exactly what it sounds like) attacked the police and government of New Orleans over the disputed gubernatorial election of 1874. Over 30 people died (And New Orleans built a massive monument honoring the White League, which they only took down in 2017). Even more extreme violence was assumed from this disastrous presidential election. In South Carolina, voter turnout was 101%, which is the highest voter turnout in all of US history, and also obviously impossible. This was even after the South Carolina government threw away thousands of democratic ballots, that was the official final tally.

So what wound up happening is Hayes was awarded all 20 outstanding electoral votes, making Rutherford B. Hayes a US President who was almost certainly never elected to that role (But probably would have been if White Southerners hadn't suppressed Black voters and cheated like crazy). In return, the Democrats got the official end of Reconstruction, the full reinstatement of southern States, and Democratic state governments across the south that passed new state constitutions, passed sweeping voter disenfranchisement, and locked the American South into a White Supremacist government that is just now starting to show cracks.

Bottom line: We have been here before. It got really ugly, and it left scars that lasted to today.

[cubby]

Biden: "Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting... it's lawlessness, plain & simple... violence will not bring change. It will only bring destruction... this POTUS long ago forfeited any moral leadership. He cannot stop the violence b/c for years he has fomented it."

Biden: "They are running on this and I find it fascinating -- 'you won't be safe in Joe Biden's America.' And what is their proof? The violence we are seeing in Donald Trump's America ... these are images of Donald Trump's America today ... it's getting worse."

Biden: "Trump, you want to talk about fear? Do you know what people are afraid of? They're afraid they're gonna get Covid. They're afraid they're gonna get sick and die. And that is in no small part b/c of you. We're now on track for more than 200,000 deaths in this country."

I think someone mentioned that Biden needs to be saying these kinds of things. So, there you go.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

[Felya]

Yes clearly I agree with the man who sent feds to kidnap us and bash our skulls in every night.

Both he and you think Biden being a BLM and Medicare for all supporter, is a path to victory. I was clear in what I said...

You got me, I thought I was getting beat up by fascists and skinheads for decades trying to defend the people of color within my community from getting beat up or killed by them because the police here refuse to do anything about them because they are also Proud Boys, but really I was mistaken and I've totally been on their side this whole time. Who knew?

I don’t particularly care what you claim to have done in the past, when you are failing to address issues with your rhetoric. I will ask for the third time... Why should Biden put any effort into showing BLM or medicare for all support, when Trump just spent 5 days of RNC doing it for him?

You think it’s a coincidence that the two people agreeing with you, one is a hard core Trump supporter and the other blamed BLM for Biden not doing as well? Both being things you despise, while I am pointing out, your rhetoric actually promotes. You think that’s a coincidence or there is something peculiar about it?

[cubby]

The whole outcry against "cancel culture" is just people who've never had to face consequences before, because of societal privilege or advantage, suddenly having to face those consequences, and they don't like it. I don't care if they don't like it. I care if they deserve it, if their actions warrant negative consequences.

And for the most part, they have.

People really need to read and see this - it could not have been said better. Consequences are things people of privilege have never had to face. And they are facing them now.

[starlord]

Entirely precedented, unfortunately. Allow me to introduce one of the most important US Presidential Elections of all time, that produced an illegitimate President that stole the election, and rolled back decades of civil rights progress. No, I am not talking about 2016. I am talking about 1876.
[/U]
<snip>

i doubt it would be as bad as that, the clashes we have had in the past year are small potatoes compared to things back then.

trumps aspirations are about selling merchandise to trump fans. the broader fascist movements adopted him, not the other way around.

but who knows?

[UnifiedDivide]

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Those 3 were just specific quotes I picked out. The entire speech is worth a watch/listen.

[cubby]

It will really be Final Judgement for the GOP on whether they try to keep things under control or really pick up the shovels for Democracy

I'm not sure what you're getting at here, I'm just not quite understanding.

However, if the GOP loses their Dear Leader's election, their party might just collapse completely. Although the racist fucks and MAGAhats will still need somewhere to land.

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Those 3 were just specific quotes I picked out. The entire speech is worth a watch/listen.

I've got it queued up - thanks for that. Biden's statements are how I was hoping he'd "go on the attack" - I'm glad to see him doing it.