Mega-Thread: 2020 United States General Election

[postman1782]

Roids are temporary, dementia is forever.

This is the same thing that happened in 2016. The dems get all up on their high horses because they think they've got it made. But we're the silent majority, not my fault you choose not to see it.

Well, with all of the stuff that Biden has done, including townhalls and talking to random people, there is only one person in this election that has mental deficiencies, and it isn't Biden. Trump has LITERALLY said there were airports during the Revolutionary war, and has slurred his speech more times than I can count.

You have never been a majority, Trump got 3 million fewer votes than Hillary did in 2016, and you definitely aren't fucking silent. Trump's approval has never been above 50%. I choose not to see it because it doesn't exist. There is LITERALLY NO EVIDENCE that Trump has gained more popularity since winning in 2016. In fact the Republican party has shrunk to it's smallest state in decades.

[Blood Axe]

Trump got 3 million fewer votes than Hillary did in 2016

So you think California and New York should dictate all elections? Yeah, one is on fire and the other is still in lockdown, I don't need those people deciding the future of this country.

[postman1782]

So you think California and New York should dictate all elections? Yeah, one is on fire and the other is still in lockdown, I don't need those people deciding the future of this country.

So, you hate 40% of California? Since 40% of the state stupidly voted for Trump. Same with New York.

[Gelannerai]

So you think California and New York should dictate all elections? Yeah, one is on fire and the other is still in lockdown, I don't need those people deciding the future of this country.

Ooh, victim-blaming other Americans who are suffering the results of botched conservatism. Neat. Next you’ll desperately try to pivot to how you’re actually the victim here because of your ban since it couldn’t possibly be that your account is a 9-post ban-evading sock puppet.

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Why are you guys even bothering with responding to burner accounts?

I know, I should know better at this point.

[Ghostpanther]

This surprised me. Because I thought she has been critical of him? Or maybe I am thinking of some other official there?....https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pue...e-election-bid

[Felya]

This surprised me. Because I thought she has been critical of him? Or maybe I am thinking of some other official there?....https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pue...e-election-bid

You are thinking of the governor that was demanding aid, while Trump was tossing towels. As your article states, she has been governor since last year. The article even states she would have welcomed Trump’s Virus by flying to one of his rallies. Because Trump supporters, seem to really want to spread the Trump virus.

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Why are you guys even bothering with responding to burner accounts?

Because there is no difference between burner accounts and Trump supporters. It’s Trump’s base...

[Bodakane]

You are thinking of the governor that was demanding aid, while Trump was tossing towels. As your article states, she has been governor since last year. The article even states she would have welcomed Trump’s Virus by flying to one of his rallies. Because Trump supporters, seem to really want to spread the Trump virus.

We should call covid, Trump Flu.

[Machismo]

This surprised me. Because I thought she has been critical of him? Or maybe I am thinking of some other official there?....https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pue...e-election-bid

Why are you unable to address that Trump lied about Covid-19 and the flu?

[DingDongKing]

Powerful stuff. No, Mark Dice does not weigh in.

[Felya]

We should call covid, Trump Flu.

Oh, I am doing it so people can’t act like I’m saying my version of Trump’s “China Virus”... I think I forgot to do it in the post you responded to, but I try to say “Trump’s Virus”... That makes it possessive, instead of being a name... and it’s undeniably accurate... Covid is Trump’s virus... he actively has it...

[downnola]

Looks like the Trump cult plans on trying to intimidate voters on Election Day in my old district where I volunteered in last year's primary and general election. I may take the day off and go back home to support some friends dealing with these brown shirts. This is what fascism looks like and we shouldn't be surprised that it was brought on by a failed casino owner turned reality tv bullshit artist.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN26S1J5

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Republicans are mobilizing thousands of volunteers to watch early voting sites and ballot drop boxes leading up to November’s election, part of an effort to find evidence to back up President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated complaints about widespread voter fraud.

Across key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin, Republican poll watchers will be searching for irregularities, especially with regard to mail-in ballots whose use is surging amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to more than 20 officials involved in the effort. They declined to say how many volunteers have signed up so far; the campaign earlier this year said its goal was to recruit 50,000 monitors nationwide.

The mission, the officials said, is to capture photos and videos Republicans can use to support so-far unfounded claims that mail voting is riddled with chicanery, and to help their case if legal disputes erupt over the results of the Nov. 3 contest between Republican incumbent Trump and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden.

The campaign is already posting material of activity it claims is suspicious, including video of a Trump campaign observer being turned away from an early voting site in Philadelphia last month. The city says monitors are welcome in polling stations on Election Day but are not permitted in early voting facilities.

Some voting-rights activists are concerned such encounters could escalate in a tense year that has seen armed militias face off against protestors in the nation’s streets.

Poll watching by partisan observers is a normal feature in U.S. elections that dates back to the 18th century and is subject to various state laws and local rules.

Still, this year’s operation by the Trump campaign is highly unusual, voting rights advocates say, both in its focus on early voting and in its emphasis on finding evidence to support baseless assertions by the president and his supporters that Democrats plan to flood the system with phony mail ballots to steal the election.

In a recruitment video posted on Twitter in September seeking volunteers for this “Army for Trump,” the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., made the unfounded claim that Democrats plan to “add millions of fraudulent ballots” to rig the results. Trump repeatedly has refused to commit to accepting the outcome of November’s election. During the Sept. 29 presidential debate, he exhorted his supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully.”

Mail ballot requests are tilting heavily to Democrats in battleground states, which likely means Biden will be in the lead before in-person voting begins on Election Day.

In Florida, where Republicans have historically relied on mail ballots, nearly 2.5 million Democrats have requested them, compared with about 1.7 million Republicans. In Pennsylvania, more than 1.5 million Democrats have requested a mail-in ballot, nearly triple the requests from Republicans.

Republicans said they plan to monitor every step of mail voting, including setting up cameras to show people dropping off multiple ballots at drop boxes. Some states permit third-parties to drop off ballots, but the practice is banned in others, including Pennsylvania.

Pat Dion, head of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania’s Bucks County, a politically divided suburb near Philadelphia, predicted the process could get messy.

“There’s going to be lots of watchers, lots of cameras and lots of attorneys all across the country. It’s going to be chaotic,” said Dion, who said he nevertheless supports the effort.

Challengers, observers and electioneering: the history and rules of U.S. poll watching
Democrats and voting-rights advocates say Trump is trying to suppress the vote, not protect it.

“It’s an attempt to scare eligible Americans into thinking they are in danger if they go to vote,” said Myrna Perez, voting rights and elections director for the Brennan Center, a nonpartisan voting rights group.

Democrats say Trump’s team is also laying the groundwork for a challenge to mail ballots in the event he loses, possibly throwing the election to Congress or the courts to decide the outcome.

Trump campaign spokeswoman Thea McDonald said in a statement that “President Trump’s volunteer poll watchers will be trained to ensure all rules are applied equally. And if fouls are called, the Trump Campaign will go to court to enforce the laws.”

‘MAKE OUR REPUBLICAN PRESENCE KNOWN’

This is the first presidential election in nearly four decades that the Republican National Committee has been free to sponsor such “ballot security” operations without permission from a federal court. A 1982 consent decree restricted these activities after the party sent teams of gun-toting men to minority neighborhoods during a New Jersey election wearing uniforms saying “Ballot Security Task Force.”

That consent decree expired in 2018 and a federal judge declined Democratic attempts to renew it.

In Wisconsin, a state Trump won by less than a percentage point in 2016, volunteers will be posted in heavily Democratic counties around Milwaukee, Republican state party chairman Andrew Hitt told Reuters.

Pennsylvania, too, is shaping up to be a hotbed of activity. Trump won it by just over 44,000 votes in 2016. He has almost no path to securing a second term if he doesn’t win its 20 Electoral College votes again in November.

In Montgomery County, a formerly Republican bastion outside Philadelphia that is now reliably Democratic, the Republican Party is holding several virtual training sessions over the next two weeks for some 50 volunteers to monitor 11 proposed ballot drop boxes there, according to an email sent by the party to supporters and seen by Reuters. “It is critical that we make our Republican presence known, so voters know they cannot get away with fraud,” the email reads.

On the western side of the state near Pittsburgh, Trump supporter Bob Howard has volunteered to watch election offices where voters will be dropping off absentee ballots.

“We...need to make sure that all the rules are being followed, so people can trust the results,” the 70-year-old retiree said.


In Pennsylvania, Biden’s campaign said it has launched the biggest such Democratic program there in history, with more than a thousand lawyers and volunteers. It would not provide details on whether its monitors will be deployed at drop boxes and other early voting locations alongside their Republican rivals.

LAWSUITS MULTIPLYING
Election experts said the explosion of mail balloting is testing voting laws designed around in-person balloting. There is no rule book for monitors that try to enter early polling sites or challenge voters trying to drop off their ballots, said Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Franklin & Marshall college in Pennsylvania.

“It all comes down to county election officials, and what they agree can happen. All of this seems headed to a major court battle,” Madonna said.

Confrontations have already emerged in Philadelphia, home to about 20% of Pennsylvania’s registered Democrats.

Election administrators there defended their decision to turn away the Trump campaign operative who filmed himself attempting to enter an early voting site on Sept. 29.

“To be clear: the satellite offices are not polling places and the Pennsylvania Election Code does not create a right for campaign representatives to ‘watch’ at these locations,” Andrew Richman, chief of staff to the city solicitor, said in a statement.

The Trump campaign quickly filed a lawsuit seeking access for poll observers in early voting sites. That suit is pending.

In Northampton County in northeastern Pennsylvania, meanwhile, the Republican Party tried to get sheriff’s officers assigned to drop boxes to request identification from voters dropping off ballots, according to Frank DeVito, a Republican member of the Board of Elections.

Pennsylvania law does not require voters to show an ID to vote. The Democratic-controlled board of elections denied that request.

Undeterred, DeVito said volunteers will be watching those boxes closely.

“We are telling them to take a folding chair, take video, take photos,” he said.

[DingDongKing]

The Missus and I were chatting about nostalgic American stuff today. I was reminiscing about the Ponderosa Steakhouse in Kissimmee which my Dad took me to everyday when we went to Florida for a week to see all the parks back in 2004. Them $3.99 breakfasts, the super friendly staff, the steak dinners. Driving around the massive interstates, visiting Bush Gardens, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Universal Studios and all the good stuff.

Really good memories, even though we were detained for two hours by the airport authorities for being brown with British passports. And we were both thinking, damn it would be fun to do it all again. But not in a Trumpworld. Because I don't want create distinctions between Americans like the GOP have perpetually done for the last 10 years. I want to wait till it's happy again, and isn't some socially divided frontier state.

I want to hold onto the happy memories, and have a few more when the time is right. But yeah, outsider's perspective and all that.

[AntiFascistVoter]

Whats bigger than a Blue Wave?

Leaks from multiple red-state Rs, on consecutive days, saying they’re seeing poll numbers they never thought were possible.
Along with seniors Trump is collapsing further among:

• women
• college educated

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...otebook-426599

[Felya]

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...otebook-426599

Hey guys!!! Someone is talking about the middle child!!! You don’t forget the middle child, just because Boomers are eldest and millenials are youngest!!! No one puts gen x in the corner!!!

I do believe, however, there is a silent majority against Trump. In my travels, this group could be considered “the kid curmudgeons.” They are younger Gen Xers and older millennials: college-educated folks ages roughly 28 to 42, who are not ideological, who are not partisan, who consume little political news, who rarely if ever vote, but who might flood the polls this fall simply because Donald Trump annoys them.

[downnola]

Hey guys!!! Someone is talking about the middle child!!! You don’t forget the middle child, just because Boomers are eldest and millenials are youngest!!! No one puts gen x in the corner!!!

I'd say that quote is pretty accurate based on the people I know. I've said for quite some time that there is diminishing returns in having your name in the news every single day. People are sick of it and want a break from it, especially during a pandemic and economic downturn.

[Shadowferal]

Cook Political Report just listed the Graham/Harrison race from "lean Republican" to a " toss up."
While I realize Harrison has become a juggernaut of funding, this was still Graham's to lose.

[Gelannerai]

Cook Political Report just listed the Graham/Harrison race from "lean Republican" to a " toss up."
While I realize Harrison has become a juggernaut of funding, this was still Graham's to lose.

Harrison definitely has my vote. Even if I were inclined to vote for Graham (surprise, no way in hell) Harrison’s ads have been powerful and on-message, whereas Lady G’s have just boiled down to “eww he likes Nancy Pelosi.”

[Felya]

I'd say that quote is pretty accurate based on the people I know. I've said for quite some time that there is diminishing returns in having your name in the news every single day. People are sick of it and want a break from it, especially during a pandemic and economic downturn.

Well, to gen X specific, it’s completely spot on... I really wasn’t that interested in politics, before Trump and even early into his run, the majority of political comments I posted were around psychology and philosophy. Trump is the first President where ‘they are all the same’ stopped working... oh and... voting against Trump because he is annoying, is so gen x...

Edit: Even the forum I frequented before I got a stalker and had to move forums, it was a religion centric forum. We discussed religion, not politics.

[Benggaul]

*sigh* I would like to personally request that we NOT let Ken "Red Sweater Guy" Bone be a thing this year. They're desperately trying to make him a thing again because, surprise, he's an "undecided voter" again, but can we just please ignore the dumb fuck this time?

Ken Bone is that guy who goes into a fast food restaurant, stares at the menu that hasn't changed in decades, holds up the line for half an hour hemming and hawing and then ends up buying what he always buys. Fuck that guy.

[Shadowferal]

Harrison definitely has my vote. Even if I were inclined to vote for Graham (surprise, no way in hell) Harrison’s ads have been powerful and on-message, whereas Lady G’s have just boiled down to “eww he likes Nancy Pelosi.”

He does have charisma.
A few more years in the limelight, gaining more positive publicity, and he'll make the short list for VP.