Mega-Thread: 2020 United States General Election

[PhaelixWW]

Any other thoughts on what Republicans will flip flop on come Jan 21?

With a Democrat in the White House, they'll probably say that a lack of law and order is causing the cities to be overrun by dangerous undesirables, protesting and rioting.

Oh, wait... they already do say that.

[Corvus]

So those Wayne County republicans who at first didn't want to certify the results only to back down after public outcry.

It appears they may want to rescind their certifications now.

[Xyonai]

So those Wayne County republicans who at first didn't want to certify the results only to back down after public outcry.

It appears they may want to rescind their certifications now.

From what I read about this, it looks like they can't 'Take Backsies' their votes once the measure to certify passes or fails (rather then just ties).

So either they're dumb enough to think they can (likely), or they're just acting like it was outside of their control so Trump Voters don't start sending them death threats en masse like they've been so happily doing towards election officials for the last couple of weeks.

[Kaleredar]

Alright so I need to make a list now, and I need people to help me. Maybe @Breccia can offer his expert services.

Come Jan 21, we can expect to see:

Republicans who didn't care about the debt or deficit for the last 4 years suddenly scream about how in trouble our government's budget is, sounding alarm bells for how awful our national debt is, and how it's Biden's fault.

The unemployment rate is going to jump from 6% to 60% because why not? We all know that when Trump became president that @Ghostpanther and many others claimed that unemployment went from 60% to 6%, so why not the other way around?

That covid business that wasn't such a big deal, suddenly Republicans will care about the thousands of deaths. And yes, the bodies from the last 10 months will be piled on Biden's doorstep and Republicans will demand answers as to why Biden has not retroactively saved those people.

Any other thoughts on what Republicans will flip flop on come Jan 21?

I'd have to imagine that Biden and whatever crew he's been whipping up are prepared to do as much as possible without Republican cooperation.

I think Obama went into his presidency with a very commendable, but in retrospect naive, view on cooperation in Washington. Biden will have had not only the past four years of the GOP yes-manning a god awful excuse for a human being in Trump to spite the democrats, but also first-hand experience dealing with their obstructionist ways in his eight years serving as Obama's VP, to see that such an angle is folly.

I know he said in his president-elect speech that he thinks the country needs to "come together," but I don't for a second believe that his administration will be so blindly naive that they think the republicans will freely work with him.

[Xyonai]

I'd have to imagine that Biden and whatever crew he's been whipping up are prepared to do as much as possible without Republican cooperation.

I think Obama went into his presidency with a very commendable, but in retrospect naive, view on cooperation in Washington. Biden will have had not only the past four years of the GOP yes-manning a god awful excuse for a human being in Trump to spite the democrats, but also first-hand experience dealing with their obstructionist ways in his eight years serving as Obama's VP, to see that such an angle is folly.

I know he said in his president-elect speech that he thinks the country needs to "come together," but I don't for a second believe that his administration will be so blindly naive that they think the republicans will freely work with him.

Like the 'Coming Together' message is nice and all but... how? Like sure Democrats should be the bigger persons in the room and not stoop to the Republican's level of scumfuckery but, after this administration, that whole political party should be told to sit in time out until they can stop being a Conspiracy Riddled Death Cult.

They've stacked the courts with unqualified shitheels and then start tearing up at the idea that Democrats might do the same just to patch up the damage they've done to our Judicial branch; they'll start sobbing about the Debt again as soon as COVID and Infrastructure bills start getting introduced after ignoring some of the highest deficit climbs in history, and fuck when Biden has to fix Trump's blunders with our overseas troop deployments they'll start gibbering about 'Endless Wars!!'.

So you know what I say? Fuck 'em. Just steam roll ahead and play their game of not giving a shit about what the other side thinks. Unity can happen when this country isn't riddled with disease and debt that they helped spread as some dimwitted, bordering on psychotic effort to keep themselves in power.

[Breccia]

Any other thoughts on what Republicans will flip flop on come Jan 21?

Democrats need to basically capture every second of the next two months on video. I know some people are so blinded by their own intentional ignorance that even objective proof won't matter, but as we saw this election, there are enough swing voters to make a difference. In the lead-ins to 2022 and 2024 elections, Democrats need to open up that cache and say "This? This is what Trump handed us. Trump, the Republican candidate. Remember how shitty 2020 was? We spent the last (2/4) years trying to fix it. Since then, things have gotten better (show objective increases in everything) and we are making progress to undo the damage Trump did."

Again, I know some people, namely the rabid fanbase, have proven willing to listen to claims like Trump/Spicer "it was 42% but now the numbers are real". That's...what's the word for "intentional self-inflicted mental illness"? Those votes are unwinnable. They're unsalvageable. They're not the target anymore. The goal is to hld onto the majority of Americans stil willing to listen to logic, reason, and facts.

[Xyonai]

Democrats need to basically capture every second of the next two months on video. I know some people are so blinded by their own intentional ignorance that even objective proof won't matter, but as we saw this election, there are enough swing voters to make a difference. In the lead-ins to 2022 and 2024 elections, Democrats need to open up that cache and say "This? This is what Trump handed us. Trump, the Republican candidate. Remember how shitty 2020 was? We spent the last (2/4) years trying to fix it. Since then, things have gotten better (show objective increases in everything) and we are making progress to undo the damage Trump did."

Again, I know some people, namely the rabid fanbase, have proven willing to listen to claims like Trump/Spicer "it was 42% but now the numbers are real". That's...what's the word for "intentional self-inflicted mental illness"? Those votes are unwinnable. They're unsalvageable. They're not the target anymore. The goal is to hld onto the majority of Americans stil willing to listen to logic, reason, and facts.

And, yeah, I'll add this onto my post above: The Democrats need to stop governing with the Trump voter in mind. Sure vote to give them better health care, a more robust social safety net, more modern infrastructure, and cleaner air and water; but they shouldn't water down their approach so Jeb from Pidgeon Creek Arkansas doesn't have a hissy fit about 'Muh Socialism!!'.

The real fight should be to market their policies to swing voters, and probably invest more in folks who can actually market these ideas in a way the GOP propaganda arm can't just strangle.

(Author's note: I don't know if there's a town in Arkansas named Pidgeon Creek, or if anyone named Jeb lives there.)

[Breccia]

I don't know if there's a town in Arkansas named Pidgeon Creek

It's in Alabama. It has a population of eight thousand.

[Kaleredar]

Like the 'Coming Together' message is nice and all but... how? Like sure Democrats should be the bigger persons in the room and not stoop to the Republican's level of scumfuckery but, after this administration, that whole political party should be told to sit in time out until they can stop being a Conspiracy Riddled Death Cult.

They've stacked the courts with unqualified shitheels and then start tearing up at the idea that Democrats might do the same just to patch up the damage they've done to our Judicial branch; they'll start sobbing about the Debt again as soon as COVID and Infrastructure bills start getting introduced after ignoring some of the highest deficit climbs in history, and fuck when Biden has to fix Trump's blunders with our overseas troop deployments they'll start gibbering about 'Endless Wars!!'.

So you know what I say? Fuck 'em. Just steam roll ahead and play their game of not giving a shit about what the other side thinks. Unity can happen when this country isn't riddled with disease and debt that they helped spread as some dimwitted, bordering on psychotic effort to keep themselves in power.

I think his sentiment of "coming together" was a fairly generic presidential-pacification type sentiment. I'm almost entirely certain that, if you asked any American, no matter their political leaning, they'd say "yes, both sides need to work together more." However, there'd be a diametric split in people vis-a-vis which side they needs to do the compromising, and unfortunately many people would say "the left is far too radical! They need to move more towards the 'center' to work with the republicans more!"

Of course, I believe Biden likely more specifically meant "Republicans need to work more closely with democrats," not the other way around. But he couldn't say that in a president-elect speech, that'd sound too divisive. And while I certainly agree that republicans need to work more with democrats (as opposed to being the absolute stick-in-the-mud shitheels the GOP are currently being,) it's obvious, as you note, that they absolutely will not if they aren't abjectly forced to. But I would expect Biden to know this at this point in time, and be planning to wield the house and his office to work around the senate as much as possible.

But if by the grace of God the democrats can wrestle out those two senators in Georgia and tie up the senate, effectively placing it in their hands? Then yes. Full scorched earth on the GOP, for all I care.

[beanman12345]

Democrats need to basically capture every second of the next two months on video. I know some people are so blinded by their own intentional ignorance that even objective proof won't matter, but as we saw this election, there are enough swing voters to make a difference. In the lead-ins to 2022 and 2024 elections, Democrats need to open up that cache and say "This? This is what Trump handed us. Trump, the Republican candidate. Remember how shitty 2020 was? We spent the last (2/4) years trying to fix it. Since then, things have gotten better (show objective increases in everything) and we are making progress to undo the damage Trump did."

Again, I know some people, namely the rabid fanbase, have proven willing to listen to claims like Trump/Spicer "it was 42% but now the numbers are real". That's...what's the word for "intentional self-inflicted mental illness"? Those votes are unwinnable. They're unsalvageable. They're not the target anymore. The goal is to hld onto the majority of Americans stil willing to listen to logic, reason, and facts.

Yeah voters, especially swing voters seem to tend to have extremely short memories, and GoP politicans know it and take advantage like blaming Obama for the recession. We need to keep voter turnout out HIGH among dem's cause republicans politicans have no morals so there isn't anything they won't flip flop on, their voters care about nothing but triggering the libs. So we got to keep the intelligent part of the country, make sure they are reminded, and often. The cycle needs to be broken, because every single time, gop fuck it all up, people are like oh yeah, then they come out in a later election to vote for the dem's who are left to clean up the shit instead of progressing us forward in any meaningful way. which just leads them astray again because short term memory.

[Breccia]

Biden closes in on eighty million votes.

[Kallisto]

Biden closes in on eighty million votes.

For reference that's just below the population of Germany.

[Breccia]

House Republicans of the Judiciary Committee demand an investigation into the 2020 election.

Hmm. How best to respond to this?

1) "Hey remember that time when we wanted proof that the tax cut for the rich would pay for itself and y'all refused? Would you like to know what that feels like?"

2) "Why? The courts seem to be taking care of that already."

3) "Sure, go ahead and submit your evidence. Oh, all you have are Trump tweets publicly and objectively debunked? Oh, short meeting everyone."

4) "Trade you for Trump's taxes."

5) "So, you're asking us to overturn election results in which the person who got the most votes won? Tell you what, you guys also got the most votes and won. Are you willing to resign over this? No? They what makes this any different? Oh, it's because your guy didn't win. Yeah, that's hypocrisy, and if we wanted to be hypocrites, we'd be Trump supporters."

6) "Your complaint cites 'troubling reports'. You know what else is troubling? A leader who blackmails another country for information on a political rival, who then provides that information, which is then used. So we'll put this election thing to a vote, but anyone who voted not to impeach Trump, your vote will be an automatic 'no' because you already spoke publicly on the record on the issue. Oh look, 3 to 429. Motion fails."

7) "Sorry, you'll have to speak up. You've been yelling 'Russian hoax!' so loud that your complaint kinda got lost in the noise."

8) "Well I guess we should check with the head of CISA. What's that? Most secure in history? Well, shit, short meeting everyone. Oh, not good enough? Well, when the next head of CISA is nominated, gets through commitee approval, gets to a Senate vote, and is approved, we can talk again. Oh, right, looks like there is no nominee. While we're waiting, you can stand under that sign that says 'Bullshit storage area'."

9) "The Constitution, which even you Republicans have sworn to uphold, has a very clear layout of how this works. States are confirming their vote totals as we speak. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say 'Congress investigates results because obese orange failure shaped like one-point-eight men tweeted conspiracy theories'. What's that, you say? Constitution was written before Tweets were invented so that doesn't count? Well, shit, automatic weapons hadn't been invented yet either, so I don't think you want to pull that thread."

10) "No."

EDIT: And to turn this list up to eleven:

11) "Trump lost. Get over it. Fuck your feelings."

- - - Updated - - -

Current and former Trump officials privately reach out to President-elect Biden

Two Biden transition officials said Wednesday that it was only a few current and former Trump administration officials, and they described it as "not a big deal." However, it suggests there are people in Trump's orbit who believe Biden will be the next president even if Trump refuses to concede and his legal team mounts meritless lawsuits to challenge the results in several states.

The officials stressed that the outreach is not in any way a replacement for the national security and Covid-19 briefings the Trump administration refuses to provide Biden's teams.

Kate Bedingfield, a spokesperson for the Biden transition team, said in a statement Wednesday that despite the outreach, the GSA still needs to certify the transition.

"It requires more than former officials choosing to step forward and be helpful to ensure a smooth transition of power," she said. "GSA should follow the law and ascertain the results of the election so that Americans get a smooth and effective handoff between administrations."

Pressure has increased, some of it from Republicans in Congress, to allow Biden to begin the transition process, especially on security-sensitive issues, such as intelligence and the Covid-19 response. Several Republican lawmakers have said the Biden team should receive briefings even as Trump challenges the results, without evidence, in court.

Speaking of "without evidence":

Fact check: Trump's bogus claim of more votes in Detroit than people

Oh man, you know it's going to be good when they just lead off with the word "bogus".

Trump's claim about Detroit is demonstrably false. There are 670,000 people living in Detroit, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's most recent estimate, and the city says that 250,138 ballots were cast there.

In Trump's defense, this is nowhere near as numerically dishonest as he's been in the past. At least this time, he wasn't off by an order of magnitude.

As a reminder, Team Trump is free to provide evidence of wrongdoing in court. You'd think "more votes were cast than people living there" would be pretty cut-and-dry. Granted, you'd also expect the election officials and Trump's poll watchers to notice something as blatant as this, if it were true. Not that I'm an expert, but if my class has 30 students and I grade 31 final exams, I fucking stop grading right away to see what the hell's going on. I don't keep going till I reach 65 tests and then wonder what the hell's going on. And I'm not being watched by people trying to fire or jail me if I make a mistake.

[Deja Thoris]

This election is being stolen away under your eyes.

In my my minds gone past the point of "humour the sad Orange man" to waaaay past sinister. If this was another country the USA would have stepped in ages ago. Seems you have more principles when it comes to others than to yourselves.

[Levelfive]

Okay, so you're counting an establishment candidate re-taking blue states that were lost by the previous establishment candidate as a glowing endorsement of establishment candidates?

Biden won NV, which was rated light blue anyway, meanwhile he just barely managed to snag 2/6 swing states, while utterly wiping out in the two biggest: OH and FL.

Continuing to run candidates whose sole claim to the role is "electability" but get annihilated in FL and OH is a losing strategy, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that. If you can't win OH and FL then your claims of electability are completely bunk.

So a) yes, I am telling you that, but b) the reason I'm telling you that is because you are misattributing Hillary's loss to her being an establishment candidate--that's why retaking those states is relevant. Biden won decisively without Ohio or Florida, so what do you mean when you say "claims of electablity are completely bunk"?

[Stormspellz]

Alright so I need to make a list now, and I need people to help me. Maybe @Breccia can offer his expert services.

Come Jan 21, we can expect to see:

Republicans who didn't care about the debt or deficit for the last 4 years suddenly scream about how in trouble our government's budget is, sounding alarm bells for how awful our national debt is, and how it's Biden's fault.

The unemployment rate is going to jump from 6% to 60% because why not? We all know that when Trump became president that @Ghostpanther and many others claimed that unemployment went from 60% to 6%, so why not the other way around?

That covid business that wasn't such a big deal, suddenly Republicans will care about the thousands of deaths. And yes, the bodies from the last 10 months will be piled on Biden's doorstep and Republicans will demand answers as to why Biden has not retroactively saved those people.

Any other thoughts on what Republicans will flip flop on come Jan 21?

to add to the the list

executive orders, biden's flurry of undoing Trumps EOs will bring back the "king by executive order" they threw at obama

trade deficit, it hit a 12 year high in the summer, expect trump/gop to beat that dead horse again.

[ati87]

So those Wayne County republicans who at first didn't want to certify the results only to back down after public outcry.

It appears they may want to rescind their certifications now.

Frankly I really don't know what there endgame is.
IF Trump somehow manages to pull this shit off does any Republican think that this shit will go well with the 80M voters plus people that are more then likely motivated to see Trump gone.

The idea that this election can be overturn by these lawsuits, not certifying the election, sending electors that will vote for Trump instead of Biden is ridiculous. There is no scenario where you can do this and still be considered "President" the US as a country will devolve into chaos if you think that 80M people will accept this actual coup.

[szechuan]

Trump is still causing as much damage as possible to the environment and foreign policy that may be permanent. Hillary was right, Trumpers are Deplorable.

[JohnBrown1917]

This election is being stolen away under your eyes.

In my my minds gone past the point of "humour the sad Orange man" to waaaay past sinister. If this was another country the USA would have stepped in ages ago. Seems you have more principles when it comes to others than to yourselves.

He is doing nothing that actually keeps him in power. Its over once the EC votes.
And not like the US ever stepped in with good intentions, they just make up an excuse.

- - - Updated - - -

Trump is still causing as much damage as possible to the environment and foreign policy that may be permanent. Hillary was right, Trumpers are Deplorable.

I agree on the envirorment and domestic polocies, but US foreign policy has always been equally bad under either party.

[Omega10]

This election is being stolen away under your eyes.

In my my minds gone past the point of "humour the sad Orange man" to waaaay past sinister. If this was another country the USA would have stepped in ages ago. Seems you have more principles when it comes to others than to yourselves.

America is destroying its reputation in a big way. Threats to overturn the results of an election, death threats to governors and other state employees working on elections and election security, and constant claims about how corrupt the US elections were are not going unnoticed around the world.

And 72 million people Americans voted for him. According to another post in this thread, this is almost as much as the population of all of Germany. Another more dangerous version of Trump could easily be elected in 2024 or 2028.