Time for a new politics thread. Guessing it’ll be fairly quiet given the calm and measured state of world politics today.
Politics: dead cats and red hats
- This topic has 987 replies, 29 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 1 month ago by
.
Author
-
-
Every GOPer in office can tell that Trump has issues. Why hold on to him then? Why tolerate him? Because he has the Presidency and with that, the Senate control, and the SCOTUS, they have the power. Congress can do very little. There was mention here about grooming younger candidates like AOC and others. Thing is they all have labels like socialist, moderate, liberal and so on. AOC for example is socialist and most people imho don’t understand it and view it as too much for them etc. I have to say that these terms like liberal, socialism, moderate, have to be defined better to the public before these young candidates can be accepted for their stance. I am not buying into the implicit narrative of the good guys vs. the bad guys. More like the lesser of the two choices.
True. I can’t blame anybody who just makes the best choice out of what they are offered. At the same time, I can respect people who will say they aren’t voting for them or simply aren’t voting period unless these candidates make promises they will keep to fix the problems their policies have caused. The government can’t credibly claim it cannot responsibly pay off student loans or provide subsidized medical care after a decade (especially this year) of giving trillions to rich people.
The problem is that we’ve been choosing the lesser of two evils for 20 years and it’s not working. It’s just getting worse. The thing is that the voters know what these things mean – – and more importantly, they know what they want done about the problems they face. It’s the mainstream media that simply does not understand the voters or respects they might know more about what they want than the talking head experts on TV do. If you choose the lesser of two evils this time, the DNC won’t care about you because they know you’ll just do it again next time.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
I agree that people want comfort and security, but I don’t see voting for Joe Biden would improve the chances of that for the people who do not have comfort or security now. So, if a person believes that Biden will at least provide that, then certainly it is a good reason to vote for him. However, if a person is unemployed or underemployed and drowning in debt or poor with no prospects, then their situation is not going to change under Biden or Trump, so don’t vote or vote for Howie Hawkins if you can.
The Democrats are not the representatives of the majority of the people any more than the Republicans are. They represent their major donors like any politician. The best reason to vote Democrat is that they are able to tell their donors what to do to keep people from bringing out the pitchforks and burning down the banks and mansions of the oligarchy.
It’s like the relationship between Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon Johnson. Johnson constantly asked King not to agitate the public when he was trying to get Civil Rights and Voting acts into law. However, King did not stop and it was those marches that not only forced Johnson to push it through but gave him the public support to do so as well. If King had backed down, that bill may never have even got a vote much less passed into law.
Now, it is a completely different party than when Johnson was president and both Democrats and Republicans have become increasingly distant from any support for the millions of individuals who are powerless and left out of any economic recovery. So, politically, it would be more effective if people who are worried about their prosperity would organize to demand hard, defined promises before giving them support. Right now, it seems like people just hope Biden will follow through on what is already a relatively meager and not well defined policy proposal.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Johnson will wait for US election result before no-deal Brexit decision
Interesting.
“Taking back control” really meant “Waiting to see what Donald does”. Who knew?
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
With the court though, was there anything that the Democrats could have done to stop it?
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
With the court though, was there anything that the Democrats could have done to stop it?
No, there wasn’t. They didn’t have the numbers. It would have taken a few Republicans to side with the Democrats which wasn’t going to happen.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
8 users thanked author for this post.
-
With the court though, was there anything that the Democrats could have done to stop it?
Not with the Barrett nomination/appointment; but if Obama and the Dems had forced the issue in early 2016 to nominate and appoint Merrick Garland to SCOTUS, instead of kowtowing to Republican insistence that they should wait until after the Presidential elections that year (even though the election was 8 months away), the current Court would likely be 5-4 instead of 6-3.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
One week for the moment of truth…
Be there
Have you voted yet, Al? I walked past an early voting site at 2 Penn Plaza yesterday, where there were TWO long lines of people waiting to get inside Madison Square Garden to cast their votes. I’ve been voting for presidents since 1980 and have never had to wait more than five minutes. I tip my hat to those Americans who have waited 5 hours and more to perform their civic right and duty. I hope that this year their votes truly count.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
One week for the moment of truth…
Be there
Be where? You’d better make sure it’s somewhere you’re happy to remember for the rest of your life. Everyone says they recall where they were when JFK died, so imagine what it’ll be like when it’s democracy.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Yes.
What gets to me is that NOW everyone sees the urgency, but the damage is already done. Not just SCOTUS, but the many conservative federal judges appointed over the last four years. The US may be screwed for decades. Lasting legacy.
Think of how different it would have been had there been an overwhelming urgency like this to vote Hilary. But since some were so fickle and wishy washy about it, even not doing it to spite Clinton, we have all this….
I don’t want to say like I did before about ignorance, but a lack of alertness and foresight on the part of one side.
-
-
Yes.
What gets to me is that NOW everyone sees the urgency, but the damage is already done. Not just SCOTUS, but the many conservative federal judges appointed over the last four years. The US may be screwed for decades. Lasting legacy.
Think of how different it would have been had there been an overwhelming urgency like this to vote Hilary. But since some were so fickle and wishy washy about it, even not doing it to spite Clinton, we have all this….
I don’t want to say like I did before about ignorance, but a lack of alertness and foresight on the part of one side.
Well to be fair, that’s all on the democratic party… they should’ve chosen a better candidate… Biden is a terrible candidate too, he would’ve lost vs Trump last election just as much… but now pretty much any dem candidate would have the same odds.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
5 users thanked author for this post.
-
We do seem to be seeing a point where it really doesn’t matter who’s in office, they will serve the demands of the oligarchy of essentially new aristocratic property owners. No matter who orders the suspension of evictions and foreclosures, they still proceed at an increasing rate because that’s what the US economy demands. We have an economy where it’s a bigger disaster to miss a payment on your mortgage, credit card, rent or whatever sort of debt than to get sick in a pandemic.
The Senate doesn’t work for the average person. They’ve always represented the rich from the founding of the nation, but increasingly the House which represented the middle class and working class is also primarily funded by wealthy financial interests – especially in the leadership positions of both parties. (No one has ever represented the poor, of course, except in the case of the occasional president like FDR or Johnson).
While people have been concerned about the rise of a potential fascist dictator as president, we’ve missed the rising growth of extremely powerful economic aristocrats that dictate their desires to government with no accountability to the public and their focus on self-interest has led us to a dead end especially for the poor. Meanwhile, more authoritarian governments that combine a monopoly on political power with rapacious market economics like China, India and Russia seem to be where the future of the world’s economy is most active. So, for an increasing number of Americans, it feels like political news is a bunch of rich people arguing about their place in the seating chart at a country club dinner while the ballroom is on fire.
7 users thanked author for this post.
-
What options were available to the Democrats to stop it happening? I thought they didn’t have any realistic options available given the balance of the Senate.
-
What options were available to the Democrats to stop it happening? I thought they didn’t have any realistic options available given the balance of the Senate.
They circulated a memo of procedural options that could have slowed down the debate and vote and decided to do none of them.
-
We do seem to be seeing a point where it really doesn’t matter who’s in office, they will serve the demands of the oligarchy of essentially new aristocratic property owners
Yes this is true.
I think generally all centre left governments (your Clinton and Blair) have done is slow the process a little.
The only hope I really have is the whole idea will inevitably implode on itself. It moves forward with a huge velocity off the edge of a cliff. The neoliberal dream creates every year a completely unsustainable future. The young have no equity, their pensions are next to worthless if they have one and aren’t in gig economy jobs.
At some point a turning point will come but I foolishly thought it would be in 2008 and in fact the right cleverly grasped onto populism/racism to drive it even further in their favour.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
If I had to predict the direction, it would be a collapse into a socially conservative and quite racist single party authoritarian system like China’s or a similar single party authoritarian system BUT with a nominal opposition like Russia’s with the financial sector and industries under (corrupt) government control, but the mass of the population ensured basic living standards with no political power or ability to dissent.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
What options were available to the Democrats to stop it happening? I thought they didn’t have any realistic options available given the balance of the Senate.
They circulated a memo of procedural options that could have slowed down the debate and vote and decided to do none of them.
Oh, I hadn’t seen that. How long could they have potentially delayed the vote? And how long would they have needed to?
-
Oh, I hadn’t seen that. How long could they have potentially delayed the vote? And how long would they have needed to?
Realistically, they’d have to delay the vote until the new year and hope to flip the Senate next week. I’m not sure if that was feasible but it would have at least been a fight instead of some rabble rousing on Twitter and then crickets.
The thing to consider about the meme is that it’s endemic of the broader issue with the Democrats as a party. They’re more interested in preventing the progressive arm of the party gaining power or the actual left getting a foothold than they are mounting an effective opposition to the Republicans. They couldn’t prevent the Republicans from voting Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court, but it’s the end result of decades of letting the Republicans run rampant over the unwritten rules of American Democracy, refusing to codify those rules to prevent further abuse, and continuing to compromise with them in an attempt to appeal to a sense of fair play they’ve abandoned. But everyone save Biden will just happen to drop out of the primary race if it looks like Sanders will gain influence in the party.
-
Covid: Dominic Raab refuses to deny possibility of tier 4 restrictions
It feels like the refusal to opt for a more strict nationwide lockdown, even a short one, in favour of varied regional restrictions has now become a matter of political dogma.
The government’s own scientific experts have recommended a ‘circuit breaker’ for weeks, it’s the route France and Germany have taken, and as the numbers get worse it feels like a matter of time before the government has to admit that it’s the best route.
My worry though is that now that it has become a matter of political division between the Tories and Labour – with Labour calling for it instead of the current Tier system, which is awfully woolly and has far too many caveats – the government will be actively reluctant to do it, even if they do think it’s needed, because it will look like weakness and political capitulation.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
What will be most evident is the Labour government in Wales have already ordered a circuit breaker lockdown which is happening now and ends November 9th. So within about 3 weeks or so there’s going to be some very clear comparison in how successful the approaches are.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
Definitely. That could be a really interesting point of comparison.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Oh also, I was kind of expecting Trump to win again, but I was NOT expecting the massive turn out to vote… sooo… I’m reconsidering =P
While Trump could still win, if he does then election pollsters will basically all be out of jobs. Biden’s avg lead is more than 3 times larger than Clinton’s with 4 days to go. This includes larger polling avg leads in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Florida. Some of the leads are bigger than others, but it’s always worth pointing out that Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by a combined total of 78,000 votes.
That said, we have no idea how the massive early vote turnout will impact things. History tells us that high turnout benefits Dems, but the entire Trump presidency hqs been about destroying normalcy. Still, it’s pretty amazing that will 4 days until election day, Texas has already surpassed their vote total for the 2016 election. And several other states are over 80% of their 2016 total. It’s nice to see Americans actually show up to vote.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
With one day of early voting left, Texas officially surpasses total 2016 votes cast
TEXAS, USA — With one day left of early voting and Election Day around the corner, Texas has officially surpassed its total 2016 votes cast.
According to the Texas Secretary of State website, as of Thursday, Oct. 29, Texas has cast a total of 9,009,850 votes so far in the 2020 presidential election. In the 2016 presidential election, 8,969,226 votes were cast through early voting and Election Day across the state of Texas.
Normally a reliably red state, Texas is seen as being in play this year in the race for president between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. The Texans who have voted make up about half of all registered voters in the state.
In Central Texas, Hays, Williamson and Travis counties have surpassed the total 2016 voter turnout. Harris County passed its 2016 voter turnout as well Thursday night.
Voters across the U.S. are turning up in record numbers this 2020 election. Hawaii is the first state to pass its 2016 vote total, currently standing at 104.5%, according to the U.S. Elections Project.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Definitely. That could be a really interesting point of comparison.
The problem will be what I think has always been a major problem in the UK government approach. The continued support for movement, both internally and internationally.
They put places into special measures to reduce the spread there but put nothing in place to prevent them wandering wherever they want from high incidence areas and starting the spread again.
What I’ve observed in this region is travel restriction comes first as priority over shutting venues down. It’s how places like Korea and Taiwan are almost business as usual with day to day living but have very strict entry controls.
Even the lockdown here is called a Movement Control Order (which admittedly sounds quite scary), if I leave the country while that period is on I can’t come back in until it ends. Its not just about keeping people in the house but within reason within their area. Quarantine for the few coming in is not voluntary self isolation but mandatory 14 days in a hotel room where you cannot leave.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
The problem will be what I think has always been a major problem in the UK government approach. The continued support for movement, both internally and internationally.
I think that is an element, but even given that weakness we saw a dramatic effect on cases/deaths from the UK lockdown from March to July, even if it wasn’t as strict as lockdowns have been elsewhere in the world.
There is a lot to be learned from international experience and comparisons (god knows Johnson wasted enough time talking about the UK’s “world-beating” system – although he’s gone quiet on that lately) but despite that I don’t think you necessarily have to have the best or tightest approach in the world for it to be worth doing. You just need to lock things down enough to sufficiently dampen transmission.
A ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown of even just a few weeks on similar terms to the UK’s summer lockdown would be very beneficial, I think.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
A ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown of even just a few weeks on similar terms to the UK’s summer lockdown would be very beneficial, I think.
Oh I agree. I’m behind the general policy and think it will help.
I do think that movement element has been overlooked far too much. I can see a scenario where if Wales’ firebreak (as they call it, don’t like circuits for some reason) does say bring the R rate below 1 as we saw earlier in the year they open everything up and people from Bradford with the highest rate in the UK pop to Llandudno for the weekend, have a cream tea indoors, infect everyone in there and it gets spun as a failure as it all climbs up again.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Human behaviour can be an odd thing. We are seeing all sorts of unintended consequences around movement with these lockdowns, which suggest that people maybe don’t fully understand the point of them.
I saw the latest lockdown in France was preceded by a mass exodus of citizens from Paris to other parts of the country, putting the roads around the city into gridlock at 9pm before the lockdown officially came in at midnight.
While the lockdown should still ultimately be a good thing, the fact that it prompts that kind of response and mass movement of people is not going to help in the short term. It’s similar to what happened in Italy the first time around.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
The Guardian handily reports a story that illustrates my point on movement.
A study suggesting a coronavirus variant originating in Spainnow accounts for most UK cases has highlighted the weakness of the government’s travel policies over the summer, experts have said.
It was always a foolish approach to try and keep package holidays going. Better to just accept the sector was done for 2020 and support them financially. This to me a is a major reason earlier gains have been lost and second lockdowns are being instigated.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
Yes, it always seemed crazy for them to open up international travel within Europe for the summer.
Meanwhile:
National Covid lockdown expected across England next week
If I’d have known that all it would take to push this over the edge was me posting on the Carrier about it, I would have done it earlier.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
Okay, so after another islamist terrorist attack in France (a guy killing three people with a knife in Nice) and one in Dresden (a guy attacking two people with a knife, killing one), I am sort of glad that everybody’s mind is on covid and the German right isn’t getting much tracture out of this. Possibly a good thing there won’t be any Christmas markets this year anyway, too…
Here’s a thing, on Monday we’re going to hold a minute of silence in German schools in memory of the teacher who died, as this is apparently what the French minister of education asked the neighbouring countries to do with them. And I don’t know about all that. I mean, sure, a teacher was beheaded and that is something the European education sector can react to and contemplate together, but… I mean, this is such an incredibly difficult topic and one that needs to properly be prepared in my view. And we were told yesterday that this is happening on Monday. With no suggestions of how to discuss the issues connected to this attack with the pupils.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
While Trump could still win, if he does then election pollsters will basically all be out of jobs. Biden’s avg lead is more than 3 times larger than Clinton’s with 4 days to go. This includes larger polling avg leads in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Florida. Some of the leads are bigger than others, but it’s always worth pointing out that Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by a combined total of 78,000 votes.
Often, I think it’s really the news producers who report on the polls that should be held accountable. Polling and statistics is complicated and there is a great deal of complex detail and nuance to the results of a poll because there is a great deal of complexity to every individual opinion but it’s always oversimplified when news reports present the results.
Also, the reliance on and, honestly, over-reporting of polls is really designed to be a part of the political strategy in campaigns so the incentives for bias in the reporting will then influence the way people respond to polls as well making accuracy and utility of the polling even less reliable especially in today’s media environment.
It was always a foolish approach to try and keep package holidays going. Better to just accept the sector was done for 2020 and support them financially. This to me a is a major reason earlier gains have been lost and second lockdowns are being instigated.
It does seem like governments have no trouble supporting banks, investors and caving to landlords, but at the same time leave actual productive sectors of the economy and the workforce to suffer. Why not give all these billions and trillions in bail outs to regular workers and businesses and then let them put it in the banks?
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
Completely agree with you on how the media reports on polls. Saying Biden leads Trump by 6 points really doesn’t mean much of anything. Hell, they usually don’t even give lip service to the margin of error a poll has. They might just put it as a small footnote at the bottom of the screen.
Really, the media needs to take more responsibility with regards to the rise of Trumpism too. They gave him tons of free press because he was a fun character for them. And they continue to cover every single thing he tweets as if each thing holds the same weight as is equally newsworthy. Big story comes out where the Senate intelligence committee basically says collusion between Russia and Trump officials was a real thing, but then Trump tweets out some tantrum about nonsense and the media jumps directly over to that. They’ve done a terrible job of sifting through the noise he’s produced and actually focusing on real stories.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
We'd hear a lot less of John Redwood's bullshit and lies if more journalists did what @krishgm does here. pic.twitter.com/0bfzV5j3Ak
— Parody Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson_MP) October 31, 2020
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
With the polling, it would appear that there’s still the possibility of shenanigans – people may have been honest with pollsters about wanting/intending to vote, and who they’d vote for, and the pollsters may have been honest and accurate in crunching the numbers and applying weighting, but if postal ballots aren’t arriving in time or people are being turned away on Tuesday, that’s beyond the pollsters’ control.
Australia today recorded no locally transmitted Covid cases (the stipulation needed as there are overseas arrivals daily who go into 14 day compulsory hotel quarantine and usually 1-4 of them per day test positive), for the first time since June. An election yesterday in the state of Queensland saw their Labor government returned – one major point of difference between the Labor government and the conservative opposition was that the government has closed the Queensland border to other parts of Australia in the interests of stopping the spread of the virus. The conservatives wanted to open everything up – the people have spoken; they’re happy being locked up.
6 users thanked author for this post.
-
HOW ABOUT FUCKKKK NOOOOOO https://t.co/Yo9KRvt93j
— LILJON (@LilJon) October 30, 2020
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Right now it appears Pennsylvania is the state to be more concerned about. It’s the state most likely to decide the election, they’ve had pretty low early vote turnout compared to much of the rest of the country, and they don’t seem well equipped to handle this new high volume of mail in ballots. The plus side is that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of letting PA count ballots that arrive up to 3 days after the election. But PA isn’t even allowed to start counting mail in ballots until election day and usually start counting them after in person votes.
Now, of course, if a state like Florida (or even NC or Georgia) break for Biden and can be called on election night, that would all but seal the election for Biden. But most likely we’re in for a long wait for results. And even then, we all know Trump may refuse to concede if the tallies are even somewhat close.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
9 users thanked author for this post.
-
If anyone needed any further convincing that Farage has always been a knobhead simply looking to exploit the political issues of the day for exposure and attention:
Nigel Farage: Brexit Party to focus on fighting lockdown
Who wants to take bets on when he’s hospitalised with covid?
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
We’re about 24 hours away from Trump declaring victory. And who knows how far away from finding out if he’s right or not…
On the plus side, the Texas Supreme Court and a Federal appeals judge shot down the GOPs efforts to throw out 120,000 ballots cast at drive in voting spots in Texas. I still don’t get how so many people support a party that is blatantly trying to suppress votes.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
If anyone needed any further convincing that Farage has always been a knobhead simply looking to exploit the political issues of the day for exposure and attention:
Nigel Farage: Brexit Party to focus on fighting lockdown
Who wants to take bets on when he’s hospitalised with covid?
I’m not wasting money on that shitbag.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
I’m not asking you to chip in for his birthday present or anything.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
A helicopter crash couldn’t kill him, I doubt COVID will.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Okay, so after another islamist terrorist attack in France (a guy killing three people with a knife in Nice) and one in Dresden (a guy attacking two people with a knife, killing one),
The sudden bursts of attacks are starting to smell shady… I’m no conspiracy nut, but this is really really odd… I mean, we all know what’s the best way to recover from economic woes right? Smells like someone’s cooking a war… u_u
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
A helicopter crash couldn’t kill him, I doubt COVID will.
It was a light aircraft, not a helicopter. What I’m saying is there’s still a chance he’ll die in a helicopter crash.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
Today’s message to the US:
6 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
The moment of truth is upon us…
Truth would be a refreshing change after four years.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
I don’t plan on watching the results coverage. I’ll find out in the morning what happened.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
I think it’s looking inevitable that Trump will take Florida.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
I don’t plan on watching the results coverage. I’ll find out in the morning what happened.
I’m keeping up with the election through push notifications on my phone. It saves on the headache of listening to the incessant nattering to fill time till there’s a result and the analysis afterwards.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Oh, I wish this was the 2020 finale.
Unfortunately, we have about two months to go.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
2 months?? heh… it’s not looking very good… xD
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Fuck this country if Trump gets a second term.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Turns out the sequel isn’t looking any better than the original. I know there’s a lot of votes to count, but thus far I’m massively disappointed in this country again.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
Turns out the sequel isn’t looking any better than the original. I know there’s a lot of votes to count, but thus far I’m massively disappointed in this country again.
I will be surprised if Biden wins. His best chance was 2016.
Really, the Democrats truly need to field better candidates. And definitely no one over 60. Bernie needs to stop running. I don’t think he would have done better than Biden. (He may have actually done worse.)
Another four years of Trump will fuck this country for decades.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
Really, the Democrats truly need to field better candidates. And definitely no one over 60.
Would it have made that much of a difference? Anyone with an ounce of sense would have voted for The Thing That Isn’t Trump, but there just seem to be an awful lot of gullible people in the world.
Particularly in America, anything that’s remotely tarred with the “leftist” brush seems to have almost no chance at all. Even someone as right-leaning as Biden.
Anyway, it’s as good as over now. Trump has declared victory, and regardless of the final tally, I think Biden will be forced to concede an election he might conceivably have won.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Somehow, over 65m Americans voted for Trump – how fucked up is that? Let’s not explore this one too deeply.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
So far, Biden has 238 electoral votes to Trump’s 213 and 67,247,880 popular votes to Trump’s 65,501,856.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
If the BBC’s projection is correct, Trump has an easier road to victory than Biden. Which is frankly terrifying.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
More people have voted for Trump this election – after the last four years – than voted for him in 2016. Crazy.
6 users thanked author for this post.
-
If the BBC’s projection is correct, Trump has an easier road to victory than Biden. Which is frankly terrifying.
I’m still seeing conflicting points of view on that. But at the very least it’s still all up in the air.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
Yeah, it’s not looking good. I went to bed at 2am last night not feeling reassured and it’s no better this morning.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Yeah, it’s not looking good. I went to bed at 2am last night not feeling reassured and it’s no better this morning.
2020 in a nutshell.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
So far, Biden has 238 electoral votes to Trump’s 213 and 67,247,880 popular votes to Trump’s 65,501,856.
CNN and the BBC still have Biden at 224, but other sites have him at 238. What’s that about?
I noticed that. A big part of it is whether or not you count Arizona (11 college votes) I think. The Associated Press figure is 238 but the BBC and CNN may be waiting for complete certainty as the count is still going.
Presumably there’s another 3-vote state in a similar situation.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
You know it's a healthy democracy when one candidate is beating the other by 2.6 million votes but nobody knows who's going to win because a pipe burst in Georgia and a Wisconsin printer ran out of ink
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) November 4, 2020
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
So far, Biden has 238 electoral votes to Trump’s 213 and 67,247,880 popular votes to Trump’s 65,501,856.
CNN and the BBC still have Biden at 224, but other sites have him at 238. What’s that about?
I noticed that. A big part of it is whether or not you count Arizona (11 college votes) I think. The Associated Press figure is 238 but the BBC and CNN may be waiting for complete certainty as the count is still going.
Presumably there’s another 3-vote state in a similar situation.
Maine splits its college votes proportionally, so Trump got 1 and Biden got 3. It could be they’re not including it or there’s some rounding error somewhere.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Maine splits its college votes proportionally,
What is the reason why other states don’t do this?
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Maine splits its college votes proportionally,
What is the reason why other states don’t do this?
Most states have decided not to for one reason or another, or initiatives to change to a more proportional voting system have failed or are in progress.
Biden just took the lead in Michigan, apparently. Only a couple of hundred votes in it.
-
I noticed that. A big part of it is whether or not you count Arizona (11 college votes) I think. The Associated Press figure is 238 but the BBC and CNN may be waiting for complete certainty as the count is still going.
This is exactly it. Outside the US they tend to use press associations to make the state ‘calls’. The Guardian, reporting the higher Biden number, is following Associated Press which has called Arizona. The BBC is using Reuters which hasn’t, because it’s technically possible Trump may will but it needs almost all the uncounted votes to go for him.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
Even if Biden eeks out a win, America is still fucked. GOP will keep control of the Senate (somehow) so the best we can hope for is a less rapid decline into entropy. This country chose party politics over common sense once again. I could understand it to a very small degree in 2016. Clinton was loathed and Trump was a wild card, but after 4 disasterous years (and a godawful 2020) there’s just no excusing it. And I don’t even know who the Dems can run to beat a system that already heavily favors the other side.
If Trump eeks out the win, then we’re basically guaranteed a 7-2 Supreme Court GOP majority by 2024. But at that point it feels like the country will be far beyond repair. That he is so close to winning a 2nd term basically says the great American experiment is a failure.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
It doesn’t look good for Biden then. Apparently the count in Arizona is shifting more and more in Trump’s favour.
It depends, the guys making the calls look at where the uncounted votes are from and how they typically vote.
Its why they didn’t call Pennsylvania when Trump was 8 points ahead because they hadn’t counted most of the urban or postal votes which typically go Dem. The gap in Texas is actually the same as in Arizona (but the other way around) but they knew there was no path to Biden victory there so called it early.
It’s all very skewed by this postal voting and how each state counts in different ways. I looked earlier and Trump was romping away with Maine, now he’s 12 points behind.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
Trump campaign’s ready to request a recount in Wisconsin.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
I thought he wanted people to stop counting votes though?
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
It’s pretty straightforward: he wants people to stop counting other people’s votes but keep counting his.
Democracy!
5 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
PA will tighten up, but seems unlikely Biden can make up the gap. GA will be interesting, but I also think it will go for Trump. At this point the hope is that Biden holds on to his narrow leads in WI, AZ and NV.
The electoral college is such a stupid system.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
