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 ago by
.
Author
-
Intrinsically, there’s no difference between supporting Trump because he’s a racist, or supporting Trump despite him being a racist. You’re still supporting a racist and giving implicit support to other racist causes.
As a thought experiment, are there any cases where supporting that might be justified, even necessary?
Speaking purely hypothetically, what if a candidate is an absolute joke, an idiot, a lazy narcissist, with no clue about the economy, world affairs, or science, laughed at by other world leaders, but he’s not a racist. While his opponent is sharp, on the ball, economically progressive, big on the green agenda, women’s rights, and social issues, basically the perfect candidate you would want to vote for, but he’s a huge racist.
Which do you choose?
I’m not sure it would be possible to be seen as being progressive and big on social issues while at the same time being a huge racist.
-
Speaking purely hypothetically, what if a candidate is an absolute joke, an idiot, a lazy narcissist, with no clue about the economy, world affairs, or science, laughed at by other world leaders, but he’s not a racist. While his opponent is sharp, on the ball, economically progressive, big on the green agenda, women’s rights, and social issues, basically the perfect candidate you would want to vote for, but he’s a huge racist
I live in a country where we have a robust voting system and there’s always more than one choice. But in that situation if you vote for the person who’s apparently good on every other issue but is a massive racist you’re still enabling racism and that’s a decision you have to make. In that situation I’d seriously consider spoiling my ballot.
-
-
Post-Brexit lorry queues could make Kent ‘toilet of England’
Campaigners warn that roads and laybys are already littered with urine and excrement
You can’t help but feel sorry for… oh.
5 users thanked author for this post.
-
Speaking purely hypothetically, what if a candidate is an absolute joke, an idiot, a lazy narcissist, with no clue about the economy, world affairs, or science, laughed at by other world leaders, but he’s not a racist. While his opponent is sharp, on the ball, economically progressive, big on the green agenda, women’s rights, and social issues, basically the perfect candidate you would want to vote for, but he’s a huge racist.
Politics is personal. Everyone should be voting for what’s in their best interests. It’s not a popularity contest – it’s one of the most important positions in the society. In some ways, it’s a big job interview, so the most important questions involve what the candidate specifically proposes as their priorities, what objectives have they lined up and do you really think they can achieve them. If you think a candidate’s racism will have a detrimental impact on those races in your society, then don’t vote for them no matter what they can achieve on any other issue. If you don’t think it matters to how they govern, then if you align with their platform, vote for them.
Though I can’t see how a big racist would not have that as a part of their platform. If not, then they aren’t that big of a racist, are they? Definitely a question of character and principles there.
As for the other candidate, don’t vote for them either. There is no responsibility to vote for “someone.” You can choose not to vote as well.
More importantly, though, voting is obviously not a great way to get involved politically. In the end, your vote is often for candidates who’ve already been chosen by those far more politically involved than you. At the beginning of his presidency, Obama supposedly told the heads of Wall Street banks that he stood between them and “the pitchforks.” The Financial sector, of course, is filled with people who want to put someone in office who the people with the “pitchforks” will listen to. They and a multitude of corporate interests are way ahead of the common person when it comes to being politically involved. You may vote on the candidates, but real money decides who those candidates will be way before you fill out your ballot.
Therefore, it is far more important you pick up that pitchfork by finding political groups that will press your interests to the politicians as strongly as the lobbyists use the power of the dollar to push their client’s interests in campaigns. Short of actual revolution, it is the only way you’ll have a chance of voting for a politician who will actually deal with what you want even though they really work for their campaign funders.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
It is worth noting that being on the left is not a free pass out of bigotry. There are plenty of antisemites, homophobes, transphobes and racists who believe in a social safety net, or the workers controlling the means of production, or any other left-wing ideas. But they also hate people who are different and want them excluded from the worker’s utopia or legislated out of existence.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Dominic Cummings to leave Downing Street by Christmas
Good. He’s not the only thing wrong with this government but he is part of it.
Although it seems somewhat cowardly to be leaving immediately before the Brexit shitstorm that you’ve helped to create really makes itself known.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
He’s already done shitloads of damage, will do more and then leg it to take up throwing shit from a think tank at his previous employer and all those who did not appreciate his genius. He’ll continue to be a political cancer like Farage, with both getting far too much attention, with zero responsibility.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
He’s already done shitloads of damage, will do more and then leg it to take up throwing shit from a think tank at his previous employer and all those who did not appreciate his genius. He’ll continue to be a political cancer like Farage, with both getting far too much attention, with zero responsibility.
Don’t forget the bags of cash from his inevitable think tank and speaking engagements.
-
Hey, I had think tank covered. Probably be that particularly bad one, something Exchange.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Hey, I had think tank covered. Probably be that particularly bad one, something Exchange.
Oh yeah, I just meant that the think tank isn’t going to be any sort of demotion or impact on his material wellbeing.
-
It is worth noting that being on the left is not a free pass out of bigotry. There are plenty of antisemites, homophobes, transphobes and racists who believe in a social safety net, or the workers controlling the means of production, or any other left-wing ideas. But they also hate people who are different and want them excluded from the worker’s utopia or legislated out of existence.
True. There is a bit of nuance there. It is unlikely that Presidents like Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton were entirely free of racist ideas considering when and where they came from, but at the same time they were able to actively champion policies and legislation that helped African Americans. The labor movement in America is probably the political action that has had the most impact on working class and poor people, even though it has been increasingly downplayed in history programs and economics courses, and it was filled with an incredible amount of internal racial strife. Early in the Civil Rights movement, people pushing for black voting rights were also opposed to women’s suffrage arguing that if women gained the right to vote, that would simply mean that white women would most likely vote the same way as white men and since there were more white women in the country than all African Americans at the time, it would undermine any gains blacks made in voting.
If you listen to Robert Caro speak about Johnson or read his many books on the subject, despite his racial prejudice was also a strong advocate for civil rights for various reasons both complicated and simple. The simplest being that he understood how racism was used against poor whites. He once explained the political use of racism to Bill Moyers this way, “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it, if you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Even though the percentage of poor is higher in minority populations, the actual number of poor white people in the country is greater than the entire African American population whether poor, rich or middle class. In the South, this is the ironic legacy of white supremacy and segregation. First, when slavery was the backbone of the Southern planter class, it not only meant that poor white workers couldn’t compete in the labor market, but it also gave the planters greater voting representation since each slave they owned counted as 3/5 of a person. After slavery ended, segregation and Jim Crow laws directed toward blacks also had the same impact on poor whites since the specific wording of the laws was directed at conditions (literacy, property ownership, etc.) that poor whites suffered as well. This also prevented blacks from earning higher wages leaving poor whites in the same disadvantaged labor market. However, the ideology of white supremacy meant that the poor whites did not take this out on the rich people responsible for their problems. Instead, they blamed the African Americans.
So, it is easy to see how some white man familiar with the confidence scam of segregation and racism could be motivated to oppose and eliminate it even if they personally believed that whites were somehow better than blacks.
On the other side of that argument, it is also easy to see how some politicians who have no innate racist beliefs could support legislation that would inadvertently devastate black communities. Crime legislation in particular has definitely decimated many inner city communities that are mostly African American. In general, reliance on harsher law enforcement especially in regard to the drug trade and abuse, will lead to much worse outcomes for minorities. However, again, that usually only applies to the members of the minorities in lower incomes. Even in cases of victims of police shootings, the majority are white but there is a disproportionate number of black victims. Nevertheless, the greatest factor in common is that. white or black, they are mostly in low income or poverty.
This was essentially the lesson of the labor movement as well. If you fight to remove obstacles from and support poor and working class people, you will inevitably help minorities. If you fight to remove obstacles from and support minorities, you will inevitably help the poor and working class in general. Anything good or bad for one will likely have the same impact on the other.
So, really, a politicians personal beliefs on racism don’t concern me as much as what they plan to do about those obstacles and conditions the poor, homeless and unemployed laborers face. On the other hand, if I hear a politician talking about being tough on crime or strongly aligned with the use of military force, their race or their feelings on racism don’t matter. I can predict that whatever they propose will probably not be good for minorities.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
Dominic Cummings to leave Downing Street by Christmas
Why’s he waiting? What could he possibly have to finish up? Just go now, Dom! It’s only Michael Gove who likes the guy.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Maybe they pay a Christmas bonus.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
Dominic Cummings to leave Downing Street by Christmas
Why’s he waiting? What could he possibly have to finish up? Just go now, Dom! It’s only Michael Gove who likes the guy.
Things are not yet FUBAR – by end of Dec and 1 Jan they probably will be, but someone has to ensure the train goes off the cliff.
-
I guess he wants to hang on until the last minute so no-one can unruin Brexit.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
Let’s not get too excited. What Cummings apparently said is what he’s been saying since January: he wants to create such a great functioning team in No. 10 that he himself becomes redundant.
I think we can safely say there isn’t anything resembling a functioning team anywhere in No. 10 (well, maybe in the kitchens?), so poor old Dom is still going to be stuck there.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
-
Cummings has resigned – bye bye to a shitbag.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
I am going to ask about two notable movements as their huge crowds did not just disappear up in smoke…
The Tea Party people…Where did they go?
The Occupy Wall Street people… Where did they go?
I’d assume they got absorbed into newer groups, e.g. the MAGA lot and things like Extinction Rebellion/BLM.
The Tea Party basically couldn’t really work any more because their entire sales pitch was on low government debt and spending but their poster boy went and spent and borrowed more than ever before.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Cummings has resigned – bye bye to a shitbag
He’ll be back as soon as Gove becomes PM. Boris isn’t expected to stick around for long, so propably 3 or 4 months, tops.
What would be the reason for Johnson stepping down? Does the party want him gone?
I very much doubt it’d be his choice (as much as he’s privately moaning about being PM). The Tory party are very good at deposing their own leaders.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
What would be the reason for Johnson stepping down? Does the party want him gone?
Yes, the party wants him gone – they’re Tories, which means they’re all carrying knives around behind their backs ready to plunge into someone else’s. But also, Boris has never been popular with a lot of the party becaus he’s a schister, a lightweight, and has proven himself to be an even worse leader than everyone feared.
But also, apparently he’s completely miserable and broke. He’s been complaining that he can’t live on his salary as PM, and has been planning to leave as soon as he “gets Brexit done.”
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
and has been planning to leave as soon as he “gets Brexit done.”
I don’t know how many years we’ve been into this, but that is still a very peculiar way to spell “fuck shit up”.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
He’s been complaining that he can’t live on his salary as PM
That’s pathetic. He should hire me as financial adviser.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Remember, we’re talking of a guy who got paid £250k for a newspaper on top of other jobs. Yep, break out a tiny violin.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
You’re probably right in the short term. If this is true and does come to pass, Putin would probably handpick his replacement and be the power behind the throne for as long as he can. However, as Putin’s health declines, his power and influence will fade. That does provide an opportunity for change. Where the world is at that point could also force a change in philosophy away from Putin.
It is always surprising to me just how much depends on the person at the top, where these things are concerned. It’s Putin who turned Russia into an expansionist power again. It’s Xi Jin Ping who ended the more moderate approach in China and is turning it into a completely totalitarian state again.
Putin gone may make a difference, depending on who comes out on top in the power struggle to follow.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
Is “stop the steal” even grammatically correct? It should be stop the stealing or stop the theft, right?
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Is “stop the steal” even grammatically correct? It should be stop the stealing or stop the theft, right?
You’re expecting a decent command of English from people who think the Democrats are smart enough to rig the Presidential election while not rigging the Senate and Congressional ones.
6 users thanked author for this post.
-
Is “stop the steal” even grammatically correct? It should be stop the stealing or stop the theft, right?
You’re expecting a decent command of English from people who think the Democrats are smart enough to rig the Presidential election while not rigging the Senate and Congressional ones.
Honestly, I’ve yet to see a Trump supporter who knows the difference between “you’re” and “your.”
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
What would be the reason for Johnson stepping down? Does the party want him gone?
Of the Tory PMs in my lifetime more than half have not been defeated by the voting booth but by internal politics.
By right with a large majority Boris Johnson should rule easily until 2024, in a US system he would.
I’d bet my house he doesn’t make it to then. I’d make a decent wager he isn’t PM by the end of 2020.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
Of the Tory PMs in my lifetime more than half have not been defeated by the voting booth but by internal politics.
I don’t mind the Tories tearing themselves apart, I just wish they’d stop dragging the country into it.
-
You’re expecting a decent command of English from people who think the Democrats are smart enough to rig the Presidential election while not rigging the Senate and Congressional ones.
Exactly… or why would McConnel still be around?
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
I’d bet my house he doesn’t make it to then. I’d make a decent wager he isn’t PM by the end of 2020.
“Christmas coup” has got a ring to it.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
But who takes the PM role? Cue PM Apprentice, hosted by Trump, starring Sunek, Raab, Patel, Gove, Shapps, Grayling, plus some other mediocrities.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
I’d bet my house he doesn’t make it to then. I’d make a decent wager he isn’t PM by the end of 2020.
You’d be getting pretty decent odds for that. Oddschecker says it’s 7/1 right now.
…fuck, I’m actually tempted.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
5 users thanked author for this post.
-
(can confirm, am radical left)
5 users thanked author for this post.
-
Yeah, I’d be game for that.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
5 users thanked author for this post.
-
I want to see that but with Bernie Sanders instead
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Was that supposed to be sexually arousing? Asking for a friend.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
Twitter has reached the stage where they’re basically just saying *cough*BULLSHIT!*cough* to Trump’s tweets.
I always assumed everyone added that mentally anyway.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
5 users thanked author for this post.
-
https://www.dailyposter.com/p/news-bidens-first-climate-appointment
Centrist man is centrist.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
What?! You mean Biden isn’t a socialist puppet of the far left?!?! I’m shocked. Next thing you’ll tell me that Trump isn’t leading the charge against the cannibalistic child sex trafficking liberal elites…I refuse to believe it, sir!
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
Man, I can’t wait until Trump is out of the fucking White House and we can start properly bitching about Biden.
5 users thanked author for this post.
-
Next thing you’ll tell me that Trump isn’t leading the charge against the cannibalistic child sex trafficking liberal elites…I refuse to believe it, sir!
I think you might need to claim a refund from whatever soothsayer you call master, because if anything I would tell you that
the world leaders all met to discuss the environment, it’s a big issue that everyone agreed has to be solved. We’ve tried going up against big oil, we’ve tried all switching to more sustainable method of living but nothing seems to be enough. But what if they could stop travel, and not just vacation travel but work commute all together, no more traffic jams, no more long distance journeys, no more business trips. Well, have the technology for it but how do we get people to do it? 2 years later the solution was created in a secret CIA lab in China, the solution came to be called Covid 19! The push the entire world needed to learn how to reduce our travel, our carbon foot print, and work more efficiently from home!Greta Thunberg is a bleached clone of Nefertiti and will devour your soul through the power of Onlyfans as soon as she turns 18.4 users thanked author for this post.
-
And in “Trump is a child” news:
Trump targets vote certification in late bid to block Biden
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
national reconciliation
Kill the Republicans.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
Biden approaches 80 million votes in historic victory
Oh, you know Trump and/or the GOP is gonna dispute this.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
It is kinda worrying that a lot of people just believe they hacked into the voting machines and changed votes. There should be some kind of electoral commission with members from multiple political parties that oversee the choice of the voting equipment, the counting procedure etc so you can’t have this bullshit happening anymore. If both parties have to OK the voting procedure it becomes harder to claim there was widespread fraud after the election. This situation seems rather messy. Still I don’t believe Trump has a change of turning this around.
True. This is getting to the level of “flat earth” conspiracy theory where if it is true, then everyone in the world is in on it. In reality, the conspiracy theory is the conspiracy.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
There should be some kind of electoral commission with members from multiple political parties that oversee the choice of the voting equipment, the counting procedure etc so you can’t have this bullshit happening anymore.
Yes there should. Was reading yesterday that the US is almost unique in the western world in allowing boundaries and elections be adjudicated by partisan actors.
It’s hard to see it changing though because any decision to reform it is also in partisan hands at state level.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
The infamous district/electorate boundary that Dan Crenshaw holds:
Here the electorate boundaries are drawn and redrawn by a national non-partisan body, and there’s rarely if ever any outrage or controversy.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
My home town is asking the inhabitants in online questionnaires to share their thoughts on things like renewable energy, the switch from gas to other sources of energy etc. I’m not share how much they are going to listen to what people contribute, but I think it’s a pretty good initiative, if only to get people to think about these issues.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
Post-Brexit lorry queues could make Kent ‘toilet of England’
Campaigners warn that roads and laybys are already littered with urine and excrement
You can’t help but feel sorry for… oh.
You know the lorry park is built on a flood plane so it may also get flushed. So much winning.
-
It’s amazing to see just how intense the cult Trump built is. The other day, Tucker Carlson of all people called out Trump’s lawyer for not providing any evidence of voter fraud. And the Trump supporters just tore him apart. Tucker Carlson, one of the kings of right wing conspiracy nonsense, gets eviscerated for daring to speak against Big Brother Trump. That’s actually pretty scary. They literally are fighting over which pathologically liar to believe and are incapable of excepting anyone at all being even slightly critical of their beloved leader.
And really, the danger of Trump is that he’s given a very clear road map to future wannabe autocrats. Just imagine someone who is actually charming and competent doing what Trump is doing. America would never survive it.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
It’s amazing to see just how intense the cult Trump built is. The other day, Tucker Carlson of all people called out Trump’s lawyer for not providing any evidence of voter fraud. And the Trump supporters just tore him apart. Tucker Carlson, one of the kings of right wing conspiracy nonsense, gets eviscerated for daring to speak against Big Brother Trump. That’s actually pretty scary. They literally are fighting over which pathologically liar to believe and are incapable of excepting anyone at all being even slightly critical of their beloved leader.
I am not so sure it is Trump. It feels more like there’s this segment of society that is descending deeper and deeper into conspiracy myth and becoming more and more aggressive, and Trump has managed to latch onto and mobilise them. But if it’s not Trump, it’s someone else. I mean, in Germany we have the corona “skeptics”, “free thinkers” movement which the right-wing AfD party is currently trying to latch onto, leading to this kind of thing:
https://www.dw.com/en/anti-coronavirus-protests-how-safe-is-the-german-parliament/a-55666129
Aggressive demonstrators penetrated the Bundestag while parliamentarians were discussing the new Infection Protection Law, expanding government powers in the anti-coronavirus crisis. How was this disruption possible?
Feels like Trump was at the right place at the right time to use an existing dynamic to his advantage. I mean, that’s not exactly a consolation, the danger you describe exists all the more if that’s the case. But it means you can’t just point to Trump as the cause of it all, that has to be something different then. And I do think it’s the mixture of the world changing faster than some people are able or willing to adapt, and on the other hand the rising inequality in our societies. There’s a lot of people who feel, for different reasons, that they can’t participate in mainstream society anymore, and this is their reaction to that.
Oh, and I would really like to see some hard numbers on how many hardcore Trump supporters there are. There was a lot of talk, post-election, of how nearly 70 million people voted for Trump, but most of those people voted Republican or with their faith, or against Biden and just accepted Trump as the, for them, lesser evil. I’d really like to see some stats as to how much support Trump himself has amongst the population, rated from “I like him more than other Republican politicians” to “Trump is our Saviour come to defeat the pedo liberals with his sacred wrath”.
5 users thanked author for this post.
-
The brainwashed masses was just waiting for a Tabula Rasa to fill with all their crackpot ideas. QAnon is a perfect example of that too.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
Yeah, Trump is absolutely a symptom and not the root cause of the issue. When he’s disgraced and falls from favour, some other figurehead will be propped up and will be able to galvanise the same supporters.
The worry is that it’s someone a lot more competent and charismatic.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
There’s a group, Qanon adjacent, now blaming the GOP for not supporting Trump and threatening to boycott the Georgia Senate runoffs as punishment. I feel this is only right and we should support their efforts as this goes well when the left fractures.
7 users thanked author for this post.
-
I’ve been saying this for a while, but I’m still waiting for the day the GOP take real dip in numbers and take a hard look at themselves and suddenly realise that they alienated a lot of the electorate by going along with Trump, and look like massive fools and complete bastards for it in retrospect. None of the people who enabled him will be judged kindly in the years to come.
I’m kind of hoping that Trump actually does try and run again in 2024. The GOP would tear itself apart over this, having to either run a loser again or otherwise try and finally fight Trump. Fucking gutless coward weasels would probably actually make him the candidate again even knowing it’d destroy their chances possibly not just for one term.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
suddenly realise that they alienated a lot of the electorate by going along with Trump
Did they, though? They gained seats in Congress, still have control of the senate pending the Georgia runoffs, and Trump gained voters over 2016, including every demographic except white people.
-
There was a lot of talk, post-election, of how nearly 70 million people voted for Trump, but most of those people voted Republican or with their faith, or against Biden and just accepted Trump as the, for them, lesser evil.
It’s tough because often that’s a case of looking for stats on a very subjective subject. There is undoubtedly always a large section of society that are ‘default’ voters.
I mentioned The Guardian did a podcast speaking to voters ‘sticking with Trump’ that weren’t part of the hardcore base. The repeated refrain from them was a lack of faith in the political system and just that he wasn’t a career politician. These were mainly from rust belt states and I do think centre left parties in the US and UK have done a shit job with managing post industrial areas. While they support ‘benefits’ what these people actually want is good jobs and they haven’t replaced them at all.
If they are looking for a green jobs growth they have to make a concerted effort to try and take those to post industrial areas and not areas already doing ok. I come from one of those areas in the UK and during 10 years of Blair/ Brown they did nothing to address that fundamental problem, the EU contributed a lot of cash to post industrial areas but restrictions on direct investment meant it all went on ‘things’ – sculptures, leisure centres, gardens, nothing that sustains any growth or jobs long term.
5 users thanked author for this post.
-
This type of reasoned discourse will get us nowhere with my “kill all Republicans” platform.
Maybe I need to take it to twitter…
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
Did they, though? They gained seats in Congress, still have control of the senate pending the Georgia runoffs, and Trump gained voters over 2016, including every demographic except white people.
True. It does seem like Democrats are no slouches at alienating voters – especially the working class of every possible race, gender and ethnicity. I think a lot of extreme politicians are getting attention from both the ability new media can spread information and the perception that even if they are crazy, unrealistic and unreasonable, at least you can be pretty sure they aren’t part of the in-crowd of political machines that have been screwing us over for the past 40 years.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
It’s the economy stupid as Clinton said and that economy has to be looked at a micro level and not just the stock exchange (which has been increasingly removed from reality with huge values for nonsense companies like Uber and Tesla). It’s a big reason why the working class vote is a struggle for progressives.
I don’t think they’d be that bothered about the various identity politics things if they had good jobs come to their town.
5 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
Trump was a one-term president
We shall see.
If you mean “one-term” as in “for life”? That’s where I placed my bets.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
The only time you use the word “life” when talking about Trump should be followed by “without the possibility of parole.”
5 users thanked author for this post.
-
Did they, though? They gained seats in Congress, still have control of the senate pending the Georgia runoffs, and Trump gained voters over 2016, including every demographic except white people.
Again I have my doubts that Trump, as a person, actually gained voters. It was a hotly contested election, meaning that many people voted on both sides. Trump was a one-term president, something that very seldomly happens in the US. He lost them another 4 years of fucking shit up for everybody else, that’s going to hurt. And the shit about Trump and the things he did during his term will keep coming out, plus he will be both a joke and something people look back at with dread at the same time for a long while to come.
Maybe I just like to think they’ll get their comeuppance. We will see.
In 2016, Trump got 62,984,828 votes, and this year he got 73,798,986. An increase of over 10 million people, and indeed more people than voted for Clinton in 2016. I don’t think that can be entirely explained by the increasing US population (though some of it is, John Kerry famously got the second-highest number of voters at the time in 2004, only beaten by George W Bush the same year), and Wiki doesn’t have the final voter turnout figures so I can’t compare percentage of registered voters who voted yet.
The logical conclusion for me is that enough people were motivated to vote for Trump to give him a massive increase over 2016. That means people who liked him, or were willing to overlook their dislike of him because they disliked Biden for whatever reason. And that means that the Republican party are doing a good job from their perspective. Maybe if they see a massive decline in supporters between now and the 2022 midterms it’ll turn out to be a losing strategy, but the last 10 years suggest otherwise.
-
I see Sidney Powell is off Trump’s legal team. Honestly her claims were funny, if scary that someone on Trump’s team would believe (or promote) it. She retweeted a story the US army had conducted a raid in Germany to get a computer server that had a billion Trump votes on it. I think these people use facebook groups as their sources.
I think Trump is going to conceed. Maybe in a couple of weeks, but he is not going to wait until he is dragged out of the WH.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Here in the Netherlands Thierry Baudet quit as leader of the far right Forum for Democracy party. They’re a mess. Apparently the youth branch of the party had a lot of nazis in them, and some party members had urged him to disband the youth branch (which apparently he can do? I have no idea how those party mechanics work). He didn’t want to do that, so he quit. With that I think the whole party is gone. For a while they had been the biggest party in the polls.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
And the formal process for handing the reins of power to Biden appear to have begun. The GSA has sent him a letter confirming they will release funds and begin to allow access, and Trump has tweeted similar, though he has of course not conceded the election.
(well, I say that Trump tweeted it, but it’s clear it was one of his aides who has access to his account)
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
The logical conclusion for me is that enough people were motivated to vote for Trump to give him a massive increase over 2016.
Trump undeniably got more votes than before, the question Christian really should have asked is if he got more supporters.
Both sides were really amped up to get the vote out and for a change succeeded. I remember listening to some analysis before the election on who Biden had to bring to his side and the general answer was mainly ‘nobody’, Clinton primarily lost in 2016 because a large number of Democrat voters didn’t turn up. They analysed one of the rust belt states that Clinton lost (sorry I forget which one now as it was on a podcast) and Trump’s gains over Romney were very modest, only about 7000 votes, Clinton’s loss compared to Obama was massive – over 100,000. So the deciding factor was mainly no-shows than a significant move to Trump’s agenda.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
And the formal process for handing the reins of power to Biden appear to have begun.
FAKE NEWS
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Trump is now retweeting Randy Quaid, which I think indicates that he’s given up all hope of winning, as well as on life in general.
TIME TO MAKE OAN & NEWSMAX RICH. FOX IS DEAD TO ME! pic.twitter.com/IhnDXCJ7a7
— Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 13, 2020
3 users thanked author for this post.
