2020 Political Chatter

[jimcav]

well at least we agree on the eventual outcome, if not the cause of the closeness

[jclay]

meh. Sanders wouldn't have won. He couldn't even get people to turnout for him in the primary. He wasn't going to build the type of coalition of liberals, moderates, and new voters it would take to beat Trump much less carry the ballot enough to get the senate candidates over the hump.

Sorry, I wasn't precise; my Bernie comment was wrt 2016. The contrast at that time seemed to make it possible. I could well be wrong.

I'm also not sure you really understand how much control the conservative media bubble has on a good chunk of the population. I work for a company that Trump tried to "cancel" several months back because of our corporate policy on not endorsing specific candidates at work. The vitriol I experienced from the general population as a faceless engineer was incredible. Random texts and phone calls were harassing employees. Our dealers had to suspend comments on yelp pages and other review sites. and still a not insignificant number of our employees voted for a second round of this.

I certainly haven't had that experience but I can't say I'm surprised that Trump supporters would act that way. I know that the conservative, echo chamber media has beyond-enormous influence.

moving forward the democrats are going to have significant issues with messaging to rural whites. Yeah, things like a government run healthcare plan or access to higher education and job training poll well in a vacuum and would help their economic prospects but anything that can be labeled as socialism is going to be a tough sell. as a whole, people are afraid of change.

All of that I fully grok. Between our frontier mentality (which I see as the general framework around ^^, at least for USA born whites), anti-Roe v Wade religious zealots and bona-fide existential challenges in both the natural and socio/pollitical/economic worlds, we are in deep, deep yogurt.

There are no easy solutions; hell, there are few difficult solutions. Most white folks see the prosperity and lifestyle of the three or four decades of the post WWII era as the "normal" way of things when it was nothing but an aberration built by the war; the war put our industry on steroids while destroying everybody else's. That world doesn't exist any more, and it never will in the future. We also, in our exceptionalistic hubris, fail to grok that the Western European countries have been through a heck of a lot more social/governmental evolution than we have; they haven't been sitting on their social/governmental evolutionary hands in the interim between 1776 and present day.

[jclay]

Biden just took the lead in GA. It certainly isn't over but I found myself breathing a little easier.

Legislatively/Policywise, as Jim noted, we won't see much of what I'd like to see going forward but perhaps the historical Biden/McConnell relationship and the realization that we're all in this together will make some progress possible; but at the very least we won't have a president who pours acid on every social wound he can find, or inflict.

In other news, and for which I (sadly) can take no authorship credit: "Those clever Democrats. They're committing massive voter fraud to win the presidency, but they made sure not to win the Senate and to lose quite a few seats in the house so it wouldn't seem too suspicious."

I haven't laughed in a while but that did the trick, much like the use of the next-to-last engine start explosive to clear out the combustion chambers in The Flight of the Phoenix (which you should see if you haven't); and I feel that the USA is in a similar situation as that aircrew. I wonder if it would cause any of the screaming lunatics outside of the vote counting buildings to pause and reflect for even a moment.... probably not but you guys know I'm the eternal optimist.

I feel like treating myself to a bagel and lox this morning but...ah, well....this is Tallahassee; grits anyone?

[holliscx]

Voting dregs playlist

[rwsaunders]

I ride with two gents from time to time and one of the fellows is very deliberate in his personal life, as well as his political beliefs and views himself as a Republican. Tax attorney by training and a university finance professor. The other fellow is fairly conservative, frugal and considers himself a Republican, college grad as well and he spent his career in IT hardware support. The first fellow called tRump a “truly despicable person” and that he would rather have his Collie in the Whitehouse, while the other fellow told us that if Biden wins, we will see the end of Democracy as we know it. That’s a pretty large swing of opinions and they somewhat reflect what the last two Presidential elections have been all about.

[robin3mj]

Anyone expecting/hoping for McConnell to continue to be anything but a political nihilist because he may have once had a three martini lunch with our incoming commander in chief is basically Charlie Brown approaching a football held by Lucy.

(Also- Biden doesn’t drink)

[ides1056]

Does anyone know how much was spent on this election?

Ballpark figure for total expenditure?

[jclay]

while the other fellow told us that if Biden wins, we will see the end of Democracy as we know it.

Within the political and economic domain (at the very least) that person is functionally an imbecile; we have a bumper crop of them and that sort of disconnect from observable, measurable fact does not bode well for the health or long term prospects of self governance. It is mind bending.

[jclay]

Anyone expecting/hoping for McConnell to continue to be anything but a political nihilist because he may have once had a three martini lunch with our incoming commander in chief is basically Charlie Brown approaching a football held by Lucy.

(Also- Biden doesn’t drink)

I hope Jim is correct about this, but I'd be astonished if you aren't.

[johnmdesigner]

Does anyone know how much was spent on this election?

Ballpark figure for total expenditure?

Wait until the court challenges and the palm greasing of Kavanaugh for a more accurate number.

[colker]

I think this is a pretty decent thumbnail overview of the Democratic Party's failures and worth a few minutes to read: https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...mocratic-trump

It certainly comports with my opinions. It's funny, in a tragic sense, to think (as I do) that against Trump, Bernie coulda won and the US might be (ignoring Mitch) on it's way to universal health care, stronger unions, infrastructure modernization and concomitant domestic jobs, reinstatement of Glass Steagal and the like. And then I flip on the tube and see some idiot scream "I won't vote for Biden...I won't support a liberal socialist"; if anybody sees me wandering around mumbling to myself those are amongst the reasons.

I expect Mitch to pull out his Obama playbook if Biden gains the presidency; "We are going to make Obama a one-term president,". So much for putting the electorate's needs and desires first.

If Biden is a socialist then i am superfast and can win the TdF tomorrow. Otoh the more laughable a notion these days the more believable to millions of people it is.

I read on this thread that folks would be "afraid of change".. So we have social media, cell phones, digital photography, China as the economic superpower .. and
you don´t want change? Good luck w/ that.

[WFSTEKL]

Thank you PA!

[colker]

I don´t get the two parties only american democracy. Nowhere else in the world you have a democracy where only two parties are game. Nothing can be that simplistic.

[Saab2000]

Anyone expecting/hoping for McConnell to continue to be anything but a political nihilist because he may have once had a three martini lunch with our incoming commander in chief is basically Charlie Brown approaching a football held by Lucy.

(Also- Biden doesn’t drink)

You’re likely right. I’m just trying to be ever the diplomat and be hopeful. But you’re likely not wrong at all.

[choke]

I don´t get the two parties only american democracy.

That is indeed a very big problem IMO.

[zachateseverything]

I don´t get the two parties only american democracy. Nowhere else in the world you have a democracy where only two parties are game. Nothing can be that simplistic.

It's a direct result of how we determine the winner of an election. You get the most votes, you win, even if you had waaaaaay less than 50%. So let's say we had three candidates and two (Candidates A + B) of them were closely aligned on most issues but differed on something many people would consider inconsequential. If A got 35% of the vote, B got 25%, and C got 40% of the vote, C wins under our rules (generally). But for the 60% of the population that absolutely didn't want C to win the election, this doesn't seem like a great result. Many of the people that voted for B will likely vote for candidate A in the next go round.

That's how we end up with two major parties. First past the post systems of determining election results will always result in a two party system. Moving to ranked choice or a system where representatives are chosen as a percentage of the result would do a lot to make third parties more viable outside of local or regional offices.

but this isn't to say that we don't have the same kind of coalition building happening in American politics that you see in most of the rest of the world, it just happens off the books. Both parties are trying to build a winning coalition of voters in order to get a majority in congress or carry the presidency. They'll cater policy positions to trying to attract different sets of voters without turning off other voters. What makes the current GOP especially difficult to chip voters away from right now is how many single issue voter groups they've been able to attract.

[fastupslowdown]

So who tells King Lear the truth? -Mike G

[johnmdesigner]

So who tells King Lear the truth? -Mike G

Oh to be the fly on the wall in Royale with Cheeses bedroom tonight

[jmgorman]

About a billion point three. 400-500M by trump and affiliates, 800m or so by Biden et alia. Naturally, this is going to play well with the new world order believing folks.

Does anyone know how much was spent on this election?

Ballpark figure for total expenditure?

[theflashunc]

Does anyone know how much was spent on this election?

Ballpark figure for total expenditure?

If you count the Georgia special elections that looks likely for their senate seats, this may push to the $2 billion figure.