Election 2020

[lady_*nix]

@Rommie yeah IDK you may be right. I forget who I saw describing the Republicans as "getting high on their own supply" but it feels like an accurate assessment.

[Rommie]

Yeah, it's hard to believe but there are legit millions of people to whom the news looks completely different than what you and I hear. As I said earlier, my dad was indeed right in saying that we live in alternate universes on that front. Another example to me was during the debate, half the stuff Trump was randomly shouting out about various conspiracy theories- Hunter Biden! Mayor of Moscow! etc. I only happened to know about all that because I researched the latest phrases from my dad just that day, but unless you watch Fox News all the time you'd have no clue what it was about- and the fact that he clearly thought that was effective over just confusing shows how different that media consumption makes the narrative.

Fun fact, I met one of the new PhD students yesterday who said she once did an experiment of watching only Fox News for a week for news, then writing down what she thought the major stories were, and then comparing to other news sources. She said even though she was a skeptical viewer she was shocked at the difference! She did the same with CNN btw and said that kind of sucked too, everything needs to be spun as "breaking news" and stuff so that also made her perspectives off.

[lady_*nix]

Yeah, propaganda and media bias are terrifying that way.

[SciFiFisher]

I saw a FB post comparing what is going on in the White House to the Edgar Allen Poe story "The Tale of the Red Masque".

[lady_*nix]

"White House doctor says Trump has been Covid symptom-free for 24 hours – live"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/liv ... 9a83535cb9

So this mass murdering creep gets the best treatments preemptively, on our tax dime, and it saves his life and comes through okay. And meanwhile people half his age, people raising families, people taking care of sick spouses, get this disease and are told to just go home and die.

Man IDK I'm just so fucking livid right now. This fucker literally risks the death of his entire cabinet, his party members, his secret service personnel and aides etc., and they still want to kiss his feet even as he repeatedly stabs them in the back? What the fuck has gotten into these people? How fucking stupid are they?

And the Democrats like "Well maybe we should delay the debate..."

No. Have it over Zoom. This is not fucking hard y'all. When a man with power is trying to literally kill you and everyone you love, and even kill his own henchmen because he apparently gets off on death or something, you do not play paddy-cake. This man is the Vladimir Harkonnen of American politics, all the way down to being a pedophilia - do you really for one moment think he will show you mercy? Do you for one moment think he will be honorable or nice just because you are? Do you think anyone can afford for you to lose again? Jesus fuck y'all, why is everyone in power being so fucking stupid?

[Rommie]

Honestly I'd be astounded if a. he is actually symptom free and b. is guaranteed to remain that way in a disease famous for being cyclical over linear. His doctors outright admitted this weekend that they lied about his health on Friday- why trust them now?

[lady_*nix]

Uh good point. Trust them now because I'm used to everything turning out even worse than I imagined I guess?

Edit: also see again "he makes me look stable" and why that's actually saying something.

[Rommie]

Yeah I mean I emphasize that I didn't believe the "he's lying about having covid" thing going around last week. But a written statement both days when previously he was literally driving around and showing up on the balcony with trouble breathing, and documented acknowledgment of them lying about his symptoms before? And now that he doesn't have symptoms he hides? Hells no. Fool me once, fool me twice, etc.

[lady_*nix]

Soooo uh yeah, the lack of fever could be the steroids and the antibodies were probably the massive dose he was injected with a few days ago.

Meanwhile, dude still sounds breathier than me during an asthma attack in his latest video, and also the right side of his face is collapsed like a deflated balloon. IDK what that might indicate, but knowing COVID causes clotting problems even in young and healthy people, I think y'all can guess.

I'm gonna go ahead and say the WH doctor was full of shit this time too.

[SciFiFisher]

On a positive note, Biden is polling 14 points ahead among general polling. And apparently he is winning more people over 65. He is polling better than any Democratic Presidential nominee since Bill Clinton in the over 65 crowd He is also several points ahead of Trump in some of the key electoral college states. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/

[lady_*nix]

Remember from the Clinton campaign though: people lie on the polls. A lot.

Edit: also, mail-in voting is fucked, and Trump supporters are more likely to go to the polls in person. We are extremely not out of the woods yet.

[Rommie]

So there was a really good summary of 2016 and polls written by FiveThirtyEight- https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/th ... y-of-2016/

Basically a lot of "the polls got it wrong!" sentiments are just myth over fact. The polls were in fact pretty consistent in the story- that Clinton would narrowly win the popular vote for example, it's just in our system that counts for jack shit. There's also no evidence that people lie to the pollsters as they were within 1-2%: instead, there were way more undecideds until the last weeks, so when a poll shows Clinton 47% Trump 42% in Wisconsin three weeks before the election, all the undecideds broke much more in one direction.

Will the final election tally be quite as high as they're saying now? I don't think so, but there's a hell of a lot fewer undecideds now, and you don't literally pour millions into the state of Texas (like Biden and the PACs are doing) if you're uncertain about your battleground states. That said, I also legit don't know anyone who is reading these polls and acting like we can just chill out now and coast to the election- just as much canvassing etc happening now as ever, and NGL, I am going to allow myself to be heartened by the hours-long early voting line videos when I see them (not that one feels they have to do that to be heard, of course, but rather that so many millions of people are not being apathetic this year). At this rate I am less worried about the votes so much as having them all properly counted, but that's not ever going to be in the polls of course.

On a funny note btw, before the VP debate (which honestly was boring, we tuned out after a half hour) Fox News was on in our house a few minutes, and Tucker Carlson was on. Musing "we might be rapidly heading towards one party rule- do people realize that?!"

Why yes, yes they do.

[SciFiFisher]

RE Early Voting.

Apparently the early voting numbers are extremely high compared to previous elections. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ut/616640/

And early voters as well as mail-in voters tend to vote for the D team.

[SciFiFisher]

Remember from the Clinton campaign though: people lie on the polls. A lot.

Edit: also, mail-in voting is fucked, and Trump supporters are more likely to go to the polls in person. We are extremely not out of the woods yet.

I don't know if people lie on the polls. I have often wondered if they do. But some recent studies they have done show that it is not as prevalent as I thought it might be.

I think the polls in 2016 missed the mark a bit because everyone was paying more attention to the national aggregate. Which is great when you want to predict who is going to win the popular vote. But, the electoral college has an outsized influence. Remember, Trump actually only won that because of less than 90,000 votes. Let that percolate. Less than 90,000 people decided the fate of the U.S. presidency. This is why the D team is paying a lot more attention to the "swing states" and places where Trump won bigley.

Look at the early voting numbers. They are very encouraging. Early voters tend to vote more for the D team.

[SciFiFisher]

Remember from the Clinton campaign though: people lie on the polls. A lot.

Edit: also, mail-in voting is fucked, and Trump supporters are more likely to go to the polls in person. We are extremely not out of the woods yet.

I don't know if people lie on the polls. I have often wondered if they do. But some recent studies they have done show that it is not as prevalent as I thought it might be.

I think the polls in 2016 missed the mark a bit because everyone was paying more attention to the national aggregate. Which is great when you want to predict who is going to win the popular vote. But, the electoral college has an outsized influence. Remember, Trump actually only won that because of less than 90,000 votes. Let that percolate. Less than 90,000 people decided the fate of the U.S. presidency. This is why the D team is paying a lot more attention to the "swing states" and places where Trump won bigley.

Look at the early voting numbers. They are very encouraging. Early voters tend to vote more for the D team.

[lady_*nix]

"Trump's public lands chief refuses to leave his post despite judge's order"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... s-to-leave

Again: it doesn't matter what's legal/illegal, it only matters who has the power to enforce their agenda. Laws are just empty words if they can't be enforced.

[lady_*nix]

'The Taliban on Trump: "We hope he will win the election" and withdraw U.S. troops'

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taliban-on ... =101703342

Birds of a feather I guess?

[Rommie]

Definitely one of those moments where XOF news crosses into reality...

[lady_*nix]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/us/p ... boxes.html

California Republican Party Admits It Placed Misleading Ballot Boxes Around State
Government officials say the receptacles are illegal and could lead to voter fraud, but the party says it will continue the practice.

Laws only matter if they are enforced.

[SciFiFisher]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/us/politics/california-gop-drop-boxes.html

California Republican Party Admits It Placed Misleading Ballot Boxes Around State
Government officials say the receptacles are illegal and could lead to voter fraud, but the party says it will continue the practice.

Laws only matter if they are enforced.

They have received the cease and desist notice. And the state AG has put them on notice that CA will prosecute clear violations of the law. The indictments probably won't come for a few weeks. The important thing is that if anyone comes forward and says "I dropped my ballot in one of those boxes and it never arrived or was counted" then the individuals involved will be going to court.

The R team is claiming that it is just a case of helping voters get their ballots turned in. A practice often referred to as ballot harvesting. Which is not explicitly illegal in California. What is illegal is representing their boxes as official drop boxes or making sure only R team ballots get turned in.

[code monkey]

The R team is claiming that it is just a case of helping voters get their ballots turned in. A practice often referred to as ballot harvesting. Which is not explicitly illegal in California. What is illegal is representing their boxes as official drop boxes or making sure only R team ballots get turned in.

how interesting that they are simply trying to help voters vote with additional drop boxes while they are working very hard to cut the number of polling places.

[lady_*nix]

https://mainernews.com/susan-collins-ba ... gislature/

"Susan Collins Backs QAnon Believers for Maine Legislature
Candidates advocate “God-declared executions” for “traitorous” Jews, Catholics, Black Lives Matter and environmental activists"

Keep reading, it only gets more horrifying. These people literally think that Jews are the real Nazis, and want to execute... basically everyone politically opposed to them.

IDK how the fuck I'm going to survive what's coming.

[SciFiFisher]

https://mainernews.com/susan-collins-backs-qanon-believers-for-maine-legislature/

"Susan Collins Backs QAnon Believers for Maine Legislature
Candidates advocate “God-declared executions” for “traitorous” Jews, Catholics, Black Lives Matter and environmental activists"

Keep reading, it only gets more horrifying. These people literally think that Jews are the real Nazis, and want to execute... basically everyone politically opposed to them.

IDK how the fuck I'm going to survive what's coming.

I sincerely hope that Susan Collins days are numbered. Both biblically speaking and politically. If the God she professes to believe in was really a vengeful one she would be very worried about the after life.

[lady_*nix]

Well, I went and cast my vote today for The Lesser By Far Of Two Evils (i.e. Biden).

The line was long, going all the way back around a block and through several loops - it was kind of interesting TBH to see how people had self-organized into those loops to reduce the area the line took up. But in any case, people are not fucking around. One of the volunteers said it was usually like this on voting day proper, but she'd never heard of it being this way during early voting.

Straight Ds all the way through obviously. I was disappointed to see none of the farther left candidates I voted for got past the primaries, but what you gonna do. Here's to hoping that Trump gets his ass kicked, that enough decent people remain in our institutions to show him the door, and that he doesn't order anything nuked during the lame duck period.

[SciFiFisher]

There are a number of stories starting to surface about Republicans distancing themselves from Trump. Rats abandoning ship. Ben Sasse is the most prominent as he apparently let Trump have it with both barrels in a virtual town hall. Of course, my take on this is these are the same fuck muppets who voted to acquit Trump. They took off the masks the last 4 years and showed us who they really are. Now, they are trying to slap a new coat of paint on the Republican party and gaslight everyone into believing that it was all Trump and a few enablers at the top.

We can't let them do that. They have shown everyone exactly who they are. There is no treason horrible enough and atrocity terrible enough that they won't contemplate using it to get what they want. They all need to go. The Republican party is like an old building that cannot be restored with some cosmetic work. It needs to be torn down to the foundations and rebuilt using better materials.