Someone Has To Do It: US Elections 2020

[wingco]

Are people feeling just a little less nervous now? Even a lot less nervous?

[San Bernardhinault]

A couple of thoughts

- The "Blue Wall" is back, sort of, but it increasingly looks like a flimsy fence. But the sunbelt is slowly beginning to weaken for Republicans. It seems a toss up still on each NC, AZ and GA, but the fact that they're all in play means that the Republican hold in the south is weaker than traditionally. Of course, that mirage of Blue Texas that is always wafted before our eyes a couple of months before every election has not come to pass, but it creeps ever closer. The change is coming. Sadly, I think it's coming in both directions. Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Minnesota will go the way of Iowa and Ohio over the next decade or two. But Texas and Georgia and North Carolina and Arizona are going the other way.

- Nobody's talking about the House, but it may be that Rs are leading in enough seats now to actually flip it. That would make sense in a D+2 election.

[Incandenza]

Are people feeling just a little less nervous now? Even a lot less nervous?

No, because of the wait for updates from Arizona and Nevada.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

Edit: Nef's clip above

[Janik]

I would lay the blame at the politicians, positioning yourself as slightly to the left of the incumbent is not a successful strategy for the Democrats. The Democratic party is riddled with squabbling and infighting in public, they lack a coherant message which really turns off voters.

Say what you like about Trump, he has a consistent message (whether you believe him or not is another matter) so people know (or believe they do) where they stand with him.

Not a successful strategy? Biden has already registered the most votes ever in the history of US Presidential elections and the counting is not even complete yet (currently 70.9 million, topping the 69.5 million Obama accumulated in 2008). You set a high bar, TG.

What Trump does that Biden doesn't is energise his base. Which is why Biden has had to gather the most votes ever to seemingly, fingers crossed, beat Trump. But that doesn't speak of Biden as a candidate - it speaks of Trump. This take from Trump's foes, that Biden was a poor candidate because he isn't winning easily against an opponent as godawful as Trump, is reminiscent of the post-2015 British General Election postmortem on the left, which seemingly only asked "Why didn't our message resonate?" and never "What was it about the Conservative message did?" Maybe because we don't want to think about the other side being popular as we find their politics hateful. But ignore that and you are only ever getting half the picture, giving you false impressions.

Which is why I think Sanders or anyone from the actual left would have lost if it had been them standing. The laughable attempt to demonise Biden as a socialist, eerily reminiscent of the highly successful Tory attempt to paint Ed Milliband as one in 2015, must have needed something of a pinch of salt amongst some Republican votes (OK, not he QAnon ones, but they are not the whole caucus). Putting Trump up against an actual, genuine Socialist would only have made the opposition more fervent. And probably resulted in an even higher turnout than yesterday, with more votes for Trump and about the same for Sanders/whoever. Hence defeat.

[ursus arctos]

Aw, Bruno

Now you are making me feel bad

Please, please don't assume the worst on my account

[Uncle Ethan]

The argument will soon move to how you actually get Trump out once he has lost. Absolutely no indication this morning he will accept the result in any form, court action or not.

[Wouter D]

Are people feeling just a little less nervous now? Even a lot less nervous?

Quite a bit less nervous.

Also thoroughly pissed off that this is still open to debate, despite the bigger than 3 million gap in the popular vote count.

[Incandenza]

That's why I don't pay attention to the popular vote tally. I had no idea what the gap was.

[Bruno]

As Biden just observed, there have only been three unseatings of an incumbent; his would be the fourth. It's not easy, and yes, as godawful as Trump is it would be stupid to lose sight of his appeal among his voters, which has been obvious all along from his poll numbers despite everything. But I also suspect people on the left tend to underestimate how much they're hated by the far right and disliked by the center, many of whom aren't especially political, for tone/cultural reasons, before you get to policies or "socialism."

[Hot Pepsi]

Rod Dreher is shit. FTG

[Bruno]

The argument will soon move to how you actually get Trump out once he has lost. Absolutely no indication this morning he will accept the result in any form, court action or not.

Hopefully, friendly helping hands a la that passage in Douglas Adams.

[That Night In Barcelona]

https://twitter.com/VanityFair/status/1324097044013862914

I don't know if Biden will do it but if Trump does lose it means we'll hear a few more fun anecdotes like this about his whinging.

[Janik]

I really couldn't care less about Biden Soul of the Nation and Kamala For the People, but will very much look forward to Trump losing. More than any candidate ever in any election anywhere. It will be tremendous shadenfreude, believe me.

He is going to hate it and fight it tooth and nail and as dirtily as he can. But actually, six months down the line, he is going to be in a great position because of how things have panned out (as some people close to him may already have realised). Trump has always liked the idea of being President more than the reality, perhaps because his idea of what the President could do was so ill-informed. Given the way the US works, with ex-Presidents still getting the full honorific, a narrow, disputed defeat can let him do what suits him perfectly, which is play at being President. He can do the rallies, the constant campaigning, the occasional twitter brainfart of a policy, all of that, without the mundane actual work required when having the job. All the grandstanding, none of the groundwork - Trump to a T.

What I would expect him to call himself is the 'Real President', who has had his victory stolen from him. The Republicans may even go so far as to create a 'Government in Exile'. I'm sure it wasn't a deliberate strategy because Trump lacks the coherence for such long-term planning, but the constant banging on about voter fraud has perfectly set the scene for this sort of course (the constant banging on about voter fraud was a deliberate strategy of course, but just not to set the scene for a Government-in-Exile). And then he runs again in 2024. If he isn't dead by then. Fingers crossed he is dead by then!

[Toby Gymshorts]

I'll be honest, I hope he's dead by the end of the week.

I have no qualms about this, incidentally.

[Various Artist]

The thing

Great film.

Looks great, even today. Worth getting on bluray.

Just to lighten the mood a little, has anyone else had the pleasure of seeing this re-enacted in 90 seconds, in claymation, with penguins?

Now in an HD remaster, too:
Thingu

[Hot Pepsi]

Seriously. Can somebody just text me when it’s over? I will dm my number

[ursus arctos]

Define over

It looks like Nevada will report enough tonight for outlets to call it, but the lawsuits are going to run for a while

[Hot Pepsi]

The results tonight

[wingco]

The Biden speech. They know. If they didn't, they wouldn't do it. In terms of the actual vote, at least, they know it is a fait accompli. And it is right to stress that.

[wingco]

Fox News not returning Trump's calls.

[Janik]

I'll be honest, I hope he's dead by the end of the week.

I have no qualms about this, incidentally.

Me either. His dose of COVID was such a disappointment.

That tweet up thread about Trump calling Murdoch is something I've been wondering about, i.e. the relationship between them. It has been said that Trump would have been better off having lost in 2016 as now he could be helming Trump TV. But if that existed, wouldn't it simply be taking viewers from Fox/Murdoch? And, to be honest, if those two got into some kind of business competition, I know who my (and I guess everybody's) money would be on to win it.
My guess is Murdoch sees Trump as a useful (wildly egocentric) idiot, who Murdoch will dump the nanosecond Trump is no longer useful.

[Janik]

Fox News not returning Trump's calls.

Didn't take long, did it?

[wingco]

As I think he has just done.

[That Night In Barcelona]

Fox News not returning Trump's calls.

Is this real or a joke? Everything's so mad I can't tell any more.