Someone Has To Do It: US Elections 2020

[caja-dglh]

But that's the point. Why wait so bloody long? We're off to ask the Queen for permission seconds after the voting's finished. The outgoing PM just about has enough time to get the man in with a van in.

I honestly think it is to allow recounts and legal process, combined with ridiculous bureaucracy. With a much more automated system there are already extended recounts. A lot of this comes from individual states - and then municipal areas - having different standards.

If you think back, the same discussion came up with voting machines and weird impressions / incomplete punches, the whole question of why the US has such a devolved electoral system. This creates the delay. It does also make it nigh-on impossible to systematically defraud, but that isn't really the reason why it is set up this way - more an amusing aside.

[ursus arctos]

The original reason was that everyone was travelling on horses on poorly maintained trails and that it took a shit ton of time to get from A to B

The fundamental problem is that historical relics like that have been fetishised in order to protect an entrenched elite and marginalise new and/or conflicting voices. Add to that the complications created by the federalist system (which obviously had similar anti-democratic origins), the use of the elections apparatus as a source of patronage and the recent discovery that you can soak political supporters for serious money if you "invite" them to ridiculous "balls" in January and you have the current nonsense.

[DCI Harry Batt]

The fundamental problem is that historical relics like that have been fetishised in order to protect an entrenched elite and marginalise new and/or conflicting voices.

Absolutely.

[Eggchaser]

I see the Lunatic in Chief is calling a press conference with his latest version of events and his path to re-election.

[ursus arctos]

It's Rudy! and Friends

He's quoting My Cousin Vinny

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/davidfolkenflik/status/1329482077096599556

[Tactical Genius]

A summary of the US election from an African perspective (written in the same patronising tones western journalists use to summarise 3rd world elections).

https://www.myjoyonline.com/opinion/...t-uncertainty/

[DCI Harry Batt]

Giuliani's hair dye is melting out of his hair and leaking down his face and it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1329489337461903366?s=20

[WOM]

A summary of the US election from an African perspective (written in the same patronising tones western journalists use to summarise 3rd world elections).

https://www.myjoyonline.com/opinion/...t-uncertainty/

That's brilliant.

[San Bernardhinault]

Oops. Rudy opened the Ark of the Covenant?

[WOM]

Flop sweat, in L'Oreal 2.7.

[Eggchaser]

Oops. Rudy opened the Ark of the Covenant?

Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg.

[slackster]

Giuliani seems to be channeling Dirk Bogarde in that Death In Venice film there. Though Trump is no Tadzio. Be a pity if Rudy faced the same end...

[Hot Pepsi]

The original reason was that everyone was travelling on horses on poorly maintained trails and that it took a shit ton of time to get from A to B

The fundamental problem is that historical relics like that have been fetishised in order to protect an entrenched elite and marginalise new and/or conflicting voices. Add to that the complications created by the federalist system (which obviously had similar anti-democratic origins), the use of the elections apparatus as a source of patronage and the recent discovery that you can soak political supporters for serious money if you "invite" them to ridiculous "balls" in January and you have the current nonsense.

This is a big reason why I'd rather live in the woods then ever move back to DC and why the place has no sentimental place in my heart even though I lived in that area for most of the prime years of my life.

[Patrick Thistle]

A summary of the US election from an African perspective (written in the same patronising tones western journalists use to summarise 3rd world elections).

https://www.myjoyonline.com/opinion/...t-uncertainty/

That really amused me. It's totally understated and all the more withering for it.

[Hot Pepsi]

That really amused me. It's totally understated and all the more withering for it.

The only thing false in that article is that, as far as I know, the parties logo/mascot doesn't appear on any ballots. I've never seen that, at least. Indeed, it seems that news organizations have largely stopped using the elephant and the donkey in favor of the color schemes. I don't recall red and blue meaning Republican and Democrat, respectively, before 2000. And, as we've discussed, it's the opposite of the color designations in most of the world. (Although "that place is a bit red" used to mean "it's redneck" as in "backward and racist" and that does track, of course).

I also haven't seen a ton of public defecation in provincial capitals. I've only ever seen that in New York, which isn't actually a provincial capital. But I'm sure it happens in Trenton, Harrisburg, Annapolis, etc. We don't take care of vulnerable people.

[Tactical Genius]

In 1800, it took a long time to count the votes and then get everyone to travel to Washington, DC. That was still true in 1900. After that, we collectively gave up on ever trying to improve the system.

By 1900, you had the railway and the telegraph, so you could get from California to DC in a couple of weeks and send a message from any reasonable sized town to DC in a couple of hours.

Bearing in mind only a minority of white men were able to vote, you could count all the votes and get them sent to DC in 72 hours max and have the inauguration in a month.

I suspect the delay for arranging the parties for the robber barons to attend.

[Tactical Genius]

The only thing false in that article is that, as far as I know, the parties logo/mascot doesn't appear on any ballots. I've never seen that, at least. Indeed, it seems that news organizations have largely stopped using the elephant and the donkey in favor of the color schemes. I don't recall red and blue meaning Republican and Democrat, respectively, before 2000. And, as we've discussed, it's the opposite of the color designations in most of the world. (Although "that place is a bit red" used to mean "it's redneck" as in "backward and racist" and that does track, of course).

I also haven't seen a ton of public defecation in provincial capitals. I've only ever seen that in New York, which isn't actually a provincial capital. But I'm sure it happens in Trenton, Harrisburg, Annapolis, etc. We don't take care of vulnerable people.

I read defecation as in defacing due to the riots etc.

[DPDPDPDP]

Rudy looks like he’s got cool sideburns in the second clip.

[Eggchaser]

Apart from smashing all the crockery and performing a dirty protest, what is Trump's strategy? Can he actually carry out a coup, or is he just grifting like fuck before the inevitable end, because Christ help everyone if he manages the former.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Strategy? Surely you jest. The word isn't in his vocabulary. He's basically buggered off and given Rudy a sack of cash to play with in any courtroom where he can get an audience.

[Janik]

The original reason was that everyone was travelling on horses on poorly maintained trails and that it took a shit ton of time to get from A to B

The fundamental problem is that historical relics like that have been fetishised in order to protect an entrenched elite and marginalise new and/or conflicting voices. Add to that the complications created by the federalist system (which obviously had similar anti-democratic origins), the use of the elections apparatus as a source of patronage and the recent discovery that you can soak political supporters for serious money if you "invite" them to ridiculous "balls" in January and you have the current nonsense.

There is that, and also a general amnesia* regarding the reasons systems get put in place. It becomes 'but this is our way of doing it', and an unwillingness to change despite the original motivation, which made the system make sense, having long gone so the reasons for doing it that way obviated.
To use another American example, the way you structure your sports leagues screams of the legacy of train travel. Which was the primary inter-city transport mode when Baseball leagues started developing in the late 19th century. That small Divisions, play-offs, road trips and home stands are really not necessary in the jet age when coast-to-coast is a four hour flight, doesn't change the way the leagues work. Because that is now the American way of doing sports, so it gets adopted wholesale, without any serious questioning of whether the appropriate solution for the 1890s still holds in the 21st century.

* - a human, rather than just American, trait.

[WOM]

Trump has been a no-show everywhere but Twitter since Election Day. He's cancelled his Florida Thanksgiving trip and is basically holed up in the White House.

[kokamoa]

Apart from smashing all the crockery and performing a dirty protest, what is Trump's strategy? Can he actually carry out a coup, or is he just grifting like fuck before the inevitable end, because Christ help everyone if he manages the former.

His strategy is to try and make Biden a discredited figure in the eyes of as many people as he can. He’s also banking on the fact that the militias and crazies with guns would be on his side and that if BLM were moved to genuinely violent action, he most likely suspects that if the militias didn’t engage them in a firefight, the police would mow them down and that this would cow all other Democrat voters into passively accepting it. McConnell is a douchebag, but is likely also scared to death to do anything that could be seen as betraying Trump in case he became a target, so the Republicans aren’t going to do anything.

I suspect a frosty flounce and four years stoking discontent rather than anything more serious mainly because I don’t think Trump would want to end up being torn limb from limb by an angry mob. But the fact that 2 weeks on, influential people are still continuing to nurse his grievances and speak such demonstrable bullshit fosters his sense of trying to see how much he could get away with and makes the implausible possible.

ultimately the question is do people want to die for Trump? Something just short of that is the kind of test he’s trying to pull.

[ursus arctos]

Janik, we didn't have divisions or playoffs in baseball or ice hockey until 1968/69