Tendo City

No more political dynasties plz

Those republicans in particular have done SO much damage already they don't deserve to EVER be heard again for the rest of their lives.  You don't get a second chance after "Heil Hitler".  There's a limit to forgiveness.  ABF them speaking didn't happen in a vacuum.  I shudder to think what deals were and are being made behind the scenes to gain their support.

And yes, the Republican platform is... nothing.  Nothing at all except "Trump is right".

Thank you SJ.  Agreed, we do NOT need to listen to people just because they're related to someone we liked.  That's ridiculous but it KEEPS happening on both sides.  Why were both Jeb Bush and George Bush Jr ever even considered as candidates?  It's because of their family history.  That's it.  That's all there was.  You can point to their schooling or whatever, but considering the sheer number of viable candidates, statistically speaking it's damndably unlikely you'd get TWO Bushes suddenly turning out to be "qualified" like that, unless the "great houses" are secretely desirous of establishing political dynasties.  The Kennedies need to fade into obscurity already.  I never want to see another "Kennedy" again, or Clinton, or Obama.  If you are part of a large family, ONE of you gets to be president maybe, NOT all of you just because of your genetics.

Frankly, dynasties are racist or at least stem from the same "birthright superiority" complex as racism.

Quote:And yes, the Republican platform is... nothing.  Nothing at all except "Trump is right".

The Repubican platform is "I'm With Stupid". 

And 40-something percent of the American people are going to vote for that.

Ugh, what horrible news... Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. I am not surprised, she was clearly in very poor health this year and got an even worse cancer than before and based on that I was not expecting her to live until mid January, but I was hoping...

But it wasn't to be. So, Trump and McConnell will try to shove through some far-right judge, and they may succeed. It'll be a big fight and I don't know that we have a very good chance of winning it, and by winning it I mean 'delaying the vote into the next term AND winning the Senate back in November so in the next term we have a majority'.

So, while we shouldn't run on this before the election, we should be prepared to expand the size of the supreme court next year. We should add one seat for every one the Republicans stole in the last few years, so that's at least two or three.

In the interim, there is a very good chance that the Supreme Court will now kill the affordable care act entirely in the case they will be looking at in November; last time it only survived by one vote, which is now gone, and the lower court ruled against the ACA so a 4-4 split judgement would still doom it. What a bad year this has been... but if we can get to next year and win in November, 2021 should be a lot better, we just need to get there and win so that we can start changing this nation -- make Puerto Rico and Washington DC states, get rid of the Senate filibuster, add justices to the Supreme Court, add to or replace the ACA if they kill it, and such. We will have a LOT to do and not much time to do it in, but fortunately Joe Biden's pretty experienced at this 'legislating' thing...

I agree with much of what you say, but how can you justify adding more supreme court justices? That sets a precedent that the minority party can always try to dilute the majority. In time it could be a circus. Correct me if I am wrong--as I sure you will do--but as upsetting as it is that Trump is going to get to pick three justices in just one dismal term, it is still the legitimate result of unfortunate circumstances, n'est-ce pas? You can't just rewrite the government because you're in the minority. And if you can, then why can't the GOP do it when they too invariably one day recede into minority? It undermines the legitimacy and credibility of the entire institution.

If we do nothing, their 6-3 majority will not only invalidate the Affordable Care Act (thus murdering many Americans, particularly poorer ones) and Roe vs. Wade (thus murdering many women); those two things are a horrible given now. But it gets worse, they will also invalidate anything positive we do in the coming decades. And they will do all that because of incredibly unfair stolen seats. Never forget what they did in 2016 to steal that seat.

The Republicans are breaking our democracy in their favor, since their party has been fully consumed by quasi-fascism. We, the majority of this nation, need to resist and break their unfair, minority-rule stranglehold on power.

So, three things are necessary, all things which a large number of Democrats now support because of how bad things have gotten in this country:

- A new state or states -- statehood for Washington, DC and Puerto Rico (if PR wants it, give them a clear up or down official vote). It is long past time.
- More members on the Supreme Court, to add two or three to make up for their unfair democracy-breaking actions and to have a court that won't immediately kill any major bill we pass.
- Get rid of the 60 vote rule in the Senate. This is a serious double edged sword, but because of the modern GOP there is no way around this, they can and will block ANYTHING we and to pass otherwise.

(22nd September 2020, 1:44 PM)Darunia Wrote: [ -> ]I agree with much of what you say, but how can you justify adding more supreme court justices? That sets a precedent that the minority party can always try to dilute the majority. In time it could be a circus. Correct me if I am wrong--as I sure you will do--but as upsetting as it is that Trump is going to get to pick three justices in just one dismal term, it is still the legitimate result of unfortunate circumstances, n'est-ce pas? You can't just rewrite the government because you're in the minority. And if you can, then why can't the GOP do it when they too invariably one day recede into minority? It undermines the legitimacy and credibility of the entire institution.

This is a good point, but it also may signify that the Supreme Court has lost its way as a judicial branch of government, and has become, quite nakedly, an unelected legislative body, unable to be meaningfully checked by the other two branches. 

It seems to me that the United States government, as conceived in 1789, is beginning to fall apart at the seams, and the time is approaching where we, as a country, will have to decide to draft a new Constitution.

The reality is that there are two separate and opposed countries emerging from the United States. Two separate voices, communities, and nations, with their own views on everything. There is not more middle ground, only polar opposites.

Darunia, frankly the system's already been invalidated.  It needs to change anyway, so I don't care if I have to manipulate the rules to stop horrors from being unleashed.  The consequences of allowing Trump to do ANYTHING right now are that the whole system becomes a dictatorship.

Here's the reality, the Supreme Court's life appointment system was created when life expectancy was mid 30's. It's downright morbid that we look at obituaries to determine when the next seat is available. Term limit the dang thing. 16 - 20 years. Nothing more than that. No justice after that can occupy ANY other seat in government. (Give them lifetime retirement pay I suppose.) Heck let's go even further beyond. Trumps platform in 2016 was opposing the current President and (among other racist things) term limits for congress. I actually support that. Technically, they didn't a platform in the RNC this year. By their own party's rules, that means the 2016 platform stands. Trump's platform is thus to oppose himself and to give term limits to congress critters.

Addressing everyone else, look where we are.  Trump has reached the final bullet point on that now famous list of fascist warning signs.  He's trying to deligitimize the election itself.  Getting in that supreme court justice puts the republican party in a position to make themselves the fiat rulers of the nation forever.  Meanwhile, the democrats are NOT doing enough to fight them.  That is to say, they're not doing anything!  They're wagging fingers at them, but they aren't trying to impeach Bill Barr.  Do that!  No, it won't actually work, but it'll delay their supreme court pick.  Make a spectacle, drag it out!  Drag it out all the way to January's end.

I oppose term limits for the House and Senate; we have term limits here in the Maine state legislature, and it's a horrible idea, it leads to a constant brain drain of good, knowledgeable legislators in favor of a constant stream of new people. A few can stay on by going back and forth between the House and Senate, since that is allowed, but as the Senate is far smaller than the House this is not a solution for most.

However, for the Supreme Court? Yeah, it's a fair idea there. The Democrats seem to now be raising the idea of an 18-year term for Supreme Court justices, which might be just about right. That is long enough to be there quite a while, but not so long that thanks to modern medicine you get the same people on the court for what, forty years or something.

Quote:Addressing everyone else, look where we are. Trump has reached the final bullet point on that now famous list of fascist warning signs. He's trying to deligitimize the election itself. Getting in that supreme court justice puts the republican party in a position to make themselves the fiat rulers of the nation forever.

Trump said this same kind of thing in 2016, if you remember -- he basically promised to only accept the results if he won. Of course, as he wasn't President then he didn't have the kind of power then he does now, but this is not a new thing from him, whether it is because of his narcissism or what he is instinctively evil and fascistic.

That said, while he does seem to think that by putting another person on the court he can get a court that will hand him a second term even if he loses, but if it's a blowout that will not happen; there is not a majority of the court who would overturn numerous states where the outcome is clear, just because they want the other person in office. In a very close race I could see them making a decision like Bush v. Gore from 2000, but I don't think things will be anywhere near that close, not with where the polling continues to be. If people vote, he should lose and be removed from office no matter how much he howls about it. He wants people to not vote unless they are going to vote for him. So vote.

New ideas constantly rotating in is a feature not a bug.  I get it, you like some of them, but there are ALWAYS competent replacements, always.  There is going to be someone that can take their place with a fresh perspective.  The most important thing is to prevent stale systems of power from forming in the first place and get out all those people who treat elections like some game.

As for the courts, here's the ultimatum the democrats should make.  Either we do the reasonable thing and implement term limits for the supreme court, or we're going to pack this thing and play by your rules.  Democrats need to be willing to at least threaten to play dirty.  We're at that point now.  The high ground isn't getting us anywhere.

We've seen the reports today.  Yes, Trump evades taxes at a shameful rate, fewer than I personally pay in a year.  Yes, he's getting "corporate welfare" in the form of those returns.

That's not going to interest Trump supporters.  They LIKE that he's scamming the government.  What they WILL care about is the other part of the report.  Let's all point out how much of a failure at business he is, that he failed to turn a profit in 2012 during one of the biggest booms our economy ever had.  THAT is going to reach Trump supporters.

Quote:I oppose term limits for the House and Senate; we have term limits here in the Maine state legislature, and it's a horrible idea, it leads to a constant brain drain of good, knowledgeable legislators in favor of a constant stream of new people. A few can stay on by going back and forth between the House and Senate, since that is allowed, but as the Senate is far smaller than the House this is not a solution for most.However, for the Supreme Court? Yeah, it's a fair idea there. The Democrats seem to now be raising the idea of an 18-year term for Supreme Court justices, which might be just about right. That is long enough to be there quite a while, but not so long that thanks to modern medicine you get the same people on the court for what, forty years or something.

I think a good middle ground is to not allow consecutive terms. That way, a good legislator is able to remain a part of the system for a long time if proven and trusted by the electorate, but is not entrenched forever and keeping good, younger legislative minds out of the system. It also means that their entire term is spent doing the work of legislating, instead of how a significant portion of a term is spent raising money and campaigning for another term. In the House, this is especially bad, because the next campaign begins immediately after the end of the current campaign. Furthermore, I can only see positives to having a regular turnover of leadership. We could surely benefit from Mitch McConnell not having a leadership role forever, and Schumer and Pelosi are obsolete dinosaurs who have been mostly ineffective throughout their leadership, yet have all the clout they need to remain in those roles as long as they want. 

We are now faced with the prospect of having all of the few Democratic achievements of several entire generations erased with the stroke of a pen, so it's more important than ever to do whatever it takes to eject the entire present Democratic leadership and replace it with younger, more driven and ideological people, because we've been saying it, in this very thread, for years, that the current Democratic Party is not effective or useful in present times, and it's been a non-stop barrage of events proving us right.

I'm just sick of democrats doing nothing more than wagging their finger at Trump right now.  Yes, what Trump is attempting to do is terrible Nancy.  Words are wind, DO SOMETHING! Impeach him again! Do it and do it right now!

Let me put this another way. There is NO way to be "bipartisan" any more. Cooperation is over. It's dead and literally impossible on a pure logistical level. What needs to change is to kill partisanship entirely, including bipartisanship. We all have goals in this nation. Focus on policy, especially the policies a large number of people in this country agree upon, and build from there. Strip away the "my time your team" and focus on "good idea bad idea", and we can move past parties. Democrats and republicans don't want that, either of them, because it'll expose how utterly useless those two institutions actually are.

(28th September 2020, 11:00 AM)Dark Jaguar Wrote: [ -> ]That's not going to interest Trump supporters.  They LIKE that he's scamming the government.  What they WILL care about is the other part of the report.  Let's all point out how much of a failure at business he is, that he failed to turn a profit in 2012 during one of the biggest booms our economy ever had.  THAT is going to reach Trump supporters.

nah they'll just yell it's because Obama was at the help so obviously the economy was in the toilet or some other excuse. I've heard way more absurd shit from Trump-worshippers. "He declared bankruptcy 6 times? So what? That's all part of the business!" *facepalm* you can't make this shit up

I was ready to come in here and say that it's hardly scandalous to minimize your tax filings, even if you're gaming the system so much you pay virtually nothing. I'd do the same thing if I were him... it's perfectly legal, after all. Then, I actually read the report and, uh, wow... guess it confirms what we've known for years: that he's a failure of a businessman and a criminal.

If it's all teh faek nuz, he could just release his tax returns like a normal president guy and shut the Times up. Hmm...

Quote:I'm just sick of democrats doing nothing more than wagging their finger at Trump right now.  Yes, what Trump is attempting to do is terrible Nancy.  Words are wind, DO SOMETHING! Impeach him again! Do it and do it right now!

This is so god damned infuriating. Almost as enraging as McConnell moving ahead with the nomination itself. You know if we had a scumbag like weaselly little Mitch on our side, he'd find some rule, obscure or audacious, to grind the Senate to a halt until the election passes. Have they given any indication on how they'll deal with this, or are they just wringing their hands impotently like usual?

Thing is, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be trying to use every last little loophole if I were in Trump's position, but had the same views I currently hold.  I'd be rich, I wouldn't care if I gave more than most people in taxes, I'd still be rich.

Same, but Trump is a horrible person, as we saw in full display in tonight's.. debate?  If you call it that?

I just watched that horrendous trash fire, and we learned several important things.

1) Donald Trump is desperate for you, anyone not a part of his cult, to not vote.  So:

     A) Trump spent a signficant amount of time trying to attack Biden from the left in order to get leftists to not vote in November -- by trying to connect Biden to anti-police demonstrators, the Green New Deal, not nominating enough judges during the Obama-Biden presidency, Medicare for All, and such.  Of course he said all that stuff as a part of an effort to try to tie Biden TO those policies that he thinks are unpopular, but it was clear he was also trying to get people on the left to not vote for Biden because he wasn't sufficiently left enough for them.  Biden's counter-point that he leads the party now and his climate plan and health care plan are the party's actual positions and not those other things he does not support but Trump tried to tie him to was strong because it's the truth.  But regardless of his reasoning, Trump keeps trying to get the Bernie people to not vote; he's been doing it all year and still is.
     B) Trump promises to be a massive pain in the neck in November and to not honor or believe teh election results if they look bad for him, and to falsely claim victory before the count is complete and also to try to get courts to overturn legiticmate election esults if they don't go his way.  Fortunately I think that enough of our system is intact that if he does lose none of those efforts will succeed, but still it'll be bad.  Because hey, why vote at all?  It's note like it matters, Trump will just steal his way to victory either way!  Just stay home and let the inevitable happen... or howa bout not, VOTE.  As Joe Biden powerfully said, that is how we stop him: by doing what he so badly does ot watnt, by voting.
     C) By being an incredibly rude and insulting (and ignorant and unintelligent) bully almost all of the time, by constantly talking over Biden and not allowing him to finish his sentences, and such, Trump made the debate barely watchable.  Hep robably wants people to tune out and just quit on politics out of disgust.  Tune out if you want, but VOTE.  Do not give him what he wants! 

2) Also, by being such an incredibly horrible bully Trump tries to show strength, but I  see it as weakness -- weakness because it exposes his innter fear of losing.  For, why else would he not even let Biden finish sentences?  Because he knows Joe would make points people might like, that's why.  So if you just talk over him every time, you "win" by not allowing him to speak.  All of this -- his constant interruptions, insults, and attacks during what was supposed to be Biden's speaking times, which usually totally derailed things in favor of more Trump insulting either Biden or moderator Chris Wallace (of Fox News) -- could have been controlled by a moderator willing to actually take control of the situation, but Wallace did not do that at all.  For instance, the ability to turn off Trump's mike when he starts interrupting into Biden's time is something they MUST have if they do another debate.  This was a disgusting display of bullying that cannot be allowed to continue.

3) Trump is still losing after this debate, and if he thinks that show he performed at the debate will help him, he's got another thing coming. I do not think it will one bit.

Of course, given Trump's deep lack of intelligence even had he behaved himself there would not have been much to actually discuss in the debate because he does not understand the issues and lies about everything almost every time he says a word, but even so it was disgraceful both that Trump behaved that way, and that Wallace let him get away with so much of it.  Biden did get some pretty good retorts in though, such as calling Trump a clown once.  It was good stuff, I laughed.  He was, of course, entirely correct, sadly.  He described precisely how Trump was acting.

That debate was an absolute mess.  I'd say there was no point in watching it, but the utterly uninformed voter has walked away knowing one thing beyond any doubt.  Yes, Biden is just a typical politician, but Trump is an amoral bully.  The polls seem to back that interpretation.  Its not that Biden did particularly well (though I MUCH appreciated when he flat out told Trump to shut up), but that Trump is such an absolute failure in every direction that all one needed to do was show basic competence to win.  Biden won.

(Oh and as for the argument that Biden only looked bad in the primary because he was up against an army of candidates, SO WERE ALL THE OTHER CANDIDATES.  That excuse doesn't fly.)

I loved the debate! Tons of fun. Absolutely worth it, and I will watch all subsequent debates. It's like watching a car accident--you know you try and get a look. It did not sway my opinion either way at all; I have been firmly set against any Trump ticket since 2016. I will say my Goronic observations, though, for your benefit:

1. Biden looked and sounded very old.
2. Trump appeared much, much younger and more vibrant with more stamina.
3. Trump is a complete asshole, even to the moderator and should have been held to task for this more.
4. Biden did fair enough, in that he had no complete gaffes or accidents, and held his own.
5. Hard to say who won. Neither one got K/O'd.
6. I am still voting for Biden.

Trump appeared to have gobbled adderall about an hour before the event.

The debate was a predictable shit show but it was nice to see biden get some zingers in and call trump a liar, a clown, and a failure. It was grating to hear trump repeating the same lies over and over. Biden came across as more competent and appealing to the American people.

Funny to see Wallace have to chide trump and speak to him like a child too.

That's about it. You can't debate a loud, stupid, pathological liar and there's no pretense here. We're just going through the motions to see what crazy shit trump will say.

Joe Biden needs to get himself tested, Trump breathed on him.

It seems the year 2020 also hates trump

This is what the Trump presidency has done to me.  I don't hope Trump gets better.  I hope he dies from this.  I have zero empathy for that psychopath, because I reserve empathy for people who can actually feel emotions like you and me. I'm not exaggerating for comedy, I literally think Trump is neurologically incapable of feeling empathy for others. Just his quotes regarding empathy and how that's "for babies" speaks to it. He's got the same defects a serial killer does.

Am I sorry for Trump? No, he brought this on himself with his own actions. But I'm not happy about it either, because it is a side-effect of his horrendously dangerous actions that have killed so many. So, it's complicated. Like, wishing harm on people is not okay. However, Donald Trump has caused tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, and probably millions of unnecessary COVID-19 infections, with his unbelievably dangerous and stupid response to the virus. Seeing him finally get his just deserts for his disgusting actions and suffer for what he did? I can't say I'm sorry, no. It's never a good thing when someone gets this disease and I don't want him to die from it, but this sure is one of the most richly deserved things of the year, given how despicably he has been acting towards the virus response, including at the debate when he mocked Biden for wearing a mask, and where many members of his family refused to wear them in the audience.

The other reason I don't want Trump to die is that I want him to live to know that he failed and that what he has done is wrong. I want him to see a blowout next month because while he will never be able to understand that he did anything wrong, at least we (the American people) can try to get the message to him, and a big win in November is probably the best way to do that. None of this horror was necessary, it's all because of Trump's choices. Our choice to vote him out must be the response, by as large a margin as possible.

Regardless, Trump is not tweeting today, so he must not be doing well...

Oh -- Biden is not out of the woods yet, obviously, the virus can take a while to register, but he did test negative today so so far it's looking promising for him to not have caught it at the debate. (The two big spreader events seem to be the Amy Barrett Rose Garden announcement event and the Air Force One flight to the debate.)

Trump is NEVER going to believe what he did was wrong, and I'm not so selfish as to care about whether he feels guilt.  I just want this nightmare to end.

I also giggled when I found out.

The Mike Pence debate strategy:

1) Lie
2) Accuse your opponent of lying
3) Refuse to answer questions and answer some other question instead
4) Lie
5) Repeat some Trump lies
6) Talk over the two other people on stage because they're just women, who cares about them? I am male and talking!
7) Return to 1) until end of debate

Well, the VP debate was pretty empty wasn't it?  Also, it's already been forgotten.  Everyone made a big deal about a fly.  Celebrity gossip.

I think that was mostly a good video for the specific audience of leftists who hate both parties (but need to be convinced to vote Biden anyway), but it's a shame that he's too busy hating Biden to realize that having as our nominee probably the most genuinely caring peorson in politics is a really fantastic thing and absolutely PERFECT for the dumpster fire of a year that 2020 has been.  Policy-wise, sure, he's always been in the center of the party and still is, which is why we now have the most liberal platform ever, but Biden's personal goodness and compassionate nature is exactly what this nation needs right now.  It presents the starkest contrast possible on this issue, far more than you'd get from anmy of our other candidates.

Add to that that he is an innofensive vessel for anti-Trump sentiments in a way that a farther left candidate never could have been -- if Bernie was our candidate maybe we'd be just slightly ahead in the Presidential race, but we definitely would not bve looking at the scale of the potential Senate wins that we might get next month, and we'd win fwer states for President as well.  This is very important because the more we win the more we can get done.

You honestly think Biden is the most "genuine caring" person in politics?  Seriously?

He runs around telling people to vote for someone else and he's not doing nearly enough to court the left.  He called people who want more "entitled" and said he has no sympathy for them.  He is responsible for a number of terrible policies from the 90's that we're trying to fix to this day.

Biden is a typical politician.  I can't believe you can look at the way he acts and conclude he's "genuine and caring".  But I'm entirely in agreement on this video.  The choice is a typical centrist and all the evil that goes with that, or straight up fascism.

Biden has done more to court the left than probably any Democratic presidential nominee since, I don't know, Mondale or something? Certainly he has done dramatically more than Hillary did. And Obama got the left, but I don't know if he actually courted them, they just decided that he was someone they would support even though he was actually a centrist.  And I don't know if we've had another nominee since then who put as much effort into appealing to the left as Biden has, with his commissions to put together his policies and such.

Quote:You honestly think Biden is the most "genuine caring" person in politics?  Seriously?

Look at things like his deep understanding of loss, his words to the child with a stutter, or his response at the debate when Trump was mocking him for his son's drug addiction.  Joe cares and it comes through very strongly. We don't have anyone else in our government I have seen who comes even close on this, and it creates the largest possible contrast with Trump, someone whose ability to care and understand others is absolutely zero. And people have very much noticed this and it's helping convince people to vote Biden.

Quote:Biden is a typical politician.

Certainly, policy-wise Biden is a typical Democrat.  He has always planted himself in the center of the party.

I'm speechless, so I'll let this redneck talk.



Democrats, USE YOUR UPCOMING POWER!  DO IT!  ALIENATE THE RIGHT!

Joe Biden is a typical politician, and that deserves its cynicism, but he's definitely more real and convincingly genuine than Hillary Clinton hever was, and that's going to make a difference. Hillary has, always, come across as someone who had to practice being normal and relatable, and hasn't ever really been successful at it. Sure, sexism probably played some role in her coming in just under the margins in those close states, but my Alexa exudes more charisma and charm. 2016 was a really bad year to run a candidate who is, fundamentally, an above-it-all patrician.

On that we can both agree.  Biden has empathy and is thus fully human- unlike psychopathic Trump.  While I don't agree with his neoliberal politics, I can at least appreciate that his differences come from a life of privilage and not actual mental disorders.

I still maintain that sexism accounts for pretty much 100% of peoples' bias against Hillary.  It is certainly the only reason why she isn't President now.

Anyway though, right now, Biden has a huge polling lead.  if polls are even close, like they usually are, we could win by ten points!  However, a lot of liberals expect Trump to cheat his way to victory, while many conservatives expect Trump to win even though he is behind, so both sides may be surprised when... Biden wins in the landslide that every poll says he will, and then it's too much of a margin for Trump's cheating to overcome and we actually  get that monster out of there.  That's what I hope to see happen, and going by the polls it is the most likely outcome.

And for anyone saying "but 2016!", the polls in 2016 were much, MUCH closer at this point than 2020's are, and they were much, MUCH more unstable too; that year the polls kept going up and down for both candidates, while 2020 has been extremely stable with Biden polling far ahead all year long.  Of course I am worried about what will happen, you don't win until people have actually voted after all and it is unbelievably important to win now and stop this fascist, but unless Trump's supporters pull off a probably impossible level of vote rigging all signs are looking good for the Democrats in the closing days of this campaign.  The dems should win a solid majority in the Senate, too, if polls are to be believed (which they mostly should be)!

Of course that it IS a competitive race despite Biden polling far ahead is something only possible because we still have the horrible electoral college system, but at least this time our lead is looking so large that we should manage to win despite the major disadvantage that the electoral college brings (with how the R's have a big advantage there and such).

It's crazy that it is almost election day already, because of COVID so many of the normal things that would happen in an election year, well, didn't -- the rallies, the in-person conventions, volunteers and candidates knocking on doors, etc, etc.  And worrying about COVID not only remains an everyday thing, but is worse now than it has been in months due to the second wave hitting us now.  So in some respects it feels like this year has flown by, but in others it's like, wait, it's almost election day?  But where did election season go, it hasn't even started yet!  But due to COVID all that stuff had ot be cancelled, sadly, and a lot of people are dead.  Sad stuff.

But yeah, it's almost election day even if most of the festivities of an election year were cancelled and one of the candidates is a would-be-fascist, and we, the Democrats, are highly likely to win.  Victory is of course not certain, but is very dramatically more likely than it was in 2016, Biden is polling way above Hillary and so are other Democrats.  For instance 538 gave Trump 30% odds in 2016, but has him at about 10% now.  That is still nervewrackingly high, but the polling averages are clear that we have a big lead and a 2016 level of polling error in his favor won't come even close to saving him.  The massive early vote is hopefully promising for us as well.  Of course I am very worried, but this should be much more 2018 (but with Senate wins instead of losses because of the map) than 2016.

I'm not sure if black holes suck harder than the Democratic Party. It's what you might label 'too close to call'.

Gah, Tuesday was such a horrible, horrible day... like, I knew we'd probably win in the end -- the mail-in vote in states not allowed to start counting until election day obviously will take quite some time to count, and by that evening it was clear that in the end our victory was very possible -- but still, seeing those giant numbers we'd have to make up, particularly in PA, sure did not feel good.  (Fox and the AP's Arizona call was awesome though, though we still don't know if Biden will hang on and win the state, it's close...)  I did not get much sleep that night. We're winning, but Trump did it again, he got a lot of people to the voting booths who most pollsters totally missed.  I think the analysis that this shows that Hillary actually ran a pretty good race is accurate -- it's not that she messed up badly, it's that Trump has a special ability to get people to vote who pollsters miss.  He is a right-wing authoritarian, part of the wave of them that has swept many countries around the world this century, and they are hard to defeat.  Very hard to defeat.  Defeating incumbent presidents is also very difficult, it's only happened four times in the last century!  But anyway, Trump's unnoticed-by-polling "quiet Trump" voters showed up again, which is why polling was so badly off.  This happened in 2016, it didn't happen in 2018 since he was not on the ballot, and now it's happened again in 2020.  That is not a cooincidence.  And so, things are a lot closer than we thought they would be, and instead of gaining seats in the House we are losing them, though thankfully we WILL keep control of the house. 

The good news is, Democrats realized that this might be hard and picked the absolute best possible candidate for the job of defeating this formidable (despite how unintelligent and childish and corrupt and destructive to government and everything else) incumbent.  Would anybody else in our PARTY have won this election?  I am honestly not sure.  Bernie would have been crushed, and sadly my primary pick Warren would have been too.  Right now the Democrats' only path to victory runs through the PA/WI/MI region; we can get support from other areas, as Biden has done with GA and probably AZ, but that is the core and we do not have a replacement for them yet.  I get why this frustrates many people because those states have gotten redder and are not representative of  the new Democratic voter, but until we can get rid of the horrible abomination that is the electoral college we have no choice.  And so, Dems did the right thing, picked the guy who can win in those three states, and he did exactly that job.  It's extremely impressive stuff.

And once the counting finishes and we see that Biden won by winning away from Trump's 2016 map MI, WI, PA, GA, NE-2, and hopefully AZ?  With only maybe a D+4 electorate, half the Democratic lead that polling had been showing?  Yeah, we see just how well Biden did.

Now, that is in no way downplaying our failures.  Losing seats in the House is bad, and failing to take the Senate back far, FAR worse.  McConnell being enabled to continue making our lives miserable is an awful fate indeed, particularly when we have so many things that very badly need to get done. I don't know how we get those things done now, there's only so much you can do with executive actions.  The only path to 50 now runs through winning both of the Georgia Senate runoffs in early January, but as well as Biden has done there winning those will be crazy hard, I hope it happens but won't be counting on it.  I am ashamed for the people in my state who voted for Biden and Collins, shame on you!  We very VERY badly needed that seat... taking serious action against climate change alone is something that needs congressional action and will be extremely hard to get past MecConnell, and this must hapopen NOW.  I know you can do a lot through the executive branch -- see what Trump has done -- but still, it's disappointing. 

Even so, for that to be our problem, we're doing pretty well -- obviously I would take that every day of the week over more Trump.  But thankfully America was just smart enough to reject this autocrat-loving wannabe dictator and vote him out of power.  As bad as the failure in the Senate is, I am somewhat proud for this nation; again, defeating successful right-wing populist leaders in the 21st century, globally, does not happen often.  Thank goodness for Joe Biden running for president.

Are you still convinced that he was the best possible candidate and there is no way anyone else could have possibly done better?  Biden didn't inspire anyone at all.  That's his problem.  That's why this thing is going to be won by a hair's breadth and why we're likely not getting the senate.  Biden's platform is "I'm not Trump".  Don't misunderstand, it's great to point that out, but the kind of people that would be turned off by more progressive policies are, once again, the sort of people who LOVE Trump and who "I'm not Trump" would turn off.

The democrats really don't have much to be proud of here.  What we got is breathing room.  That's it.  Stage two is detrumpification while complainign about Biden endlessly for the next four years.  Get ready for that ABF.  I'm NOT cooperating with this new administration, I'm pressuring it.  All the progressive allies that voted for Biden as a concession are going to turn their back on Biden if he doesn't back needed policies.  For example, is he going to release those imprisoned kids and set up a project to reunite or, failing that, adopt them out?  That should be his very first act on day one.  If he does literally anything else as some attempt to "reach across the aisle", well, we're prepared to make our voices heard.

Pennsylvania should flip to Biden and be called witoin hours, and with that the presidency.  Awesome stuff.

Quote:Are you still convinced that he was the best possible candidate and there is no way anyone else could have possibly done better?

Yes, anyone else would probably have lost. Trump would have given his victory speech Tuesday night and that would be it.  This result proves that beyond doubt, Trump did not win once and then come this close to winning a second time by accident, or because of "weak candidates"; we put up strong candidates, this time the best one we possibly could have, but Trump almost won because of his authoritarian strongman appeal to nearly unpollable voters.

Bernie?  Bernie, again, would have been destroyed.  American voters are scared of the world "socialist" to an unreasonable degree.  We lost Florida this year exclusively because of this issue -- Biden did fine in Florida otherwise, and improved over Hillary's margins there with most demographics, but where Hillary did alright with Cuban Hispanics but lost because of weakness with the demographics Biden did better in, Biden got absolutely blown out, losing as badly as 70-20 with Floridian Cubans.  Yes really, it was that bad! This is because they totally bought in to the absurd notion that Biden is a socialist and a vector for socialists, and they hate socialists because Castro.  So, they voted heavily for Trump in order to stop the scary socialist (hah) Joe Biden. And it worked in their state, Trump won Florida as a result.

I know Cubans is a Florida-specific thing, but a whole lot of other Americans share a similar strong dislike of the word socialism.  We need to somehow push socialist policies WITHOUT using that word, probably...

Quote:Biden didn't inspire anyone at all.  That's his problem.  That's why this thing is going to be won by a hair's breadth and why we're likely not getting the senate.

This is absolutely wrong!  We almost lost because Trump brought a silent red wave to the polls with him again.  We managed to overcome it because Biden's blue wave, the wave that only he could have pieced together thanks to his laser focus on working class voters in the Midwest, was even larger.

Quote:The democrats really don't have much to be proud of here.  What we got is breathing room.  That's it.

We should be proud of stopping this authoritarian incumbent who had a strong economy for most of his term in office, yes. Defeating an incumbent President who presided over a mostly strong economy is INCREDIBLY difficult! But we managed it. And that is something to be proud of, even if the Senate result is horrible and unbelievably frustrating for our chances of doing much of anything for the next four years. (I really hope Biden's got some good executive order ideas...)

Quote:Stage two is detrumpification while complainign about Biden endlessly for the next four years.  Get ready for that ABF.  I'm NOT cooperating with this new administration, I'm pressuring it.  All the progressive allies that voted for Biden as a concession are going to turn their back on Biden if he doesn't back needed policies.  For example, is he going to release those imprisoned kids and set up a project to reunite or, failing that, adopt them out?  That should be his very first act on day one.  If he does literally anything else as some attempt to "reach across the aisle", well, we're prepared to make our voices heard.

I get this, but the other side of that story are the centrist Democrats who gave us our majority, because the left isn't enough to be a US House majority all on its own.  Those centrist Dems just got torn apart in this election with a suddenly very close race they didn't see coming until the very end, as they were hammered constantly for being shills for AOC, for supporting "defund the police", etc.  Some of those attacks worked. Some of them are now understandably quite upset about this. We need progressive policies, but we also need to keep control of the US House.  It's a tough balance...

As for what Biden will do day one, wow is there an impossibly long list of things he should do day one!  That's one of them, but I doubt there w*ould be enough hours in a day to do all of the things he'll need to do right away... though planning, writing executive orders ahead of time to sign day one, and such, could get us there.

It took a bit longer than expected, but Pennsylvania flipped to Biden at about 8:30am Friday morning, and it won't be flipping back.  Trump is likely to gain some when they get to counting the provisionals, because of Republicans requesting mail ballots in red parts of the state and then voting in person instead, but not nearly enough to make up all the blue votes they have already counted and will be counting before they get to the provisionals.  I don't know if Pennsylvania will make it to the original estimate of Biden winning by 100,000 votes -- it well may not -- but he will win it for sure.

Meanwhile, Nevada is now completely safely blue, there is no question anymore, Biden won it.  Nevada doesn't win the election all on its own but it should be called; it only hasn't been because the AP and Fox called Arizona Tuesday night, and now none of the networks want to call anything else because that would mean Biden wins and they are too scared of Trump to do the obvious and actually say that Biden won.  Cowards.  All they are doing is enabling Trump's paranoid, democracy-hating ravings, and enabling his worst supporters as well.

Arizona is close, and Biden has had a lead for days that slowly has been chipped away as red mail votes arrive, the exact opposite of Pennsylvania.  However, Trump has not quite been hitting his targets, so Biden is highly likely to hang on with a narrow victory.  The initial Arizona Democratic analysis said that they thought that they would win by 40,000 votes, and the margin is under that now, but with Trump not hitting the margins to catch up Biden will win this.

Georgia is also close, but Biden passed Trump there early Friday morning and their counting is almost finished.  Biden's 4,000 vote lead there is going to hold, Biden has won Georgia in the biggest surprise of the election, once everyone realized that Trump did get a silent wave to the polls that greatly reduced the size of our victory.  Models such as 538's had Georgia only flipping once you had a bigger win than we had this week, so it's amazing and fantastic news for the future that we won it!  Stacey Abrams apparently deserves a lot of credit for doing the organizing necessary to win.

The last close-ish state is North Carolina, where Trump is holding on to a 75,000 vote lead that is not narrowing.  He's won this one.

So yeah, that's the election update... or rather, it should be.  But instead, the actual election update is that after seeing all these numbers, and seeing Biden's numbers get steadily better in four states, as I said above in the Nevada part, no network is willing to admit that Biden has won, only that he is "likely to win", because they are too scared of Trump to say he has lost until they are absolutely 100% sure and have the actual numbers in. It's been incredibly frustrating today to see this go on and on, but... no.  Networks, you are NOT making things easier on yourselves in the long run by refusing to call a race which is over, you are only making things worse!  Trump's fans will be awful no matter when the call comes.  And yes the counting will continue regardless, but the results will be as we know.

Quote:I get this, but the other side of that story are the centrist Democrats who gave us our majority, because the left isn't enough to be a US House majority all on its own. 

The real side of this story is that the left turned out and saved Biden's bacon. Democrats didn't magically find nine million new centrists any more than they are finding new fake votes, and being that Donald Trump also exceeded his 2016 numbers by almost eight million, we can safely say that the number of defecting Republican Biden voters is negligible and irrelevant. 

We got blamed for 2016. 2020 is our victory. We turned out and made this happen. We flipped Georgia and Arizona and Pennsylvania. We were the decisive margin in all these close states. And it's high time the Democrats give us our due.

cya

ABF, check again.  The democratic side of congress is now filled with more progressive candidates than before.  The squad won.

Stop with this D vs R nonsense.  Parties don't matter, policies do! If we can stop talking about red versus blue we can look at the polls that show that the vast majority of Americans support progressie policy.  It's just that too many people are more loyal to party lines than their own beliefs.  Progressives are actually acting like the thing the democratic party likes to pretend it is, and WE get the blame?!  Seriously ABF, who's side are you on?  Is it the democratic party, or is it progressive policy?  We're at that point where you have to make a choice.
Oh, and Biden had BETTER start an investigation into all of Trump's dealings.  We can't "come together and heal" until we treat the wound.

The Democratic Party is the only way to advance progressive policy.  Those are not two opposed sides.

I legitimately thought Joe Biden's victory speech was close to perfect. Not an ounce of spite or rubbing it in.