U.S. Presidential Election

[stuartbert two hats]

If you look at some of the speeches from Trump from 4, 4 and a half years ago you can see a noticeable decline in his mental acuity. He's always been an amoral narcissist, but I don't think he'll be up to the job by 2024.

Besides, and it's not a joke, there's a good chance he'll have significant legal and financial difficulties by then.

[kalifire]

Been watching this for four days straight now. I bought a US TV hookup so I can flick between CNN, MSNBC and occasionally Fox (I know, but I'm curious as to how they're spinning things).

Observations:

• The polls were a disaster again
• Trump's base are fiercely, and apparently unquestionably, loyal - the red wave certainly materialised
• So did the blue wave, which was thankfully higher
• Trump may be gone soon, but it's clear MAGA lives on as a 'movement'
• Biden is never going to be more than a one term president
• Trump's completely unwarranted claim to victory was a historically low moment for the US

It's hard to see how anyone outside his cult and the Murdoch sewer can't see Trump as a genuine cancer to the nation right now. I almost pity Biden for the job he's now taking on.

I know I should want the two senate run-offs in January to go blue, but I almost think a different party in the senate might be better in a Trumpless era, especially when Biden is on very good terms with people across the chamber. It could mean a new era of bipartisanship, if I'm not being too naive in thinking so.

 

[FloorFiller]

1 minute ago, stuartbert two hats said:

If you look at some of the speeches from Trump from 4, 4 and a half years ago you can see a noticeable decline in his mental acuity. He's always been an amoral narcissist, but I don't think he'll be up to the job by 2024.

Besides, and it's not a joke, there's a good chance he'll have significant legal and financial difficulties by then.

Yep he almost definitely had a stroke at the end of last year + many people are certain that he’s currently suffering with dementia and basically abusing drugs to keep himself perky, hence the often differentiating moods at his rallies - upbeat, loud, obnoxious and rambling for some and then downbeat, glum and over quickly at others. No way a guy of his weight and age can continue that well in to his 70s, especially with all the legal stress heading his way like you say.

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, FloorFiller said:

Yep he almost definitely had a stroke at the end of last year + many people are certain that he’s currently suffering with dementia and basically abusing drugs to keep himself perky, hence the often differentiating moods at his rallies - upbeat, loud, obnoxious and rambling for some and then downbeat, glum and over quickly at others. No way a guy of his weight and age can continue that well in to his 70s, especially with all the legal stress heading his way like you say.

yeah, but he's superman.

[kalifire]

3 minutes ago, FloorFiller said:

Yep he almost definitely had a stroke at the end of last year + many people are certain that he’s currently suffering with dementia and basically abusing drugs to keep himself perky, hence the often differentiating moods at his rallies - upbeat, loud, obnoxious and rambling for some and then downbeat, glum and over quickly at others. No way a guy of his weight and age can continue that well in to his 70s, especially with all the legal stress heading his way like you say.

I think it's widely assumed that he's taking adderall on a daily basis.

Edited November 7, 2020 by kalifire

[jparx]

6 minutes ago, kalifire said:

Observations:

• The polls were a disaster again

 

I’m not so sure. Yeah, Florida didn’t go as predicted, but by the time the votes are all counted I think the national poll and the swing states will all look just about right within the margin of error. The polls did overstate the Biden lead, but I think everyone was cautioning that it would be a bit lower in reality. When you factor in the margin of error, they really don’t look too far off.

It really has gone as expected - we just needed to wait for it to play out. No one would have predicted Georgia would go to Biden on election night, yet it has and it’s followed the polls.

[FloorFiller]

2 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

yeah, but he's superman.

God I wish he’s gone through with his ‘rip shirt open to reveal the Superman logo’ plan after his COVID diagnosis. Would’ve been very funny.

Just now, kalifire said:

I thought it was widely assumed that he's taking adderall on a daily basis.

Pretty much, although what goes up must come down so I imagine there must be days where he has to taper off somewhat hence the glum and somber moods and speeches you sometimes see. You can pretty much nail how tweaked he is just by how erratic and capital letter filled his tweets are.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, jparx said:

I’m not so sure. Yeah, Florida didn’t go as predicted, but by the time the votes are all counted I think the national poll and the swing states will all look just about right within the margin of error. The polls did overstate the Biden lead, but I think everyone was cautioning that it would be a bit lower in reality. When you factor in the margin of error, they really don’t look too far off.

It really has gone as expected - we just needed to wait for it to play out. No one would have predicted Georgia would go to Biden on election night, yet it has and it’s followed the polls.

I think this will be the case too, it’ll be really interesting to see how close the polls were (or not). Pollsters tend to get so much grief but in actuality they tend to be fairly accurate within the margin of error.

[DeanoL]

1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

Trump actually ended up doing well, gained a lot of votes for the republicans...it's just Biden did even better.

Do we think the turnout was down to people being really engaged in the election? Or was it just more people voting by post / early as they were worried about COVID, and surely a proportion of these would have intended to vote on the day and then end up not doing so because the queues are too long or it’s raining or they run out of time?

[Toilet Duck]

2 hours ago, Matt42 said:

Can some of you give me a lil bit of peace of mind.

I’m seeing more and more of your usual right wing commentators jumping on the fraud bandwagon missing some pretty important facts about the situation.

Whether trump listens to them or not, he will have some senior political analysts around him which will have seen this coming. They will have looked at the votes he received on Election Day in key swing states and realised that once the democrat ballots come in, he will lose his lead. Don’t you find it strange he claimed victory of PA before the mail in votes were counted? He knew this was coming. His only way out would now be to rally his supporters against democracy to cast doubt on the vote.

I’ve heard it now from the mouths of the nutter wing of my American family that the late votes which come in Arizona favouring trump count, but any mail in ballots that favour democrats are fraudulent. I don’t even know how to approach that conversation as they seem too far gone.

When Trump is called to lose he will be outed from the Republican Party and Fox will turn on him because he will become damaging to the future success of the Republican Party. I’m just worried about QAnon waving Maga’s becoming even more of a cult going forward. It hurts me because I can put faces to names, and these are members of my own family that seem to be going down that path.

I can’t express how angry I am that the fat fucking orange man has corrupted the minds of some people I really care about!

Our family in NJ are entirely the same. Lamenting the death of democracy and screaming blue murder. Their latest “evidence” is that states that have swung blue are still sending republicans to the house and the senate...it doesn’t even occur to them that maybe, just maybe, many republicans have had enough of Trump and no longer want him as their president, but are still quite happy to vote for republicans in congress (and indeed, not handing Biden the house and the senate too makes it a bit more palatable to not vote republican for president). They just think, I’m a republican, therefore I can’t vote for anyone else. 

[steviewevie]

3 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Do we think the turnout was down to people being really engaged in the election? Or was it just more people voting by post / early as they were worried about COVID, and surely a proportion of these would have intended to vote on the day and then end up not doing so because the queues are too long or it’s raining or they run out of time?

Probably a bit of both. I think there was high turnout from both sides though as felt there was more at stake.

[Guest]

It’s also widely accepted that if you make voting easier - absentee, by mail, even online, then more people will turnout to vote. It’s partly why the Tories want to bring in voter ID here to put people off voting as it would seem to some like more effort and the poorer in society are less likely to get ID.

[squirrelarmy]

8 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Do we think the turnout was down to people being really engaged in the election? Or was it just more people voting by post / early as they were worried about COVID, and surely a proportion of these would have intended to vote on the day and then end up not doing so because the queues are too long or it’s raining or they run out of time?

From a conversation last night it seems that voter suppression is a huge factor. They don’t make it easy to vote in many areas. Postal votes have definitely given more people an opportunity to get their vote in. Should continue this in the future regardless of there being a pandemic or not. 

Edited November 7, 2020 by squirrelarmy

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, squirrelarmy said:

From a conversation last night it seems that voter suppression is a huge factor. They don’t make it easy to vote in many areas. Postal votes have definitely given more people an opportunity to get their vote in. Should continue this in the future regardless of there being a pandemic or not. 

Reps also voted in some states to prevent the counting of mail in ballots early so they could discredit some of the later votes. This has been a plan all along.

[steviewevie]

18 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

I think this will be the case too, it’ll be really interesting to see how close the polls were (or not). Pollsters tend to get so much grief but in actuality they tend to be fairly accurate within the margin of error.

Last time I looked popular vote is Biden 50.5% to Trump's 47.7%. Weren't pollsters predicting at least an 8 point lead for Biden?

[Guest]

1 minute ago, steviewevie said:

Last time I looked popular vote is Biden 50.5% to Trump's 47.7%. Weren't pollsters predicting at least an 8 point lead for Biden?

Not too far off the margin of error and with see weak votes still to come in. I think by the end Biden will have around a 6 point popular vote lead. 

[Crazyfool01]

LOVE A BIT OF CASSETTEBOY .... even more so now  

 

Edited November 7, 2020 by crazyfool1

[stuartbert two hats]

29 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Reps also voted in some states to prevent the counting of mail in ballots early so they could discredit some of the later votes. This has been a plan all along.

It's delicious how the exact scenario they've planned to steal the election with has come to pass - but it's all failing. Nobody of any influence is falling for the argument that votes that were sent on election day, but didn't arrive until later are illegal.

Court case after court case is thrown out and it's just wonderful.

[Leyrulion]

1 hour ago, kalifire said:

The polls were a disaster again

Not sure that call can be made until final vote tallies are in. 

State polls are usually out by about 5pts on average. Might not be that far off in the end. 

Although American polling in general seems to be so much lower quality then elsewhere.

[Leyrulion]

3 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

It's delicious how the exact scenario they've planned to steal the election with has come to pass - but it's all failing. Nobody of any influence is falling for the argument that votes that were sent on election day, but didn't arrive until later are illegal.

Court case after court case is thrown out and it's just wonderful.

Also it's good that Biden is leading even before those votes are counted!

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

It's delicious how the exact scenario they've planned to steal the election with has come to pass - but it's all failing. Nobody of any influence is falling for the argument that votes that were sent on election day, but didn't arrive until later are illegal.

Court case after court case is thrown out and it's just wonderful.

It really is. At least judges and the courts still have some shred of decency and honour. 

[squirrelarmy]

1 minute ago, stuartbert two hats said:

It's delicious how the exact scenario they've planned to steal the election with has come to pass - but it's all failing. Nobody of any influence is falling for the argument that votes that were sent on election day, but didn't arrive until later are illegal.

Court case after court case is thrown out and it's just wonderful.

It’s almost as if someone told Trump months ago that he is massively unpopular and will have to do something very dirty in order to have half a chance of reelection. 
 

The ugly side though is there are many dumb devoted followers of former president Trump. Many of them the fanatical 2A types. It is unfortunately going to end up costing some lives. Hopefully not too many. 

[Guest]

Most recent picture of Trump 😉

[crocodiles]

My God this is tortuous how long does it take to count votes 🤔

[ShakeyCrash]

3 hours ago, Matt42 said:

Can some of you give me a lil bit of peace of mind.

I’m seeing more and more of your usual right wing commentators jumping on the fraud bandwagon missing some pretty important facts about the situation.

Whether trump listens to them or not, he will have some senior political analysts around him which will have seen this coming. They will have looked at the votes he received on Election Day in key swing states and realised that once the democrat ballots come in, he will lose his lead. Don’t you find it strange he claimed victory of PA before the mail in votes were counted? He knew this was coming. His only way out would now be to rally his supporters against democracy to cast doubt on the vote.

I’ve heard it now from the mouths of the nutter wing of my American family that the late votes which come in Arizona favouring trump count, but any mail in ballots that favour democrats are fraudulent. I don’t even know how to approach that conversation as they seem too far gone.

When Trump is called to lose he will be outed from the Republican Party and Fox will turn on him because he will become damaging to the future success of the Republican Party. I’m just worried about QAnon waving Maga’s becoming even more of a cult going forward. It hurts me because I can put faces to names, and these are members of my own family that seem to be going down that path.

I can’t express how angry I am that the fat fucking orange man has corrupted the minds of some people I really care about!

It must be really tough to deal with.  My only hope (not expectation) is that this is just a case of people being sore loses and just looking for a way to win which is understandable.  At the moment it's still raw and hopefully within time the Republicans will look to turn away from the Trump family and distance themselves the same way as the Labour party is doing now with Corbyn.  They will do what the most likely thing is to win an election and at the moment that is probably just trying to turn this one somehow.  The hope is that there is something they can find which will turn it but the more states that turn blue the less this hope will be. 

This was telegraphed right from the start, of course it was.  I watched fox news for a couple of hours yesterday and in my opinion there are some on there who have journalistic integrity who did pick some holes in the argument.  One question asked by a host took one person by surprise, namely does this mean we should not count the votes of the military as a means to show the hypocrisy.

Politics at the moment is tearing families apart whether it is Brexit or this, and this is the intent.  I've got one person who I am close to (a friend) who has significant differing opinions to me, and I find conversation is the best way rather than text\whatsapp.  Most people, no matter how far gone, have real concerns and ways for feeling the way that they do.  They also do not like admitting they are wrong but it doesn't mean they don't listen.  I think in this case the arguments against wide-spread vote corruption in 4 states are robust and just need to be made to refute the claims.