2020 US Election

  On 11/20/2020 at 5:57 AM, very honest said:

is that cucker

the daily show back in the jon stewart days used to have guy smiley come flying into the shot whenever there was a romney story. 

ohh, lol

dude trevor noah is good. been killing it.

Daily Show has a great writing staff for sure, Trevor among others.

I miss the daily show.

  On 11/20/2020 at 6:50 AM, Hugh Mughnus said:

I miss the daily show.

i haven't watched it in a long time. just got tired of nightly politics. once a week is all i can take. jon stewart is going to do a weekly show where he covers one topic. i think on apple TV or something. 

maybe once trump is good and gone i'll be able to stomach more regular political funny haha coverage.

  On 11/20/2020 at 4:53 AM, ignatius said:

hopefully trump will no longer be considered "a useful idiot" and will be discarded like the trash he is once he's out of office by the powers that be... foreign or otherwise. 

I think so. I can't believe my hope is that the Republicans take their party back from these authoritarians who don't give a SHIT about the process. If Trump managed to flip enough votes this way, all hell would break loose. I'm seeing a few comments by conservatives who are totally down with this saying "WELL IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE SYSTEM YOU SHOULD CHANGE IT!". Fucking idiots.

I may seriously consider changing my party to Republican just to make sure Trump doesn't get through 2024 (probably not but I can think of scenarios where I may). I'm normally a Bernie guy but at the moment I am much more worried about fascism rising than social democracy. I'm no longer sure if our country is in a place where social democracy would win with all of these crazy Trump supporters being able to vote... well MAYBE Bernie could have won, but the senate and congress would be against him on both sides, he would get very little done, and then they would point at Bernie and say "Hey turns out that socialism doesn't change a thing! So vote for the bland centrist or the crazy fascist please!" and if they win a single election afterward they will work at undoing whatever he did. When it eventually happens in 3 decades it needs to be ready.

It's important that Bernie keeps bringing the conversation on our side back to healthcare, ridiculous college costs, etc. But that has taken a back seat for me into trying to stop the slip into fascism. At this point I just want Bernie to go chill with his family and drop being engaged in politics so much. USA doesn't deserve him. He should just work at keeping his ideas on the table for someone else to pick up in 20 years.

If these idiotic Trump supporters ever lose power and most of the country regains its sanity, then I can go back to actually voting for what I want, and not against what a bunch of authoritarian conservatives want.

I just can't believe that 'all' people who voted Republican are okay with what Trump is doing right now.
I'm pretty sure that deep inside there's actually a divide between the Republican voters:
 - Those who unconditionally support Trump in every way imaginable.
 - Those who don't, but don't (dare?) speak out because Trump is still part of the party they adhere to.

Conjecture:
Maybe -I really can't guess when- the Republican party may split up in Old-School-Republicans and Authoritarian-Republicans?
When this happens it might be the perfect time for the American two-party system to transform in a multi-party system.
The Democratic party may then split in Old-School-Democrats and Social-Democrats and/or Green-Democrats.
From Wikipedia: "Multiple political parties are compelled to form compromised coalitions for the purpose of developing power blocks and attaining legitimate mandate." It might also represent ones vote better.
(also when transforming also change the Presidency to a Prime Minister and/or a Ceremonial Representative)
One might think it might not work in the USA, but who knows?
I personally feel this might be a good thing.
But I'm biased: Where I live we have this system, which works, kind-of (Belgium). lol

  On 11/20/2020 at 8:34 AM, Brisbot said:

at the moment I am much more worried about fascism rising that social democracy. I'm no longer sure if our country is in a place where social democracy would win with all of these crazy Trump supporters being able to vote...

The problem is that I feel like there are shitloads of ppl on the right who would echo that exact sentiment, except replace "fascism" with "globalism/the NWO" and "Trump" with "Biden/Harris". Increasingly it feels like both sides are inhabiting distinct realities in which their side is the voice of the people & the other side represents a demonic force that wants to instill tyranny (not advocating for horseshoe theory here or suggesting that some vague "every side has its flaws" stance is the way to go here, just noting that there does seem to increasingly be a total breakdown of communication between the poles)

It is time to nuke the USA and everyone currently in it. A lot of good will be lost but we did the math and it evens out. Sorry

  On 11/20/2020 at 12:05 PM, Cryptowen said:

The problem is that I feel like there are shitloads of ppl on the right who would echo that exact sentiment, except replace "fascism" with "globalism/the NWO" and "Trump" with "Biden/Harris". Increasingly it feels like both sides are inhabiting distinct realities in which their side is the voice of the people & the other side represents a demonic force that wants to instill tyranny (not advocating for horseshoe theory here or suggesting that some vague "every side has its flaws" stance is the way to go here, just noting that there does seem to increasingly be a total breakdown of communication between the poles)

Yah, 2nd this. I play this game in my head where I go read an article on the "other" side, then read the comments but replace the names of the people with the other person/do a similar substitution. Do the same for articles and comments for the positions I support. It's basically exactly the same, and very disheartening. Generally a mix of uncontaminated vitriol, name calling, and some slightly more sophisticated thinking that, upon examination, usually only reflects a prepackaged talking point that itself is questionable. 

It kind of hurts my heart, mostly bc of what you're talking about: this extreme view that the other side is pure evil and wants embrace tyranny. And then, once this belief is there, the complete inability to step back and find common ground. Like, fuck you you're dead to me forever and ever amen. Very sad. We live during such a trying time, where we really need to be looking out for other. I think people desperately need kindness, understanding and love but everywhere you turn it seems like all you see is hate, distrust, and selfishness. 

  On 11/20/2020 at 2:38 PM, T3551ER said:

I play this game in my head where I go read an article on the "other" side, then read the comments but replace the names of the people with the other person/do a similar substitution. Do the same for articles and comments for the positions I support.

imo this is a good exercise that more people should do in general: regularly expose yourself to opposing viewpoints, try as best you can to put yourself in that headspace. I do this: I've read/listened to stuff from liberals, libertarians, democrats, authoritarians, anarchists, communists, nationalists, people who would get called fascists, actual fascists, monarchists, primitivists, whatever nick land is, etc etc. Again I'm not advocating for centrism here, just saying it's a useful technique to

A. steelman your own position by better understanding how your opponent actually thinks

B. avoid falling under the spell of various elites & cynical media entities who just want to exploit your fear for personal gain & keep the masses pitted against each other indefinitely

  On 11/20/2020 at 11:52 AM, MaartenVC said:

I just can't believe that 'all' people who voted Republican are okay with what Trump is doing right now.

I know a lot of single issue voters who vote R because they are anti-abortion. They call it "killing babies."

  On 11/20/2020 at 12:58 AM, dingformung said:

Biden was a pretty bad candidate considering that he didn't win more clearly against an autocrat & the worst president the US ever had. I doubt that Warren or Sanders would have done much worse

Biden has won very clearly, with a massive margin in the popular vote, and a massive margin in Pennsylvania and Michigan, states Trump won last time. Yes there were a few other states which were close, within 10-20k votes, just as they were close in 2016 when Trump won them, but Biden didn't need all of them in the end, because he also flipped Georgia. It only appears close because the delay in counting mail-in ballots due to differences in rules in certain states (Pennsylvania and Wisconsin vs Florida and Ohio, which is thanks to the Republican state senators blocking legislation in the former) meant the race wasn't called on the night, allowing the GOP time to construct this fake fraud narrative. Trump was an incumbent, the economy was doing well pre-covid, his approval ratings were relatively high for such a divisive figure; he went into this campaign with a massive advantage and Biden did remarkably well to defeat him.

Sanders and Warren would have done worse, just look at how badly Biden did with Latinos in Texas and Florida (compared to Clinton, who much better), if they managed to paint a boring centrist like Biden as an evil socialist there, imagine what they would have done with an actual socialist nation-wide. The democratic primary voters didn't even like Warren or Sanders, you really think they would have been able to attract more independents and never-Trump republicans? They wouldn't have, and this is what swung the election for Biden, he won back white voters who voted for Trump or didn't vote at all last time (both blue collar and middle class, men and women) - this was especially evident in Georgia and Pennsylvania.

  Quote

Georgia's top election official reaffirmed his confidence in the state's presidential election results on Friday, saying that while he is a "proud" supporter of President Trump, "the numbers don't lie."

  On 11/20/2020 at 11:52 AM, MaartenVC said:

Maybe -I really can't guess when- the Republican party may split up in Old-School-Republicans and Authoritarian-Republicans?
When this happens it might be the perfect time for the American two-party system to transform in a multi-party system.

The only thing that would see America establish a multi-party system is widespread voting reform, and that would require the Democrats to win an unprecedented-in-modern-times landslide of the presidency, both congresses, a majority of the governorships, and most of the state legislatures. Things that would need to be changed: remove first-past-the-post, replace with some kind of proportional representation (a single-transferrable-vote or something similar would be best); remove/reform the electoral college and other aspects of federal elections, fix gerrymandered districts at state level, proper campaign finance reform. This would probably require several constitutional amendments, hence the need for a massive across-the-board majority.

A simple split in one or the other party would just leave the other to pick up the pieces, they wouldn't have any incentive to fix the system as long as that situation remained in play, they'd need a comfortable majority across the board, not just a freak and undeserved win because of the flawed system itself. 

@caze

All true. Although I would have wanted Sanders or Warren, I don’t think it’s realistic to assume they would have done better than Biden in the general... especially considering neither did as well as Biden did in the primaries. 
The sad fact is Biden had more brand recognition by default of being Obama’s VP and he is more a moderate / “safer” choice to the majority of voters... who frankly aren’t as invested in in politics (let alone progressive politics) and may be fearful of the unknown that is a truly progressive candidate. I think for the more-savvy political moderate, there is also a likely fear that the rest of the country isn’t ready. Let’s all face that swing voters coming from the center right are far less likely to feel comfortable jumping ship for someone further left than a center/moderate candidate. Sure, there’s an argument for reformed Trumpers being more attracted to Bernie/etc but if there was any real evidence that was the case, we would have again seen it play out in the primaries. 
Sad truth is we live in America and the vast majority either doesn’t give a fuck or doesn’t know any better. 
 

  On 11/20/2020 at 5:39 PM, caze said:

Biden has won very clearly, with a massive margin in the popular vote, and a massive margin in Pennsylvania and Michigan, states Trump won last time. Yes there were a few other states which were close, within 10-20k votes, just as they were close in 2016 when Trump won them, but Biden didn't need all of them in the end, because he also flipped Georgia. It only appears close because the delay in counting mail-in ballots due to differences in rules in certain states (Pennsylvania and Wisconsin vs Florida and Ohio, which is thanks to the Republican state senators blocking legislation in the former) meant the race wasn't called on the night, allowing the GOP time to construct this fake fraud narrative. Trump was an incumbent, the economy was doing well pre-covid, his approval ratings were relatively high for such a divisive figure; he went into this campaign with a massive advantage and Biden did remarkably well to defeat him.

Sanders and Warren would have done worse, just look at how badly Biden did with Latinos in Texas and Florida (compared to Clinton, who much better), if they managed to paint a boring centrist like Biden as an evil socialist there, imagine what they would have done with an actual socialist nation-wide. The democratic primary voters didn't even like Warren or Sanders, you really think they would have been able to attract more independents and never-Trump republicans? They wouldn't have, and this is what swung the election for Biden, he won back white voters who voted for Trump or didn't vote at all last time (both blue collar and middle class, men and women) - this was especially evident in Georgia and Pennsylvania.

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I know that it appeared closer than it was because of the counting of mail-in ballots and that Biden has millions more votes than Trump in the popular vote. Still, it is much closer than it should be considering Trump's politics and that he is literally an autocrat, He had a real chance of winning and that's worrying. I think the voter turn-out was so big not because Democratic voters liked Biden but because Biden wasn't Trump. Warren or Sanders aren't Trump either so they could have won, too, maybe they would have been able to increase the voter turn-out even more. Just different people would have had to hold their nose while voting. Of course both of us are in the terrain of pure speculation.

Also, the fact that Biden did so well in the popular vote is one thing, but in the end the election was decided by a couple of hundred thousand people in swing states. Fucking backward system

I think sanders really failed us in not more clearly distinguishing the difference between the argument the republicans made (socialism = communism) and the reality of what democratic socialism is and I’ll never understand why he they etc didn’t pursue clarity. 

  On 11/20/2020 at 6:26 PM, Upset man said:

I think sanders really failed us in not more clearly distinguishing the difference between the argument the republicans made (socialism = communism) and the reality of what democratic socialism is and I’ll never understand why he they etc didn’t pursue clarity. 

America in general has not articulated these distinctions well at all. 'Liberal' no longer refers to actual Liberalism, it means left-wing social democracy. Bernie didn't help by calling himself a Democratic Socialist, which does have more in common with Communism than Social Democracy (if you want to own the means of production you're a commie, basically), and Social Democracy was more in line with what his actual platform was (what Americans mistakenly refer to as liberal). Americans in general seem to have a poor understanding of these ideological categories, and the politics of other nations and their relations to such categories - hence the common misconception that all of Europe is Socialist and that Scandinavian countries in particular are some kind of socialist utopia (this is a misconception from the left and the right), in many ways European countries are more free market oriented.

  On 11/20/2020 at 6:43 PM, caze said:

America in general has not articulated these distinctions well at all. 'Liberal' no longer refers to actual Liberalism, it means left-wing social democracy. Bernie didn't help by calling himself a Democratic Socialist, which does have more in common with Communism than Social Democracy (if you want to own the means of production you're a commie, basically), and Social Democracy was more in line with what his actual platform was (what Americans mistakenly refer to as liberal). Americans in general seem to have a poor understanding of these ideological categories, and the politics of other nations and their relations to such categories - hence the common misconception that all of Europe is Socialist and that Scandinavian countries in particular are some kind of socialist utopia (this is a misconception from the left and the right), in many ways European countries are more free market oriented.

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There ya go, I’m learning too

  On 11/20/2020 at 6:43 PM, caze said:

America in general has not articulated these distinctions well at all. 'Liberal' no longer refers to actual Liberalism, it means left-wing social democracy.

Please, they use this word to refer to people like Biden who clearly isn't a left-wing social democrat. Obama wasn't either.

  On 11/20/2020 at 6:54 PM, dingformung said:

Please, they use this word to refer to people like Biden who clearly isn't a left-wing social democrat. Obama wasn't either.

Biden's platform is well within the bounds of left-wing social democracy, it's the most left wing electoral platform since the new deal. Much of it would seem extreme even in Europe among non-crazy left wing parties.

  On 11/20/2020 at 6:43 PM, caze said:

Democratic Socialist, which does have more in common with Communism than Social Democracy

Democratic Socialism has more to do with Communism than with Social Democracy? We must live on different planets.

I think the whole Anglosphere has a twisted conception of these things.