U.S. Presidential Election 2020

In Florida and Texas, Hispanic males voted for Trump much more than predicted. That’s a major concern for the Democratic Party.

Crazy support for a man who called Mexicans racists and is actively building a wall between the US and their Hispanic neighbours. But yeah, some questions for Dems to ask themselves there.

He bombarded those areas with ads and messages comparing Biden to Castro. Looks like it worked.

@zilog6128 sorry not the bank, the S&P 500 according to this:

https://www.vox.com/2015/9/2/9248963/donald-trump-index-fund

The point is that after decades of touting his business acumen, his ability to negotiate tough deals and spot good investments, and after spending this entire campaign season arguing that he’s qualified for the presidency based on his skills in the market, Trump nonetheless has an investment record that at best roughly matches and at worst underperforms the market.

CNN just accused Trump of sedition!!

He bombarded those areas with ads and messages comparing Biden to Castro. Looks like it worked.

Aaa, interesting – thsnks. Well, that’s how it works…

incredible scenes

I mean this is going to be the greatest GIF of all time pic.twitter.com/v0Y7V3FaOR

— Nicholas Guyatt (@NicholasGuyatt) November 6, 2020

That’s not actually true though. It’s a sensational headline from NYT. One year he paid no tax because he overpaid the year before and had a drop in income.

It wasn’t just one year. And nothing in the tax returns to show he pre-paid/over-paid.

‘Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.

He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.’

Marina Hyde

There are several reasons presidents cry. Anyone who has ever had one and been up half the night with it – or all the night with it, night after night – can tell you this. Sometimes presidents cry because they’re tired, sometimes they cry because need their nappy changed, sometimes they cry because they don’t want you to leave them, sometimes they cry because they have a gnawing pain in their tummy, and sometimes they cry because they’re just being impossible that day and you should probably go to bed and leave them to it but somehow you just can’t.

To anyone going through it currently: this phase will pass. Of course, a crying president demands incredible amounts of attention, and while you’re in the thick of it, consumed by this, it might feel like it will never stop, or at least you won’t make it out. There are many moments in the small hours where you stare at this crying thing and think wryly: wow, what happened to my life? I think I vaguely remember when it wasn’t like this.

The television news – I like to think of it as the president monitor, lighting up each time he needs attention – has been on what feels like pretty much constantly in our house since 2016, the year that Trump won (and the UK began its own extended period of toddler meltdown). A child’s formative years are so precious, and I’m sure our children will benefit enormously from all the times I’ve said “Shhhh, I’m watching the president”, or occasionally even been forced to momentarily stop watching the president to deliver a behavioural verdict. “I know why you’re acting up – it’s to get my attention away from the president acting up. Well, it won’t work.”

politico

When all the votes are tallied, Joe Biden isn’t going to win the popular vote by double digits. Trump lost Wisconsin by a point, not the 17-point defeat one survey suggested. And Trump obviously didn’t go down in an election night landslide, as some polls suggested would happen.

It wasn’t just the public polls that suggested Tuesday would be a big Democratic night. Much of the private polling on which both parties rely suggested Biden would win solidly, and they expected Democrats to benefit down the ballot.

Now that it hasn’t happened, pollsters are wondering whether their methods are fundamentally broken — or just unable to measure Trump’s support, specifically.

“This is not just a few public pollsters out there that missed it. This is something that is unique to this election,” said Patrick Murray, who runs the Monmouth University Polling Institute. “It just seems to be that if the name ‘Donald Trump’ is on the ballot, all bets are off when it comes to the polls being right.”

There’s little evidence that poll respondents are lying, however. More pollsters believe it’s actually a difficulty reaching voters more likely to support Trump in the first place, either because they’re harder to find or are less likely to take phone surveys even if reached.

is now worth possibly $3B

After 4 years of Trump propaganda, you’ve still not grasped his “Truthful Hyperbole” style? This value comes from one source, a single sheet of financial data from Trump himself and (quote) “A really big financial firm, one of the most respected”…The value of $3Bn comes from a single line in it that states “Value of Real Estate Licensing Deals, Brand and Branded Developments”…ie basically implying a value to what Trump thinks his name is worth.

He’s up to his neck in debt and bank loans totalling something like $1.6bn (with no obvious ways of paying it off), and lots of his “weath” is stock in his own (relatively small) real estate companies, and those debts is actual money loaned by banks, not “stuff I’ve made up in my head” which the value Donald puts on things. There’s a further personal debt of $50M on his company. It’s probably safe to say that Trumps owns more than the sum of his debts, but he’s certainly not a billionaire

Biden lead now 1100 ish in Georgia

In Florida and Texas, Hispanic males voted for Trump much more than predicted. That’s a major concern for the Democratic Party.

Don’t know about Texas but the ‘Hispanic’ quota in Florida has been that way since the ‘Marielitos’ fiasco. The boatlift generation (and their descendants) are some of the most patriotic people I’ve ever met. And ‘patriotism’ for them means God/Jesus and Country. ‘Democrat’ to hardcore US patriots simply means ‘Communism’. No inbetween.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/12/us/cuban-aliens-but-not-haitians-will-be-offered-residency-status.html

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/10/14/Reagan-is-hero-to-thriving-Cuban-Americans-but-villian-to-Miamis-impoverished-blacks/2853466574400/

He bombarded those areas with ads and messages comparing Biden to Castro. Looks like it worked.

Aaa, interesting – thsnks. Well, that’s how it works…

Although to be fair, Biden then retorted saying Trump was more like Castro. Prob the dems need to do more than a negative campaign against Trump – what were they offering them?

In Florida and Texas, Hispanic males voted for Trump much more than predicted. That’s a major concern for the Democratic Party.

Crazy support for a man who called Mexicans racists and is actively building a wall between the US and their Hispanic neighbours. But yeah, some questions for Dems to ask themselves there.

He bombarded those areas with ads and messages comparing Biden to Castro. Looks like it worked.

There’re a few important things here. One is that “Latino” is about as useful a description as “European”. Germans, French, Greeks, Italians, Swiss, Swedes, etc. are extremely varied and you’d be foolish to assume that they all hold identical political views. Hispanics in the U.S. are just as varied – in California, they are overwhelmingly Democratic (I think). In Texas, they are much more conservative. Keep in mind, these are mostly people who were born in the U.S., so assuming they are sympathetic to immigrants is a dangerous assumption.

In Florida, there is a huge Cuban-American population, so they utterly despise “socialism”. Bernie Sanders (who isn’t really a socialist) made a big show of claiming to be a socialist and a bunch of young people who don’t know what socialism actually is got behind that. A lot of the Hispanic immigrants fled socialist countries that are disaster zones, so the biggest gift that Trump could have asked for was for Democrats to run around calling themselves socialists. Total suicide mission there.

There’s little evidence that poll respondents are lying, however. More pollsters believe it’s actually a difficulty reaching voters more likely to support Trump in the first place, either because they’re harder to find or are less likely to take phone surveys even if reached.

If u believe qanon shit you’re not going to be engaging with pollsters

YouGov predicted Biden winning pop vote by 9pts, he’s looking at maybe 7pts?

State level polls really struggle to catch those hardcore trump fans

I still think there’s a reasonable chance dems can snatch the senate, especially if Trump turns his Ire on the GOP

Blue vs. Red.

Blue staying on the track, wins the race and title. Seems apt. pic.twitter.com/E0foJftggm

— Mark (@mkhoops) November 6, 2020

I had hoped that Trump would’ve gone on election night – however I am very much enjoying watching his death by 1000 cuts.

Trump s got where he is with overconfidence and bluster, a personality style that gets you far in America. I don’t credit him with any intelligence from what I’ve seen in the last 4 years, unless his brain has actually turned to mush thru dementia and he used to be sharp

In new York and Atlantic city he became too big to fail and so was propped up by the banks and lenders

When the Taj Mahal casino tanked he had to ask his daddy for help otherwise he d have been screwed. In the end so many small businesses and contractors failed and fell by the wayside cos he couldn’t afford to pay them. He’s an absolute scourge and I’m looking forward to seeing him sink

I had hoped that Trump would’ve gone on election night – however I am very much enjoying watching his death by 1000 cuts.

Yes, absolutely this! 😀

what were they offering them?

Promising to act to save them, their families and their country from the worst that both climate change and coronavirus are doing to them? Trump was only offering to stuck his thumb up his arse and count the deaths.

Yes it is torture, but he has grounds to complain and it’s tight enough to be manipulated. A proper kicking would have been better for the country.

Confession time, I ended up absolutely raving drunk on Tuesday and Wednesday evening by 7:30pm thanks to this election drama. Last night I was (sober) checking twitter until 1am. Trump’s slow motion train crash is being played out in real time. Far too many Conservative MPs are posting pro-Trump memes, but the backlash on social media is merciless.

Oh and Stacey Abrams is my new political hero.

@molgrips really? He inherited circa $500M, is now worth possibly $3B, and that is on top of having lived a proper billionaire’s lifestyle for many years, not to mention paying for his presidential campaign! That is a helluva interest rate from this bank of yours 😳 Sign me up!!

The only part of his business empire that made any money is the part his dad built. He’s been bankrupt more times than he’s been married but because of bankruptcy laws, somehow managed to hold on to most of his assets. His billionaires lifestyle is largely funded by debt, 100s of millions about to come due.
He didn’t pay for his presidential campaigns no matter what he says. RNC, fundraising and, quite possibly, Russian and Chinese interests.

Business man my arse. He couldn’t organise a profitable bank robbery

For balance, he’s never been made Bankrupt personally, he uses US bankruptcy regulations in the same was a lot of UK Ltd Co. use liquidation to screw suppliers and creditors over.

As for his real net worth, no one really knows, not even Trump I suspect, who seems blinded by ego. He’s stated as high as $8bn, but unbelievably he valued his ‘Brand’ at $4bn… about 8 times what Oprah values hers at, and she’s widely believed most valuable brand in history.

His personal wealth is completely and complexly mixed in with his various businesses. His flagship properties aren’t his per-se, they’re owned by companies he owns which is completely normal, but they’re heavily leveraged, he doesn’t own them anymore than a first time buyer owns their house the day they move in, they own a bit, the bank owns most of it.

It’s no myth that his various business ventures have failed to out perform inflation, let alone a well managed fund. Whatever his wealth is now (and he’s ALWAYS lied about it since the day his Father passed it on) it would be many times greater if he just handed it over to an investment fund.

His only really profitable enterprise was the Apprentice, he made about $400m from that over 8 years, $50m a year, not bad at all, but his lifestyle would have easily wiped that out and more.

His biggest issues personally are that he owes a couple of major banks around $400m, they’re short-term loans due to be repaid in the next couple of years, with no obvious way to repay them. He’s made little money from being President, legitimately anyway, who knows what sweetheart deals he’s made in his time in office and it’s unlikely he’ll get another well paid TV job.

The only real facts are that either Trump is a massive tax cheat or he’s far, far less wealthy than he’d like people to think he is, the truth is probably both.

The last mostly credible evaluation I’ve seen of his wealth is that he owns about $1.6bn worth of assets and at least $1bn worth of debt. Forbes still value him at $3bn, but even they has said that he knows the criteria they use to value someone and pays to them.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2020/09/28/yes-donald-trump-is-still-a-billionaire-that-makes-his-750-tax-payment-even-more-scandalous/?sh=6c443d8f2885
not really trying to defend him, doesn’t sound like he’s broke though, DOES sound like he’s very good at playing the tax system… it’s ok to be (heavily) in debt as long as you can afford the payments… otherwise any of us with mortgages are screwed 😂

Looks like Twitter putting content warning on all his posts is starting to needle him:

Twitter is out of control, made possible through the government gift of Section 230!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2020

But who can blame them when he is posting dangerous delusional crap like this:

I easily WIN the Presidency of the United States with LEGAL VOTES CAST. The OBSERVERS were not allowed, in any way, shape, or form, to do their job and therefore, votes accepted during this period must be determined to be ILLEGAL VOTES. U.S. Supreme Court should decide!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2020

All very normal stuff https://t.co/LlltO4gott

— nedbarrett (@NedBarrett1) November 6, 2020

“Fox, you can’t even trust them,” said Rob Phail, 51, from South Lyon, Michigan, who had been leading the “stop the count” chants. “They’re the worst chameleons of all. So you’re like, OK, who do you trust?”

Asked whom he would trust to confirm the actual results of the election, he said: “Trump.”

And therein is the root of the problem, for hardcore pro-Trumper, nothing is true unless Trump says it is.

They won’t trust or accept any other source, no matter how evidenced, as his word is the final word. When you’re that far down the hole you can’t climb out, even when people throw you ropes or a ladder.

thols2, your post ^^^ about Latinos…
I commented about this as part of a longer post late on Wednesday and we’ve had 16 pages since then – this is moving faster than the Ling Valentine thread.

Overall this has been a really poor performance by the Dems; one example is their failure to recognise that Latinos are not one homogenous group – their country of origin informs their view of ‘socialism’ which trump and his surrogates shouted about at every opportunity. Biden and his team failed to effectively combat that narrative.

Migrants from Venezuela, for example, see ‘socialism’ as bad based on their experiences of living under Chavez’s leadership and the all too visible economic carnage which resulted.
There was a radio interview with Sidney Blumenthal about this earlier this week.
Cuban Latinos in Florida are different to Mexican Latinos in California and they are both different to Venezuelan Latinos.
There is much for the Dems to learn from this.

We need some vox pops from the UK public on this…

Margaret from Cornwall says STOP THE COUNT #JeremyVine @marcusbrig pic.twitter.com/Fw0QICX5mi

— Rachel Parris (@rachelparris) November 6, 2020

This is interesting and rather dark:

Trump supporters across the United States increasingly say they no longer trust Fox News, the Rupert Murdoch-owned TV network that has acted as one of the president’s staunchest allies in past years.

As Fox News announced more state-level victories for Joe Biden on Wednesday, Trump supporters across the country grew more vocal in their frustration with the network. Some say they have shifted their allegiance to media outlets that lean even further right, such as One America News, which employs a prominent conspiracy theorist as one of its correspondents.

And therein is the root of the problem, for hardcore pro-Trumper, nothing is true unless Trump says it is.

They won’t trust or accept any other source, no matter how evidenced, as his word is the final word.

Classic conspiracy theory stuff. Any attempt to debunk it, then you’re one of “them”, you’re in on it, you’re like all the sheeple and you need to question everything.

We’re not far off that over here either really. You put out enough random shit, enough half truths, falsehoods, exaggerations, things that sound like they might be true (especially if you can appeal to some inner prejudices) and very soon you’re in a situation where no-one really knows for sure exactly what is going on. Repeat that lie a bit, get it ingrained into people’s heads (it’s why the Tories use Three Word Slogans), possibly a little bit of controlling the media and before you know it, you’ve made a lie that people are hanging their coat on and will remember far beyond it’s natural lifetime.

45 mins to WMD launch
£350m a week to the NHS
Vaccines cause autism
Mail-in votes are fraudulent

Colbert nails it…

"If you did not know that Joe Biden was getting close to 270, Donald Trump just provided all the proof you will ever need." pic.twitter.com/urOeCrbzHr

— A Late Show (@colbertlateshow) November 6, 2020

For balance, he’s never been made Bankrupt personally, he uses US bankruptcy regulations in the same was a lot of UK Ltd Co. use liquidation to screw suppliers and creditors over.

Sound, thanks for the clarification.

Is the CNN dramatic music they use after ad-breaks an earworm for anybody else? Can’t get rid of it 🙄

This should help purge it Jamze https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqZsoesa55w

Biden just over 1000 votes up in Georgia now.

for hardcore pro-Trumper, nothing is true unless Trump says it is.

Yep, it’s classic cult behaviour. Only believe the leader and attack anyone that contradicts them.

Any attempt to debunk it, then you’re one of “them”,

Exactly what I’ve been going on about with Flat Earthers. It is almost impossible to persuade someone once they are into that cult-like mindset.

.@SteveKornacki has the latest updates from Pennsylvania pic.twitter.com/WbasgmXyoI

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) November 6, 2020

looks good for Joe in PA

I’m not sure I understand the ‘count every vote’ thing.

Some are saying the reason counting should stop is because some postal votes were not postmarked at all or weren’t post marked the date of the election and are therefore invalid.

A) is this true and if so, if it’s the law that they have to be marked the date of the election or earlier then why should they be counted?
B) if the above isnt true how does anyone believe that litigation would be successful?
C) have I misunderstood completely and is Trunp simply throwing his toys out the pram with no basis in reality?

Having wrote that out I can make an educated guess which it is actually…

He has a wealth of $2.5bn.

I have severe doubts that Trump’s even in the black. Makings money out of being president may have been the thing that’s kept him afloat and he’s got 400m to find for Deutsch Bank very shortly. House of cards.