U.S. Presidential Election 2020

Trump currently leading 61.5% to 38.5% (16 votes to 10).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/election-results/new-hampshire-2020/

Time to declare victory, and all subsequent ballots invalid then.

National Polls currently 51.6% Biden 43% Trumpy pants. (According the Grauniad)

But who knows and who’s truthful? Are elections rig-free? Do politicians tell the truth? Would a cheesey Wotsit have stronger policies? Or more charisma?

Has anyone got any recommendations for moderate pro-Trump podcasts (or at least pro-Republican enough to overlook Trump)? I can kind of get my head round the extreme side of his supporters and why they vote for him. But the educated executive job type vote, I just can’t fathom. I’d like to hear how they rationalise or justify their positions. I suspect some of them have a single issue self interest (like being employed by Big Oil), but I can’t understand how that’s enough to ignore all the other stuff. What on Earth do they make of all the nepotism and self enrichment?

I don’t get think people change their minds by being shouted at, but I can’t debate without understanding their perspective. Help me out of my bubble!

Has anyone got any recommendations for moderate pro-Trump podcasts (or at least pro-Republican enough to overlook Trump)?

I think the never-Trump ex-Republicans are worth following.

https://podcast.thebulwark.com/

stwhannah
Full Member

Has anyone got any recommendations for moderate pro-Trump podcasts (or at least pro-Republican enough to overlook Trump)? I can kind of get my head round the extreme side of his supporters and why they vote for him. But the educated executive job type vote, I just can’t fathom. I’d like to hear how they rationalise or justify their positions. I suspect some of them have a single issue self interest (like being employed by Big Oil), but I can’t understand how that’s enough to ignore all the other stuff. What on Earth do they make of all the nepotism and self enrichment?

I don’t get think people change their minds by being shouted at, but I can’t debate without understanding their perspective. Help me out of my bubble!

You’ve missed out the other issue with 2 party politics there. Even many very intelligent people still have a massive “never the democrats” streak, so they have to vote Trump (or whoever) to make sure of that. I think the more amazing part is how he made it through the primaries (4 years ago) rather than the presidential election itself.

I’m lucky in that my brother move to Boston around 15 years ago – give a real insight into how it all works for normal folks

Assuming Biden wins  the Dems also need to take the Senate otherwise it’s going to be a shit show until at least the mid-terms

On the police unions etc stuff, it really is worth listening to Robert Evans’ Behind The Bastards 5 or 6 part special on the history of the police.

Cheers Darcy gonna have a listen now. Does it have anything about Chicago in there? I remember reading about a police chief there who was literally a crime boss.

Think it was this series of articles:

https://theintercept.com/2016/10/06/in-the-chicago-police-department-if-the-bosses-say-it-didnt-happen-it-didnt-happen/

Long read but fascinating.

What on Earth do they make of all the nepotism and self enrichment?

I think the standard excuse is either ‘it’s fake news’ or ‘they’re all at it, so what’, or they simply don’t see it because of how siloed everyone’s news content is these days.

I’m just looking at some pictures of uptown Minneapolis posted up on Friendface. The whole place is completely boarded up!

Looks like they’re expecting a spot of bother.

It’s a good job everyone isn’t armed up to the teeth with assault rifles

Oh…. erm…

I can kind of get my head round the extreme side of his supporters and why they vote for him. But the educated executive job type vote, I just can’t fathom.

The Rep/Dem debate amongst rational people is a philosophical one. Reps are in favour of small government, and some of their supporters are mistrustful of large government. And this argument is not without merit although I do not subscribe to it in the current context.

Also American government as a whole, from local to national level is somewhat different. Whilst people talk big about freedom, at the local level I personally find the huge volume of local statutes to be somewhat oppressive (on a petty scale) and people seem happy to comply and go along with them. It’s simultaneously liberal and authoritarian. You can do whatever you want as long as it’s within these strict lines – freedom is good, liberalism is not, apparently.

Anyway within that context, it’s easier to see how people do not want the government running things. Although of course the alternative isn’t any better, in my view.

2016: Hillary vs Trump
2020: Biden vs Trump.

I almost feel sorry for Americans having such shit choices. It almost makes our Boris vs Corbyn seem like good options.

Biden is a doddery old joke of a candidate

Which makes him exactly 1000000 x better than Trump, his response to coronavirus alone is enough to show the truth in that

The anti-science president needs to be got rid asap

Reps are in favour of small no government, and some of their supporters are mistrustful of large any government.

FTFY

Biden is a doddery old joke of a candidate

I think people underestimate Biden. He’s been in politics a long time and was very successful at what he does, which is to be non-ideological and position himself near the center of public opinion. To ideologues, that’s taken as being unprincipled. To pragmatic people, that’s what a successful leader has to do in order to have any chance of getting things done. A very important part of his winning the Democratic nomination was very strong support among Black voters. Those voters seem to be quite pragmatic and non-ideological. They aren’t interested in hearing about socialism and rubbish like that.

baboonz
Free Member
2016: Hillary vs Trump
2020: Biden vs Trump.

I almost feel sorry for Americans having such shit choices. It almost makes our Boris vs Corbyn seem like good options.

@baboonz What made Clinton and what makes Biden bad choices?

Both have a long history of public service, have been elected to numerous public offices and have implemented legislation which made the world a better place.

What have Boris, Corbyn and Trump done that is any better? Boris seems to be out for himself and to build a legacy. He never believed in Brexit, it was just a means to an end. Corbyn was so committed to his own ideals of a pacifist, socialist utopia (I personally don’t mind a lot of this) that he couldn’t see that many (even in his own party) didn’t want it. And as for Trump – Trump only got into this because he was repeatedly insulted by the Democrats, particularly Obama and set about destroying everything that Obama did over 8 years. He’s a vain, petty, ignorant man whose only (positive…ish) legacy as president will be a reduction in America’s trade deficit to China and putting three people on the Supreme Court. The latter of these only happened as they died on his watch (oh and the republicans cheated).

Which makes him exactly 1000000 x better than Trump, his response to coronavirus alone is enough to show the truth in that

I disagree, but each to their own. I was more saying in the sense of, if Trump wins, there still will be the Russia rhetoric plaguing his second term. If Biden wins, they will get a fresh batch of the same BS in the form of Chinese/Ukrainian interference through Hunter Biden.

They aren’t interested in hearing about socialism and rubbish like that.

Perhaps that is because they, (and you maybe) havent a clue what socialism is.

Not communism, nor Marxism.

The age old British institution of the Cooperative – SOCIALISM

Trade Union anyone , oops, again Socialism.

Fairer wages, having a national health system. Dear lordy, these socialist principles of fairness, how UnBritish.

@Daffy

Clinton had a scandal ridden tenure-I’ve actually listened through the hours of the congressional hearings, had no charisma and a large portion of the US thought she was a straight up liar. She represented everything that I disliked about the political class.

Biden’s age and past health problems are showing in his press interactions. He was also part of the crime bills that resulted in the present mass incarceration. Then there is the baggage of his son, which as much as some people want to pretend it doesn’t exist, its a ticking time bomb.

Boris and Corbyn at least somewhat stand for something, which is more than any of the above candidates can say. Also notice how I put Trump as a shit choice too…..

Perhaps that is because they, (and you maybe) havent a clue what socialism is.

Not communism, nor Marxism.

I am quite familiar with socialism. The technical definition is that strategic industries are publicly owned (whereas full-blown communism means that all means of production are publicly owned).

People like Bernie Sanders aren’t really socialists in the true sense of the word and most of the young people who believe they’re socialists, aren’t really. Problem is, socialism was badly discredited in the 1970s and 80s, and no serious person wants to go back to that. Most people are fairly non-ideological about things – they want public services that work, but they aren’t particularly bothered about the details of how they’re provided. The dogmatic right-wing anti-government rhetoric doesn’t impress most people, neither does talk of reviving socialism. Moderate politicians such as Joe Biden know that. He resisted the lure of moving left to appease the Sanders faction and moderate voters have rewarded him for that.

I’m going to ignore the election until the early hours tomorrow. Tonight I shall watch the Dunny on the Wold episode of Blackadder and wish we’d voted for Colin as our leader.

Event ardent anti socialists believe in some kind of socialism. Public roads for instance. It’s really just a question of degrees.

And what is the furlough etc if not socialism.

CV19 has shown how hopeless individualism/libertarianism is for coping with major issues/threats. It’s no coincidence that Trump, Bolsonaro and Johnson preside over some of the worst performing countries in the world in terms of Covid.

Clinton had a scandal ridden tenure-I’ve actually listened through the hours of the congressional hearings, had no charisma and a large portion of the US thought she was a straight up liar. She represented everything that I disliked about the political class.

Biden’s age and past health problems are showing in his press interactions. He was also part of the crime bills that resulted in the present mass incarceration. Then there is the baggage of his son, which as much as some people want to pretend it doesn’t exist, its a ticking time bomb.

Boris and Corbyn at least somewhat stand for something, which is more than any of the above candidates can say. Also notice how I put Trump as a shit choice too…..

@baboonz

The only scandals that I’m aware of with Clinton were the Benghazi affair and the e-mail server. Both of which were whipped to dramatic effect as the Republicans knew she’d be running again in 2016. Others, including her predecessor (CR) used a private e-mail server when standing as SoS.

You say that most people thought she was a straight up liar, but Clinton won the popular vote in both 2008 (for the democratic nomination) and in 2016 against Trump. She was also re-elected to the senate with 65% of the vote. It seems that many thought she was alright. Saying that, I do somewhat agree that I didn’t warm to her, but I never doubted her competence or commitment to the USA. She would’ve been tough on Russia and China as she was as SoS.

Remind me – what does Boris stand for?

Boris…. at least somewhat stand for something,

Himself

But the educated executive job type vote, I just can’t fathom.

It’s no different to this country, a mixture of political tribalism and naked self interest. If you’re an executive or in an educated profession earning decent money in the US then materially you’re much better off under the Republicans whoever is president. Also many middle class americans are very political. The ones I know and have worked with are political junkies. It’s literally all they talk about, and they usually have the tribal connections to match.

One other factor which is specific to Trump is that he resonates with those who have no interest in politics. He gets straight to the point, and cuts through all the academic language and obfuscation which is designed to distance people from politics. People appreciate that because they feel like they’re not being patronised, and they’ll forgive the racism and mysogyny because deep down they are guilty of it too to some extent.

Event ardent anti socialists believe in some kind of socialism. Public roads for instance. It’s really just a question of degrees.

most people are reasonably pragmatic, not dogmatic ideologues. The Republican Party in the U.S. has become more and more dogmatic in their free-market thinking, so many of them oppose pretty much any public role beyond police and armed forces. There’s very little support among voters for such extreme free-market views, so it’s dressed up as something else, but that is what drives a lot of the Republican policymaking.

The same goes for socialists who want to go back to the 1970s. The voting public just aren’t interested in the ideology. Some of the policies might have support, but from a pragmatic perspective, not an ideological one. People want health care that is effective, they really don’t care whether the hospital is publicly or privately owned.

@Daffy

Opinion piece so take it as you will :
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hillary-clinton-who-tells-dreadful-lies/2016/09/19/cd38412e-7e6a-11e6-9070-5c4905bf40dc_story.html

22% of Dems think Clinton is honest and trustworthy:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-clinton-maintains-big-lead-voters-doubt-trump-s-temperament-n631351

Event ardent anti socialists believe in some kind of socialism. Public roads for instance. It’s really just a question of degrees.

This is very much true here in the UK (for now)… we’re all socialists and capitalists really… it’s just that many of us are in denial about one of those. It is a bit different in the USA… take healthcare… or even the example of roads… there are people in the States, many of them, that would happily have no social healthcare, and all the roads owned by private companies and individuals… it’s a weird idea of freedom where freedom is always bought and paid for by individuals, never shared via state or especially federal bodies. I suppose we made one step in that direction with the Brexit vote… all that focus on “our” money that went to “Brussels” and little attention to all that enabled on the ground here in the UK, and elsewhere. Given another decade… and it’ll be all about how “our” money goes to “Westminster”.

But the educated executive job type vote, I just can’t fathom

See also died-in-the-wool Conservatives who won’t ever consiier voting anything else, regardless of buffoonery.

Assuming the polls are right and trump does lose, there’s no telling how low he will go

That’s going to be the fun bit of watching it all unfold for me, see what tricks Angry Tinkerbell actually resorts to if he is getting royally defeated. One good thing I’ve read is that if he tries to prematurely try the trick of:

Time to declare victory, and all subsequent ballots invalid then.

the US media have devised a series of ‘rules’ to bury the news until it’s all official.

It’s not up to Trump to declare Victory.

I know it’ll only take 1 media channel to break ranks for it to fall down but it’s a sign that the media over there are going to be trying to tread carefully over calling it too early and having to back-track.

Assuming the polls are right and trump does lose, there’s no telling how low he will go

What’s truly terrifying is that he has a ready ‘militia’ of people called Chuck or Cletus, who possess enough weaponry and ammunition to equip an army, and who firmly believe all the conspiracy theories the orange one has been feeding them for the last 5 years

People want health care that is effective, they really don’t care whether the hospital is publicly or privately owned.

No, I disagree. In the USA they DO care. Because the idea of small government has been worked into their national identity, and it’s capitalised on by the right wing. That’s why there was so much misinformation and outright lying during the Obamacare debates on state healthcare – huge numbers of people seem genuinely to believe that anything government run won’t be in their best interests. (As if private healthcare is!) There is a huge amount of mistrust in the very concept of government.

the US media have devised a series of ‘rules’ to bury the news until it’s all official.

They don’t have to ‘bury’ it, they can report on it but provide context. Language is everything here.
“Trump Declares Victory” is very different from
“Trump claims victory in unfinished race for presidency”, or even
“Downbeaten Trump pursues ‘victory’ claim in laughable last-ditch propaganda attempt”

22% of Dems think Clinton is honest and trustworthy:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-clinton-maintains-big-lead-voters-doubt-trump-s-temperament-n631351

I wonder what that poll would look like in 2020. Clinton would look like a beacon of truth next to the president. A lot has changed (for the worse) since that poll in 2016.

I think you’ll find that Americas problems existed LOOOOOOOOOG before Donald Trump came to power.

Quite a number of progs on recently to do with poverty in the US, which from the face of them suggests it all started 4 years ago.

Utter TOSH.

What made Clinton and what makes Biden bad choices?

Compared with Trump they aren’t but let’s face it their politics are mostly centre-right (as are most senior Dems like Pelosi and Schumer as well). It ends up with the “radical left Dems” actually not being very socialist at all whereas a lot of people want real change, as the progressive democrats like Bernie and AOC are pushing for.

Biden is the right candidate now – I doubt Bernie would have won vs Trump as the swing vote likely wouldn’t have gone his way as he’d have been demonised as a communist etc.

The problem will be in 4 years (assuming Biden wins this time and the Dems control both Houses for the majority of his term). He’ll either run again or Harris will get the backing of the party whereas they need someone like AOC elected to actually make a real difference (I can’t see Bernie running in 2024 due to his age).

It’s difficult to see, with the current voting system, AOC winning in 2024 though – it would need Biden having such a good term now that the swing vote believes Dems are best regardless of the candidate and I can’t see how Biden can do that in 4 years as he’s going to spend a year or two trying to sort out the current shit show and Trump legacy then it will be the mid-terms.

I get the impression that Biden was chosen by the Democrats because he was the best candidate for this election, rather than because he was a great potential president. He may be far too centrist for many Democracts but a calculation has been made that out of the options available he was the Democrat most likely to capture people who voted for Trump in 2016 and many of those to the left of Biden will vote for him anyway, as he’ll at least be better than Trump.

Victory through dad dancing along to gay anthems!!!

VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!pic.twitter.com/85ySh1KYkh

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2020

And, yes, this is what Donald Trump himself has posted out.

the Democrat most likely to capture people who voted for Trump in 2016 and many of those to the left of Biden will vote for him anyway, as he’ll at least be better than Trump.

Agree and dissagree – I remember hearing back in the Clinton Trump election, some democrats refusing to vote at all because they didn’t like Hillary – essentially handing votes to the republicans. It’s a double edged sword I guess.

I suppose it rests on how many centrist republican votes Biden can snatch, whilst not dissolusioning too many left leaning democrats into abstaining.

whilst not dissolusioning too many left leaning democrats into abstaining.

What leftist is going to abstain and allow Trump back in? That would be mad.

<Insert analogy about Turkeys / Christmas (or Slugs / Salt)>

Agree and dissagree – I remember hearing back in the Clinton Trump election, some democrats refusing to vote at all because they didn’t like Hillary – essentially handing votes to the republicans. It’s a double edged sword I guess.

Bernie voters were under the impression that the DNC had screwed Bernie over to favour Hillary. I can’t remember the exact details of how and why, but I do remember this was a thing in 2016.

Victory through dad dancing along to gay anthems!!!

People still underestimate how ******* good he is at this stuff. That is pure attention grabbing, smile inducing, hope filled, bombastic, voter engaging gold… we just don’t want to see it as that because we know what and who he is. It’s all about Biden being “fragile”, and “nasty” liberals being in the wings ready to take over, and in contrast you get young (ha) robust super dad dancing Trump who will rule as his own man. And how can you not get a feel good vibe from bad dancing to that tune… “YOUNG MAN, there’s no need to feel down!” Never underestimate this ****. Let’s hope Trump loses properly this month.

What’s truly terrifying is that he has a ready ‘militia’ of people called Chuck or Cletus, who possess enough weaponry and ammunition to equip an army, and who firmly believe all the conspiracy theories the orange one has been feeding them for the last 5 years

What’s more concerning is how many police and National Guard officers are also in the militias – without that I don’t think they’d be an issue as they’d get flattened by the police/NG/Army but the lines seem to be pretty blurred. Even if the police in general are just sympathetic to the militias and pull a lot of post November 3rd sickies or refuse to intervene against them it’s going to lead to at least isolated shit shows.