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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Just finished voting myself. Crazy that even in my mostly rural county, and me internationally going on a weekday morning in hopes of avoiding a long line there was still a 15-20 minute wait.
I can't imagine what the place is going to look like when they start having early voting on the weekends.
I'm glad I made it a point to bring a filled out sample ballot with me since there's no way I would of been able to keep all the judicial candidates straight (in my state they are listed without partisan affiliation on the ballot despite advancing from partisan primaries).
If and (probably) when Trump loses, we’ve got maybe two or three more years of him living as a disgraced ex Pres before his decades of gorging fast food catches up to him and he strokes out.
Or so we hope. He could be one of those who lives to like 95.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."Trump is still going to be a provocateur and constant pain even if he loses. He has a large base of followers who would likely believe he was cheated out of the presidency should he lose.
Even in the unlikely (in my opinion) event he goes to jail he could probably still get twitter access to communicate with his followers. Remember white collar prisons are much cushier than regular prison.
Anyway the Hunter Biden email
appears to be forged...
@Xopher: "You misspelled "capitalism""
Depends on whether you got yours already or not.
Trump is a leach on the underbelly of American Social Media. He will never go away—Qanon will ensure that his legacy lives on, even if he goes to jail, even if he dies.
The really big question, other than the standing charges, are his debts. He will do whatever it takes to avoid paying them. Can he sue anybody? Can he get a loan?
Will Putin make him an offer he can't refuse? Whatever happens to him, it won't be boring.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.I’m not sure he’ll still be on Twitter, I could see Twitter banning him if he looses (well after the lame-duck period).
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranDespite his antagonistic relationship towards them, the press loves Trump because he brings in ratings. Like many things in our country, the problem ultimately boils down to capitalism. Gotta get bills and employee payroll covered. Gotta run the business. Gotta sell the product.
Each and every day, they have to have a front-page story. And it has to be the hottest thing happening in the U.S., something that will grab attention and get people buying papers and clicking on articles. Even if nothing actually happened, there must be a story, and it needs to be the biggest thing happening in the country, something that gets the audience on the edge of their seats, and grab ratings. And tomorrow, there has to be a new one, just as hot as today's.
Capitalism forces the news to operate like an entertainment industry. The most common symptom of this is speculative news - reporting speculation about what might happen in the future regarding a major current event, because nothing has actually happened between yesterday and today to report on. "A politician not directly involved said that the ongoing investigation may result in the arrest of these three major figures but nothing has been officially confirmed. What do you think, guest who spends time studying Congress?"
For the sake of selling papers and getting clicks today, the press has to keep the ball rolling on stories by building hype on hypothetical future stories that may or may not ever actually occur.
But there are other consequences of the capitalist news industry. Electoral horse races are one of those. For the sake of selling papers, the outcome of an election cannot be a foregone conclusion. They need people coming back every day to buy more speculation about who's going to win, which means that they need the outcome to be uncertain. So they do everything in their power to shore up candidate representation in order to make a bad candidate seem more reasonable and to keep a good candidate's positions and policies under wraps.
The press goes out of its way to give Trump as much coverage as they can because they have to operate as a business and Trump brings in ratings. And there are bills to pay.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 14th 2020 at 9:59:08 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.It cannot be understated how much impact the press has on our elections. A common refrain from 2016 was that Hillary Clinton had no actual platform or policies and ran solely on the "Fuck Trump" ticket.
This is something that many people believe, even though she had extensive policies. Problem was, the news didn't report any of them. Policies don't sell papers.
Candidates saying racist things sell papers. So that's free press for Trump.
Scandals sell papers. So that's free press for Trump, as well as endless loops of BUT HER EMAILS THO every time anyone said a thing that could be speculated about.
But your comprehensive 200-page document on reforming the healthcare industry? That's not snappy. That's not an attention-grabbing front page article that will make people go, "Fucker did WHAAAAAAAAAT?!?!"
Policy doesn't sell papers. So nobody ever hears about it. Except when it's terrible and racist.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

One of the reasons why I want Biden to win is so the news can stop talking about Trump 24/7.
Those days when he was out of public view were a nice change of pace after seeing him front and center every day.
“We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” - Lewis Carroll