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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Looks like there's some evidence suggesting that the polls tightening and Biden's lead may have even started to rebounded slightly.
Currently 538 has Biden at a 9.2% popular vote advantage after it bottomed out at 9%.
I've said this before but I would really only worry about this if Biden's lead drops by like 3-4 points nationally. There isn't really that much time left for things to turn around unless something really massive and unexpected happens.
538: Why Many Americans Don't Vote
To summarize: there's no single reason turnout for US presidential elections is at most 60% or so even at the highs. Some are structural barriers (couldn't get time off from work, couldn't register properly, wait times are over an hour, etc.), some is disillusionment (hate both candidates, thinks nothing will change for them regardless who wins, believes entire political system is too broken, does not believe either party represents them, etc.). Turnout for this year seems like it'll be relatively high because of the perception it matters more now, but it won't necessarily last because in some cases it's less these "sometimes voters" are becoming more engaged and more they're desperate enough to try, which means it may not last beyond this cycle.
The damned queen and the relentless knight.It was always going to be really hard to maintain a 10-11 point lead nationally. Also nate silver said somewhere his forecast always assumed a slight tightening in the race at this point in the race. And that swing state polls haven't been dropping as much as national ones.
Maybe there's still a chance at a Comey surprise but Clinton was already shaky at this point. I think Biden would be hurt much less by something of that magnitude.
They simply don’t have the capability to manage an armed takeover, if it came to it the Virginia National Guard could prevent such a takeover.
Yes they could carry out acts of terrorism, and any successful acts would be horrific tragedies, but they would not change the outcome of the election. Even a successful assassination of Biden wouldn’t somehow make Trump the winner.
It’s not that Trump’s most crazy supporters couldn’t do harm, they very much can, but the harm they can do can’t change the election result.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranI think people like Mitt Romney, one of the most "principled" Republicans, have shown this is unlikely.
Romney is in a red state, using his safety as evidence that Republican Senators won't suffer because of their connection to Trump is highly questionable.
Inversely how much the odds have shifted in favor of the Dems taking the Senate shows this to be clearly false. Trump has absolutely hurt his party's Senators.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Oct 26th 2020 at 11:19:53 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangAnd yet, the threats that were predicted to materialize at many milestones that have already passed failed to. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to believe that particular milestone will be any different. Between law enforcement wrapping up plots before they can even get off the ground and the fact that these groups are more interested in staying alive and politically relevant as much as they can, a massive wave of terrorism seems highly unlikely at this point in time.
Edited by archonspeaks on Oct 26th 2020 at 11:25:53 AM
They should have sent a poet.The worst I expect from Trump's base is a wave of hacking (perceived) left-aligned organizations. The Among Us servers got hit by that because AOC had the nerve to play the game and was popular doing so, so some right-wing douches have decided that the game devs had to be punished for it.
Edited by Resileafs on Oct 26th 2020 at 2:29:47 PM
Right-wing tarnishes everything. Think of the most toxic people in gaming, fandoms, etc. Odds are, they're right-wing. I wish that was a joke, but if you look at the complaints about the newer Star Trek series, you start to see complaints that overlap with right-wing ideology. I really wish I was joking.
Not sure if it's been brought up yet, but Boston just arrested a man who'd set fire to the contents of a ballot box
over the weekend - Worldy Armand - and will be arraigning him this afternoon. About 2/3 of the ballots were able to be recovered, but Boston is asking anyone who'd used that between 2:30 PM Saturday and 4 AM Sunday to contact the Board of Elections for another ballot.
The thing about the Lincoln Project is that they've completely burned their bridges with the Republican party. No one there is ever going to work with them again, barring the highly unlikely case of the party and its base returning to normal and driving out most of the current elected Republicans.
Who does that leave them with? A handful of New England Governors and maybe Democrats like Manchin? No, they'll never be personally in party politics again. Just a well known center-right/right wing PAC that happens to focus on the far-right for a host of mostly self interested reasons. Even if they redirect their attacks towards Biden, before or after Trumpism is addressed, the bulk of the right considers them traitors.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.If they build a new conservative party, it will either collapse into irrelevance quickly, or take several cycles to even become competitive locally. And if they do become competitive, it will hurt the GOP more than the Democrats.
Unless the GOP completely implodes,I have my doubts about the effectiveness of making a new party.
At this point, I just enjoy their attack ads while keeping in mind that they've got people with awful views and records on board.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.I'd more than welcome a moderate conservative party.
The Lincoln Project are composed of people who support the exact same policies as Trump, their issue with him is that he bullhorns instead of dogwhistles by saying the quiet part loud.
They are not moderate.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Oct 26th 2020 at 11:59:15 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangTo the surprise of nobody: The New York Post endorses President Donald J. Trump for re-election
I think what would need to happen for a "saner" conservative party to emerge is if the GOP loses on a national level so many times in a row that the party infrastructure is severely weakened, making them a politically unviable brand. Not only that but the democrats would need to move far enough to the left overall (implying a really big shift to the overton window) that more moderate/centrist voters would feel comfortable that they could join a sufficiently different party to represent their views.
I don't see this happening in the short term, the radicalized trump voters aren't going away anytime soon.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 26th 2020 at 4:08:00 PM
The Atlantic article posted earlier does point out something obvious: Trump is not going to accept the results if he loses, because he already did not accept the results when he won, or to be precise, the results of the popular vote. This is a sore winner, there's no way he is going to be a good loser.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesHis audience of lawyers knew what he meant. The 2020 presidential election will be the first in 40 years to take place without a federal judge requiring the Republican National Committee to seek approval in advance for any “ballot security” operations at the polls. In 2018, a federal judge allowed the consent decree to expire, ruling that the plaintiffs had no proof of recent violations by Republicans. The consent decree, by this logic, was not needed, because it worked.
The order had its origins in the New Jersey gubernatorial election of 1981. According to the district court’s opinion in Democratic National Committee v. Republican National Committee, the RNC allegedly tried to intimidate voters by hiring off-duty law-enforcement officers as members of a “National Ballot Security Task Force,” some of them armed and carrying two-way radios. According to the plaintiffs, they stopped and questioned voters in minority neighborhoods, blocked voters from entering the polls, forcibly restrained poll workers, challenged people’s eligibility to vote, warned of criminal charges for casting an illegal ballot, and generally did their best to frighten voters away from the polls. The power of these methods relied on well-founded fears among people of color about contact with police.
This year, with a judge no longer watching, the Republicans are recruiting 50,000 volunteers in 15 contested states to monitor polling places and challenge voters they deem suspicious-looking. Trump called in to Fox News on August 20 to tell Sean Hannity, “We’re going to have sheriffs and we’re going to have law enforcement and we’re going to have, hopefully, U.S. attorneys” to keep close watch on the polls. For the first time in decades, according to Clark, Republicans are free to combat voter fraud in “places that are run by Democrats.”
Holy shit, how has this not come up in here? Removing the Consent Decree means it is pretty much open season for vote suppression on voting day. That's going to be bad.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest times

I think people like Mitt Romney, one of the most "principled" Republicans, have shown this is unlikely.
They are more than happy to distance themselves from him when it comes to it, and be respected and lauded for it, while backing him up behind curtains and sucking up to him later when he presents them with opportunities for powers.
They behave in really scummy ways and their voting bloc does not care whatsoever.
Point being: If Trump (hopefully) becomes synonym with "loses elections in landslide", they will dump him harder and louder than a 300 pound trapeze partner...and the status quo of Republicans as a viable, trustworthy party will return within a day or two.
Edited by Aszur on Oct 26th 2020 at 11:41:37 AM
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes