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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Basically Nate Silver explaining why 538 projects a 10% chance of a Trump win while also acknowledging the possibility that, yes, under certain circumstances that Trump could win illegitimately and they can't really account for that.
Crews are now building a non-scalable wall around the White House: https://twitter.com/geoffrbennett/status/1323092344053354498?s=21
Trump's bunkering down. He knows the actions he is going to take from November 3rd forward will potentially make him a target of violent reprisal.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I’m getting really scared. I need to like, bar myself from the internet for at least the next day and a half.
I was disgusted when Bush was re-elected in 2004, but this feels dangerous on a completely different level. Like there won’t be a 2024 election, at least not a meaningful one, if Trump wins this year.
Trump’s rhetoric isn’t even like a typical racist Republican dogwhistle. It’s like Rwanda or Serbia. I do not want to see how much worse America can get.
Edited by Galadriel on Nov 1st 2020 at 10:58:30 AM
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Somehow I don’t think we should be hoping for a military coup. I’ll also point out that “we don’t know what will happen” doesn’t mean “literally anything could happen”.
I don’t really see anything wrong with protecting the White House, there will almost certainly be protests there in the next few months and the next occupant would probably appreciate the place being kept in good condition.
Edited by archonspeaks on Nov 1st 2020 at 8:05:17 AM
They should have sent a poet.The big difference between Bush's re-election and a potential re-election of Trump is that Bush actually had high approval rating in the aftermath of 9/11. Trump is in the exact opposite boat due how poorly he handled COVID.
If the Trump Administration had handled the pandemic even remotely competently, Trump could have sailed to re-election and little could have stopped him.
And the economy was still decent in 04, and the Iraq War was divisive as opposed to the general quagmire consensus that emerged by 06.
Trump has no ace in his hand beyond saying "the economy was sorta good before COVID and my botched response utterly fucked it".
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.I just took a look at GWB's Gallup approval ratings and he had some large jumps after 9/11, the start of the Iraq War, and after Saddam Hussein's execution, but outside of that, his approval kept slipping to the absolute lows at the beginning and end of October 2008, obviously due to the just starting Great Recession.
The only other major dips compared to his slipping approval are one in early May 2006, likely coinciding with the third anniversary of the Iraq War, and another one I can't seem to pin a reason to right after Independence Day 2007.
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."I often think about the "Silent Majority" and whether or not they're nearly as numerous as conservatives think they are. Whenever that comes up, it's worth remembering that Trump's victory in 2016 was a combination of luck, voter apathy and him looking like an (entertaining) alternative to actual politicians.
Those factors are no longer relevant. Thanks to the pandemic eliminating distractions + 4 years of people being pissed off he's lost his edge.
Just Having FunAside from the fact that polls are now weighting for education as its own factor, there's also the much, much smaller pool of undecided voters. Late-deciding voters primarily breaking for Trump over Clinton is what caused everything to be a few % off.
It seems unlikely that the this-time much smaller group is going to split the same way.
The "silent majority" argument really just means "deep down everyone shares our beliefs but they're too afraid to come out and say it". But we don't have any data to suggest that's true. Hillary won the popular vote, by a margin of over 2 million.
At most, I would say there's a decently large chunk of people who don't want to have an opinion on the subject or enable conservatives because they don't want to deal with the "drama" or take sides. But as far as them being an actual majority, that's clearly not true.
Making it a holiday actually has the opposite effect and encourages low wage workers NOT to vote, so I am legitimatly suprised republicians haven't pushed for it HARD, since it would look like they are doing something, while there actualy skewing the elections in there favor, its a PR win and an actual win.
Before you wonder "Wait why would that help republicans, it means the people are free to go vote", no it doesn't.... US workers get paid double overtime to work on holidays, businesses don't close outside of christmas...
...
Double overtime when your already living pay check to paycheck turns it from a "I would like to do it but I dont know if I can find the time" to "Hell no I need that money to live"

Of course, the same people blocking the highways now are also the same people who want to make it legal to run over protesters when they march on a highway.