Politics... US election edition

[Chairchucker]

I think a number of Republicans will start to carefully distance themselves from the flaming wreckage that was once their president.

[Pidesco]

3 minutes ago, Chairchucker said:

I think a number of Republicans will start to carefully distance themselves from the flaming wreckage that was once their president.

I would think that too, except that I've been thinking the same thing for 4 years and, well, no.

[Chairchucker]

The difference is now there's a clearly visible end date.

[Gromnir]

+72 million americans will have voted for trump once all ballots are tallied, and trump is not a republican in any traditional sense. deficit spending. boarderwalls. tariffs and trade wars. distancing self from nato. nevertheless, trump has redefined the party. 70% o' those 72 million trump faithful believe he won the election.  

loeffler, who is in that senate runoff in georgia, made it a cornerstone o' her campaign that that she is 100% in lockstep agreement with trump on every issue. 

GOP Senator Says She’s ‘Not Familiar’ With Trump’s Infamous ‘Access Hollywood’ Tape

is likely trump will be extreme busy fighting legal battles the next few years, but he is gonna remain the most influential voice in the party for some time.

given how trumpers has bought into the faith, am not certain what it will take to end his influence. release documents and compel witnesses to testify once there is no executive privilege may prove just how far trump broke the law to serve himself rather than america, and it still won't make a difference 'cause trump's faithful follow him because of what he says as 'posed to what he has done. 

am agreeing many traditional republicans want to distance themselves from trump, but they are more concerned with getting reelected than freeing themselves from chaos and pettiness. trump is bigger than the party even if he does leave office.

and please recall the main reason trump fired esper is 'cause the former secretary o' defense made it clear he would not sign off on using US military troops to suppress civilians. gd may not believe the US government as a whole (whatever that means) has any reluctance to exact violence on the citizenry o' this nation, but the military brass disagree. it should worry people that trump, who is refusing to concede, replaced a defense secretary who wouldn't legitimize the use o' US military troops to quell protests.

Edited November 10, 2020 by Gromnir

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Chairchucker said:

I think a number of Republicans will start to carefully distance themselves from the flaming wreckage that was once their president.

I think they're going to go all in with trying to stealcontest the election. Not doing so would risk losing their base, who overwhelming support Trump, and will have little consequences if it fails because the Democrats are the Democrats. As @Pidesco said, if there was going to be a jump from Trump we would have seen more over the last four years. The Republican party is the Trump party now, the effort Democrats spent courting moderate conservatives resulted in more conservative votes going to Trump by a number of 8.5 million. Even if they think Trump is a buffoon, and most of the old ones probably do, they've accepted Trumpism wins primaries and gets people to vote.

There was something wrong with the polling in the last two presidential elections that caused sizeable underestimation of turnout for Trump. Biden won by the skin of his teeth and the hard work of activists in urban areas, without the existential threat of Trump the Democrats are going to have to work to satisfy such people or you will see Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and likely Georgia and Arizona shift back to Republicans in 2022 and 2024.

[InsaneCommander]

19 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

I got some great news. It turns out the Tampa Bay rays really won the World Series after all. All I had to do is refuse to accept that the Dodgers actually won. Clearly there were some irregularities in game six. So anyway now the Rays are the champs. I can’t wait to order my T-shirt on Amazon. Any day now right?

How long until somebody declares the Confederates won the civil war? If you stop counting their defeats it becomes obvious!

17 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Was there voter fraud? Almost certainly. Was Joe Biden the beneficiary of it? Again almost certainly. But it is near impossible to prove in court that it altered the outcome because it just did not. The candidates down ballot likely have more cause for complaint than Trump in those cases.   

Maybe if Trump hadn't said so many stupid things all these years his claims would be taken more seriously? Credibility matters, who would have guessed.

[Gromnir]

47 minutes ago, KaineParker said:

 

There was something wrong with the polling in the last two presidential elections that caused sizeable underestimation of turnout for Trump. Biden won by the skin of his teeth and the hard work of activists in urban areas, without the existential threat of Trump the Democrats are going to have to work to satisfy such people or you will see Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and likely Georgia and Arizona shift back to Republicans in 2022 and 2024.

biden actual underperformed in urban areas. biden did better than did clinton as a matter o' % as posed to total votes in college towns not in the major urban locations and he did better in the burbs. biden also managed to shrink the losing margin in a few key rural areas. 

philadelphia, for example, were +63 for biden, but it were +67 for clinton. converse, erie were +1 for biden... and were +2 for trump in 2016.

overall, latinos voted same percentages for biden as clinton. +33. by now we have all seen those maps o' texas and florida, yes?

biden ran a digital campaign which didn't genuine start 'til 'bout 100 days before the election.  'cause o' covid, the biden campaign were barebones as far as emphasizing personal involvement. perfect reasonable. given covid, it were kinda irresponsible to be going door to door and holding in-person events, but irresponsible didn't stop republicans from mounting an effective targeted campaign.

biden, when all is said and done, will have a +5 million popular vote advantage, but because his campaign were unfocused, he underperformed in key geographic areas. in 2016, clinton didn't bother to show up in wisconsin and michigan. in 2020, biden made similar mistakes even if the reasons were understandable and perhaps even unavoidable. weren't that biden skipped campaigning in florida, but he focused on digital media and tv advertising and that clear didn't get the job done in dade county. 

the various minority populations in this country are polled as if they are monolithic, and that is obvious a mistake. for example, cuban latinos in florida is not same as those in nyc or even california. pretend as if latinos everywhere have same needs and will vote similar is a persistent democrat mistake and is gonna be a tough obstacle to overcome when party itself is almost as polarized as is democrats and republicans. 

will be interesting to see what democrats learn from their post mortem.

HA! Good Fun!

 

Edited November 10, 2020 by Gromnir

[Malcador]

2 hours ago, Chairchucker said:

I think a number of Republicans will start to carefully distance themselves from the flaming wreckage that was once their president.

Wonder what they are waiting for, if they're going to do that. Teddy and Lindsey have lashed themselves to the mast.  Cruz's obsequiousness is the most puzzling, considering the crap Trump has spouted about him.

[Gromnir]

4 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Wonder what they are waiting for, if they're going to do that. Teddy and Lindsey have lashed themselves to the mast.  Cruz's obsequiousness is the most puzzling, considering the crap Trump has spouted about him.

they are waiting for trump support among his base to diminish, and that ain't happening.

HA! Good Fun!

[Pidesco]

1 minute ago, Malcador said:

Wonder what they are waiting for, if they're going to do that. Teddy and Lindsey have lashed themselves to the mast.  Cruz's obsequiousness is the most puzzling, considering the crap Trump has spouted about him.

It's not puzzling if you understand that Cruz (and Graham for that matter) are exclusively about holding on to their positions or climbing beyond them. It was impressive back in 2016 how so many GOP figures flipped from abhorring Trump to loving Trump so quickly. Fundamentally they follow what they perceive to get them the most chance of victory in any election, and the GOP base is now, by and large, the Trump base. I suspect that if the GOP doesn't get along with Trump, it runs the risk of splitting their base irrevocably.

[BruceVC]

3 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

they are waiting for trump support among his base to diminish, and that ain't happening.

HA! Good Fun!

Yes I agree,  also members of the Republican establishment would feel loyalty to Trump for understandable reasons like how well they have done in the Senate and Trumps successful implementation around certain Republican policies like the tax breaks and the SC placements 

But if they openly defy and criticize Trump they also risk Trumps supporters voting them out and not supporting them in future votes

So you keep quiet or add some public support  and survive the Trump juggernaut especially now thats its waning...I would do the same if I was a career politician like Cruz, Rubio or Graham 

[Gromnir]

as an aside, even our generalization 'bout biden underperforming in urban areas is kinda wrong. for example, in atlanta, biden did fantastic and way better than clinton. am thinking automatic registration and young people voting made the biggest difference in georgia, and we would like to see auto-registration become ubiquitous, but regardless, current polling is based on overbroad generalizations and those generalizations need be tailored a fair amount if they is gonna prove useful in the future.

HA! Good Fun!

[Gfted1]

What if he comes back like a teflon zombie in 2024? :shudder:

[Guard Dog]

After Pre election polling has been laughably wrong three of the last four elections it is probably fair to say the entire polling process has been thoroughly discredited. It probably should be ignored going forward. But of course it won’t be.
 

Trump would have us believe that pre-election polling was a left-wing tactic to depress his voter base. That of course does not make sense because there are numerous polling organizations that are competing with each other. Competitors don’t collaborate generally speaking.

 

speaking of Trump, yes he did receive the second most votes of any presidential candidate in history. And while I cannot even fathom the minds of 72 million Americans it’s probably worth considering that a considerable portion of the votes cast are no longer for the candidate so much as against the alternative. That is certainly a factor that got Trump elected in the first place.

 

[Gromnir]

20 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

What if he comes back like a teflon zombie in 2024? :shudder:

assuming trump leaves the wh voluntarily, he will be facing almost a dozen criminal and civil charges/cases. am suspecting trumpTV becomes a thing almost asap if for no other reason than that trump is gonna need a whole lotta money yesterday to pay off a massive amount o' debt. as such we will be hearing from trump constant until he ends up doing time, which is increasing likely... but a convicted felon may nevertheless run for President.

...

based on typical time frames for such stuff, trump's tax fraud cases will probable only start in 2023, which is when he would need be campaigning.

HA! Good Fun!

ps am gonna need check, but more than a few states preclude felons from appearing on their ballots. 

Edited November 10, 2020 by Gromnir

[Pidesco]

17 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

After Pre election polling has been laughably wrong three of the last four elections it is probably fair to say the entire polling process has been thoroughly discredited. It probably should be ignored going forward. But of course it won’t be.
 

Trump would have us believe that pre-election polling was a left-wing tactic to depress his voter base. That of course does not make sense because there are numerous polling organizations that are competing with each other. Competitors don’t collaborate generally speaking.

 

speaking of Trump, yes he did receive the second most votes of any presidential candidate in history. And while I cannot even fathom the minds of 72 million Americans it’s probably worth considering that a considerable portion of the votes cast are no longer for the candidate so much as against the alternative. That is certainly a factor that got Trump elected in the first place.

 

I believe the last three elections were within polling/modeling error margins. Or I guess no one really knows yet for 2020. It's statistics and probability not magical crystal ball time.

[Malcador]

34 minutes ago, Pidesco said:

It's not puzzling if you understand that Cruz (and Graham for that matter) are exclusively about holding on to their positions or climbing beyond them. It was impressive back in 2016 how so many GOP figures flipped from abhorring Trump to loving Trump so quickly. Fundamentally they follow what they perceive to get them the most chance of victory in any election, and the GOP base is now, by and large, the Trump base. I suspect that if the GOP doesn't get along with Trump, it runs the risk of splitting their base irrevocably.

Well I understand that they are politicians, but those two seem especially ardent in their loyalty to Trump.  Even Rubio's more reasonable about it. 

[Guard Dog]

One more thing. Demonstrating that sour grapes is a bipartisan dish, a number of left wing Dems are grumbling about  disproportionate representation in the Senate again since it is highly probable the GOP might retain control. I have a solution to that problem. And it is an elegant solution in that is not only "fixes" the Senate but also restores some of the power lost by the House of Representatives AND will stop the bleeding of the State governments that see Leviathan usurp more and more power that is solely theirs. That solution is to repeal the 17th Amendment. Prior to it's passage the Senators of each state were elected by the legislatures of each state. That will increase voter involvement in State elections that are very important and often go without notice. THAT is where you get gerrymandering by the way. It will also increase the importance of the House rep to their districts and improve that interaction. Finally the Senate was never meant to be the hot mess it's turning into. It was supposed to counter "the passions of the House" and be a more deliberative body. 

Edited November 10, 2020 by Guard Dog
Redundant sentence

[Gromnir]

3 minutes ago, Pidesco said:

I believe the last three elections were within polling/modeling error margins. Or I guess no one really knows yet for 2020. It's statistics and probability not magical crystal ball time.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/

2020 presidential has been far more accurate than most suggest.

is all the other stuff which failed. 

polarization made the closeness o' the Presidential race less surprising than may claim, but am thinking the degree o' polarization somehow caught many off guard. down ballot didn't work as expected.

polls were too blunt, which is why Presidential ended up reasonable accurate, but as you narrowed focus, the polls got worse and worse.

HA! Good Fun!

[Gromnir]

covid-19 situation is getting worse in az, and the delta is not good. a possible slowdown o' already plodding pace o' the remaining ballot count is likely. however, 5pm today is the deadline for curing ballots. 

HA! Good Fun!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

57 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

biden actual underperformed in urban areas.

Compared to Clinton in 2016? In certain cases, like Philly, in terms of percentage at least yes though I suspect in terms of raw votes he did better. He also outperformed Clinton in Atlanta for sure and probably Detroit. Regardless it was his performance in particular cities that allowed him to win Michigan, Pennsylvania, and (very likely) Georgia. Which in turn is what won him the race against Trump.

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

covid-19 situation is getting worse in az, and the delta is not good. a possible slowdown o' already plodding pace o' the remaining ballot count is likely. however, 5pm today is the deadline for curing ballots. 

HA! Good Fun!

Ventilator stats are nice, but this should probably include ECMO utilization which has been a far more severe bottleneck (and which I don't see anyone talk about).

[Gromnir]

19 minutes ago, KaineParker said:

Compared to Clinton in 2016? In certain cases, like Philly, in terms of percentage at least yes though I suspect in terms of raw votes he did better. He also outperformed Clinton in Atlanta for sure and probably Detroit. Regardless it was his performance in particular cities that allowed him to win Michigan, Pennsylvania, and (very likely) Georgia. Which in turn is what won him the race against Trump.

but again, we disagree. focusing on biden vote totals is misleading. after all, he were running against trump and point were to get more votes than trump and trump did better in urban areas in 2020 compared to 2016. the largest % o' votes biden got were in urban, but overall he underperformed and in numerous key urban areas such as milwaukee and philadelphia, he underperformed substantial. it were actual his performance in all the smaller areas which won the day for biden... but such a generalization is only mostly true. as we observed, atlanta were a huge get for biden and he improved there dramatic, but the effort to get out the vote in atlanta were no more focused in atlanta than philadelphia. the democrats focused a massive amount o' effort on philadelphia 'cause everybody assumed pennsylvania would be pivotal. failed... relative failed.

after the 2016 election, automatic voter registration were implemented in georgia, and almost overnight georgia started shifting purple and it may now go full blue. however, am not suggesting auto-registration= a blue shift. oh, and michigan, which shifted from red to blue in 2020, adopted auto-registration in 2019.

alaska and west virginia have auto registration. is not as if making easier to vote turns a state blue. am not suggesting such. however, am thinking such stuff made a difference... particular with young voters with whom biden much overperformed.

HA! Good Fun!

Edited November 10, 2020 by Gromnir

[Totally not Gorgon]

On 11/7/2020 at 5:40 PM, Pidesco said:

As Gorgon says Trump turned large parts of the GOP base into a Trump cult. If there's a schism between the Trump loyalists and the rest of the GOP, the party will be in trouble. Additionally, if Trump runs in 2024 outside of the GOP, it will probably be catastrophic for the party's chances. 

I wonder. I mean Lindsey Graham seems to be immune to charges of corruption because people have simply accepted that he is that kind of pokemon and they still vote for him. What about the people involved in the cabinet, all the people he appointed to this and that, they now have to close ranks and damage their careers by pretending to believe in the counter narrative. 

Do you really want to stay in Berlin while Zhukov and Konev are closing in. 

 

 

[Zoraptor]

It's all OK, Giuliani's attacks will relieve the pressure.

"Mein Fuhrer, Giuliani..."

3 hours ago, Pidesco said:

I believe the last three elections were within polling/modeling error margins. Or I guess no one really knows yet for 2020. It's statistics and probability not magical crystal ball time.

There's accuracy, and then there's accuracy.

Polling will be accurate to within the margin of error to whatever confidence level they use (ie 95% most of the time, so 1/20 polls will be 'rogue'), and typically the margin of error is +/- 3 ish percent each, in a 2 horse race with near equally divided support, which effectively means a poll can be technically accurate yet still be +/- 6% off*. A 6% difference is, of course, a huge difference in a 2 horse race and for example in 2016 most polls could still have been technically accurate had Trump won the popular vote by as much as Hillary ended up doing. And that's starting from the assumption that the polls have the correct questions, weightings applied, proper polling methods and there aren't uncontrollable factors in play like 'shy' voters. You can however determine systemic inaccuracy but looking at the average of the polls and comparing to what reality delivered. That was out by ~2%, ideally of course it should be out by 0%. So there was certainly some sort of bias at play in the polling.

*it is simplistic, eg consider that there's also a margin of error for people who stated they didn't intend to vote. But as a simple illustration, a race divided 50/50 can break 47/53 and the poll doing so would still be accurate.

Edited November 10, 2020 by Zoraptor